So... I'm digging these plates. 😃

So... I'm digging these plates. 😃 They are clearly designed so that you layer the images and that gives the pictures so much detail. It's awesome. Even when you don't line the images up perfectly (or when you roll one and stretch the outline like I did on the leaves of the larger flower) it still looks adorable.

Unfortunately for me I don't yet have a ton of colored stamping polishes so that means a lot of trial and error with regular polish. I'm not into that tonight so I only did a few nails. But I'm super happy with all of this. My new stampers are so clear that you really can't see them once you are close to the nail. They stamp pretty well, but my polish kept drying before I could pick it up. I'm sitting under an A/C vent and being too lazy to move. Also, my stamping polishes are old and probably need thinning. But anyway, it is all working. I'm super pumped today! 😃

There are not enough stickers...

There are not enough stickers in the whole of the Internet to properly express my excitement right now. MY ORDER NOT ONLY ARRIVED TODAY, BUT IT HAD FREE PLATES IN IT, TOO!!! AND CHECK OUT THAT FUCKING PRECIOUS PACKAGING, OMG. 😳

These probably look a little more fancy than they actually are...

These probably look a little more fancy than they actually are, but I don't mind that. LOL I did not want to go through the week with naked nails, so I sat down to paint them pretty late last night. Aside from the time issue, I used my new peel-off basecoat, Ready for Takeoff by UNT. I wouldn't have used that, BUT, I've been doing some damage to my nails lately. I don't know why, but I've been picking at them. Must be nerves or something, but anyway, this was an attempt to minimize the damange I'd do by picking my polish. So, since I wasn't sure how long my nail polish would actually stay on using a peel-off basecoat, I didn't want to put too much work into my paint job.

I got this glitter from Sally's. It's by Bitzy and it is called Funky Melon. Since the glitters are huge and neon and there was no purple in it, I decided to try it over purple. But first, I topped my purple with Fairy Dust by China Glaze, because DUH - everything is better with glitter! I wasn't planning to stamp over the glitter, but I really did not like the way it looked just plain. So I stamped this pattern, which was picked out by my son. I thought it would look horrible, but I actually kind of like it now. Funny how you smush a bunch of ugly things together and it sometimes turns out really cool. LOL

Anyway. My stamping is a little off on my pointer finger and thumb. I'm still using the second stamper I ever bought, back in 2011. It's a squishy eraser-colored one that I ordered from Germany, because I was having no luck with my Konad stamper. I have some nice clear stampers, but they don't always pick up well, so there is no point in that. I have a few coming from Ali Express that I'm pretty excited to try, but we'll see how that goes when they get here. Maybe I won't be stamping crooked for much longer. Here's hoping! 🙂

Tried something new this weekend.

Tried something new this weekend. Instead of water marbling and dipping each finger I made one design, let it dry on the water, carefully took it out, and then cut it up and used them like decals. I don't know if I would always be able to make that work, but my nails are so short and nubby right now that it went just fine. I liked doing it that way because you USUALLY waste less polish, and it's USUALLY much less messy.

However, this time it was a huge mess. I spilled not only hot water on myself, but 3 open bottles of nail polish. EPIC FAIL. I was sitting there saying to Shadow (in an attempt to elicit help from him) "HOT WATER! NAIL POLISH!" Those are about all the words I could manage for a minute because I could not believe what I'd just done. He just looked at me like I was crazy until I screamed for him to get a towel.

I'm usually much more calm and prepared when doing my nails, but I had a "dying vole on my porch" type of situation to handle so I found myself suddenly chatting with Wild Mammal Care in the middle of my nail-doing. They asked me if she'd moved and when I got up to check I spilled everything everywhere because I am awesome. Also, my little porch vole didn't make it. 🙁 I'm not super surprised, though, because you don't see them out usually unless something is wrong.

So yeah. Nubs for now. That is what happens when I go a month without polish. My new nail / cuticle oil is doing a great job on keeping my nails from peeling, but having some layers of polish on is really what protects mine from breaking.

Also, pardon all the bubbles in my topcoat. It was getting too thick, but I gave my polish thinner to a friend so I just had to deal with it. LOL I gotta put thinner on my list of things to buy ASAP. Those bubbles drive me crazy!