Leadlighting: The First Attempt

Hi there, all!  As I mentioned recently, I'm all about the stamping lately.  I love the looks that you can create with it and once you get the hang of it, it's so easy!  I know if you're just starting out stamping that you won't believe me, but I swear it's true.  Continuing with my stamping obsession, I decided it was high time I tried leadlighting.  Leadlighting is a technique which gives a finished look reminiscent of stained glass, which is were the name comes from.

I started with 3 coats of OPI My Vampire Is Buff and then stamped on top with Sinful Colors Black on Black and Pueen's Encore plate SE04B.  I topped everything with a coat of Seche Vite before I started the leadlighting part.

Basically, the premise of leadlighting is pretty simple.  It's like a coloring book, using sheer jelly polishes to fill in the stamped outlines.  I used Sally Hansen's Triple Shine in Grape Jelly mixed with a bit of Wet 'n' Wild's Trippin' on the Boardwalk to up the opacity a bit.  The SH is a great polish for leadlighting but it's very, very sheer.  I wanted a touch more opacity for this look.  After filling in a few random flowers, I decided I wanted another punch of color so I used SH's Triple Shine in Play Koi mixed with a homemade jelly polish (which you can learn how to do here). I just dabbed it onto the center of the non-purple flowers with a dotting tool.

I'm happy with this for my first attempt at a new technique.  My main issue is that I loved the mani so much before I added the color that I'm a bit disappointed that I tried it at all.  But it does have a lot of possibilities, which I'm pretty excited about.

Have you tried leadlighting?  I'd love to see your manicures!  Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed this post :)

Mish Mash Challenge: Least Expensive Polish

Happy Wednesday, darlings! (Sorry, I'm watching Bedazzled and Elizabeth Hurley is wearing off on me, I guess)  It is, in fact, that fabulous middle day of the week, also known as Hump Day and you know what that means; it's Mish Mash Challenge Day!  I don't mention it every week, but the Mish Mash Challenge is open to anyone who wants to join.  We're a super laid back group and there are a very few rules to follow, so if you're interested, add a comment to this post and Kimber will get you rolling!

On to this week's Challenge.  I took the "Least Expensive Polish" challenge a couple of different ways.  It could mean the least expensive retail-wise polish or it could mean the polish that I personally paid the least amount for.  I kind of combined both of these into my mani for the week.

I started with 2 coats of Sally Hansen's HD Hi-Definition Nail Color in Hue.  This polish has been sitting on my untried shelf for awhile and, since I snagged it in a huge Ulta clearence sale for $0.49, I figured it fit the "least expensive" bill quite nicely.  Hue is a pretty color, a buttery gold with a sparkly gold shimmer.  I never really understood what was so "Hi-Def" about this line from SH.  I've got a couple of them, but they're basically just nice shimmery colors, nothing too effect-y about them.  But pretty, nonetheless!

I decided I wanted to try a new-to-me technique to spice up this manicure a bit.  Fan brush manicures are something I've seen done much more successfully than I've managed here lol  The theory is easy; take a fan brush, dip it in polish and brush it over your nails.  What you don't know until you try, is how difficult it is to get the *right* amount of polish on the brush!  Too much and you just make a mess, too little and it doesn't transfer to the nail at all.  I don't hate it for my first attempt, but it's really not my favorite effect ever.  I used Essie's Saturday Disco Fever (which I won in The Nail Files giveaway a few weeks ago, again fulfilling the "least expensive" challenge) and Sinful Color's Burning Bright (SC polishes are always cheap at Walgreen's and I believe I snagged this one during one of their $0.99 sales). 

Here's a shot of my bottle of Hue, with that lovely clearance sticker on the front.  Marked down from $5.79 to $0.49...pretty good deal!

Please take a run through the other Mish Masher's posts this week.  I can't wait to see what they all come up with!  You can find their posts via the thumbnails below!

Also, don't forget to enter The Nail Files Turned 2! giveaway!  There are 14 great prizes from Taneja’s Bride, Accio Lacquer, My Boyfriend Hates Makeup, A Polish Playground, Mandie’s Manicures, An Accent Nail, Nail Addicted Sisters,  Galactic Lacquer, Pretty Jelly, xo, noelle and myself :)  Thanks so much for reading!

Watercolor Manicure

Howdy, everyone!  Hope you all had a great weekend.  I went out with my friends to watch The Great Gatsby this afternoon.  I enjoyed it, but I haven't read the book yet.  Not sure how I managed to escape high school without reading it, but there you have it lol

Anyway, just a quick post this evening to show off a new-to-me technique I tried out.  I've seen some watercolor nails floating around the internet lately so I thought I'd give them a shot.  The technique is pretty simple.  You start with a base color and then dot on a contrasting polish.  While that dot is still wet, you take a small brush dipped in acetone and swipe it over the still-wet dot.  The acetone causes the polish to run and pool, similar to the effect that watercolor paints have.

I'm really loving this manicure!  I can't wait to try this technique with different colors, but it'll be hard to beat this blue combo.  It looks like waves and swirls of water...so pretty!
 

 I was actually a little surprised at how easy this turned out to be.  Even if your dots of contrasting polish dry a bit too much, the acetone will re-wet it and make it flow.  And, if you get a result you don't care for, you can cover it up with another dot and keep going.  Gotta love that kind of flexibility in a manicure!

I actually liked my right hand nails better than my left (which is my usual "photo" hand) so I wanted to throw a shot of those up.  Forgive my cuticles, I tend to not take as much care with my right hand since I don't photograph it as much.  Bad practice, I know, but I'm not the only one.  Right?  Right?  Ok, Ok, I get lazy!

What do you all think?  Has anyone given this technique a try?  How'd they turn out?

Thanks so much for reading!

Polish list:
Base color: 3 coats of Wet 'n' Wild Megalast in 2% Milk
Watercolor polishes: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Breezy Blue, Blue Me Away!, and Pacific Blue; Milani in Midnight Satin

3 of 31: Yellow Nails

Howdy!  Everyone in the States enjoying Labor Day?  I know I am!  I started with a trip to a local apple orchard with some friends to pick some of those crunchy delicious fruits.  It was a little frustrating, because of all the crazy weather we've had, the apple crop is really not great.  I managed to find a few, but the selection was nothing to what it was last year.  To make up for it, we stopped at Sonic...twice!

Anyway, on to the nails!  Today is Day 3 of the 31 Day Challenge and we have yellow nails as the manicure of the day.  Here are mine:

I'm not hugely thrilled with the way this turned out but, since I already have to plan for another mani tomorrow, I'm just gonna let it slide.  I used 3 coats of Jessica's Hype as a base color here.  I really need to flesh out my nude collection (pun intended), I only have two and both of them have a shimmer which isn't really what I wanted for this.  Oh well, we make do with what we have.  On top of Hype, I used Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear in Sunny Side and my homemade dotting tool to make some bright polka dots.  I do think it's interesting that these dots are enough color that in the sunlight from farther away, it looks like my whole nail is yellow because of the color reflection off of the nude base.  So that's kinda neat, but overall, I think I need a little more contrast to pull this one off.

Tomorrow is green so I hope you'll stop by and check it out!  Thanks for reading!