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 :)
