If you know me at all, you know that my favorite animated Disney movie is The Little Mermaid. I love it so much that I collect almost all things Ariel and Ursula. I broke my usual rule of not buying Christmas things until after Thanksgiving at the end of August because Hallmark came out with a new The Little Mermaid ornament this year and it was the last one on the shelf! I couldn’t very well risk NOT getting it!
Cut to the week before last, when I was at the salon chatting with my amazing hair stylist Kacie Kersey while she boosted my bottle red color. I was chatting about how I keep dancing with the idea of going purple with my hair. I work from home and don’t have any business trips planned until January, so why not, right? We talked about a plan to redo my color and do kind of a purple ombre, fading into purple from my base red. When I came home & was trying to describe to Dominic what we were going to do, I used the phrase “It’s going to go from an Ariel red to an Ursula purple”.
I recently received my first order from Bundle Monster – the beach & ocean themed Bundle Monster 10pc Nail Art Stamping Image Plates – 2014 Sun Kissed Collection. I saw them previewed on Bundle Monster’s Instagram and I knew I had to have them, so as soon as they were released I bought them. They arrived with perfect timing to inspire me to take a stab at a Little Mermaid stamped manicure! It’s a little rough since I am still not a pro at stamping and I was also using two nail polishes as a base for the first time!
I wanted to use a thin white, so I started with a couple coats of Julep Soraphine and then layered OPI Sheer Tints Top Coat I Can Teal You Like Me in a few coats on top. I actually bought the Sheer Tints minis because I heard that they had a tendency to get bubbles in the polish, which is usually a reason NOT to buy a polish. But in particular I thought the blue would be cool with bubbles in it for beachy or water themed manis, and I was right! Here’s a picture of the base coats before I did any stamping – as you can see it’s somewhat transparent still, which I think helped with the water look. I didn’t notice any bubbles that first day, but a few days later I saw bubbles on my thumb.
I had read that any polish should work with stamping, not just the special stamping polishes, and that cheaper or fast drying polishes tend to work better. So I pulled out a purple that was lighter, Wet ‘N Wild MegaLast Salon Nail Color On a Trip, more the color of Ariel’s seashell bra to use with the repeating seashell pattern plate and a darker purple, Julep Elle, to use with the tentacles pattern. Unfortunately, I found that the dark purple didn’t work well with the intricacies of the tentacle design and the lighter purple was barely visible on top of my base. Phoey. So I tried Elle for the seashells and it was dark enough, but didn’t really work well with the stamps even with less detail. You can see them here next to each other. I didn’t feel like taking off the two nails I’d used the lighter purple on, so I just left them.
When I bought the Sun Kissed Collection stamping plates from Bundle Monster, I also bought a bottle of the Iced Silver Nail Stamping Lacquer, so I decided to try it out on my pinky with the bubbles patter. Sure enough, it worked beautifully. So I think I may have to invest in more stamping-specific polishes until I become an old hat at this stamping thing. Since the silver worked well on the bubbles, I tried it out on my right hand with the tentacles and it worked better, but still not as great as I was hoping. I went ahead and did the silver bubbles on my pinky to match my left hand and looked for a different purple that was somewhere in between the too light On a Trip and too dark Elle, and decided on Julep Gayle for the seashell pattern on my right hand. I was happier with this color for my index and middle fingers, but then I saw a different shell stamp on a different plate that looked just like the locket that Ursula keeps Ariel’s voice in around her neck, so I stamped that on my ring finger and called it a day.
Here’s the finished manicure on my right hand. While not perfect, I think it turned out pretty awesome considering it was the first time I was trying many of these polishes and the stamping plates from Bundle Monster. I’m definitely a happy camper and will be exploring stamping more so I can get the hang of it!
Click on the images to enlarge them, by the way. What do you think – any tips for improving my stamping prowess?
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