Finally!! Here is the post that I showed you a tease of previously. It's a bit out of chronological order, which has my part-time OCD in knots. (I did these before the March Birthdays 2.0 in my last post.) No matter...I think it's a beauty of a post and one I'm so happy to share!!
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| When Colours Collide Challenge - Teal and Gold |
I mentioned on Instagram recently that the photos of these polishes keep distracting me - it's so true!! The color, the shimmer, the sparkle - all totally procrastination worthy! I hope you'll continue on for more photos of pure polish magic.
The members of the group When Colours Collide are so encouraging and supportive. I have to thank them for the title of this post - they said these looked baroque in style; and who am I to argue?! After all, I've got some Italian in me. ;)
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| Bottle shown: Le Topcoat |
Last year, Polish My Life put out their Autumn-matically In Love Fall Collection which won my heart instantly. As much as I enjoy Spring (sans the allergies!), being from New England it is fate that Fall is my favorite season. This collection has unique polish colors that are perfectly paired with the inspiration of Fall. And, there's no question, I love everything #PolishMyLife!
This stunner is called Morning Dew, a teal blue creme with green shimmer.
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| Look at that shimmer!! |
Not wanting to cover any of this beauty up, I looked through my stamp plates for an image that would let a lot of this base color shine through. And the ethereal beauty inspired me to pick this swirl pattern.
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| Fun swirl design stamped in gold holographic polish |
Thinking the shimmery base deserved a fancy pairing, I chose to stamp with Bells from M Polish because of it's elegant dimension. Great combination!
One thing to note - when using a stamping polish like this one that has extremely fine glitter, a peel-off latex or tape barrier is very helpful! And even then, a really good clean-up brush too might still be necessary if you're like me and don't apply it perfectly. So worth it!
I used Simply Peel by Bliss Kiss and found it fairly easy to use. (They all take practice applying before you become the master as shown in all those beautiful IG videos!) And, then I followed up with my Fab Ur Nails angled Kolinsky clean-up brush - a must have!!
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| I'm going to call this photo: "Mystery Prop" |
Clear stampers have been made available recently and this was my first time trying one. I got it from Johanne of Fab Ur Nails knowing she'd have one of the good ones. Like most new tools, it took a few times to get just the right stamper head to satisfy us stampaholics and this Clear XL did just that! Now, she has a Jumbo version available and I've got my eye on it!!
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| Baroque Indeed! |
It's hard to describe the experience of using a clear stamper the first time. Seeing down the barrel and right through to the nail surface is fantastic! I was able to place the swirls in different yet complimentary angles on each nail - knowing how it would look before placing the stamp!! Revolutionary!!
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| In some light, it looked as if I had fancy velvet on my nails! |
The clear stamper takes a different set of coordinated movements requiring a re-training of the muscle memory. We have been so used to contorting ourselves, staring at the meeting point of stamper head and nail, hoping to have lined it up just right it's no wonder we haven't opened up a forum for neck injuries due to stamping - LOL.
Soon, you'll see that I used this stamper in my next post too - it's so fun!!! Someday, I may even get up the courage to double stamp! Woo!
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| Products used in this design |
The very pretty stamp image is from another favorite of mine, Vivid Lacquer. It is the top-right image on plate VL-019. You may remember seeing this plate before from the Lily of the Valley design I did a while back. Anni makes such great quality plates and I really like her style of images.
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| Direct afternoon sunlight using cell phone - blurry, but shows the holographic glitter very well. |
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| Cloudy, in the shade - look at that gold pop! |
Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the color challenge. There were over 80 entries - all amazing! Here is the collage put together by the admins:
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| Collaboration Collage - When Colours Collide Facebook Group |
As it is so often said, challenges help to boost our inspiration and push us to try styles or techniques we wouldn't otherwise have done. I might have gotten around to doing a design like this *someday*. So glad I did.
What do you think? Got any other ideas you would have thought of for this color combination?
Till Next Time,
Kimett