Hello everyone!  I have been looking forward to using these firework stamps since I got them back in July.  Unfortunately the manicure didn’t turn out quite like I had hoped… I ended up doing my nails twice this week.  I hated the manicure I did at first, so I chose to redo them when I woke up in the morning.  I wanted my nails to be colorful, but I don’t think I chose the right colors for the first round.

Round 1

What I used:

• Base Coat:  Glisten & Glow – Base Coat
• Glitter – FUN Lacquer – Black Holo Witch
• 1st Color:  Sally Hansen Hard as Nails – Black Out
• 2nd Color:  Sally Hansen Insta-Dri – Rapid Red
• 3rd Color:  Pure Ice – Scream
• 4th Color:  Painted Polish – Stamped in Greenery 2.0
• 5th Color: Bundle Monster – Nation’s Treasure
• Top Coat:  Glisten & Glow – Top Coat
• acetone nail polish remover
• Twinkled T clean up brush, size #2
• Bundle Monster mini lotus mat
• Bliss Kiss Simply Peel latex barrier
• Bundle Monster BM-S211 stamping plate
• silicone stamper & scraper
• lint roller sheet

I started out with the usual base coat, and one coat of black.  Then I added some black holo, because I wanted to make sure there was always some sparkle.  While the holo was drying, I added the simply peel around all of my fingers.  But does any one else have some serious problems with their simply peel drying and clumping?  I know I haven’t used mine in a while, but I don’t think that should explain why it was so clumpy.  The entire brush was just covered in dried latex.  Once I got the dried bits off, it worked perfectly fine, but my brush is now a little wrecked.

One coat of black

Black Holo Witch over black, with Simply Peel

Before I officially started stamping on my nails, I decided to test out a few colors and see which ones I wanted to use.  I went with blue, green, red, and gold.  I would’ve also used the orange, but it didn’t show up on the black very well.  And then I just went for it.  I did one full nail in gold, but realized I should have done multiple colors.  So for my other nails, I grabbed some tape and only stamped on part of the image with each color.  Then I went back to my middle nail and tried to cover up the gold with some more colors.  But once they were all done, I realized that I just did not like them and there was nothing I could add to make them better.

Testing out polishes for stamping

In the end, I hated these

Round 2

What I used:

• Base Coat:  Glisten & Glow – Base Coat
• Glitter – FUN Lacquer – Black Holo Witch
• 1st Color:  Sally Hansen Hard as Nails – Black Out
• 2nd Color:  Sinful Colors – Let’s Talk
• 3rd Color:  Pure Ice – Splash!
• 4th Color:  Beauty Concepts – unnamed silver
• 5th Color:  Bundle Monster – Nation’s Treasure
• Top Coat:  Glisten & Glow – Top Coat
• acetone nail polish remover
• Twinkled T clean up brush, size #2
• Bundle Monster mini lotus mat
• Bundle Monster BM-S211 stamping plate
• silicone stamper & scraper
• lint roller sheet

I woke up in the morning, and decided that I just needed to redo my nails.  Surprisingly, it was easy to take off.  I was expecting the holo glitter to make it rough.  So I started over again with base coat, one coat of black, and then some holo glitter.  I reapplied it all easily, but then somehow I smudged my nails before I could even start stamping!  I sloppily fixed it by just filling in the chunks, and just hoped that eventually it would even out.

Back to the black and holo…

And then I smudged them

This time around I made decals for the fireworks, and I also went with more shimmery, less bold colors.  The blue and purple definitely don’t show up as boldly as the previous colors, but I like them.  The decals were also a much better choice because I had more time to think it through.  Plus, I had the option now to toss a decal if I didn’t like it before it had to go on to my nail.  With some top coat to make them stick, and acetone for clean up, the decals went on perfectly.

This time I made decals

Placing the decals

I’m very happy with how these turned out, and glad that I went with my gut to redo them.  Even though they took up so much of my time, they’ll be a happy sight to see in the new year.

Left hand

Right hand

I hope everyone has a great end to 2017 and an even greater start to 2018!

Update:

I almost had a perfect manicure all week! But then on Wednesday night, I had to clean the house and they got a little wrecked. (But only my left hand, because my right seems to be invincible) And because of that, I decided to file down my left hand 😭 You can kind of see it in the pictures

Left hand chips, with some filing in progress

Right hand barely got a tiny chip