Hello and welcome! Well if the title didn’t give it away, my birthday is coming up. Which means this manicure is all about me 😜
I immediately knew that I wanted to use the color purple, and my Bundle Monster Let’s Celebrate stamping plate. The only problem was that I couldn’t decide on just one purple. So I changed my design a bit, to a neutral base with a bunch of different purple balloons. Then it was just a matter of making my vision a reality. (spoilers: I did not execute it well)
What I Used:
(everything with a * didn’t end up in the final look)
- Base Coat: Orly – Bonder
- 1st Color: Painted Polish – Tickled Taupe
- *2nd Color: Glisten & Glow – Calming ones Chakras
- 3rd Color: Colors by Llarowe – Berries in the Snow
- 4th Color: Quixotic Polish – Insatiable Hearts
- 5th Color: Pahlish – Wibbly Wobbly
- Top Coat: Glisten & Glow – Top Coat
- Bundle Monster mini lotus mat
- Bundle Monster double sided nail art brush & dotting tool
- *Bundle Monster BM-XL30 stamping plate
- *silicone stamper & scraper
- *lint roller sheet
- Twinkled T clean up brush, size #2
- acetone nail polish remover
I started with my Orly base coat. And then two coats of the beautiful Tickled Taupe. I was glad it only took two coats to be opaque. Because the first coat looked like it was going to be very sheer.
Next, I got ready to make little balloon decals. I wanted one nail to have big balloons with a 27 on them. And then little scattered balloons on my other nails. But for some reason, I was really struggling to stamp. I either couldn’t get the image to pick up correctly, or would place it crooked and then the decal would be screwed up. So I had to restart after a few failed attempts. I reapplied a square of top coat, and neatly stamped the light purple balloons. Then I filled the small balloons with three different colors of purple. One was more red, one was closer to blue, and the last one was just purple. I felt like Goldilocks and the three purples!
Unfortunately, the second I placed the big balloons on my ring finger I just hated it. I debated for a long while if I could do something to fix it. But in the end, I just removed it and had to start over. And of course, it was late, and I was cranky. I had done all of this work to make these decals, and they were just a waste. So guess what I did next? Just grabbed a dotting tool and made random dots of color that kind of faded at the tip of my nails. Of course I forgot to take pictures, but it was only a few dots per color.
Well, I really wanted balloons. So I’m not too happy with this design, even though it does kind of look like exploding purple confetti. Plus, the colors are beautiful. Which makes me a little more happy about it. The only problem is, I’m already picking at them, so most likely something new will pop up by the end of the week.
Hope you all have a good week!
Update:
Oh boy! I mentioned that I had already started picking at this design. But I couldn’t stop at just the nail polish. By Monday I had picked off all of the polish on my thumb nails and moved on to my natural nail, plus my other fingers. (I’ll spare you the photos of my absolutely destroyed nails) So when I got home, I had to file down the few nails that survived to be even with the others. And then I removed and reapplied the base color. Although, this time I used peel off base coat. And this time, I tried balloons again. But red/white/blue balloons because of the 4th of July. It worked out much better, still not perfect, but better. And they lasted throughout the rest of the week. They peeled off so easily. I should’ve recorded the peeling, à la simplynailogical (sorry – I just thought of it).
What I Used #2:
- Unt – Peel Off Base Coat
- Sally Hansen Insta-Dri – Rapid Red
- Bundle Monster – bam! white
- KL Polish – Porter Miami
Weekly Nail 