Hello and welcome! This week’s beautifully simple design is inspired by my short stay outdoors.

Since we went camping over the weekend, I wanted to do a design that reflected the little trip. And that meant I finally had a good excuse to use my butterfly wing stamping plate. I saw a few posts while looking for inspiration, but I needed something a little faster. So I found on Pinterest, and went with Canadian Nail Fanatic’s blog post, because that looked like it might be the quickest.

What I Used:

• Base Coat: Glisten & Glow – Base Coat
• 1st Color: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear – Sun Kissed
• 2nd Color: Starrily – Northern Lights
• 3rd Color: Twinkled T – Vibin’
• Top Cost: Essie – Speed Setter Top Coat
• Maniology Poli-Peel cuticle protector
• Maniology BM-S188 stamping plate
• Twinkled T holo stamper
• scraper
• lint roller sheet
• Twinkled T clean up brush, size #2
• acetone nail polish remover

I started with the usual base coat, then two coats of Sally Hansen – Sun Kissed. For some reason I thought this polish was more sheer, so I was pleasantly surprised when it only took two coats to reach opacity. Then, instead of adding some holo to the design, I decided to go with iridescent flakes. It’s hard to see in the photos, but the flakes added just a touch of sparkle, nothing like the blinding sparkle of holo.

Two coats of Sally Hansen – Sun Kissed

A layer of Starrily – Northern Lights added on top

Next, I made the mistake of stamping the wings in black without any liquid latex around my nails. I changed that immediately after the first nail. But sadly, for the first nail, it was a complete pain to clean up. Since there was no rhyme or reason to which wings went on which nails, the stamping went by quickly.

The stamped wing in black, with liquid latex around my other nails

A random assortment of stamped wings

I know I did different wing types on each nail, but Monarch butterflies are the one’s I think of when I see this design. And even though we didn’t actually see any Monarchs on our camping trip, I like to think that the other butterflies appreciated my nails, haha.

Final look – left hand

Final look – right hand

Update:

Well it looks like this time around, my pointer finger was the focus of my picking. Somehow, I didn’t completely ruin the nail, but I think it’s about time I stop picking and let them grow stronger. (How many times have I said this before?)

My pointer and thumb had all the chips

My right was almost perfect