#31dc2013 - Day 30: Inspired by a tutorial

Ever since the PP 2013 blogfest I have been dying to try out this tutorial for reverse stamping by Shatter me Claire. I love nail stamping so the notion of using it to create multicoloured decals was instantly intriguing. I flipped through my books of plates looking for a design that had large outlined spaces in them. I settled on this geometric print because its something I could never do freehand. Read on for a step by step tutorial that will change your life (if you love stamping that is!).

Today's design features:

• Lime Crime- Pink Parfait
• Lime Crime - Lavendairy
• Lime Crime - Once in a blue mousse
• Barry M - Black
• Pueen plate - PUEEN08

Step 1: Paint 1 thickish layer of topcoat in nail size squares onto baking paper (wax paper, parchment paper). I used a felt pen to draw little squares so I could see where I had put the topcoat. Let your topcoat dry. I used Seche and I left it about 15 minutes.

Step 2: Apply your stamping polish onto your plate as normal, scrape then pick up the image on your stamper just like if you were going to stamp into your nails. Stamp onto the topcoat that you have previously applied to the baking paper. Now this is the part you really need to let dry. I left mine for an hour. 

Step 3: Fill in the blank parts of your design with your chosen colours. If you are doing little accent images you will need to think about the order that you "colour in" but with this print it didn't really matter. I did two coats of each colour. Let it dry for 15 minutes.  

Step 5: Gently peel your decals off the baking paper. Flip to see your awesome print!

Use tiny nail scissors to cut your pattern to the size of your nail. Apply a liberal amount of base coat to your nail then gently place your decal on your nail with tweezers. Gently push the decals down especially near the cuticle to get it to sit flat. Use your nail scissors to trim where necessary. If there are any bald spots or missing bits of your design you can use a small brush to tweak your image.

Wait a few minutes for the decal to settle then apply top coat to seal it down. You can also use your clean up brush dipped in nail polish remover to clean up the edges, your decal is only nail polish so it will gently rub off without a drama.

Those bubbles were from applying the coloured polish too thickly on the back of the stamped image, so make sure not to have blobs of polish when you "colour in" your stamp. 

It was relatively easy to do but it did require patience leaving each step to dry. It's worth it though because the results are really fantastic. I feel like Im wearing a nail wrap but I made it all by my lil ol' self...it's a custom nail wrap! Totally addicted to this new way of stamping...scampers off to find more platessssss!!! 

Thank you Shatter me Claire, your tutorial was a revelation!