#31dc2015 Four years baby! Day 1-15

Like it does every year the 31 day nail art challenge crept up on me. How can it be September already, wasn't I just doing the 2014 one? Well yes another year has swept by in a flash, and its round 4 of the #31DC for DQN. This year a new mantra; "Don't stress, you'll get there, so what if you're a few days late, you'll catch up!" I decided not to put too much pressure on myself and I'm enjoying it much more this year, mixing it up with some colouring in along the way. So here at the halfway point let's review days 1 to 15. 

The first few days of the challenge I find tricky as they are based around colour, so it's fairly open ended. This year I decided to use my latest obsession, colouring in, as inspiration for some of the manis in the challenge. I have started on the Enchanted Forest by Joanna Basford and the pages truly are mini works of art, ready for you to unleash your creativity on. 

Day 1 Red

Day 1: Red

OPI - Over & over again with decals made on a Teflon mat using Fun Lacquer - Pay Day and OPI - Colour Paints.

 Day 2 Orange

Lime Crime - Peaches and Creme stamped with MDU Neon Orange. Stamp from BM 300 available here. 

 Day 3 Yellow

Orly - Glowstick with Essie - Sand Tropez. Neon triangle available here. 

 Day 4 Green

Today was a bit of a nail fail. I was trying to do some dry marble squiggles but it was really hard to get them to come out even across the nails. So I added glitter, which seemed the logical thing to do. China Glaze - Turned up Turquoise with Essie - Sand Tropez.

 Day 5 Blue

An innovation on a mani I did in the #31dc2013 which was inspired by Chalkboard Nails. Gradient done with Barry M - Blue Moon, China Glaze - For Audrey and China Glaze - DJ blue my mind. Ripples stamped with BM 509 and Konad white. Starfish stamp from BM 503 using MDU neon orange and red. BM 500 collection available here. 

Inspiration pages from Enchanted Forest. 

 Day 6 Violet

Zoya - Carter. By this stage in the challenge I was really, really sick with round 2 of the Brisbane Virus. Painting my nails a single colour was about as much as I could muster. Thankfully this polish really stands alone, its such a beautiful colour and texture. 

 Day 7 Black and White

There was a story behind these nails - During this week Brisbane had 3 major incidents of domestic violence reach the media. All 3 were ridiculously scary and 3 people died, needlessly. It prompted me to take a look at my own relationship and realise how lucky I am to be adored and loved by such a patient and sensitive stand up guy. Love you Frankie Tim, I'm thankful for you everyday. LOVE and RESPECT, you can never have too much, you can never give too much. If you need support with domestic violence please contact Mission Australia, Stamp from BM 300 - available here. 

 Day 8 Metallic

OK - by far the hardest nails I have done this year. Foil stamping, you wily fox you, just when you think you almost have it....noooooo, the foil doesn't stick! If you want to attempt these, the best way I have found is to paint a layer of topcoat onto a plastic bag or Teflon mat. Stamp onto it using KONAD stamping polish (its the only brand that worked for me), then super quickly put a small rectangle of foil over the stamped image, rub it with a cotton bud to get the foil to stick to the wet stamping polish. Give it a few minutes to dry then pull off the decal and apply to nail. It's difficult to get the decals to sit flat at the tips of the nail but the sparkle kinda balances out the crinkly bits.  OPI - Don't Pretzel my buttons with Konad Gold and gold holographic foil. 

 Day 9 Rainbow

One of my fav prompts in the challenge. I couldn't go past rainbow decals. Made on a Teflon mat by drizzling OPI Colour Paints together, then adding a backing layer of silver glitter. I also painted the rhinestone on the bow with colour paints. 

 Day 10 Gradient

Unicorn stamp from Winstonia 100 collection. I used the foil stamping method to get the unicorn to sparkle. Large rhinestone bows available here. 

 Day 11 Spots

Gloss and Sparkle - The Lotus Eater. Glass crystals available here. 

 Day 12 Stripes

Random swishes, colours created using OPI colour paints and OPI Alpine Snow. Done with a small striping brush.

 Day 3 Animal Print - Chameleon

Oh my, what magical little rainbow creatures chameleons are! Again I used my OPI Colour Paints to mix together the colours for this mani. 

Made with stamper decals. Check out the tutorial for stamper decals here. 

Day 14 Flowers

Stamper decals again using B Loves Plates - Flowers, available here. To get the 2 tone effect with the flowers I stamped with Hit the Bottle - Poison Apple, then filled in the flowers using OPI - Over & over again. Nude is OPI - Don't Pretzel my buttons. 

This page in Enchanted Forest was my inspiration, I'm not sure how I got to tulips from this image but I did! 

 Day 15 Delicate Print

My favourite nails of the challenge so far. These really came out better than expected as I was trying to do an exact match between the stamping polish and OPI -Designer de Better. To achieve this stamping colour I mixed Konad silver and gold together then added a little drop of Hit the Bottle - The Drunken Elf, which is a duochrome brown. They mixed to form a kind of rose gold/dusty musk pink colour. Heart stamp is Pueen 41 - available here. 

With 16 more days to go I have really got some work ahead of me catching up, but I refuse to feel guilty, I'll get there when I get there. Hoping you guys are enjoying the challenge this year xx 

How to make decals on your stamper video

So the challenge wrapped up last week and I've taken a few days off from nails to recharge myself and spend some time with my family. It was bliss! But it wasn't too long before my pretties called me back.

Before the challenge I wrote a post about how to make decals on your stamper with some pics. But during the challenge I used the decal method so much and refined it each time so I decided to make a video for you guys to show you how I do it now.

          

The two biggest changes I've made are taking the decals off after 30-45 min, don't leave them too long so that they stay sticky. Secondly not using any base coat to stick them on. They stick on by themselves like a sticker and you don't get pesky bubbles and rips. Yay!

I hope my video helps you out and that you give it a try. It's pretty easy. Best advice, when you are pulling the decal off the stamper don't pull in the same direction all the time, the decals will stretch and distort. Alternate the sides you pull from so you don't distort the image and if it still starts to rip leave it another 10 minutes. If you leave it over night these decals go brittle and cant be used, they don't stick or curve to the nail. 

Polish:

• Zoya - Dot
• BC - Shade 8
• OPI - Alpine Snow
• Mundo de Unas - 29

I should mention that I live in Brisbane, Australia which is sub tropical (30 degrees) most days at the moment, so I'm pretty sure that has effect on dry time. If you live in colder climates and find the decals are ripping when you pull them off adjust dry time. I would be really interested to hear from you guys if this is an issue. If you live somewhere cold and you try this out please let me know how you go xx 

#31dc2014 Day 29: Inspired by the supernatural

Well this is what happens when I sit down to do nails without a plan. NEON! These kind of came out of nowhere. I really liked the skull decals I made the other day and that same stamping plate (Sugar Bubbles SB029) was still sitting on my desk. Skulls say supernatural to me and Drama Queen Skull with her little crown was just begging to get stamped and of course she wanted to be neon pink. 

Polish:

• Mundo de Unas - 29 (neon pink) * Restock for Mundos is happening in October - please keep your eyes on our Facebook page for more details *
• Mundo de Unas - 27 (neon yellow)
• Sugar Bubble Plate SB 029 - available here.
• Cici and Sisi 12 - pink collection - swirl pattern

On the back of the stamper decals I used white polish to make the neons pop. The Mundos worked awesomely for making the decals, they came out so vibrant! My eyes burn! I made the swirly stamping decals on my stamper. Head to my original stamper decal tutorial post HERE for the full details on how to do this. Below is a super condensed version with the basic idea.

My top tips for making decals and applying them are:

1. Dont let them dry too much. Leave them 30 min - 45min. The longer you leave them the more brittle they become making it harder to curve to your nail and get clean edges.

2. When you peel off and apply the decals they should be sticky enough to stick to the nail without basecoat. I don't use anything to stick mine on any more. If you peel them off the stamper when they are still pliable and a tiny bit sticky they apply like a sticker...yes really! 

3. Try not to "pull" on the decals when you are peeling it off the stamper, work from all sides and roll the stamper as you are pulling the decal off so you don't stretch the design in one direction. I have killed many decals doing this.

These nails are so me. Supernatural funk! xx

Stamping with Pueen Encore

I haven't stamped my nails in ages but the new Pueen Encore set was begging me to take it for a spin. I sat there staring at the plates for 10 minutes going back and forth between images, spoiled for choice. Thankfully everything goes with rainbow colours!

I used plate SE04A. 

Zoya - Yummy (blue)

OPI - Jade is the new black (green)

Zoya - Pippa (yellow)

China Glaze - Japanese Koi Neon (orange)

OPI - Funky Dunky (purple)

Stamped with Konad white

Coloured glass crystals available here

This is a picture outside in the sun, the glass crystals are beautiful and sparkly. Hope you like these everyone, they are one of my favs from this year.

Pueen Encore Collection

With Pueen's last release they jumped on the theme plate bandwagon and created the 24B Buffet set which strayed from traditional rectangle sized stamping images to full plate designs. There were many pros to this as it allowed more variation with stamping and less restrictions for those with long or wide nails. Their latest set - The Encore Collection - has taken full plate designs to the next level with bigger "areas" of pattern and images on both sides of the plate. The Pueen Encore Collection is available now from www.dramaqueennails.com

1A and 1B are actually the same plate, just the front and back.  The images are great, lots to love, a few repeats of things I already have but I'm impressed with the amount of pattern, definitely much more area to work with. The little dots are a highlight for me.

This is a GREAT plate. If you love flowers you are sure to love this one.

This plate is my fav in the whole set.  The word LOVE is reasonably sized, unlike the Buffet set where word images were just enormous. The B side is great too with the stars and butterflies and paint splatters.

The plates measure 10cm x 10cm

 The peacock feathers on this plate are awesome. The tear drops I quite like too.

So many possibilities! 

Oh yeah, lovin' the fine swirly lines! 

The big whirl pool on this one gets me excited! I can't wait to have some time to play around with these plates, there are lots of patterns that really appeal to me. Can you spot the lady's face in  4B?

There is one major downside to having double sided plates. The edges are flippin sharp! Pueen has considered this in their design so the plates come with a plastic "edge".  When you get your plates they come in a plastic envelope which is inside the sleeve of the storage case. Cut out the clear plastic window on both sides of the plate but do not remove the plastic window frame. 

Above is a picture with the window still intact. Below is with the window cut out.

Work around the frame to remove the blue film. It makes plate clean up a touch annoying but it's definitely much better than slicing up your fingers. Below is a picture of the plate with blue film removed and plastic window frame on.

The Pueen Encore Collection is available now from www.dramaqueennails.com 

How to choose the perfect stamper - which one is right for you?

*UPDATED* 

Well the answer to that question isn't straightforward because at the end of the day I think each stamper has something that its great for. So how do you possibly choose the right one for you? The sooner you realise that you might in fact need them all, the better off your stamping will be. Read on for a pros and cons look at 7 different stampers and hopefully by the end you can find the one that suits your needs. 

Firmness rating: Out of 5 = 1 is super squishy - 5 is very firm

                Click here to buy - Rectangle Firm (rubber) stamper/Metal scraper

Pros

• It's rectangle shaped! My nails are kinda rectangle shaped! Where have you been all my life rectangle stamper. 
• Awesome for lining up the image so you can apply it straightly to your nails
• Firmness rating: 5/5 - very firm rubber reduces the chances of image distortion and polish smooshing - you know when your image looks fuzzy because the polish has smooshed a bit
• Perfect for very detailed images with lots of fine lines
• Length of stamp is 2.8cm so suits long nails - width 1.8cm 
• Suits all types of plate images, full nail, accent 
• Most stamping polish colours show up over the green rubber
• It's pretty tough, the rubber takes a bit of punishment
• Easy to keep clean - fluff just wipes off - clean with polish remover or acetone 

Cons

• Because its very firm its best for people with flatish nail beds - if your nail beds are curvy you most likely will end up with missing bits of the image especially on the tip
• This stamper is not very forgiving due to its firm nature so its sometimes hard to pick up certain images - best for more experienced stampers
• At first it can be a little awkward to hold and get that continuous rolling motion that you need for stamping but it doesn't take long to adjust to.

                 Click here to buy - Rectangle Semi-firm (rubber)/metal scraper

Pros

• It's rectangle shaped! My nails are kinda rectangle shaped! Where have you been all my life rectangle stamper. 
• Awesome for lining up the image so you can apply it straightly to your nails - this is a great all rounder stamper
• Firmness rating: 3/5 - semi-firm rubber (similar to Konad mushroom stamper) reduces the chances of image distortion and polish smooshing 
• Length of stamp is 2.8cm so suits long nails - width 1.8cm 
• Suits all types of plate images, full nail, accent 
• Most stamping polish colours show up over the red rubber
• It's pretty tough, the rubber takes a little bit of punishment
• Easy to keep clean - fluff just wipes off - clean with polish remover or acetone 

Cons

• Because its semi-firm its best for people with flatish nail beds - if your nail beds are very curvy you may end up with missing bits of the image especially on the tip
• At first it can be a little awkward to hold and get that continuous rolling motion that you need for stamping but it doesn't take long to adjust to.

             Click here to buy - Rectangle Squishy (rubber) stamper/Metal scraper

Pros

• It's rectangle shaped! And it's squishy, my nail sinks into it and 99% of the time there are no missing bits in my image...winning!
• Awesome for lining up the image so you can apply it straightly to your nails
• Firmness rating: 1/5
• Length of stamp is 2.8cm so suits long nails - width 1.8cm 
• This stamper despite its cons is my all time favourite stamper. Its the one I use the most and I do take care to look after it. There is less crazy nail lady stamping rage because I can easily make sure all of my nail has had the stamper rolled over it. There is however some skill involved in using this stamper to get the best from it.

Cons

• Best cleaned with pure acetone - keep in a fluff free place - if you were living in the vacuum of space this stamper would still find a piece of fluff to stick to and when I say stick I mean STICK! 
• It's silicon and it likes to be treated like a princess - it can and will get dings and chunks from sharp edges. The silicon end may pop out of the plastic holder if it gets knocked around or you clean it too vigorously. It's precious alright but show this baby some TLC and it will give you so much stamping happiness.
• It can stain easily with dark colours which doesn't effect future stamping but is still annoying
• Polish smooshing - squishy can equal smoosh depending of the stamping polish you are using - use light pressure when applying stamper to nail
• Better suited for full nail images - delicate and accent images have tended to smoosh for me - sometimes I double scrape the polish off the image before I pick it up on the stamp to combat smooshing.
• Image can distort or curve when picking up from plate or applying to nail - try stamping straight up and down to combat this and use light pressure.
• Special stamping polish may smoosh on impact - not suitable for very detailed images with lots of fine lines
• I like to stamp with white stamping polish and the white on white makes it a bit hard to see but if you line it up right its probably going to work out.

                  Click here to buy - Konad double ended stamper/metal scraper

Pros

• High quality rubber with 2 sizes of stamper - red end diameter 2.4cm, green end diameter 1.2cm
• Firmness rating: 3/5
• It's super tough, the rubber ends never fall out, it withstands lots of acetone.
• Doesn't stain easily - there might be one or two uber dark pigmented polishes that might stain it but I haven't come across any yet
• I know this isn't technically about the stamper but the scraper that comes with this stamper is awesome, my fav, its really wide and scrapes the polish nicely off the plate so it reduces those lines of polish you sometimes get down the sides of the image. 
• Great for kids and applying accent images, helps with placement soooooooo much. This is the stamper I use when I want to put just one small image on my nails.
• Firm rubber reduces the chances of image distortion and polish smooshing 
• Suits all types of plate images, full nail, accent 
• Easy to hold in your hand to get the rolling motion you need for stamping
• Easy to keep clean - fluff just wipes off - clean with polish remover or acetone 

Cons

• Suits short to medium nails, ladies with long nails this one isn't for you.
• Stampers are round which can make applying the stamp to your nail difficult to line up and you might have trouble getting the image on straight
• Because its firm its best for people with flatish nail beds - if your nail beds are curvy you most likely will end up with missing bits of the image especially on the tip
• The red rubber makes stamping in red, yellow, orange etc a bit tricky, its hard to see the image

Click here to buy - Konad small stamper/metal scraper (mushroom stamper)

Pros

• High quality rubber - will withstand mountains of acetone. Im still using my original konad stamper, its as good as the day I bought it. 
• Firmness rating: 3/5
• It's tough! It's pretty hard to get dings and chunks in the surface, bar stabbing it with scissors it will stand up to being knocked around in your nail draw
• The rubber end never falls out
• Firm rubber reduces the chances of image distortion and polish smooshing 
• Suits all types of plate images, full nail, accent 
• Easy to hold in your hand to get the rolling motion your need for stamping
• Easy to keep clean - fluff just wipes off - clean with polish remover or acetone 

Cons

• Suits short to medium nails, ladies with long nails this one isn't for you, diameter 2.3cm
• Stamper is round which can make applying the stamp to your nail difficult to line up and you might have trouble getting the image on straight
• Because its firm its best for people with flatish nail beds - if your nail beds are curvy you most likely will end up with missing bits of the image especially on the tip
• The red rubber makes it hard to see some colours.

                    Click here to buy XL Grey Squishy Double Ended stamper

Pros

• It's massive! And it's squishy without being too squishy. My nail sinks into it and 99% of the time there are no missing bits.
• Because it's not as squishy as other XL stampers, it reduces smooshing significantly.
• It's really great quality. The squishy end stays in place, the rubber is more durable than the old style XL squishy.
• Its double ended.
• Firmness rating: White end -2/5  Red End 3/5
• Suits XL stamping plates, you can pick up jumbo images and eliminate those sad missing bits of image from the sides of your nails - white end diameter 2.9cm, red end diameter 2.0cm
• Perfect for ladies with long or curvy nails
• Great for stamping the thumb or if you have wide nail beds - it helps with placement as you will most likely end up with the design over the entirely of your nail just due to the width of the plate image its capable of picking up.

Cons

• White end is best cleaned with acetone - keep in a fluff free place
• Because its silicon its precious - the white end can and will get dings and chunks in it if you aren't careful.
• It can stain easily but most of the time pure acetone will remove it and it doesn't effect future stamping
• Polish smooshing - squishy can equal smoosh depending of the stamping polish you are using - use light pressure when applying stamper to nail.
• Its round so lining up images can be tricky.
• Better suited for full nail images - delicate and accent images have tended to smoosh for me - sometimes I double scrape the polish off the image before I pick it up on the stamp to combat smooshing.
• Image can distort or curve when picking up from plate or applying to nail - try stamping straight up and down to combat this and use light pressure.
• Stamping with white polish is tricky

Click here to buy - XL Squishy Round Stamper/Plastic scraper

Pros

• It's massive! And it's squishy, my nail sinks into it and 99% of the time there are no missing bits in my image...winning!
• Its double ended
• Firmness rating: White end -1/5  Red End 3/5
• Suits XL stamping plates, you can pick up jumbo images and eliminate those sad missing bits of image from the sides of your nails - white end diameter 2.9cm, red end diameter 1.0cm
• Perfect for ladies with long or curvy nails or Rihanna talons
• Great for stamping the thumb or if you have wide nail beds - it helps with placement as you will most likely end up with the design over the entirely of your nail just due to the width of the plate image its capable of picking up.

Cons

• Best cleaned with acetone - keep in a fluff free place - this stamper is THE WORST - it could beat Miley Cyrus is a dust licking competition hands down - everything sticks to it.
• Because its silicon its precious - it can and will get dings and chunks in it if you aren't careful and the silicon end pops out all the time. I have glued mine into place to stop this from happening but I'm kinda over this stamper for this reason. Our new grey XL stamper is MUCH better!
• It's round so lining up images can be tricky.
• It can stain easily but most of the time pure acetone will remove it and it doesn't effect future stamping
• Polish smooshing - squishy can equal smoosh depending of the stamping polish you are using - use light pressure when applying stamper to nail
• Better suited for full nail images - delicate and accent images have tended to smoosh for me - sometimes I double scrape the polish off the image before I pick it up on the stamp to combat smooshing.
• Image can distort or curve when picking up from plate or applying to nail - try stamping straight up and down to combat this and use light pressure.
• Stamping with white polish is tricky
• Again not directly about the stamper but I DO NOT like plastic scrapers, they suck and spread polish unevenly. I dont care if my plates have scratches on them it doesn't effect future stamping, but if you need your plates to be all shiny and scratch free you might like this.

Well you hung in there until the end, well done! Hopefully you guys now have a better idea of the benefits of having multiple stampers in your arsenal. I do use all of my stampers for different things but if absolutely pushed to say which one I couldn't live without, I would have to say its...um...ahhhh...eeeee....my squishy rectangle stamper. She is a high maintenance stamper but she makes me so happy when every single little detail of the image ends up on my nail and its straight! If you can think of any more pros or cons for the stampers please comment below and I will add them to the post. xx

Sugar Bubbles

Coming Soon

Stamping decal tutorial - The easiest and quickest decals you'll ever make!

There are multiple ways to create coloured stamping designs and each technique has its pros and cons but I promise you that after trying this version you will be making decals quicker than ever before!

In the past I have done coloured stamping by using either a small paintbrush to add colour over the stamp (colouring in), this technique called Reverse Stamping or the lead lighting technique. A pro to colouring in is that's its quick. A drawback to painting colour is its hard to stay in the lines. A con to reverse stamping is that it takes a really long time between each step, however you can make 10 decals at a time meaning your can do an entire mani. Lead lighting has its drawbacks too in that you need to build a collection of suitable sheer or tinting polishes and you may get "smearing" especially with black stamping polish both when you apply the tints and also when you apply topcoat. However a bonus with lead lighting is that again you can do an entire mani and if you are sneaky you can make your own tinted polishes by thinning them and mixing with clear polish. 

If you want to smash out a punchy opaque accent design quickly and easily using the polishes you already own,  then the stamper decal technique is a beauty. There are a few tutorials floating around the net on how to do this but every one I have seen used a squishy stamper. I wanted to test a theory that I had that you can create these decals with any stamper, meaning that you can make a few at once by using all the different stampers that you have. So lets have a look at the results and how to create the decals. White squishy stamper vs. Konad mushroom stamper vs. firm green stamper - all available here.

STEP 1: Pick an image with parts that you can fill in that also has large amounts of background space for your secondary colour to shine through. Choose your outline colour and stamp the image onto your stamper of choice. I used Konad special stamping polish in white. Now the best part, you really don't need to wait very long before the next step, I left mine about 3 minutes. This heart design is from the Bundle Monster 2012 (300) collection, plate 317. Available here.

STEP 2: Use a small paintbrush and your polish of choice to colour in the parts of the design you want to highlight. I chose Orly - Beach Cruiser. Obviously choosing semi-sheer to opaque polish will give you more of a "pop" of colour but sheers and tints also work well because of the way the background colour becomes "undies" to the sheer polish. It's ok if you go outside the lines a little bit because once you flip the design over you won't really see it.  By the time I had coloured all the hearts in on all 3 stampers, the first one was dry so I moved on to step 3 right away.

STEP 3: Paint a thick layer of your background colour over the whole design. I ussed Barry M - Baby Pink which is a creme that is slightly sheer, it needs 2/3 coats for full opacity but for the decals I just did one coat. You can see the design showing through which highlights the density of the polish.

STEP 4: Now this step seems like it would take ages before you could do it. Not so much. I was tricked because the polish looked shiny, like it was still wet. But after 10 minutes it was completely dry! And shiny! Gently slide your nail under the edge and start to peel your design off.

The squishy rectangle stamper which you can get here was a little hard to get started. I jimmed my thumb around the whole edge to make sure it was lifting away but once I got the whole thing free it came away easily. You could also use a dotting tool to poke under it but I would be worried about dinging my squishy stamper. My nail worked fine. I noticed that the decal from this stamper was the most crisp and the stamping itself the most opaque.

It peeled cleanly away with no holes or tears or sticky spots. It may have left some while stamping polish behind but I couldn't see any spots in the design so I'm assuming it didn't.

With the Konad red mushroom stamper available here - it came away SO easily and seemed to be much stronger than the squishy one, more flexible and less likely to break.

It peeled off very easily, it did leave a few teeny tiny bits of white stamping polish on the stamper though and you can see in the outlines where the polish is spotty.

The super firm green rectangle stamper, available here - This one needed some gentle nudging to get it started and I accidentally made a couple of rips because I was being impatient and jabbed at it with a dotting tool. Whoopsie! It was the most difficult to peel but once I got it started it was fine. No polish left on the stamper but the outline was a little spotty.

Here is the end result with my decals ready to apply to my nail. Pretty! Left is firm green stamper, right is white squishy stamper and bottom is Konad mushroom stamper. The squishy stamper one is definitely the best but the others also came out fine, just a bit muted in comparison.

STEP 4: Trim your decals to your approximate nail size.

STEP 5: Apply a layer of base coat to your naked nail then gently place the decal over it whilst it is still wet. Use your finger tip to GENTLY smooth out any wrinkles and also fold over the tip of the nail for a clean edge. When it is firmly in place and the base coat underneath has dried (no decal movement when touched) use nail scissors to trim off excess. You don't need to go to crazy with trimming as you can remove the excess decal with nail polish remover and your clean up brush.

STEP 6: Now this part has options. You can apply topcoat first, wait for it to dry then clean up OR clean up first then apply topcoat. I did the first option. The topcoat will smooth out any dings or wrinkles, its like magic!

I loved how these decals turned out however I was most impressed by how quick each layer dried on the stamper. There was virtually no smearing when I applied topcoat and the finished product is vibrant. Can you just imagine the possibilities of all the different designs you could make! The white squishy stamper was the clear winner in terms of quality. If you give this technique a go we would love to see and hear how you went xx