Weekly Mani: Stamping Challenge - Your Favorite Flower

Contest Prize Purchased by Me

Hello Loves.   I decided to participate in the Adventures in Stamping weekly challenge this week. This was an easy one for me since I tend to lean toward floral nail art.  The difficult part was picking my favorite flower!  When it comes to actual fresh cut flowers, stargazer lilies have been my favorites for years.  Recently, I have started moving away from them.  They are so common in funeral arrangements that I have begun to associate the fragrant blooms with loss and sadness.  I know, it's crazy.  But they say that scent is the strongest sense tied to memory, so I guess it was bound to happen at some point.  So I chose the rose as my favorite flower for this one.  I tend to gravitate toward roses for nail art, and what girl doesn't appreciate a vase of roses? 

I absolutely LOVE how this mani turned out.  So simple, yet there is a lot going on with this one.  As usual, details to follow.

The base for this mani is Couture Gel Nail Polish Dance Til Dawn.  I used this base for another mani but the swatch pictures didn't turn out.  Thankfully, I got decent pictures this time.  Dance til Dawn is a soft white that leans slightly tan.  I absolutely love it!

Here's a comparison shot between Dance til Dawn and Couture's pure white Ooh La La French.  This is one of the pictures that didn't turn out from the last swatch attempt, so please excuse the strange skin tone.  The polish colors are accurate on my monitor.

I then stamped the middle and ring fingers with part of the long rose image from Messy Mansion MM07 and used my squishy stamper to slightly curve the stamp around the side of each the nail.  I used Spoiled 2 Weeks Sober as the stamping polish.

Finally, I added two coats of The Reign of Studs from L'Oreal's Colour Riche Gold Dust collection to the thumb, index and pinkie nails. 

I am completely head over heels for the Gold Dust polishes!  I love the added sparkle and they are extremely easy to apply.  After trying this one, I went back and grabbed three more shades.  I wanted them all, but I decided to stick with the ones I knew I could coordinate with my gels.  Look for swatches of those soon.  :)

I'm actually loving the textured polishes all together.  I do a lot of swatching on the weekends and I only soak off one hand until I'm ready to do my final mani.  So at any given point in time, my weekend hands are not going to match.  It never fails that I'll be in the middle of swatching a color that completely clashes with the art from the week before on my right hand, and my dearest husband will decide he wants to go out to dinner.  I'll sacrifice a lot for my readers, but I'm not about to go out in public with clashing hands.  Textured polishes have become my savior!  They apply quickly and dry super fast, so I can throw one on over my crazy mismatched gel and run out the door.  Not to mention if you bump one before it is completely dry, no big deal.  It's textured, so you're not even going to notice.  Yea! 

~Michelle