Today's experiment

I was given a gentle reminder this morning that went something like, "Today's a good day for blogging." And to be honest, that's entirely true. It's been dreary and miserable outside for most of the day with bouts of intense sun to make up for it.

So today, I blog.

I decided yesterday that I would try one of the new polishes from the box of prettiness. I was not disappointed with this one.

                                         Inside with flash.

                                          Outside.

This is China Glaze Drastic. Here is a base coat of China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat, three coats of colour, and one coat of Seche Vite. I love the colour variation that this shows in different lights. My boyfriend was convinced that it was brown until he saw it under a strong light. This polish is great to apply - it seems to self level a fair bit, and it has a nice opacity to it even though it seems almost sheer in the first coat. The third coat of colour was unnecessary here, but I just couldn't stop myself, I had to see if it would go even darker with another coat.

But this is not the experiment. Lately, Partner in Crime and I have been investing a lot of time and money into the stamping idea. The plates, the polish, the stamper, the acetone, and so on and so forth. So today, I decided to give it a real try for an effect that I have been thinking about for a while.

I started with the same colour I put on yesterday.

I decided I would use a Messy Mansion plate - MM05.

And the other various tools of stamping.

I've been eyeing off that crown and the cross whole nail pattern for a while. So those are the patterns I used for this one. I also decided not to use Seche Vite for the top coat over the stamping because it causes shrinkage and I also noticed that the stamping polish smears with Seche Vite sometimes.

This is the finished result. The cross pattern is not quite as crisp as I would like, but I used Revlon Silver Dollar to stamp that on instead of a proper Konad stamping polish. Overall though, I'm quite happy with the finished result. 

And I leave you with a picture that I just had to take.

Isn't she PRETTY?!