Wednesday 14 January 2015

31DC - Day 14 - Holo

Hiya lovelies, and welcome to day 14 of the 31 day challenge.  The prompt for today is Holo, and I decided to have a go at stamping decals again, but this time, using a method I'd seen in Adventures In Stamping that involves foil glue.  I was super impressed with the results, so read on to find out why.....

I started out by painting my middle and ring fingers with 2 coats of Dark Metal Lacquer - Whisper, and added 2 coats of top coat to smooth them out.  On the 2 end fingers and the thumb, I applied 2 coats of DML - Sky Is Over, and added a striped silver holographic stud near the cuticles.  After some top coat for them, it was time to work on my decals.

So, first I picked up my dots image from BPS plate BP-21 with Revlon - Grape and my Messy Mansion soft stamper head. I put that down to dry for just a few seconds, while I applied a coat of foil glue to my ring finger.  Then I used a small nail art brush to fill in only some of the circles with Sky Is Over.  Once that was done, I blew on the stamper head for a few seconds to set the polish slightly, and then stamped onto the nail with the foil glue, and viola!  It all transferred pretty well, although it does look like one tiny bit smooshed slightly near the tip.  The next nail went even better though, and when I tried it again for my next mani it was perfect!

It's much quicker and easier to do decals this way! Seriously. I will never bother with the old method now.  You don't have to wait for the decal to dry fully, nor do you have to apply loads of clear polish to it, so it's thinner on the nail. The glue dries in the time it takes to fill in the decal, so no waiting around between stages.  You also don't get any bubbles or creases from trying to apply something flat to a curved nail.  And you only have to clean up bits of your cuticle where the image actually is, so that's much quicker too!    I don't know who first had the idea to use foil glue like this, but I could bloody well kiss them.  You guys don't know how happy I am to find such an easy method! <3
So, now that I'm quite done excitedly yelling at you about how good this method is, all that's left to say is that I actually didn't love this mani that much. XD  It's nice, and Sky Is Over is breathtakingly pretty, but I wish I'd used a more opaque purple.  It just seems a little wishy-washy to me.  But who cares about that because I can make ALL the decals now!  Aaaaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

So, that's all from me today, but I'll be back tomorrow with more stamping decals for the "green base" prompt.  I'll warn you guys now, tomorrow's mani is not the sort of thing you usually see me wearing.  I stepped way out of my comfort zone for this one, but I actually quite like it.  :)

What about you guys, have you tried the foil glue method with stamping decals?  How did it go for you?
If you haven't, but you're a stamper, you HAVE to try it.  No excuses! :p If you need some foil glue, this is the stuff I used today. It's almost a fiver, so not that cheap, but that includes free 1st class delivery, and you only need really thin coats, so a little goes a long way.
  I do also own "The Best Glue Ever", (Robin Moses' favourite), so I'll be trying that one next time. :D



6 comments:

  1. Amazing mani hun.....I've not heard of this technique before....think I will have to get some foil glue now lol xxx

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    1. Thanks my lovely! You should definitely try it though, it's completely changed the way I feel about stamping decals :D xx

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  2. Replies
    1. Thanks gorgeous! Even though I was annoyed at my choice of purple stamping polish, I find myself liking this more and more the more I come back to it. :D xx

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