I have a short post today for my second installment of the Spring Challenge April Showers Bring May Flowers. Challenge #2 is ladybugs and I immediately thought of a ladybug design that is on one of my Bundle Monster stamping plates, plate BM13.
Even though I knew I wanted to use this plate, it took me a little while to figure out exactly how to use it. I did actually paint my nails with a medium gray to start but then when I stamped the first ladybug, the gray was just too dark so I scrapped that idea. I decided to stamp multiple ladybugs over Orly Au Champagne instead, but only as an accent so I applied 3 coats of Au Champagne to my thumbs and ring fingers. I spent the next 5 minutes marveling over Au Champagne's satin matte finish! Somehow, in all the reviews of the Orly Holiday Soiree collection this past winter, I had completely missed the fact that Au Champagne was a matte. I must have read it, but it somehow just never registered in my brain. I was so not expecting the beautiful satin matte finish it has and now I'm so glad that I bought this back when I saw it moved to the clearance table at Sally Beauty. I had only used it once before and that was just as a base on a nail wheel for swatching Lynnderella Snow Angel. I must have been so excited about getting my Lynnderella order that I was apparently oblivious to the finish of Au Champagne when it dried. Anyway...for the ladybugs, I applied a small amount of Konad Special Polish in red to the body of the ladybug design and a small amount of Konad Special Polish in black to the ladybug's head, then scraped and stamped.
I did that about 3 or 4 times per nail and just placed them in random directions on different parts of each nail. I took a small dotting tool and Wet n Wild Black Creme to fill in the dots of the ladybug design when Au Champagne showed through. On the rest of my nails I used 2 coats of Zoya Sooki and with the largest dotting tool and Wet n Wild Black Creme again, I placed random dots over Sooki to give it a ladybug motif.
I do really like this, but I'm not a huge ladybug fan, so I'll most likely be moving on to the next challenge within a day or two. Although I was happily surprised at the reactions I got at work today with this design. There were a lot of "Oh my God, are those ladybugs on your nails?!" It really got a lot more attention than I expected! One of the cool things about doing a challenge like this is that if I wasn't doing this challenge, I probably would have never done this design. But because of the challenge I was able to experiment and work with themes I probably wouldn't have thought to do on my own.
Be sure to keep an eye on Hannah's blog over at Polished Prisms. She'll be updating her posts with links to all the wonderful ladies also participating in this challenge. So check it out!
