Fashion Inspired Floral Stamping

Graduation season is upon us. That means an excuse to dress up and paint fancy nails. As if every day isn't a perfectly good excuse for that already. I attended a graduation this weekend for the university I work at. This was a really sad one for me because three of the best employees I've ever had received their diplomas and are moving on. That also means with a set of brand new employees I missed a lot of the ceremony, but at least I got to see my graduates walk across the stage. Tears would have been shed if it weren't so darn busy.

I'm very happy to say that I had an almost entirely successful stamping session (just don't ask to see the other hand). I haven't had very good luck with stamping in the past but that might be starting to change. I'd been having a ton of trouble with my new XL Squishy Stamper not picking up images very well. I finally looked up a tutorial on how to properly prime it and now it works great. Duh! I don't know what took me so long. 

I started with two coats of LA Colors, Whipped and let that dry completely. For the stamping I used Bundle Monster plate BM-204 with Victoria's Secret, Game On. Some parts of the image are just a tiny bit patchy, but really not bad at all compared to past attempts. 

I didn't have quite the right shade to match the periwinkle blue of the dress so I whipped up a custom shade in one of the mini bottles I just ordered from TKB Trading. They're really reasonably priced and got to me in about 2 days. Lucky me, we're both in California. I love being able to franken whenever inspiration strikes. 

I started out filling the bottle about half way with Sinful Colors, Candy Coated (a pastel purple) and added in just a bit of Wet n Wild, Listening to Blue Reed. I added in a little white as well to tone down the blue which was a little too bright at first. It's still a bit brighter than the shade of the dress but I decided to leave well enough alone before I did something to ruin it. I used a small paint brush to dot it on to the edges of my nails in random spots like flower petals.