NAIL ART: Gilded Mauve Fall Leaves Nails

by - September 24, 2020


Honestly, I feel like this mani has been basically years in the making. I've always, always, always wanted to create a mani using this leaves image from the WhatsUpNails B044r From Ground Comes Life stamping plate and I've been holding off hoping for a fall mani... and then I just couldn't figure out what shades I wanted to use to create it. In fact, I've tried a few times already and nothing I tried felt like it did justice to just how much I love this image. Ultimately, I paired it with one of my favorite indie polishes and some of my favorite colours and I love how it turned out.... but hoo boy, was it a process to get here. 

Keep reading for more!


Choosing a base colour was definitely the hardest part for this mani, but when it occurred to me to reach for Polished For Days' Eudaimonia, it all sort of clicked at this point. This polish is a sort of mauve nude that's just chocked full of flakies and holo and even though it's such a neutral, easy to wear shade all of that texture really makes it feel special to me. It's one of those polishes that I lusted after for ages and then finally pulled the trigger on and have really loved ever since, even though I don't reach for it all that often. 


Choosing the colours for the leaves was really the trick for me, but it all came together when I decided to use Clear Jelly Stamper's Pass The Pinot to pick up my image. It's a rich berry shade that I think pairs really well with the base colour, even more so once I filled in the images with shimmery gold polish. I decided to only use a portion of the image on all of my nails (partially a creative decision and partially because these images are just barely big enough for my nails and I didn't want to mess up the transfer and end up with sloppy images) so before filling them in I removed everything but the one sprig of leaves I wanted to use with a lint roller. For the gold, I wanted to stick to a more neutral gold, so I used probably my favorite gold polish in my collection, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Go For The Gold.

I transferred the reverse stamped image to my nails using a thin layer of sticky base coat and cleaned up any ragged edges with a cuticle tool. The cool thing about only doing these sprigs of leaves is that the clean up is super easy and I didn't even need liquid latex or a clean up brush. To finish, I applied a thin coat of water based top coat to seal in my stamping and followed with a quick dry glossy top coat. Voila!


All Products Used
Polished For Days - Eudaimonia
Clear Jelly Stamper - Pass The Pinot
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Go For Gold
Orly Bonder Base Coat
Suncoat Water Based Top Coat
Quo Flash Dry Top Coat
What's Up Nails B044 Stamping Plate
What's Up Nails Magnified Clear Stamper


I love love love this stamping image so much and I know that it's one I'll end up using again in the future - and I honestly kind of can't wait, even though I love how this turned out. I have to say, I'm having a bit of a love affair with What's Up Nails Stamping Plates lately and you can definitely count on seeing more mani's featuring them in the near future.

Thanks for reading!

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