Did I buy the stamping plate that I used for today's mani specifically for the purpose of doing this mani? Pretty much. Pretty. Much. I saw these cute little bride and groom images and I was like, "Well, I guess I need to get that and put them on my nails." So I did. Honestly, filling in these really small images is not my favorite thing in the world, but... I mean... it's just so damn cute at the end of the day that it's hard to deny. I also paired it with this beautiful new-to-me indie polish base and I'm pretty smug over here at how it turned out, I will admit. 

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I'm trying to be a little bit more thoughtful these days when it comes to what kinds of indie polishes I'm picking up, specifically because I always want to be able to use them as bases for nail art. Recently, after being reminded during my holiday nails marathon how much I loved Polished For Days polishes, I picked up Fern because I just knew that it would make a great base for nail art. It is described as "a pale coral pink base with orange to green shifting irridescent flakes and holographic flakes" and it is... just so pretty. I definitely feel like it leans quite peachy on me, I think because of the combination of the warm pink base and the warm shift in the flakes, and it has a great balance of softness and depth that I really love.

For this mani, I applied two coats. On me, this didn't give full opacity, but it did camouflage my nail line and gave a really pretty, jelly look to the nails. 

For the stamping, I sort of winged the design as I went, but I definitely knew that I wanted to do reverse stamping. I always prefer to do reverse stamping on my stamper, so I just pick it up and fill in the image right on the stamper head using a combination of dotting tools and fine nail art brushes - all of the ones I use are from NailStuff.ca* and I highly, highly recommend checking out their selection of tools. To apply the stamping to my nail, I just apply a sticky base coat over whatever polish base I have going and let it dry for maybe about a minute until it's tacky and then transfer my image to the nail.

As for the actual design of this mani, I knew that I wanted the bride and groom to be on my middle two nails and when I placed them, I angled the images slightly towards each other to give a sort of heart like illusion - though I'm not entirely sure if that comes across, so I'm hoping it's subconscious. For my first finger, I decided to go all in with the cuteness and add the "TRUE LOVE" text along with some tiny little hearts and then I finished by adding the tiny hearts to my pinkie as well.

Once I was happy with the stamping, I went in with a water based top coat to seal in the design and then finished with a quick dry glossy top coat to really pop the design overall and voila!

It's funny because there are a million reasons why this mani isn't really ~me, but I'm still kind of in love with the sweetness of it. I just sort of love it and I'm so, so glad that I picked up this stamping plate and went through with doing this mani - it doesn't always happen.

Be sure to head over to Cosmetic Proof and See The World In PINK for more pink & red themed nail art for Valentine's Day. And also, because someone just can't resist a theme, check back every day this week for more Valentine's Day nail art designs!

Thanks for reading!