Hey guys! I think most nail artists that I've seen have some sort of classic mani's that they do and I have to say that today's mani is probably a version of that for me. Three years ago, when I was still quite new at doing nail art, I did a mani that I called my Nude & Gold Rose Nail Art and I think it was a bit of a turning point for me as far as moving into my own and finding my own style, so every so often I recreate a version of that design. As I was looking through some gorgeous stamping plates that Pueen sent over to me to try out, I saw this rose sort of tucked into a full cover image and immediately my brain wanted to isolate it and put together this design - so I did!

Keep reading for more!

When I was trying to decide on the color story for this mani, I pretty quickly decided that I wanted to keep it mostly black and white, with a little bit of hidden rainbow hiding in the background. I'm still very much in a black rose sort of mood - see my last post for some context on that... - and I felt like leaning into that with all of the choices I made for this mani. I started with a base of two coats of Paint It Pretty Polish's Rainbow Clouds, a favorite polish of mine that is sadly no longer available. This polish is a white crelly base that ends up pulling quite gray on the nails on account of the absolute explosion of stunning metallic flakes through it, and it makes a great nail art base.

To go along with my base polish, I also grabbed Pueen stamping polishes in Love Affair*, which I would describe as a metallic gunmetal purple, along with Pure White* and Black Jack*. I very much felt like these three polishes would bring exactly what I needed to this mani while maintaining that monochrome look I was going for.

For the nail art, I started by applying the Pueen Latex Cuticle Barrier* to the nails that were going to be getting stamping at the base of the nail and let that dry. Next, I went in with my drybrushing. I started by drybrushing Love Affair at opposing corners of each nails, dragging at a diagonal towards the center of the nail. Next, I repeated the same process with Pure White, careful not to overtake that first round of drybrushing. Once I was happy with the dry brushing, I went in with my stamping.

It actually doesn't often occur to me to isolate parts of full cover images and use them as small images, but this rose image from the Pueen Secret Garden 01 Stamping Plate* was so pretty and so perfect for this design that I knew I had to use it that way. To do this, I applied stamping polish to the plate, focusing on the part of the image that I wanted to use, and picked it up on my stamper head. Working quickly, I then used the top edge of a lint roller as well as the corner of scraper to remove everything but the flower from my stamper. For the placement, I decided that I wanted to keep it to the corners of the nails, so I alternated and shifted the placement to get a little bit more interest to the design. Once I was finished with the stamping, I went in with a dotting tool and the same black stamping polish to add a few dots to each nail at the corner opposite the rose placement.

Once I was happy with my design, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat before finishing with a generous layer of quick dry glossy top coat. And voila!

If there's one takeaway from this mani, I really do feel like it's that when you look at your tools a little bit differently, sometimes you can create something entirely different. I have no doubt that I could make a really pretty mani just using this full cover image, but I really like the vibe that comes from isolating that small part of it to do something entirely different. 

Have you checked out Pueen yet? I partnered with them for this mani, but I've actually been using some of their products consistently for years and really, really enjoy them. Definitely recommend checking them out!

Thanks for reading!