When I first saw product photos of the new stamping plate releases from Whats Up Nails, immediately I couldn't wait to put together a mani using the stamping image I used to create this design. It almost has the vibe of a children's drawing, in the very best way possible and I knew that I could create a really pretty design with it. This mani actually ended up being really simple and straight forward and came together quite quickly with, I think, a pretty solid ratio of effort to impact. 

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I actually had the idea of using this image over a gradient initially since I felt like it would give the most impact to the design, but then I remembered that I had this brand spankin' thermal polish from Hearts & Promises that felt absolutely perfect for what I had in mind. 90210, from the 90s TV themed month of Polish Pickup, is a greyed out lavender in its cold state and a mauve pink in its warm state with scattered holo as well as gold and shifting flakes and it is just... insanely pretty. I very, very much wish I could recommend picking it up, but unfortunately this was a PPU shade so it is no longer available. 

For this mani, I applied 2 coats of 90210 to all of my nails and let them dry while I worked on my reverse stamping.

I knew that I wanted to fill in the flowers for this mani, but it took some time before I landed on white for them. There's just something about pretty white flowers for spring, I think, and it seemed like a really good fit. I decided to pick up the image in black to get the most impact possible and then I grabbed for my current ride-or-die favorite white polish - Jen & Berries' Snowfall In Sunnydale - as well as both a dotting tool and a really tiny nail art brush. Filling in these quite tiny flowers was actually surprisingly easy and I did it straight on the stamper head. Once my images were ready to transfer (dry to the touch but still flexible), I applied a thin coat of sticky base coat to one nail at a time and let it dry down until it was tacky before transferring the image directly from the stamper to the nail.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I cleaned up using a pair of tweezers as well as a flat brush dipped in acetone. Next, I sealed in the design with a nail art top coat so that I wouldn't end up with any smudging. Once everything was dry, I applied a glitter smoothing top coat to smooth any lumps from the fill on the flowers and then followed with a glossy top coat for shine and volume. And voila!

I have to say, I love love love everything about how this turned out. I love that thermal base and that it so easily created exactly the type of gradient look that I wanted for this design, I love the shimmery white for the flowers, and I love just the overall springy-but-not-on-the-nose look of the design. Obsessed! Honestly, like I said in my last post, I definitely think the Whats Up Nails B074 Stamping Plate* is a bit of a must have and I highly recommend picking it up. Keep an eye on the blog here in the next couple of weeks because I definitely have more mani's planned using these images!

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