THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS. 

I've always had a little bit of a thing for nail art that reminds me of vintage wallpaper. I don't know what it is, but particularly if it feels like it would have fit perfectly adoring the walls of a midcentury modern space, these types of wallpaper patterns just do it for me. That being said, it's really only about half the time that I'm actually shooting for that vibe and the other half of the time it sort of just... happens. Luckily, in this case, that is definitely the vibe that I was going for. From the really warm color palette that feels straight out of the 60s to the sort of trippy stamping design, this is all wallpaper all the time. And I love it!

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So as the base for this mani, I really wanted to stay in a super warm sort of pumpkins and cranberries sort of color scheme and I wanted to have a little bit of texture smattered in there as well - but subtle. In the end, I decided to go with a 5 color smoosh to get the effect I was looking for. I started by applying one coat of the lightest color in the smoosh - a light neutral beige nude shade - to all of my nails. Next,  while that base layer was drying, I applied my Pueen Latex Tape Liquid Peel Off Cuticle Guard* to all of my fingers to protect the skin and make clean up easier. For me, this is definitely not a step I'd ever skip when doing a smoosh because it really does make an incredible mess. 

Once my base polish and latex were both dry, I went in with my smoosh. I started by applying scattered dots of beige nude, burnt orange, deep berry, metallic gold, and metallic burgundy polishes to my stamper head. Next, I just went in an pounced the stamper onto the nail until I got to the blend and texture that I was looking for. This is definitely something that takes a little bit of practice, but once you get the hang of it, it's actually a really simple technique. 

Next, I wanted to add this sort of... wobbly bullseye stamping image from the Pueen 120 Stamping Plate to all of my nails using a soft beige stamping polish. The cool thing about this image, which comes from one of their small, round plates is that it's actually really, really easy to play around with placement in order to make each nail unique, so I just sort of twisted and adjusted the placement for each nail to really break up the design.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I removed the latex barrier and cleaned up the edges with a brush dipped in acetone and then sealed everything in with a nail art top coat to prevent smudging. Finally, I finished with a matte top coat to bring down the shine and really drive home that mid-century modern wallpaper feel. And voila!

I definitely have the sneaking suspicion that this is one of those styles of nail art that I personally absolutely love but is probably not going to hit with everyone. I feel like I have a lot of those. But still, I'm pretty over the moon in love with how it turned out. It's exactly what I was shooting for and I love the way the movement of that stamping image really sort of vibes with the movement of the smoosh background. I love it when things work out!

If you're interested in trying out any of the Pueen products I used in this mani, they're all available from Amazon and they definitely get my stamp of approval, especially if you're just starting out with nail art!

Thanks for reading!