Colorful balloons

Hello my lovelies! It's Friday and I have a 3-day weekend so I thought I should post something first thing in the morning. I really needed this day off because I'm very tired. I had very little rest after the exam and then I had to get up early every day this week. Needless to say I slept like 10 hours last night. I also need to write some posts in the weekend so I can post them during the week. I'm simply too tired and not in the mood to write on some days. Enough with the whining. Let's get to the fun part! 

I made this nail art right after my exam, to celebrate my success. I wasn't sure what to do but these balloons from plate FUN 1 (reviewed and swatched here) really inspired me. The base is a lavender polish from Gabrini (M109). I didn't bother to show you a picture of it alone because it didn't  come out well at all.  These pictures are a lot more accurate, although they still are a bit too dark. I stamped with China Glaze Liquid Leather and then filled in the balloons with acrylic paint. 

I actually purchased these acrylics a few months ago from a local shop that specializes in painting supplies. I must admit, they were the cheapest set they had. I wanted a small set to try out and not spend a lot of money on. They also have other, more expensive brands and a lot of the bigger individual cans of paint in every color imaginable. The ones I bought are by ArtCreation and I got the set that contains 8 little 12 ml tubes. Keep in mind that this is the first time I try working with acrylics but I do know they should be opaque and I've seen a lot of videos of people using them. And let me tell you, these are not as they should be. 

You can see in the pictures that there's a lot of unevenness on the parts where I used the acrylics. That's because they are very watery. I've seen videos on how to thin them if they are too thick, but I don't think there's a solution to this problem. I had to use two coats to get the color to be opaque. And even so, they don't look good at all because application is uneven, since you have to stipple them on to avoid them spreading like water. And I think the colors should also be more vibrant once on the nail, because they do look very vibrant in the tubes. So I'll stick with using nail polish for the time being. I found that painting with nail polish is much easier for me. 

On the thumb, I stamped a Mickey Mouse image that also comes from the FUN 1 plate. You can also find this image on the fauxnad F2 plate. I still have trouble with showing all my fingers in a shot without doing the "claw" pose, so I did this individual one instead. 

I did manage to do the same on both my hands. That is the advantage of stamping. Once the outline was done I could easily paint the colors on even with my right (non-dominant) hand. I could never have done that free hand.