Monday Blues: Squishy Watercolor

Hello my lovelies! It's a cold and rainy Monday in my neck of the woods but I've got a manicure that will instantly cheer us up. I'm honestly very happy with how this turned out, so happy that I've been using the images as my desktop background for the past week. This manicure is the first where I've used a new for me technique. I don't know what the official name for this is, some call it squishy, others call it smooshy, but basically it involves a stamper for applying your colors on the nail. It's been around for a while now and it seems that a lot of people have been using this technique. I've seen a lot of nails done this way in the last few weeks, so I decided to try it out. Here's the result!

For the base of these nails I used three Kiko cremes and my trusty Barry M Cotton to start with. After I applied the white, I used a stamper where I randomly applied the colors. I then stamped them on the nail making sure not to leave any bald spots. The Kiko cremes I used are 333 Brilliant Violet, 294 Indigo and 289 Mint Milk. They all have a nice opacity and are perfect for this technique. I then applied a coat of Seche Vite to level everything out.

I really loved the result by itself but I decided to add a little something extra by stamping some images from plate BP-L010 from the Born Pretty Store. I really wanted to stamp the dreamcatcher on my accent nail and let me tell you it wasn't easy. The lines in this design are very fine and the stamping polish dries inside them before you can pick up the image. I must have tried it like 30 times with different polishes before I managed to get a whole crisp image. At this point I don't even remember what polish I stamped with. I decided to do a different image on the rest of the nails and went with the one you see in the pictures. On my thumb I stamped a Native American. I usually don't photograph my thumb but I really liked how this turned out.

I really hope you like this as much as I did. I was a bit skeptical about this technique but ended up loving it in the end. I already did another manicure using it since I did this one. I also think that the struggle with the stamping was totally worth it because the end result is amazing. Sorry if I'm tooting my own horn too much. Make sure you check out the rest of the Monday Blues of April by clicking the links below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Have a great week!