Autumn Leaves

Since we are supposed to be in Autumn (anyone else still dealing with high temperatures? O_o) I got the idea in my head to do some Autumn leaves on my previous manicure. It was the picture below from Konad Stamping Nail Art that inspired my design, of course my nails are NOWHERE near THAT long!!

Konad Design from KONAD

So with that in mind I scoured through my Konad plates until I found the design I wanted to use. I used the leaf designs on Konad plate M20.

Konad plate M20 Image from ICNA

I only stamped half the design on each nail alternating either the big leaf or the small leaf. Then I moved onto the next colour and again alternated which leaf I used. I kept doing this with a new colour until there was no room left - so there are fewer colours on y pinkie compared to my thumb. All up I used Konad Special Polish Gold, Yellow, Blue, Light Grey, Dark Purple, Gold Brown and Green for each successive leaf. Lastly I used Konad Special Top Coat to seal my design.

So what did it end up looking like...

      Left Hand

Autumn Leaves in Artificial Light - Left Hand

Autumn Leaves in Artificial Light - Left Hand

Autumn Leaves in Shade/Natural Light - Left Hand

Unfortunately it was overcast the following day so I have no photos in full sunlight.

    Right Hand

Autumn Leaves in Artificial Light - Right Hand

Autumn Leaves in Artificial Light - Right Hand

Autumn Leaves in Shade/Natural Light - Right Hand

I'm happy with how this turned out :) I wanted it to have multicoloured leaves on the brown background and that's exactly how it looks. I also found it useful to see which colours turned up on the brown for when I want to stamp on similar dark colours. My pad of paper had a large amount of mess left over after stamping so many times!!

China Glaze Holly-Day and M3

Today I decided to add a Konad design to my Holly-Day manicure. I knew that I wanted to add something to my design but wasn't sure whether I wanted to add a glitter top coat, draw a design or stamp a design. In the end I decided stamping would be the easiest way.

I chose the scattered star design on Konad plate M3 to stamp over China Glaze's Holly-Day.

Konad Plate M3 from ICNA

I used the smaller side of the Konad Double Sided Stamper to stamp the design on each nail in Konad Special Polish Gold. I wanted the stars to curve around the top area of my nail and chose to stamp the design in the same location on each nail instead of trying to do an inverted design on the opposite hand. After stamping I applied a coat of Konad Top Coat since I didn't want to risk smudging my design.

 

I waited a few minutes and then took these photo's in natural light.

China Glaze's Holly-Day with Konad M3

 China Glaze's Holly-Day with Konad M3

Although I like this design I think it's a bit subtler than I wanted. The gold stamping was very light, however, when the sun hit the design at a certain angle the gold would really show through. I like the stars but I wish that they stamped brighter like in the second photo.