There are several blogs out there who are my stamping gods. One of them is Bregje's at
Oooh, Shinies! I am in awe of her and her stamping. She actually came up with rules to follow for stamping. One of her rules is a light base and dark stamping. She has been trying the opposite lately. Her other
rules apply to when to stamp with shimmers and cremes. You need to check out her blog.
I normally do the opposite of Bregje. I love dark polish so I normally start with a dark base and add a light stamp. Lately, I have been having too many subtle manis and I thought I'd try out something different. I also tried a new method of stamping. I normally roll the design on but have found I either smear it or there are light and dark patches. This time I did straight up and down on my nails and boy did I see a huge difference!
First up, the silly bottle shot.
I have had that afghan since I was a little girl. My Gramma made it for me. I am also doing a brown fest today since it has been a while since I wore my favorite color. This is OPI A Taupe the Space Needle and Get in the Espresso Lane. All from this Fall's collection.
I started with the taupe and used espresso for the accent nail to show how I normally would have done it. Here are your shots.
 |
| Sun |
 |
| Shade |
 |
| Sun |
 |
| Shade |
The taupe is such a pretty neutral. The formula on these was very nice. I don't normally buy OPI-but these are nice. The espresso is a deep dark chocolate. So pretty. Next, using my new stamping method, I used my new XXL plate #4 and topped it off with my funky french. Here are the results.
 |
| Sun |
 |
| Shade |
 |
| Indoors |
 |
| Sun |
 |
| Shade |
 |
| Close Up |
 |
| Macro |
Using the new stamping technique really makes a huge difference for me. I have no light and dark spots, all the parts of the design are there and it just works so much better than the roll on method. I need to update my tutorial. I stamped straight on putting a finger under the nail to be stamped for control of movement. I then stamped with strong even pressure and it truly works better!
Now on to Bregje's rule-what do you guys think? Is the dark on light base better or light on dark base? I must admit that you can see the design much better on the light base. For me, I like them both. I know that I will try more light bases in the future.
Any thoughts out there? Who's loving my brown fest?
