One of My All Time Faves

Gonna try and make this quick if I can.  But I love this mani, so it may be a little difficult.  Let's get right to it!

Once again, this is a late Adventures in Stamping Sunday mani.  The theme was shadow or double stamping.  This has recently become one of my favorite stamping techniques.  It gives everything such depth.

I know that this isn't a "summer appropriate" mani, more a fall or winter mani.  I DON'T CARE.  I am head over tips in love with this.  I have a thing for brocade fabric (even my wedding dress was brocade) and this calls to mind luxurious, thick, intricately stitched dresses or drapes from the Baroque era.  *sigh*

Natural lighting

This started with three coats of what was a long time lemming for me, SpaRitual Conglomerate.  Found it at a discount store at an awesome price.  It is an unusual shade of grey, dark and murky with an olive tinge, filled with gold shimmer and white/black micro dots.  Concrete...granite...mica....all mashed into one gorgeous polish.  Of course I have a love for stones and the beauty that nature can create in them, so it was inevitable that I would love this.
 

With flash

The formula on this was awesome.  No fishing for the dots, although it seems that the majority of them had settled towards the bottom.  No dragging or bald patches.  It applied smoothly with no cuticle flooding, staying exactly where I put it.  Be still my beating heart.  This is three coats, although you could get away with two, and a coat of Seche Vite.  Top coat is definitely a must for this as the gorgeous glimmer stays a bit hidden without it.

  
Next I stamped with Finger Paints Black Expressionism and DRK-B.

Can I gush about this image?  Most of you know that I love symmetry and order, but when it comes to stamping my nails, I tend to like random stamping.  Because of this, I often invert images or stamp vertically instead of horizontally on some of my nails.  This image, though, and many others on the DRK plates, are sooo huge that I could use each corner for a whole nail, getting four different parts of the image on four nails.  I can't begin to tell you how I am crushin on how each nail looks totally different and yet the same.  Must add more of these to my stash!

Finally I stamped with the same image and Maybelline Bold Gold, brassy in all it's metallic perfection.  My original intention was to do some shadow stamping, but, because I used all different parts of this image, I decided to save myself the headache of perfection.  Just go with the flow, I decided, and I was glad that I did.  Get ready for multitudes of pics.  I just can't help myself!

What do you think?  Love it as much as I do?  It made me feel elegant and bold at the same time.

As always, thanks for looking and commenting!
 Tina