NOTW: Tea Time

My mother recently gifted me some gorgeous Moyra & DRK Nails stamping plates. I saw many of these plates sometime last year, well before I had even started stamping, and I absolutely loved them! This is a super-special gift; the plates are all so beautiful that I’ve been rather overwhelmed and at a loss for what to do first! I finally decided upon this as the inaugural mani for this batch of plates:

The initial batch of photos I took didn’t quite turn out the way I’d hoped, so I took these a couple of days later while “working” at a coffee shop (yes, I was that crazy person taking macro shots of my nails in public!); as you can see, there’s a bit of tip wear.

On my thumb, pinky & index fingers, I’m wearing two coats of Maybelline in Paint the Town. Over that, I applied the dots with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Barely There and Insta Dri in Black to Black. On the other two fingers, I’m wearing a base of two coats of Barely There. Over that, I stamped with Moyra plate #22 (Gastromania) and Black to Black. For the thumb, I made a decal using an image of a teabag. I’ve included the link for the store I bought it at, but for those of you in the US & Canada, I know it’s also available at the DRK Nails online store (which is currently down) and at Beautometry.

What can I even say about this plate that will do it justice? (I’m yet to use the others.) The images look like hand-drawn sketches — some of them more childish/fun and others more mature — but all so beautiful, detailed and unique! The etching is very good, and all the fine details pick up perfectly. As I mentioned, I used regular nail polish instead of stamping polish and it picked up beautifully nonetheless. I think this particular image would look great coloured in, but there was already much going on here, so I decided to let it be. I’d love to know what you think of this manicure, so let me know in the comments!

Time for a Vogue shot: