NOTD: Under The Sea

As you might now by now, I'm a devout fan of Disney and Disney songs. Yesterday evening I was listening to my favorite album like ever (Disney Princess collection), and got to the song Under The Sea from The Little Mermaid. I have no idea what it is doing on Disney Princess collection but hey, it was inspiring nevertheless. ;)

Another inspiration was yet again, Bregje from Oooh, Shinies! with her Gradient Stamping manicure. I was originally going to use the colors used in Gluttony manicure but with the theme I was going for, pink and gold wasn't suitable.

I started by doing a gradient base for gradient stamping as... More is sometimes more, as you might have noticed with me. ;) My base is two coats of OPI My Vampire Is Buff and the gradient was done with basic kitchen sponge, MVIB and Can't Find My Czechbook. If you like to see the swatches of the colors, I had a post up yesterday, you can find it here.

The stamp is from Magno Nails plate A48. The koi fish image is definitely one of my favorites of all time. I wanted to create the effect of shiny fish scales that glisten in the sun, so I went for China Glaze and Color Club chrome and metallic shades. The gradient was done with four different shades from darkest to lightest: Color Club Cold Metal, China Glaze Adore, Metallic Muse and Passion.

For the best result I added a stroke of each polish on the stamping plate and used a dotting tool to diffuse the lines a bit to make the colors mix into each other better. I also followed Bregje's advice and scraped the polish twice, left to right then right to left. Cleaning the plate after each stamp also helped loads. :)

Pics can't capture it properly but I really really adore this manicure and the subtle flashing of colors I get when I move my hand, it really gives the effect of fish scales glistening. :)

Have you tried gradient stamping yet?