52 week nail art challenge 47: Vinyls

Hi everyone!

It's time for Vinyls this week... and I'm not a particularly big fan of those. Or rather, for some reason I've never managed to use them properly so I prefer just about any other technique to using vinyls. But as time went by, some found their way into my stash and so I pulled out a really nice design to create this manicure:

I started these season-appropriate nails by painting all my nails in three thin coats of ILNP Vanish, a grayish beige polish with subtle holo sparkle. It's described as a dusty lilac but on my nails, not even a hint of purple showed up so I'll call it beige (which is exactly what I was looking for btw.)

I chose Herbstlaub (= Fall foliage in German) vinyls from Lina Lackiert Shop, so I peeled one off the backing (all leaves came out, no need to pry them out with a toothpick or anything) and stuck it to my silicone mat. I then dabbed three stamping polishes (YOURS Brown Chocolate, YOURS Red Maple and YOURS Yellow Mustard) all over the vinyl, making sure all open spaces were filled. I scraped away the excess polish like I would if I were stamping, immediately peeled off the vinyl and looked at the result: little marbled leaf decals. I repeated the process two times to make sure I would have enough leaves for all ten nails, as I like to wear my manicures for more than just the photoshoot so I almost always do both hands.

I had seen videos of people being able to peel off a decal created with a vinyl just like that but after I tore up four leaves trying to do that, I decided they needed reinforcement so I painted a layer of top coat on top (not the fast drying kind but the normal one). When that had dried, I could peel off the big decal and cut it up in separate leaves that I stuck to my nail after I had painted a coat of base coat over Vanish to make them stick. I finished with two generous coats of Seche Vite to even out everything and seal it.

The polishes I used:

ILNP Vanish, YOURS Brown Chocolate, YOURS Red Maple, YOURS Yellow Mustard

First of all I want to apologize for the out of focus picture. Unfortunately it's the best one I have, as a small accident involving a delivery, a broken bottle and acetone happened before I had the chance to check the pictures I took earlier. I hope you can still see what I tried to do, even if it's a bit blurry.

Having said that, I really like this! I'm actually sad I had to take it off so soon as I would have loved to wear this a bit longer. Oh well, at least I've found a way to use vinyls that doesn't make me want to pull my hair out. What do you think? Have you tried using vinyls this way?