Before & After: Inspired by red

Hello!

All I have to say is UGH. I hope this is one of those cases where I'm my own worst critic, because holy moly I hate how this came out. Maybe it's the pressure of doing your favorite color family justice--today's prompt in the CNT 31 Day Challenge is to do a manicure from your favorite color family. Maybe it's because I'm crazy sick with a horrendous cold. I don't know. All I know is ICK.

I started this manicure after doing my dupe-or-no-dupe post with China Glaze Ruby Pumps; that polish and its snowman dupe are such pretty reds, I figured that would be a good base for the manicure:

China Glaze Ruby Pumps and Sally Girl 'Glitter' Snowman

Next, I added a a layer of a new glitter polish that recently purchased from Glitzology, called Sock Monkey; it's a mix of red, white and brown-black hex glitters (medium and teeny) and gold hexes and squares and squares in a shimmery light taupey-brown base:

Glitzology Sock Monkey over Ruby Pumps and 'Glitter'

I love this whimsical blend :)

And that's when it all went very, very wrong.

I wanted to do something that went along with the dark brown-black hexes in the glitter, but I didn't take into account that they had been softened by the base of the glitter a bit. So I stamped over the tips using Konad Black, probably the darkest black you can stamp with, and Bundle Monster plate BM201:

Sometimes Konad black is TOO good...

And let's not mention the hot stamping mess on the ring finger...it didn't really show up that much until I saw it on camera

It's not horrendous, but it's not great either. What it boils down to is this. I think if I had stamped in a brownish red, this would have been really nice. Unfortunately, this is one of those times that I didn't put a layer of topcoat between the glitter and the stamping, so I couldn't remove it without damaging the base. And I thought about doing another manicure for today, but I'm so darned sick that that just wasn't going to happen. So I figured I'd post it in case I'm just being too hard on myself, or so that at least someone can learn from my misjudgment here! :)

Thanks for looking, and please check out the other manicures linked below, I'm sure the other participants had much more luck!

Xoxox,
M.