Best CND™ Creative Play Nail Lacquers to Stamp With

It’s no secret that I love stamping! Of all the methods and mediums one could use, my favourite is CND Creative Play Nail Lacquer.
Creative Play is a line of 80 traditional nail polishes with it’s on Base and Top Coat. For more info on Creative Play, how it works and what it’s good for, check out a previous blog HERE. Stamping is only one of the reasons I love Creative Play so much, it was not designed specifically to be used a stamping polish – it just so happens that many of the colours are perfect to stamp with, and that’s down to the micronized pigments in the formula.
From the 80 colours I’d say approximately 40 are ideal to stamp with, 20 are good for stamping depending on what background colour you are using, and the remaining 20 (the glitters and sheerer lacquers, are not the best choice for successful stamping.

If you are new to stamping or have been experiencing some challenges, check out this previous blog:
Nail Art Stamping – Rules to Live By! Step by Steps & Troubleshooting

 

Sweet Squared asked me to choose my two favourite Creative Play colours to stamp with to be part of a little kit available from today. For this kit I chose:

LET’S GO ANTIQUING – a fabulously opaque gold

POLISH MY ACT – an opaque, bold silver

To order this kit log in at Sweetsquared.com

I chose these colours because they look so wonderful over everything – it’s like they were made to stamp with!

The next two must have colours for stamping from the Creative Play range are:

BLACK + FORTH – perfect glossy black

I BLANKED OUT – bright opaque white

Black and white are always a good choice for nail art and are total must haves for creating gorgeous stamping nail art over any sort of background colour.

I get a lot of people telling me they have the black, white, gold and silver and are somehow disappointed they aren’t stamping with other colours much. Well here’s the thing, colours don’t by default look that amazing over other colours. If you want to stamp with a bright colour, you can create some really cool looks, but they will usually look best over a very light, or very dark background. Whereas, black, white, silver and gold will look fabulous over anything. If I am stamping with a bold colour over another bold colour, I’d often use one of these top 4 to double stamp – it makes the nail look more finished, and more refined.

Now we have the 4 core stamping colours out the way, let’s look at other colours from the Creative Play range that work best for stamping. One of the things that makes a polish good to stamp with is it’s opacity when applied in a thin layer. Your stamped on design will only be a thick as the depth of the carved out design on the stamping plate, so it needs to look bold and solid, even in one thin layer.

The top 5 Creative Play colours on my list are:

ISN’T SHE GRAPE – a cool creamy purple, my fav Creative Play purple to stamp with.
SHAMROCK ON YOU – a vibrant, heavily metallic green.
TOE THE LIME – pastel lime green, amazingly opaque over any background colour.
LIFE’S A CUPCAKE – lovely soft light pink, use in place of white for a softer, yet still opaque result. Beautiful for lace over glitter.
SKINNY JEANS – bright, vibrant mid-blue, super opaque, a dream to stamp with.

 

And for the next 5;

CURRANTLY SINGLE – amazingly vibrant magenta-red-raspberry. Looks different but equally fabulous over different background colours.
TAKE THE $$$ – Cool, heavily metallic bronze/gold. Looks particularly amazing over dark warm base colours.
HEAD OVER TEAL – Very fashionable colour, a personal fav, slight shimmer amongst it’s creaminess.
STEEL THE SHOW – Like a cold powder blue with a drop of purple added. Grey/blue creme.
OH! FLAMINGO – Super opaque baby pink.

 

5 more examples;

I LIKE TO MAUVE IT – soft, warmer lilac with a hint of shimmer.
ROYALISTA – the unmistakable royal blue of all royal blues
LOST IN SPICE – gorgeous, warm, metallic shimmer
DROP ANCHOR – a light turquoise blue creme
O-LIVE FOR THE MOMENT – heavily metallic earthy green

I’ll be updating this blog with more examples soon! And I’d love to know your favourite Creative Play colours to stamp with. Comment here or join me over on Facebook.

Thanks for checking out the blog! These nail examples were created for a 90 minute Facebook LIVE broadcast we did for the launch of the Yours Loves Fee stamping plates I designed in collaboration with Yours Cosmetics.

Check out the broadcast here: Fee Wallace – Stamping LIVE

It’s 90 minutes of step by steps, hints, tips, troubleshooting and banter. Hope it’s helpful!