Beginner Nail Art: Leafy French

I have recently taken an interest in nail art and so decided to post some here on this blog in a beginner nail art series.  By the way, when I say "beginner", I do not mean that I'm some nail art expert here to teach beginners how to do nail art! By "beginner", I mean that I myself am a complete newbie and beginner to this, and am sharing my adventures and designs in a way to say: hey, if a complete newbie like me can do this, so can you!
Click on the jump for supplies/colors used :)

I love French manicures, and this design is just a simple twist, adding a very sheer leaf stamp to a classic finish.

1) Paint white tips using white polish (1-2 coats depending on opacity of your polish)
 - I used Seche Porcelain by Seche Vite, 1 coat is opaque enough
 - the easiest way to do this as a newbie is to use tape (I used Seche Vite but you can use any other brand or make your own)
 - make sure to press the tape down hard before you paint each nail or the polish may leak under and make the line unclean, as you can see on the index finger. As you get used to this you can start to freehand it, I prefer to use the brush vertically rather than horisontally. 

2) Cover each nail with basecoat
 - the reason to do this AFTER the tips is purely personal preference. I do it because I use tape, and don't want to wait around for the base coat to dry before I tape!
 - I used Seche Clear by Seche Vite (love this basecoat, it prevents my nails from yellowing!)

3) Stamp each nail with leaf design using semi-sheer pink/lavendar polish
 - I used the leaf design from Bundle Monster #221 plate
 - if you're unfamiliar with stamping, refer to this tutorial by elleandish on Youtube
 - I used Helen by Julep as a stamping polish, which I received with my Maven intro box

4) When dry, cover with topcoat
 - I used the infamous Seche VIte Fast Dry Topcoat (although it smells bad, this stuff works really well to pull your whole design today into a nice glossy finish, and all those little imperfections that we newbies make, seem much less obvious!)

Enjoy! Let me know if you try this out and what you thought :)