More Stranger Stamping

Hello everyone.

Today is probably the hottest day of my life.  It's literally insane.  If I don't literally melt by the end of the day it will be a miracle.

My daughter currently refuses to let me put her to bed, so while my husband is doing that (after me trying and resulting in her screaming the house down - sorry neighbours!) I thought I'd catch up on some blog posts.  You know, because the cleaning can wait.

So this is the final look I have that I did over my base of OPI On Stranger Tides with the Sensationail Polish to Gel Transformer top coat.  As the floor outside Swansea train station says, ambition is critical.  Sometimes, however, you need to reign in that ambition and be realistic about your capabilities.  So this time I only attempted stamping on one nail instead of them all.

The gold accents are my old faithful Barry M Gold Foil.  Yet again my Seche Vite smudged my stamping so we're not on talking terms at the moment, although it's probably my fault for neglecting it for like two years and then using it without adding any thinner.  Oh well.

Anyhoo, this is the last manicure I did over my Sensationail base because I received some items to review for Born Pretty Store and I was itching to try the thermal polish.  This was great though, so easy to remove the nail art with an acetone-free remover so you can switch it up a bit, meaning you get all the benefits of gel without being stuck with the same boring manicure for two weeks.  Yay!

Stamping on Stranger Tides

As I said in my last post, I tried a couple of different stamping looks over my OPI On Stranger Tides and Sensationail Polish to Gel Transformer manicure.  This is the first of those.

I think the lovely muted green of the polish calls for some delicate white and gold detailing, so I rummaged through my plates and settled on this floral design from Konad plate M73.

I then added some little gold dots that you can’t actually see, such is their delicateness, but I assure you they make all the difference.

Then I added Seche Vite topcoat but it had gone all gloopy and smeared my stamping everywhere leaving me with this mess of a manicure, and I probably shouldn’t even admit this but this is actually the third attempt on my ring finger, at this point I just gave up. So yeah...stamping 1, Sam 0.

My second look was marginally more successful, so keep an eye out for that in the next few days!

London Calling

Happy Sunday everyone!  I'm having one of those weekends that feels like longer than two days, so I'm very happy :)  I was intending to post yesterday but I went to the park instead - got to make the most of British summer while it lasts (which could well only be a day or two).

And on the subject of British - today's nail art is London-themed.  I used the MoYou London Tourist Collection 01 plate, which I bought ages ago because it looked awesome but have only just got round to using.

For stamping I used Konad stamping polishes in white, red and blue, along with Barry M Black and Silver Foil.  The polishes used for the base colours are Barry M Cotton, Nails Inc Southwark, Ciate Boudoir and Barry M Red Glitter.

So this isn't a particularly coherent look, and I'm not really happy with how it turned out.  But I did use a few new techniques!  So for the little Queen's Guards I attempted two colour stamping.  The Union Flag stamp that I used on my thumb is all just one stamp, but I wanted to use both the red and blue.  So I made two decals - I stamped in each colour then removed the bits of the image I didn't want from the stamper with a toothpick, then made a decal by applying top coat over the image on the stamper and letting it dry.  I think this shrunk slightly though so it doesn't quite fit my nail, but we'll just pretend that's the look I was going for.

I also didn't intend to stamp 'London' on my index finger, but my London Eye ended up so off centre I had to add something else to make it look intentional.  Think my stamping still needs a bit of work!

If you've used this plate, I'd love to see what you've come up with :)

Sheer Gradient

Helloooo :)  So I survived One Direction!  It was quite good fun really and my sister is still in a bit of a daze, so it was worth it.  We did somehow find ourselves being shouted at by some crazed Niall fan to help her hold up her sign she'd made though...and she was not a child lol.  I'll post a few pictures if my sister ever comes out of her daze long enough to send me them.

Today I just have a very simple gradient to show you using OPI Sheer Tints.

I used a base of Barry M Matt White (I'm on the market for a new white if anyone has any suggestions?).  Then I added rough layers of OPI I Can Teal You Like Me.  For some reason my camera likes to blend all the layers together, so here's a picture from my phone where the layers show up a bit better:

 Lastly, I added some fishy stamping from one of my MoYou plates, using Star Gazer 232.

I'd love some more suggestions for nail art looks to try out with these polishes!  Just leave a comment :)

Wavy Stamping

Three days until hen do number one!  Need to figure out what I'm going to do on my nails.  Should probably work out what I'm going to wear first...hmmm...

Aaaaanyway, today I have a pretty little Revlon polish to show you.  This is Revlon Popular, which I think is also known by another name, but I can't for the life of me think what.  I picked this up from Fragrance Direct - if you've never bought from there, go now!  The colour range tends to be a bit limited, but they are super cheap.

It's actually a lot prettier than I was expecting (what? No, I didn't just buy it because it was cheap and I have no self control!).  It's a super super soft pink base with different size silver hex glitters.  I don't really know whether to call this a jelly or a creme....which I suppose makes it a crelly?  Above is three coats with no undies, and as you can see, no problems with VNL!

Then, because my first MoYou London plates had recently arrived, I decided to do a bit of stamping.

This is from the Sailor Collection Plate 4, stamped with Konad stamping polish.  I wanted something a little chunky that wouldn't be lost amongst the glitter...although then I felt a little sad that so much of the polish was covered up!  Some people are just never happy :p

Also, can I just add, I stamped EVERY nail.  That is quite the achievement for a rubbish stamper like me.

Unfortuntely, I just looked on the MoYou website to check which number plate this was and..er...well I think I have to go buy a few more plates now...

Bridesmaids Nails

Right, I know I know, I've been a terrible blogger...but moving on!

My best friend got married last month :)  She asked me to do bridesmaids nails, so I tried out a few ideas for her.  We were wearing red dresses with white fur shrugs, so we decided to go with red and white, with gold accents, for the nails.

These are the designs I did for her to choose from (and thank you to everyone in various Facebook groups for suggestions!).

All I can say in thankfully she didn't choose the fishtail braid tip!

I didn't think I used that many different polishes, but now that I have to list them all out there are quite a few!  The main red is OPI Flick Chick Cherry, plus Barry M Red Glitter, Gold Foil and Matt White, OPI Minnie Style, China Glaze Pure Joy and Hits Atenas.

These nails were one of the runners up...

She didn't go for those in the end, which is a shame because they would have been dead quick...  I did bring the glitter with me in the hope she'd have a change of heart lol.

These are the ones she chose :)

The glitter is Saffron 02 and I used Konad white stamping polish with one of the MoYou Christmas plates (the one with the gingerbread house on!) for the stamping.  Now, you know I'm not a stamper, and it almost killed me doing 30 nails!  Thank goodness there was champagne!  Quite a few times I tried to stamp and the image just didn't transfer at all - any advice on what I was doing wrong here?  Maybe not drying off all the acetone or something?

Which nails are your favourite?

And I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year!  (Gosh, it really has been a long time since I posted...sorry!)

A Little Parisian Stamping

Bonjour my lovelies.  TGIF!  Do you have anything nice planned for the weekend?  I'm off to a conference in Brighton on Monday, so me and my OH have decided to make a weekend of it.  Tomorrow night we're staying in a hotel with a jacuzzi in the room...pretty darn swish.

Today I have another product I was sent from Born Pretty Store to show you!  Born Pretty Store has a huge selection of nail art products, including loooaaads of stamping plates, which is what I'm showing you today :)

This plate is QA42, and it has lots of Paris-y images!  There are four different versions of the Eiffel Tower (which is actually the reason I chose it, and I've ended up not using any of those images!), as well as the Moulin Rouge and a couple of airmail-type images.  And Big Ben.  I don't quite understand why that's there, but there we go!

First of all I decided to use the airmail images.  I struggled a little with the image transfer, but no more than I usually do with Konad or MoYou, so I can safely say that's down to operator error.  As I mentioned when I last reviewed a Born Pretty Store plate, they don't have any backing on them.  I read a review once that said the edges were sharp, but I jabbed at myself with it (all in the name of a thorough review!) and it was fine.

I used Barry M Matt White and Bright Red for my base colours.  Then I stamped with Barry M Gold Foil and Konad Red, and added some airmail envelope tipes with my Sharpies.  I probably should've used some tape to make this neater, but you know how I hate tape...

Next I decided to go for the Moulin Rouge image!

When we went to Paris we didn't really have much time to look at the Moulin Rouge...it's in probably the dodgiest area I've ever been, so we took a quick photo and were on our way!  Then we passed a shop that had Eiffel Tower shaped...er...toys in the window.  All very charming.

Anyhoo, I used Barry M Black and stamped with Konad Red again, then added a couple of rhinestones to my other nails.

All in all, I think the Born Pretty Store stamping plates are as good a quality as any others, and at £1.29 each they're a lot cheaper than some of the alternatives out there.  You can check out this particular plate here.  Don't forget, shipping is free worldwide, and you can get 10% of any purchase with the code LKL91 (and you can use it as many times as you like!).

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Black & White Challenge #2: Stamping

I WILL get this posted today!  Don't know why I'm feeling so lazy recently!  I also need to pack for a weekend at home, but I've been sitting here watching TV all night instead...

Anyhoo, yes, today the challenge prompt is stamping!  Ok...I can do that...maybe only on one hand, but all the same...

Here's what I came up with:

Of course, once again I used Barry M Matt White and Black, with a Barry M nail art pen on the black nails, and Konad M73 on the white nails.

Sorry, just a short post today!  I need to go and pack all my nail polishes for the weekend!

Don't forget to have a look at all the other black and white manicures!

Born Pretty Store Stamper (and a little 4th of July)

Good evening :)  I suppose I should be saying good night really...definitely past my bedtime!

Today I have a stamper from Born Pretty Store that I was sent to review.  You may have seen similar stampers on some other blogs recently, as I've seen them pop up in a few other places too.  They're a little different from your Konad style stamper, and here's why!

There's no plate, scraper and stamper here, it's literally just the rubber stamper with the images on it.  I chose this plate because it has full nail designs, and I do love me a full nail design.

So the way you use these is obviously a little different from stamping plates.  You paint the polish on to the design (as normal), then use a toothpick or similar to gently swipe off some of the excess - you really don't need to be too neat at this point.  Next, to remove the rest of the excess gently stamp on to some paper.  My top tip is this - stamp it on to paper as many times as you need to to get rid of ALL the unwanted polish.  I was a bit worried at first that if I did it too many times I'd start losing polish from the design, or that it would all dry and it would transfer!  But it was fine :)  So stamp away.  Finally, just stamp it on to your nail!  I used a rolling motion like I would with Konad.

The first thing I noticed when I unpacked the stamper was the size of the images.  They are really small.  I was so disappointed!  There was absolutely no way they were covering my full nail (except my little finger, but that is weirdly teeny), so I didn't even try.

So below I have two nail art designs that I did with this stamper, using it just over part of the nail.

For this look I used Barry M Black, Star Gazer 232 and a Konad stamping polish.  I fully intended to stamp the star design, but it was like 10:30pm and apparently I forgot that's what I meant to do, and ended up with zebras instead.

It took me a few attempts to get these so that I was happy with them.  I realised at this point I wasn't going to get nice clean lines with these, so I decided to embrace the messiness and go for this messy 4th July manicure!

Here I used Barry M Matt White and Nails Inc Southwark, and Konad stamping polishes again.  You can see some of the stars came out really well as I got a bit more practice.  My little finger though...they're more blobs than stars.  You can also see on my ring and thumb nails that because of the shape of the stamper, it's really hard to get right up to the cuticle.

So, my final verdict?

Hmm...I'm really not sure actually.  I really don't think you'd be able to get the same kind of crisp lines that you can with stamping plates (well, that you can if you're better at stamping than me!), but I did find it a lot easier to use than plates.  The fact that you just stamp away on paper until you've got rid of all the excess is so much less faff that the scraper, and I felt like I didn't have to work so quickly.

So, I'd probably buy one again over a stamping plate, but not full nail designs because, well...they don't cover your full nail!  I'm eyeing up A25...

You can see this product here.  They're $2.99 (£1.98) each, with free shipping worldwide.  And don't forget!  If you decide to buy a stamper or anything else (anything at all!) from Born Pretty Store, you can use the code LKL91 for 10% off.

PS. Happy 4th of July to all my American readers :)

Untried Challenge: Day 1

Ah, Monday tomorrow!  Boo!  The weekend seriously needs to be a day longer.  I do enjoy my job, I just haaate waking up before 10am lol.  I know, I'm lazy...

Anyhoo, I'm starting a new challenge!  Jonochi from Just Add Polish is hosted this fab Untried Polish Challenge.  It's a post every three days (which I should be able to keep up with!) and a great opportunity to try and use some of those polishes that have been neglected.

So this morning I sat and went through all my polishes, trying to remember which ones I haven't used.  It is possible that one or two of these have been used for a small nail art detail somewhere, but as far as I can remember, they haven't been.

Here's what I have to play with:

Definitely more than the 19 that are required to complete the challenge...  There's quite a mixture in there - Barry M, Nails Inc, loads of OPI minis, China Glaze, Ninja Polish, W7 and so on and so forth.  Plenty to choose from!

Here's the challenge prompts:

So for today's one colour manicure I used...erm...well, I'd call both of these purpley pink.  Totally one colour.

This is OPI Sparrow Me The Drama and Hits Specialita Pega Pega (available from Sally Magpies).  Then I made a poor attempt at stamping, and added a few rhinestones to finish the look off.

Pop on over to take a look at all the other ladies participating in the challenge:

Jonochi at Just Add Polish

Masha at Lost In Lacquer

Raine at Lacquer Lily

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents

Amy at The Fancy Side

Patricia at Polished and Glittered

Flip Flop #15: Stamping

Hello ladies :)  I hope you've all had a lovely Sunday!

I'm now settled in my hotel for the next few days.  It has a four poster bed and it's so high I have to jump onto it.  AMAZING.  I'm suddenly far more okay with being kicked out of my flat for a few days.  I just wish I could have my cooked breakfast now though, yum yum yum.

So for day 15 the choices were Stamping or Jelly Sandwich.  I still haven't tried a jelly sandwich, but I went with stamping because I already had an idea that I'd been wanting to try out.

When I received my stamping plate from Born Pretty Store (you can see the review here) I had the idea of doing multicoloured stamping with the apple image, so that's what I attempted today!  Be warned, this is my first attempt at using more than just one colour!

I used (from L-R) OPI Flick Chick Cherry, Barry M Matt White, China Glaze Manhunt and Jessica Ruffled Bottoms, and the yellow is Rimmel Sunshine.

I'm fairly pleased with this.  I was hoping to get more orange and green between the colours, maybe this could be achieved by changing the direction I was scraping in?  I love the blue into the purple though, I think that looks really pretty :)  I had a little trouble with my scaper though - you can see on my middle finger there's a cheeky little red patch that I didn't quite scrape off.  It's a Konad scraper though so I wouldn't expect to have problems!

Right, well I think I'm going to enjoy a complimentary hot chocolate and read a little more of my book.  I'm sure the novelty of the hotel will wear off tomorrow though lol.

Hearticure

That's supposed to be like dotticure, but with hearts...but yeah, just sounds like something to sort out a heart condition. Oh well!

I was sent this fab little stamping plate from Born Pretty Store.  I chose it because I thought the little apple pattern was just adorable, and I prefer full nail stamps to little ones, but since Valentine's Day is fast approaching, I thought I'd share a heart manicure with you!

Some lovely designs on here that I can't wait to use :)  Hopefully I'll be able to get a few of them in to the Flip Flop Challenge, otherwise it'll be a little while before I can try out the other images!

The plate doesn't have a cardboard backing like the Konad ones do, but I didn't find the edges to be sharp (and I tried jabbing myself with them, just to ensure I'd checked it thoroughly for you!)

Sorry, the background on this picture is atrocious!

I used a base of Barry M Bright Pink and stamped using a Konad white stamping polish.  I topped this off with a matte top coat, and then picked out a few hearts to cover in Barry M Red Glitter.

The middle finger didn't transfer too well, but I assume this is down to the face that I drenched the plate in acetone to clean it, and didn't dry it off before putting more polish on...  I'm still learning!  All the others transferred fine :)  And you can see in the image below just how clean the lines were.

I honestly can't tell any difference between the quality of the stamped image from this plate compared to any of my Konad plates.

I can certainly notice a difference in price though!  This plate is only $1.99 (about £1 :o )!  Check it out here :)  Don't forget, there's free worldwide shipping, even if you only order one plate!

And if you do decide to place an order, for this or anything else, you can use the code LKL91 to get 10% off!  There's a huge selection of great nail art products at seriously good prices, so it's really worth a look.

Sam Attempts Stamping

You may remember from my New Year's blogging resolutions post that I said I was going to make better use of my stamping supplies by posting at least one stamped manicure a month.  I regretted this almost instantly.  I've put it off as long as possible, but now the end of the month is fast approaching, and it'd be a shame not to even make my resolutions last through January...

She here it is, my first attempt at stamping in 2013.

Not wanting to throw myself in at the deep end, I just went for stamped accent nails.  Baby steps, you know.

I used Barry M Gold Foil and Teal, and Konad plate M83.  I think my issue with stamping is that I can't get it perfect.  When I do freehand, it's obviously not going to be perfect, because it's freehand.  But with stamping, there's no reason it shouldn't be perfect lol.  I do love that you can get such fine detail that I'd never be able to paint freehand though, and that you can get consistent results on every nail.

A few problems I encountered.

I'm rolling the stamp sideways across my nail, but then it misses off the top and bottom, since my nails and the stamper are quite curved in all directions.  I tried just pressing the stamper into my nail so that it was in contact with nail across the whole length, as I rolled it sideways.  On my index finger this ended up in all my polish getting smooshed up (you might just be able to make this out, although I hid it pretty well with the angle of the photo lol).  Is this what other people do?  Do I just need to let it dry a bit longer, or do I need to go for a roll across, roll up and down type manoeuvre?  Any tips are greatly appreciated!

Here's a close up of the non-smooshed nail.

A few little gaps but, all in all, I don't think it's bad!  Hopefully I can just keep improving from here :)

How about you - do you get on better with stamping or freehand?

31 Day Challenge - Day 7: Black and White

Bonjourno!

Today is day 7 (I think...I keep getting my challenges mixed up) of the 31 day challenge, and the theme is black and white!  I thought this seemed an appropriate occasion to whip out Konad plate M73 and use the music/piano image.  I initially pictures this manicure differently - I wanted to use different parts of the stamp on each nail, so that some would just have the keyboard, some just the music and that.  However, the image was a lot larger in my head than it actually is, no I couldn't do that.

Here's what I ended up with.

I used Barry M Matt White and an FCUK unlabeled black (I've given up on my 17 one because the bottle's too empty now...).

It took my like a million attempts to get all 6 nails stamped...I don't quite know what I was doing wrong, but I guess I got there eventually.  Ish.

Next up will be metallic nails on Monday.

Check out all the other lovely participants:

Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner

Kat at Hooked On Polish

Diana at Nails By Diana

Aly at Wonderland Beauty

Meredith at Perfectly Polished

Nicole at The Color Republic

Kate at The Painted Pony Nails

Cee at Absolutely Cee

Nail Narcotics

Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed

Shelby at Shelby's Swatches

Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful 

Mixed Mama

Joanna at Sweet Polish of Mine

Patty Greenberg

Liz and Lisa at Lozlosa 

Mari at Nailista 

Greta at How Was Your Day?

Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 

Gini at Sassy Paints 

Chameleon Stampede 

Pam at Nail-E-Glance 

Me, Myself and Polish

Teal Tuesdays: Funky French

Morning :) Well, afternoon actually. I need to stop sleeping so much...

Today's Teal Tuesdays theme is funky french.  I was going to go with a similar design to the last french tips I posted, seeing as I know I can do those, but I felt that was probably cheating slightly...  So, instead, I decided to have a little go at stamping.  I've got a few Konad plates, but they're very underused, so I've been wanting to get a bit more use out of them.

I used China Glaze Exotic Encounters for the tips, then stamped with Star Gazer 232.  This got a bit messy, so I added the lines of silver glitter with a nail art pen.  This possibly made it messier...

Take a look at all the other teal tips that people have been working on this week :)

Gnarly Gnails

Nails Beautiqued

Geeky Owl

Mandy's Polish

Fancy Phalanges

Colorsplash Nails

Simple-and-Beautiful

Persistently Glittery

No Holos!

Cherries Sweets

The Frenzied Polisher

Caitlin's Creative Corner

Lacquered Libra

Nail Polish Lane

Once Upon a Polish

Subtlety is Overrated
Elyssian Beauty
My Rusty Nails

Patchouli & Lace

Ms. Meow's Nails

Love in a Bottle

Klutzy Hands Nails