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 :)

Gouda Gouda Swirly Nails

Happy hump day!

I hope you've all had a good day :)  Only two days left until the weekend, woohoo!  

Today I have one from the vault for you.  I did these a little while ago when I just wanted something subtle for work (I'm over that now - besides, I get more complements when they're bright animal print :p ).

I used OPI Gouda Gouda Two Shoes and Teenage Dream (drooooooool).  I literally have no idea what I used for the attempted swirly pattern.  It doesn't look like any colour I own...I'm very confused.  Perhaps I mixed something with white...

The swirly nails didn't quite turn out how I'd imagined, but I still liked the overall effect :)  And the glitter was so pretty under the lights in work :D

Do you go all out with crazy nails for work, or do you tone it down a little?

New Technique: Acid Wash

Before I did my little June disappearing act, I had a vote for which new technique I should try out, and acid wash won.

I can't believe I'm even showing you this.

I think I went in a little too cocky, and definitely too ambitious.  I didn't bother looking up a tutorial or anything, looked straight forward enough.  And I had this wonderful idea of using all the colours of the rainbow!  How amazing right??

Well, not so much.  Here we go... (please don't judge my nail art abilities by this photo lol)

Utterly disastrous...

I used, from bottom to top, Jessica Ruffled Bottoms, China Glaze Man Hunt, Barry M Spring Green, Nails Inc Notting Hill Carnival, Max Factor Bright Orange and OPI Flick Chick Cherry.

Six different polishes was definitely too much.  There was so much polish to get through to show a bit of the purple, that all the other colours just ended up blending together into some sort of brownish mess.  And I had like full on craters in my manicure lol.  You can also see in some bits where I went right through all the layers and revealed some bare nail - lovely!  I've since learnt that I should've top coated between colours.

Oh well, you live and learn!  I'll definitely give it a go again, maybe with white on top and just two colours underneath, so it looks like a gobstopper :D  Any tips for success for next time?

Don't forget to pop over to my Facebook page to vote for which technique I should try next!  And more suggestions are always welcome :)

I Will Go To The Ball!

Hello lovelies!

So...June was a bit of a no-go on the blog.  Sorry!  It ended up being a pretty hectic month for us and I just didn't get a chance to blog (and the broken laptop definitely didn't help matters).

At the beginning of the month, we went down to St Ives for a few days to meet up with my fiance's family.  We had some sunshine and everything (unfortunately I got sunburnt whilst wearing turned up jeans...not a good look).  The next weekend we went camping with a few people from work.  Then the next week we went down to Swansea, where we booked our wedding (eeeeeee!) and had an engagement party.  My mum got us this amazing cake!

How cute is that??

My fiance's family surprised him and came down for the party, so we spend the next day showing them my parents' local beach, and went for tea at the hotel we're getting married at.  Then the NEXT day we flew to Portugal!  So it's been a rather busy six weeks.

My fiance's left again today for work, so I'm determined to get more organised with this blog again!  I have a few things lined up, so watch this space :)  One of those things is that I'd like to feature some nail art inspired by your suggestions, so if you have some, please leave a comment!  Alternatively, you can pop over to my Facebook page and leave a wall post there.  I'll also be bringing back my New Technique posts, so while you're over on my Facebook page, don't forget to vote on that!  I'll also be attempting to finish the Untried Polish Challenge, and posting a few more tutorials (again, if there's anything specific you'd like to see, leave a comment!).

So, for the time being, I shall leave you with this.  I work in an Oncology Centre, and this year is its 20th anniversary.  To celebrate, we had a ball :)  It was a lovely night, helped along by the free wine of course, and who doesn't love an opportunity to dress up?  I foolishly forgot to take a picture of my dress, but here are the nails that I did to match it:

I used Barry M Black and Matt White, and Barry's nail art pens for the details, and then added some old glequins I found in a drawer.  You'll just have to take my word for it that they matched my dress perfectly :p

Ooh, I forgot to mention, I fixed my laptop!  Yay!  Although it's currently so hot that it actually smells like it's melting or something...can't be good.  For the life of me, I cannot get my photo editing software, my card reader or my scanner to work, but it's certainly better than it was (i.e. not dead).

Don't forget to leave your suggestions for nail art or tutorials!

Sticker Nail Art

Happy Sunday!  I hope you've all had a nice relaxing weekend :)

I have another product from Born Pretty Store to show you today.  This time it's a sheet of gold nail art stickers.

This sheet is HUGE.  There are 12 different sections each with 25ish stickers, depending on the size.  12 multiplied by 25ish = a lot.

There's a great selection too.  There's lots of bows and some pretty frames and flowers.  There's also some cute little characters with phrases such as 'I love you', and I love the jewellery-looking stickers on the top right - how great would these be for some tips??

Here's a couple of looks I came up with.

Firstly, I saw the crowns and came over all patriotic, so I did this simple British manicure.  God Save The Queen and all that.

The polishes I used here were Barry M Gold Foil and Matt White, OPI Flick Chick Cherry, China Glaze Manhunt and Barry M Gold Glitter.  Then I used Sharpies to draw the Union Flag, and topped it off with a crown sticker.

There's not a lot to say about the use of the stickers - they're as easy to use as you'd imagine!  Just peel them off and stick them on :)  I didn't have any issues with tearing, and they smoothed out lovely with one coat of Seche Vite.

Next up, I thought these baroque-style stickers would make great half moons!

Most of the designs come in three or four different sizes, which means they fit all the nails nicely :)  Here I used China Glaze Call of the Wild, with Barry M Gold Foil and Gold Glitter for the accent nails.

You can see these stickers here.  They're $4.51 (£2.98) with free shipping worldwide.  As always, if you decide to treat yourself to anything, you can use the code LKL91 for 10% off (which means you can buy 10% more :p ).