I wanted something that would highlight the beauty of the glitter while allowing it to show through;, I decided to use the flower pattern from UberChic Beauty 7-02 on the second row down, far right:
For the accent nails, I made a decal so I could color in one of the flowers; I used Sally Hansen Going Grape, a blue-purple duochrome. For the rest I just stamped directly onto the nail with Konad White polish:
Spring showers bring pretty flowers with UberChic Beauty 7-01 and Spellbound Nails Peep Show
I love that the beauty of the flowers comes through softly while still allowing the purple glitters to shine, and that the painted flower gives it all a little extra zip. It's a pretty look that's fun at the same time. :)
First, here's the video I made about the plates; among other things I use the template trick to show the potential of the plates:
And here are some shots of the plates:
Tristaenia Biology plate from Messy Mansion
This plate is a texture, texture, texture! Just about any sort of whimsical background look you want, you can get it. Circles and ribbon-y threads and wavy lines and linked dots--there's so much you can do with this just by itself or in combination with other images
Tristaenia Happy Birthday
This is a great plate for bithdays, of course, but not just that--the letters and flowers are great for romantic looks, the child's faces are good for any sort of children or it's-a-small-world look, the drinks are great for a 'night out' look, the hearts and squiggles and musical notes and banners are all great for background/accent effects.
Tristaenia TR01
TR01 has a more traditional layout, and this one features henna-type designs, which are a weakness of mine. I love the rays coming off the main flower and I love that there are two smaller flowers to play around with, too.
All of these plates have a cool feature that I love--the halves are mirror images of one another. This makes it easy to play mix-and match with the image using only one stamping polish! I love that versatility.
How big are the plates?
These plates don't have traditional images, but here's a general sense of how big the different portions are:
How do they stamp?
I didn't have any issues with stamping--bot the fine lines and the larger areas stamped well:
Manicure!
For my sample manicure, I started with a coat of Spellbound Nails Rain Check over Barry M Cotton:
Tristaenia TR01 + Spellbound Nails Rain Check over Barry M Cotton
Tristaenia TR01 + Spellbound Nails Rain Check over Barry M Cotton
This is one of my favorite manicures that I've done lately--I love how the blue and purple go together. And I love the effect of Rain Check over white undies!
And finally, I stamped an image from UberChic Beauty 7-01 with Barry M Gold Foil Effects:
UberChic Beauty 7-01
Here's how it turned out:
UberChic Beauty 7-01 on Zoya Leia over Zoya Lidia
UberChic Beauty 7-01 on Zoya Leia over Zoya Lidia
What do you think? I love the way the gold looks a bit different over the topper vs. the nail without the topper, and I love how the design flows across the nails. And what can I say...my heart will always first and foremost belong to jewel-tone...sigh...
I wanted to do an Easter manicure this year that wasn't super-Eastery (no slew of bunnies or eggs this year), but still had Easter influences. I decided to put together a seriotype using the Zoya Petals collection (see my review here), and then try out the new chevron striping tape Born Pretty Store sent me for review.
I think the chevron tape is pretty darn nifty; it works like any other polish striping tape, but allows you to get crisp chevrons:
Born Pretty Store chevron striping tape
Down the center of these rolls, you'll see a stripe of chevron:
Born Pretty Store chevron striping tape
Born Pretty Store chevron striping tape
There are a few ways you can use this tape. You can just use it as is, to put a chevron stripe over your nails; in this case, you're probably going to want to cover with topcoat to keep the edges from pulling up.
You can also use this to mask off an area you want to paint with a different color; you could put a stripe of this just below the edge of your nail, for example, and paint the top to get a funky french manicure with a chevron edge. You can put several strips and paint in between, or you can paint over and remove the tape to show the color underneath.
But don't forget that the actual chevron stripe isn't the only part you can use--above and below the actual stripe are two other sections you can use as well, each with one straight edge and one jagged edge. Don't just throw it away, use it!
For my sample manicure, I started with a seriotype made from most of the polishes in the Zoya Petals collection. I started with a base of Zoya Tulip, then sponged on some Laurel. Then I layered on some Azalea and Zahara, and finished with little sponges of Leia for some extra shimmer:
Seriotype with the Zoya Petals collection
Next, I put two stripes of chevron tape at the top of each nail:
Step one: put on your stripes of chevron tape
I sponged over this with gold polish (I used Barry M Gold Foil Effects):
Step one: sponge polish over the tape
Then I cleaned up and added topcoat:
Easter chevron seriotype with Born Pretty Store chevron tape and Zoya Petals polishes
I think this look has an Easter feel without being too in-your-face about it--the stripes look a bit like decorated eggs and the colors bring a nice spring palette. You could also do this with a contrasting color, like purple or blue, for a bolder look.
Just when you thought stamping couldn't get any better because the clear stamper came in and rocked your world, here comes the crystal stamper 2.0 from Messy Mansion to blow your mind
Because the barrel is clear, so you can see through it and not just down it.
Oh, and--it has a lid.
Yes, those two things make a huge difference--the see-through barrel makes it almost impossible to mess up your placement, and the lid keeps your stamping head clean--the less you have to clean it, the longer it's gonna last. And for someone like me with five fur babies, anything that can keep dog and cat hair off my stamper is near magical as far as I'm concerned.
I made a video testing out how well the stamper picks up and applies; in the process I tested out two of Messy Mansion's stamping polishes, Chalk (their white), and Soft Gold (their gold). To see how their silver and black polishes did, click here.
Here's the video review I did of all the products for your viewing pleasure:
Let's take a look at how this stamper stacks up next to the frosted-barrel clear stamper:
Messy Mansion Crystal Stamper 2.0 vs. first generation clear stamper
Messy Mansion Crystal Stamper 2.0 vs. first generation clear stamper
You can see they're about the same size, and you can see that it's much easier to see through the barrel of version 2.0. Here's a closer look at the item alone:
Messy Mansion Crystal Stamper 2.0
Of course it comes with a scraper--this is a thick scraper and I love the control it gives me:
Messy Mansion Crystal Stamper 2.0
And let's take a look at visibility through the barrel--first look at the old-school version:
Now take a look at version 2.0:
Messy Mansion Crystal Stamper 2.0
Messy Mansion Crystal Stamper 2.0
Messy Mansion Crystal Stamper 2.0
Not only is visibility on this excellent through almost every angle, the barrel allows the light through so you don't have to worry about angling the barrel correctly to get enough light.
Let's shift gears and look at the polishes. Stamping polishes need to be opaque and need pick up well, especially white, which often doesn't show up well over dark colors. I tested out Messy Mansion Chalk and Soft Gold:
Messy Mansion Chalk and Soft Gold
Here are stills from the live test I did--you can see the precision and opacity:
Messy Mansion Chalk without topcoat
Messy Mansion Soft Gold without topcoat
I didn't pick the best image to show details, and the gold reflected a bit--you can see it better in the video as I'm moving my finger around. But the point here is that it picked up the image well and covered well.
How does that white polish perform over dark colors? Here it is over black:
Check out that opacity! This stands up to dark colors even better than Konad White--just amazing.
And...it doesn't smudge...here are the two polishes with Seche Vite on top:
Messy Mansion Chalk with topcoat
Messy Mansion Soft Gold with topcoat
Absolutely no smudging! And you can see in the video that I wasn't super careful about going over the same area twice.
I'm absolutely sold on both the stamper and the polishes. The stamper has amazing visibility and an awesome lid to keep me from destroying my stamping head or getting pet hair all over it. And I love this line of polishes--they cover well, pick up well, super easy to work with. Win, win win!
It Girl Nail Art just released a few new stamping plates, and this time each plate is based on a particular period--I received IG107, which is all about art deco. I love me some deco, but what I love even more is the cool image selector (also a scraper) they also just released!
If you prefer your reviews live and in motion, here's the video review I did showing both products:
Okay, so let's take a look first at the image selector. In my video reviews you've seen me use a piece of paper with a nail-shaped hole cut out of it to help me pick which part of an image I want to use. This is really helpful with large images, and with collage-style plates, because it helps you to visually narrow down what part of the image will fit onto your nail. My solution works, but it isn't perfect; different nails are different sizes, and if I have to shorten my nails, that changes what will actually fit. It Girl Nail Art's solution helps with this, because they have a variety of sizes so you can adjust as needed:
It Girl Nail Art Image Selector/Plate Scraper
There are a variety of sizes and two shapes--I love that I have the perfect size now for my thumbnails, because I always struggle a little with knowing how much I need to cover them.
So it works like this:
It Girl Nail Art Image Selector/Plate Scraper
Just place the nail that matches yours over the image and test to see what it's going to look like on your nail. In this case I wanted to test the middle top image to see how many of the triangle tips would fit on my nail. Super fast, super easy, and super cool.
You can also use this as a scraper. I was a little worried about that at first--I figured I'd just use it as an image selector because I didn't want to risk messing it up when I cleaned it with acetone. But the maker let me know that the ink is in between two layers of plastic, so you won't damage it when you clean up! So now I'm gonna scrape, scrape, scrape away without worry.
Okay, let's take a closer look at the plate:
It Girl Nail Art fashion plate IG107
It Girl Nail Art fashion plate IG107
It Girl Nail Art fashion plate IG107
Of course I love art deco, so these images are completely sublime, in my opinion. But I also want to talk a little about the quality of the It Girl Nail Art plates. The finish on these is a brushed silver, so they aren't as reflective as other plates--it's a small detail that doesn't effect how the plates work, but it does keep me from periodically blinding myself like I do with other plates, and that's nice. More importantly, these plates are thicker than other stamping plates, and because of that, they are much less prone to bending, even less than plates that come with plastic backing. Sure, I store my plates carefully and try to make sure bending never becomes an issue--until my dog knocks a plate off my table with her tail and then steps on it and smooshes it into the carpet. Maybe these things don't happen to you--my house is admittedly chaotic--but it's nice to know the quality is there.
I also have never struggled even a tiny bit to pick up an image from any of the It Girl Nail Art plates I have. The etching is excellent and consistent across plates. I've never seen better.
The images are large enough that unless you have super-long nails, you should be fine with them:
It Girl Nail Art fashion plate IG107
It Girl Nail Art fashion plate IG107
And as I've already hinted, image quality is top-notch:
Deco blues with It Girl Nail Art IG107, Zoya Aster, and Zoya Yves
Deco blues with It Girl Nail Art IG107, Zoya Aster, and Zoya Yves
I love the blue-on-purple, even if my camera didn't want to pick up the purple very well!
If you'd like to see some other looks done with this plate, check out a special video I made showcasing five looks by clicking here. This is the first time I've done a video like this, so I'm interested in your feedback on it. Would you like to see more videos like that? For themes (e.g., spring) as well as certain plates or makers?
