Review & How-to-use: UberChic Beauty Sweet April

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Hello!

Omg, omg, omg. UberChic Beauty's Sweet April. This plate. THIS plate!!  This is my favorite plate from any make anywhere, ever. And I have seen a LOT of plates. A lot. Trust me, A LOT.

See, what happened was, they found this illustration in a 19th century book, and decided to take the whole thing and make it into a stamping plate, exactly as it was. Best. Idea. EVER.

Video

As always, I have a video review of this plate, and if you want to hear some fangirl happy, you'll find it here:

Stills & Size

Next on the agenda is the still shot of the plate; seriously, how beautiful is this?!:

And let's look at how big this chickadee is (did I just use the word chickadee?):

But...does it stamp?

And, of course, the crux of the matter is--how does this beauty stamp? Let's take a look:

Excellent detail, look at that face!! Now, there are some things you need to know here. All of the UberChic Beauty plates I've received, including this one, are engraved more on the deep side. That's not bad or good, it just means you have to stamp accordingly. Don't be stingy with your polish, and scrape well. When you clean your plate, especially if you use cotton or the like, you may have fibers catch on the plate. You can remove them by either running your finger over the area, or pressing a piece of tape over the area. I use the tape method.

This is not a beginner plate, both because it can be intimidating to figure out how to use it if you're new to stamping, and because there are lots of areas that have a lot of engraving packed closely together, with different types of images. Solid images next to fine lines, etc., and all of that can make your stamping a little more challenging. You may need to adjust based on your polish and your tools. But the above two swatches were my very first two attempts ever to stamp with this plate, so it's definitely very stampable!

How To Use

Yay, now we get to play! Okay, it goes without saying that this plate can be overwhelming, even for a collage-style plate. It's gorgeous as a single image, of course--but how do you get that beauty to translate into something that goes on your nails?

Normally I walk you through different types of manicures you can do with a plate: use areas for full-nail images, build scenes with different parts of the images, do manicures that transition from one pattern to another, etc. You can do all of that with this, certainly. But for this post, I'm going to focus on encouraging you to think outside of the box when you look at plates like this, and to see the images with new eyes.

In my videos, I often pull out a little piece of paper that has a nail-shaped hole cut out of it; I originally saw this idea on Chit Chat Nails. If you have a hard time looking at something like this and breaking it down into its component parts, using a tool like this will be a huge help for you. I shall demonstrate!





I have to start with the beautiful lady herself, although this is probably the most obvious part. But take a look at these two framings and see how one gets more of her hair and looks more care-free, while the other gets more of her bust and looks sexier.







I also adore the feather.... Here I've captured the peacock 'eye' to demonstrate, but there are other parts of the feather you can stamp that look just feathery or like a scribble-y background image. Or stamp different parts of the feather on each nail, so it looks like the feather is draping over your fingers.






Check out how cool these birds look flying across your nails. Just like with the feather, there are enough different places to pull the birds from that you can have them flying over your entire manicure, or you can do a simple but amazing accent nail like this.









Let's talk about texture. When you look at parts of the plate, don't just think about what the section actually is, think about what it could be. Imagine it in different colors and from different angles. We know that in the actual picture, this section is swaths of cloth surrounded by flowers and dots. But what if you stamped it in white over a deep blue, and then went in and did what I'm going to call a reverse lead-light (I'll show you an example of this at the end) where you turn this into seaweed (green), bubbles (light blue or leave white), and sea anemones (pinks, blues, yellows, purples)? Now it's an underwater scene.








Here's another great texture. This is our lovely lady's dress, but you'd never know that looking at what you have here. How gorgeous would this be stamped in silver on an accent nail (or a whole mani!) over a royal blue? Or in gold over red? Or in white over peach? So many stunning possibilities all by itself, but how about using it as a background texture for double stamping? Say your base polish is a medium blue, you stamp this in a slightly lighter blue, then stamp dark blue flowers on top of that? Beautiful.







Here's a similar section that would work well on its own or together with another stamp. This is lovely by itself--a quick, pretty accent nail--or could be used with other images. How about a star at the very bottom? Or, on another UberChic plate there is a small image of a prince and princess embracing--how pretty to have that in the negative space under the fall of stars?







And speaking of Disney magic, this screams 'bippity-boppity-boo' to me...But you could also take this to a more mature, elegant place, with a sorceress/wizard feel to it. I will be doing that manicure, you can count on it.









Do you like the look of French manicures, but hate doing them because it's so hard to get them aligned perfectly? This plate has endless opportunities for nearly fool-proof French manicures or half-moon manicures that don't have to be placed perfectly:

And while there are areas that are super-easy just as is for these manicures, don't forget to look in other places, too. My favorite is the lilies at the bottom of the plate, which could easily be used for this if you swipe the smaller flowers off your stamper before you transfer the image (you can find my tutorial for this here):

And of course there are a ton of floral looks you can get from this plate:

Another way to think outside the box when you look at a plate like this is to look at it through the lens of different techniques. Are the portions of the plate what would be good for lead-lighting? Reversed stamping? Double-process stamping? Tone-on-tone stamping? Sometimes having a technique in mind when you look can make you see part of the image in a different way.

 Sample mani! 

From the moment I saw the plate, I wanted to do something with the peonies and the ribbons of fabric at the top of the plate. So I started with a base of SinfulColors Energetic Red:

SinfulColors Energetic Red

 Then I added a coat of InDecisive Nail Lacquer White Speckle to complement the dots in the design:

InDecisive Nail Lacquer White Speckle over SinfulColors Energetic Red

I stamped the image with Konad White, and then I did what I'm going to call reverse lead-lighting with Orly Mirrorball over the ribbons on the image. I'm calling it that because with lead-lighting you normally apply color over the spaces in between the stamped images, and in this case I'm applying it on part of the stamped image itself; the trick is, as with regular lead-lighting, to use a polish that isn't going to show in a big way if you go over onto the base polish:

Flowers nouveaux

This was one of those manicures that broke my heart to take off...The holo bling of Mirrorball dances between the flowers perfectly so that something was twinkling at me all the time (I also put some additional dots of Mirrorball lower on the manicure. This manicure is flirty and feminine, and I love it. :)

If you'd like to see another manicure from this plate that just happened to go up today, check out what Amanda did with the ribbons and the birds on her blog Polish & Plates. :)

You can find the stunning Sweet April on Uberchic Beauty's site by clicking here.

I hope I've encouraged you to open your world up to collage-style plates and given you some tools for seeing all the beauty hidden within them! I promise you that you can get just as many gorgeous manis out of this kind of plate as you can out of regular plates, in fact, I think you can get tons more. The creative possibilities are endless!


Happy stamping!
M.

Review and How-to-use: MoYou London Gothic Plate 09

(Nothing to disclose)

Hello!!

I'm back today with a how-to-use for one of my all-time favorite MoYou London plates, Gothic 09. I've actually already shown you two manis using this plate and I can't believe it's taken me this long to show you this one, so let's get down to it!

First off, here is the video review I made:

And here are the still shots of this lovely plate:

MoYou London Gothic Collection 09

MoYou London Gothic Collection 09

MoYou London Gothic Collection 09

Here it is next to a standard Konad plate so you can get a feel for how big the images on the plate are:

MoYou London Gothic Collection 09 vs. Konad

Okay, so! Now for the nitty-gritty: how do you use this plate?

I always encourage you to think outside of the box with these collage-style plates, and this one has so much to offer if you think in terms of the patterns rather than just the overall concept. Yes, the stained-glass possibilities and the religious themes are here, and they are awesome. However, I think there is a lot more you can do with this, most of it elegant, sophisticated, and amazing.



1) Religious elements:

Religious elements on Gothic 09

There are a couple of crosses and a gorgeous angel on here that would work for Christmas manicures, Easter manicures, baptisms, first communions...And while we're on the subject...



2) Shrink that angel! 

If you have longer/wider nails, you might be able to get a fair amount of him on your nails without using the shrinking technique, but when you do use it, you can get a clear, beautiful manicure using his face and his hands, which preserves the praying posture. I used this technique for my manicure based on Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett:

Inspired by Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett

(Click here for details about this manicure.)



3) Art deco full-nail images: 

Art Deco full-nail images

I love love love all the deco elements on this plate; a few days ago I showed you this mani I did using them:

Art Deco mani using Gothic 09

(Click here for full details on this mani.)



4) Scroll-work elements: 

 

Scroll-work elements on Gothic 09

If you love little flourishes of filigree--and you know I do--this plate has a few lovely surprises. Use your piece of paper with the hole cut out to judge how each of these will look on your nail, since they aren't big enough to be full-nail images on their own.



5) Don't forget the little details: 

Little touches on Gothic 09

Don't miss the rosettes and the different fleurs de lits hovering around the edges...


6) And most of all, covering nearly the entire plate, you can have almost any type of stained-glass type image you want here:

Stained-glass elements on Gothic 09

It would have been easier for me to circle the bits that aren't stained-glass friendly, lol! You can get a modern look, a deco look, shells and circles, whatever you want. I wanted to use this element of the plate to make a new mani for today, and decided to go a little cosmic...



For this manicure I started with a base of Barielle Blackened Bleu, and then put on a coat of Barielle Angel Dust. Then I stamped over it using Barry M Silver Foil, and Gothic 09:

These are the voyages of the starship PolishGasm

Our five year mission:

To buy and swatch as many awesome polishes as possible before the bank account empties out

I. Love. This. Mani. It's like you're looking out at the universe through the glass of some fancy spaceship, the kind that people will go on for their vacations 100 years from now when they take a trip to the moon. Or, it's like some sort of futuristic cosmic lace--I would wear that dress, hands down, no problem. :)

I hope you like the mani as much as I do, but mostly I hope this post has helped you see all of the amazing possibilities in this plate!

Happy stamping,
M.

(Disclosure: this website may be compensated for linking to other sites.) 

Review and How-to-use: MoYou London Fashionista 06

(Nothing to disclose)

Hello!!

Today I have a plate review for you, along with a test mani I did that's perfect for today's Crumpet Nail Tart's 31 Day Challenge theme, 'reversed polarities'...I also think it would make pretty good wallpaper, so it's one of my Nail Challenge Collaborative 'wallpaper' manicures--I love seeing if I can double-up and make a design that fulfills two challenges at once. :)

For the review portion, I'm taking a look at MoYou London's Fashionista 06: as always, here is the video I made, with my thoughts on how to use the plate:

And here are the still shots of the plate:

MoYou London Fashionista Collection 06

MoYou London Fashionista Collection 06

MoYou London Fashionista Collection 06

Here it is next to a standard Konad plate so you can get a feel for how big the areas are:

Next up, let's talk about some ways you can use this plate:

1) The most obvious: Go paisley! The three main areas of the plate are perfect for paisley full-nail designs; the one of the left is also good if you just want a part of your nail to have a bit of paisley on it:

Pretty paisley

2) Chains! There are three chain designs on this plate, in various sizes, for delicate bling, Shades-Of-Grey medium, and biker-chick looks. They are all relatively easy to isolate from the surrounding designs (take a look at my tutorial if you aren't sure how to do this):

The chain gang

3) Beee-yoo-tee-ful edges! This plate specializes in awesome borders that can be used as strips up one side of your nail, across your nails, or as funky French manicures. Not sure how that would look or work? Check out my post demonstrating this technique here.

Borders galore!

4) Funky half-moons. You've heard of funky French manicures, but how about funky half-moon manicures? This plate was made for it! Those little thimble-looking nubbins on the edge that goes around the bottom and the left edges? Put the top of those right where your half-moon area is, and you've got an easy, fast, super-cute manicure, and there are 7 different designs to choose from.

Funky half-moon possibilities

5) Mirror-image looks. One of the things that instantly drew me to this plate was the mirror-image-reverse-polarity design on the right of the plate. There is so much you can do with opposing colors with these designs, even if you only have one stampable color; for example, maybe you want beige and red together, but the beige doesn't stamp over the red polish, so you can't just have one nail stamped in the opposite color. With this plate you can use one base color and one stamping color, but get a look that looks like you had two complementary sets. You'll see what I mean next...

Reverse polarity possibilities

Finally, on to my sample manicure! I started out with a base of China Glaze Choo-Choo Choose You, a golden-olive and dusty purple duochrome that's unlike any other green-purple duochrome I've seen:

China Glaze Choo-Choo Choose You

China Glaze Choo-Choo Choose You

China Glaze Choo-Choo Choose You

I was very excited about doing a mirror-image-carbon-copy sort of deal with this plate, so this is just perfect for the reversed-polarities challenge theme, and I love paisley for anything wallpaper. I stamped with Konad Green-Gold using these parts of the plate:

Reverse polarity manicure. :)

Reverse polarity manicure. :)

Reverse polarity manicure. :)

I stamped so my middle and ring fingers were reverses of each other, and my index and pinkie were also reverses of each other. I grabbed part of the paisley flower to the left for my thumb.

You know I love me my MoYou plates, and I love to be able to tell you how well they stamp. This plate, however, was a struggle. I had the devil of a time getting the portions on my middle and ring finger to stamp well, without bald-spots. I had to scrape and re-scrape about 10 times before I got an image I felt was acceptable. the other sections worked well--something about that one area was a challenge for me for some reason. So I would definitely classify this as an 'advanced' plate, and caution you that you may need patience with it. I personally love how this came out, but I hated wasting all of that polish trying to get clean images.

I hope your New Year is off to a wonderful start, and don't forget to check out the other manicures linked below! :)

M.

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up