The Digit-al Dozen does accent nails--Featuring UberChic Beauty Christmas Companion Layers

(Press samples and affiliate links ahead!)

Hello!


This month The Digit-al Dozen is doing accent nails, and I figured I'd start out by featuring a new plate I'm absolutely obsessed with--UberChic Beauty's Christmas Companion Layers plate. Basically this plate turns images from all of UberChic Beauty's Christmas plates into layering images, and I've been having a blast going back and playing with my plates.


Here's the video review of I did of the plate and a couple of others:

Here's the plate:

And here are some swatches I did:

But on to the new  nail art!


For my first one, I wanted to do a string of Christmas tree lights, with an accent nail that was an up-close of lights in a different color:

UberChic Beauty Christmas plates over Supernatural Lacquer Santasaurus and Zoya Jett

Base Polish(es): Supernatural Lacquer Santasaurus and Zoya Jett
Stamping Plate(s): Uberchic Beauty Christmas Companion Layers, Holiday Jingle, and Holiday Spirit (Christmas 01)
Stamping Polish(es): Moyra Silver, UberChic Beauty Essential White and Moonflower Polish Aquamarina layered over Hit The Bottle The Huntress Awaits


For the second, I wanted to do one that featured a combo of two accent nails:

UberChic Beauty Christmas Plates over holiday polishes

Base Polish(es): UberChic Beauty Snow Place Like Home and Meet Me Under The Mistletoe
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Jingle All The Way and Christmas Companion Layers
Stamping Polish(es): UberChic Beauty Essential White, Hit The Bottle Polish Purple Reign, and a gradient stamp with Kaleidoscope Pink and Girly Bits Forget Me? Not!


I'll be back Thursday with another accent nail mani--in the meantime you can pick up these plates now at UberChic Beauty, and you can check out the other Digit-al Dozen manis linked below. :)

Big hugs,
M. xoxo

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Check out The Dancing Girls, my debut novel, here!
And the 2nd Det. Jo Fournier book, Taken to the Grave, here!
Preorder the 3rd Det. Jo Fournier book, Her Daughter's Cry, here!

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PPU Alert!: The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend

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Hello!


Today we're going to take at another polish from this month's PPU Urban Legends theme: The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend, which is inspired by Karl Urban, which I think is such a clever twist on the theme! Let's take a look:

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend

Coverage: I'm wearing 3 coats
Application and formula: Beautiful, no complaints!

I'm all about the flakies, and the combination of grayish-blue with the metallic flakes makes me think of leaves blowing around a fall sky...which you'll see reflected in my nail-art manis!


I showed you these two manis in my Dixie Plates post, but to refresh your memory, here they are again:

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend stamped with Dixie Plates Autumn 03

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend stamped with Dixie Plates Autumn 03

Base Polish(es): The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend
Stamping Plate(s): Dixie Plates Autumn 03
Stamping Polish(es): Kaleidoscope White and Hit The Bottle Copper-Haired Girl

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend stamped with Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves

The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend stamped with Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves

Base Polish(es): The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend
Stamping Plate(s): Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves
Stamping Polish(es): Girly Bits Bronze Goddess, Flame, and Firebrick


You can buy this lovely polish during the October Polish Pickup sale, which will run from Oct 4-7th. It will sell for $12.50, and there will be a cap of 150, so grab it while the grabbing's good!

Big hugs,
M. xoxo

Follow me all the places! 

Facebook / YouTube / Bloglovin' / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Check out The Dancing Girls, my debut novel, here!
And the 2nd Det. Jo Fournier book, Taken to the Grave, here!

UberChic Beauty Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice and Football is Life

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Hello!


Today we're gonna take a look at two recent mini-plate releases from UberChic Beauty, their Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice plate, and their Football is Life plate.


Here's the quick video I did for the Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice plate:

And here's the Football is Life:

Difficulty: The football is life plate is a beginners plate, while the Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice plate is a little more of a mixed bag that leans toward intermediate. I think the Football plate does an amazing job of taking football themes and giving them a potentially feminine leaning, and I love the Pumpkin Spice plate to mix with other plates--lovely fall saying to complement any fall-themed manis you make. :)


Here are the swatches I did with the plates:

On to the manis!

UberChic Beauty Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice over Stella Chroma Pumpkin Everything

Base Polish(es): Stella Chroma Pumpkin Everything (with hashes of Hug The Road)
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice
Stamping Polish(es): Beauty Big Bang Gold,

I love the manicure so hard, but it was impossible to get to photograph well! I swiped some Hug The Road (an orange jelly) over the base polish and the stampig to make it look like a patchwork pond mani. It does still look cool here, but I just wish I'd been able to get it in the picture! If you compare the mani below, which uses the same base polish, you'll get an idea of what I mean.

UberChic Beauty Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice over Stella Chroma Pumpkin Everything

Base Polish(es): Stella Chroma Pumpkin Everything
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice
Stamping Polish(es): It Girl Nail Art Mimosa, Kaleidoscope White, Black

I love the way the 'naked' nail makes the pumpkin spice latte pop off this one!

UberChic Beauty Football is Life over The Lady Varnishes Avada Kedavra --What A Wonderful Phrase!

Base Polish(es): The Lady Varnishes Avada Kedavra--What a Wonderful Phrase! (no longer available, but check out her other beauties here)
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Football is Everything
Stamping Polish(es): Hit The Bottle Everyday I'm Truffling, China Glaze Passion

This came out a little muddier than I liked, so I consider it a fail...if I had it to do over, I'd do the shadow stamping with white rather than gold. The idea was to pull out the gold in the base polish, but that worked far better in theory than practice!

UberChic Beauty Football is Life over Zoya Foster

Base Polish(es): Zoya Foster, Sally Hansen Blacky O
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Football is Everything
Stamping Polish(es): China Glaze Passion, Kaleidoscope Black

Ah, yes, much clearer! The gold plays much better with the creme base here, and with the creme stamping.


Both of these plates are available now in UberChic Beauty's store. :)

Big hugs,
M. xoxo

Follow me all the places! 

Facebook / YouTube / Bloglovin' / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Check out The Dancing Girls, my debut novel, here!
And the 2nd Det. Jo Fournier book, Taken to the Grave, here!

Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves and Autumn 03

(Press samples and affiliate links ahead!)

Hello!


Today we're gonna take a look at two new plates from Dixie Plates, the Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves plate, and Autumn 03 plate. Here's the video review I did of the plate:

And here's a look at the plates:

Dixie Plates Autumn 03

Skill level: Lots of Leaves is a beginner plate; Autumn 03 is mostly beginning with some intermediate skills needed (e.g., layering).


One strength of these plates (and all Dixie Girls plates), is they're designed to make sure if you have long or wide nails, the images will be long enough for you to use easily--the designs are scaled up in size and are generous.


Here are the swatches I did:

On to the manis! For the first I had to test out the umbrella patterns, because I love those octagons:

Dixie Plates Autumn 03 over The Lady Varnishes Urban is Legend

Dixie Plates Autumn 03 over The Lady Varnishes Urban is Legend

Base Polish(es): The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend (this will be available during October's Polish Pickup sale!)
Stamping Plate(s): Dixie Plates Autumn 03
Stamping Polish(es): Hit The Bottle Copper-Haired Girl and Kaleidoscope White


For my second mani, I wanted to play with the blowing leaves image:

Dixie Plates Autumn 03 over Zoya Eleni

Base Polish(es): Zoya Eleni
Stamping Plate(s): Dixie Plates Autumn 03
Stamping Polish(es): Hit The Bottle Everyday I'm Truffling, Girly Bits Cosmetics Flame, Firebrick, and Bronze Goddess


I love those fall polishes together, I had to play with the combo again:

Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves over The Lady Varnishes Urban is Legend

Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves over The Lady Varnishes Urban is Legend

Base Polish(es): The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend (this will be available during October's Polish Pickup sale!)
Stamping Plate(s): Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves
Stamping Polish(es): Girly Bits Cosmetics Flame, Firebrick, and Bronze Goddess

And for my final mani, I wanted to test out the layering pumkin/leaves images:

Dixie Plates Autumn 03 over Zoya Foster

Dixie Plates Autumn 03 over Zoya Foster

Base Polish(es): Zoya Foster
Stamping Plate(s): Dixie Plates Autumn 03
Stamping Polish(es): It Girl Nail Art Mimosa and Sally Hansen I-Rush Luck


So what do you think? I realized after the fact I used a blue base in three out of four of the manis--I guess you can tell what color I'm feeling right now!


You can find these plates on sale now in Dixie Plates' store, or wherever Dixie Plates are stocked.

Big hugs,
M. xoxo

Follow me all the places! 

Facebook / YouTube / Bloglovin' / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Check out The Dancing Girls, my debut novel, here!
And the 2nd Det. Jo Fournier book, Taken to the Grave, here!

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone plate

(Press samples ahead!)

Hello!


Today we're going to take a look at a recent release in Lantern & Wren's stamping plate line, Lantern & Wren's Dab To The Bone, and adorable Halloween plate.


Here's the video review I did for the plate:

And here's a still of the test looks I did in the video:

Alright, let's take a look at that baby up close and personal:

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone

Difficulty level: Easy to intermediate--most of the images on this plate are going to be super easy to pick up and work with. Watch out for the chevron and the gravestone--scrape them from an angle to make sure you get those big solid areas nice and complete. And if the little fine line images give you a hassle (they shouldn't--they worked super easily for me), scrape gently.


This plate is a fast way to get cute, fun Halloween nails that you can mix and match--she gave a ton of little images that match up to the full-nail images beautifully. And this is a great plate to try out your lead-lighting or reversed stamping skills on. There is also huge potential here for building scenes with the little images she gives.


On to the manis! For the first I wanted to use one of the fun words she gives on the plate:

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone over Girly Bits Funky Town

Base Polish(es): Girly Bits Cosmetics Funky Town
Stamping Plate(s): Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone
Stamping Polish(es): Kaleidoscope White and Black

That full-nail image is just fun, and I love the pop of black making those letters jump right out. A quick way to capture the fun side of the Halloween season.


For the next mani, I HAD to use those adorable dancing skeletons:

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone over mystery Supernatural Lacquer polish

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone over mystery Supernatural Lacquer polish

Base Polish(es): Supernatural Lacquer ?? (This polish will be revealed shortly...)
Stamping Plate(s): Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone
Stamping Polish(es): Kaleidoscope White

Seriously you guys, I could wear this manicure all year long, lol! Those dancing skeletons just make me super happy. And this is also a super easy mani that's almost fool-proof, even for beginning stampers.


And for my last manicure, I love the little mini scene I did in the test looks so much I couldn't resist building a little scene:

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone over mystery Supernatural Lacquer polish and Zoya Ashton

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone over mystery Supernatural Lacquer polish and Zoya Ashton

Base Polish(es): Supernatural Lacquer ?? (This polish will be revealed shortly...) & Zoya Ashton
Stamping Plate(s): Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone
Stamping Polish(es): Hit The Bottle Holo There Beautiful, Kaleidoscope White, Moonflower Polish Apple, It Girl Nail Art Mimosa

Because the Supernatural Lacquer mystery polish is a black jelly, I used the pond manicure (stamping sammich) technique to put a couple of the little ghosts in the background, and then stamped one on top to be up close and center. I also used a reversed stamping technique for the candle. This is my favorite Halloween mani I've done this year, and I hated to take it off!


Dab To The Bone is on sale now in the Lantern & Wren shop, as are several of the stamping polishes I used here.

Big hugs,
M. xoxo

Follow me all the places! 

Facebook / YouTube / Bloglovin' / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Check out The Dancing Girls, my debut novel, here!
And the 2nd Det. Jo Fournier book, Taken to the Grave, here!