Monday Blues Before & After: Beautiful Bast

Hello!

It's Monday again, and yes that sucks. Luckily, by the time you're reading this, the official workday will be over, and the worst of Monday will hopefully be behind you. :)

For this edition of Monday blues, I've chosen to bring you Zoya Sunshine, one of the Zoya Pixies that I absolutely adore; they look like crushed gems on your nails, in this case, rich sapphires:

Zoya Sunshine

Zoya Sunshine

Zoya Sunshine

Zoya Sunshine

Next, I painted over the polish with a coat of topcoat, to mitigate the texture a bit, since I wanted to stamp upon it. Then, stamp upon it I did, with China Glaze Passion, using MoYou London Artist Collection 07. I used a dot of red for Bast's eye, and balanced that out with some red accents on the index and pinky finger with Konad Red:

I'll be reviewing this plate later in the week, and I'll show you how I created this manicure with the plate, and why (hint: look at the patterns on either side of da kitty's face, on the accent nail). For now, I'll just comment that of course since I love all things Ancient Egyptian and I love cats, Bast is one of my favorites of favorites, and I love this. I also love the effect of the gold stamping over the texture--it gives it a gilded look that I think has a rich look.

Thanks for stopping by, and here's to Tuesday!

Hugs and loves,
M.

An InLinkz Link-up

Review: MoYou London Time Traveler 01: Back To The 20s

(The plate in this post was purchased with my own money.)

Hello!!

Are you feelin' jazzy? Are you in the mood to throw on some fringe and do the Charleston? Then read on, because I have the plate for you, MoYou London's Time Traveler 01: Back To The 20s.

First up, here is my video showing the plate; it gives some good views  of the size of the images next to my nails (and, of course, has my chatter along with it, lol):

Next, here are the stills. I don't think I've ever mentioned that each MoYou plate comes with the traditional blue film over it, to protect it from damage until you're ready to use it:

MoYou London Time Traveler 01: Back To The 20s

And here is the plate without the film:

MoYou London Time Traveler 01: Back To The 20s

And some closer-ups:

MoYou London Time Traveler 01: Back To The 20s

MoYou London Time Traveler 01: Back To The 20s

And, of course, a comparison with a standard Konad plate, so you can get a feel for the size of the images:

I also don't think I've shared with you yet how I store these plates, so I thought I'd throw in a picture of my storage method while we're at it; I use baseball-card holders to store my plates, and these are the perfect width to fit right in them. I can store 6 plates per page, 9 if I didn't mind them sticking out over the top of the binder (but I do...::sigh::...):

And to cap things off today, I have a quick manicure I did to show you my very first stamping with this plate. This is a more traditional plate, not like the collage plates that MoYou makes, so it's a little more straight-forward in terms of use; however, the scroll-type image on the lower left of the plate is a little bit challenging, so I wanted to show you one way you can build that into a manicure:

Fancy Flapper FTW

Base polish is Barielle Lindsay's Dancin', stamped with China Glaze Passion

The little extra string across the top of the design on the middle finger is my fault--normally I would restamp that or get that bit off with a little acetone, but I want you to see the first attempt at stamping, without me re-doing it until I get it perfect. The intricate scroll work stamps well, and I love the look of the scroll image across the nails. You can also get a feel from this how pretty it would be just to use the center of the image, or the ends of the image as a sort of book-end effect in a skittle manicure with other designs in between. :)

I hope this has been helpful, and I'll be back with more MoYou plates very soon. :)

Hugs and loves and happy Sunday,
M.

Born Pretty Store Giveaway Winner!

Hello!!

We have a winner in the Born Pretty Store Giveaway:


a Rafflecopter giveaway


I have contacted Julie and she has claimed the prize. Congratulations, Julie, enjoy your shopping spree!

If you didn't win this giveaway, stay tuned...I have another giveaway that I'll be putting up very shortly with some awesome Indie polish for the prize...

Thank you guys for your support of the blog. If you didn't support it, Born Pretty Store wouldn't have wanted to host the giveaway. This was all you guys, and I hope we'll have another BPS giveaway very soon. :)

Hugs and loves and happy Sunday!
M.

Review: Barielle's Carnival Fiesta Collection

(Press Sample)

Hello hello hello!

Today I'm bringing you Barielle's Carnival Fiesta Collection, one of my favorite collections in a long time. this is the last time you'll be seeing my nails long for a bit, because I've just had my bi-yearly disaster: I broke three nails in the same day, which I assume is the universes way of telling me it's time to go short for a while. Ah well, at least I have some pretties showing here. :)

This collection is inspired by Carnival, Brazil's pre-Lenten festival, which is a version of what we celebrate here as Mardi Gras. The colors perfectly capture the festive spirit of celebration, and I couldn't be happier with it!

Holiday Madness is my favorite of the collection. It's a gleaming golden green (say that three times fast), sort of a gilded olive shade:

Barielle Holiday Madness

Barielle Holiday Madness

Barielle Holiday Madness

This is two easy-peasy, problem free coats. Wonderful formula, wonderful coverage, dries quickly. Excellent from start to finish.


Next we have Jillian's Jammin', a bright cerulean duochrome that goes into green and purple:

Barielle Jillian's Jammin'

Barielle Jillian's Jammin'

This is two coats, and that worked fine for me, but you might want to go three coats with this one. The color in the second picture is truer; the light of my lightbox diffused through the polish and lightened it a bit in the top picture. Application was wonderful. :)

Of course we need a hot red for a collection like this, and Lindsay's Dancin' is a sizzling-hot shimmer to help you get through your partay:

Barielle Lindsay's Dancin'

Barielle Lindsay's Dancin'

Barielle Lindsay's Dancin'

Barielle Lindsay's Dancin'

Barielle Lindsay's Dancin'

I love the blue shimmer that gives this polish a glow, and makes it just that much more special. This is also a very wearable red, not too dark, not too vampy. I have on two coats here, and the formula and application were wonderful.

You can't have Carnival/Mardi Gras without purple. I'm pretty sure there's some sort of law...I'll have to look into it. But luckily, we've got it covered no matter what with Rio's Rockin' Bands:

Barielle Rio's Rockin' Bands

Barielle Rio's Rockin' Bands

Barielle Rio's Rockin' Bands

This is a silvery, regal purple with saturated color; I have two coats here, but it was just shy of being a one coater. In these pictures, you can see a little bit of brushstroke her and there but keep in mind this is close up; I didn't find it troublesome in real life. :)

Last but not least, is the gray-purple shimmer duochrome wonder of Wanna Samba?:

Barielle Wanna Samba?

Barielle Wanna Samba?

This is a close dupe for Wet 'n' Wild's Gray's Anatomy, with an important difference--this is two coats, full coverage and full duochrome flash, where you'll need 4 coats of Gray's Anatomy to get even close to this coverage. You know I really don't like putting on even 3 coats, let alone 4, so my preference is clearly for this polish over other similar polishes that require more coats. Formula on this was excellent, smooth, and fast drying.

I think this is an extremely well-conceived and put together set of polishes for those of us who love the jewel tones and the duochromes. It's festive and fun, and it's great quality. :)

Also, Barielle currently has 30% off, along with free shipping, now until March 16th. You can find their website by clicking here; also, keep an eye on their Facebook page, because they have lots of cool giveaways and contests.  I'll be back soon with their two new spring collections. :)

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend,

Hugs and loves,
M.

Before & After: Butterfly Trellis

Hello!

I was recently inspired by a fimo cane manicure done by my friend Inky over at Inky Whiskers Musings... I'm not a huge fan of fimo manicures, but I've had these butterfly fimo slices that I've been wanting to use, and when I saw her manicure, this look just popped into my head. :)

I started with a base of Barielle Dusty Lavender, because I've been busy trying to get a few of their collections swatched for you recently:

 

Barielle Dusty Lavender

Then I stamped using Barry M Silver Foil and the BuNa-A plate, using my partial distressed technique. Then I did a quick saran-wrap of Zoya Chita up the ring finger and a little on the middle finger, to look a bit like ivy climbing up a trellis. Then, I stuck on my fimo butterflies:

 

I love this as a soft, pretty look for spring. If you're worried about catching the fimo slices on something, make sure you attach them along the wings and not just the body of the butterfly (which is how I did it here), and you can also cover them with topcoat to be extra super duper sure. :)

By the way...I'm doing a writing prompt boot camp with a friend of mine and am posting some of my silliness on my other blog; if you want to take a look, you can find it by clicking here. :)

Hugs and loves,
M.

Review & How-To: MoYou London Landscape/Mother Nature collection 05

(Stamping plate purchased with my own money.)

Heylo heylo heylololo!

Welcome to my next MoYou London review & How-To. Today I'm going to show you some ways to use Mother Nature (aka Landscape) collection 05. :)

You've seen this video before 'cause I reviewed all my Landscape/Mother Nature collection plates at the same time in it, but here it is again if you missed it or just feel like reviewing it again:

And here are the up-close-and-personal shots of the plates:

MoYou London Mother Nature (Landscape) collection 05

MoYou London Mother Nature (Landscape) collection 05

MoYou London Mother Nature (Landscape) collection 05

And of course, here is the comparison with a standard Konad plate, so you know approximately how big the different elements are:

MoYou London Mother Nature (Landscape) collection 05 Vs. Konad

For these collage-style plates, what I like to do is walk you through some of the possible types of manicure you create. Each plate is a little different, although most of the basics stay the same. All you need to get your money's worth out of these beauties are the same stamping skills you use with other plates, plus the ability to isolate an image. If you're not sure how to do that, check out my tutorial by clicking here. :)


What I'm going to do today is show you three manicures I did with these plates; these three manicures demonstrate the three most common things you can do with these plates, two of which are very easy.


1) Use a portion of the plate for a full-nail design. This is the easiest method, in my opinion. You just pick a section of the plate that's big enough to cover your nail, paint, scrape, and there you go. For this manicure, I used Sally Hansen Lively Lilac to stamp the rose bush, and I used Barry M Silver Foil to stamp a small portion of it as an accent on the ring finger (of course you don't have to do that if you don't want to):

Here are the portions of the plate I used; for the accent portion, I just used the smaller end of my stamper and used my nail to scrape away the portion I didn't want:

(Wondering what that base polish is hiding under there? Tune in next time and I'll show you that polish, plus the base polish I used in #2 below. :) )


2) Carry a larger design element across two or more nails. This is one of my favorite techniques, because you can do really unique-looking things in no time flat. For this manicure, I chose the top of the arch over the birdbath to use as my design element, and stamped with Barry M Silver Foil:

I chose to do three fingers only because for some reason that appeals to me, but you can do as many or as few as you want, including the lonely thumb. :)

Here are the portions of the plate I used for the manicure:

3) Build-A-Scene: And finally, let's end with the manicure I showed you on Monday. Here it is again for your reference, so you don't have to click back and forth. Here I decided to recreate the enchanted-garden feel of the plate; this is a bit harder than the other two manicures and takes a few more stamping techniques, but you should be able to do it with a little patience.

First, I Saran-wrapped some Sally Hansen Brisk Blue over the back to give the sky a more realistic feel. Next, I stamped the birdbath/fountain using China GlazePassion; I kept the bird portion of the design as well, and you can see the gold shadow underneath them. Next, I stamped my rose branch design; I put dots of Konad Red on the roses, and then Sally Hansen Lickety-Split Lime over the rest of the design. Then, on my thumb and pinky, I stamped the ivy using Sally Hansen No S-pear Time. Finally, I used Konad white to re-stamp the birds on the fountain, and on the other two nails. You don't have to stamp them twice if you don't want to--you can scrape them off when you stamp your fountain, and then just stamp them where you want them in white. Here are the portions of the plate I used for the design:

So there you have it, three lovely manicures from Landscape 05, with many, many more fun opportunities awaiting you...I'd love to see what you do with this plate, please share!!

I hope this has been helpful. Hugs and loves!

M.