MoYou Butterflies - stamped and colored with the LeadLight technique

Hello everyone!

BUTTERFLIES was the theme for day 28 in MoYou-London's nail art challenge on Instagram. And it was one of the themes for the Sunday stamping in Adventures of Stamping. I really wanted to try the LeadLight technique after seeing a tutorial, where you create a kind of stained glass effect by painting over a stamped manicure with jelly/ sorbet/ LeadLight polishes. Thank you Messy Mansion for teaching me the technique! Unfortunately they don't ship their LeadLight Lacquer Collection outside Australia yet. So I had to improvise. Luckily I had seen a tutorial about how to use the technique with regular nail polish. I'll include both tutorials below.

I'm surprised by how well this turned out. Isn't it strange that I make the nail art that I like best when I've had a bad day and feel sad?

How I did it:

I started with white nails. For the stamping I used a butterfly plate; MoYou-London Collection -01, and Konad SN Black. Then I found a tiny brush and a dotting tool, and my different sheer polishes, and added some color. I don't have many jellies, so to make more colors, I mixed some drops of polish with clear on a palette. I used the back of a Messy Mansion stamping plate as palette. If it was opaque, I tried to mix with clear, and some jellies were not pigmented enough so I tried to mix them with polish. The glitter came from some Kleancolor Chunky Holo minis.

Here you see the palette and the products I used:

And here you see how this manicure evolved:

As you see, some of the polishes I mixed were too opaque because they covered the black stamped details, but it's not bad for a first try. What I've learned is that the polish needs to be sheer enough to not cover the stamping, and pigmented enough to color what you want in one coat. I wish I had the LeadLight Lacquers, because they also contain glitter.


Here are the ones I used that worked best that I didn't have to mix:

OPI: Houston We Have A Purple (used here)
Kleancolor 228 Chunky Holo Candy (used for nail art here and here)

Kleancolor 230 Chunky Holo Fuchsia

Kleancolor 232 Chunky Holo Clover

Here is the plate:

♥ Here are the tutorials! ♥
If you click on "YouTube", you can find their channels, see all the tutorials they've made, and subscribe.

Messy Mansion's LeadLight Technique tutorial. Messy Mansion's tutorial shows the LeadLight technique using jelly nail polish with glitter from their LeadLight Lacquer Collection, created for this nail art technique:




Eleonora Palma/ Nail Art Stamping Mania shows "the LeadLight technique in which you can  paint directly on the images stamped without covering the details (using jelly polishes)" with any type of polish:




I had fun trying this technique, mixing colors on the little palette, and finding out which of my polishes that work, and which LeadLight polishes I need. I'm waiting for some water decals, and want to try the technique over them next time.

Lani

GOT Polish Challenge: LILAC. Lilac Lilly, Zara and Infinity Nails stamping

Hello everyone!

I try to check a few animal organiations' cruelty- free lists regularly. And Zoya could until recently be found on one "bad guy" list. So I was very happy when I saw that they had been moved to the other side, among the brands that don't test on animals! :-) So I was very happy to be able to show you two cruelty- free lilac polishes for today's Golden Oldie Thursday Challenge. Although one is from 2008 and the other from 2012, I bought them both two years ago.

One of them is Linda Johansen Lilac Lilly, a very beautiful lilac that you can see under the stamping on the accent nail. One coat of Zoya Zara was enough to give the other nails a nice shimmer. I stamped with gold to match the shimmer. I tried to stamp with a polish from the Romantique Collection again. This time I used China Glaze Magical. And again I used a brand new stamping plate: Infinity Nails 18. I included a picture of it, where you can see the variety of the designs. The Infinity plates have the same size as the MoYou London and the Lily Anna plates, so I store them in the same binder.

This picture is taken before the stamping, and before removing the plastic film:

And this is what the other side looks like:

Products used:

Linda Johansen Nail Candy: Lilac Lilly -2 coats
Zoya: Zara - 1 coat
Stamping:
China Glaze: Magical - from the Romantique collection
Infinity Nails: 18

I bought the Zoya and China Glaze polish on eBay. Linda Jonansen is a Norwegian brand, and can be bought online from Norway Nails or Linda Johansen's web site. Infinty Nails plates can be bought from Dashica Beauty Shop.

The photo below is not color accurate, but shows the shimmer well.

Sadly, Zara is not the best color for my fair skin, but I like it layered like this. According to Scrangie, it's from the Zoya Winter 2008 Flourish Collection.

I really like Lilac Lilly. It's very bright and pastel at the same time. I've used it a lot for nail art. You might remember it from the Tri Polish Challenge last year. I bought Lilac Lilly in October 2012.

Here is the the nail art I've made with Lilac Lilly so far:
Sat- ART- Day Club: 1960's
The Tri- Polish Challenge: Day 1, Lily Nails
The Tri- Polish Challenge: Day 2, Easter Eggs & Bunny
The Tri- Polish Challenge: Day 3, Holographic Glitter & White Flowers

Now I wonder which old lilac polishes the other participants are using, and what they have made. As usual, you'll find thumbnails with links to their blog posts below.

Lani

An InLinkz Link-up

LIVE ♥ laugh ♥ love - fanbrush stripes & stamping nail art - pastels from Deborah Lippmann's "Spring Reveries" Collection - Valentine's Day nails #10

Hello everyone!

Stage 4

I started with pastel mint green nails. Then I used a fan brush to make stripes in pastels (yellow, lime green, blue and lavender). I used all the nail polishes from Deborah Lippmann's 2014 limited edition "Spring Reveries" Collection, except for the pastel orange. Instead I used Ruby Kisses: Lavender Dream, that I've showed you earlier.

I stamped with China Glaze: Adore, BM- 405 (text) and BM- H16 (flowers).
BM-405 is from Bundle Monster's 2013 "Create Your Own" Collection, and BM-H16 is from the 2013 Holiday Collection. But now it's possible to buy individual plates too.
Adore is from China Glaze's Romantique Collection from Spring 2009. Shades from that collecion are Messy Mansion's favorites for stamping, so I wanted to try it. I found this teal on eBay, and it worked very well for stamping.

This manicure kind of evolved, so there are different versions of it below.

Here you see the palette. I've fallen in love with these pastels. You'll find their names in the product list. I was very pleased with the result you see below,

Stage 1

but sadly I had to redo the ring finger nail, so this is what it looked like before the stamping:

Stage 2

More photos of the "LIVE ♥ laugh ♥ love & 4 flowers" version:

Stage 4

Stage 4

I made this manicure for a AIS Sunday challenge in March, when I was very happy to see these spring flowers.

Stage 3

This version is with only two flowers.

Stage 3

Then I accidentally removed too much when I tried to use tape to do the clean up. So I applied the DL shimmer (La Vie En Rose) from the same collection on some of the nails. And then I filled in the flowers with the shimmer, but it didn't look good, so I took the flowers off. (No pictures of stage 5)

The last version is with the text on all nails and shimmer on all nails except the middle finger nail:

Stage 6

Stage 6

Products used:

Deborah Lippmann: Flowers In Her Hair (pastel mint green creme)
Deborah Lippmann: Build Me Up Buttercup (pastel yellow creme)
Deborah Lippmann: Spring Buds (pastel lime green creme)
Deborah Lippmann: Blue Orchid (pastel blue creme)
Deborah Lippmann: La Vie En Rose (sheer nude/ pastel pink with copper shimmer)

-all from Deborah Lippmann's "Spring Reveries" Collection from spring 2014

Ruby Kisses: Lavender Dream (lavender creme)

A fan brush
Palette (the back side of a Messy Mansion plate) 
XL stamper (black with white soft and small red hard stamper)
Stamping polish: China Glaze: Adore (teal metallic)
Stamping plates: BM- 405 (LIVE ♥ laugh ♥ love) and BM- H16 (flowers)
Lint roller to clean the stamper
Scotch tape to remove my mistakes/ for clean up, (which minimised the need for clean up with a brush dipped in acetone)

Duri Rejuvacote as base coat and Seche Vite top coat.


As I've mentioned before Deborah Lippmann products are not tested on animals.

Stage 6

I haven't swatched the Spring Reveries Collection, but I've used Blue Orchid for nail art. Just click here to see it.


Lani

Penguin nails - freehand nailart - inspired by Stefan Christmann photos

Hello everyone!

Matte version

This was supposed to be shared on Penguin Day (April 25th), but I really struggled making penguin nail art, until I finally made something worth sharing. This is the second design attempt, and it took forever to paint.

I started with a white creme nail polish; IsaDora #603 Tip White. To paint the penguins I used acrylic craft paint and a detail brush. Although the grown up Emperor Penguins have a little yellow on them, I chose black and white only to make them easier to paint. 4 photos are with Seche Vite top coat, and 3 photos are with Gosh Matte top coat.

Matte version

I was inspired by amazing penguin photos taken by Stefan Christmann while he lived in Antarctica. You can see his work on his site: NATURE IN FOCUS or on facebook: Stefan Christmann Photography.

Like last time, I made two types of penguins, Emperor Penguins & Adélie Penguins. Every year around this time, penguins start their northward migration to escape the cold. Only the Emperors stay on the south pole during the coldest "summer" months.

Did you se what I made for Penguin Day in 2012? Click here to see it.

I applied matte top coat before I started painting, as Cutenails tells us in one of her YouTube videos.

Matte version

The detail brush was bought from Fab Ur Nails Shop, and I liked that it has a little resistance to it, if you understand what I mean.

My problem when using acrylic paint on my nails is that I can't wipe it off with water. What do I do wrong? Should I dilute the paint more? If you have any advice, I'll be very happy.


Lani