#31Nails2014 Day 7: Black and White - 2 - Flowers

Hello everyone!

My second black and white mani for Day 7 in the 31 Day challenge (#31Nails2014)  was made back in January, and finally I'm making a blog post about it.

I painted my nails white with IsaDora #603 Tip White (which is cruelty- free), top coated, and stamped the flowers on with Konad SP Black and two stamping plates from MoYou London; Pro Collection 07 (small) and 14 (XL).

Because of my small nail beds, I often have to buy the same image in both XL to fit my thumbs and in small to look good on the other nails. It's a little frustrating economically, but here it also gave me the opportunity to mix up the images so that I got the variation I wanted on the nails.

I don't remember if I used a top coat. I usually do. But because of the low winter light outside, I've probably had to use the Ott- lite, and then the manis look matte on the photos... Do you have any god suggestions for winter photography?

Lani

Black Hearts & Sparkling Venus- Valentine's Day nails #7

Hello everyone!

I made this more than two months ago, when we (in AIS) should use a stamping plate that ends with 8. I used my new BM- H18 from Bundle Monster's Holiday Collection, and Konad SP Black to stamp the hearts. For the "Sparkling Venus" base I used two new nail polishes. I layered one coat of a sheer green- blue holographic glitter called ORLY Sparkling Garbage, over two coats of GOSH #622 Venus. Venus is not only the goddess for love, but also a dusty blue- green cream nail polish.

GOSH Venus on it's own:

My bottle isn't a special edition bottle. I don't know why... First, I only bought Venus from GOSH's Spring/Summer 2013 Collection, but now I have a few more. (I also found some Gosh polishes in the tax free and abroad this summer. Yeay! It was fun to see bottles that I'd never seen before. And the price was really nice.) GOSH is not tested on animals! :-)

Before the stamping:

Doesn't this look like the polish you see in the Orly bottle? Sparkling Garbage is from Orly's Summer 2013 Mash Up Collection. (I also bought the neon orange called Mayhem Mentality from the same collection.) I think I will use this glitter layered over blue, green, white or pastels.

More photos of the end result: 

Have a nice weekend!


Lani

Yellow Parakeet Nails- MM14 Bird Plate- Bik Bok Nail Art Pen

Hello everyone!

I hope you can see that I tried to draw a parakeet on my ring finger. I used a nail art pen from Bik Bok for that. Bik Bok is one of the many clothing stores, that has started to sell nail polish. The birds and feathers on the other nails were stamped on. I used the "Bird plate" from Messy Mansion: MM14. Here is the parakeet that I tried to draw:

Used: 

Nail polish: Ruby Kisses Cosmetics: MNP06 Cheesum
Stamping plate: Messy Mansion: MM14 
Stamping polish: Konad SP Black
Bik Bok: Nail Art Pen: Black

And as usual, I used IsaDora Clear as basecoat and Seche Vite as top coat. Sadly, the top coat smeared the black this time. And of course I didn't take photos before adding the top coat...

Look how gorgeous that stamping plate is!

I love the deep yellow/ orange color of Cheesum. Ruby Kisses is a new brand for me, and I was surprised by how many beautiful creams and shimmers they had. Do you know anything about Ruby Kisses? I don't even know if it's cruelty-free. It seems to be something wrong with their web site. But it says on the mini bottle that it is designed in the USA, and made in Korea.


Lani

Autumn: Leafs over a Multichrome Gradient

Hello everyone!

Sunday's challenge in Adventures In Stamping was "Autumn nails". I was inspired by Deborah from Love. Varnish, chocolate and more..., and wanted to try to make a multichrome gradient too. I used three polishes from Enchanted Polish's "The Imagine Collection" for the gradient, over a black base. Then I top coated and stamped black leafs over it, and top coated again. The leafs are from Messy Mansion's "Rose plate"; MM07. If you want to see a rose mani I made in May when I used MM07, click here. I've also used the leafs from MM07 to help me paint leafs in this cherry mani.

Used:

GOSH: Nero

Gradient:
Enchanted Polish: Magical Mystery Tour (also used here and here)
Enchanted Polish: Hey Jude
Enchanted Polish: I Am The Walrus

Stamping:
Plate: MM07 from Messy Mansion
Stamping polish: Konad: SP Black
XL Stamper set

I used my soft squishy stamper for the first time, and now I understand what everyone was talking about. It's easier to use than my regular stampers, especially for curved nails.

There are no underwater pictures this time, because I had a little accident when coloring my hair. Apparently there was a hole in my glove... My finger has finally got it's skin color back, but it looks like I've done a very bad attempt of brown louboutin nails... Here is one photo taken in daylight after a lot of stress trying to make my finger tip look normal.

All the other photos were taken after it got dark, some in Ott-Lite, some under a fluorescent tube lamp, but most of them under an IKEA LED lamp.

I don't know why my nails always brake when I want to use Enchanted Polish. This time the pinkie nail is fake. It's still so short that it's impossible to cut the other nails to the same length. So maybe I have to use the other hand next month. But at least I've learned that it's easier to show all the colors of a mulitichrome on nails that are curved, than on my natural nails.

These Enchanted Polish multichromes are HTF at the moment. These were bought at Norway Nails, but they are sold out at the moment, so it's not possible for me to link directly. Some of them can be bought on eBay right now, but it's more expensive there. My advice is to find out which online stores that are shipping to your area, and find out when they are restocking Enchanted. You can try Harlow & Co, Norway Nails, and Llarowe. You can also take a look at Enchanted Polish's web site and facebook page.

Other brands also produce multichromes, but I don't know if they are cruelty- free.


Lani

Stamped Newspaper Nails with Flowers- AIS Stamping over a nude base. BM -311

Hello everyone!

Today I can finally show you something I made in August, when the challenge in the group Adventures In Stamping was: "Stamping over a nude base". You have seen the end result above. Now I'll show you the nude base color, and how this mani evolved from day to day, and a list of what I used.


Day 1: H&M: Lavender Frost + Seche Vite 

Here you see the nude base on it's own. I've showed you the other color in this duo nail polish last year. To see it, click here. Both colors are very opaque and have a thick formula. H&M do not test their nail polish on animals.

I'm still searching for the perfect nude cream nail polish. Do you have any suggestions? I've already bought a light peach, but haven't tried it yet. My favorite nude is Crows Toes: Birthday Suit, but that's not a cream.


Day 2: Newspaper stamping

I used BM- 311 and stamped with Konad SP Black. Sadly the top coat smeared the black a little.


Day 3: White flowers

I found these flowers on the same stamping plate, and used a dotting tool to make the black centers. But I felt that it still needed something, and added black flowers in the same way.


Day 3, a little later: Black flowers

Used: 

H&M: Lavender Frost
Bundle Monster: BM- 311
Konad: SP Black
Konad: SP White
Dotting tool

I also used IsaDora #600 Clear as base coat, and Seche Vite after each step.

I hope you're all doing well, and that you had an awesome summer/ winter!

Lani

Shadow Stamping - Red with white flowers & black shadow

Hello everyone!

Shadow Stamping

"Shadow stamping" was the challenge in the group Adventures In Stamping (A.I.S.) on Sunday two weeks ago. I had not even heard about it, but thankfully we were given a link to a very helpful YouTube tuorial. I'm very bad at lining up the images, so I didn't get the shadows where I wanted them to be. So I must admit that this was very difficult. I don't know why I always believe that everything is so easy before i start... The photo above is the one I shared in A.I.S. two weeks ago. It was taken in the middle of the process; after redoing the index finger nail, but before redoing the middle finger nail, and before I cheated and painted some shadows on the pinkie and the middle finger nail...

Shadow Stamping

Shadow Stamping

Shadow Stamping

I was very proud of the shadow stamping on the thumb, but of course I managed to smear the flower when I applied the top coat.

Shadow Stamping

Used:

IsaDora: #600 Clear Base/ Top coat (used as fast drying base coat)
Pretty Serious: Hell on Wheels (red)
Stamping plates: Bundle Monster BM-318 and BM- 313
Stamping polish: Konad SP Black and Konad SP White
Seche Vite (fast drying top coat)
H&M: Black (striper from a set, to paint extra shadows)

Used for shadow stamping

I love the design on the Pretty Serious box, so here are two more photos of it:

Shadow Stamping

Shadow Stamping

I feel very lucky, because I won both the red polish and the stamping plates. In the Chit Chat Nails Bundle Monster Giveaway last fall, I won a 30$ gift code, and chose 5 nail art wheels and the 2012 stamping plate collection from the Bundle Monster web site. And as I told you in the last blog post, I won the gorgeous red Pretty Serious nail polish in the Norway Nails 1000 Facebook Likes Giveaway this summer. And the stamper and scraper I used was a gift from KKCenterHk! :-)

Shadow Stamping

I like the effect, so I think I will try this technique again. I just have to learn how to line up the image. Next time I'll try to make a dot on the stamper. That's supposed to make it easier to stamp straight.

Lani

Travel by Dragonfly

Hello everyone!

Travel by Dragonfly

It's very far away 
It takes about a half and a day to get there 
If we travel by my uh, dragon-fly ..

Jimi Hendrix

Travel by Dragonfly

The theme in Adventures In Stamping on Sunday was "butterflies or dragonflies". When I told my friend that I wanted to make dragonfly nails, he smiled, and asked if I had heard the song Spanish Castle Magic. I have heard the song many times, but didn't remember Jimi Hendrix lyrics. So I looked up the lyrics on the Internet, an also found out that dragonflies fly very fast...

Travel by Dragonfly

I tried several times to make this mani the way I wanted it to be. First with a gold magnetic wave background, and then some times with China Glaze108 Degrees as a base, because I wanted to stamp notes on some areas on the nails, but couldn't get them straight. Although I added top coat before stamping, I ended up waisting a lot of polish, but late one evening I found out that I could cheat, and stamp over the base coat, so that I just would have to remove the base coat when I failed, and then add the pink after the stamping. But the China Glaze polish was less transparent than I thought, so I had to use a jelly instead of the second coat. Stamping on the base coat made it easier to remove parts of the image, but after a while I gave up trying to stamp notes straight, and made more black and pink dragonflies. So, although it might look like I put "insect jelly" on my nails, no dragonflies were harmed...

Travel by Dragonfly

Used:

China Glaze: 108 Degrees -pink
OPI: Houston We Have A Purple -red jelly
Konad: SP Black -black stamping polish
Konad: SP White- white stamping polish
INM: Out The Door Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat "Silver" 
Stamping plates:
Cheeky: Jumbo plate 10 Happy Nails -dragonfly image
Konad: m73- notes image

Travel by Dragonfly

Travel by Dragonfly

Travel by Dragonfly

Travel by Dragonfly

Travel by Dragonfly

Travel by Dragonflies

Travel by Dragonfly

Travel by Dragonfly

Travel by Dragonfly

Travel by Dragonfly

Travel by Dragonfly

Cheating like this is easier when I want to use parts of a full nail image, and stamp more on the same nail, but then I have to use transparent polishes. So what I've learned is that I need to practice stamping, and not start with too difficult designs.


Lani