So way back in June I went to the Royal Highland Show and painted my nails to match the event. However there weren’t any pigs at it – whoops! It was a really great day (if you happen to follow me on Instagram you would have been spammed with loads of pictures from it sorry/not sorry), as it was a real treat getting to see such beautiful and magnificent animals up close.
So with the weather being amazing lately I felt like I wanted something bright and fun to adorn my nails. I delved in to my nail art supplies and came out with gemstones, glitter and some adorable French Bulldog water decals. Perfect! I then resorted to picking two of my favourite Barry M polishes so favoured that the names have worn off…
So which do you prefer? Pink or green?
So I’m still playing Animal Crossing:Pocket Camp daily. Fortunately it’s now more of a quick dip in a few times a day rather than my compulsive addiction that I had to begin with where I wanted to check who was visiting every three hours. Come on admit it, you went through that stage too right?…
Anyway, I decided to paint the pit crew from OK Motors – Giovanni, Beppe and Carlo.
So this design was 100% inspired by the whole day I spent in Osaka, mainly Dotonburi, eating nothing but Takoyaki. (I am not even exaggerating, I literally only had Takoyaki and vending machine juice that day, well actually I also had an ice-cream filled melon bread but I don’t think that quite counted towards my 5-a-day.) A lot of the vendors had these super cute octopus mascots on their stalls to instill some guilt in you as you chowed down on their delicious bretheren.
So this is the first time I’ve used this owl image, and I’m not sure why because it’s pretty darn cute! Don’t you agree? It’s a hehe plate and it includes the ‘hoo hoo’ and a few more owls in different styles. I chose to use a matte top coat as I felt it matched the feel of the design better.
So I’ve not written a review in a long long time, apologies! Genuinely, does everyone still find my reviews interesting or at least inspirational?
I received this ‘Cute Animal stamping plate‘ from BornPrettyStore and there are some seriously cute patterns to use. A lot of them are ‘stamp and go’ meaning there’s no need to faff about with reverse stamping and the likes so it’s perfect for pros and beginners alike.
Being a bit of a dinosaur fan, it was an easy call as to which image I was going to use first. I created a very simple background, using scrunched up tinfoil to dab polish on to the green base and started to stamp with the dinosaur image. It only took two practice pick-ups for the plate to warm-up (it’s kind of like breaking in new shoes), meaning what you see below is the third: how crisp is that!
Granted, I was using Konad stamping polish meaning it’s highly pigmented but still pretty impressive especially the dinos tails, spikes and horns.
The next image I chose to use on the plate was one that I could use create a stamping decal with. The rabbits seemed pretty fun, and I like the addition of the broccoli and carrots – cute! Some of the finer lines on the rabbits faces were a little trickier to pick up but nothing too noticeable once it’s on the nail.
Pretty cute huh? This is another example of a BornPrettyStore plate that’s suitable for a variety of themes/holidays. For example rabbits for easter, penguins for winter, hedgehogs for autumn and bats for Halloween.
The last design I created was again a quick stamp and go one, featuring some giraffes. Now on the plate the giraffes are actually part of a pattern, but I chose to discard the surplus animals leaving one on the stamping head at a time. Just because an image is etched in a certain way doesn’t mean you need to use it as such!
If you feel like trying this plate out for yourself, remember to use my code ‘AZYW10’ to receive 10% off any full priced items in your order. The plate is currently (31/7) half price and BornPrettyStore does free shipping so why not go for it!
So for the whole time I was in Majorca, I was constantly searching for lizards! Apparently you should be able to see them just chilling or scurrying about and I love looking out for foreign wildlife. (I saw a hellish looking flying insect by the pool which turned out to be a not so scary ‘Mud Dauber‘) Therefore I was super disappointed when I saw not a single one, not even a flash of lizard tail or anything. The closest I got was purchasing a lizard magnet for my mum for a souvenir.
So I am seriously in love with this plate! (Sent to me by BornPrettyStore) Please tell me that you guys are too? It has such a variety of cute images and they’re so darn versatile – you could honestly use it for any mood or season. It has it all; flowers, hearts, animals, patterns. Because of the variety of images and endless designs that could be created by using all the different stamping techniques too, I spent a few days creating four completely different looks with it.
But first up lets have a look at the plate itself. How satisfyingly shiny are new plates once you peel off the blue film! It kills me to have to do this as I’m a bit of a freak, I still have the protective film on my phone screen and one of my watches…
I’m really digging bees at the moment so the origami image of one was irresistible. I decided to do some ‘reverse stamping’ with it and pair it with an origami tulip. I used one of the patterns from the clouds as a subtle background.
As you can see the plate performed incredibly well – the images are very crisp and even without a stamping polish, the background pattern worked too. A cute and simple design to start off with!
Even though the plate is full of origami designs, I chose to avoid them for my next mani. I picked out the little strings of hearts and dots and rather sickeningly paired them with red. It’s no where near valentines day which is maybe why it made me feel so sick but it was to demonstrate that you can use the images for any occasion. Again credit where credit’s due the images are crisp and bold. This time they are stamped with black Konad stamping polish.
The next image I chose to focus on was the origami star. If you look at the plate, it’s very close to the sting ray and frog so I wonder if it’s intended to be a starfish but I chose to use is an actual star. It would work either way! I kept it very simple, an easy ‘stamp and go’ design. Sometimes I feel, especially with stamping, people show you magical designs that aren’t in everyone’s skill range (or time frame). This is do-able for everyone! Linking back to the seasonality, this would be a suitable design for christmas or the new year?
For my final design from the plate I went back to reverse stamping, by this I mean stamping the image, ‘colouring’ it in whilst still on the stamping head, then transferring it on to my nails. Roses aren’t really my thing but I thought I could make them cool by placing them on an ombre and using a rough background pattern. I couldn’t get over how crisp the rose picked up, those lines are on point! (That’s what cools kids say yeah?)
So out of all four designs, which one turned out to be your favourite? Surprisingly for me, my favourite turned out to be the rose design closely followed by the bee! If you would like to try the plate out, BornPrettyStore offer free shipping and the plate is currently on sale – hooray! If you add anything to your basket that’s full priced, use my code ‘AZYW10’ at the checkout to receive 10% off.
So which came first – the chicken or the egg? I really fancied doing something hand painted today as I haven’t done so in a while. They were inspired by this cute little chicken shaped stapler I have on my desk. None of the office supplies are sensible, so I’m glad I don’t actually work in an office; my tape dispenser is a dachshund, my highlighters are snails and I have dinosaur pens.
So this ‘Big Sheet of Animal Water Decals‘ has some super cute designs, there’s something for everyone – pandas, rabbits, cats, dogs and deer! It was sent to me by BornPrettyStore to be put through it’s paces and before I show you how some of them look on my nails, I just want to break down what great value this sheet is.
You get 12 designs, each with 10 fingers worth, which equates to 120 water decals for the measly price of $2.87/$1.59 sale price (correct 29/4). This means each decal is costing you $0.02, amazing right? So the first design I’m going to show you is a good example of how to make your money stretch even further by using just one decal per mani as an ‘accent nail’.
I chose to use a decal from the deer set with a white background as this allowed me to paint the rest of my nails the same colour. Then it was just a case of cutting out the decal I wanted and applying it as normal. (If you’re unsure or need a refresher about this, keep scrolling as I’ve included a sort of step by step next) Ta-da! Simple, quick mani for $0.02.
So I might have go a bit carried away about how cheap it is, so lets do the re-cap on how to actually use and apply this product properly. With them being water decals you will need; a shallow dish of water, tweezers, scissors, nail file and a tissue. I’ve chosen this super cute panda set to demonstrate the application steps.
The first step is to cut out the decals you wish to use. With this big sheet you need to be quite accurate with your cuts as there are no borders between each design – take it slow and steady.
Make sure you remove the clear, protective layer covering the decals and trim them to size before you submerge them in the water.
Leave them there for around 15 seconds, at this point the decal should be able to slide off the backing paper with ease and use your tweezers to remove them from the water. Place them on your nail in the correct position, gently dab with a tissue to remove excess water.
Then remove the excess that may be hanging off your nail with a file.
Ta-da!
The length of the water decals is quite generous and easily fitted all my nails. Personally my nails are all different lengths, so sometimes I trimmed off the top part of the decal to help the design sit better meaning I wasn’t having to file off parts that I liked.
Now came the biggest test – the top coat. Unfortunately sometimes decals melt, like the design squashes and the colours bleed and things that that. However, these guys actually look better with a top coat! They didn’t melt and it actually helped to iron out some of the wrinkles. (I used Seche Vite)
You may have noticed that I added some glitter on to the little water orbs the pandas are fascinated by. This totally isn’t necessary but helps to demonstrate how easy it is to customize the decals!
Aren’t they cute! They sailed through the top coat challenge, but how about the well known ‘3 hours in a pool, teaching children to swim’ challenge? Amazing. Very minimal chipping, and even though the top coat may be helping this I’ve previously had the whole water decal float off my nail in to the pool. (Anyone else had that kind of problem?) But not these guys, look at the results!
I’m so very impressed with how they did over-all, and I still can’t get over the price. I had another idea about creating a pretty, but very economical gift with them. Why not pair up a set of decals, with a matching polish for base colour, and an inexpensive but cute nail file? (Make it way nicer than the one I threw in for example…) So lets add it up, shall we say $1 for the file, $4 for the polish, $0.23 for the sheet of decals and maybe $1 for the pillow giftbox – that’s only $6.23/£4.81! How about that? A gift for under a fiver, amazing! What’s nice about these decals is that they don’t look poor quality or feel cheap once applied, so there’s no way someone would know.
Do you ever have one of those items where you just have too many ideas for it and get a little obsessed with using it in different ways? Well I’m afraid that’s what happened with this sheet of decals. I really didn’t intend to do three different designs but after cutting out the dog set purely for the example gift set, the little dachshund was crying out to me to be used. I went for some super colourful, dry brush nails and used him as a pinky accent, cute no? And it only cost me $0.02 😉
I can’t wait to use the little rabbits they’re so cute, but the cat set…. Anyone fancy them? I’m unfortunately not a cat person. Hope you enjoyed the review and that I gave you some ideas to think about!
If you’d like to order the whole sheet for yourself or friends head on over to BornPrettyStore. Anything in your basket that’s full price will recieve a 10% discount when you use the code ‘AZYW10’ at checkout.
WonderfulWolf 