So I’m so close to finishing this challenge! It’s unfortunately taken a ridiculous amount of time however (I mean we’re talking two years…), so it almost means nothing now in terms of a ‘challenge’ but I’ve enjoyed doing it.
Tag: Bird Nail Art
Pokemon Theme: Zapdos…
So this is the second bird from the legendary trio. I had fun painting him but it was quite hard to get so many lines painted in such a small space. The best part was actually the base I created, I think I’ll have to use it for some future nail art!
Free as a bird…
So this is another stamping design featuring images from two different plates (I’m afraid I’ve felt a little too lazy this week to do anything spectacular) . The bird is from my first ever stamping plate that I bought out of Poundland back in 2013, which I have used, and a virgin ‘hehe’ stamping plate that contains owls and cages.
Flamingo Towel…
So there’s nothing better than a fresh new towel! (Apart from maybe the combo of clean bedsheets and jammies) And I couldn’t believe it when I realised I had matching nail varnish colours. It was too fantastic not to do nail art based on it.
BornPrettyStore: BP-80 Stamping Plate…
So I already own several BornPrettyStore stamping plates, as well some stampers/scrapers by them too, but today I have BP-80 Stamping Plate* to review! The plate includes some very pretty images and arrived in a little card pocket which is super handy if you don’t have a stamping plate holder as it will help protect the plate when not in use. As expected it comes with the protective blue film that all stamping plates seem to arrive with – for those new to stamping, and I’m not being patronising here, remember this needs to be removed before use.
As you can see, the images are amazingly crisp and very well etched. I really couldn’t make my mind up as to what design I was going to feature, so I went a bit over-board. I used three different stamping techniques to create three different designs with four different images!
For the first, I used the reverse stamping technique with the larger bird and large lotus. I chose to use my clear stamper because you can see if you’ve missed parts or messed up the image by looking ‘through’ it. The image does look a little patchy, but I wasn’t too worried seeing as I was painting over it. I didn’t really take the time to properly break the plate in, as daft as it might sound I sometimes find stamping images pick up better after the 3rd or 4th time.
I managed to smudge some of the detail (eye and neck feathers) when I was filling the image in but I’m sure you get the idea. I also feel that my pink base was way too bright, I was aiming for subtle but instead it’s ended up as a bright pink punch in the face!
Secondly, I chose to do a multi-coloured scrape. The one where you blob on a few colours and then scrape over it a few times so the colours all mix up. I thought the cloud(?) image was perfect for this as it had a large enough engraved area for the colours to show. I think this kind of look would be great as a base, however maybe if I’d placed the image properly and covered my nail you could use it as a ‘full’ design. The polishes I used were not stamping polishes but this allowed for some layering, you can notice this more on my ring finger and in future I’d like to play about with that some more.
Last but not least I chose to use the doubling up technique; you stamp the same image in two different colours almost on top of each other. This has only really become possible with the clear stampers, otherwise it could look a little messy. I chose red and black purely because those were the two stamping polishes I had and the daisy-esk image. Stamping polishes certainly make a difference and as does a well etched plate – I mean look how crisp those edges are! The third picture looks way more vibrant, but that’s due to there being a top coat applied, for some reason the stamping polishes apply a little matte.
I hope that’s provided plenty of inspiration to get you going. Let me know if you order this plate (or already have it) and what you’d do with it.
Currently (13.05.2016) BornPrettyStore have BP-80 and a bunch of other stamping plates half price. If you add anything to your basket that happens to be full price, use my code ‘AZYW10’ at the checkout to get 10% off those items. Are you still reading? You shouldn’t be, you should be shopping!
BornPrettyStore: Birds and Bananas Nail Stickers…
So what weird and wonderful combinations BornPrettyStore come up with; a sheet of stickers with toucans, macaws, cockatoos and… bananas? Why not!
These bird and banana* stickers retail at $3.69, and you get a fair amount for that money. I was really impressed with how vivid they are, and they’re actually quite detailed. The only real transparency I noticed was the white tip of the toucans wing, all the other stickers seem to be solid.
At first I was using my tweezers to pick up the stickers, but found that they weren’t too sticky meaning they wouldn’t stick to my fingers, also they weren’t too delicate to manually handle so I ended up using my fingers to pick up and place them.
The stickers are very pliable, just look at how much that toucan is hugging my nail. It is a super flat finish, I genuinely struggled to feel the edge or even see it! Even more exciting than that, is that the toucan didn’t melt with a top coat – hallelujah. Is it only me that’s had nightmarish experiences with nail stickers melting? Please tell me I’m not the only one. No curling, no sliding, no melting, nada. And that’s just the way I want and like it.
Moving on to bananas. I fricken hate real bananas, the texture and taste is just disgusting I don’t know why anyone would subject themselves to that. Boke. But banana nail stickers, hell yes! These applied to the same quality as the toucan – no obvious sticker edge, no top-coat melting, super flat sticking. (It wasn’t a surprise really seeing as they were off the same sheet, but you just never know!) How about a really boring game of spot the difference – which bunch of bananas has been topcoated? It’s pretty hard to tell huh?
So lets zoom out about now and get a look at the whole mani. I think these stickers are so fun, and just right for coming in to summer. I bet there’s loads of different things you could do with them, to suggest a few; brighten them up, make them classy or get playful with them (did anyone spot the bananas with the gorillas running up them?!). I chose to use the dry brush technique in several green polishes to create a jungle feel, then lightly ‘sketched’ on some foliage.
If you’d like to order these bird and banana stickers, remember you get FREE delivery and can also get 10% off all full priced items in your basket at BornPrettyStore by using my code ‘AZYW10’. Let me know if you’ve ordered these, as I’d love to see how you use them!
(Evolved) Birds in a Cage…
So I’ve been looking back at some of my old posts, and decided it would be quite a nice to recreate some of them. Today’s re-creation comes from 4 years ago (how crazy is that!) called ‘Birds in a Cage’.
Fortunately my camera is better, as the photo is in focus and 3 out of my 4 nails are longer. However in terms of actual nail art, I can’t see much of an improvement – how embarrassing is that! I also don’t know if I’ve over cluttered the design; the original was so cute and simple but now I feel as if I’ve added too much extra detail.
I was really unsettled about how I’d recreated it as I thought I’d taken it too far, so much so I painted it again! This time more true to the original with the black cage. So what do you guys think – original, re-creation, re-created re-creation?
Maybe this whole ‘flashback’ post idea isn’t a good one!…
Flamingo…
So I cannot take any credit for the design of this one, it’s a re-creation of a design belonging to Natalia aka Kraken Nails. She’s been a little MIA lately (she’s okay, just super busy) and it was her birthday at the weekend so a group of us on Instagram got together for a collaboration surprise. Unfortunately my email went walk about or I missed the deadline due to being in a different time zone (I’m still not sure) and didn’t make it in to the collage. *sad face* But I still want Natalia to know I’m wishing her a happy birthday so thought I’d share my ‘re-creation’ as a lone wolf seeing as I missed the pack!
If you head on over to my Instagram you’ll be able to see a comparison picture. Natalia creates amazing nail art, usually with just some toothpicks for tool – crazily amazing!
Love Song…
So continuing with Valentines Nails, here are two birds singing a love song to each other! Boke, only a few more days until this mush is over. (It is kinda cute though, right?….) The blue is one of the new Barry M polish I got for Christmas, it’s from their Gelly Collection called ‘Elderberry’. I’d say it’s a cool, grey/blue which I very much like. I mattified the whole design purely because I’ve not done so in a while and the design seemed to suit matte.
Birds in a cage…
Birds in a cage nail art! (Inspired by an ornament I have in my bedroom). I quite liked the single bird as an ‘accent nail’ which I would more likely wear out than having all my nails done in the cage design.
WonderfulWolf 