BornPrettyStore: Halloween Stamping Plate BP-L057

So just in time for Halloween this rectangle stamping plate has lots of spooky (and not so spooky) images to use. It was sent to me by BornPrettyStore and even though you wouldn’t receive it in time for Halloween this year it is half price at the moment.

Fortunately it isn’t a one trick pony, it’s not all witches and pumpkins. I feel it has a nice balance of themed vs normal images. The obvious example of ‘usable’ images would be the skulls as they’re not soley related to Halloween. (I also include the spider webs, cats and bats within this category.)

Skulls were the first image I chose to stamp. I used my BornPrettyStore stamping polish and clear mallow stamping head and as you can see they came out pretty crisp! The plate didn’t need much prepping, I think this was actually only the second or third scrape before it picked up this strongly. Not bad huh?

I also used a second skull image to demonstrate that it’s easy enough to isolate a single element and use that. This one is a little patchy but that could be due to a few reasons; not enough polish, not prepped enough, clumsy scraping. To be honest though I think it kind of adds to the whole effect! (I love the fact he’s already missing a few teeth.)

And ta-da, the design as a whole! Not so Halloweeny right?

So now let’s actually get on to what the plate was designed for – Halloween! I chose another ‘stamp and go’ image, this time some skeleton cats. Some of them picked up better than others, again maybe the plate needed more prepping or I needed to use more polish.

I thought it was quite a playful image (I can’t have anything too spooky on my nails as I work with children) so felt that a neon ombre would be a twist on tradition too. What do you think?

Over the next week I’ll be using this plate again to bring you some more Halloween nails! If you order anything from BornPrettyStore, use my code ‘AZYW10’ at the checkout to save yourself 10% off all full priced items and remember free shipping. This plate is already half price, so go for it!

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Beautiful Butterfly?…

So I was in two mind as to whether to post these nails at first. When I first stamped them I sort of cringed at how cheesy they were – was it because of the butterfly itself, or was it the fact I’d placed it over two nails?… *shudders* But then I had a change of heart, because even though not to my taste there’s bound to be someone out there that likes them?… Anyone?…

Silver Art Deco…

So yesterday my mum and I went on a trip to a casino in Edinburgh. It’s housed in a beautiful art deco building called ‘The Maybury‘ so I wanted my nails to reflect that style. It’s been a while since I’ve done some line work, and as you can see I’m a bit out of practice!

Interstellar…

So this is the final polish that I purchased from Primark. It’s called ‘interstellar’ and behaved much like the others; smooth application, very good coverage, not overly smelly.

I wore this design to work and unfortunately it chipped really badly. Now if you take in to consideration that I’m in a swimming pool for 2 and a half hours, there can sometimes be some lifting or peeling, but I was a little bit disappointed by just how much came off. Never the less, the polish only cost £1.50 so….

P.S why the fish? Well I’m off fishing tomorrow – fingers crossed for a successful catch!

Essential Nails Design #10…

So this design was a total pain in the butt! One of the points you can get marked down for was glitter being present in the black polish, it happened like 3 times out of the 8 when I top coated. There was also fluff everywhere for no apparent reason. It wasn’t off the towel as I make sure to use well washed ones seeing as newer ones do lose fluff, but I wondered if dust particles were just more noticeable because the black was so glossy. (I mean you can see my finger print grease on some of them, that’s extreme…). Another point you can lose marks on is the smile line, fortunately I feel none of mine are too straight but what is clear to see that some of them are uneven – something for me to work on. That’s what’s great about doing a comparison line up I think!

Silver Snowflakes…

So it’s still not hit me that Christmas is in 7 days… That’s not a very long time at all so I felt like I needed to crack out my Christmas themed nail art supplies before the season passes by. Tonight I chose to use some snowflake Nail Foil that I bought from BornPrettyStore. The snowflakes are quite far apart on the ribbon so I decided to cut some out, meaning I could place them how I wanted. I also added some gemstones to the middle of the snowflakes to jazz the whole thing up a bit. I think it makes for a more classy Christmas design? I’ve seen some

Ocean Depths…

So even though the whole ‘mermaid’/’seaside’ nail trend is (or was?) very much a thing, I think it has too much of a summer vibe for it to feel right at this time of year. Therefore instead of going all breezy and beachy, I went for moody and mysterious. I couldn’t tell if I’d made it too busy with silver everything on top of silver spray marble, however after wearing it for a few days I actually like how busy yet subtle it is. You don’t immediately notice the shell or the starfish; I like how this imitates the feeling of when you’re looking into an actual rock pool and even though you’re seeing everything, you’re not really noticing anything and it’s only until you start to relax and re-focus that you notice the crab hiding in the corner or the starfish slowly walking across the sand. Anyone else?

The ‘3D Ocean Decorations‘ are from BornPrettyStore , and they are currently (02/12/15) on sale at only $2.76! If you add anything else to your order which happens not to be on sale, you can use my code ‘AZYW10’ to get 10% off all your full priced items. Have you tried the ‘mermaid’ look yet?

 

BornPrettyStore: Gecko Charms…

So this is a first for me as I’ve never actually worn any nail charms before! When I was allowed to pick more items to review I  just had to try out these little Geckos*. Dare I say that some nail charms can look a little tacky? But not these guys! For $3.05/£1.97 you get FIVE charms, yes FIVE. Amazing right?

I really couldn’t settle on a design. The first one I painted was with the lizard skin foil but something just look weird about it, so I took the foil off and repainted them black. But that just looked boring so I added some more rhinestones. What design do you prefer?

The little geckos themselves were so cute! They can be attached to your nails by their 4 little feet, which I applied my glue to. They are also slightly curved meaning they sit well on your nail, giving your digits a little gecko hug!

As I previously mentioned you get 5 in the bag, they are perfectly identical with no faults or flaws which can often occur in such products. Once I was finished with my design, I carefully removed my gecko charm meaning I can now reuse it for another time. I have other ideas on how to use them so please stay tuned for future projects featuring them.

If you fancy getting a hold of these little geckos you will get 10% off them using my code ‘AZYW10’ at the BornPrettyStore check out. Now for some more photos as he just loved to pose!

*These were given to me for free in return for a fair review.

Houndstooth with Silver…

So I purchased some nail art supplies out of a shop called ‘Wilkos’ for £1 each – a set of nail wraps, french manicure tip guides and  ‘nail jewels’ – 4 little tubs of  very fine nail foil. I haven’t seen their nail products before so I was keen to try them. I’ve already used the tip guides for my green ombre on ombre, and they worked great, so today I decided to use the foils and wraps.

The wraps are definitely in the ‘thicker’ category, but not in the ‘too thick’ one – meaning they were able to bend round the nail and hug it, but not pliable enough to get rid of two tiny wrinkles. Still acceptable for £1!

The foil, this is where it gets confusing. The following points about it aren’t meant to be complaints, but they kind of sound like that, but I’m not sure if that means I am complaining about it because it wasn’t actually ‘bad’?…  The foil is super fine, I sometimes accidentally blew it away with my breathing or arm movements. It also stuck to everything without much coaxing, my tray and my fingers mainly. I used nail foil glue to make it stick to my nails and I did want the pieces of silver to be small and delicate… However with the foil glue being so sticky and the foil being so keen to attach itself to anything I ended up with big clumsy chunks. Nevermind! I still enjoyed working with it, and really like it?… Confused, I am.

Houndstooth with Silver Foil

Gears and Cogs…

So for the cogs/gears I used my hole-punch reinforcers, but tiny triangles into them instead of having to paint them. I think it was easier, and maybe neater than I could have achieved by hand. I’m pretty happy with them, I added some studs and some more dots just because they looked too plain!