So here’s another item bought way back in April ’16, which were some ‘leaf’ metal studs. However I thought they looked way more like feathers than leaves, so I turned this one in to a dream-catcher.
I used the dry brush technique (which I seem to be a little addicted to right now) to smoosh all the colours together and then used a very fine brush to paint the dream-catcher details. It’s a very spring/summer design for this time of year!
So this design was directly inspired by a design from Neiru, but I changed it up a little by adding some accent studs and also a large bud. I think it’s a really sweet and delicate design – something a little more feminine compared to my past few designs, and I really enjoyed wearing it too.
So I have to admit that I think this is a damn pretty mani! Usually I’m not too into this sort of style but for a night out around this time of year, I think it’s perfect. I used my Konad Black (which is my new love) for stamping the filigree pattern, and then added some studs that I picked up cheap (like 99p) from a shop called ‘Home Bargains’.
It was a hard one to photograph – the gold wasn’t shining, then it was shining too much and blah blah blah, the usual problems. Trust me, it’s pretty.
P.S The winds of change are blowing in my direction, stay tuned to see where they take me.
So I usually order something from BornPrettyStore every month after pay day; it’s a bit naughty because no way do I need more supplies but their prices are so amazing and their products are so appealing I just can’t help it (a bit of an addiction maybe?..) It’s usually around 3-4 weeks between ordering and delivery, meaning I have a whole month to experiment with my new items before the next delivery arrives! I’ve never actually shown my ‘nail mail’ before as one post, as I usually just present the items as I use them. However as I have no nail art to present to you today, you’ll just have to look at my purchases instead.
Lets break it all down! (p.s it’s a long one so I’d just scroll down quickly and look at the pictures.)
I was feeling a bit risky, so forked out a whole $0.99 for a ‘Lucky Bag‘ of three nail art items. And I could not be happier with the results! I was honestly expecting all the crap of the day that BPS maybe couldn’t sell and that’s why they were lumped together and sold off cheap however look what I got; Hello Kitty nail stickers, cheeky cherry water decals, and a stamping plate – with my all time favourite mollusk, A SNAIL! An absolute bargain, and a whole load of fun, I’d highly recommend giving it a go!
As I have accumulated a few stamping plates now, I thought it would be a good idea to purchase a plate holder. The one I purchase holds 24 plates, unfortunately it’s no longer available to purchase but there are plenty of other holders available here. What can I say, it works great. It holds not only my round ones, but also my new octagonal plate.
Staying with the stamping theme I also purchased a large, rectangular ‘Nautical Plate‘. It’s my first one of this size, so I’m quite excited to use it. I presume it’ll perform the same as my others but the images appear larger and clearer so they might stamp better, stay tuned. I’d heard loads of people talking about Konad polishes being great for stamping, and as I find my OPI black comes out a bit wishy washy, I decided to purchase a bottle of ‘Konad Black 11ml‘ as it was on sale. The bottles are super cute, and I can’t wait to see how the polish stamps.
Continuing with the nautical theme, as mermaids and shells are all the rage right now in nail art, I had to buy this wheel of nail decorations. It contains a super cute turtle, shells, mermaids, seahorses and anchors. And the best bit, they’re in gold and silver in one wheel! Meaning no more of “what colour should I get? Hmm, maybe I’ll just have to buy a wheel of each”.
Another item that seems super cool to use right now are nail vinyls. Or maybe it’s just because I’m following nail vinyl people on Instagram… I went for the ‘NK-03’ set due to them having stars. Painting stars free hand is just a no go for me, so it felt like the correct choice. Can’t wait to use these!
Are you still with me? There’s still a few more items to go, so if you’re holding in a pee I’d just go do it now. I wouldn’t want any accidents. As I was creating amazing nail design concepts in my head (most of which don’t turn out anything near amazing), it struck me that I only have ‘clear’ and ‘iridescent’ gems – no coloured ones! Whaaat. This had to be resolved therefore I ordered this very colourful set of ‘Candy Coloured Gems‘. Hopefully my nail art dreams can now come true.
The below object may not look like much, but it’s seriously a life changer. To pick up gems I usually rely on a wet dotting tool or even my finger but honestly how fiddly is that, no longer shall this be the case though! This ‘rhinestone picker gel‘ will change it all – apparently you take a little blob off and stick it on to anything, for example a toothpick and ta-da, an instant gem picker. Sounds fantastic!
Last but not least, a tub of ‘round candy colour glitter‘. Again, I’m actually just following trends because round glitter seems to be another ‘thing’ right now.
That concludes my nail mail delivery, congratulations if you’ve made it to the end! Your prize is nothing I’m afraid, only the satisfaction of knowing you’ve made it. If you now fancy placing an order from BornPrettyStore, remember it’s free delivery and you can use my code ‘AZYW10’ to get 10% off all full priced items.
What have you learned from this post? I’m not sure, maybe that I write way too much uninteresting stuff. What have I learned from this post, that I’m such a trend sheep – I need to start being a trend setter…
So after using studs* from BornPrettyStore in the OMD3 Challenge, I thought I’d try and do the same to create daisies inspired by the earrings the model is wearing.
They didn’t turn out quite as pretty, mainly because I forgot the caviar bead ring which helps tidy it up a little, but I suppose I achieved what I was aiming for – a daisy. Seeing as the studs are actually multi-coloured, I had to paint them white which is why they look a little gloopy too. If I had taken more time, it would have looked better – however they are a little impractical to wear and I knew I’d be taking them off immediately
So I was inspired by a design I saw on the instagram account of Ruru_Taiwan. I thought their flowers were the cutest thing and I’ve never seen anything like it before so I wanted to recreate it.
I’m really happy with how they turned out as it was slow, delicate work. I used my tub of multi-coloured mixed studs* from BornPrettyStore, and picked out all the pink and orange ‘rhombuses’ I could find as I really had no idea how many it would take! I applied my pearl center, then the caviar beads, then the first layer of studs. After they were dry and definitely stuck, I applied the second layer of studs and then majorly top coated the whole lot – like dripped it on basically!
If you’d like to try out this design for yourself, you can pick up all the supplies you’ll need at BornPrettyStore. If you enter the code ‘AZYW10’ at checkout, you’ll receive a 10% discount off all full priced items!
So I actually like the colour combination of black and gold so it was easy to think of something to do. My nail tape was more gold in appearance before the top coat application, I’m not sure what happened. Weird chemical reactions!
So next up for review are these mixed, multicoulour studs. Yeah I know, I previously said that studs were quite a boring thing to review but when I saw the amazing colours I knew immediately I wanted to sprinkle them all over my nails!
The little tub is fantastic – it contains 3 shapes and 11 colours which you just can’t get in a regular nail wheel. Yes you have to fish for them but I found tipping some out made the process of picking them up so much easier.
In the tub you get;
Circles – dark blue, light blue, light purple and dark purple.
Squares – dark pink, light pink, green, yellow/green.
Rounded rhombus – peach, orange, light green, yellow.
The backs are slightly concave, and they’re small enough to sit flat on even my most curved nails. With a top coat added they don’t stick out or catch on anything, thank goodness!
I think they’re going to be really useful for bright summer designs, and they even pop on just plain black. The one tub gives such a fantastic range of studs for such great value that I’d recommend them to anyone who has the patience to do the fishing out.
If you fancy trying them out, remember to use my code ‘AZYW10’ which will get you 10% off any full priced items at the BornPrettyStore checkout!
So I just love this technique! ‘Water Spotting’ is super easy – fill a little tub of water, drop some polish in, spray some perfume onto it, dip your nails in and voila! I’m not sure why I chose this colour combination, I don’t think it works particularly well actually. I then added some studs just to liven it up a little.
So yup, still trying to get through all the polishes I got in my two Ciate Advent Calendars. I really liked both colours and would definitely wear/use them again. The purple is called ‘Talent Scout’ and it did apply a little thickly but smoothed out fine when I applied my top coat. (Usually I’m complaining about how thin the Ciate polishes are ha!) The coral, which appears a lot more pink rather than orange in reality, is called ‘Play Date’ and it applied really well – only one coat! My water marble wasn’t too hot, I had to do some patch jobs in places where I ended up with bubbles but I think I got away with it?.. I then applied a top coat and some studs because it was looking a little bland.
WonderfulWolf 