BornPrettyStore: Fish BP-151

So I’ve not written a review in ages! Today I’m showing you a fish themed stamping plate from BornPrettyStore. Have a little look at the following pictures and let’s play ‘One of these things is not like the others’.

Did you get it right? Why on earth has a unicorn been included, bizarre. There is actually a fish called a Unicorn Tang but it certainly doesn’t look like that. (I suppose you could argue that jellyfish aren’t fish but at least it’s related in the name and live in the sea.)

Anyway, the fish images are pretty usable and picked up crisply. They lend themselves well to reverse stamping if that’s your bag but if it’s not don’t worry as they can also be used just as effectively for as stamp-and-go images.

However, if you have quite long nails I think you’d struggle to cover them with just one image. I think you’d have to pick up the image twice and try to do some sort of over-lap. I have naturally long nails without have long growth (if that makes sense) and the images were close to being too small to cover mine. Also, as beautiful as the central goldfish is I didn’t have much practical use for it as it’s massive!

Enough nit-picking, who’s ready for some nail art example;

So which was your favourite? If you fancy trying out some fish-related designs the plate is currently on sale for only $1.59 and free shipping! Should you happen to add anything else to your basket, use my code AZYW10 at the checkout to receive 10% off all your full priced items.

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Smile, it’s almost Halloween…

So these smiling skulls definitely resemble a certain skellington to me? Also with the colour combo I’ve chosen it seems to have turned out more Chirstmas than nightmare. Oh well!

This image is yet again from BornPrettyStore plate BP-L057 (reviewed here)

Spooky attraction…

So it’s been a while since I’ve used a magnetic polish and I actually forgot how pretty they could be! This one is actually an Avon polish called ‘Hypnotic Bronze’,  they call their magnetic/cats eye polish ‘Colour Attract’ just in case you go googling it.

The crooked house, trees and bats are all off the same stamping plate from BornPrettyStore which I recently reviewed.

Reverse stamped spookies…

So I just cannot pose with my left hand, how embarrassing! I was only able to achieve any sort of design on it due to using reverse stamping meaning my right hand only had to perform basic tasks. Even then it still managed to smudge the spookies upon top-coating. I think I’ll just stick to painting my right hand from now on…

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!

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?…

Folded Fox…

So I thought this mani turned out super cute, but unfortunately it got chipped after only like 2.5 seconds of arriving in to work. Why do the pretty manis never survive yet ugly ones seem indestructible – it’s not fair!

The fox is from an amazing BornPrettyStore plate. Why is it amazing? Because it has so many usable images and I’ve previously reviewed it here, it’s definitely worth purchasing.

What a hoot…

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.

BornPrettyStore: Origami Stamping Plate…

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.

Why so crabby?…

So I was originally meant to post these nails on Monday, but I just wasn’t impressed with them therefore I spent today re-visiting the design and trying to make them better. To be honest, I’m still not impressed with them but I like them more than my first try.

So where did it all go wrong?
Firstly I went wrong with using silver on holo – it just disappeared in to nothingness. Secondly the stamping plate itself is pretty pants (the crab image one). It’s images are shallowly etched and it’s a nightmare trying to pick them up, it also means there’s barely any polish which is why the crabs turned out to be so transparent.

So for the second try, I stamped the ‘waves’ in white which shows them up way better. Secondly I chose a different crab image from the same plate and double stamped it; black base, red on top. This does make the image stronger but does it make it a little too dark?…

The real question though is – which do you attempt do you prefer?