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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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!

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.

Koinobori…

So admittedly I had to google ‘japanese fish flag’ to find out what the proper name for these cute little wind socks were. Turns out, they’re not just decorative and actually help to celebrate ‘Childrens Day’ in Japan. Koinobori are displayed from April to early May, (appropriate timing for this nail design then) and each fish represents a different family member; the black and biggest is the father, the red is the mother and then the smaller fish traditionally starting with blue, then green, represent the children! Why carp? Well apparently carp symoblise strength and courage due to their ability to swim up streams and it is hoped that by flying these carp the children will grow up to be strong and healthy too. How interesting is that (Big thanks to wikipedia)!

It’s not my neatest stamping work, I was under a bit of time pressure so had to hash them out which was a shame as they deserved better. But they still look kinda cute! The largest koinobori image is from the Nee Jolie ‘Japan style’ plate that I’ve been addicted to lately, (sushi and blossom anyone?) whilst the smaller carp are from a Harunouta L002 plate  which I’ve reviewed previously.

Spring Blossom…

So I purchased this stamping plate back in August, and it was most certainly bought because it was pretty: I mean cute, stereotypical Japanese images – who can resist! It is a great plate though, it has a lot of varied images and for $2.99 (price correct 31/3) it doesn’t break the bank either.

I’m a what?…

So I do enjoy a bit of Harry Potter, and I bought this stamping plate in approximately May 2015. (I can’t pin point it exactly as I ordered it from ‘Alibaba’ along with some other plates, and that was the first month I used one of them).

I went for plain and simple as I was feeling a little lazy – scrape it, stamp it, seal it. Ta-da!

BornPrettyStore: Harunouta Plate L002

So today I tried out BornPrettyStore’s ‘Harunouta Stamping Plate L002‘, and boy is it a big one! It has over 36 images to use which is pretty darn impressive for one plate.

How good does a new plate look! Immediately, and rather obviously, the idea came to do reverse stamping with the Kokeshi doll images so that’s what I did. The plate is smooth, the etchings are clear so I had no problem picking up the images.

I had some slight smudging due to my top coat, grrr, but forgetting that the image lends itself perfectly to the reverse stamping/stamping decal technique! Next I decided to try out the blossom image. I had a little more trouble with this one, however I wasn’t sure wether it was due to the plate being new – sometimes they need a little bit of settling, or me not applying enough polish, or my stamper. However the image did pick up but can you see little sort of holes which became really obvious on my nails which was a shame. (Also, whoops at the smudged one and lack of extra pick up clean up!)

I decided to try again with the blossom image, but this time show a little versatility by creating a christmas design with a clearly not-so-christmassy plate! I again went with the reverse stamping/stamping decal technique. What do you think of my Poinsettia?

Okay, so unfortunately the holes in the blossom still happened. Anyone any ideas as to why that happens? The plate looks really well etched and the kokeshi doll picked up just fine. I mean this is under major scrutiny, at a distance where any normal person would be looking at your nails it’s barely noticeable.

There’s so many great, usable images on this plate that I could have painted tonnes of designs! I hope I’ve managed to show you a few ideas on how to use it, and possibly inspired you on how to turn non-christmas related images into something with festive cheer.

If you fancy ordering the ‘Harunouta Stamping Plate L002‘ from BornPrettyStore, use my code AZYW10 to receive 10% off all full priced items in your basket and remember – free shipping!

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!

Safari Stamping…

So the photo on the left was actually in my ‘nail fail folder’. When I created it originally I didn’t have a proper stamping polish which is why the black is so washed out but I didn’t delete it outright because I saw potential in it’s over-all design.

However a few months back I ordered a bottle of Konad Stamping Polish from BornPrettyStore, and boy what a difference it made! It’s bold and punchy now so I’m finally happy to reveal it to the world. The animal print foil (review here), and the stamping plate (review here) are from BPS too. I have seriously used that plate a million, billion, gazillion times and would highly recommend if you’re going to get anything from BPS – get that!

Sweet Stuff…

So who didn’t get a whole heap of chocolate related gifts this Christmas?! I managed to fool myself into thinking that I’d have some self control and ‘ration’ myself day to day but I’ve basically gorged myself like a vampire in a blood bank. What’s worse is that there’s still loads more left to be eaten… It seemed fitting that I had something sweet on my nails too.

I was gifted this nail stamp from my mum for Christmas. It’s made by a company called ‘Apharsec’ (which I’d never heard of before). The stamping ‘plate’ looked so different as it’s silicone and thick, I really wasn’t sure how to use it so I had to watch the ‘how to’ videos on their website.

I understood it quick as it’s so simple and oh my goodness it’s great – there’s no scraper or stamping pad needed! Say what?… You apply the polish to the stamp, then smudge the excess off on a piece of paper, then press the stamp on to your nail. That’s it, done! You know how sometimes with the old stamp/scraper combo it can sometimes be patchy? Not with this bad boy.

If there’s any untidiness around the image, you can just pick it off as it’s silicon!There’s another cool trick to do with it, but I’ve yet to try that out…

I wanted to include photos of the pink ombre stage as I’m now using liquid latex! It saves so much time on clean up plus the peel is so satisfying.