April Challenges - Butterflies and Born Pretty BP-74

Last week's smoosh was light grey, berry pink/red and bright blue. I used Nails Inc When Doves Cry, Piccadilly Circus and Baker Street.
The #clairestelle8april prompt was Butterflies, which seemed like the ideal opportunity to use the plate Born Pretty sent me to review. I don't think you can ever have too many butterfly plates and this is a really pretty one, which comes with a nice cardboard sleeve. The plate is BP-74, item number 20791.
There is a nice mix of different butterfly images considering it is a small plate and includes a dragonfly image too. I went for the more solid image for my first layer as I was stamping white over some quite pale areas of my smoosh, and I wanted to create a more consistent pale base for the second layer of black stamping where I went for more of a detailed image.
I did have some difficulty with this plate. It is not very deeply etched and I found my white stamping polishes would not pick up at all - I think they just dried too quickly. In the end I found that I needed only a very light scrape and I managed to use Barry M Cotton reasonably successfully for my first layer of stamping.
I had the same problem with the second layer but eventually had success with Colour Alike Kind of Black.
I was pleased with the final mani but it took a long time and a lot of frustration! I have since tried again with the plate and still suffering the same issues.
I was also sent 2 other plates for review - both are absolutely fine and I think I was just unlucky with one as friends have used this plate with no problems.

Smoosh!

 

Born Pretty BP-74 and Barry M Cotton

Born Pretty BP-74 and Colour Alike Kind of Black

BP-74

February Challenges - More Smooshing and some UberChic flower stamping

This weeks #smooshynailsunday colours were periwinkle, coral and bright blue.
I used Nails Inc Bluebell, Copacabana Coral and Baker Street.
Then I stamped with UberChic UC5-03 and A England Camelot.
And then with UberChic UC4-01 and Colour Alike Kind of White

#smooshattack

 

UberChic UC5-03 and A England Camelot

 

UberChic UC4-01 and Colour Alike Kind of White

 

A2Z Series - M is for Multi-coloured

This Thursday's letter is M, for Multi-coloured.
I thought about using pastel rainbow colours for this, but then I decided I'd move out of my comfort zone and go brighter and use the 7 colours of the spectrum, or some approximation to them.
I chose Nails Inc St James, Nails Inc Atomic, Leighton Denny Brick Road, Nella Milano Evergreen, Nails Inc Baker Street, Nails Inc Wigmore Streeet and Jacava Blueberry Muffin.
I painted freehand stripes on each nail, red through to violet. This was scary, the challenge of trying to be quite neat and space 7 colours equally on nails that are all different lengths. The stripes are a bit wobbly but as I planned to stamp on top, I thought I'd get away with that!
I was going to stamp in black and then I changed my mind to white, and in the end I decided why not try both! So that's what I did - I stamped using Born Pretty BP-L 003 and the 2 Essence polishes Stampy 001 and 002.
The end result is not something I would wear for long, a bit too colourful for me but what a great way to try a new plate and test 2 colours over 7 others!! I really like this plate, it has some great images on, I think I'll be using it a lot!
I have to say, these turned out exactly as they were in my mind, in fact maybe the stripes were a bit more successful than I had expected - certainly I think I fulfilled the "multi-coloured" brief.

M is for Multi-coloured - 7 colours
and black and whire stamping BP-L 003

 

 

 

 

Look HERE to see what everyone else got up to.

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping! Messy Mansion Leadlight Lacquer A04 over a blue, green and purple base

In early January I stamped over a fiery saran wrap base, and I mentioned in the post I'd like to try something similar in blue, green and purple, so here it is.
I started with a base of Nails Inc Baker Street, and then added Nails Inc Queen Victoria Street and Jacava Blueberry Muffin, using saran wrap to smush the colours around. I deliberately tried to choose the colours so that no one colour would be lighter or darker, and that way the stamping would stand out equally well all over. I kept the green to 2 opposite corners and the purple to the other corners of each nail as I wanted to avoid them blending.
I then stamped using A England Camelot and my new Leadlight Lacquer plate from Messy Mansion. The plate I used is A04 and the image I chose has swirly fern like shapes on it. It is a beautiful plate, excellent quality and I had no difficulty at all using it.
I love this combination of colours and the way they have worked together with the stamping. I think this has turned out even better than I expected and I am really chuffed with it!!

Messy Mansion Leadlight Lacquer A04

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nails Inc Baker Street

Today's polish is one I have worn before but it was pre blogging days, so I thought I'd just do a quick post. One day last week whilst digging through my Nails Inc box to look for something I had a sudden desire to wear Baker Street. I have a plan to use this as a base for a stamping mani but I thought I'd wear it on its own for a day.
At one point this was Nails Inc's bestselling shade, and it is a truly marvelous vibrant blue. If you read my blog regularly or scroll my Instagram you'll know I am not entirely comfortable in very bright colours, and I don't wear them often but every now and then I do like to wear something a bit out of my comfort zone, and I do like blue!
This painted on well in 2 coats and pictures are taken with top coat, quite late on in the afternoon but the light was reasonable. I love the super glossy finish and the reflections in some of these pictures.

Nails Inc Baker Street