September Challenges - Colour of Your Eyes and Wings

Colour of your eyes was the prompt for #30daysofcolourchallenge yesterday. I have blue grey eyes that were listed in my baby book as sometimes violet so I thought A England Jane Morris would be a good choice for this! Jane Morris is a gorgeous slate grey holo with flashes of violet in with the holographic particles.
This polish applied beautifully, and although pretty opaque I did apply two coats. Pictures are taken with topcoat. You can't see the violet which is a shame but the holo picked up quite well on the camera.
The next challenge was Wings for #clairestelle8sept. It was a quiet day, I had no work and everyone was out for the day so I decided it was time for another reverse stamping adventure with the Uber Mat.
I used Moyou London Kitty 14, Essence Stampy 002 to stamp the butterfly wings and then coloured them with Colour Alike Raindrop, Fairy Forest and Lilac Sweater. I used a small brush for this, and found that so much easier than using a dotting tool. The scary part is lifting them off the mat, but I only ripped one a tiny bit and another that I hadn't laid  a good enough base for. I also made the effort to cut off all the spare around the edge before putting them on my nails so I didn't have such a messy wrap around the edge thing going on!
I had just finished when my husband came home so I pestered him to take a picture to show I actually did all 10 nails.

A England Jane Morris

 

 

 

Reverse Stamping with Moyou London Kitty 14

 

 

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

September Challenges - Jungle!

On my nails last week for #clairestelle8sept we had a very rare, very shy, magical and fantastical creature - Mr Blue, the blue neon spotted leopard who only lives in the very deepest part of the Jungle.
Mr Blue had heard all about the new Uber mat and the very famous Claire of #clairestelle8sept and suggested that we recreate his coat on my nails making very special decals using the equally magical Ubermat for Claire's Jungle prompt.
After a few false starts here they are - I used Vivid Lacquer VL010, Essence Stampy 002 and Virtuous Polish Deborah over Jacava Ormonde Gate and topped it with Barry M Matte top coat.

Well, I received my new Uber Mat, which is now available in the UK from She Sells Sea Shells with no risk of customs fees. It was dispatched so quickly, I was really pleased although then I had to pluck up the courage to use it. I'd heard so much about it, what if I couldn't get it to work?
Actually, it's perfect - does exactly what you can see in all the videos and I think I will enjoy trying it out over the coming weeks. I had a few duff starts making the reverse stamped decals, like using an actual base coat as the base, and using a very slow drying top coat, but I got there. I chose a pattern which I knew would be a bit flexible if I ripped or stretched the decal but as it happened it worked quite well. I still need to figure out how to get tidy edges but I am quite pleased with my first attempt.
I took a few pics of the mani with glossy top coat, but it looked a lot better with a matte finish.

Blue Leopard Nails

 

 

September Challenges - Stained Glass using Jewel Tones

For some crazy reason I decided to join another challenge this month, because I liked the look of the challenges!
Realistically though, I think I will need to scale down the length of my blog posts for nail art manis as I am struggling to keep up! I feel an obligation to my regular readers and I would say if you are a regular reader and you want more information on any mani feel free to contact me.
I have done a little summary post of my decision here.
Anyway, back to this mani.
The brief was Stained Glass using Jewel Tones for #wnac2015. I decided to do some reverse stamping using China Glaze Liquid Leather and Apipila Super Plate B. I coloured the images in using Jacava Midnight's Secret, Nails Inc Emerald Street and Kleancolor Metallic Yellow over the base of Colors by Llarowe Love Actually.
Some nails looked great, some not so - the end result looked rather wobbly but I'll share anyway. I think maybe the CG was not a strong enough black for this mani. Anyway, I then stamped over it using Kleancolor Madly Black and Apipila Super Plate B.
I liked this much better, it had more definition although it does look rather dark!

reverse stamping

Apipila Super Plate B with Kleancolor Madly Black
over Jewel Tones

April Challenges - Vampy and Reverse Stamping

I am late with yesterday's #30daysofcolourchallenge, mainly because I thought it would be a good idea to combine it with the #ukstampersapril challenge and I didn't have time to do both yesterday.
The #30daysofcolourchallenge was Vampy - I have a lot of polishes which would be fine for this challenge but I really wanted to use an untried so I have gone for another new one by UK Indie Danglefoot Nail Polish. We are in Dream Country Now is a red/purple jelly with lots of pretty red, gold, and orange glitter which is really sparkly.
When I finally decided I would try to wear red, it is these dark red, burgundy type shades that I started with and I love them! The glitter is an added bonus in this one.
I did need 3 coats for full opacity, I might well use a dark red base next time but the formula was good, polish dried reasonably quickly, despite my very cold hands.
The polish was very sparkly in the sunshine, but to be honest I think of these as more wintery shades and I liked it best in the shade. You can really see the depth of the glitters floating in the layers of polish.
The #ukstampersapril challenge was reverse stamping and with hindsight I think I made this very difficult trying it over a dark red base. It was a challenge to find a suitable colour to stamp with and to colour with. I don't think black would have shown up, white would be too much of a contrast so in the end I went for Mentality Beige Opaque which stamps as a gold. I think this went well with the glitter in the vampy base.
I chose the butterfly plate from Messy Mansion, MM42 and I coloured most of my butterflies with Above the Curve Tardis, a teal holo and China Glaze Riveting. I also had a few false starts with other colours that didn't show up at all well but in the end I think these are not too bad.
Note to self, make life easier - use a pale base!!!

Danglefoot Nail Polish
 We are in Dream Country Now
#30daysofcolourchallenge

  

Reverse stamped butterflies with Messy Mansion MM42
#ukstampersapril

 

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

April Challenges - Glitter and some reverse stamping

Today I only had one challenge to do, which was to swatch a glitter for #30dayofcolourchallenge. I do have plenty of glitters sat waiting to be tried but the one I chose is the most recent addition and I chose to swatch this one as I was not really sure if I liked it once it arrived.
Girly Bits Serendipity is a Box Indied Exclusive and I picked it up of one of the sales pages. It is a mix of pink and lilac glitters in a pinky golden holo base. It is very pretty although I am still not 100% certain if I like it. I am very fussy about my pinks and not keen on gold, I hadn't realised how gold it was when I bought it - shame on me for pouncing on it instead of doing proper research! I don't hate it but just not sure.
Anyway, it applied nicely as Girly Bits always do. It looked quite sheer on the first coat but gave great coverage on the second. I am pretty tempted to try it as topper over another shade before I decide whether to keep it or re-home it.
The photos are good, pretty accurate reflection of how pretty it is, more golden in the sun and pinky nude in the shade.
I had set myself some time today to practice reverse stamping as that is coming up in a challenge next week, and I was going to do roses but my Messy Mansion order arrived so I had to try the paisley plate MM48. I stayed with my plan to test the China Glaze Electric Nights- I recently bought the set of six minis but today I have just used three, DJ Blue My Mind, Violet Vibes and Treble Maker.
The reverse stamping worked so much better than last time, I didn't have to redo any so I am feeling more positive about next week's challenge. My colouring is not perfect, but the transfer to the nail went well, so I am happy!
I love this plate, I am so glad I bought it, can't wait to use it again!!

Girly Bits Serendipity
#30daysofcolourchallenge

 

 

reverse stamping with Messy Mansion MM48
and CG Electric Nights

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up