Before & After: Freehand fall leaves

Hello!

Okay, so. I showed you a fall leaf manicure as my last nail art. Today I'm going to show you another fall leaf manicure 'cause I'm in the mood for it and it's my blog so I can cry if I want to! Wait, that's not right...

Anyway...For this one, I started with Picture Polish Mallard, one of those awesome ugly-pretty polishes; it's a deep, almost-black green with a gorgeous forest green shimmer and a rainbow of fall-leaf colored flakies:

Picture Polish Mallard, 2 coats, artificial light

Those flakies make me think of fall leaves, so I figured I'd add some more on top of the. I stamped on a tree branch with Barry M Gold Foil and QA21. After that, I freehanded some leaves on to it, with moderate success:

 

I like it, but it isn't quite what I was hoping for. Maybe it's one of those you're-your-own-worst-critic things...Point is, I'm not sure why I'm in a fall leaf sort of mood lately, but it might be a good thing, 'cause I clearly need practice freehanding them...

Thanks for stopping by. :) Hugs and loves,
M.

Review: Stamping plate QA39 from Born Pretty Store

Hello!

Today I have a review of stamping plate QA39, from Born Pretty Store. I think a lot of people don't realize that Born Pretty Store sells stamping plates and supplies, and think of them more for other sorts of nail art, so I'm glad to show this side of what they sell. :)

First, here is the plate itself:

QA39

Originally when I saw the plate, I wanted to do a manicure with the statue of liberty, and I still do. But when it turned out that the timing of the review was going to be right with Valentine's Day, I knew I had to do the hearts and kisses stuff instead. Plus, since I put together two anti-Valentine-establishment manicures, I figured it would be nice to do a positive one, too. :)

I started with a pink base (I'll show the polishes to you on their own later this week), and then put down a background with the Louis Vuitton image and a darker pink, so that I could test out an image with smaller detailing on it. Then I stamped the 'Kiss' and heart images over that with Konad white polish. Here's how it turned out:

Happy Valentine's Day!

The plate worked beautifully; all of the images stamped well, except where my own imperfections were at fault. On a couple of nails my stamp didn't reach quite to the end, and I have one heart that blurred a bit. But if you look at the close up of my index finger, you can see how well the images stamped:

Up close and personal. :)

Please pay no attention to the teeny glitter I couldn't get off from my last manicure, lol! Far away shots are so much better...sigh...:P

I know what you're thinking--OMG, Michelle, this is a PINK manicure, with TWO colors of pink, and it has HEARTS!! Is everything okay? Are you undergoing some sort of crisis?? Hey, what can I say...even an anti-pink, anti-hearts girl like me has a soft spot for Valentine's stuff that shows through now and then. :)

You can find this plate on Born Pretty Store's site by clicking here. And don't forget to use my coupon code to get 10% off of this and/or anything else you order from the entire Born Pretty Store site: 

Thanks for taking a look, and I hope your Valentine's Day was filled only with wonderful things, surrounded by people you love. :)

Xoxox,
M.

(The stamping plate shown in this review was sent for my honest review.)

NOTD: Vampire bats bite

Hello!!

Today's prompt in the 'This Is Halloween' Challenge is: Bats!

I've had several bat images that I've been waiting to use since I started stamping back in April, so I was excited for this theme. But what I'm most excited about, what I've been absolutely dying to use, is a bat/vampire bite image from Bundle Monster. So, I designed my manicure around that image...the story behind it is that the vampire has flown into the room in bat form, and bitten his victim, and now is flying away with the rest of his bat companions, leaving behind his victim and her blood:

That's gonna leave a mark...

To put it together, I stared with a nude polish on the accent finger, Sally Hansen Beige Blast; this was a little too beige, so I added a coat of LA Colors Mega Watt as a topper. On the other fingers, I used Pure Ice Siren. On the accent finger, I also used Siren to stamp the vampire bat bite using BM301. On the rest, I stamped the flights of bats with Konad black and plate QA26

So what do you think? Is it...BAT-tastic?

(I apologize. That was just wrong.)

Thanks for looking! Please check out the other bat manicures in the challenge, linked below. :)

Xoxox,
M.