Before & After: What happens when Rudolf drinks too much...

Hello!!

So I'm part two holiday challenges this month, and I'm already behind on two of them. But it's for a good reason--I'm made some really good progress on my book and should have a complete first draft in a week or two. Woo hoo!

Today's theme, which is for The Twelve Days Of Christmas Nail Art Challenge, is festive colors/glitter.

I started with Jessica Touch it, a gold-silver blend textured polish with glitter for extra glimmer:

Jessica Touch It 

Next I added a layer of Shirley Ann Nail Lacquer Rudolph Ralphed, which I just got in her Black Friday sale; it's a mix of gold, red and green glitters in hex and square shapes. Inspired by the name, I decided to add the little Rudolph who had just ralphed it all over my fingers--I figure, he must have been drinking too much at the annual North Pole Christmas party:

I stamped the reindeer with Konad Black, and China Glaze Passion and Brownstone (I layered them to get the shadaowed effect), and Bundle Monster plate H01. I added a red stud for the nose and two black rhinestones for the eyes.

Look at that little dickens! Cute as a button! Well, at least he looks a little bit sheepish about getting glitter everywhere...sigh...;)

Hugs and love, and don't forget to check out the other manis below! :)

M.

Review: MoYou-London Christmas 01 (and how to use collage-style plates)

Hello!

Have you heard of MoYou-London's stamping plates?

I'm pretty sure you have, because they've been getting a bit of exposure lately, and they're awesome. I was just able to place my first order of MoYou-London plates, and I wiped out my Christmas present money doing so, before I even got it.

But I don't regret it. I love the style of so many of the images, but more than that, I adore the innovative direction they're taking with their plates--by creating a wide variety of what I'm calling 'collage-style' plates.

Before I say more, here is the video I made of Christmas 01, from their Festive collection; I talk more in the video about the ways I think these plates can be used and why I love them so much:

Okay, so, now back to why I think the collage-style plates are the next new direction in stamping. When you first look at them, especially if you're fairly new to stamping, I think they can be wildly intimidating, so I want to walk you through some reasons why you should love them and pet them and kiss them and hug them. Wait, that's kittens. But you get my point.



Here is what the plate looks like:

And a little closer up:

Scary, right? It's okay, I know what you're thinking. Yeah, that's cute and all, but it's not like I can get the collage onto my fingertips. That gingerbread house wouldn't fit on my whole hand! How could that possibly be useful??

I would like to convince you that not only is this just as useable as a regular plate, it actually offers you a bunch more possibilities than a regular plate. The main skill you need to use this style of plate effectively, other than just the basic scrape-and-stamp skill,  is the ability to isolate images. I have a tutorial on how to isolate images that you can find here. I have that tutorial condensed into a single image here. And if you'd like to see my tips on aligning stamps you can find them by clicking here.


So what can you do with them? Among other things you can:

1) Isolate images, for example, those cute little presents up there, or that adorable little gingerbread guy.

2) Build scenes that are in perfect proportion, for example, have Santa and his reindeer flying across your nails, or have a snowman at the north pole scene.

3) Select areas of the collage for full-nail patterns, for example, the stars in the sky or the trees on the gingerbread house.

4) Select areas of the plate to stamp that have two images and create a patchwork look in a single easy stamp; for example, you could stamp the area of the house that has the snowflakes and the chevrons for one nail, the trees and the chevrons for another, etc.

5) In the case of this plate, you can use the border to make candy-cane stripes across your nails (how cute would that be for French tips?!):

Different collage plates have different opportunities for play, but you get the idea. And I'm sure there are tons more besides these.

What's that you say? That it sounds good in theory, but you don't believe it can actually happen? Well, let's take a look at two looks I threw together quickly for you. I literally threw some stamping over the polish I was wearing (Shirley Ann Nail Lacquer Not Your Mama's Cranberry Sauce) in a few minutes, so imagine what you could do if you were being careful, lol... :)

For the first look I did a simple stamp with China Glaze Passion (a gold polish), using the image from the center of the Christmas tree. This one took under a minute to stamp, no lie:

As you can see, in my hurry, I actually picked up my image too closely to the edge of the tree--there was plenty of room for me to have avoided that--and I got tree edge on my nails. However, as you can also see, it really didn't make too much of a difference, and next time I'll just be a bit more careful. :)

For the next look, I first used the snowflake images (the ones above the reindeer on the plate), and then stamped Santa and his reindeer over them. Notice that there isn't enough area where the snowflakes are to get a single image of them that will cover the whole nail; so I had to stamp each nail twice to cover them. Too much work, you say? It still took me only about 3 minutes to do the entire manicure:

(As you can tell from the index finger, I initially tried stamping Santa and his deers in gold, but it didn't show up very well...grrr...)

So there you go, two fun, cute manicures in no time flat!

The moral of the story is, don't let these collage-style plates frighten you away. If you can do even just basic stamping and you can use my technique for isolating an image, you can do tremendously cool things with these plates. And of course, if there are any questions you have about them or any tutorials you want me to do with them, let me know. :)

I hope you've enjoyed this, and that I've taken at least a little fear out of these sorts of images for you. :)

Hugs and love,
M.

(The plate in this review was purchased with my own money.)

Before & After: How much is that cutie in the window?

Hello!!

Today I'm posting my final 'Your Favorite Color' manicure for the Nail Challenge Collaborative, and it's one I'm pretty fond of. :)

I started with Barielle Dinner At 8, one of my favorite reds:

Barielle Dinner At 8

Then, on three of the fingers, I added a coat of Me.Lissa Nail Lacquer QR Code, a very fun black-and-white glitter in squares, rectangles, and bars of various sizes.

For the accent nail, I stamped the QR Code image from Mash-51 in Wet N Wild White Creme, and then painted it in with the same polish to create a white background. When it dried, I stamped over it again with Konad Black:

Me.Lissa QR Code

Wet N Wild; Konad; Mash

I love how this came out! I did get a little smudgle at the bottom, and this is one of the reasons why I'm excited to try the new rectangular stamper I just got. :)

Thanks for stopping by, and check back later tonight (meaning probably very early tomorrow, lol)--I have an indie review that includes one of my new favorite holiday polishes to share with you. :)

Giving thanks for all of you that take time to support me and my blog,
M.

Before & After: I'm in the mood for...

Hello!

Okay, yesterday we took mini break from fall with some bright colors. Today, I'm in the mood for fall, baby. In fact, I'm in the mood for Thanksgiving.

'I'm in the mood for Thanksgiving...simple because yams're near me...'

Ahem. Sorry about that. The thing is, today's theme in Adventures In Stamping is 'I'm in the mood for ___". And yes, I am in fact in the mood for Thanksgiving.

It all started with this incredible custom that InDecisive Lacquer made for me, and rusty orange brown crelly with all sorts of brown, gold, orange and pinky-purple hex and circle glitters...I decided to name it Zea Mays, because I think it came out looking like the most beautiful Indian corn you've ever seen:

InDecisive Nail Lacquer Zea Mays

This, my friends, is one coat. That's right, you heard me, only one coat. I could have divided it into two coats, or put one thin coat over something else. But seriously now--a crelly that looks this good in one coat, no dabbing, no fussing? Oh yes, sooo nice...

BTW, I have been trying to convince Aleksandra that she should make this part of her line. I think it's a such a perfect color for fall and so packed with glitter. What do you think?

Anyway, having established an wonderful fall feel with this base, I decided to do my first Thanksgiving mani for the year with it. I stamped using Bundle Monster H11 and H13; I stamped the corn leaf things with China Glaze passion, and the cornucopia with Konad black. Then I pulled out the acrylics and painted over the stamped image to bring it to life; I think this is rapidly becoming one of my favorite time saving techniques:

 I love how it came out, but I'd stamp the leaf things down further next time to let more of the base polish show.

What about you--are you looking forward to Thanksgiving?

Thanks for stopping by today! Big hugs,
M.

My entries to the Barielle Halloween Manicure Contest

Hello there!

If you don't already know, Barielle is currently running a Halloween contest, open to anyone:

You can check it out by clicking here. I put together two manicures to enter and thought I'd also share them here. :)

For the first, I started out with a gradient of Barielle Green Apple and Barielle Green Opal. Then I stamped over it with Nfu-Oh 61 using HD-C for the webs, and Barielle Edgy for the spiders (same plate):

Da itsy-bitsy spiders...

The second is a skittle-based manicure, using Barielle Orange Parfait and Green Apple as the base; I stamped over the index and pinkie with Konad white using Bundle Monster BMH07; for the middle and ring fingers I used Konad White and Barielle Edgy to stamp with Bunny Nails plate HD-D:

What do you think? Do you have a favorite? Do you like either one?

No matter what, head on over to Barielle's Facebook page and consider entering the contest. Even if you don't want to enter, take a look at the entries and 'like' your favorites. If they happen to be mine, well, hey, so be it! :)

Halloween hugs,
M.

Before & After: Attack of the B-Movie (Or, watch out for that preying mantis!)

Okay, so here's the thing.

When I got my Bundle Monster 'Create Your Own' plates, there was an image of a praying mantis. I, in my infinite goofiness, did not recognize it as such, and thought it was some sort of weird ant-grasshopper hybrid. Embarrassing, yes, but it stimulated my imagination.

When I was really young, they used to play these crazy B-movies on TV, and it seemed like in at least half of them, so crazy GINORMOUS critter that had been cross-bred by scientists/zapped by chemicals/exposed to nuclear waste crawled out of the ocean/mountains/forest/swamp and destroyed a city. If one of those movies didn't have a huge praying mantis, one most surely had some sort of huge grasshopper/ant/stick insect thing.

So I decided to do a tribute to those B movies, by creating one with a praying mantis that has been turned into a preying mantis...

I started with a base of China Glaze Grape Pop, another wonderful purple for Halloween purposes:

China Glaze Grape Pop, 2 coats, artificial light

Next I stamped on the skyscape and the praying mantis from Bundle Monster BM414 and BM417, using Barry M Silver Foil and Konad Black polish:

Sorry...

I have no funny praying mantis jokes...::sobs::

Oh noes!!! It's climbing up the building! It's eating the peoples! It's coming to get us all!! AAAHHHHRRRRGGGGGGG!!

::Ahem:: So what do you think? Does it take you back to all of those awesome Saturday afternoon creature features?

Here's hoping nobody eats your head off,
M.

Before & After: Mutagen Graveyard

(All products in this post were purchased with my own money.)

Hello!!

Today is one of those days when I have a deeply special polish to show you. This is I <3 NP Mutagen, one of their gorgeous new multichrome polishes; this particular one is green, blue, and purple, and even some rose gold. Here are a ridiculous number of photos, to show you all the beautiful shifts:

Something about this said Halloween to me, probably the strong purples and greens, so I decided to do a Halloween manicure with it--this was actually one of the first ones I did this year, in anticipation of the prompt theme for today, which is 'Graveyard'.

I saw a different Halloween manicure that did a cool shadow stamp technique, so I decided to try it out myself. I first stamped my tombstones with Sally Hansen Orange Impulse, and then stamped over it again with Konad white (the image is from Bunny Nails, HD03, and she has a slightly smaller version on her new plates):

Here lies Jonathan Blake

Stepped on the gas

Instead of the brake

These pictures can't capture how cool the shadow stamping looked against the multichrome in motion--I wish I'd taken a video of it. But you can see how well the colors work together, and how great this polish is for a Halloween mani. :)

Don't forget to check out the other graveyard manis below, when they get linked up. :)

Hugs and loves,
M.

(All products in this post were purchased with my own money.)