Nail Crazies Unite: Watermelon ft. MoYou London Tropical

Hello Readers!


I'm so excited for this week's Nail Crazies Unite challenge, because the prompt is "fruits" and food manis are my favorite! Also, I've been itching to do a watermelon mani ever since summer started, so my direction here was easy to arrive at.

Sweet, juicy, summer fun!

This mani began as two coats of Going Guru on all but my ring finger, which got 3 coats of Boom Boom. I love the Sinful Colors foil polishes for stamping, so went with "Queen of Green" to stamp the watermelon pattern on with. To make "Boom Boom" a little more juicy, I added a flakie topper.

My watermelon pattern comes from the MoYou London "Tropical 08" plate, which features so many fun fruit images! But, my slice is borrowed from a different company...

My sweet little watermelon slice is from Bundle Monster's fruit-and-vegetable themed plate from the "Kawaii Emoji" collection. The little faces on this collection just kill me!


I am certainly looking forward to seeing lots of fruit themed manis this week! If you are too, check out the link-up below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Inspired by my Job: Motherhood Mani

Hello Readers!


Today's post is the second for the #clairestelle8june challenge, and this time around the prompt is "inspired by your job/hobby". At first I latched on to the "hobby" part, and had a bunch of half-formed ideas, but nothing really jumped out at me until I decided to shift focus and create a mani based on my job.

I am a stay-at-home-Mom, and at first I had no idea how to make a mani based on that. Being a stay-at-home-Mom is so many things. So many small things wrapped up together into a bundle of mild chaos. In the end, I decided to run with that idea and represent some of the many elements of my day-to-day life with this mani.

It's band-aids and boo-boos and conflict management between siblings. It's lullabies and 50 repetitions of "Mary Had a Little Lamb". It's keeping calm in the face of poop on a daily basis. It's frantically googling the structure of an atom for inquiring minds who *neeeeed* to know. It's wonderful and exhausting and I wouldn't trade it for the world.


And, much like motherhood, this mani was a jumble of... many different things, ha ha.

I started by painting all my nails with the Sinful Colors blue, which was pretty awesome at two coats. Then it was time to get to work on stamping and decals...

So for my first finger, I used an image from one of the Bundle Monster "Kawaii Emoji" collection plates, because I figured band-aids and crying faces were a perfect representation of my daily life with two rambunctious boys and their toddler sister.

Now, behind the decals on both my pointer and ring finger, I added the sunburst design from this Bundle Monster + Nailstamp4fun plate. I actually did this on the silicone mat that I was using to work on them instead of adding it to my nail, and it was probably easier that way just because I was already doing the decals and it's easier to stamp onto a flat surface than onto a curved nail.

I simply stamped the design onto the "back" of the decal after filling in all of the images.

The music design comes from this cute Born Pretty Store plate. I actually stamped this upside down on my first try because I wasn't paying attention and thought it was just notes, which don't really have a "right side up", but upon further inspection, I saw the treble and bass clef signs and those do have a right side up. So, I had to remove the stamping with my clean-up brush and acetone and stamp it again.

The poop emoji comes from this MoYou London "Geek Collection 13" plate, which has a lot of cute and fun images! I was a little sad when I realized that they did the poop emoji in a solid state (heh) instead of a line art image, because I was hoping to fill it in. I did still fill in the eyes and mouth, of course added the background. I felt like it still needed something though, and wanted to add some kind of phrase. I had no idea what, so I searched through my plates until I found something suitable...

...which ended up being from the Bundle Monster "Time Machine" collection. I just used the top part of one of the "keep calm" phrases. This nail now makes me chuckle; it's just so appropriate because Motherhood is nothing if it's not dealing with poop. Lots and lots of poop.

So then, my final image- the atoms- come from this Born Pretty school-themed plate, which is a newer plate from the Born Pretty site. Just some simple stamping on that nail.

The Nail Challenge Collaborative: Farmer's Market (ft. Bundle Monster Kawaii Emoji)

Hello Readers!

Today I am excited to be participating in the nail challenge collaborative for the first time! I've had my eye on this group for a while, but I kind of felt like I had enough challenges going on. But, I decided to scale back just a little bit on my challenges and trade a weekly challenge for this twice-a-month challenge. The idea is that you create at least 2 nail art looks per month for a single prompt. This month's prompt is "green".

So for green, I decided to be inspired by the summertime farmer's markets and all the lovely green things they have for sale there.


I thought it would be fun to do a burlap sack inspired background, just because it felt very rustic and like the type of bag a very hip farmers market booth might decide to provide its customers.

30 DOC: Spring in the Garden ft. Bundle Monster Kawaii Emoji

Hello Readers!

Today's post is for the 30 Days of Color challenge, and I am a little proud of myself because to go along with one of my untried polishes, I also did an "untried" technique for this mani, which was nail vinyls. I know, I'm probably the very last person to try these out for the first time, but everyone has to start somewhere.

I decided to go with a garden theme for my mani, because what's more "spring" then working with lovely flowers in the garden?


I also am showing a smoosh technique on my pointer/pinky fingers for the first time- I've attempted it before but it didn't quite work out. I used the LA colors purple and "Strawberry Milk" for the smoosh effect, and just dotted them onto my stamper head and then smooshed them onto my nails.

For my middle finger, I applied 2 coats of "Snow Me White" followed by a quick-drying topcoat. My first attempt at the vinyls didn't work out, but my second did so I'm pretty pleased about that because I didn't have time to wait another two hours to start that nail over and wait for it to dry completely. I used "Mint Sugar" over the vinyl, which is a textured polish and totally the reason I broke down and bought vinyls in the first place- you can't stamp with texture. ;) I felt like it needed more color, so I used a toothpick to dot on some purple. It's supposed to look like one of those plaster of Paris garden mosaic stones... not sure if it's coming through or not, though.

For my ring finger, I made a decal with those adorable hats from the Bundle Monster "Kawaii Emoji" vacation themed plate.

My flowers come from this Born Pretty Store plate. They reminded me of the Rhododendrons that blossom in Seattle in the spring and I wanted to represent that a little bit.

I hope you enjoyed this nail look! Do you enjoy planting flowers in the spring time? Which one is your favorite?

Be sure to check out some more "spring" looks in the link-up below!

Clairstelle8: Chocolate ft. Bundle Monster Kawaii Emoji

Hello Readers!


Today's post is another fill for the #Clairestelle8challenge over in instagram, and this time the prompt is "chocolate". I struggled with coming up with a theme for this a little bit, but I finally settled on chocolate cupcakes.

I thought it would also be fun to do little splashes of melted chocolate, since we all know it can get a little bit messy, especially in the warmer weather!

I started off with 3 coats of Sinful Colors "Unicorn". I also decided to use the Revlon Parfumerie "Chocolate Truffle" polish (for the darkest stamping) to make my mani also *smell* like chocolate!

My full-nail cupcake image comes from this Bundle Monster "Kawaii Emoji" plate. So many cute sweets!

My little chocolate splashes were taken from this MoYou London "Artist" collection plate. I love this plate- I never have a problem with the pick-up, even with those large open images.

Finally, I used this MoYou London "Rebel" collection plate for the "I love cupcakes" image on my middle finger. I decided to make the chocolate splashes lighter on this nail so that my stamping would stand out over it, so I used a different brown to stamp them in.

Clairestelle8 "Mothers" inspired mani

Hello Readers!


Today's nail art is for the #clairestelle8challenge on instagram... the prompt is "mothers", so I decided to go with a "new mom" type of theme. That being said...  I feel like this mani is mediocre and I'm not in love with it. I can't quite put my finger on why I don't like it either, and it's driving me a little bit crazy.

Maybe it's the colors?

I started off with Sinful Colors "Kashmere", which is a color I really do like. I wanted to see how my new-ish purple Orly polish would stamp, so I was playing with that. I chose purple as my base thinking of using it as a "baby color" and an alternative to the more traditional pink, but I wasn't super confident about what colors to pair it with for the balloons. Maybe that's why  I'm not crazy about it?

Most of my images come from this Bundle Monster plate, from the original Holiday collection. I love how the dangly bows curve around in a kind of curtain.

My heart balloons come from this love-themed plate from Bundle Monster's new "Kawaii Emoji" collection. I just made a really simple decal with them.

I decided to add a little bit of lace behind the balloon image, so I used the MoYou London Trend Hunter plate with all the lovely lacy images on it.

Nail Crazies Unite: Sweets

Hello Readers!



Today's post is for the Nail Crazies Unite challenge group, and this weeks' prompt is "sweets". I still have the dessert-themed plate from Bundle Monster's "Kawaii Emoji" collection on my unused plates list, so I decided to center my mani around that.

Cupcakes and cherries!

It occurred to me while preparing my polish photo for the blog that every polish I picked for this mani- excluding the white stamping polish- has a name related to sweet things. Totally on accident, but kind of funny.


I started off with two coats Essie's "Saltwater Happy". Originally I was going to fill in the cherries with a dark red (the "sugar sugar"), but I realized that their cute little faces would get lost against the dark polish so I decided to go with the pink for them.

My cherries and the little cupcake come from the Bundle Monster plate, from the Kawaii Emoji collection. I still want to use the adorable little pancake image on this plate, but I felt like it didn't really fit the "sweets" theme. Another time...

 The other plate I used for this mani is one I apparently forgot to take a picture of. It is a dupe of a plate from MoYou London's tourist collection that I bought off of Aliexpress. You can almost always find these plates around on ebay or Aliexpress for a buck and some change if you do a little digging. This dupe preformed pretty well, and I really like the designs on this plate.

Now, these images didn't stamp perfectly and I had to go in with more white polish after I stamped them to fill in the small gaps, but that is really pretty easy to do.

Thanks for stopping by today! Be sure to check out some more "sweet" designs by the other bloggers in the link-up below!

Beach Selfies ft. Bundle Monster Kawaii emoji

Hello Readers!


Today I have a very summery mani inspired by the Bundle Monster Kawaii Emoji collection. I was trying to decided what I wanted to do, and flipping through the pin board on Pinterest I made of all my plates (because it's much easier to look through them on pinterest and really see the images than it is to look at them in real life), and I noticed the turtle image on the MoYou London Animal plate. I thought I could do a beachy themed mani with the turtles and the little camera.

I kind of imagine a beach goer stumbling upon a flock of freshly hatched turtles stumbling to the water and quickly pulling out her camera to get a shot of the amazing sight.

For this mani, I started off by painting all my nails with Sinful Colors "Mint2Bcool". I did a lot of my stamping today with Sinful Colors "Navy I Do", but also used an actual Bundle Monster stamping polish for the red stamping.

The adorable little camera image comes from the vacation themed Bundle Monster Kawaii Emoji plate. I think this is my favorite in the collection, though the fruit-and-veggie plate is a close second. I also used the little strips of tiny images along the bottom to decorate my french tipped pinky/pointer fingers... more on that later.

The turtles come from this MoYou London Animal plate. Some really cute images on here, but this is the first time I've featured it here because when I used it before it was on my right hand, thumb, and a couple of nail fails that I never published. ;)

The typography images on the pointer/pinky come from this Bundle Monster plate from the "Hangloose" collection. 

I pulled out my trusty MoYou London Frenchy 09 plate to help with the french tips. I decided to do these as decals and then place them over my nail rather than attempting to stamp the direct-to-nail, because I was concerned about messing up the placement and having to re-do it a million times.
So I stamping them once- then stamped over that a second time to get a better opacity. Next, I stamped the little images from the Kawaii emoji plate over it in white and finished it off with a nice thick layer of topcoat. When it was dry, it was really easy to peel that up and place it perfectly on my nails.

Clairestelle8: "Swirls" ft. Bundle Monster Kawaii Emoji

Hello Readers!



Today I have a post for the #Clairestelle8 challenge group on Instagtam, and the prompt is "swirls". Because I've been itching to play with the new Kawaii Emoji collection by Bundle Monster, I decided to pair my swirls with some adorable nail polish themed images from that collection:

I also did a little dry brush gradient for my pointer and pinky fingers to go behind the swirls.

I started with a base of the LA Colors "Citron". I really love this color. It's a little bit concerning when you first start to put it on because it looks super patchy on the first two coats, but the third coat is magic and that's how many coats I put on today.

I used the Revlon Parfumerie polish "Ginger Melon" to do a dry brush gradient on my pointer and pinky fingers. This was my first time doing it this way; I normally use a sponge but I didn't have one handy and I figured it would be a good time to try this technique out. I did enjoy doing it this way; it was quite a bit less messy than the sponge method.

The adorable little polish bottles and stamper head images come from this Bundle Monster plate, from the new Kawaii Emoji collection. This plate is so stinkin cute and I have seen a lot of people using it on Instagram already.

I got my swirls from this MoYou London Pro collection plate. I liked how thick these swirls were and felt they would match up well with the bold kawaii images I was using from the other plate.

Nail Crazies Unite: Taste the Rainbow ft. Bundle Monster Kawaii Emoji

Hello Readers!

Today's post is another for the semi-weekly challenge at Nail Crazies Unite and the theme is "rainbow". Now, I just got the new Kawaii Emoji plates from Bundle Monster in the mail, and I really wanted to use them, so I fully admit to staring at the images thinking, "rainbow... rainbow.. what would work with rainbow?" and I saw the jelly beans- ok, technically I think they're supposed to be black eyed peas but whatever- and I thought they would be perfect.

I am aware that "taste the rainbow" is the skittles logo, but it's a rainbow of jelly beans and you could definitely taste them, so there.

...and here's my rainbow of colors. I simply started with a white base and then made five decals on my silicone mat.

So here's the plate I used, from the Kawaii Emoji collection by Bundle Monster. I think this might be my favorite plate in the collection- it is just so stinkin' adorable and has so many fun images on it. I've already seen some people use the broccoli image and it was sooooo cute!

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to check out some more rainbow images in the link-up below!