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: Holi; Festival of Colors ft. MoYou London Artist, Festive

Hello Readers!


Today's prompt for the #clairestelle8challenge over on Instagram is "Holi", the Festival of Colors. I had heard of Holi before doing this prompt, and have always enjoyed seeing the pictures of people covered in colorful powders (as is the tradition here, because it's typically not warm enough to use colored waters). But, I didn't really know what it was about so it was fun to do some research to learn more about it. One of the main themes in the celebration is forgiveness and strengthening relationships, so I decided to add a "love" theme for a focal point in my mani.

I started off with a base of the "Lavender Soap" polish, and simply added splashes of color using a very fun MoYou London stamping plate from the "Artist" collection.

I chose my colors based off of a picture of different colored powders that were set to be used for a Holi celebration. It was fun to work with such a bright and colorful palette!

Here's a look at the "splat" plate, from MoYou London's Artist Collection. This plate is so much fun to play with. I broke it out once before to create splashes of water for a fish mani, but I've been dying to use it with different colors of polishes.

For my ring finger, I used this plate from MoYou London's Festive collection. I actually bought this plate after Valentine's Day because I just fell in love with the fun designs and I figured I'd find a way to use it even if it wasn't February. I stamped with BMC's "Straight up Black" polish, which is very highly pigmented so it gives a nice saturated look.

Little Fishies with *new* MoYou London Animal Collection

Hello Readers!

I'm so excited to be playing with MoYou London's *brand new* animal collection because it is absolutely adorable and you know I love playing with cute images. Today's mani focuses on the beautiful fish. I just fell in love with these fish, mostly because of the tiny little patterns on their sides.

The details on those little swimmers! I can't stand it. 

I find myself reaching for my white as a base so often. I decided to use a sort of muted color palette for this mani. 

Simple Sunday 11/13: Mona Lisa Smile

Hello Readers!

It's Sunday again, and today I have a mani born from my quest to try every stamping plate in my collection at least once. I've had this plate on my list for a while, but with being sidetracked by halloween last month and challenges this month, I am finally getting around to trying it out.

This plate is actually a dupe for a MoYou London plate that I found on aliexpress. Unfortunately my light bulb in my lamp died last night just as I was about to take a picture, and for the life of me I couldn't get it to photograph with all its fine lines. So I don't have a pic of the actual plate this time, but here is a look at the MoYou London plate that it based off of:

The biggest difference between the two plates is that the pattern I used on my nails is the reverse image of the pattern on the real MoYou London plate. All of the images on the dupe stamped really well, although you can notice a few bald spots in the fluer de lis images, it doesn't really bother me. 

I also used another plate from aliexpress that is similar to a MoYou London plate from the artist collection:

I used the bottom right image and then felt like it needed some black, so I added black rhinestones to the design. I like to use an eyeliner pencil to do this; the wax in the pencil makes it easy to pick up the tiny pieces and place them. If you don't want to risk getting eyeliner on the gems, they do sell wax pick-up pencils for this purpose.

So when I was on my weekly dollar tree run yesterday, I found a whole tub full of Sinful Colors Kylie Jenner polishes. I was so excited! They had six different colors from the Trend Matters line, so I picked up one of each. The "Mauve On" featured in this mani was from that small haul. :) It has a subtle shimmer to it that is really pretty. I stamped with the LA Colors "perfect plum" on every finger but my ring finger, and it turns out to be a pretty good stamping polish that is also available at the dollar tree right now.