Nail Crazies Unite: The Sock Hop ft. MoYou London Time Traveller

Hello Readers!


Today's Nail Crazies Unite prompt is "music," and since I had a 50s-themed plate on my unused list, and because I have sweet spot for oldies, I decided to go with a sock-hop inspired look for this prompt.

Growing up, my Dad (a baby boomer born in 1950) always had a twinkle in his eye while listening to the oldies station in the car. I grew up loving these songs, especially the Beatles and the Beach Boys. They were my first love, musically speaking.

To kind of get a 50s vibe for this mani, I decided to stick to candy colors. I did two coats each of the light pastel shades.

I also ended up deciding to go with a matte topcoat, because this mani seemed to call for it.

Most of the images come from this MoYou London plate from the Time Traveller collection, "Back to the 50s 05". The jukebox was the main inspiration for this mani, because I figured it fit right in with the "music" theme.

That being said, I had a bit of trouble with this plate. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I used black stamping polish, which always tends to smudge a bit, or the open spaces, but I had to do a lot of "fixing" the stamping with a toothpick and nail polish after I put these decals on. I think I may have missed some spots too, as I am looking at it now...

I also used the MoYou London "Rockstar 13" plate for this mani, for the image on my middle finger.

I hope you enjoyed this mani! Be sure to check out the link-up below for more music-themed manis!

An InLinkz Link-up

Mother's Day Mani for Clairestelle8

Hello Readers!


Today's prompt for #clairestelle8challenge over on instagram is the seasonally-appropriate "Mother's Day". After a bit of debate about what direction I wanted to go in for this mani, I decided to base it around honoring my own mother.

My mother comes from a very musical family, and music was always very important in our home growing up. She played the piano (her own mother was an actual child prodigy on the piano), and taught us how to play as well when we were young. Most of us went on to choose other instruments to play during high school, and she was always very supportive and encouraging of those pursuits. She helped me learn violin, and then was supportive of the giant pain-in-the-butt instrument I chose next, the upright bass. Imagine the shortest, tiniest girl hauling around the biggest instrument possible, and you've got a pretty good mental picture. Orchestra directors loved me, though- bass players are hard to find.

After a performance,  it is traditional to give red roses to soloists. So I decided to pair the floral staple with piano keys to represent my mother's passion.

I started out with two layers of white... again... I feel like I keep using white as a base in my manis, but I genuinely tried to get around it this time. Those piano keys just had to be white.

The piano keys image itself comes from this MoYou London "Rockstar 13" plate. I used my clear stamper to get a good placement on the keys so they would (hopefully) resemble keys and not just stripes.

The roses on my middle finger are decals made from this MoYou London "Doodles 11" plate. This is a newer plate in the doodles collection- I love it for all the rows of flowers- it's really a different take on florals.

The "I love Mom" image is from an older Born Pretty Store plate, and the rose detail above it is from this cheap no-name pate off of Aliexpress. Some really fun designs on this plate!

I got the roses on my pointer and pinky fingers from this Bundle Monster plate from the "Time Machine" collection (BM-XL133). I have used this plate so many times just for that little rose image, it's getting a little ridiculous. (Ok, so it was once... and twice... three times counting this one. Still a lot for a single small image!)


So yeah, I used a crazy number of plates for this look. Actually, I pulled out even more plates than this when I started because I wasn't 100% sure what would work. But, there you go! My Mother's Day mani. I hope you enjoyed it! If you'd like to see more, check out the #clairestelle8may hastag on instagram.

Simple Sunday 4/30/17- Musical Mani ft. Born Pretty and MoYou London Rockstar

Hello Readers!


Today's Simple Sunday features some adorable musical images! I fell in love with one of the new Born Pretty Store releases that features some super cute music themes, so I figured now was a good time to play with it!