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.

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.

30 DOC/Clairestelle8: Earth Day

Hello Readers!


Today I am double-dipping it on my post because two of the challenges I am participating in happen to have the same prompt, which is "Earth Day". I kind of wanted to do a mani about recycling for this prompt, but I didn't have images of traditional recyclable materials, so I decided to go with more unusual items that you may not have known can be recycled.

For example, eyeglasses, computers, and tennis shoes. I actually looked up an article and did research for this mani, ha ha, and I found this awesome list of unusual items that you probably didn't know could be recycled. I like how it also gives contact information for organizations that will help you recycle these items.



For this mani, I started off with a base of "Mint Sorbet", since obviously I was going for a "green" theme and this polish is fairly easy to work with. I put on two coats of that. My "unused" polish for the 30-Days of Color challenge is the Kandee Johnson "Licorice" polish, which I decided to use for stamping on my nails because  I wanted the message on my ring finger to be the darkest, most prominent stamping on the design.

Crumpets Nail Tarts: Mix-tape and Mixed-tape mani

Hello Readers!


Today's post is for the Crumpet's Nail Tarts challenge group, and the prompt is "mixed tape".  Truthfully, I wasn't sure if she meant cassette tapes or striping tape, so I decided to go for both.

I used striping tape on my pinky/pointer fingers to make those neon stripes by first painting my nails with a neon polish, then adding striping tape and going over it with the "Faraway Galaxy" polish.

I used a lot of different polishes on this mani, but I feel like the star of the show is the Salon Perfect "Faraway Galaxy." The fact that it is a one-coat glitter polish makes it possible to do techniques like striping tape with it. You can get this at Wal-Mart for $3.99. The other Salon Perfect in this mani, however, isn't great for actually painting your nails with because it always comes off in one big piece for me. But it is a great neon green, so I used it for dry-brushing here along with the other bright polishes in today's palette.

There are two plates used in this mani- the cassette tape image comes from this Bundle Monster plate from the Time Machine collection (probably my favorite Bundle Monster collection.)

I also used this MoYou London plate, from the Rockstar collection, for the music image.

Be sure to check out some more mixed-tape... or perhaps mix-tape... manis in the link-up below!

30 Days of Color Challenge: Calm

Hello Readers!

Today's post is for the facebook group 30 Days of Color, where nail enthusiasts are encouraged to reach into their pile of untrieds and follow a prompt. There's a new prompt each week, and you can do as many manis for each prompt as you wish. This week's prompt is "calm".

I used an untried plate and an untried polish for this prompt. I picked up this Essie polish at my local discount store at a deep discount. It's a really unusual polish- it's the only kind of forest green in my collection- so I was happy to find it. I paired it with a plate from Bundle Monster's "Into the Woods" fall collection for 2016, as well as a couple of other plates. I though the deep green would go well with a calm, serene forestry theme.

I wasn't super excited about most of Bundle Monster's fall release this year. It was pretty, but I felt like I already had similar images as a lot of the plates. This plate, however, is so beautiful and unique I decided to pick it up. I wanted to use all the images on my nails today, but I decided that wouldn't be very "calm" so I settled on just one. The lovely hourglass, mostly because I wanted to feature the roses nestled up against it. So lovely!

One thing about this image, however, is that some of the fine detail lines on it are very dainty. I wasn't able to use my usual Sinful Colors "Black on Black" to stamp this; it just wouldn't pick up the tiny details of the sand inside the hourglass. So I broke down and used actual stamping polish. I normally prefer to use the Sinful Colors just because this Born Pretty stamping polish is so highly pigmented that it is a huge pain to clean up off your skin after stamping.

The roses on my middle finger come from this Bundle Monster plate from the Time Machine collection. This is one of my favorite rose images- so nice and big for decals! I used it for this purpose once before during the 31-Day Challenge last year to do yellow roses.

Finally, my tiny vines come from MoYou London's Enchanted collection.

You can check out some more calm manis for this challenge in the link-up below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Challenge Your Nail Art: Glitter- Polar Express

Hello Readers!

I'm back again with another post for Challenge Your Nail Art, and this time the prompt is glitter! So I grabbed out my peel-off base coat and went to work on a pretty simple and straightforward polar express themed mani.

I've been wanting to do a train mani ever since I got the Bundle Monster Time Machine plate set for my birthday all the way back in September, but I thought it would be a fun theme to kind of save for Christmastime. I have a 4-year-old who is completely enamored with trains, so he was excited about this one. 

My train comes from this vintage themed plate:

I used a mysterious silver polish with no kind of label to give us a clue as to what brand it is. It's lovely though! I can't even remember how or when I got this polish- I surely have had it for a number of years. I used my current stand-by, Sinful Colors "black on black" as my stamping polish and simply stamped it onto my nails. You may notice that the pinky is patched- I accidentally smudged it so I had to go in with a toothpick and fix the part that rubbed off. It's not a perfect patching job, but at least it is better than it was!

ABC Nail Art Challenge: W is for Woman

Hello Readers!

Wow, it's quickly coming to the end of the ABC Nail Art Challenge, with this week's letter being "W". Crazy! My original idea for this manicure was "washer", for the nuts-and-bolts pattern, which is a bit of a stretch since they are nuts, not washers. I went with it anyway though and when I was done I realized that "woman" is a better fit because there is actually a woman stamped onto my nails here.

This manicure uses a pretty fun plate that I've been looking forward to playing with for a while, from the Bundle Monser "Time Machine" collection:

I still need to play some more with this plate- especially the train image. Love that! I have a son who is really into trains so I know that would be exciting for him- maybe for a Christmas-y theme?

Here are my polishes:

Pretty straightforward mani today. Can't wait to see some more w-themed manis! Check them out in the link-up below!

An InLinkz Link-up

ABC Nail Art Challenge: S is for Squirrel

Hello Readers!


For this weeks letter of the ABC Nail Art Challenge I decided to go with Squirrel, mostly because I thought it was a perfect theme for a fall mani! When I think of the forest in the fall, I think of warm, cozy flannels. My inspiration was kind of the forest at sunset so I could stick to the warmer fall colors to go along with my red flannel.

So my red polish is is Revlon Parfumerie "China Flower", and my yellow is Sinful Colors "Yolo Yellow". I sponged over the yellow with Essie's "Taj Ma Haul" to add a bit of texture to the background. 

My squirrel comes from the Bundle Monster "Fuzzy and Ferocious" collection, from a very cute forest-themed plate:

And my acorns come from the Bundle Monster "Time Machine" collection:

That leaves the plaid pattern, which is from this handy plate by Born Pretty:

Be sure to check out the other "S" manicures in the link-up! 

ABC Nail Art Challenge: R is for R2D2

Hello Readers!

Now that the 31-Day challenge has ended, the ABC Nail art challenge is starting back up. (woo-hoo!)
For the letter "R" this week, I decided to do robot nails, and then decided I really wanted to use this  sneaky "R2-D2" image on the Bundle Monster "Time Machine" plates. It was later that I made the connection... R2-D2 starts with "R", duh, so these are R is for R2-D2, not robot.

For this mani, I started off with a base of Sinful Colors "Snow Me White." I recently ran out of my Sally Hansen "White On", and since I always seemed to have a hard time applying that polish, I decided to try a different white. I do like the Sinful Colors one better, but it is a little runny so you have to be careful about flooding with this polish. I added a couple of coats of Essie's "Peak of Chic", which is a glitter topper and is silver, so I thought it would go along with an R2-D2 look. I stamped over that with Sinful Colors "Endless Blue"  and a stamp from this Born Pretty plate:

My R2-D2 images come from this plate:

It makes me laugh to think about the designer's thought process. They obviously wanted to include R2 without a copyright infringement, so they added antenna and legs. See! It's not R2, just a generic robot. But when you actually stamp it out on your nails... it's totally R2. I did a little reverse stamping and added some rhinestones to keep with the R2 theme. Also of note on this plate: a Tie Fighter on the top middle-ish portion of the plate, and Star Trek symbols on the bottom left. You could also use the main humanoid robot face as C3PO, and the ray guns remind me of Toy Story. I feel like this plate is a must for any sci-fi fan. 

I also used a MoYou London typography plate to add his name to my thumb, just for fun. 

I hope you enjoyed this robot mani! I can't wait to see what everyone else came up with for the letter "R"!

Simple Sunday: Ballerina Nails

Hello Readers!


It's been awhile since I have been able to do a Simple Sunday post, since I have been all tied up with the 31-day challenge. Actually, today's Sunday post didn't turn out to be quite as simple as I was hoping, though the techniques are simple enough I had a little trouble figuring out what polishes were going to work best for the stamping I was doing, so I ended up re-doing it a few times. Here is the final result:

So for this mani, I used a combination of water slide decals, stamping, and a 3-D accent. The water slide decals are on my pointer and pinky, as well as my thumb. For my middle and ring, I started with two coats of Sinful Colors "Angelik" from the Kylie Jenner line. I did some background stamping for my ballerina using BMC polish in "Freedom Ring", and this stamping plate from Bundle Monster:

Then I added some stamping from this plate, which is everywhere on ebay and aliexpress and is a dupe for a MoYou London plate from the "Fairytale" collection:

Now, the etching on the dupe is not as deep as the authentic MoYou London plates, but I did not have any problems getting the image to pick up. I did, however, notice a difference in the opacity of the stamping with the dupe compared to a real MoYou plate. Because it is not etched as deeply, there is less polish on the stamping image so it doesn't stamp as dark. I got around this for my ballerina image by filling in the solid areas with more black polish and a toothpick, because I didn't really like how light the black polish looked. I was also using Wet N Wild black polish, so I'm sure if you have real black stamping polish it would come out better. That being said, I didn't have any bald patches in the open areas that I stamped using this plate, so I was impressed about that. 

For the middle finger, I used the ballerina's skirt from this plate, placing the image halfway down my nails, and I added a line with...

...this brand new plate from MoYou London! I'm really excited about this plate, because it the images are designed to be overlapped together to make advanced stamping techniques easier. I'm going to have some fun playing with this! This time, I just used one of the super-useful solid lines to make an easy stripe on my nail. I did take a toothpick and fill it in, just because some of the black stamping was showing through my red polish before I went over it again. 

Finally, I added a rhinestone heart. 

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you enjoyed this mani, and hope to see you here again. 

-Midnight Stamper

31 Day Challenge: Inspired by a Book- Lord of the Flies

Hello Readers!

Today's 31 day challenge prompt is to be inspired by a book. I ran through a few different ideas in my head before settling on attempting a Lord of the Flies manicure. I mainly picked Lord of the Flies because I felt like I could come up with enough stamping images to pull together different elements of the book.

So I used a few different stamping plates for this, mostly from Bundle Monster's "Hangloose" collection but also a "Time Machine" collection plate. I also used a fimo clay slice for the pig face.

I decided to keep the background the same on all the nails and add little leaves to frame the elements and to provide continuity through the manicure. It also goes along with the setting of the book, which takes place on an island jungle.

In case you haven't read it, or it has been a very long time, in the book a group of school boys get stranded on a jungle island. One of the boys finds a conch shell which they use as a symbol of leadership and to call meetings. The boys basically go feral, kill a pig and put its head on a spear, and have a weird party in a cave with a fire where bad things happen. It's kind of a disturbing book. But at least there is no blood and gore on this mani! lol

Here's a look at the Time Machine plate I used for the fire and cavemen images:

Thanks for stopping by- check out the other literary inspired manis over here:

An InLinkz Link-up

31 Day Challenge: A delicate print with a rugged theme

Hello Readers!

Today for the 31-Day Challenge, we are supposed to do a "delicate print". I immediately thought of a lovely mesh print on a plate that I have yet to try out, and decided I also wanted to use a gunmetal gray polish that's on my "untried" list . After staring at it for a while and putting it next to some different polishes in my collection, I came up with this idea:

Though I was seriously doubting a lot of things about this manicure when the idea was sloshing around in my head (How is the black polish for the stamping on the roses going to look against the dark gray? Will the dark on dark stamping of the mesh stand out enough? Do these colors REALLY go together ok?), I am really pleased with how it turned out. 

The idea was to kind of have the contrast of the feminine roses against the more rugged chain-link fence kind of look. The mesh stamping is my "delicate print", though the colors I stamped it in are not so delicate!

My base polish is Sinful Colors "Chromatic Fanatic", and I stamped over it with Sinful Colors "Navy I Do", which I have stamped with many times and never been disappointed. I was impressed by how well it stood out against such a dark polish, since it's not a polish that's actually intended to be stamped with. 

My mesh pattern comes from a hehe plate, which I paid about $0.30 for on aliexpress:

And my roses come from the Bundle Monster "Time Machine" Collection, and can be found on this plate:

Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to check out what the others did with delicate prints here:

An InLinkz Link-up