Clairestelle8: Inspired by Fashion ft. MoYou London Mexico

Hello Readers!


Today's post is for the 3rd #clairestelle8june prompt, "inspired by fashion". In case you weren't aware, this month the #clairestelle8challenge on instagram is being sponsored by picture polish, who will pick a winner and award them a $150 shopping spree on their website. Pretty cool!

Side note: I broke a nail while rock hunting (boohoo!) so I'm rocking a shorter mani now.

So for today's mani, I did a search on pinterest until I found a fashion look that inspired me. Here is my inspiration piece:

From Anthropologie

It's been a little while since I've done a mani inspired by fashion, but doing this I was reminded how much fun it is to do. There are so many great ideas in the fashion world that translate easily to nails!

For this mani, I first painted my pointer/middle fingers with a nude polish. My ring and pinky got a bright orange to match the skirt.

To get the look of the stripe down the middle of her shirt, I decided to piece together a couple of images on my silicone mat. I started by stamping the diagonal parallel lines on this MoYou London "Holy Shapes 05" plate, then painting the outside of the lines with my Sinful Colors "Navy I Do" polish.

Next, I stamped one of the thinner lines from the MoYou London "Holy Shapes 19" plate right in the middle of the two lines.

The pattern on my pinky and ring fingers comes from this MoYou London plate from the Mexico collection. It seemed like the best match to the skirt that I had in my collection.

Golden Pineapple ft. MoYou London Mexico

Hello Readers!


It's Tuesday again, which means it's time for another #clairestelle8challenge mani, and the prompt this go-round is "coral". I've been wanting to do a look where I paired an image from the new MoYou London Mexico collection with pineapple and the color coral ever since I got these plates, so this was an easy decision for me!

I just think the ring finger image sort of resembles a pineapple, in a very stylized way. I think pineapple images are adorable, so I wanted to take this excuse to make a pineapple themed mani!


So my coral polish here is the Sinful Shine "Mardi Gras", which was one of the first polishes I bought when I was really getting into polish hoarding. I think coral shades are absolutely beautiful, especially in the summertime! This polish is slightly runny, and required two coats- the first was quite streaky. Weirdly, I usually seem to prefer the regular Sinful Colors line to the Sinful Shine line- they typically seem to have better formulas, even though the Sinful Shine is more expensive!

My ring finger image, as mentioned previously, comes from this MoYou London "Mexico 01" plate. I actually used this very same image in a much more vibrant mani just a week ago, but I couldn't resist using it again for this very different look.

For my middle finger, I used the chevron pattern on this Born Pretty plate. This was actually the very first plate I bought when I started stamping, because of the variety of basic, staple images it has. I've used this plate quite a bit; if you'd like to see a full list of manis that show this plate in action, check out this page, under the "BP-L008- Basic Prints" heading.

Finally, the pineapple image on my pointer/pinky fingers comes from this Bundle Monster plate from the "Hangloose" collection (plate # BM-S408). This is one of my all-time favorites, but as it is also one of my first purchases, It's been a long time since I've used it so I was itching to pull it out again.

Sugar Skulls ft. MoYou London Mexico

Hello Readers!


I am super pumped about today's #clairestelle8challenge prompt, which is "Halloween in May", because it means I get to play with the MoYou London "Mexico" collection plates to do a look I have always wanted to do, but haven't had the chance to yet: sugar skulls!

This look is totally inspired by the promotional manis MoYou London has done for these plates. They've come up with some really pretty stuff, and they did some manis using these same images.



I've always admired the beautiful bright colors of sugar skulls; and I know they're technically not for Halloween, but for El Dia de los Muertos, but recently many people have also been using them for Halloween looks, so I'm going with it. ;)

So for my colors, I tried to kind of stick to traditional Halloween colors but with a bright and bold flair to make it lean more Halloween-y. I started with two coats of the Essie "Go Ginza", which really I probably could have just done one coat, it's a super awesome polish!

All of the images come from the "Mexico 01" plate, which is my favorite from the collection. So many beautiful images, and lots of variety for lots of different looks! This was the first plate I reached for from the collection, to create this vibrant Simple Sunday mani.

This time, I created four decals. I decided to try the two different sugar skull halves to see what they look like together, and also because I wasn't paying too close attention when I started stamping them out on my silicone mat to make the decals, so I didn't actually realize they were different until I had them on my mat already. At that point I decided to just go with it.

If you did want to make them match, however, an easy way to do that would be to leave one of the images on your stamper head to make the decal and make the other decal on your silicone mat. That way you would have mirror images of the same skull.

NCU: Delicate Print ft. MoYou London Mexico

Hello Readers!

Today is another post for the Nail Crazies Unite challenge, which runs every other week opposite to 26 Great Nail Art ideas. Interestingly, to me anyway, this prompt is one that is also included in the 31-Day Challenge, where every September people try to post a nail art every single day. I did this last year when I was still pretty new to stamping, and I actually still like what I came up with for this prompt.

Excuse the water drops... lol... I had to dip my hand in ice water to get a proper gradient effect.

I did something totally different this time around, however. I really am still wanting to test out the MoYou London Mexico plates, and I still hadn't used the one with all the delicate, intricate patterns. To tell you the truth, it seemed like such a good idea when I was ordering it but when I  got it home in my hands I wasn't feeling so sure about it. But I'm so glad I tried it out, because I actually am loving these delicate images on my nails!

This is the polish in "warm" mode

This is what they look like after a plunge in some ice water- I had a hard time getting them all the way cool, so I had to resort to extreme measures.

Also, it helps that I got to play with something new to me- probably not to everyone else, ha ha, I'm a little late to this party. BUT, when I was at Wal-Mart yesterday I happened upon a whole end cap display of Color Club THERMAL POLISH!!!! I limited myself to just buying one, but there were seriously so many awesome colors there!

So I started with a base of that gorgeous thermal polish. I put two coats on, and I noticed that while the first coat was permanently on the "warm" color, the second coat immediately had more variety in the color and settled with a kind of gradient. The polish changes to bright, neon green when it hits 80 degrees Fahrenheit, so depending on the climate where you live it will rest at different colors. I just am loving how fun this is to wear!

All my images for this mani come from the MoYou London "Mexico 03" plate. I decided to go with the sun and the mood to kind of get a celestial theme going.

So, have you beat me to it and already tried the thermal polishes? What was your impression of them? Also, be sure to check out the link-up below for more delicate manis!

An InLinkz Link-up

Vintage Tiles and Type, ft. MoYou London Mexico

Hello Readers!


Today is another #clairestelle8challenge on instagram, and the inspiration is "antique". Since I just acquired the new MoYou London "Mexico" plates, I wanted to incorporate them into this mani. I decided to use the plate with all the beautiful tile work and base it off of antique tile work. When I was googling this, I saw a lot of blue tones with neutrals and yellows.

So I tried to use colors that reflected those traditional tile work colors.

I started off with alternating my nails with a base of "taupe" (which doesn't have a fantastic formula, required 3 coats, but is an awesome color), and "Saltwater Happy" (which is a very nice formula, and required 2 coats tops).

Here's a peek at the Mexico 07 plate, by MoYou London, which I used to make tile work decals. I know there are other tile work style plates out there, but I didn't have one, and I've always admired the looks I've seen created with this style of image. Plus, this plate has some really gorgeous ones!

The typewriter keys on my middle/pinky fingers come from MoYou London's "Typography 01" plate. It kind of looks like I did some simple stamping on these nails, but be forewarned: the typewriter keys on this plate are too spaced out to get a satisfactory full-nail look using the plate as it is. I had to isolate the keys and stamp them on individually to get them close enough together. I just used keys that were on the outside edge to make this process easier.

Simple Sunday: Vibrant Mexico ft. MoYou London Mexico Collection

Hello Readers, and Happy Mother's Day!

Today I am excited to be playing with the new MoYou London "Mexico" collection, which I got as my Mother's Day present this year. (You see, my husband knows not to buy me flowers. Instead he sends me to buy polish and plates, ha ha.)

This mani is a bit more out of the "traditional" and more vibrant than I usually like to do for my Simple Sunday posts, but I just couldn't help it. The Mexico collection inspiration I've been seeing from MoYou London is all so vibrant and beautiful, I was dying to use some bright, saturated hues.

I love this collection so much I just cannot even handle it. I have to let out a *squeeee*!

So I was trying to stick to the more traditional "feminine" colors to make this appropriate for a Simple Sunday, which is why I went for pink and purple. Also, this pink is the exact color of the lipstick my Abuelita used to wear.

Here's a peek at the "Mexico 01" plate that I used for this mani. I made a decal for my ring finger to get that fun, vibrant look and then just used the companion image for my other nails. To get the cuticle triangle on my middle finger, I simple used the corner of the same image.

I hope everyone out there who celebrates it is having a lovely Mother's Day!