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!

30 Days of Color: First Day of Spring ft. MoYou London Enchanted

Hello Readers!



Today's post is for this week's prompt at 30 Days of Color Challenge, which is "First Day of Spring!" I thought it would be fun to put a farm animal on my nails for this prompt, since I associate farm animals with spring for sure.

I decided to also try a wood grain background for my nails this time. I have really been loving the wood grain background looks lately!

I wanted to try a different color of wood grain this time, and I was also going for subtlety so I went with a base of "Yo Soy" and stamped over it with just slightly darker brown color.

My "unused" polish for the 30 Days of Color challenge is the purple, "Havana Good Time". This purple is part of the Spring Break collection for Sinful Colors this year.

My wood grain image came from this Bundle Monster plate, from the Secret Garden collection. 

I created a really simple decal from the sheep image off of this MoYou London Enchanted plate.

And finally, I created some smaller decals from the flower images off of this plate, also from Bundle Monster's Secret Garden collection.

Thanks for stopping by today! Be sure to check out some more spring-themed manis in the link-up below!

Pop Art Zombies ft. Bundle Monster House of Horrors, MoYou London Holy Shapes

Hello Readers!


Today's post is an unusual one for March, because the prompt today for the #clairestelle8challenge on instagram is "unseasonal". I had a couple of Halloween plates on my "unused" plates list and I figured this was the perfect opportunity to play with them.

As I was contemplating what exactly I wanted to do, I remembered this pop art ghost mani I did around Halloween time last year, and decided to follow that sort of theme, but with a Zombie twist.

I stated off with a base of Sinful Colors "Snow Me White", and then had some fun with Bundle Monster stamping polishes. I did use an actual stamping polish for my black here. That means I also used a different topcoat than my normal to try to help prevent it from smudging. Black stamping polish is always the worst smudger! I find the Revlon Gel Envy topcoat works well over black stamping. You can see in the pic that it did still smudge in one small spot on the zombie's neck, but it's better than if I had used my normal quick-drying topcoat.

While we are on the subject, I also like to use the "gel" formula topcoats when making decals. Not actual lamp cured gel topcoats, just the kind with a gel-like formula. They tend to work better and crack less when moving the decals around to apply them to my nails.

I started off by stamping the large right triangle image from this MoYou London Holy Shapes plate.

Next, I stamped some polka dots from this other plate from the Holy Shapes collection. I just turned the stamp diagonally and purposely overlapped them onto the purple triangles just a little bit.

Once I had by base down, I stamped on some zombie themed images. My zombie face and the word "zombie" on my middle nail came from this Bundle Monster plate, from the House of Horrors collection. It was a really awesome Halloween collection that came out last year, and I used all the the plates except for this one, because it was a bit more gorey than the others and it's not my usual style. Hence the bright colors on this mani, ha ha.

My eye splat images come from this other Bundle Monster plate, from the original holiday collection.

For my middle nail, I actually lifted an "I <3" image off this plate from MoYou London's Rebel collection, and then stamped the word "zombie" under it. That's one great thing about these types of images- it's pretty easy to switch it up to say whatever you need it to say.

So I think this mani just about wins a "use-a-million-plates" award, ha ha. It was really fun to do though, and I'm happy to return to a pop-art nail art look; I always seem to enjoy them.

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.

Simple Sunday 3/19/17 ft. MoYou London Africa

Hello Readers!


Today I have a Simple Sunday post for you, where I show you what I put on my nails to wear to church each Sunday. Today's post is pretty straightforward. I was excited to play a bit with a plate from MoYou London's Africa collection and use some of the lovely, detailed floral designs on it.

I decided to fill in the flowers on just my ring finger for a simple accent nail.

I started off the mani with a few coats of the Sinful Colors polish "The Full Monte". This is one of the new colors for their core line for 2017, and it is a bit similar to the "Just Deserts" polish from the Stoned Crystal Shimmer line, but this polish does have more pink to it.

My image comes from this beautiful MoYou London plate from the Africa collection. I love all the intricate line work on this plate!

St. Patrick's Day Nails ft. Bundle Monster Holiday

Hello Readers!



Happy St. Patrick's Day to all who celebrate it! Today's post is, of course, inspired by the holiday over here in America and is also my fill for the #clairestelle8challenge on instagram.

I decided to break out my classic Bundle Monster holiday plates and use the St. Patrick's Day images on them for this mani. Although I have other plates that have shamrocks on them, I haven't actually used these plates yet and the images on them are pretty cute.

I used the Sinful Colors St. Patrick's Day color "Works Like a Charm" for my base on my pointer/pinky fingers, and decided to stamp over that with the Essie "Off Tropic" polish, because it is a deeply saturated green and all those dark polishes normally work great for stamping. Just be aware when using regular polish to stamp that it will normally show up a few shades lighter with stamping than with regular polishing. Actually, I often find the same to be true with actual stamping polishes, to a lesser extent.

The original Bundle Monster holiday collection, with the old school round plates, has two St. Patrick's Day plates, and I used both here. From the above plate, I only used the shamrock image on the right hand side. 

But on this plate, I made a decal with the coin image and use the top shamrock image. I just took advantage of the straight line at the top of the image and stamped it about 1/3 from the top of my nails.

Next, I used this MoYou London plate from the Frenchy collection to create the bands at the top of the pattern. I used the skinniest band at the very top to do this. I find that to place these bands correctly, you have to be very careful when lifting the stamper. I like to hold it to my nail for a few seconds to give it a chance to dry on my nail before lifting, and when I lift I do it very slowly, checking to make sure the band hasn't come up over the nail and folded over.

Finally, I finished off my pointer/pinky fingers with a little square stud, because we know any St. Patrick's Day look benefits from a little bit of Leprechaun treasure!


Will you be celebrating St. Patrick's Day this year?   Personally, I think the only festive part of my day will be my fingernails, but we did have a green pudding pie earlier this week in a kind of pi day/St. Patrick's day combo celebration. The kids have been making St. Patrick's Day crafts at the library and doing other small activities throughout the week. But I'm not really planning on doing anything elaborate this year.