Cherry Blossom Store: Flower pattern stencil review

A couple of weeks ago Weheartnailart shared Cherry Blossom Store's profile on their Instagram account and since I loved their vinyls I decided to trust their judgement and went on over to Cherry Blossom's page. There they asked if people wanted to review their products. So I jumped at the opportunity as I have never really done a proper review and really wanted give it a try. So I mailed them and Bianca got back to me, asking me to have a look at the store and letting her know what I like.

I had to blow up the pic a bit so you can see the details.

So first, a little about them. The store has only been around for a couple of months, it started with the lack of all things nail art related in SA. They vinyls are made by Bianca herself, she and her friends test it out, the stamping plates and other nail art stuffs are from trade companies. Bianca is also looking into importing Born Pretty and Moyou products in the future. Good luck to that!! She is also open to making custom vinyls. Shipping is free over R350, otherwise it will be R55-R65 via overnight courier. You can find them at the links below.

Instagram
Store

Anyway, enough yapping, Bianca sent me a couple of goodies, which I didn't take a pic off (chop). The vinyls come in a plastic baggie with a tag that explains all things vinyls. First up is the Flower pattern stencil. I love this design, when I first saw it I immediately thought of stained glass. I started with two coats of I love Hean black on all my nails. Top coated and waited for it to dry. Once that was dry I started peeling the vinyl off the backing and oh my gosh, what a mission. I tried multiple sides, angles, but in the end I just sat picking out the little inside things.

It does say to try peeling from a different side if you having trouble, which I did. Some sides were better than others.

I then used Hean 281, 276 and 278 all from the Jungle Pop collection and tried for a radial gradient. Which didn't come out quite the way I wanted, but looks good nonetheless. The other problem that I had was that the vinyls kept lifting while I was sponging the gradient on. It's not quite obvious in these pics, but if you look at the tips you'll see where the colour bled under the vinyl. I eventually folded the vinyl under the tip of my nail to prevent it, which helped a bit. I feel that I should mention that I didn't touch the sticky part of the vinyl, tweezers were my friend.

So all in all, I really like this vinyl. People saw what I was trying to do with it, but the question is would I recommend it? To be honest, not really. It's time consuming having to pick out the insides of the vinyl and having it lift while sponging on a polish is very frustrating. And for me this is sad, as I really liked this design!!

What do you think of it? I do have more things coming your way. Hopefully it will fare a little better. I really hope it does. If you are interested in these vinyls you can find them here, they are going for R25 for 16 stencils.

Here you can sorta see the difference in the amount of thingies left behind, the result of peeling from different angles.

Thanks for stopping by and reading this long story!

Twinsie post with Michelle: Inspired by Michelle

We at it again... Doing twinsie posts... They may become triplet posts (tripsies? tripletsies?) Joyce from What's on my nails today? may or may not join us... Depending on her schedule. But I kow she's joining us today. So the theme for the upcoming posts will be "inspired by". This month we doing by each other, but from the new year(as we (meaning Michelle) will be taking a break over December), each of us will pick one mani off our lists to recreate. Taking turns and hopefully this way we will shorten the list. And if we happen to have each others name, we will redo our own mani. Because how many times have you not thought of doing it differently?

Anyway, so for today's one I decided to do this mani. I wanted to start off easy...

I didn't copy Michelle's design as I wanted to put my own twist on it. It is "inspired by" after all, which is apparently different to "recreating". I don't know, anyway I started with two coats of Parental Advisory Polish fuck me boots on my pinky, two coats of I love Hean black on my middle finger and two coats of Hean 273 from the Jungle Pop collection. Top coated and waited for that to dry.

Once that was dry I used the "extras" from the diagonal alley vinyls from becauseishop as I couldn't find my straight vinyls. I need a better way to organise my vinyls, any tips? So I taped sections off. On my index and ring finger I used I love Hean black and on my middle finger I used Hean 273 to paint in the gaps.

And of course a flash pic just to show off that holo goodness.

What do you think? I really liked this mani, it's so elegant. Do head on over to Michelle's and Joyce's and give them some love. I do know what mani Michelle wanted to do, I wonder if she changed her mind. Mine is a surprise though and so is Joyce's.

I can't wait for my left hand thumb to be decent length again. I hate this awkward hand pose.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Blue Skitlette

This is another mani that was more or less inspired by Joyce... I sat down and thought " What would Joyce do?" "What colours would she use together?" And this is what I came up with.

I started with two coats of OPI Eurso Euro on my thumb and index, two coats of I love Hean 870 from the pastel collection on my middle and ring finger and two coats of I love Hean 854 from the sugar collection on my pinky.

The stamp is plate BP-L003 and I used Eurso Euro to stamp with. I then added two flower decals that I bought a whole bunch of from Aliexpress.

For some reason this pic looks very blurry and I have absolutely no idea why. Anyway, what do you think? Does this count as a skitlette? My first one ever (nevermind the one I copied from Joyce).

I really like how this turned out. I'm actually busy doing a couple of reviews for you. I'm hoping to have the first one up by next week. Hoping being the key word here.

Thanks for reading!