Friday Triad: Inspired by @hannys_manis

I'm so so sorry, this post is a little late!! I realised yesterday that it's due today and then I went and got sick.... The plan was to do the post last night but I couldn't keep my eyes open!

It's that time of the month where we pick mani's for inspiration and see what we can do. This month it was my turn and I chose this mani by @hannys_manis. The moment I saw this I knew I wanted to use Cirque pebble with it.

I started wit two coats of pebble on my thumb, index and middle finger. My ring and pinky has two coats of OPI don't touch my tutu!. The chevron stamp is from BP-L006 and I stamped it with mundo de unas old pink.

For the flowers I used eseence I still believe in Santa Claus as my stamping polish and an image from BP-73. I coloured them in with tip top heartbreaker and moyra SP16. The leaves I coloured in with essence play with my mint and toy apple smoothie.

Of course I had to mattify it and I love it even more!!

What do you think? I totally love love this. Pop over to Michelle and Joyce and see what they did!!

Thanks for reading and sorry again for the late post!!

#52weeknailchallenge: TV show/movie

I'm kinda glad this prompt didn't get kicked from last years challenge. I have the Studio Ghibli inspired stamping plates from HeHe and I'm trying to use them all. Even though it will take me some time. I decided on using HeHe 64 which is inspired by The Wind Rises.

It's about a Japanese engineer who designed their fighter aircraft's in WWII. During a great earthquake in 1923 he meets this girl on a train with her maid. The maid broke her leg and the engineer carried her all the way to their house and left without leaving his name. Then years later the engineer and the girl meet again, falls in love and get's engaged.. But she has TB and won't marry him until she's better. Not wanting to spoil anything if you want to watch the movie, but it's the 1900's and TB was called consumption for a reason.

Courtesy of Wiki

So looking at the posters for the movie I decided on my colours. I started with two coats of Tip Top beach babe on all my nails. I then used a piece of sponge and sponged on TT we have an agreen mint at the tips of my index, middle and ring finger. I also sponged on Hean City Fashion white to resemble some clouds.

On my middle finger I stamped the girl with Nicole Diary black stamping polish. As you can see her arm is outstretched as in the poster. On my ring finger I stamped the plane that was designed by the engineer. And on my index finger I double stamped the dandelion seeds with ND black and white stamping polishes.

What do you think? Mark says he recognized it instantly, but I did talk to him about it before, so maybe that's why... I really would recommend this movie, but be aware it's not everyone's cup of tea.

I on the other hand liked how this turned out... And so did everyone else and for once I had a story to tell when talking about my nails. For once it wasn't how did you do it, but tell me about the inspiration.

As always thanks for stopping by!!

Moyra stamping polish SP12 and SP16

A couple of months ago we got the news that we would be getting Moyra products in South Africa. Since I've never heard of them before I turned to Google and was somewhat impressed. I decided to get some polishes and a stamping plate or two...

I decided on a yellow (SP12) and light purple (SP16) stamping polish. As I didn't have any of those in my collection and might need one of those shades... Eventually. And the day did come that I needed a light purple, so I tested the polish on my miracle mat.

And oh my word was I disappointed... Barely there on black and white? This might as well have been a normal polish. So this had me worried, what would the yellow be like?? And I tested the yellow.

Slightly better... But it's still not what I would expect from a stamping polish. I shared my findings with the Whatsapp group I'm part of and they suggested I maybe contact the supplier as there may have been a problem with this batch of polishes. Which I did....

And boy, did I get the third degree. First, I was told that these are pastel colours and it depends on which surface I stamp them (????). A silicone mat doesn't show the true colours, its best on a black and white pop stick. Then I was asked if I shook the bottle, did I add thinners to it, why did I wait so long before using it, when did I buy it?

At this point I didn't even bother replying. Firstly the miracle mat was designed for nail art and to do test swatches of stamping polishes. Secondly, isn't shaking a polish bottle the first thing you do? And why for the love of all polishes would I add thinners to a stamping polish? Why? And as for the last two questions I'm not even going there because it seems like the implication is that the polishes have a shelf life. And I was starting to get annoyed.

I was also sent this:

This is the test swatch I was sent by the contact person at Moyra SA. How is this any better?????? According to the Moyra SA and Moyra Stamping websites these polishes are "extra pigmented, fast drying" and "developed especially for nail art stamping". Nowhere does it state that they pastel polishes and won't stamp on certain mediums. I decided to do a test swatch too on black and white polishes.

Disclaimer: I shook these polishes like my life depended on it. And guess what?? It made no difference!!!!!!!!!! Again, the yellow isn't bad, but it's not quite there. Something else I noticed that may or may not be a little odd, is that these polishes didn't have mixing balls, but the stamping polishes I got for my Secret Santa Receiver does...

I did manage to find two reviews, by the same person fortunately, that shows these two polishes. The link for the purple polish and link for the yellow polish and I wish I got those polishes.

The solution for my compliant was, that I could send these polishes to the Moyra SA educator and she will test it for me. Or I could send it to the contact person and she could test it for me. If something is wrong with it, she will then replace it. Honestly, considering the test swatch that was sent to me, this is clearly how they expect it to stamp. 

All in all, I'm very disappointed. The customer service was crappy, the polishes are sad and I won't order from them again.

What do you think? Are my expectations too high? Or does it all just suck?

Thanks for stopping by and reading my rant!

#52weeknailchallenge: polka dots

This was another prompt that stumped me... I had a look at some of the Instagram photo's I had saved for inspiration and I was drawn to one and I asked BF would this do? His response was that polka dots are supposed to be uniform in size and spacing so it doesn't count. So back searching I went, until I came across this mani done by @juli_addicted
I started with three coats of I love Hean 881 on my index, middle and ring finger. I'm not a big fan of this polish as it's so sheer. On my thumb and pinky I have two coats of essence beam me up!.

I then stamped some straight lines from Lina feeling shapely 1 on my pinky with Nicole Diary white. On my index, middle and ring finger I stamped some dots from RuiZ03, also with ND white. For my middle finger I made decals. The image is from HeHe 68 and I coloured it in with beam me up!.

I think I should have added a matte top coat to this.... What do you think? I kinda like how it turned out. Even with the Hean polish being so sheer and not quite being minty enough.

Thanks for stopping by!!

#52weeknailchallenge: blue and yellow

You would assume that these colour prompts would be easier, but it's not... I had no inspiration for this. So I sent a SOS to our group of nail polish addicts and Michelle came to the rescue and one of the images she sent caught my eye. It was a mani from @de.lish.ious.nails Let me show you what I did.

I started with two coats of Hean City Fashion 169 on my thumb and pinky. The rest has two coats of Tip Top sunkissed. While that was drying I made some decals using my miracle mat.

I stamped the flowers from HeHe 43 with Nicole Diary white stamping polish, colouring in the flowers with CF 169 as I went. The centre of each flower got a dab of Nubar conserve. I painted a coat of clear polish over it and waited for it to dry.

I then used my clear stamper to place them on my nails... I was rather disappointed by this mani, it's pretty, but eventually the lines from the clear polish started showing.

What do you think? I'm so relieved that my pictures doesn't have the of lines showing, since I take my pictures immediately... The flaws start showing afterwards! I do love the colour combo too, apparently I have been doing a lot of green mani's. So this gives us a nice break from green.

Thanks for reading!!

#52weeknailchallenge: Winter

I had almost no inspiration for this prompt, I wanted to do a dark grey to white gradient again, but I feel like I've done it to death now (it seems twice is to death!!). So I was thinking of doing a similar but different gradient and stamp some rain drops and then I went to meet up with a friend and saw this monochrome outfit in a window and was totally inspired!!

I started with two coats of Hean City Fashion white on my thumb and pinky. The rest of my nails has two coats of CF black.

I then stamped the umbrella image from Lina Seasons Autumn 1 with Nicole Diary black and white stamping polish.

I then for a splash of colour, coloured in one of the umbrellas with essence flying flamingo.

And that was the outfit! Sans the colour.

What do you think? I kinda liked how this turned out. And I possibly have another or two monochrome mani's coming your way some time again in this challenge!

Thanks for reading.