#52weeknailchallenge: mermaids

My post is a little late this week, but only because I kept putting it off. I wasn't feeling very productive this week.

I had very high hopes for this prompt, I was going to double stamp some scales and then I found that the image I had was too small. It would have fitted my pinky, but barely. So I had to change what I wanted to do and came up with this instead.

I started with two coats of Hean 278 on my thumb and pinky, the rest is sporting three coats of Hean 277, both polishes from the Jungle pop collection. I then added a coat of Sinful Colors green ocean over that.

For the mermaid I used a unda da sea vinyl from becauseishop on my mat. I painted a coat of Hean 281, also from the Jungle pop collection, over the vinyl and a coat of black polish over it to make it pop as 281 is very sheer. Removed the vinyl immediately and waited for it to dry. Once it was dry I peeled it off and stuck it to my nail.

For the scales I used vinyls I got from Weheartnailart before they shut down. Stuck them to my nail and sponged on Ulta3 lily white, once that was semi dry I sponged 281 over that.

I kinda like how it all turned out... I'm a little bummed that I couldn't stamp the scales though and I can't believe that I don't have a proper mermaid stamping plate. What do you think? 

Thanks for reading!

#52weeknailchallenge: pink & purple

Here we are at the beginning of a New Year and this is normally where something profound would be said, but I have nothing... It's just another year with resolutions being made and almost instantly being broken. I did see something that stuck with me though.

Anyway, besides the beginning of a New Year, it's also the start of a fresh 52 week challenge. @polish_portfolio did this years one through a group effort and hopefully there will be more people joining in this year. There's some new and combined prompts, some ones that have me thinking WTF?! and ones I look forward to.

Jumping straight in we start with pink and purple. I really need to start noting which white polishes I use! I have two coats of some random white polish on my middle and ring finger and I didn't note which one. On my pinky I have two coats of Hean 280 from the jungle pop collection. My thumb and index two coats of Starrily gamma ray.

First up, I have to note the difference in concentration of holo in the two polishes. Compared to gamma ray, it doesn't even look like 280 is holo at all. The flowers I stamped with my essence black stampy polish and coloured it in with the two holo's.

Flash shot to show off the holo and sadly again notice the difference between the two.

What do you think? Once I finished the mani, there wasn't much of a difference between the two polishes, but I was done with it and it was pink and purple, so....

Thanks for reading and thanks for sticking with me!

Happy Friday 13th

I wasn't planning on posting today, but yesterday was such a bad day, that today can't be all that bad, right?

So with keeping in the theme of Friday 13th and halloween and all that I decided to share this mani early. As in I did it yesterday! Here's my mummie nails!

I started with two coats of Hean City Fashion white on all my nails. Once that was dry I took a piece of sponge and randomly sponged Sally Hansen honey whip, Sorbet chic me baby and Hean 273 from the jungle pop collection. I then double stamped from plate BP 67 using a gold stamping from BPS and caramel from Mundo de Unas.

I laid down some manicure guides (the old ones) on my miracle mat to make the black strip for the eyes. When that was dry, I placed it on my middle finger, made two white dots and two smaller red dots in the centre.

I then top coated, smudged my index finger and then painted a coat of OPI matte coat over it.

What do you think? Someone said it looks like melted chocolate or someting... With googley eyes.So I rolled my eyes at them.

As I side note and a rant, I hate it when people have no consideration for other people's time. Why come 4 mins before we close with a problem you have had the whole day?

Anyway, thanks for reading!

#52weeknailchallenge: animal

I feel like I've cheated way too many times with this challenge. Or you can see it as me being clever, either way, this is another easy mani for a difficult prompt.

I mean animal, you can do stripes, you can do spots and apparently you can do unicorns or mermaids...

So I started with two coats of Hean 273 from the jungle pop collection.

And added some feline looking decals... I don't know if it's leopard or cheetah or what big cat it is.

And that is my prompt for animal. And of course a flash pic to show the holo. Which is not very obvious, but it's there.

What do you think? Am I being clever or am I cheating or being lazy?

Thanks for reading!

Friday Triad: Inspired by Kakine Nail Art

Hey look at that... Three posts in one week. That's probably not gonna happen again. Anyway, it's time for another Friday Triad. Today was Michelle's choice and it was inspired by this post of Kakine (Hope I got that right). If you want more info on our Friday posts, head on over to Michelle's space... She's way more organised than me and always has a little story.

Count on Michelle to choose pink and super complicated swirls... So I knew I didn't want to do pink, I was considering a gradient, but I chose the lazy way out (it's starting to be a trend here). I started with two coats of I love Hean black on my thumb and pinky. On my index, middle and ring finger I have 2 coats of Hean 281 from the jungle pop collection.

The Jungle Pop collection is really one of my favourites.... Okay, I stamped a swirly cloud image from HeHe 41 with essence black stampy polish. I top coated and waited for that dry. Once that was dry, laid down some pointy vinyls on my index and ring fingers and painted I love Hean black on the sides.

I left my middle finger as is, just to see those lovely swirls... I really like how this turned out, I also got a couple of compliments on this.

What do you think? I think I passed... It is my turn to pick the next inspiration, I hope the girls will like it. Do pop on over to Michelle and Joyce and give them some love!

Thanks for stopping by

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!!

Inspired by Joyce (read I copied her)

I'm trying to post regularly, but also trying to build up more posts, so I'm slowly getting there. I've been following Joyce from What's on my nails today? for some time now and I am so envious of her skitlettes. She makes everyting go together and make it seem super easy.

Joyce recently did a summer skitlette here. And I totally fell in love. And I had to give it a go, which it wasn't easy...

I started with two coats of Hean 274 from the Jungle Pop collection on my thumb and index. My middle and ring finger is sporting two coats of Hean 235 (Ordinary Misfit). My pinky has two coats of piCture pOlish Heavy Metal.

So I decided on a darker holo, as it's winter here by us (well technically spring) and on Ordinary Misfit instead of white. For the stamping, I used Nubar Silver Mist and HeHe 43.

I'm not sure if I did Joyce's mani any justice. What do you think? I'm a little on the fence about... And I really need a clear stamper. I can't wait for our Secret Santa to be over... Just so I can start buying things for me again.

Thanks for reading!

Hean nail polish #272 - Jungle Pop collection

So I kinda forgot to post yesterday. It's not often that both BF and I sleep late. It mostly only happens on Sundays, so in my mind I thought it was Sunday. Anyway, this is the last Jungle Pop I have for you guys. It's similar to 275, 275 was an orange polish with a pink shift. This one is a pink polish with an orange shift. I first thought it was the same polish when I took them out of the bag.

This is two coats, no top coat. It has the same flakies that 275 has, I thought it would remove like a glitter polish, but it came off just as a regular polish. I couldn't capture the shift between pink and orange, but it's there.

I was looking through my stamping plates, hoping for some inspiration and I came across BP-73. It had some cute roses on it. So I made some decals with my miracle mat.Still my best buy ever!!

For the roses I used Hean 221 and Hean 225 for the leaves, both of these is from the summer collection.

I struggled my behind off with actually picking up my image, so it's a bit patchy. Anyway, I like how these turned out and I got quite a few compliments.

What do you think? Sorry about the nubbin that's my thumb at the moment. It had a tear, but then I got into a dispute with some chicken and it was no more. If you want any of these just click on the banner and it will take you directly to the shop.

Thanks for reading!

Hean nail polish #275 - Jungle Pop collection

Today's post is a bit late. But my morning didn't quite go as planned. I also have the second last Jungle Pop to show you. This is a very interesting one. It's a copper toned orange with a pink shift and flakies!

This is two coats. It dried smooth, even though it doesn't look it. Quick hint if you are at a loss for nail art... Reach for vinyls.

I used Aztec vinyls for this one. I sponged on SC Black on Black so the colour doesn't bleed under the vinyl.

I got quite a few compliments on this mani. What do you think?

I'll have the last Jungle Pop to show you next week. Hopefully all the public holidays won't disrupt my posting.

I'll even have an Easter Mani to show you!

Thanks for stopping by!