Every week, an email drops into my inbox with the sole intention to tempt me to buy the latest MoYou releases. Normally this is an exercise in restraint for me because face it, we all want ALL of the MoYou plates, but last week I just couldn’t help myself. As if the announcement of their new worktop mat wasn’t exciting enough, they also released a whole bunch of Emoji stamping plates. Needless to say, I was all over that shiz!
I’m jumping right back in to the 31 Day Challenge where I left off and Day 21 calls for nails Inspired by a Color. The themes are very open to interpretation from today onwards so for this particular prompt, I normally try to pull inspiration from the name of a nail polish.
The one that caught me is a new collaboration shade from piCture pOlish and A Lacquered Affair (read Lauretta’s inspiration post here). The shade is called Ornate and I thought it would be a great excuse to pull out my current favourite MoYou plate from the Fashionista collection. The plate is covered in fancy baroque designs – all undoubtedly very ornate!
I make no bones about the fact that Water Marbling is my nail art nemesis! Normally for the sake of the challenge, I brave it out and go at it until I get lucky and and up with something that will pass for a water marble. This year, however, luck wasn’t on my side and after more than an hour just trying to get one passable nail, I had to concede and find an alternative for the sake of my sanity.
I have so much respect for anyone that can water marble. I sometimes wonder if I’m missing a trick but I know from experience that it comes down to hard work, patience and practice to really nail a tricky technique. I’ve put in the work with other forms of nail art, but I just don’t click with water marbling.
My base colours are piCture pOlish Chillax (Green) and piCture pOlish Swagger (Blue).
I stamped the design from UberChic Stamping Plate 1-03 using Born Pretty Matte White.
It’s topped off with one coat Glisten & Glow HK Girl.
I was rifling through my stamping plates a few weeks ago (during my ‘nail art equipment’ Periscope) and I got very nostalgic when I saw my Konad plates. This M57 plate, the one with the zebra-tiger and leopard print, was the very first plate I ever lusted after and pretty much kicked off my nail art obsession. I vowed to use it again soon and I think Day 13 of the challenge, animal print, is the perfect opportunity.
I created a gradient using Barry M Blueberry and Barry M Guava. See the tutorial here.
The leopard print design is stamped from Konad M57 plate with Models Own Chrome Cerise.
It’s all topped with a coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl.
If you follow me on Instagram, these nails might look kind of familiar! Since the challenge started, I’ve been working on these manis for the challenge quite late in to the night. By the time I was done with these yesterday, I didn’t have it in me to sit down and write the post so I totally just crawled in to bed and grammed from there! #nailbloggerproblems
I didn’t go for an all out metallic this year, as I’ve never really been a fan of the all over foil look. I do have a lot in my collection though because they’re unbeatable when it comes to stamping. I get a lot of questions about stamping and, in particular, which polishes work best. The answer is always chromes! I’ve only ever come across one chrome polish that didn’t work for stamping and that’s because it was a watery mess. This copper from Beauty UK is a couple of years old now, but still one of my favourites. Plus copper is so in right now. Pinterest said so!
While we’re here, let’s have a little little recap of the challenge so far… Although it’s technically 10 days in, metallic nails are the prompt for Day 8 so I’m a little behind. I’ve done the nails up to Day 10, I just haven’t had a chance to blog them yet so I’m hoping the weekend will give me a chance to catch up.
…I used NYC Statue of Liberty as my base colour. Once that was all dry, I stamped on this geometric design from Bundle Monster Polynesia Stamping Plate BM-XL119 using BeautyUK Olympic Bronze. It’s all topped off with a coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl.
When you want some fine lines in your nail art, there’s no beating a bit of stamping. This plate from MoYou (Sci-Fi 05) has a couple of designs featuring insanely thin lines but I went with this circuitboard pattern for a suitably technologic design.
My base colour is NYC Pier 17 and I stamped the design with GOSH Metallic Blue from MoYou Sc-Fi Plate 05
