Fall Stamping with Zoya Yuna

Hello girls! I've been quiet lately because it's hard to blog when I only paint my nails on Sunday evening and lately all my nails have been kinda fails so I didn't feel like taking pics and sharing. Today's nailart turned out OK, though a bit Fall-ish (when Spring just started here lol).

Anyway Istarted with a base of Zoya Yuna, which I got on my recent trip to Santiago last week. I was very drawn to the green-gold shimmer on the bottle, I wish it was more visible on the nail (though I only saw it under artificial light so it may have been more noticieable under sunlight? dunno). Anyway, it was very easy to apply in two coats.

I waited for my base to dry for a bit and then added the stamping using Moyou London's 02 and Maybelline Bold Gold.

Also this was my first time succesfully using my new Moyou London Marshmallow Sticky stamper. I had to was it a couple of times with dishwasher for it to pick up properly and found out that direct pressing on the plate instead of rolling, like I'm used to, worked better for picking up images. also using reaaaally light pressure.

I didn't get the greatest stampig but I think it's more user error, I'll keep using the stamper and will let you know how it goes.

 And here's a macro shot to show off the pretty shimmer (why doesn't it look like this normally?? *shakes fist at invisible shummer*). Also here you can really appreciate my crappy stamping job hah hah.

Anyway I hope you liked it, I'm on the fence about it right now, maybe it'll grow on me.

Have you tried Moyou London's Marshmallow XL stamper? Do you like these super sticky stampers?

Take care and see you on the next post!

Inspiration is Everwhere NOTD

Hola chiquillas! Hoy les traigo la muestra fehaciente de que la inspiración está en todos lados. El nailart de hoy está inspirado en... mi pijama! Siempre me ha gustado la combinación de colores y líneas que tiene así que ayer me decidí y llevé el diseño a mis uñas. Como base usé a-england Galahad y Finger Paints Papier Maché. Para las franjitas de color de los accent usé Essence Miss Lavender, Essie Splash of Grenadine, Galahad y Orly Gumdrop.

Hello girs! Today I bring you a mani that I did to prove that you can truly find inspiration everywhere. Today's nailart was inspired by... my pj's! I have a fleece striped pajamas that is my favorite for the winter time, and I've always loved the color combo and the stripes together and I always thought "wow, this could make a cool nailart!". So finally yesterday I got to translate the design to my nails.

As a base I used a-england Galahad, except on my accent nails for which I used Finger Paints Papier Maché. Galahad is very easy to work with and almost applies itself on my nails, but my Papier Maché is kinda old and thick and gloopy so it was a bit more difficult to apply (couldn't find my thinner).

For the stripes on the accents I used four colors: Essence Miss Lavender, Essie Splash of Grenadine, a-england Galahad and Orly Gumdrop. I waited for the base color to dry thoroughly (which was a challenge, I am very impatient with nailart lol) then I applied little bits of striping tape and filled in between the tape with my colors. Then I removed the tape inmediatly.

However, my lines were not so crisp and clean so I went over them with a striping brush. But they look fine from a distance so... success!

Overall, I am very happy with the end result I got even though the process was incredibly a bit frustrating. Tape manicures are supposed to be super easy, right? But whenever possible I prefer to recreate the effect with a brush, no one is going to be inspecting my nails with a magnifying glass, right? ;)

Thanks for reading!

Twinkling Golden Stars

Hi girls! How have you been? I hope your weekend was good. It was good for me, I had time for relaxing and writing some letters, but I digress, let's get to the polish.

Today I bring you a stamping manicure I did with my newly arrived MoYou London plate. For some reason I had been wanting a plate with traditional japanese fabric patterns, but it was impossible to find one (strange craving, huh?). That was until someone mentioned MoYou London on a group I'm in, and while browsing  -BAM!- there it was, my stamping dream came true.

Here you can see the plate, which is quite large compared to the other plates in my collection (mainly Bundle Monster, Nailz Craze and Essence). The designs on the plate are on the smaller side, which is a plus for me since my nails are tiny, but on the site you can also find plates with larger designs.

My plate is from the Suki collection, which focuses on japanese motifs (from kawaii -cute- designs to these more traditional ones), but the site has a varied array of themes and designs, from full nails to small individual images. They also have these plates that consist of a big composition with different details so you can pick and choose which to use on your nails (like this).

The plates come in a re-sealable plastic bag, with blue film attached to it (which you have to remove before using) and adhered to a sturdy base (I think to avoid cuts with the sharp edges?). The designs are well etched so the stamped image is very crisp.

You can get this plate at the MoYou London website. They ship from the UK, but I didn't had any problem getting my order here. I'm not affiliated with this company in any way, I just loved their designs and look forward to adding other plates to my collection.

Now, for the mani, yay :)

I used a base of Nails Inc Baker Street, which is an amazing bright cobalt blue I've already shown here before (click here for the review). Then, I stamped over it with Orly Luxe which is great for stamping, but leaves my fingers full of sparkly particles. The pattern that I used is called "Asanoha", which reminds me of stars.

To finish off my mani, I topped it all with OPI Matte Top Coat, which was recently released in my country. I love the effect it gives to my manis, it's a true matte finish and dries very quick.

Do you like stamping? It was hard for me to pick up at first, but eventually I succeeded (sometimes it pays to be stubborn heh heh).

Thanks for reading! :)

Oldies but Goodies

Hola chicas! Hoy traigo un nailart bien sencillito hecho solamente con una herramienta: cinta adhesiva, o scotch (específicamente el de 3M que viene en un empaque verde). Simplemente apliqué una base de OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui y, cuando estuvo bien seco (pero "seco seco" jajaja) enmascaré unas partes con scotch y pinté dos capitas de Orly Ingenue. Bueno, bonito y barato. Espero les guste! :)

Hi guys! How have you been? I hope Spring (or Fall) is treating you well. Today I bring you a very simple tape mani with two of my favorite nail polishes of all time, OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui (from the Hong Kong collection from a few years back) and Orly Ingenue (from 2012's Holiday collection). So let's get to it~

To start, I applied 2 easy coats of OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui over OPI Natural Nail Base Coat. This is probably my favorite blue ever, and I own a lot of blue nail polishes. It's also the first polish I ever ordered online, so it has a special place in my heart.

In order for tape manis to work properly you need your base color to be really dry before moving on to applying the second color. I leave the color as is for a day and, on the second day, apply the tape to be extra sure.

So, I masked out the sides of my base with scotch tape, so it'd form a triangle through the middle of my nail, and then applied Orly Ingenue in two thickish coats (I only left it dry for a few seconds before applying my second coat, was just building opacity). Then I removed the tape right away as I've found that removing the tape as soon as possible gives the best results for neater lines.

The I topped it off with OPI's Top Coat and some Essence quick-drying drops and I was good to go!

I hoped you liked this mani, thanks for staying with me. Have you tried tape manis? What is your favorite design with tape?

Orly Ingenue

Hola! Hoy les quiero mostrar un esmalte que recibí recientemente, Orly Ingenue, es un glass fleck rosa con un brillo dorado muy distintivo. Para hacerlo más interesante estampé un diseño con esmalte especial Konad negro y un diseño de la placa BM-224 (del segundo set de Bundle Monster). Gracias por leer!

Hi guys! Today I want to share with you a stamped mani I did with one of the polishes from my last nail mail post, Orly Ingenue, though I don't have any pics of it alone.

Orly Ingenue was released as part of the Holiday Soirée collection in 2011. It's a mauve sheer jelly base packed with gold glass flecks. It was easy to apply, but a bit sheer, I did 3 coats and still had some visible nail line (VNL) in some angles. It's very similar in color to Zoya Faye.

On the second day of this mani I stamped over it with Konad Black with a design from the BM-224 plate. Ironically, I chose this set because the designs were bigger and lots of people had problems with the size of the designs from the first set. Well, turns out my nails are TINY so I can barely fit half of any design grrr.

I used the design on the top left. Please forgive the sorry state of my plate :p I love doing stamping on nails because it's a nice way to extend a mani for a couple more days and it's not that difficult to do once you get the hang of it.

Thank you for reading and for putting out with my chaotic blogging schedule. I added a couple buttons on my sidebar so you know where you can follow me, or you can add my RSS, to be notified of new posts.