Nail Mail: Julep and stamping plates

Hey girls! How are you doing, getting into the holiday spirit yet? Today I have some nail mail to share with you. These are small buys that I did with some friends from a local group within a span of a few weeks. We live in different cities so when we do group buys we pile it up a bit and then the other girls ship us our stuff (which is cheaper than paying separate international shippings). And look who's making another appearance on the blog, my Pom named Puchi (pronounced Poo-she)

We are big fans of stamping in my group so when the girls wanted to order Sugar Bubbles and Vivid Lacquer I jumped at the opportunity to try some myself. I got SB022 and SB025. You know I love japanese patterns and the kokeshis were so cute! I also want to do a mani with the lady blowing the dandelion seeds, it was really popular on stamping groups a while ago. Then we ordered Vivid Lacquer of which I got VL024 and VL028 (steampunk patterns!)

And then I got some polishes too. These are my first Julep plus a new addition to my Butter London collection. The polishes are (L-R): Kimberly, Love, Kayla and Chuffed (the new version).

Anyway, I look forward to sharing these with you soon, maybe for January since I already decided to dedicate December to winter/christmas nailar :)

Thanks for reading!

Moyou 30k Recap

Back in the first week of November Moyou London announced yet another nailart contest on their Instagram account in honor of hitting 30,000 followers. The challenge was to upload a nailart inspired by a character from Alice in Wonderland, each week during November. This obviously seemed more manageable than the Rainbow Challenge, which was a daily thing, so of course I had to try my hand at it.

Today I'll be sharing with you my four entries for this challenge (which you might already seen if you follow me on Instagram).

First week was inspired by the Queen of Hearts. I was inspired by the design of the character from the classic Disney movie and added some partially painted white roses. I used mainly the Pro 04 plate with a little addition of Fashionista 05 and Topa Topa 04. As bases I used OPI My Vampire is Buff, Sparitual Spellbound and Colorama Amarelo Sol. For stamping I used Konad Black, White and Spellbound,

The next week was dedicated to the White Rabbit. I don't have any rabbit or clock images from Moyou so I had to get creative to get close to the theme. I used an image from Kaleidoscope 02 and free handed some arms to turn the image into a clock. I also used Hipster 02 for the bowtie and patterns from the Tourist 07 plate as backgrouds, everything else is freehanded.

Third week was dedicated to the Mad Hatter. I drew inspiration mainly from the character from the Tim Burton film portrayed by Johnny Depp by representing different parts of his outfit on my nails.  On my index I depicted the hat, with the baroque pattern and peacock feathers, on my middle nail I represented the bowtie. Then I added the famous 10/6 by hand painting and a hat pattern. For this nailart I used Tourist 07, Artist 02 and Hipster 02 plates.

And finally, we have Alice! I used mainly pastel yellow, light blue, black and white for this soft and cute nailart. I represented Alice herself, her outfit and parts of her journey in my entry. I used Artist 02 for Alice's face (which I painted in as a stamping decal) and for the backgroud swirls on my ring finger, Hipster 02 for the bow and hair in my index and the tea cup in my ring finger and Pro 04 for the roses.

Overall, I'm not really happy with how many of these turned out. Even though I had some nice ideas (like turning the Kaleidoscope image into a clock) my execution wasn't the best as I kinda rushes my manis because I didn't get any inspiration until the last minute. Honestly, at some times it felt more like a chore than a fun thing. However, I love my Alice mani because of the color scheme and how the stamping turned out, I think I did well in representing the character too.

Do you participate in nail art competitions? I try to participate in Moyou's contests whenever I have the chance, even though I haven't won anything -so far- I like that it makes me *really* look at my plates to come up with ways to acommodate the theme. 

Thanks for reading and see you on my next post!

Cardinal and jerseys

Hola niñas! Hoy les traigo un nailart invernal para ponernos a tono con las fiestas (aunque hace un calor de locos jaja). De bases usé Barry M Gelly Elderberry y Sparitual Spellbound y estampé los copos de nieve con la placa QA58 y para el diseño de jersey ocupé la placa Naliz Craze NC02, ambos estampados con Konad White. El glitter blanco con rojo es OPI Bearest of Them All. Y el pajarito cardenal fue pintado a mano. Y eso, simple y sencillo :) Espero les haya gustado y nos leemos en mi próximo nailart navideño!

Hi girls! Today I have my first Winter/Christmas nailart of the season. Where I live it's hard to get into the holiday spirit because Christmas for me it's in summer and instead of hot chocolate all I want to drink is icea tea.

NOT that Ice T

So I usually don't even think of Christmas until the day before when it's too late and too hectic to think of nail art, so this year I'm dedicating the whole month of December to wintery and jolly manis.

I knew I wanted to do light blue, red and white so I started with two coats of Barry M Gelly Elderberry which is a beautiful dusty medium blue that goes on perfectly and is opaque in two coats. To my pinky and ring fingernails I applied OPI Bearest of them All which is white micro glitter with red hexes in a clear base and Lynnderella Love Lace & Lilacs to my middle nail. On my index I used Sparitual Spellbound, a red microglitter jelly.

Then it was stamping time! I used QA58 for the snowflakes and Nailz Craze NC02 for the jersey print, both stamped with Konad Special White.

For the cardinal I did a nail art decal. Basically, I applied some topcoat on a ziploc bag and hand painted my design over it. Then, when it was fully dry, I carefully peeled off the design from the bag and stuck it to my nail, finished it off with a layer of topcoat and you can't hardly tell it wasn't painted directly. I loved this technique for doing free handed art, no more worries about painting with my non dominant hand!

Overal, I'm really happy with how this turned out, the color combination is cute and feels very winter-y to me. I don't know if cardinals wear jerseys, but these two images looked good together to me, so I went with it lol. Anyway I hope you liked it too and see you on my next post!

Nail Mail: ILNP Sale

Hi girls! Today I want to share with you some polishes I got from ILNP but I want to share it with you in a special way, in the style of Polish Hound Cait's Mail Time posts, where she takes pics of her incoming mail with her dog, Ham. I've been reading her blog for a while now and her posts with Ham are some of my favorites so I tried to do the same with my Pom (which didn't like to sit still for pics, so this was a real challenge LOL).

I placed this order during the last ILNP sale which happened around the first week of November. Some days later I got the shipping notice and from there, it was only a matter of patience. My polishes arrived finally on November 30th (which was odd, I never get mail on a Sunday). My new polishes came wrapped in the ILNP tissue paper and bubble-wrapped together inside.

I ordered mostly holos since I could never set my mind on the multichromes, but it's OK I already have some of them and I've been wanting a light blue and medium blue holo.

I ended up ordering (L-R): Music Box, Peace (H), Summer Stargazing and Atomic Sherbert. I'm in love with Music Box and Summer Stargazing, and look forward to wearing those. I'm a bit disappointed with Atomic Sherbert as I thought it'd be a bright orange holo, but it's still pretty.

I look forward to sharing with you manis featuring these shades in the future. Also, did you like the inclusion of my pup in these posts?

Thanks for reading!

Graduation Nails

Hola niñas! Hoy les traigo un nailart simplecito que hice con motivo de mi titulación profesional, la que se llevó a cabo el pasado Miércoles. Sí, oficialmente, soy Diseñadora Gráfica :D Para empezar usé dos capas de Essie Chinchilly y agregué un degradado con Essence Galactic Black para luego añadir finalmente unos triangulitos metálicos en la base de la uña. La verdad debería haber usado cintas pero estaba apurada asi que lo hice a mano y por eso mis líneas no quedaron muy rectas, pero se ven bien de lejos jajaja.

Hi girls! Today I want to share with you a simple freehanded nailart I did for my graduation, which was this past Wednesday.

I started with a base of two coats of Essie Chinchilly (one of my favorite neutrals ever) then added a small gradient with a makeup sponge and Essence Galactic Black and to finish it off I aded a triangle at the base of my nails with Wet n' Wild Steel the Spotlight, which I also used as an accent on my pinky and thumb.

I really liked how this came out, it's very simple and elegant and it went well with my dress. Speaking of, here's a picture of me from that day

Thanks for reading and see you in the next post! :)

Summer Nails

Hola niñas! Hoy les traigo un nailart estampado un poco adelantado a la estación jajaja. De bases usé Barry M Gelly en Green Berry y Emily de Molly Setting Sun (un precioso coral con efecto holográfico). Luego sobre la base de Green Berry agregué una capa de Polish Me Silly Freckles, un topper surtido de glitters neon en distintos tamaños y colores. Luego agregué el estampado con los esmaltes Mundo de Uñas Aqua y un coral que mezclé usando Geranio y Rosa Mexicano. Los dos diseños estampados son de la placa Topa Topa TP01, una marca francesa indie que hace placas con diseños preciosos y que encargué hace poco. En fin, espero les haya gustado y muchas gracias por leer!

Though we're in the middle of spring where I live, I have summer on my mind. Specially since I recently received my new Topa Topa plates, one of which features some fun and summery designs. I took like a million pics of this mani and loved them all, which hasn't happened since I lost my old softbox. I had the hardest time narrowing down the pics for this post. After months of struggling, it seems like I finally found a setting that works for my pictures, yay! Anyway, on to the mani.

I started with a base of Barry M Green Berry on all my nails, except for my index. Green Berry is a very bright blue-green (slighly leaning toward the green territory) creme that was easy to apply and opaque in two coats. I really love this shade of green and it kinda reminded me of Picture Polish Chillax.

For my accent I used two coats of Emily de Molly Setting Sun. This is a coral shade with a soft holographic effect. It goes on very well and is opaque in two coats.

Then I added a coat of one of my favorite glitter polishes to the Green Berry base, Polish me Silly Freckles which is an assortment of neon hexagonal glitters in different sizes and colors in a clear base. It's a great topper for neons and neutrals alike, love it <3 br="">

Then came the stamping part. I used my Mundo de Uñas stamping polishes, but I didn't have a coral color to stamp with, so I mixed my own with Mexican Pink and Geranium to create a shade similar to Setting Sun. On my accent nails I simply stamped using MdU Aqua.

Both the hibiscus image and leaves are from the Topa Topa TP01 plate. The plate is very well etched and picking up the image was no problem.

Overall, I'm extremely happy with how this turned out. I seriously can't stop looking at my nails. The combination of coral and aqua looks so bright and summery it just makes me happy. Althoug I really prefer how my accent nail came out so you'll probably see that as a full mani at some point.

Thanks for reading!

Hare Flight of the Flamingos

Hola niñas! Hoy les traigo el segundo Hare que adquirí en mi último pedido de Etsy y que aún no había compartido con ustedes. Este es Flight of the Flamingos y es una base jelly de color beige llena de glitters rosados neon y un toque de glitter dorado (además hay un shimmer dorado que aparece en la foto macro). Es muy fácil de aplicar, con 3 capas finas logré que fuera totalmente opaco. Simplemente, me encanta! :)

Hi girls! Today I bring you the second Hare I got on the latest restock of Nicole's Etsy Store, of which you already got a peek of from my BCA mani from a couple weeks back,

Fligh of the Flamingos was part of the Tropics are Calling collection from Summer 2013. It is a light beige crelly base, that leans slightly pink with my skintone, filled with neon pink and gold glitters. It was very easy to apply, with good glitter pay off and opaque in 3 thin coats.

The assortments of glitters is interesting and balanced, neon pink is the predominant color with large hexagonal and square glitter and medium hex, which is complemented by a sprinkle of tiny hexagonal gold glitter and a golden shimmer that I noticed only in the macro shots (nice surprise though!).

Overall, I'm really happy with this one. The gold and neon pink glitter go so well together and the light base just ties in everything together so beautifully. I'm looking forward to what she'll be releasing next to add to my collection :)