Smidget Nailed It

Recently I treated myself to some Born Pretty stamping plates. As I only started nail stamping in September last year my only stamping plates were cheap knock off ones purchased from Amazon (although my experience using them has been very good!). I purchased this set here . It comes with 5 plates and it was under a tenner - awesome right? Today I am going to show my first test using the BP-L049 plate, which is this guy: Using this I created: So as far as I can tell the etching on this plate is really good quality. I did also try picking up a few of the other designs and I didn't have any trouble with them. I tried it with both a clear sticky stamper and a firm rubber one. Both picked up fine, but I prefer the clear one so that's what I used on my nails. A quick rub with a cotton ball soaked in acetone was all it needed to clean away the polish after use. The black polish I used was a stamping polish, so I wasn't too surprised that that one worked. The gr...

Today I wanted to show off this purple and silver glittery holographic mani! This was my first attempt at double stamping and I'm pretty pleased with how this came out. To create this I used: Barry M nail paint in Fasion Icon Barry M Frosted Cupcakes nail paint in Earl Grey Nailfun Super Lack polish in White Born Pretty Holographic stamping polish in #5 Born Pretty No-Smudge Top Coat Clear stamper Biutee JQ-46 stamping plate As always I started with a basecoat, followed by 3 coats of Fashion Icon on my index and pinkie fingers. The photos don't show it super well but this polish is gorgeous with flecks of holo glitters. I then added two coats of Earl Grey to the rest of my fingers. I chose to use the dandelion looking image on the JQ-46 plate. First I stamped the image in white, and then I went back over it using the Born Pretty polish. I've seen YaGala and Sveta Sanders (and a number of others...) use this technique and honestly I love how it looks. In...

A few weeks ago I decided to treat myself to the holographic stamping polishes by Born Pretty (I purchased them  here  but you can also get them from the Born Pretty website  here ). I have only ever used one holographic polish before (Holographic Lights by Barry M), so I was super excited to expand my collection! This mani is my first go at a nail art look using them. To create this mani I used: Born Pretty holographic stamping polishes #04 and #05 Primark PS... Polishes in Aquamarine and Marshmallow Biutee JQ-46 stamping plate Clear stamper Make up sponge (for creating the gradient) After basecoat I started with 2 coats of Marshmallow. Then using Aquamarine and Marshmallow on a make up sponge I created the gradient. Primark polishes are REALLY nice for doing this - I only needed to do one layer and it was smooth and opaque enough. For my ring finger I added two layers of the Born Pretty #04 polish. Honestly this was partly because I got too excit...

This is going to be the last Valentine's mani I post here, so I thought I would try and recreate a mani I saw by  cutepolish  on Instagram. I have used different colours and included a heart on my thumb, but the technique I used is exactly the same. To create this I used: Primark PS Polish in Rogue Rimmel Salon Pro in Grape Sorbet Nail art brush This look is really simple if you don't mind freehanding a bit. I just laid a base of Grape Sorbet on my ring finger and thumb, drew a heart using a brush dipped in Rogue, and then filled in the space outside the heart with Rogue. Done!  I didn't get the lines totally perfect but it wasn't something noticeable unless you got really close to my nails. Also, I hadn't realised I had forgotten to take photos of this mani until after a few days, which is why there is some wear around the edges. (Does this mean I'm already failing at being a nail blogger?!)

Okay so this mani is not only super easy but super cheap too! I used: Primark PS... Polish in Rogue and Naked Dotting tool Biutee JQ-69 stamping plate Stamper (I used a clear one) This look took a bit of trial and error but once I sussed out what worked (and what didn't!) it was a piece of cake. As always I started with a base coat followed by two coats of Naked. I really like this colour and to be honest I had already worn it for a day or two before I jazzed it up with the red, which is why you might see some wear and tear around the edge of my nails in the photos. I decided to see if the Primark polishes can be used for stamping. The coverage you get with one coat is pretty good on the ones I have tried so far, and usually a one-coat (or nearly one-coat) normal polish can work as a stamping polish.  Initially the colour I chose, Rogue, didn't pick up on my clear stamper. I also have a green rectangular stamper that I pretty much never use as I...