A new stamping plate for my collection

Just a few days ago I purchased a nail stamping plate from Messy Mansion:

Picture from the Messy Mansion store

It is great, isn't it?  This is the first plate that I have found that is not what I call "girly", i.e. no butterflies, flowers, kittens, smileys or hearts.  Instead, dragons, knights, axes and castles, along with a crest and a background.  So awesome!!

Messy Mansion also has a website for you to peruse full of nail art goodies.  

I will let you know when the plate arrives, and how well it performs.  I am dying to try it out!

Nail design of the week

This week I had planning on doing a new Konad stamping design, but I have been watching a lot of nail videos featuring French manicures, so I got envious and did a simple French manicure on my nails:

Left hand - the nail on my middle finger broke (ouch!)

Right hand

I am very happy how it turned out.  I think it looks way, way better than my previous Franch manicure.  I was tempted to do a lace stamping on them, just as elleandish did here (very similar to my own!), but I finally decided against it - maybe some other time.

These are the tools I used:

Unglax nail hardener as base coat 

French manicure French Ivory (#433) nail polish by Rimmel *
Nail Tip Whitener by Rimmel
Quick Dry Top Gloss by Margaret Astor

* I just realized that the number of the polish on Amazon is different than my own.  Maybe the numbers change from country to country catalogues?  I don't know...

I used the "rolling motion" technique - moving my finger while keeping the brush steady.  It worked very well for me.  I could not touch up any mistakes, because the nail tip whitener is quite viscous, and the touch ups were very visible (I had to redo one of my thumbs because of that).  Maybe it would be good as a nail polish for stamping?  I am not going to find out though, I will keep it for my French tips.

Here is the French manicure tutorial that helped me with the rolling motion technique:

Let's see how next week's design goes!

Nail design of the week

I already talked about the lovely mermaid inspired nail tutorial from YouTube user elleandish.  I tried it yesterday, but I toned down the difficulty:

As you can see, it's in no way perfect; the stamped design smeared in some places after applying the top coat; I think I used too much of top coat, I'll try with less quantity next time.  These are the tools I used:

Unglax nail hardener as base coat 

Come along with me nail polish by H&M

Mash plate #39

Konad plastic scraper

Konad small stamper

Black Mash Nail art polish for stamping

Konad Clear Top Coat

I used one coat of the blue polish, and then stamped the design on the nails with the black stamping nail polish.  I have a problem with this design; some of my nails are too wide for it, so both my thumbs are not completely covered in scales.  Also, it wouldn't work if my nails are a bit longer than they are right now, so for me it is best to use when having short nails.  I loved the black stamping polish and how well it transferred to my nails.  Better quality and better to work with than the Konad, I think.  I am not sure if it is the polish or the plate, I will have to check on that.

After comparing the result with the tutorial, I think I need to use another shade of blue for the stamping.  The black seems to me very "in your face", if you get my meaning, to simulate fish scales.  However, I am thinking the big contrast would be great to use with other colors, such as red or green, for a "dragon scale" manicure - perfect for Daenerys Targaryen fans!  It would look also fantastic with a grey base, for a "finger armour" effect.  Very strinking for LARP events, or Medieval faires.  I will probably do both in the future, just to see how they look.

Looking forward to next week's design!