ILNP Pucker Up

My first mani with Pucker Up, from the new @ilnpbrand Summer Shimmer collection. I decided to use the polish that I felt like I would use the least, first. I don't often go for bright pink shades like this, but it's perfect for the weather we are having here in SoCal.  Bright and summery 😎

I wanted to add some random bright flowers. I looked through every stamping plate I own, and couldn't find what I was looking for 🙄 So I went with these little flower images on the center of UberChic plates 4-03, 5-02 and 7-02. 

Hope you like it, and if you are interested in seeing the how I made it video, please check out my IG: @mrsluckyboy85

Black and White damask

Today's prompt for #clairestelle8july is fabric inspired. I was pressed for time, so decided to go with a simple black and white damask design. Classy and elegant.

The base is Orly White Tips, stamped with MDU Black. The pattern is from plate VL4, which I got from Ali Express.

As per usual you can find the 'how to' video on my IG.

Paint splatter for #clairestelle8july

This is a first for me 😀 Paint splatter, sounds like something my kids would be right into. Not me though, I hate messy things 😬
Armed with my fingertipless rubber glove, I decided to give it a go 😄

I found a metallic watercolor palette at Target recently, and thought this would be perfect for paint splatter. Easier to clean up right?
I started with a matte white base, because water paint seems to stick easier to matte polish. I slipped on my glove and covered up with liquid latex. A very wet paintbrush, and I just tapped off the paint onto my nails. Easy. The best part was the excess just washed off!

I stamped over it with an image from UberChic plate 4-03, because I can't leave anything unstamped 😁

For a quick look how I created this mani, please head on over to my IG for a short video tutorial.

A England Katyusha

Another beauty from A England, this time I have Katyusha from the Russian Soul Collection for you.  I can't decide if it is gold or silver, both I think! It's a beautiful metallic holo, with a greenish overlay. It's stunning 😍

Formula was on point, effortless in two easy coats. Can be a little bit brush stokey, so care is needed when applying it. It dries smoothly and quickly, and the brush stroke lines do level out somewhat.

I paired it with some subtle stamping using flowers from UberChic plate 9-02. I used MDU Spring green, lime and grinch.

Hope you like it, and head over to my IG for a look at the video tutorial.

#uberchiccollab

I was lucky enough to be invited to contribute two mani's, for the UberChic collab, organized by the lovely @happynails on IG. Basically, 30 ladies contributed mani's to cover the vast majority of UC plates in existence. What a fun collaboration, especially since I'm a huge UC fan 😄

I was assigned plate 3-03 and 10-02, and below is what I came up with.

Please check the hashtag in IG for all the wonderful mani's.

Happy Independence Day 🇺🇸

A super quick and easy 4th of July mani 🇺🇸

Hope you all have a fantastic day celebrating with family and friends, I really do love this country, and feel blessed to be able to live here 🙌


For more details and a quick video please check out my IG: @mrsluckyboy85

New York 4th of July inspired

Today on the blog I have a 4th of July inspired mani, which is also for the 'place you would like to visit' prompt of #clairestelle8july nail art challenge.

I would dearly love to visit New York, it's always been on my list. I've been in the US for about 4.5 years, and sadly have not yet had an opportunity to visit. But hopefully that will change soon! Hint hint to my husband if you are reading this 😉

This was one of this mani's that took forever and nothing was going to plan. For some reason, probably the heat, I couldn't get any of my images to pick up on my C Thru stampers, and I tried them all. So I ended up going the long route and had to make decals, as only my rock hard stampers would pick up. And trying to stamp those directly on the nail is no fun 😂 Plus the stars were cut out individually, so you can imaging how long this thing took 🙄

For a quick look you can check out my mini tutorial on IG. Have a fantastic long weekend ✌️

A England Captive Goddess

I have another A England beauty for you today, Captive Goddess.

It's a beautiful green holo, but it's such a unique green, almost olive. And it stamps!
Formula is wonderful, opaque in one coat, but I prefer two.

I paired it with some snake skin stamping, using BM XL-08 plate and MDU Aqua & Bronze. I have a tutorial up on my IG @mrsluckyboy85. 

A England Waltz of the Flowers

Today I have the stunning A England Waltz of the Flowers to share with you. I'm totally obsessed with A England, so expect to see a few more polishes coming up! I'm kind of late to discover this Indie 🙄 It all started with Wuthering Heights, the color the formula it was jut so awesome, I had to buy more 😄

The color is unique, it's a blueish purple holo, with lilac duochrome effects. It's just so pretty!

I paired it with some subtle stamping, image is from UberChic Collection 10, plate 01.

I have a quick tutorial up on my IG. Our power was off for the day yesterday, so it's super short.

Review of nail items from BornPrettyStore

Allison from @bornprettyreview was kind enough to send me some fabulous nail art items for review, two of which I have used for this mani. 

I must admit I have been sitting in these for a couple of weeks now 😬 My bad. Sometimes I get so carried away with things, others end up in the back burner.

💜 Item 22749 is a 7ml thermal polish, which changes from a vibrant blue in its warm state, to a deep purple in its cold state. It contains various sized silver glitter, but dries smooth. Application was a breeze, two easy coats and it is fully opaque. $5.99 and you can use my code  SARAG10 for 10% full priced items. 

💜 Item 24059 Clear stamper and scraper. Medium squishy head with a frosted holder. Picked up first time no priming required. $2.99 and you can use my code SARAG10 for 10% off full priced items.  

I swear I sat there for two hours with absolutely no inspiration. This is the best I could come up with 😐 And I do not love them 🙄 

Anyway on to the next one. For anyone who's interested in seeing how I put this one together, video is up on my Instagram @mrsluckyboy85

Mandala love foil mani

Happy Monday!

Today I have a mani I discovered by accident!  I was playing around with some ideas to put over a thermal polish I received for review, which is coming up tomorrow, and this is what I came up with. I have been trying to do a foil stamp on my Ubermat, for ages now. No luck. Until I was digging around in my huge nail art box, and found some foil I had completely forgotten about. It's super crumbly, which makes it perfect for stamping and foiling. My other attempts were with foil that was too sturdy.  I do actually have a mani very early on, on my IG using this technique. Funny how you forget about things like that. 

The trick to using this foil over stamping, is to find the right stamping polish, and to be super quick.  

I found Konad black works best. I tried other brands, but they dried to quick. I found a soft stamper and an image with a thick outline works well. I also turned my A/C off, because being directly under the vent is no good. But then the house was so hot, the polish dried fast anyway 🙄 

I was drawn to the UberChic Mandala plate, so many beautiful images here. I've used foil with these images twice now 😳 

For a look at how I actually did this, please head over to my IG, I have a video up there. 

Watercolor abstract flowers

Today on the blog I want to share some water colored abstract flowers, using UberChic plate 10-01.

I love the ease and effectiveness of a watercolor base. It can really pack a punch, or be soft and pastel. It really just depends on the amount of product you apply. I saw Robin Moses use watercolors a long time ago, and decided to invest in the same palette. It was only approx $4.00 😂 The brand is Artist's Loft, and I found it at Michaels. I got it online, because my local store didn't have it at the time, I have seen it in there since though. The palette is great, because the pigmentation of the paints is really strong. Not at all what I had in mind when I imagined watercolors.

I started out with a white base of Orly White Tips. Now the secret to applying watercolors to painted nails, is to matte top coat them. Only then will the watercolors really stick. I applied them in a random design, super easy and you don't have really blend, the water will do that naturally. And because the image I chose is a negative image, not much will show through anyway.

After I finished with the watercolors, I added one coat of Sinful Colors Opal top coat, just for a bit of sparkle and to seal the design. Next I stamped using Konad White, and the UC image. Seal with top coat and your done.

Because it was already in the afternoon, and I had another mani to do, the photos have a lot of shadowing. But I hope you still like the end result, and I have a video tutorial on my IG: @mrsluckyboy85. 

Review...Liquid Palisade by Kiesque

I was fortunate enough to recently receive a sample of Liquid Palisade, by Kiesque. It's an easy peel latex barrier, specifically designed for use in manicures and nail art.
I have used it in a few of my recent nail videos, and have been pleased with its performance.

My number one sticking point when it comes to latex barriers, is the stickiness! There is nothing worse than accidentally touching fingers, and having that stuff stick together, and eventually peel off as you try to separate those pesky digits. I am pleased to report this is not as sticky as some previous barriers I have tried, but it does still stick if held together. It will eventually peel, when separated.

It dries amazingly fast, and goes on thin and evenly. It's pale purple in color, that dries to a clear purple. I found this very useful, because my previous barrier was black. With the black barrier it can be hard to tell where the design ends, as I mostly stamp with black. It all blurred into one. With the pale purple it is easy to determine where the cuticle is.

The applicator brush is a dream! Thin, not too long and easy to maneuver around the nail. It didn't separate or clump. Bonus! The original has a wider style brush, and the French tip has a smaller thinner brush. Both super easy to use.

It peels off in one piece! Latex barrier porn 😂 It comes off easily and no residue is left behind. If you apply too little the first time, it's easy enough to apply a second coat right over the first.

Liquid Palisade is available www.kiesque.com and at select Sephora stores and online at www.sephora.com. It comes in two options, regular or for French tips. The price is $14.00 for 0.08oz

Tribal chevron nails

Todays prompt for #clairestelle8june is chevrons / zigzags.

That seemed like the perfect time to try out my Bundle Monster Festival Plate set! I had to have it, but months later it's still sitting untouched in my plate box 😂

I thought a peach / grey / white color scheme would work well. I couldn't really find the right peach color in my stash. I seem to have a whole draw of peach, but they were all too orange. I wanted something lighter and more pinkish, but to no avail. I must be on the lookout for some light peach shades.
Also I went in with no plan 😳 So it didn't quite work out, but I still like it. I wanted to do a gradient with stud accents on my ring finger, but after my color choices didn't work well together, I covered it up with stamping.
I used plate BM-S304 & 310. I love these plates, but find that the images are  just a bit too narrow for my thumb 😐 I always line the image up to the outside of my thumb, so that it looks ok in pictures. But the inside never looks too pretty 😆
My base is Essie Peach Side Babe and Serial shopper. These are an unusual consistency, and to be honest I don't love them for that. Too sheer. The grey is China Glaze IIC.
I stamped using Konad White, top coat is HK Girl.

And yes I made a tutorial, it's up on my IG.

Neon summer flowers

Hope you had a lovely weekend, and a Happy Fathers Day to all the amazing dads out there!

I've done a similar mani to this before, and had a few requests for a tutorial. Since I'm now getting the hang of it, I thought I would give it a go.

I found the perfect image on UberChic plate 10-02.  Tropical flowers that I could reverse stamp.

Specifically I had questions on blending China Glaze Lite Brites. I just dab the colors over one another. I found this time they didn't blend quite as well, because the temperate made the polish dry on the brush. It was in the mid 80's, so our A/C was blasting, and the vent is directly over my nail table 🙄

I started out with the yellow, blended to orange and then pink. I used 3 shades of pink for a bit of variation. The base is ILNP Mega with one coat of KleanColor Mr Right over it.
Stamping polish is MDU Black, top coat HK Girl.

Video is up on my Instagram, @mrsluckyboy85. 

Unicorn for #clairestelle8june

It's time for another nail art challenge, and the prompt for today is Unicorn. A popular theme that comes up time and time again, because who doesn't love Unicorns 🦄

I'm not sure that I love the outcome of this, my unicorn smudged slightly because I was too rough with the filling in, and it makes it look weird.

I started off with a base of ILNP First Class. It's a beautiful metallic silver, with silver holo & flakies.
Next I used my black UberChic mini for the first time, it was kindly sent to me for review some time back, and stamped a chevron pastel rainbow pattern, the image is from UberChic plate 9-01. To top it I added the star pattern from the new UberChic plate 10-03, in white. I wanted to keep it in Unicorn like colors 😄 I used the unicorn image from UC Fairytale-01, and reverse stamped it. After I had it all together, it just needed something more. I ended up going with 'shine like a star' from UC plate 8-03.

Video tut is up on my IG @mrsluckyboy85

Delicate humming bird mani

My first mani using the new UberChic collection 10 plates 😍

I was drawn immediately to the beautiful delicate humming bird image, and was thrilled to find a vine like image within the collection that I could pair with this. I really like it when that happens, saves going through tonnes of plates to find a mate 😜

My base is Femme Fatale Nala, from the Enchanted Fables Collection. I've had this sitting on my nail desk for some weeks, and knew that this was the mani to break it out for. Such a unique color, a grey brown creme with blue undertones, and a copper overlay. I was in awe the moment I saw this, and knew it had to be mine! I am slowly acquiring more and more polishes from the collection! 

The stamping polishes I used are from Mundo de Unas, Peace and Joy.  Beautiful dusty greens and blues. 

I must also mention the latex barrier I used for this look, it is Liquid Palisade by Kiesque, also kindly sent to me for review. This was my first time using it, probably because I couldn't get the cap off, and my husband never seemed to be home when I wanted to use it 😳 I am going to have a full review in a few days, I want to test it a bit more before I give my final thoughts on it. So far so good though. 

I also have a video up on Instagram of how I created this look. Two videos in two days,  pat on the back for me 😊 I have worked out the editing process and have some good apps to help me, so I hope to be making them more often. 

UberChic Beauty Collection 10 😍

UberChic are at it again, a new collection to add to the line up of amazing products, from this Indie maker.

                                   

I was sent this collection for review, and if you have been following me, you know it is a no brainer that I was going to love this one! But to be honest, I think it is one of my all time favorite UC collections   💖 Every plate spoke to me immediately, and my brain was ticking into overtime, with all the possibilities for amazing designs I could create. This pleases me, because there is nothing worse than staring at a plate with no inspiration of what you can create with it. I actually have a list of mani ideas that I keep as they pop into my head, and when I am feeling uninspired, I refer to it.

The designs are a mixed bag; floral, geometric and best of all a lot of negative images, yay! Also the scripts are amazing, Punch today in the face, how cool is that! I can't wait to use that one, because let's face it, we all have those days. Since my oldest son has 10 weeks summer break, I'm seem to be having a lot of "those" days 😂

As per usual the quality is 👌 And the customer service is second to none. It shipped on Friday, and I had it by Tuesday. It should have arrived Monday, but USPS dropped the ball.

So let's support the Indies and head on over to www.uberchicbeauty.com to purchase yours. Great value for 3 large sized plates.