I designed a stamping plate!

Press Sample

Exciting news, guys..
I've been working with Anni of Vivid Lacquer to create a custom stamping plate with designs that I've longed for. The project has been in the works for a few months and I am excited to share it with you.

I couldn't have asked for a better person to work with. Anni was patient as I changed my mind a few times throughout the process. I love each and every design that Anni drew for the plate, yes, she sketches out each image by hand and then scans them into Illustrator to perfect them.

It's such a magical plate, plus....it even has my signature and logo on it!



The first design that came to mind was a brick wall pattern. I have another plate with a similar pattern but the lines on it were as big as the bricks. I wanted one where the image was more proportional and realistic.

Next was polka dots. I see utterly beautiful manicures done up with a tiny dotting tool, so precisely. I'm not that skilled and really wanted a tiny dot design with good spacing in between.

I've always loved the patterns of tile and tapestries from Morocco so I requested a quatrefoil and double quatrefoil and of course, one of those tile mosaics they are so famous for. Anni also pulled some of the design elements from the tile pattern to use singly - clever!

I also like how the designs can be used on all nails in any direction so I don't have to make reverse stamps for different nails. ^.^

What do you think of it?

I don't yet have it in my hands as the physical plate just arrived to Anni from the manufacturer this weekend and is launching tomorrow at Vivid Lacquer's Etsy shop.

Vivid Lacquer: VL014 Dragonflies

Press Sample and Bought

Wishing it was still spring or summer, I whisked myself away with this nailart instead. Gradient stamped butterflies from Vivid Lacquer plate VL014. I blended a couple of MDU polishes for the effect and stamped over Grace-full Sunlight and Starlight that was reviewed previously.




Did you enjoy this? What is your favorite stamping design?

Stamped Stars mani

I hope everyone who celebrates it, had a wonderful holiday this July 4th!
Jas and I went to the city's fireworks display, which was excellent, on the night of the 3rd. But even more magical than that was the view from the place Jason goes to run. We had a nearly unobstructed 360 degree view of all the fireworks in the area, and we were the only ones there. We stood outside the car for nearly an hour and it was absolutely breathtaking.

Anywho - below is what I wore for the holiday. Albeit a little late, I thought I would share anyways. I used plate JQ4, MdU 1, and a GPS stamper to stamp the stars. The gradient was made with a base of Polish My Life Stripped and Essie Style Cartel. Which matched the gradient of my shirt perfectly! (linked shirt image is from cj banks catalog, not taken by me)




If you don't celebrate, I still hope your day was fantastic! Thanks for stopping by!

Candy Color stampers and JQ Plates

I saw these Candy Head stampers in a stamping group that I was in and the group order for them fell through. I decided to order direct because I still wanted them.
I bought the stamper heads at AliExpress. For around $10 shipped.

Each of the stamper heads varies in squish factor. None of them are as soft and sticky as my original marshmallow from Ninja Polish though. I've not found any stamper heads that even come close in comparison to it.
I would say that the softest candy head is about the same as the older round XL FUN Lacquer stamper head which has been called a marshmallow head, but it's really not.
In the batch of candy color heads that I received, the red one, the pastel pink and the dark grey one I used are the squishiest and are slightly sticky. The others are a few degrees more firm but still easily squished and slightly sticky.

The JQ plates set, I just stumbled on over at Ebay while looking for a particular image I had seen on some lovely nails! The set included 21 different plates for about $12 so I took a chance and ordered.

I tested out a JQ plate with one of the candy color heads and a Color Club holo. I stamped with the dark grey head that I just stuck into an acetone cap. The plate seems to be etched well and stamps beautifully with the Candy heads and holo polish. It picked up nicely on the first try for each nail. I didn't prime the head at all, just used it right out of the package. I'm impressed with it, what do you think?




Thanks for visiting, I hope you enjoyed the review!

Creative Shop and Vivid Lacquer Stamping

Press Sample and purchased items

I recently purchased a behemoth of a stamper from Creative Shop after reading a review and watching a video over at http://pcontreras8nails.blogspot.com/. If you stamp or have tried it and gotten frustrated - you NEED to know about this stamper from Creative Shop. This is the first stamper that I've not had any trouble with right out of the box. No priming and no redoing my stamps. The clear plastic scraper is amazing too. It's a little thinner and much more accurate than a gift card. It's flexible and kind of hugs the plate leaving the perfect amount of polish down in the design.
I did the very first test stamp on paper and then did all my nails and every single stamp was perfect on the first try.

I got everything in this photo for $16.50 shipped. You can order in a facebook group for shipping to the USA.



For the first test stamp I used Black Cream from Wet N Wild.



For this look, I used a base color of Cupcake Polish Yule Be Missing Me stamped with MDU 49, the Creative Shop stamper and Vivid Lacquer Plate VL006 Snowflake pattern.




Vivid Lacquer is having a big sale right now too, prices are already marked down at her shop.

What is your favorite plate or stamper?

(MDU polish and Creative Shop items were purchased by me, the others were sent for review)

Nail Art with Vivid Lacquer and Literary Lacquers

Press Sample

Every once in a while I like to do stamping and nail art with my Vivid Lacquer rectangle stamper and stamping plates. I had a lot of fun doing these over several of the Literary Lacquer polishes from the Wrinkle In Time Collection that I previously reviewed. I used Konad black and Mundo de Unas stamping polishes. I hope you enjoy these!




VL020 chainmail design over Aunt Beast



VL002 stars and VL017 planets over Camazotz adorned with a few loose star glitters. Huge thanks to Jenna from Inky Whiskers, she helped design this look.




VL001 xoxo and heart design over Megatron. Any time I think about stamping over purple or lime green I almost always end up using the xoxo design, how could I not?!




And finally VL008 over Tesseract - with this one I did what's called a reverse stamp or decal. It was quite challenging since the flower petals are teeny tiny, but it was fun and I was able to use every Literary Lacquer polish from the WIT collection, yay!




Which is your favorite? And any tips on a fast dry topcoat that doesn't smear nail art?