#31DC2014 - Day 16: Geometric aka ...Do I need a aka?? Nah!

Hi lovelies! Okay, is it just Pretoria or did your seasons also not get the memo about making a slowish “transition” into the next season?? Just over 2 weeks ago we were freezing our butts off and now we are complaining about how hot it is! No pleasing us, is there?? Now if only we can get some rain so this damn static will get the hell out! IT HURTS DAMMIT!

 

Day 16: Geometric Print 

I once again did not have too much inspiration for this post except for I knowing that I had to use Morgan Taylor Hot Hot Tamale. She has been sitting in my polish case since 1 September and she has been calling me! I swear it! So after digging around in my stamping plates, I found a geometric-esque pattern that gave me happy feels and went to town.

I started by laying down 2 coats of WOW Nail Polish #393 on all my nails, except for my ring finger. I then placed stamping decals that I made using WOW Nail Polish #393, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Morgan Taylor Hot Hot Tamale and Bundle Monster Plate BM-414, on my nails. On my ring and index finger I cut the decals with a straight line and covered only certain sections of my nail. I also lined the area around my cuticle with WOW Nail Polish #393 and a thin are brush. Lastly on my ring finger I layed down 2 coats of Morgan Taylor Hot Hot Tamale and placed little triangles on the nail that I made with polish blobs that I cut down.

 

Really camera?? Of all the times I want you to make a polish shine in all her glory you go and spazz out?? Just because she is bright and luscious! *gasp* Shame on you! Other than that I think it looks quite cute! Not too hard to do and still fun! Oh, and have you noticed my nails are shorter? Stupid tear that turned into a full on break on my index finger. But luckily I like shorter nails!

Lots of mad love...

 

#31DC2014 - Day 3: Yellow Nails aka SUCH NEON! MUCH AMAZE!

Hiiiiiiiiii guyyyyyyys! Day 3...honestly, I can’t remember when last I posted this much in one week but I am not stopping now! Let’s get on to some crazy yellow goodness.

Day 3: Yellow Nails

Yellow isn’t really a color that is high up in my favourites list. In my whole collection of polishes I think I currently have 3 yellows but when I saw this prompt, I knew immediately which one I wanted to use. Not only was it one of my many untrieds, but it’s a neon! A sweltering face melting NEON! Yes please!

I started out by laying down 3 coats of Tip Top Nail Chic Walking On Sunshine on my pinky and index finger, and 2 coats of WOW Nail Polish #393 on my middle and ring finger. I then made a stamping decal with Bundle Monster plate BM-305, WOW Nail Polish #393, Tip Top Nail Chic Walking On Sunshine and Tip Top Nail Chic Grape Dance [TUTORIAL forstamping decals HERE] and layed them down over my ring and middle finger. To finish off the look, I made some of my gold studs black with WOW Nail Polish #393 and placed them on my pinky and index finger.

Of course my camera hates neons and completely spazzed out when I tried to photograph this mani, but you guys get the idea. The little lightning bolt patterns of BM-305 keeps making me want to yell out “Shazaaaaam!” and even though Captain Marvel (aka Shazam) possibly is my least favourite DC characters, that leaves me with happy fuzzy feels so I am going to take that as a WIN!

Lots of mad love...

 

Stamping Decal Method Tutorial

Hi lovelies! Heck, I’ve just had one of THOSE past few days. My days in general weren’t bad! Not at all! It’s just like some people were born with a talent to completely ruin it for you with their negativity and crap attitudes. People like that, you suck! Seriously! Buuuuut I decided to not let it get to me because I had an amazing weekend! Not only did I get to hang out with 2 of my closest friends the whole long weekend but I met the most amazing ladies at the Johannesburg Bloggers Who Bless meet-up on Saturday! I truly felt blessed in every sense when I left there and I can’t wait for the next meet-up! Ladies, you ROCK!

Now, on to some nail art. Today is truly a first for my little blog because it’s going to be my very first pictorial/tutorial on Madness!! I’ve done a few for Heather at Femme Lifestyle but I decided it’s high time I do a tutorial for my own little space. I decided to go with the decal stamping method because I got quite a few requests for it after I did it in THIS post. Before we go on though, I unfortunately do not know who was the first person who came up with this technique but first my exposure to it was through Nailz Craze. I will also put up a link to her tutorial at the end of this post, just in case you could do with someone else’s perspective on this technique.

You’ll need:  
- Stamping Plate
- Stamper with rubber end
- Thin nail art brush
- Clear nail polish
- Few colors of nail polish of your choice
- Tweezer
- Top Coat
- Cleanup brush  
- Acetone

Click on Pictorial to make it larger.

Step 1 – 2: Start by picking up the image of your choice from a stamping plate and wait for it to dry. I used Bundle Monster plate BM-319.
 
Step 3:
Using nail polish colors of your choice, fill in the negative spaces with the thin nail art brush and wait for it to dry. The colors I used was China Glaze Make An Entrance and Tip Top Nail Addict Aliminium.

Step 4:
Lay down a generous layer of top coat over your filled in image and wait for it to dry properly! I like to use Essence Gel-Look Top Coat because it’s a bit thicker than your normal topcoat. I also leave it for about 2hours so I know the decal is properly set but I'm sure 30mins would be enough.

Step 5:
Using your tweezer, lift the decal slowly off of the stamper’s base.
 
Step 6:
Lay down a thin coat of top coat down over the nail you want to add the decal to. Leave it until it’s feeling slightly tacky and then lay down the decal over the nail. Using a light touch, smooth the decal down onto the nail and give it proper time to dry.

Step 7:
Using your clean up brush and some acetone, clean away the excess of the decal and lay down a coat of your favourite top coat to smooth it all out. Le viola, you are done! Side Tip: Pre-cutting your decal to the shape of your nail is an awesome idea, which is only something that dawned on me now *facepalm*. Or use small nail scissors to cut off most of the excess before you start the acetone clean up.  

Phew, long post! I do apologize for that but I hope you found this useful! This is one of my favorite techniques and it’s a great way to spice up conventional stamping. Like I said, Nail Craze is the first place where I saw this done so for her tutorial, click HERE.

Lots of mad love...

Stamping Decal Method Fun! YEAH!

Hi Lovelies! It's Tuesday, the 3^rd week of 2014, pretty much everybody is back at work and things finally feel like they are sloooooowing doooown...Pshhhh, right! Where the hell did the first 2 weeks of the year go people?? I don't know and that scares me!

But enough rambling from me. Before we get to todays mani I have a teeny tiny favor to ask you guys! I am busy swatching my whole collection of polishes! Yeah, apparently I am a sucker for punishment! I'm almost finished swatching my OPI Mini Packs and then from there want to start swatching my full size bottles. What I want to do is swatch each color type, 1 brand at a time so that things wont get confusing and I'll have some sort of archive going on the blog. For example, China Glaze Blues, Nubar Reds, Tip Top Nudes etc... My problem is I don't know with which brand to start. I currently have a little poll running on my Facebook page so if you guys would be so kind to go and vote, that would seriously be awesome! Pleaaaaaaase!!!! Link to poll HERE.

Okay! Now for le fun stuff!

Quite a while ago I saw a lot of fellow bloggers experimenting with the Stamping Decal Method. Finally I decided that I need to climb aboard this pretty bandwagon so I gave it a go! Please excuse me if my pictures look a bit yellowed today. They turned out a bit foggy for some reason so I had to play around with my GIMP Color settings quite a bit!

I started out by laying down a base of China Grape Pop on my index finger, China Glaze Spontaneous on my middle finger and OPI Do You Lilac It? on my pinky. I then added the stamping decal to my ring finger that I made using Bundle Monster stamping plate BM-313, China Glaze Grape Pop, China Glaze Spontaneous, China Glaze Starboard, OPI Do You Lilac It?, Nubar Greener, Nubar Pasadena Purple, Nubar Green Tea and Tip Top Nail Chic We Have An Agreen Mint.

To finish off the look, I added some dots to my other fingers using my medium sized dotting tool, Nubar Green Tea, Tip Top Nail Chic We Have An Agreen Mint, China Glaze Starboard and WOW Nail Polish #393.

Gaaaaaah, I really like the Stamping Decal Method! It is taking stamping to a whole new level and I love it! I've already done another mani with this method so you will see that also one of theses days. Now, would anyone like to see a tutorial on this? Please say yes because I just want another reason to do this!

If you would like me to swatch any of the colors you saw in today’s post, please let me know via email or drop me a comment below. More than willing to oblige! 

Lots of mad love...