Purple & silver stamping

Another stamping adventure, straight from the fingertips of Narmai! The design is something I wouldn't ordinarily wear, it's not really my style, but I think it's a perfect stamping exercise and it looks pretty good! Except for my left thumb... I made a boo-boo on that thumb.

For some reason, the right hand turned out better than the left again. Look at the left hand below:

And compare it to my right hand on these pics:

My right thumb worked out great, except for the design being just a little bit too small for my huge thumb nail. But the transfer worked very well and the image was sharp on the purple. Must also be my super awesome silver polish, that is now REALLY empty, instead of just empty. I used a brush to get the last bit out. 

And also, see the boo-boo on my other thumb:

I wore my nails like this to the movies and got a lot of compliments. The purple polish is Lisbon from Herôme. It has a bit of shimmer when the light hits it right, very visible in the sun. The bottle looks kind of weird shaped on the picture above, don't you think?

How I swatch my polishes

Here's my way of swatching:

I have a rather elaborate, but cool way of swatching. Can I run it by you step by step? (if not, just don't continue reading)

1. I take a nail wheel, like in the picture above. They come in round or oval shapes, some are transparent and others are white. They're not expensive and mine has 20 nails on a wheel.

2. I break off the nails. I'll just show you how I swatched my new polishes, so three is all I need right now. 

3. I take my Dremel, and I shave off the rough edges so it has a nail shape again. Sometimes I'll also file the edges to make them even smoother. 

4. The Dremel helps me make holes in the nails. I love my Dremel :D

5. Those are my new polishes, with the nails in front of them. Now I'm going to paint those. 

6. Usually, it takes one thick coat or two normal ones to get a swatch painted. I pick up the nail with pliers so my own nails don't get painted accidentally. 

7. And then they look like this! I hang them on a ring and put them in my polish case. 

I don't have many polishes so this method works fine for me. It's not expensive but it is kind of time consuming if you like to buy a lot of polishes. It's easy for me to see which swatch is from which polish, because of the small size of my stash. And also, I like to hold my swatches in my hands and look at the pretty colors and the glitters. They're pretty and I feel happy looking at my beautiful polishes :D

How do you swatch your polishes?

Pink and purple gradient + stamping, round 2!

After wearing my previous stamping for a few hours, it started to remind me of Barbie. You should now that I never played with dolls as a little girl. EVER.

I got a doll once that said some words, like 'mommy' and 'hungry'. It was broken within two days. I've never liked dolls, I've never had the urge to feed a Baby Born stuff through its mouth and watch it come out the bottom, thank you very much. I only had a fake barbie that had bright pink hair, like head ache pink, a hole in her face that had the exact location of a beauty mark and her right had was missing. I loved her for a while. 

But okay, my dislike towards Barbies is big. So walking around with Barbie nails, I was not a happy camper. I couldn't stand my idea of a beautiful gradient turning ugly and I had to be able to do better. Behold!

I've chosen to photograph my other hand because for some weird reason my left hand (which was stamped using my right, dominant hand) was way worse than my right. I didn't do perfectly on this one. I guess I was tired or something, I did better last time. Let's just call it a fluke :-p

Still... don't you think this one is better than the last one? The colors of the gradient are a bit more vibrant, I used a different pink. Looking at the colors, you'd think Barbie too, but somehow it doesn't get that association in my head. 

Which mani reminds you more of Barbie? The first one or this one?

Ratty love

Who here thinks rats are perfectly fine living alone?

Think again! These ratty brothers are intensely happy that they got to stay together and use each other as a pillow. Aren't they the cutest?

And now for some more ratty pictures...

Merlin's way of sleeping

He's NOT eating my finger!

Brothers :D

Look at the little tongue! Hahahaha this made me laugh SO hard

Yeah Noah, very pretty

Ahhhwww sleepy rats

Thanks for watching!

Pink purple gradient + stamping

I just HAD to try out my new stamping plate immediately and this is what I made!

I started out with a white base, painted two coats of that and let that dry thoroughly. Then I took a sponge and added a light gradient with purple at the tips and very light pink at the base of the nail. That dried very quickly and I got to stamp with my new plate! I chose a happy design with stars and arrows. It transferred really well, but placement is not my strong suit. I haven't done stamping that much before, so I think I'll get the hang of it soon. 

Nail mail: Born Pretty Store

There were some things I've been wanting for a while now. I had some birthday money to spend, so consider these my late birthday gifts!

I decided to shop to my heart's content at Born Pretty Store. It's my new favorite shop! They have, like, EVERYTHING for your nails, it's all really cheap, and the best part: FREE SHIPPING! You can even get 10% off your order using the code NCW21

I bought a large stamping plate, a roll of striping tape, a rhinestone wheel and a set of three striping brushes. 

Check out my camera, my hand and part of my head reflected in the plate

The stamping plate is CK-04 by a fauxnad brand called KandNail. This is only the second stamping plate I ever bought so don't expect me to be the expert, but I think it's pretty damn cool. The designs are etched deep enough and picking them up is easy, even I can do it. There are a lot of different designs, I chose a plate with full-nail designs but there are so many choices! You'll be seeing a lot of stamping 'round here :D

A while ago, I said I was stingy on using rhinestones because I didn't have that many. Consider that problem OVER! I'm drowning in rhinestones now :D I love this rhinestone wheel! There are 12 different colors and I want to make a rhinestone rainbow mani soooo badly! I love how tiny these are, just 2mm, a tiny bit smaller than the ones I already had.

I've been painting my hand drawn nail art with some old brush I found in my grandma's stash of craft supplies. It's been fine, but I've been curious about actual stripers. All three together only cost $2,29, a reasonable price for something I'm not sure about. I haven't had the chance to try them out yet but you can be sure I'll be able to tell you soon!  

I've seen so many beautiful nails using striping tape, and I've tried to get by with cutting strips off of scotch tape, but it's just not the same. So I thought it was about time I got my own roll to try it out. I limited myself to one roll for now, but if I like it, I'll be sure to order some more because hey, no shipping fees!

My order came to about €11, that's about $14, with the ten percent discount. It took about two weeks to get here by mail. I'm very satisfied with what I got for my money. I think this is a great birthday present!

The Born Pretty Store has so many goodies and pretties in their shop, so just go check it out. And don't forget to get 10% off by using the code NCW21!

All the products were bought with my own money. I received no compensation for this review. All the opinions on this blog and in this article are 100% mine. 

Blue waves nail art

This is BEAUTIFUL!!!! 

I started out with a gradient. And for the girls who think their gradients don't work, just look at what a top coat can do. My gradients are far from perfect but a top coat helps a lot.

Without top coat

With top coat

Then I drew some waves with a blue glitter polish from Sivanna and I contoured those with a metallic dark blue line.

When I look at those tiny lines, I can't believe how I made those with a simple brush. This is my left hand I'm showing you, drawn using my right hand , which is my best hand. The right hand looks nothing like this, I promise :-p The lines are thicker, the curves aren't quite as smooth and it took quite a while longer. But I'll keep practicing!