Stamping fun with a squishy stamper

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Hi girls! I've always had a little trouble getting stamps to work for me. I was getting frustrated and felt like I needed a softer stamper. I read something about a squishy stamper so I ordered one from eBay.

It ROCKS.

It feels and looks like it's disintegrating but apparently that's what it's supposed to be like, because I've never stamped as well as with this one. Here are some examples:

Bondi New York In The Limelight with Color Club Over The Moon stamped on top. I used Bundle Monster BM-307 for the design. In The Limelight is a one coater, very nice, smooth and a beautiful color, but it stained my nails like mad! Over The Moon is my honey, my baby, my super holographic stamping partner. I love it!

I couldn't keep this sun pic from you. Prettehh!

Essence The Boy Next Door stamped with Mash stamping polish Metallic Silver. The stamps I used are from Bundle Monster BM-312 and Salon Express SE21 for the moon and stars. It's funny because I've looked through my plates so many times, but only now I discovered the cloud-like stamp on BM-312 and I was like "How did I never see that before? How did that get there?"

Bondi New York Top of the Rock with Sweet Heart Polish She's So Flakey on top and stamped with Color Club Beyond. The stamped I used are from the Cheeky Jumbo Happy Holidays plate, which I absolutely LOVE by the way!

I mattified this design with Essie Matte About You to make the flakies stand out. I think this worked out excellent! Very beautiful!

Kleancolor Mango stamped with H&M Je T'Aime on top. I used Cheeky CH2 for the animal print. I'm unsure if these are zebra stripes or if it's tiger print, so you get to decide for yourself. Pic was taken near a window.

Chique studded nails for my birthday

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Hi girls! As promised, I'm back with the other part of my birthday mani. I had two polishes that I hadn't used yet, both bought at a super amazing discount so I'm very proud of these two pretties. The first one is Illamasqua Grab (this has an amazing formula, very opaque and smooth) and Picture Polish Focus. I expecting this last one to have more of an 'oompf' than it did. The glass flecks didn't seem to make it any prettier, but the color is still very nice.

I wanted something classy and chique to contrast the chaos on my other hand (I blogged about this yesterday, see it HERE), so I chose this design. It's a design I usually go to when I want a more serious look, the half-in-half as I call it, with a sort of slash in the middle. I'm sure it has a different name but this is what I think of when I see it.

I polished my nails the regular way with Illamasqua Grab, and added the other half of Picture Polish Focus. I used the brush of the polish itself, I was lazy ;-) Adding the studs was more of a challenge, as they were so tiny and I was working with my non-dominant hand.

My birthday was a good one with lots of polish gifts. Actually, I asked everyone for gift cards so I got to pick my own polish gifts! Even better! Ofcourse I got more Picture Polish and also some Halo Hues so be on the lookout for more awesomeness coming your way! Thanks for watching!

Painted landscape for my birthday

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Hi girls! Ermahgerd, I can't believe I haven't even shown you my birthday nail art yet! I spent weeks thinking about what I wanted on my nails for my birthday, but then when the day rolled around I still didn't know. I looked back on all my previous nail wins to determine my favorite technique and go from there. I found my beautiful sunflowers from a while back and I knew that that was the way to go. This freehand painting is the best stress relief I know, I feel great doing it, times flies and I'm very happy with the result. I was never into painting but somehow this feels different. Painting nails is different. Every little stroke counts because it will be very visible. 

For my birthday, I googled landscapes and I found one that I like very much. It might be more of a winter look instead of an end-of-summer look, but I don't care. I love this view. 

I used a lo-hot of different polishes and I didn't know which one to hold. So I went with the empty-hand pose. There are snowy mountains in the background that didn't turn out very well, but the water is amazing and so is the shore. 

And this was my inspiration. This is where I found it but I'm not sure who the artist is. It's a gorgeous view anyhow and I love that it inspired me. I just hope I did it justice.

*cough cough* Me wouldn't be me if there wasn't something funny about my nails on my birthday. That's because my other hand was painted differently! How? You'll see that tomorrow! Thank you for watching!

Ants in the p... p... picnic

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Hi girls! One of my best friends came over, we were supposed to have a picnic but the weather was just awful. We put down a blanket in the living room and had our picnic indoors! Perfect climate for it and no bugs ruining our fun! Those bugs were also the inspiration for my nail art.

Gahhh aren't they cute? I tried my very best to make a picnic blanket in the background, not inspired by my own blanket because that''s not pink. I wish it was *sad face*

This design was actually pretty easy to make, all you need is a small brush, a dotting tool and a steady hand. I started with two coats of white, then added pink horizontal and vertical stripes. I took a large dotting tool and added darker pink dots to make it look plaid. I'm sure there's a way to make it look even better but this was easier. The ants are also just dots, with lines drawn as the paws. I used a super small dotting tool dipped in white polish to make the ants look more 3D. The apple and the lemon were fimo slices I had lying around, they were the perfect add-on.

Here's a little close-up of one of my guys (or girls, do ants even have genders?). 

Anyways, bonus points if you got the reference in the title! Thanks for watching (yet again, you must be getting tired of me!) and see you soon!

It's a party with Gothic Gala Lacquers!

Press sample

Hi girls! I have a very special brand to show you today! I don't remember exactly how I found her, but I've been following Samantha for a while now. I've seen many of her gorgeous creations light up my screen and I'm delighted to tell you that she opened her shop on August 22nd! Gothic Gala Lacquers has a shop on Etsy and I can tell you, there are good things a-comin' to this shop soon! Today, I'll review two of her very first polishes for you.

Patched nail art with Norwegian polishes

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Hi girls! A while back, I did nail mail with the sweetest Norwegian girl, Hanne. She has a blog too, go check it out! We became good friends and I love the polishes she sent me! As soon as I received them, I did nail art with four of the polishes, so this nail art design is from a while back but still so gorgeous!

I chose to do some patched nail art, I like it! I was amazed at how well this design turned out and it gave me just the boost I needed to get back into the 'better' nail art. I'd been lazy before this :-p

The black lines are done with a nail art pen. I'd just bought one and needed to try it out.

Shining like Northern Star Polish - Part 2

Press sample

Hi girls! Welcome to part 2 of my Northern Star polish review! I'm very excited to show you the next three polishes that I received, I saved the best one for the very last of the show. In case you missed my review of the first two polishes, check it out HERE.

To cut to the chase and just start buying every polish Northern Star has in her shop, click HERE, although the Halloween collection won't be available until September 15th at noon Central time. But you have a sneak preview of the gorgeous polishes that make up this collection, right here! Click 'read more' to continue!

Shining like Northern Star Polish - Part 1

Press sample

Hi girls! I have some really special polishes to share with you today! I reviewed FIVE Northern Star polishes, four from the new collection for Halloween and one oldie but goodie that's making a comeback. I've split up my review in two blog posts, you know, because I talk a lot...

Northern Star is a US based brand, created by Kristin and made with love. Full sized polishes are 15ml/0.5 oz and they come in these neat boxes with a name sticker on top. Looks naaiiizzz, right? The Northern Star Polishes are 4-free, which means they don't contain DBP, toluene, formaldehyde and formaldehyde-resin. They're also cruelty-free and vegan friendly. I spotted THREE stainless steel balls in the polishes, which makes mixing in the glitters really easy. They don't really settle much, but a quick roll will help getting them to float around.