Cupcake nail art , very tasty

Nothing to disclose

It's been a while, but it's nail art time again! Every week, there's a nail art challenge in a FB group I'm in. It's a great group of people and I really feel comfortable there, getting and giving compliments and talking about all the stuff that you might want to know when you're into nail art. This week, the challenge is cupcakes! I happen to luuuuuv cupcakes!

This challenge was awesome, I had so much fun making this mani!

Mailbox surprise! It's Polish Alcoholic!

Nothing to disclose

Oh dear oh dear oh dear! You HAVE to come see this!!!

I found THIS in my mailbox today!

*arms flailing everywhere*

I was feeling crappy because I went out for the first time since my surgery and I got really dizzy and lightheaded, but this made my whole day look so much brighter :D

Look out, it's the cutest ratty in the world!

Hey guys! Just a quick post while I'm recovering from my surgery (I know, I can't stay away from my blog) and this time, I'm showing you my little Aramis! I was letting them free range in my room the other day, as I do every night after dinner, and I had a bowl of cucumber slices on my desk to feed to them. Aramis jumped on the couch, ran over to my desk and grabbed a slice of cucumber. He sat there and ate it like this:

Isn't he just adorable? I put this picture on Instagram and got an overwhelming amount of likes and comments! His little hands are just perfect, and you can even see his mouth open a little bit from nomming <3 Who could be scared of this fella?

Click read more to see some more pictures!

Little break

Hey guys, I wanted to give you a little heads up. I'm having surgery today, nothing major, but I will be feeling icky for a couple of days. So I'm giving myself the week off. You might see me on Instagram, or Facebook, or I might even update the blog if I feel like it. But no promises.

Wish me luck!

Picture Polish Shy Violet for National Epilepsy Awareness Month

Nothing to disclose

Hey all! I have a pretty pretty to share today, I bought it using my birthday money and I have some gorgeous pictures for you! Picture Polish Shy Violet is a somewhat newer shade, it was released about three months ago I think, and my favorite Dutch stockist Pretty Polish had it in stock super fast! So I spent my birthday gift cards on this pretty baby. I also bought Ocean and Peaches 'n Cream, I'll show you those another time.

Today, I want to spread awareness about epilepsy. It's National Epilepsy Awareness Month in the US, and one of my dear blogger friends Melanie has first hand experience with epilepsy and the damage it can cause to the human brain. She can tell you more about it on her blog, Melanie's Fancies.  Go visit, she's a sweetie!

For this special occasion, it's time for this shy lady to shine! She's SO gorgeous, she has the most beautiful purple shade that I just love, and there are holographic micro flakes in the mix. They catch the light beautifully and give the polish amazing depth.

Shy Violet is a jelly polish, it doesn't have great coverage so I used two coats of Herôme Dakar as a base color. Then I applied two coats of Shy Violet, followed by my very favorite Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat (if I could, I would marry that top coat and have babies with it!).

Wow, I am just loving my pictures over here! Anyone else having some drooling issues? This new light box setup is helping me so much, I love it :D

As with any of the Picture Polish shades, you can't help but love this little lady. All of their polishes are smooth, super good quality, dry fast and they are absolutely gorgeous. I'm a fan!

Messy Mansion stamping plates MM14 & MM18 (warning: super prettiness!)

Press sample

Good day to you all! I am SO excited about what I have to share with you today! I had the immense honor of receiving two amazing Messy Mansion stamping plates for review. Some of my very BEST photos are in this review, so I hope you read with as much fun as I had preparing it for you!

Messy Mansion is an Australia based company owned by Julia McGowan. She sells stamping plates of her own design, as well as plates from several other brands. She also has stamping supplies like polishes & stampers. Messy Mansion sells an awesome soft square stamper that I think everybody needs!

I received plate MM14 and MM18. There was also a business card included in my package and a magnet. Is this an Australian thing? I LOVE magnets, they all go on my radiator, I have quite a collection already. I was just wondering, because I got magnets in some of my Australian nail mail before, but never from other countries. Keep them coming, Aussie ladies!

Enough of my babbling, let's look at the plates!

Messy Mansion plate MM14 is the 'bird plate'. It has images of cages, birds on wires, birds on branches and flying birds that I think are swallows (we have a lot of those here!). There are also full nail images of a feather pattern and peacock feathers. I really like this plate!

I love how these plates all have a theme!

Messy Mansion plate MM18 is kind of a French baroque theme, with frilly images and some honey bees. This was more of a challenge for me, because these aren't usually the images I go for.

The quality of these plates is great. I can talk long or short about it but the bottom line is that they are just awesome. Some people might want to slap me for saying this, but I like them better than the Cheeky plates. The images are super sharp, etched deeply enough so you can use them with a regular polish and the images are HUGE! I tend to grow my nails out pretty long, so large images are a must for me. And bigger images let you move the design around, so you can create some diversity on each nail.

This first attempt with MM18 *cough don't mind the bad lighting cough* was a challenge for me! That's okay, I luuuuv challenges! I've never stamped with a design that covers multiple nails, and let me tell you, it takes some practice. I needed to re-do these a couple of times before I was even remotely happy. I used two Orly polishes, Lift The Veil for the pink base color and Rage to stamp with.

Another nice design with MM18. I'm so impressed with how these images transfer onto the nail! I used a regular OPI polish Hot & Spicey for this stamp and it worked so perfectly. I went with sort of a beehive theme, so I stamped the full nail image with the bee on the accent nail and one bee on every other nail.

I mattified this design because that's what I do. No, really. I like shimmery polishes way better when they're mattified.

I had SO much fun with this design! Have you ever stamped with just matte polish? It's a great challenge, you can't see what the frick you're doing and how you're supposed to place the stamp. Fun fun fun!

I like this design a lot, it looks amazing! The contrast between shiny and matte black gives it a very sophisticated look <3

WARNING: should you try this at home, make sure you don't watch your nails all day. Turning them towards the light and seeing the design change is very addictive and should only be done by professionals. LOL Just kidding!

I love this bird plate! The MM14 plate has so many fun images that I really love playing around with. Here I'm showing you Herôme Oslo with Herôme Dakar stamped on top. I used the image of the birds on a wire, this is a full nail image and I had plenty of room to move it around. With small nails, it's really easy to get a good placement for this image.

The birds on branches on my middle and ring finger nails are the multi-nail image that I just moved around a bit. It's awesome, because it's perfect for long nail as well as short ones. If you have short nails, just move the design move towards the edge of the nail to remove some branches, and it should fit perfectly!

Ahhh neon goodness!!! I was going for a sunset but it kinda got away from me there...

I used MM14 to make this design, the flying swallows & the separate bird cages were my little helpers. I made the background gradient with some cheap ass brandless neon glow polishes I got on eBay, they work perfectly but maybe they were a little bit too neon for this instance. ....What am I saying? There's no such thing as TOO neon!!

I just HAD to include a glow shot! You guys know by now how much I love my glow polishes, and these glow SO well! And see? You can even see the design a little bit!

Okay so this is cheating, because I already showed you this picture a couple of days ago. It's just so perfect *deep sigh* I'm really happy with my own work on this photo, and that doesn't happen very often!

I used the feather design on the MM14 plate to stamp over Hits Cutie Pie, a beautiful multichrome that I deemed perfect for an exotic bird. This one will be used OFTEN. You can make all kinds of different birds using multiple colors. *skips off to make a rainbow bird*

That's it! Those are the two plates I received. I know, I'm sad it's over too *hugs* You can always follow Messy Mansion on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram to see more gorgeous stamping combos, or go to the website to order some for yourself! I bet you could make some prettiness too!

Thanks Julia, for giving me the chance to play with these! I had an amazing time, best review EVER! Go on producing your beautiful plates, you have my support :D

I received all of the products in this article as a press sample for an honest review. Opinions expressed are 100% my own and not influenced in any way other than the quality of the product itself.  

Announcement: I have my own domain!

Yes, it's finally here! No more confusing blog address, from now on, find your favorite blog at this website address:

www.piggieluv.com

Go on, click it! You know you want to....

Bookmark it, add it to your favorites, tweet it to your friends, share it on FB, and most importantly: visit a lot! I hope your just as excited about this as I am because I. Am. ECSTATIC!!!!

So many things have happened to me since starting my own blog and I'm still growing as a blogger, swatcher and nail artist. Every day, I learn a little bit more and I see this blog get a little bit better. Thanks for being here with me! You guys are SO great!

Setting up my own domain caused me a bit of trouble at first and I was just about to give up when my hero of a best friend/ex boyfriend swooped in and put his studies to good use. He was amazing, he knew exactly how to fix it so now it's working perfectly! No, more than perfectly! A big thanks to this wonderful friend!!!

PiggieLuv says thanks too!

Oh no wait.... that's his butt....

Look at the pretty picture!!!

Okay, so.... The other day, I got frustrated looking at my pictures. They weren't how I wanted them to look, and I started playing around with my light box. I changed the lighting and I'm still not done with it, but it's getting there. I also switched to using my DSLR camera, which is a little bit less convenient, I admit, but it makes for way better picture quality.

Now look at this:

Isn't that perfect? I'm reviewing two Messy Mansion plates and this design is from MM14, the 'bird' plate. The base color is Hits Cutie Pie over black.

I really, REALLY freaking like this picture! I hope I can make lots more like this and have you guys drooling all the time! Stay tuned for more prettiness!!!

Wingin' It will make you fly high!

Press sample

Welcome, welcome! Step up to see the show! I'm sharing my swatches of some beautiful Wingin' It Lacquers today!

I received one full sized bottle of what I *think* is Burning Leaves (there was no label on the bottle) and five minis of the polishes Liquid Silver, Electric Melon, Neptune's Revenge, Perfectly Plum and Underwater Love. These last five colors aren't available in the shop yet, but they will be soon!

I will be showing you all of these in one blog post, so it's going to be a long one but oohh!!! Look at all the pretty pictures!!! Pictures with a white background were taking in natural light, near a window, and the pictures with a black background were taken in a light box.

Click "Read more" to see the review!

Stamping plate QA11 &stamper from KKCenterHK

Press sample

Hello on this fine day, folks! It's cold, raining and it's the perfect day for blogging. I'm under a warm comfy blanket on the couch, enjoying a cup of tea and I can't think of a better way to write my blog.

I have a review for you today! Oh no, not another one! I got some goodies from KKCenterHK to share with you. The nice people over there sent me a stamping plate to review and they threw in a stamper & scraper as well! So let's have a look here...

I received the QA11 stamping plate and the mini stamper with a plastic scraper. On the website it says that it includes a metal scraper, but that's not the case. The scraper in the picture on the website is the same plastic one as I received.


Click 'Read more' to see the rest of my review!

Say hello to PiggieLuv!!!

Hello my dear fans, friends & followers... the time has come! We say goodbye to Fratselarius because come on... who could pronounce that silly name? Now is the time for PiggieLuv to shine!

Say goodbye to this:

And hello to this:

What do you say? Better?

I'll explain the name again real quick: there once was a pig from Nantucket... No, just kidding!

Years ago, way back when, I got a little pig figurine from someone who has helped me a lot in my life. That piggie went everywhere with me and I even took it with me on vacation. I made a little comic book with him as the hero. I called him PiggieLuv (because of his hearts). Then, also a while back, I traced his full figure in Illustrator and immortalized my dear PiggieLuv. He has been my blog's logo for almost a year now and I've gotten so attached to seeing his little fat face every time I log in. I was looking for a new, better blog name and here it is! My PiggieLuv has once again helped me to find my path.

I hope you'll love PiggieLuv as much as I do. Feel free to share your opinion on the new look & name!