World of The Worlds feat MoYou London Artist Collection Nail Art

Hey lacquer ladies,

I'm really loving my new MoYou London plates!  They are even more beautiful and more versatile than I realized.  Today I have a mani I created for their Facebook contest.  It's all kinds of involved and took me an obscene amount of time to put together because I kept changing the base colors, but the final result was well worth the effort.  I should tell you though even as cool as this came out I didn't win any accolades or free plates.  Lol guess I'll have to keep trying!

Base coat/Topcoat: CND Stickey/Poshe Fast Drying Topcoat

Confetti Polish Wedding White L'Oreal Grecian Gray

Stamping polish: Essie No Place Like Chrome, Konad Special Polish in Black Gold and Red

Color Accents: Acrylic Pain in Yellow and Blue

Stamping Plate: MoYou London Artist Collection 06 
 

I can't tell you how much detailing I put in with acrylic paints.  This is advanced technique stamping because I first stamped then filled in my images as I desired and then restamped over those details.  I'm particularly proud of how well the center 2 nails came out.  Believe it or not they were the easiest ones to create the outer two designs nearly killed me.

I had a lot of difficulty creating the space ship.  I changed the base to co behind this polish about a trillion times.  In hindsight I feel as though I should have stamped it on a black base and made it silver after all.  I actually ended up layering with slight crossover silver and black stamps of the space ship in duplicate and then stamping down the lightning bolts.

 So I finally took one of the full plate designs out for a spin.  They are not technically difficult to use at all.  You need to be able to pull out the elements of the design in each segment you like and retranslate it onto your nail.  I'm working on a MoYou tutorial right now to show you ladies what I mean when I say that and also that there is nothing wrong with these plates.  For some reason or the other some ladies in my stamping groups and instagram are struggling.  Again I don't get a red penny from MoYou in fact they get all my red pennies, but these are some of the highest quality plates I own! Some of them do however require a little finesse and in all honesty I really believe these plates especially the full image plate ones would be more challenging to the new stamper i.e. someone who hasn't used a variety of plates across many brands using many different polishes. 

                                         

So thoughts?  This one was a doozy! I'm going to keep working with these plates with the aim of one day winning a design contest.  Honestly the winning design was spectacular! Really beautiful so that gives me something to look forward to.  In any case upward and onward to the next mani.  After the difficulty of this one I'm scaling down a bit for the next few posts just keeping it clean and simple.  Thanks so much for reading and I'll see you next post!

Hot Off The Stamping Press: New Tourist Plates from MoYou London

Hey lovely lacquer ladies,

I've got a quick post here with more stamping plates releasing from the MoYou London Tourist Collection!  Honestly this is probably the collection that I favor the least of all the plates.  I really love ones I have but there are several in the lasts few releases that are Back To The 20's, 30's and so on that I just didn't like.  The main reason being that they were sort of outfits you could stamp onto your nails in the XL size of plates and each of the outfit images on the XL plates are massive.  I have some fairly long and wide nail bases and I would be hard pressed to make these images fit.  They released around 5 or so plates of that variety that I passed on.  That's why I'm pretty pleasantly surprised to see these new tourist plates.




































 Instead of offering the mega-sized outfit images that will not fit a regular nail bed these two plates feature images that I'm more interested in with designs closer to those that drew me to the MoYou company in the first place.  These are based more around the recent Explorer Collection themed plates featuring imagery revolving around Australia and Spain.




I do think it's a bit odd though to have recently released the Explorer collection and then put similar imagery on the Tourist Collection.  However what's kind of cool about this set of plates is that there is really no geogrpahical area that can't be covered from such a broad vantage point.  Though I guess the same could be said for the Explorer Collection "shrugs".  In any event the images from either collection do not overlap at all despite the similar themes.


 


This plate for me is a little wack-a-doo.  Lol I'm not trying to be mean or funny, but look how insane the eyes on both of the faces are.  Lololol.  I do have to admit though that I love the matador, psalms, and floral motifs.   So what do you think? I'm  definitely not as impressed as I was by last week's release but I'm glad to see the potential of the Tourist Collection heading back into the direction I initially loved.   These plates will release on Friday as presale and ship out on the 1st week of December.  As usual they retail for 4.99 Euro and can be found at the link above.  Thanks so much for reading and see you next post!

Japanese Dragon Garden

Hey lacquer ladies,

I have another MoYou London nail art mani today!  I know my loyalalist follower has been asking for some (Moore :) so I'm trying to keep pumping them out.  I'm starting out a touch slow and will build up.  I definitely will have full-image plate image nail art coming along with a little trick that I do in my head, but makes more sense in literal translation if you can't picture designs in 3D to help you create them.  Today I'm using my pen-ultimate favorite collection of the bunch.  Yup you guessed it - the Suki Collection!

I still have so many Halloween polish untrieds to go through it's a bit pathetic, but because I do I'm gonna keep using them even if my theme isn't necessarily in the same vein.  Plus how gorgeous is Dollish Polish's Red Rum from her Halloween 2013 Collection?!?  Freaking too gorgeous is the answer! Also this polish was pretty much opaque in one thick coat.  I think you ladies know how I feel about one coaters (lusts fulfilled!).  I also chose to accent this mani with a rare Nubar jem in my collection.  Absolute is a scattered blue holo, also gorgeous, but it took 4 coats to build this puppy up.  I probably should have grabbed another one of my holo's but this one was the perfect contrast for the raspberry yumminess of Red Rum.

 

I chose MoYou London Suki plate 02.  I have been fantasizing about this plate since the day I got it.  It has everything that makes me think of old school Japan - pagodas, tigers, various blossoms, koi fish, samurai and more.  Daisuki! Translation:  I love it!  I could create a million different designs from this one plate.  Lol maybe I'll do a self challenge that way.  One plate 5 designs.  Yup it's on!  In any event I fell hardcore in love with the various dragons on this plate in particular the triple segmented one that allows you to pick up different parts of the sinuous body and stamp them ad lib.  

Up close and blurred a bit so you can really see the holo effect :)  If you look at my index finger you can see I connected two of the parts into one.  This isn't tough but it does require precision.  I also did some mirror stamping because some of the flowers weren't going in the direction I wanted so I had to reverse them.  I wonder if anyone even is interested in my tutorials anymore? Let me know if you are interested.

So thoughts?  I have to say I love this but I redid the accent nail an unseemly amount of times because it kept turning out completely different than what I wanted.  I also need a recommendation on an opaque DARK GREEN stamping polish that is NOT metallic.  I keep running into this issue and it's driving me bananas!  So there we have it.   Do you have any preferences for what you would like to see next?  Embarrassingly I own almost every single plate MoYou London has made though half are on their way to me but if you want to see something in particular do let me know!  Thanks for reading and I'll see you next post!

Hot Off The Stamping Press: MoYou London Explorer Collection

Hey hot stampin mama's,

I have some more nail art news from the creative labs of MoYou London.  They released yet another collection last Friday.  I'm a touch late the the stamping press is still steaming ;)  This collection is really one after my heart!  It was designed by two ladies in my AIS group Lisa and Mel and I have to say they did a bang up job.  As someone who enjoys a trip or two and values the richness of the world's cultures the Explorer Collection satisfies my inner anthropologist in the best ways!  




































These Egyptian themed plates are making me want to cry.  If they get some Babylonian and Sumerian stuff going I will just die.  Although the Mayan and Aboriginal themes are nothing to scoff at.  Yeah I wasn't kidding when I said this get's my anthropological juices going after all one of my college majors was Anthropology. Anything involving an ancient culture with ties to the development of a written language and I am there.  I love love love this collection!





 Ah the one is everything as well.  Ankh and felines there is so much mythical allusion here <3




For those who are wondering the MoYou plates are some of the best quality I've come across.  I got half of my order of plates this weekend including The Comic Book Collection and The Artist Collection and my jaw nearly dropped.  I have some cool nail art coming this week so stay tuned.

 Scarab beetles and the Sphinx dying seriously dying over here!

Ayer's Rock people this is Ayer's Rock and the Dreaming Circle! Love it!

So thoughts? What can't you live without? I can't live without any of them thus I will have them all!   According to the MoYou team this collection is going to have many more plates added to it in the near future.   As usual these plates retail for 4.99 Euros and they will be shipping out on the first weekend of December.  Also some great news for ladies with shorter nails and nail beds the XL plates which measure roughly 1.5 x 2 cm will now come in the smaller size of 1.2 x 1.5 cm.  I will of course be sticking to the XL though my nails will be shrinking in terms of length soon my nail beds are still massive.  In any event thanks for reading and happy stamping ladies!

Teal The Last Berry

Hey stamp tramps,

Happy Monday! Yup it's Monday and the dark horrible tunnel that comprised a shocking amount of my weekend has come to an end.  Lol yes that means what you think a working weekend.  I say this as though it's an uncommon thing for me when really a weekend off in my life is an exception and not the standard.  Anyhoo  I decided to break out my Pueen plates for today's mani and I have to say I was pleased with the results.  It's delicously fall colored and simple so let's get onto the art!

Basecoat/Topcoat: CND Stickey/Poshe Fast Drying Topcoat

Base Colors: American Apparel Berry & Essie Naughty Nautical

Stamping Polish: OPI House of Blues

Stamping Plate: Pueen Sumptuous Gallery 11

 This is the perfect color combo for the fall - a touch of vampy raspberry with a swirl of blues.  It's my belief that there isn't a shade of blue invented that won't work during any season of the year.  I love how OPI's House of Blue created a sort of pop of color effect Naughty Nautical.  I don't think I was able to capture that elusive blue shimmer that lives in Naughty Nautical however.  About American Apparel Berry - it was like butter.  This is two self leveling coats that could have potentially been one thick careful coat. 

Do you ladies have any perfect color combos for the fall?  I'd like to try a few more out.  I threw in the little round black studs as well for a bit of visual interest to the look.  The studs are from Pueen as well I got them during some Amazon promo and they came in a wheel with a whole bunch of other various colored round studs.  They are pretty cute and I'll have to try incorporating them more often.  Thoughts? I hope you liked it, thanks so much for reading and I'll see you next post!

It's a Groove Thang feat Mundo de Unas 70's Nail Art

Lacquer ladies,

Happy Thursday!  Today I'm gonna share some summer nail art with you.  I actually did a bunch of mani's around this time for a Mundo de Unas competition. The theme was to create a 70's inspired design using at least 3 Mundo de Unas plates.  It was tougher than I thought to stay within these guidelines especially the three plate rule.  Lol clearly I didn't win (aww hangs head), but I had some fun creating each individual look including today's!

Mani-louge

Basecoat/Topcoat: CND Stickey/Poshe Fast Drying Topcoat

Base color:  Wet n' Wild White Creme

Swirled Nails/Stamping Polishes:  Sally Hansen InstaDri Man-go Team!, Fast Fuchsia, Lickety Split Lime, Mint Sprint, and Butter-fly Stroke, Konad Special Polish in White

Stamping Plates: Mundo de Unas Handy Plates 1, 19, and 43.

So you may be asking what's up with this Mundo de Unas brand?  I've actually been buying Slyvia's plates for roughly almost a year now.  I discovered them from my Adventures in Stamping group.    They are exceptionally good quality and have the distinction of having some of the more unique and cool images I've seen on stamping plates including Pacman, Highschool of the Living Dead, Corpse Bride images and more. I have posted some mani's using their plates before on my IG feed, but this is my first time posting art using these plates on my blog.

So what do you think?  Of the 4 mani's I created this one was one of my favorites.  Kinda bright and cheery for the fall, but I've never seen the point in only wearing certain colors for certain seasons.  If you are interested in the Mundo de Unas plates you can check them out on Facebook.  They retail for $6.50USD and there is currently a sale going on for 10% off.  Slyvia also makes some amazing stamping polish according to the girls on AIS so check em out if you feel so inclined.  Thanks so much for reading and see you next post!

Sweet Movember feat MoYou London Rebel and Pro Collection Nail Art

Hey lacqueristas,

It's been a busy last few weeks and I've got lots to show you.  It's November and that means it's the month when men descend into madness and attempt what no one, save a select few, should attempt - the growing of a mustache.  When my classmates try this I think it's a horror to behold, but on the nails it's rather cute and bold (wink wink).  That said onto the nail art!

I'm kept things fairly simple with a nude and lavender/lilac gradient.  As usual Essie's Sand Tropez is my go-to nude cream base.  I honestly get anxious when I can't find this polish in my stash because it is so versatile and works as a base for so many great designs.  The purple is OPI Do You Lilac It?  The answer is yes I do!  I think I have sadly neglected mainstream polishes lately in my undying love of indie polishes.  It's a real shame because I'd forgotten the allure of mainstreams in this case being flawless formula and consistency with nearly one coat opacity.

I choose some of my MoYou London plates using Rebel Collection 05 and the Pro Collection 06 for the selection of different mustaches.  If you look closely at my nails you'll see each mustache is different.  I'm so impressed with the quality of these stamping plates which are some of the best I've tried to date.  I'll have to do a separate post on them later, but suffice to say I'm loving what I've tried thus far.

I really adore how these turned out!  I had some misgivings at first because I wasn't sure I could make this look feminine, but the final effect is sort of sweet and whimsical.  So what do you think?  Any plans for a Movember mani of your own? I think I'll do one more of these before the month is out.  I have a shocking amount of plates with mustaches on them I guess they are getting fairly popular.  Thanks for reading and see you next post!