Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today is my Dad's birthday....he shares the birth date of this famous fellow....



Elvis!

I did this mani last night because I knew I'd be visiting with my dad this afternoon and Elvis is one of his all time favourite artists. My dad thought the mani was very cool!

Started with a base of OPI Bride's Bouquet (white); accent is OPI Yoga-
to Get This Blue; two coats of each. Topped with SV. No picture of just base polishes as I've used Bride's Bouquet and shown it a lot and the next pix shows the accent blue well. Stamped using Konad black special polish using FAB II (Elvis head), Konad m58 (guitar), SdP D-11 (boots and cowboy hat) and BM 08 (crown on pinky).



Then added full finger image plate on accent finger using plate FAB IV with Konad white special polish. My FAB UR NAILS plates arrived late last week and it was great that I was able to use a couple of them for this mani!



Stamped a few accents using Konad red and royal purple special polishes. Image plates used were Hot Topic (skull music notes), SdP C-12 (small and medium size crowns from the image) and Konad m73 (music above cowboy hat and above). I had stamping fail here as only half the lines under the stars went on the nail...this was because I took too long in trying to position the stamp on my nails and the polish dried up. Oops! In this case, the only way I probably could have corrected it would be to remove all the stamped images because those lines are on top of Elvis' head and I doubt I could remove the stars and lines without disturbing the head image...but ultimately decided it didn't look too terribly bad so just left it. Lastly, topped with coat of SV.



Happy Birthday, Dad!

Hope you had a great weekend...and thanks for looking!

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Unknown BM 08, BundleMonster, FAB II, FAB IV, FAB UR NAILS, Fauxnad, Hot Topic plates, Konad, m58, M73, OPI, SdP, SdP C-12

Born Pretty Plate M73 and White Stamping Polish Review

As you may have noticed, or read here before, I never use Special polishes for stamping. This is partly because of the price tag but mostly because I have been lucky enough to find plenty of regular polishes that work well for stamping. You can see my list here, although it needs a bit of updating!

The white I use for stamping from Stargazer isn't 100% opaque so I wanted to try a special polish to get the extra oomph!

From the Born Pretty Store, I ended up ordering a white stamping polish [here] and the duplicate M73 plate [here]. 

I've written a quick post in the past with my thoughts on the BP plates [here] and everything I said still stands.

The image of the musical notes is not very well 'carved out' at all, there is next to no definition so I don't think I will be using it. But this is clear in the picture on the product page so at least you know with BP that what you see is what you get and they aren't using pictures that misrepresent their products.

I went ahead and decided to use the white polish with the swirly flower design which is the one I was most excited about and I cannot express how disappointed I was when my mani turned out like this!

My stamper hardly picked up any of the design and I'm inclined to blame it on the plate since my stamper has worked perfectly forever and the polish worked (albeit not that well, but we'll get on to that later) on the geometric design.

I don't think this white qualifies as a stamping polish. It's actually less opaque than the Stargazer White I use currently which you can see stamped here.

Konad Plate: Born Pretty M73
Base Colour: Collection 2000 - Hot Purple
Konad Colour: Born Pretty White Stamping Polish
Top Coat of NYC

So to sum up, I am disappointed with these two prodcuts from Born Pretty. If I was desperate for a white stamping polish this would probably suffice but I don't think I'll be using it. I'm going to leave it on my windowsill with the lid off for a few days to see if it works any better then. Also, the bottle is very small. I can't find exact details anywhere on the site or on the bottle but I would guess it's about 5ml.
If you are looking for a white polish for stamping, take a look at Marta's post here. She uses Sally Hansen Whirlwind white and it looks incredible, completely opaque! If anyone knows where to get this and would be willing to send it to me, please get in touch because I need it in my life!

As you can see, I only tried two of the designs from the plate. The scattered square design works great but the flower one isn't usable. It's no devastation because I only paid a few dollars for it but still, you expect your designs to come out no matter how much you pay. If the designs don't work, is it even an image plate or just a slice of metal?

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Unknown Born Pretty, BP Plates, collection 2000, M73, purple, review, Stamping

Chanel Mimosa

I was looking through my polishes trying to decide my next mani and remembered I had picked up Chanel Mimosa recently....bright and summery....even though technically summer hasn't arrived yet! When I was at Murale getting it, I was told that this was a popular colour this season; in fact, I got the last bottle.

Two coats of Mimosa, with Essie Fair Game as stamping polish using Konad IP m73. As you probably have seen from my last few posts, stripers is my new obsession, so added a few accent lines with a light green sparkly striper and a couple teal blue dots.



After two coats of Mimosa, I stamped using Essie Fair Game using Konad IP m73.



Here's Chanel Mimosa by itself. While there is a very pretty shimmer in the bottle...which you can see in the pictures of the bottle, I was disappointed to see that it wasn't visible on the nail. Real shame for such an expensive bottle of polish. But pretty and summery none the less!



If my internet connection wasn't so touch and go, I'd go to photobucket and cut and past the shimmer in the bottle so you have a better idea what I'm talking about, but my internet keeps disconnecting and this post has taken almost an hour to publish...but this pix may be a little better to show you the shimmer I'm talking about.



Blogger is still acting wonky....I still can't post comments on my blog or the others that I follow. Apparently Blogger/Google is aware of it and working on it, but its been dayyyyysssss now. You'd think with all the technology and their computer wizardry that they have, that it would be fixed by now? Soooo annoying.

Thanks for looking!

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Unknown Chanel, Essie, Konad, M73, yellow

I'm With The Band...

Not!

Never played a musical instrument in my life...unless you count Chopsticks on the piano...or spoons if they are classified as an instrument (lol)....



OPI La Paz-itively Hot Matte with accent thumb of Manglaze Fuggen Ugly. Stamped using OPI Positive Energy and Revlon Chrome Punch using Konad plates m58and m73, one of the hot topic IP's, and fauxnads T37 and A27.

I have to admit that the music notes with skulls is one of my most favourite images on the hot topic plates, and it drove me absolutely crazy looking for them....hard to believe tho that I've had the plates for a couple months and first time using the music note image.....but the image is just so cool! (Thanks Brooke!!! Can't thank you enough! You're the best!!)

Here's mani before stamping....



This is mani in progress...I actually thought I was finished and then got thinking that the nail with the drum looks a little bare...so risked putting a star in the middle of it...I was pleased to see it was centred well as there was no way I could remove and restamp using a matte polish. Once its in place, that's where it stays or the whole nail has to be removed. Didn't get the sheet music too straight but couldn't do too much about it or would have to redo...I'm sure some would have redone but it just give me another excuse to redo my nails tonight...plus they are already chippy as I didn't topcoat....*sigh*....




Thanks for looking!

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Unknown A27, Hot Topic plates, Konad, m58, M73, ManGlaze, matte, Nicole by OPI, OPI, revlon, T37