Born Pretty Plate W-02 Review.

Today I have a review of another Born Pretty Store product, one of their plates. This one is basically the ultimate girly stamping plate. 

The W-02 plate has lots of bows, hearts, and even a moon. You can find this plate for $1.54 from BPS.

W-02 happens to have a lot of the same/similar images to another plate from Born Pretty that I own, m59. I didn't want to use an image I've done before, so for today's manicure I chose to use the image in the center of the plate. 

Since the image was very girly I decided I wanted to pair it with a girly glitter I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to use, Nails Inc. Fulham Palace Gardens. 

The blue polish I used for this manicure is Wet n Wild Saved By The Blue, and I stamped with the Konad Special White polish.

I added some of the glitter to the nails with the stamped design to tie everything together, which I think worked out nicely. This feels like a perfect, feminine manicure for summer.

As always, if you're interested in getting this plate or anything else from Born Pretty, you can enjoy 10% off with the coupon code BRJ61.

Skittle Valentine's Day Nails.

I decided to start early on trying different Valentine's Day manicure ideas. For this design I brought out my stamping plates (something I haven't done in quite a while) and also added some freehanded dots. 

The plates I used were Bundle Monster BM02 (I heart U and the lips), BM03 (the group of 3 hearts), and Born Pretty Store m59 (the bows and the rest of the hearts.)

The polishes I used were Essie Boom Boom Room, China Glaze Rich & Famous, Sally Hansen Hard To Get, Mary Kay Radiant Red, Konad Special White Polish, and a Born Pretty Store red stamping polish.

I wasn't sure how I'd end up feeling about the manicure and combining a bunch of different images from different plates, but I think these turned out vey cute!

Black Swan Nails.

There are a handful of manicures I did before I started this blog that I really liked the concept for and have wanted to share with my blog readers. One of those was a design I did inspired by the movie Black Swan, and even though it isn't the most summer-y design, I decided to recreate my old manicure today.

Black and white, feathers, and blood pretty much sum up the film, so I think these nails do a good job of capturing the movie. 

For this design I painted my nails black (CND Oilslick) and stamped white feathers on all of my nails using Bundle Monster BM15 and Konad Special White polish. Then I splattered a mixture of Mary Kay Radiant Red and an unnamed red shimmer polish (which I'm holding in the photos) to look like blood.

I've really enjoyed doing manicures inspired by books and movies, and I think this is another fun one. It would be great for Halloween.

Winter Snowflake Nails.

December is just beginning and I've already seen more snow this year than I saw for the entirety of last winter. And of course the weather is always good nail inspiration!

I think these snowflake nails are very cute. I like how simple they are.

The base color is Color Club Cold Metal and I used the BM-14 plate for the snowflakes and stamped with Konad Special White polish. The rhinestones are from a wheel I bought on Amazon!

Purple Paisley Gradient Nails.

I decided I wanted to stamp something today, but wasn't sure what so I started by just doing a gradient. 

I really love the color combination I ended up choosing, OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender, Ate Berries in the Canaries, and We'll Always Have Paris. 

Once the gradient was completed I decided to use an image from Konad M60 and stamped with the Konad Special White polish. I finished off the manicure with a coat of CND Violet Shimmer, which adds a nice and very subtle shimmer.

Barbie Shoe Nails.

I wanted to use the shoe image from the BM-213 plate, and since it reminded me of tiny Barbie shoes I decided to run with that idea and let it inspire my color choices. 

The pink I used is China Glaze Shocking Pink (over two coats of Milani White on the Spot) and I stamped with Konad Special White polish.

I love how cute this design and color combo is, plus it's definitely fitting for a fashion student!

Tie Dye Paisley Nails.

I really love today's manicure! I used the same technique I used for this design, but this time with pastels. And I like the results even better than I did last time. The pastels create a really soft and pretty tie dye effect. 

I painted all of my nails with Milani White on the Spot as a base to create the tie dye over. Then the pastel polishes I used were Orly Pixy Stix, Orly Spark, American Apparel Office, OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender, and Revlon Blue Lagoon.

The perfect finishing touch to complement my tie dyed nails was stamping with the Born Pretty Store M64 plate (reviewed here.) I stamped with Konad Special black polish.

I'll have to come up with more designs I can use the watercolor technique for because I'm really loving it at the moment!

Born Pretty Stamping Polishes Review.

I have another fun Born Pretty Store product to review for you today (and of course a manicure to go with!) This time I'm reviewing a set of stamping polishes. The set comes with five basic colors, white, red, yellow, blue, and black. 

I did a few test swatches and comparisons so you could get an idea for how each of the colors stamps. The yellow, red, and blue came out very opaque over white. The white and black stamped well, but I wasn't as impressed as I was with the primary color stamping polishes. I decided to compare the white and black to my Konad special white and black polishes. The Konad polishes were more opaque in both cases, however the difference between the blacks was not very significant.

The color I was eager to get on my nails first was the blue, so I based this manicure around that. I started with a base color of Milani White on the Spot, and then I stamped a chevron pattern on my nails using BM-204 with OPI Ate Berries in the Canaries. Then I used the blue stamping polish and BM-20 to add stars to my manicure.

I really liked this manicure (if you swapped the berry colored chevron out for red it could be a really fun updated American flag type manicure) and was very happy with the performance of the blue stamping polish.

I'll probably continue to use my Konad black and white stamping polishes, but I doubt I would be able to find a better yellow, red, or blue stamping polish, especially for a good price. They'll definitely become staples in my stamping nail art supplies.

If you want to order these polishes for yourself the set is $6.93, or you can purchase the polishes individually for $2.05 each. You can get 10% off any Born Pretty purchase using my coupon code, BRJ61.

Rainbow Target Nails.

When I started this design all I knew was I wanted something that screamed rainbow!

I think the manicure definitely hit that mark. I started by using a striping brush to make a bunch of stripes in rainbow colors. The polishes I used were OPI Elephantastic Pink, China Glaze Thataway, Orly Spark, China Glaze Treehugger, Revlon Blue Lagoon, and China Glaze Spontaneous.

I wasn't sure what the next strep should be, but I eventually decided that stamping a pattern over top would be fun and add a lot of visual intern. I used Konad Special White polish to stamp and the image is from BM-206.

American Flag Nails.

I've seen a lot of great Memorial Day manicures, but I decided to keep things simple and classic for my design. Maybe I will do something crazier for the 4th of July.

I created stripes on my pointer and ring fingernails using striping tape, and stars on my middle and pinky fingernails. For the stars I used the BM-20 plate, but I ended up going over them with a small brush so the white would be more opaque. 

 The blue polish I used is Essence Just Rock It! and the red is Julep January. The white I used for the stripes is Wet n Wild French White Creme and the white for the stars is Konad Special White Polish.

Purple Paisley Half Moon Nails.

I needed a manicure that wasn't too dramatic to wear tomorrow, and ending up deciding the best way to go was a little subtle stamping combined with a half moon manicure. I chose two purple polishes to use that are different shades, but not dramatically so, OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender and Sally Hansen Lively Lilac.

The paisley was stamped with Konad M60 and then I used paper reinforcements to easily add the half moons.

Other than drying time this was extremely quick and easy,  I'll have to try a more dramatic version sometime!

Fun Leopard Nails.

Leopard print nails used to be one of my go-to designs, but this was my first time doing it on my own nails in a few months.

I saw this leopard print shirt and had to do nails inspired by it.

The colors I used were CND Flashpoint, Sally Hansen Brisk Blue, American Apparel Office, and American Apparel Neon Yellow mixed with Sally Hansen Lickety-Split Lime. The base color is Wet n Wild French White Creme. The stamping was done with Konad M57 and Konad Special Black polish.
 

Pastel Flower Nails.

I've had this manicure in my inspiration folder forever, and so when my rhinestone wheel came in the mail I figured it was time to try it out.

I decided to go with a few of my favorite pastels instead of the bright polishes used in my inspiration. I used Essie Sweet Talker as my base and did the details with Wet n Wild Tickled Pink and OPI Done Out in Deco. The stamp is BM-12 and I used Konad Special White Polish.

The baby blue rhinestones from my new wheel were the perfect finishing touch. These are the rhinestones I ordered if you're interested. Hopefully I'll find more opportunities to use them.

Flakie Zebra Nails.

I was inspired after seeing zebra print over a flakie polish on tumblr and had to give it a shot.

I used OPI Lincoln Park at Midnight as the base and put Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure on top. The zebra print is from Konad M57 and I stamped with Konad Special White Polish.

I think the flakie polish really makes the manicure.

Hope your weekend is off to a good start!

Polka Dot Gradient Nails.

I've been trying to decide on a design to submit to this nail art contest, and while I was contemplating my options I thought it would be fun to try and recreate one of the designs I did when I was first getting into nail art. I had a lot of fun with this particular design originally, I wore it to my graduation party this summer and submitted it for the Teen Vogue and CND nail art contest (which I ended up being a runner up in.)

Click here to see the original, and then here is my new attempt:

I changed the colors up a little bit but you can tell things are pretty similar. This time the gradient is Essie Mint Candy Apple, China Glaze Secret Peri-winkle, and OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender with Konad's Special White polish for the dots. The design is from Konad M60.

I didn't end up perfecting this as much as I had hoped but I still think it is cute.