Stamping Better Than Jamberry???

The AIS Sunday challenge this week was Better Than Jamberry. So stamp the nails like a Jamberry nail design, or any other nail wrap  brand design.

I knew what image I wanted  to do, and what plate brand. I just had to find the plate in my Dashica/Infinity  Nails stash. I found the image on Dashica's Dash 15. The reason why I picked this image for this challenge, is because there is another similar image on the Dash plate that can be used as an accent nail. And that is what I wanted to do. So right there was point 1 why I think stamping is better than Jamberry,

Point 2, you can choose what ever base color and stamping color/colors you want for your design.

Point 3. If you're like my, my manis won't last me more than a couple of days at the most. So Jamberry and other nail wraps is a waste on my nails.

Point 4. I can get a few plates for the same price as 2 sheets of Jamberry nails, and I can do so much more with them, and you can use them over and over again.

I painted my nails with OPI Party In My Cabana, pulled out my DRK Nails stamping polish in White and my Dashica Dash 15 plate. Stamped and sealed in the image with HK Girl by Glisten & Glow.

The Jamberry Nail design and my version of it.

I am not saying nail wraps are bad, I have used some a few times. But again, I got tired of my nails after a couple of days and removed them. So again, not the thing for me. I have a couple of sheets of wraps left and I have them ready for those days my nails are naked and I don't have the time to do my nails if I go some place. As for Jamberry, I think they're overpriced. You can find cheaper nail wraps out there in stores or on ebay, aliexpress, banggood etc.

Girly Girl Nails, Kinda Bestie Nails.

Since I started stamping in 2010 and joined facebook and AIS, I have been so blessed to meet so many amazing girls and 1 man who loves nail art as much as I do.
3 of these girls also make amazing stamping plates and stamping polishes, that I just love. Johanne the amazing talented nail artist behind Fab Ur Nails and the FUN plates. Her nail art is always breathtaking and I know I am not the only one who gets inspired by her nail art.  Then there is Shirley the sweet girl behind Dashica and Infinity Nails plates and Dashica stamping polishes that I LOVE. And lastly Ghislaine the master mind behind the Marianne Nails plates. I love spending time on facebook and chatting with all three of these ladies. We always talk about nails, our kids, life in general, just what ever pops in our mind. Mind you these aren't the only ladies I love talking to.... I love my fellow AIS admins T.I. Rex, Precious, Helen, Debbie, Sarah and Malinka. I so hope I can meet you all one day. So glad I get to share all the ups and downs (when drama happens) with you ladies.  And then there is Kelly (for just being the awesome lady that you are), Becky ( for all the PM's you have sent when I was having a rough time), Pamela H (for letting me ask you so many questions about having a kid with Autism), Stacie (you always make me laugh with your jokes), James (just love ya for being a man and loving nail art as much as us ladies and you're so amazing and kind too), Angela L (for playing the game and talking about nail stuff while we do things ingame) , Priscilla (always so sweet), Tamira (who loves Korean dramas like me) and Gwendolynne (who I can talk about nails and food, we're both foodies) that I just love to chat with too.

I wanted to do these nails to each and every one of you, I feel so lucky to have met all of you. I wish you all the best for your and your loved ones.


Now back to the nails part, I painted my nails with Sinful  Colors Thimbleberry
Then I used Fab Ur Nails FUN 12, Marianne Nails n22, MoYou Tourist Collection 03 and stamped the images with Dashica stamping polishes in Pastel Pink and Black.

youtube tutorial

As always thanks for stopping by.

Bad Day For Nail Stamping.

I guess yesterday was just one of those days..... A bad day for nails..... I was going to do two nail challenges in one mani, Inspired by my phone case & Double stamping.
So why was this a bad nail day?
First of I had just applied my white base color when I had to run and aid my 3 1/2 year old who had stumbled and hit her arm. So of course half dry nail polish and taking care of a crying girl who was having a fit because she had bumped her arm and being cross at her great grandmother who was nagging at her to come to her when she wanted mommy. So of course that left my polish with dents and half peeled off on some nails, so had to remove it all and start over.
I got my background done with an Indie grey stamping polish I made of what I had on hand and Dashica's Dash 18, and found some images on a few MoYou plates for the flowers and a leaf image and picked started stamping with Dashica Black and Pink stamping polish.
Applied top coat and some crystals, but wasn't happy with the final look at all.

1 stamping try result.

So I removed it straight away and started again from scratch. But this time I picked Shany's XXL Image plate 2 for the flower and leaf image. And just placed them randomly on my nails. Still not 100& happy with these but I like the 2nd try nails better than the first try nails. I may keep them for a day or two, before they drive me crazy and I remove them.

Just in case you were wondering all of the items I used in this mani: All the items used in this mani:

Orly Pointe Blanche 

HK Girl Fast drying top coat

Dashica Dash 18

Dashica stamping polish in Pink & Black

Grey polish mix of Sinful Colors Snow Me White & Wet N Wild Black Creme

Shany XXL 2/B plate

Squishy XL replacement stamper head from Fab Ur Nails

Silver Cap from Fab Ur Nails

Swarovski crystals from Michael's (US craft store).

2nd stamping result

Youtube tutorial of these nails.

 My nails and my phone case

 Just the stamped nails

With Swarovski crystals

So why don't I like them? They're too busy looking for my taste, if I saw these on someone elses nails I would go OMG those are so stunning. But then after starting blogging, youtube and doing challenges in FB nail groups I am happy to do nail looks that pulls me out of my comfort zone. My comfort zone is boring in the long run, just simple classic and elegant looking nails. In red, plums, purples and naturals colors, you see a lot of the same shades in my polish collection. I tell myself I have to start picking some more bold colors to add to my collection. I just need a good old kick in the butt to do so. LOL 

Pueen Encore SE01B Collaboration With Lucie Aka Loving Nails

Lucie's nails to the left & mine to the right.

About two months ago I asked Lucie aka Loving Nails if she wanted to do a collaboration video with me for our youtube channels. She said yes, and we have been chatting on FB about what to do and what plates to use. We finally got got down to do the collab after we both ordered and got our Pueen Encore sets.
We agreed to use Pueen SE01B and 3 parts of the plate.

                                   

My youtube video tutorial of each step.

I painted all of my nails white with Orly Pointe Blanche, then I applied 1 thin coat of matte top coat and let it dry before I pulled out my acrylic paints. The acrylic paints I used was FolkArt in Lavender and Parisian Pink. Then I used my fan brush I got in a brush kit from Dashica and loaded the brush half way with each color and painted my nails with a side to side motion to create a gradient. When the acrylic paint had dried I pulled out the Pueen plate, my Dashica stamping polish in Black and my XL stamper with the marshmallow replacement head from Fab Ur Nails (that I ordered from llarowe). 10 minutes later I applied a thin coat of the matte top coat again and added some crystals with my Crystal Katana (by Crystal Ninja) on my ring finger. 

Lucie's nails.

My nails 

This was my 2nd collab nails in very short time. But both of them was so fun to do. I hope I get to do some again soon. And all the girls did amazing jobs on their nails too. 

I feel so blessed to have met so many sweet girls from around the world who loves nails just as much as I do. 

Thank you, Lucie for doing this collab with me.

Bestie Nails Collaboration

Since I joined Adventures In Stamping on facebook in 2012 I have met some amazing and talented nail buddies from all over the world.

I teamed up with my nail sisters Opal and Mariana to do some bestie nails. Opal has a youtube channel, she has some really great videos about stamping, water marbling and some free hand nail art too.Opal's youtube channel

And Mariana, a girl of my age and mother of two beautiful girls is a very talented blogger who has a Spanish blog about stamping. She has step by step blog post of her with pictures and text in Spanish. So if your first language is Spanish and you're on a hunt for a good nail blog you should go and check out her blog. Mariana aka Stamping queen's blog

So the 3 of us decided to do our first bestie nails on a black holographic base and use Pueen 55 (Buffet set) and the leafy image on that plate.

 I don't have a black holographic polish, but I made my own using Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris that I added some SpectraFlair too. SpectraFlair is a holographic pigment you can add to your polish to make your own holo nail polish.
I wanted to do a gradient stamping but it was clearly not my day for doing that, I kept messing up bad. Yeah, even tho I have been stamping for a few years now I still have bad stamping days.
So I decided to just go with one color, so I picked Dashica's Lilac stamping polish.
But I was happy with the result anyways, my base isn't as holo as the holo polishes from Color Club. So I think if I did the gradient the holo effect would "get lost" under the gradient image and wouldn't have had the same effect as I would have liked. But then that is my opinion and I know I normally have to kick myself in the butt before I do anything outside my comfort zone on my nails. I do not wear black polish that often, but since it's a holo why not.

youtube tutorial of my nails

So here they all are, and I have to say my 2 stamping sisters did an awesome job. Their nails look amazing. And I think I have to go ahead and buy one of these Color Club black holos for myself.

Mariana's Nails

Opal's Nails

Opal used: Color Club Beyond, Mundo De Unas stamping polishes in Neon Pink, Neon Orange, Neon Yellow, Green, Turquoise and Fucsia.

My Franken Black polish with SpectraFlair

(You can barely see the holo effect, but it's there but very subtle)

I want to thank my two stamping sisters Opal and Mariana for doing this with me, and hope we can do this again soon. This was so much fun.

As always thanks for stopping by.

Happy stamping!!!

Stamping Test New Infinity Nails By Dashica Part 2.

http://www.dashicabeautyshop.nl/c-2328047-4/infinity-nails/

Here is the last part of the stamping tests of the new Infinity Nails plates that Shirley sent me to review.
Again, big thanks to the amazing Shirley for sending me these plates. I love them, they are amazing.

I used Wet N Wild Black Creme as stamping polish, and my stampers are from Fab Ur Nails, Magno and Dashica.
These plates are amazing, they are stunning and they have AMAZING stamping quality. In my opinion they stamp as well as my MoYou plates. MoYou still gets the top spot because of their amazing looking plates, closely followed by the Infinity Nails plates. And as I have mentioned SO many times before I love Infinity Nails and the Dashica plates because Shirley makes all her plates with mirrored images, and positive and negative images. And the fact you get so many different images on all of her plates, to anyones taste. She tries her very best to find images that she knows her customers want. I have also mentioned a lot that her full nail images are bigger than most of the Konad, Bundle Monster, Winstonia, Shany, etc. And also one of the reasons why I am such a fan of Shirley's plates. I hope these stamping tests video will help you decide if you want to add these plates to your collection or not. Now comes the hard part for me, decide what plate to use first in my next mani........

Stamping Test: The New Infinity Nails Plates By Dashica Part 1.

http://www.dashicabeautyshop.nl/c-2328047-4/infinity-nails/

Here is part 1 of the stamping test of the new Infinity Nails plates by Dashica, that Shirley was so sweet to send me as a gift. And as always here is a stamping test video and close-up pictures of all the images. I had to do this video in 2 part or it would have been almost 30 minutes long after editing.
Before I start I want to thank Shirley again for sending me these amazing plates. They are just stunning as always, and they have AMAZING stamping quality. You will see that for your self in the video.
I used my XL semi squishy stamper I got from Fab Ur Nails, Magno XL stamper and a standard sized soft silicone one I got from Shirley a while ago. The stamping polish is Wet N Wild Black Creme.
I know it's getting closer to summer months here in Utah, since we started to run the A/C again I have to be faster with the stamping before the polish dries. I waited too long on a couple and had to redo them, so any stamping errors came from me. Nothing wrong with any of these plates, they have amazing stamping quality. Even the ones with a lot of thin lines and tons of details came out so crisp and clear. These plates are just as good stamping wise as MoYou plates. And as I have mentioned so many times before one of the main reasons why I love Shirley's plates is because she has mirrored images on each plates, and quite a few image plates with positive and negative images on them. I wish more image plate makers would do the same with their plates.

What my work area looks like after all the testing. Not as messy as usual.

And here are all the close-up pictures of part 1. 

Nail Mail Time.

http://www.dashicabeautyshop.nl/c-2328047-4/infinity-nails/

I got some awesome nail mail today. The lovely Shirley sent me 17 of the new Infinity Nails by Dashica plates that she released a couple of weeks ago. She released 25 new plates and she gave me 17 of them.
I had a hard time picking out the ones I wanted, since all of them are so pretty.
Thank you so much, Shirley. I love them, I can't wait to try them out.
Anyways I did the Closer Look At video of these babies today. And I will try and get the stamping test video done tomorrow.

                                     

A Magical Sunset Nails.

I am waiting to get nail mail from Shirley, I waiting for 17 new Infinity Nails plates to get here. So because of that I am having problems finding inspiration to do my nails or use any of my other plates. Every time I am waiting to get some kind of nail mail, I am stuck. For some reason I always think I don't have enough plates to find inspiration from. How can that be when I have over 400 plates??? I know my plate collection isn't the biggest one, I know of plenty of girls who has way more plates than me. But I know that most of those girls are the same way when they are expecting nail mail.
I have been walking around with naked nails for 5 days, yeah you read it right 5 whole days. Because I couldn't think up any ideas. But then I forced my self to sit down and look at my polishes (that was the easy part) then my plates. 2 hours looking at plates and I had a hard time deciding.
So my base is an orange acrylic paint mixed with some white, then I used a sponge Essie Meet Me At Sunset on the nail tips.

My plate choice finally ended on Infinity Nails by Dashica and plate number 10, the top image. It's a special image that shows a whole scene, that can be stamped on multiple nails. There is a portion of that image with a fairy, flowers, a mushroom and a butterfly. So I picked that part of the image to stamp on my nails. I picked my trusty Dashica Black stamping polish and Magno XL stamper.

Have a great weekend, thanks for stopping by.

Under The Sea Nails.

This week's challenge in AIS on facebook was Under The Sea. So I wanted to do some stamping decals, I don't do stamping decals as often as I would like.... Why, you ask.... Well, it takes longer to do stamping decals. I only did one hand and I worked for a bit over 1 hour and 45 minutes, not counting the nail care routine and applying the white base color.
I applied 1 coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. Then I pulled out my acrylic paints (in white, blue, Light Mocha, brown, purple, yellow and orange they are mostly by FolkArt & Apple Barrel), my brushes and a paper cup with water and started working. I mixed blue and white to get the desired light blue shade I wanted and painted 2 coats over my white base, letting the first coat dry before applying the second color of light blue. Then I picked a nude color of acrylic paint and mixed it with white to get a light sand color to be the sandy seabed shade, and applied 2 coats of this as an uneven French tip. I wanted to add some dimension to the seabed so added some of the nude acrylic paint on it's own to random areas of the French tip. But couldn't really see it that well, so I got my brown acrylic paint and added a tiny bit to the nude & white mix. Then applied it to random spots on the French tip area.
I did a coat of top coat to seal in the acrylic paint and get a smooth surface for my stamping.
Then I picked Winstonia W-01 and Infinity Nails 11 by Dashica and my Jade green stamping polish from Dashica and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Mint Sprint and stamped 2 images of sea weed on two of my nails. And applied an other coat of top coat over the seaweed images, and my background was done.

Stamping decals are a lot of fun but they take so long to do if you want to do more then just 1 or 2 nails. I use Konad stamping polish in white and all of my firm stampers. Then to fill in the decals I used acrylic paints and a detail brush I got from the craft store. And the top coat I used to seal in the decals on my stampers was NYC Grand Central Station.  To glue my decals onto my nails I used Glisten & Glow HK Girl top coat and also used this to seal it all together at the end. I have to say, I really love this top coat it is my new favorite fast drying top coat. So happy I got 3 bottles of it right away, so it will last me for a few weeks..... LOL.

Looks like youtube and google won't sync again so my video tutorial box won't come up when I add it as a youtube link here. So I have to wait and see if it will come up tomorrow and add it then. But for now, here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG9yfdelTXo&feature=youtu.be

Final Look

As always thanks for stopping by.

Infinity Nails from Dashica

I got some nail mail today. The new plate series from Dashica, the Infinity Nails plates.  These plates are Dashica's designer plates. They are made on better metal and have better backing than the normal Dashica plates. Some of the plates have one full plate image or a few bigger images that can be used over several nails. The same thing MoYou are known for, but in Dashica style. I love Dashica's full nail images, and these full plate images are in that same Dashica style. Some of the plates are themed like Christmas, Halloween, big cats designs etc. And you get individual images and full nail images in different sizes. There are some really neat designs of funky French images with amazing details, and of course the full nail images look amazing as always. I don't know how Shirley does it, but she always find the most amazing full nail images with great details. There are also a few known characters like Spiderman, Hello Kitty, Winnie The Pooh etc Right now there are 50 plates of this designer series plates, they cost 4.99 euros/6.80 $ US.  And just looking at the plates I picked, a lot of them will be amazing for stamping decals. I can't wait to play with these plates.
Here is the link to where to buy these plates: http://www.dashicabeautyshop.nl/c-2328047/infinity-nails/

 Shirley sent me these plates as a gift because I helped her with the description of these plates on her web page. And she was thinking of releasing them as a completely new brand and asked me what my opinion was of that. My answer was, if it was me who was behind your brand and releasing new plates I would release it under the Dashica name. Because a lot of people know about Dashica now, and know about the stamping quality of these plates. So people would be more willing to buy a plate from a brand they already know, than a new brand they have never heard of. So I thought it would be better to release it as Dashica's designer series instead. She hadn't thought of it that way and it made sense to her, so she followed my advice and used the quick little text intro I wrote her as an example to introduce these plates. And for that she sent me some of these plates.  So thank you, Shirley for sending me these plates. I can't wait to try them out and make some stamping decals. So many ideas in my head right now. But before I start all that, the next thing I have to do is to do a stamping test video of these plates. Will try and get it up soon.

As always tanks for stopping by.