Showing posts with label DRK nails. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DRK nails. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

on 4 comments

Pretty Serious Pastel Pet Names gradient and stamping decals

I still have a huge crush on this collection. It's so bad that I can't even put the polishes away in my helmer. I just keep grabbing for them so often at the moment, and not just one of them, all of them, always together. Because they are so perfect together.

This time around I did a simple gradient and some flower stamping decals. Look at how smooth that gradient is, those colours just smoosh together perfectly. The flowers are from DRK Stamping plate Secret Garden XL.  This is such a great plate and I find myself using it over and over again. It has lots of floral full nail designs and heaps of images that work really well for either leadlighting or stamping decals.





Look out for my tutorial video on Instagram coming soon.

Friday, February 5, 2016

on 1 comment

Back to school and DRK Cobogo 2 stamping plate

Yay for Friday and the end of yet another very hectic week. This week in Australia marked back to school week after the summer holidays, and for us this meant my little baby girl started kindergarten. 

I usually don't do school drop off or pick up as I'm at work, and I'm lucky that my awesome mum does it for us.  But this week I adjusted my work hours so I could do drop off and pick up.  But geezh, trying to fit a full day of work into just 5 hours at work is pretty unachievable. But it sure was nice to be there at the end of their school day to see their happy little (and tired) little faces. Here are my little chickadees on day 1 of school for my young man and day 2 for little miss.


For the nails tonight, I'm pulling this one from the vault.  I did this gradient stamping combo a little while back before I got my clear jelly stampers, therefore the stamping isn't as well aligned as I would like.  But I am proud of myself that I managed to use a different stamping colour than either black, white, silver or gold.



I used an image from DRK Cobogo 2 plate.  I was sent this place for review and found it to be a beautifully deep etched plate with patterns that were very easy to pick up.

I chose this plate because I thought the designs on it would work nicely for leadlighting, with lots of sections that could be coloured in.  But what I didn't realise until I got the plate is that the designs are actually revered from what I was imagining.  Eg the top two images I thought I would be able to colour in the parts of the circles, or around the stars etc, whereas those are actually the bits that are stamped, and the lines that make the pattern are the bit that is the gap.  Does that make sense?

Basically what you see below in black is what will stamp onto your nails.  This is of course the same way that all plates are shown, that is the dark part is what stamps, but I just imagined it the other way around.  So instead of using these for decals or regular lead lighting, I'll have to try out some reverse leadlighting, where you stamping in white polish over a darker colour, and then colour in the white stamping with jelly polishes.






Hope you all have a great weekend.

Stamping plate provided for review.

Saturday, January 9, 2016

on 6 comments

40 Great Nail Art Ideas - over a pale blue base


This week brings a return to the colour and technique prompts for the 40 Great Nail Art Ideas group. 

These are definitely my favourite types of prompt.

The theme this week is over a 'pale blue base' and my technique prompt was patchwork.  These were so fun to create.

My base is Ulta3 Spring Shower.  I then used the DRK XL Designer plate 1 and chose three different images.  I also grabbed out three different stamping polishes, white and two shades of blue.


I used liquid latex to mask off different sections of my nails before stamping.  I started using Color 4 Nails Crystalline Veil, but then switched to the Dance Legend version as it has a wider brush and makes applying it quicker.  After stamping each design I applied a layer of top coat so that the stamping didn't peel off when I applied the latex barrier over it for the next stamp.

When I was all done with the stamping, I used a fine nail art brush and black polish to paint the lines and stich marks.






Tuesday, December 22, 2015

on 15 comments

Stamping decals with Pretty Serious and DRK

I have plenty of manis to share here, but I can't help but feeling like nail blogs are becoming a little irrelevant these days with Instragram pretty much taking over. That of course makes me pretty uninterested in posting much here.  Of course blogs are way better for historical purposes, if you are looking for swatches and reviews or for specific nail art, but my blog views have really dropped off over the last 12-18 months compared to where they used to be and I'm feeling pretty 'meh' about it all really.  

I did always say that the purpose of my blog was for my nail polish chronicles, and if other people get something out of it then great. What do you guys think, are blogs becoming irrelevant?

Anyway, let's look at today's mani, which I created using some of the polishes from the Pretty Serious Christmas collection.  The silver is Frosty the Snowborg, red is Santa's Sunburn and the green is Hack the Halls.  The polishes are all so gorgeous and I will be doing some swatches during the upcoming holiday season.


 I created a stamping decal using DRK Designer plate 1 stamping plate, which has lots of symmetrical designs that can easily be coloured in for stamping decals.





Stamping plate provided for consideration, polishes purchased by me.

Saturday, November 28, 2015

on 10 comments

DRK Seasons XL plate with clear jelly stamper

I recently received a selection of DRK stamping plates to review, and tonight I have the first mani that I have created with the DRK Seasons plate. I've also got my first thoughts on the clear jelly stamper which I used for this mani.

Let's talk about this plate. I love it.  Firstly it is huge, secondly is it jam packed full of unique designs and thirdly, the theme of this plate is so clever.  You have stamping images to suit the whole year round.  The quality of the plate is awesome too.  I have DRK XL 1 and 2 plates that I got several years ago, and this one is just as good.  The etching is deep and sharp and all the images I've tested so far have picked up beautifully.

Despite the fact that Summer starts here in 3 days, I went with a design from the winter section of the plate.  That little selection of pine trees in the bottom right to be exact.


You can see how nicely etched the plate is in this photo of mine.


Let's look at my nails next.  I created a gradient using Ulta3 Honolulu and Midnight, and China Glaze Highlight of my Summer.  I sponged on a tiny bit of Kester Place Milky Way, which is a fine holo glitter, for the stars.  Man I just love it when polishes names match up to the purpose you use them for in nail art.  This one had Midnight and Milkyway for a starry night scene. I geek out at that sort of thing.

After top coating my gradient, I used my clear jelly stamper to place the black trees.  I then finished it off with a coat of SuperChic Lacquer Marvel Top Coat.





Next is a quick review on the clear jelly stamper.  I will talk more about this in another post, but seeing as I used it for this mani I though I would mention it here.  The holder that comes with the stamper is the purple one. I found this a bit too long to have to look through. Instead I grabbed this plastic coupling piece from Bunnings.  I got three on them in a bag for 35 cents.  It's the perfect width and much shorter, so it made placing the images easier.

Now about the stamper.  It's a bit tricky.  I have to say I had terrible trouble using the layered Jelly Stamper plate that I also purchased, that plate appears to be etched too shallow and is faulty, but I'll talk about that another day.  I had much better luck with the DRK plate, in fact it worked really well.  I think that because the DRK plate is etched so nicely that this stamper works well.



The DRK Seasons plate is available from the DRK Nails website.

Plate provided for review, polish and stamper purchased by me.

About Me

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I live in Canberra, Australia with my husband, Mr Ten and Miss Eight. My blog is all about nail polish, and a few other bits in between. You can contact me at morenailpolish@iinet.net.au