Recent nail art and glue review ^_^

I know I haven't posted for some time now. I've been so busy and I'm having some technical problems with my phone for days already. I still haven't fixed it yet, I'm still going to need to observe it. My phone is the main camera that I use to take pics so I would be heart broken if I can't fix it. I can't afford to buy a new one :(

For the mean time I'm just going to share a couple of my recent mani ^_^

I really love how this turned out. I've been seeing some nail art with gradients on top of their stamped nails. This is my first try, I used a metallic silver on my tips then applied a fine glitter gold polish which I recently bought and love, now I wish I bought two bottles of it because it was so cheap anyway. Ugh!

Okay, this one is still on my fingers right now :)

I made this yesterday and I was able to take a pic of this earlier before my phone started to act crazy again.

I used two metallic polishes, first is the pink base then sponged in the blue. Then I placed one coat of the fine gold glitter again then added a second coat but only on the tips. As you can see all the images I stamped are birds. They came from different plates which I forgot to take note of *toink*

It seems to me the blue metallic polish is too sheer to show up, I didn't want to apply too many coats because the pink base is already 3 coats.

I've been using the glue base method ever since I posted it on here. I have changed to using Elmer's School Glue now instead of the LEEHO gel glue.

There are some pros and cons though....

Elmer's School Glue

Drying time is fast, less than a minute if you dry in front of an electric fan.

Matte like finish when it's dry so you know when to start putting on the second coat and nail polish.

Glue dries thin and smooth.

Peels off faster than the gel glue, you need to seal the tips with polish.

I've noticed my nail polish don't bubble even if I layer polishes. This has been a huge problem for me with my polishes even if I've waited for my polish to dry in between coats.

I will have test this more though, I have a few thick polishes on my stash that I doesn't get any action because of this problem.

LEEHO Gel School Glue

Drying time takes a while around 3 minutes or so.

Hard to see if it's dry so you will need to feel it up a bit.

Dries thick, I can actually see an added thickness when I apply my polish.

Sometimes glue doesn't dry smooth, maybe it's the nail polish brush or what not but sometimes I feel stubbles. I'm thinking that maybe the glue is too thick.

Manis lasts longer, doesn't peel off unless you peel it off still be careful not to nick the edge.

My nail polish sometimes get bubbles specially the first layer of polish, but once I start layering the second coat bubbles aren't very apparent.

Both are affordable and non-toxic.

I still prefer the Elmer's one because it dries quicker, smooth and my polish doesn't bubble.

My mani may not last long but one of the reasons I chose to use this method is because I like to change my mani quite often and clean up is just too easy ^_^

I need to look for a nail moisturizer that doesn't leave an oily/greasy residue before applying the glue, does that even exist? Hahaha ^_^

Thanks for hanging out here, I hope I'll be able to find a permanent fix for my phone. :)

Mash 30 Image Plate

Lucky cat, hahaha!
Such a cute plate this one, I've used the cactus and it looked so sweet  ^_^
Really looking forward to use the other designs.

 Right now I'm doing some experimenting with glue as a base for glitter polishes, if it works out I'll never be afraid to use glitters or flakies ever again. Just think of all the stamping designs with glitter as base! Really hoping for the best :)

Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥

Red Angel 102 Image Plate

RA102 has four full nail designs and a cute peacock ^_^

Unfortunately this is one of the plates that has a shallow engraving. If you'll see my swatch the butterflies aren't engraved well this is really saying something because I used acrylic paint to swatch these. I tried to swatch it with different polishes and really had a difficult time to making all the butterflies show up. The other designs work but will need a bit of effort and you need to pick up and stamp real quick, because of the shallowness of the engraving you'll be scraping a lot of polish and what's left is a thin layer of product to stamp with which could dry up a lot faster than usual.

Rating: ♥♥♥♥

Konad Q1 Dupe MLS301 ^_^

Ever since I saw a nail art pic of the Konad Q1 plate I immediately fell in love ♥♥♥ with it, so like a normal image plate addict I browsed the world wide web where I could purchase it. The results were somewhat disappointing,
first no one was selling it here in the Philippines,
second the price of the Q1 plate is quite high than the other Konad plates which I think it's because of its exclusivity to Konad UK.
 So my heart sank and dilemma, dilemma, dilemma... I don't really want to spend more than a thousand pesos for one 5cm plate even if it's an original Konad plate.
I had to hope that someday someone will make a dupe of it like the other Konad plates, but of course hoping for good quality if not great. 
My hope was lifted when someone at Adventures in Stamping saw a dupe plate on Ebay, which is the MLS301 plate. So all I had to do was patiently wait until it becomes available here.
I didn't have to wait very long, I was chatting with one of my favorite image plate seller MyOnline Shop and asked if they would ever carry the Q1 dupe plate and at that time she just said that she did have the plate on-hand but she only had a few pieces. I asked if she would sell one to me and that I would pay for it ASAP!
I was happy that I got this plate, it's clearly one of my favorites! Though it's not as perfect as the original Q1 plate, I still love it!

I couldn't make a real comparison but from what I've gathered from those who has the Q1 plate that the dupe has thicker etchings and has extra candies on the side, aside from that everything looks pretty much the same. ^_^


Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥