Dot Matrix - Ulta3 Spring Break, Honolulu, Tahiti, Tahitian Lime, Elianto Blue

It's time for dots! It's time for dotticure!

[Dot Matrix]

I got Born Pretty's Professional Nail Art Design Brush Set and Dotting Pen. I've been wanting a brush set for awhile now because I've seen how useful they can be but have been holding out from getting them for ages due to irrational fear that they would be difficult to use, haha. Well, never hurts to try!

[Born Pretty's 12pcs/set Pink Professional Nail Art Design Brush Set and Dotting Pen]

The set consists of 11 brushes and a dotting pen. As you can see from the first picture, each brush (except the fan-like brush) come with their own plastic protector. In the second photo, you can see the various flat brushes, fine brushes and the very tiny dotting tool.

[Nail patches peeled off a silicone nail art mat]

Tada, the results of my hard work! You can see I was experimenting with the pattern before I settled on something. So I started out by painting with my base nail polish Ulta3's Spring Break on a silicone nail art mat. Spring Break is a dark purple creme polish. Then, I painted over Spring Break using one of the flat brushes in the set above to make the yellow upside down triangle. I used Ulta3's Honolulu for the yellow. It's so much easier making a pointy triangle when you actually have the right brush for it, hahah. There's no need to wait for nail polish to dry and then mess around with tape, or do very slow careful free hand with fat nail polish brushes.

Then I used the very tiny dotting tool to dot on nail polish. It's actually so easy to do dotticure when done first on a flat mat! I had no idea, really, I'm so used to dotting on my nails directly. And I find it's so much easier to control the dots with a dotting tool that has such a small head. For most of the dots above, I used a liberal amount of nail polish to create larger dots. They went on so smoothly. I could actually do much tinier and neater dots as well, if I used less nail polish per dot, but I didn't want my dots to be that small this time. But I have ideas for next time already!

[Base: Ulta3 Spring Break (purple) and Ulta3 Honolulu (yellow)
Dots: Ulta3 Tahiti, Ulta3 Tahitian Lime, Ulta3 Honolulu and Elianto Blue]

To reiterate, the base comprises of Ulta3 Spring Break and Ulta3 Honolulu. For the dots, I used the following colours:

• Ulta3 Tahiti - a neon coral orange that looked less neon against the dark purple background
• Ulta3 Tahitian Lime - a green creme polish. There's a trend with these names going on!
• Ulta 3 Honolulu - a yellow creme polish
• Elianto blue - a mid-blue creme polish.

I was actually aiming to make this whole mani comprise of Ulta3 nail polishes but I couldn't find a suitable blue! What a shame.

[Base: Ulta3 Spring Break (purple) and Ulta3 Honolulu (yellow)
Dots: Ulta3 Tahiti, Ulta3 Tahitian Lime, Ulta3 Honolulu and Elianto Blue]

The dots aren't perfect, but I still loved how they turned out!

You can get the Professional Nail Art Design Brush Set and Dotting Pen here and you can also use the discount code above for full price items at Born Pretty!

String Art Manicure (complete with video!) - Essie, Elianto, LA Girl, Australis, Born Pretty nail art mat

Today, we have something a little different. I did an abstract art manicure using a silicone nail art mat and string art. Yes, string art. I'm bringing kindergarten level art into this.

[String nail art]

Today is an unusual post because I have a video tutorial! A first for myself, and a lot of learning to be had while making it, haha. You can watch the video here:

But if you still want to read a tutorial, here's a simple one:

1. First, paint ten patches of nail polish as the base for your decals. I just paint them wherever nowadays.

2. Get thin semi-glossy magazine papers and sandwich the silicone nail art mat between them. Paint the end of a sewing thread with nail polish and put it on the patches of nail polish. Close the paper over the thread and mat, press down with one hand gently, then pull out the thread from between the paper and the mat.

3. You got your first pattern, now! It'll look something like the pattern below. Now keep going with your choice of nail polish, and repeat step 2 several times over.

Here are some progress shots as I layered on string art patterns:

Unfortunately, one nail patch did come off and stuck to the underside of the paper. I peeled it off the paper, stuck it back on to the mat with application of nail polish beneath the patch and kept going. It worked fine up to the last round, then it came off again because I hadn't given the fix enough drying time. It was still salvageable to be used on my pinkie finger since that one's so much smaller.

Peel off all the nail patches from the mat, apply base polish to your nails and then press on these nail patches. Remove any excess bits of nail polish and then seal it with a clear top coat. Then you get the following!

[String nail art]

You can use any nail polish (although preferably, nothing quick dry for the string art parts). The nail polishes I used were:
- Essie Private Weekend
- Blue and green Elianto nail polishes
- LA Girl Hustle
- Australis Fairmont Fling
- Australis Pinot-Dah

Maybe I'm biased, but I love this string art manicure (stringnicure???). :D  It's just so bright and colourful and it looks so artistic. That's an achievement considering how un-artistic I am.

Anyway, hope you enjoy and let me know if you try this out!

Mosaic Tiles - Elianto, Born Pretty stamping plate BP-L003, Born Pretty Ya Qin Au polish, Born Pretty Nail Art DIY Stamping Mat

I have new manicure things to play with, which quite delights me! Have you all have tried out a silicone nail art mat? This is the first time I'm experimenting with one, and I'm quite liking it so far.

[Pretty, pretty packaging!]

Here, I have a stamping plate and a silicone stamping mat to review. The silicone stamping mat is kept in a plastic packaging and they're both rolled up inside the sturdy tube.

The tube is a pretty good protection for the silicone stamping mat, but I was worried it would result in the mat being bent in one way or the other from its prolonged time rolled up. But the mat is actually a lot softer and more flexible than I realised, and it lies completely flat when unrolled.

[Born Pretty nail art DIY stamping mat]

This is one of Born Pretty's smaller silicone stamping mat, which is 21cm by 15cm in size. As you can see, the mat itself is rather basic, with five nail outlines on each side, in clear and in black, depending on what colour you plan to use on it. The mat itself is semi-transparent, so you can get a vague impression of how the mani will look if you peek at the underside of the mat while you're working with nail polish on the top surface.

[Born Pretty silicone stamping mat]

So, I started by painting over the nail outlines with my clear topcoat. Your first layer on the mat will be your topmost layer when you apply the homemade decals to your nails. As you can see, I did an extra five patches so I could do all ten nails at once. You don't really need the outlines to be honest.

The topcoat does cause the mat to curl up as it's drying. This is temporary and the mat goes back to being flat once all nail polish is removed. I also got distracted and wandered off to do something else for several minutes so by the time I came back, the topcoat was so dry, they were starting to peel off from the mat, as you can see from the photo above. Oops...

[Born Pretty Stamping Plate BP-L003]

I forgot to actually take a photo of the mat once I stamped on it. =_= What a dumb mistake... So in its place, you can have a look at stamping plate BP-L003 instead. The stamping pattern I chose is on the first row, first pattern from the right, and I used a Ya Qin Au stamping nail polish, an unnamed dark teal shade from Born Pretty.

If you look at the photo below, you can see that there's mostly no nail polish outside the areas where I painted the topcoat, which is unusual (for me anyway) when I'm stamping. Usually the stamping goes beyond the intended area of stamping because the pattern on the rubber stamp tends to be bigger than my nails, to ensure full coverage. But in this case, I'm stamping onto a silicone mat and nail polish from the rubber stamp doesn't adhere well to the mat directly. It adheres well to other (dried) nail polish, which is why you need to use a coat of clear polish before you start stamping. Also, you don't have a coat of nail polish as a base, I'm not sure you could lift the stamped pattern up completely from the mat.

[Stamped and hand painted on Born Pretty silicone stamping mat]

In the photo above, the decals are basically done. You can't see the stamped pattern very clearly in the photo above, because I've mostly painted over them with coloured nail polish, to create a mosaic look. I have used nail polish Elianto S02 (a green creme), an unnamed blue creme from Elianto as well, and an unnamed Born Pretty stamping nail polish of a dull fuchsia shade. I basically used whatever I had close at hand at that moment and most nail polish will work for this. But I don't actually recommend painting using stamping nail polish as they tend to be very thick and get too gloopy too quickly.

[Base: Elianto S02, unnamed Elianto blue, unnamed Born Pretty fuchsia
Stamping: Born Pretty's Ya Qin Au unnamed polish, Born Pretty BP-L003]

I think I achieved a rather nice and colourful mosaic look here.

[Base: Elianto S02, unnamed Elianto blue, unnamed Born Pretty fuchsia
Stamping: Born Pretty's Ya Qin Au unnamed polish, Born Pretty BP-L003]

I could have coloured in two colours and used the third colour as a base on my nails, to achieve the same result. I kind of just thought about it now, oops... I painted my usual clear base nail polish and then transferred the homemade decal to my nails before the base completely dried out. As the decals were larger than my nails, I did have to cut them where necessary and remove excess with nail polish remover on a cotton bud. Once all of this homemade decals were shaped to size, I painted over them with my quick dry top coat, to provide a nice glossy look and ensure the decals stay on.

So let's talk about my thoughts about using the silicone mat for stamping and colouring in...

First: The Name

I actually prefer calling this a silicone nail art mat rather than a nail art DIY stamping mat. While I have demonstrated stamping and then colouring in the pattern, there are a lot more potentials uses with this mat that doesn't involve stamping at all. That's why I feel the name silicone nail art mat is definitely more suitable, but Born Pretty does call it a silicone stamping mat on their website and a nail art DIY stamping mat on its casing so that's the naming convention I'm using for this post.

That important part done... :P

Second: Fun on the Mat

After trying it out, I'm pretty excited about the silicone mat and I'm looking forward to experimenting with it! While I really like the result of my first decal made using the mat, I would have to say that this one took a lot longer than I expected. Painting in all those little squares and triangles was very arduous. I still really like using the mat but next time, I'm going to choose something that doesn't require me to paint in every last millimetre of the decal.

But I really can't wait to try out some interesting stamping and colour mixes, or even just other type of nail art using this mat.

Third: In the end...

I was worried about the work I needed to put into cleaning up the mat, but it's actually so easy! In one of the photos above, you can see the leftover nail polish that were in three big blobs within the outlined palette on the silicone mat. That's a lot of nail polish and on any other surface, it would have been a pain to get off.

In this case, I pushed against the blobs of nail polish from beneath the mat, and all the three blobs peeled off easily. Any specks or splatter of polish on the mat was cleaned up using a piece of sticky tape to pick them all up. So cleaning really was one of the easiest part of the day.

I have some ideas I'm interested to try out on the silicone mat now! :)


Now, if you're interested in buying some stamping plates or mats, you can use the discount below at Born Pretty.

You can find the stamping plate I reviewed here, and the silicone mat here. The silicone mat came as a set of two, and Ev will be reviewing the other one, so stay tuned!

Double Rainbow - Orly, China Glaze, Elianto, Mode, Fing'rs

It's time for a rainbow parttttyyyyyyyyy~

[Orange: Orly Orange Punch
Yellow: China Glaze Yell-O-Neil
Green: Elianto S02
Blue: Mode Hook Me Up
Purple: Fing'rs Edge Ombre's second lightest purple]

I used the sponge technique for this one, where you paint all the colours in stripes on a sponge and then sponge it on. The colours I used are as listed above.

I love gradients and I love having a rainbow gradient. Easy, fun and pretty! I got heaps of compliments on this. :)

Summer Splash - elianto unknown, Glam Polish Twister

It's time for some bright fun colours, wheeeeeeee~

[Glitter: Glam Polish Twister
Base: elianto unknown]

I love Glam Polish Twister. Layering the neon matte glitter over a blue base makes the bright blue glitter of Twister blends in a little, but I think it just adds to the depth of the blue colour. I really love this look. It's predominantly a blue mani, but with splashes of neon colours to brighten it up. I'm going to experiment with Twister against more bases of different colours!

Rainbow Parade - LA Girl, elianto, Revlon, Orly

Mardi Graaaaaaaaaaaaasssssss!

[Purple: LA Girl Hustle
Blue: elianto unknown
Green: elianto S02
Orange: Orly Orange Punch
Ring finger: Base of Revlon Guava Glam with neon studs on top]

In celebration of Mardi Gras last Saturday, I decided to go with a skittle mani and added rainbow neon studs for the accent nail. The purple on the index finger definitely looks purpler in real life. The previous post contains a swatch of Revlon's Guava Glam, if you're interested to check it out.

I like how the rainbow studs turned out! :D  If I had more patience, I would use the studs for more than just the accent nail.

Gleaming Green Apples - LA Girl Watermelon Splash, Elianto S02

As Christmas draws nearer, I've started picking Christmassy colours! Today, I picked bright green!

[LA Girl Watermelon Splash over Elianto S02]

I swatched Elianto S02 here if you're interested, but I mainly wanted to try LA Girl's Watermelon Splash from their Fruity Scented line. Watermelon Splash has green and gold tiny flakes in green jelly polish. It smells sweet on the nails even days after application. It's a pretty polish, but sadly, so sheer that even four coats of it wouldn't get it close to opaque, which is why I used a base.

[Under indoor fluorescent lights]

Slightly blurry photos to show you the shiny flakes! It's not super glittery but the tiny flakes make for a nice gleam. All in all, I like how bright and shiny and nice-smelling this combo is! :D

Keeping Warm - Sally Hansen Fuzz-Sea, Nail Pattern Boldness Flipping Out Hard

Fuzzy sweater on my nails~

[Index to ring finger topcoat: Sally Hansen Fuzz-Sea
Last finger topcoat: Nail Pattern Boldness Flipping Out Hard
Base coat: Elianto S02]

I thought I would swatch Sally Hansen's Fuzz-Sea from the Fuzzy Coat collection next to Nail Pattern Boldness's Flipping Out Hard to see if they were different glitter types in the same colours. Both had yellow and blue, I thought there would be some colour similarities right? Flipping Out Hard is actually brighter, with more yellow in comparison. They're both really pretty in different ways!

Fuzz-Sea has a pretty even distribution of yellow and blue matte bar glitter. With three coats, it gives pretty good coverage. Isn't Fuzz-Sea an adorable name to go with an adorable nail polish. :)

You can see swatches of Flipping Out Hard here and here, and Elianto's S02 here.

Bright and Cheery - elianto S02

I was just saying to Ev that I wouldn't be buying anymore nail polish and lo and behold, here we go!

[One thick coat of elianto S02]

I found this Korean store called elianto which sells cosmetics and all sorts of pretty nail polishes! All of the plishes are made in Korea.

elianto S02 is a grassy green creme and I love it. The picture above is under indoor lighting and the colour is a tad more neon in the photo than it is in real life. The nail polish is pretty glossy even without a topcoat (only the last finger has a topcoat in the photo above). I have a neon shimmer in about the same shade and I really dislike it, but it turns out that I just needed the shade in creme. :)

[Base: elianto s02
Tips: unknown blue elianto polish]

As always, when it started chipping at the edges after a couple days, I added French tips in blue. The above picture is under indirect sunlight. The blue nail polish is from elianto too but it is without the sticker with its code! After browsing swatches online, I think it could be elianto Dodger Blue (some of their polishes have names, some have codes), but I can't be sure. :(

Both nail polishes were a little thick, but I suspect a few drops of thinner will solve that. They're rather cheap (after conversion, nearly AUD2) and have fairly nice quality. I would buy more if I had the space for much more!