Hot Off The Stamping Press: New Bunny Nails Plates

Stampaholics unite!

More hot and happening plates are coming off the presses from one of my favorite ladies in the nail art game - Bunny Nails!  Yup you might recall that she recently released HD-C and HD-D Halloween themed plates not that long ago and now she's back with a few more plates just in time for the upcoming holidays.  Oh be still my heart!  So let's see what she's got in store for us today shall we?

First up I'll show the holiday themed HD-E and HD-F plates.  As usual she knocks it out of the park with these creating something that every holiday lover will want to stamp with.  I know because I have her small HD set with holiday themes and they are so cute.  They feature reindeer, slices of pie, icicles, snowmen, you name it and they are absolute adorable!

Photo Credit

How cute right!?!  Lots of useful image here for the upcoming holidays.  The only thing that bothers me is her plates tend to release right before holidays like Thanksgiving so you are in a rush to get them so that you can use them before the season passes.  Clearly this will not be the case for Christmas and New Years.  I do see a few repeats from her smaller plate series the snowman, ski boots, Santa and a few others but I'd say only about 8 or so and only of the smaller images. 

Photo Credit

Ok now let's talk about the new BuNa plates.  I feel as though there were a few plates with this title when she originally released the small HD plates they were bonuses to the purchase.  This time she has come out with larger full nail images for everyday use i.e. no holiday themes like the historical releases of her plates. 

 

 Photo Credit

I am in love with BuNa-A the floral scene at the bottom is gorgeous!  Reminds me of some beautiful prints I saw a while ago in Papershelf.  Also love the antiquated border in the lower left hand corner.   However in terms of originality and highest factor of desirability I'm looking right at BuNa-B.  This plate has images unlike many I've seen.  It's getting harder to create original designs for stampers. I think this is in part because we have seen a huge boom in indie plate makers over the last 2 years and because buyers are increasing their selectivity.  We want new and innovative approaches to nail art and designs that fit within the desire.  I think BuNa-B is a prime example.  I'd also like a moment to point out this is the first time I've seen a plate put a proper cardiac normal sinus rhythm on a plate before.  The little hearts and stuff are cute but I am bothered tremendously when I don't see the waveforms marching out in a manner that I'm accustomed to.

 Photo Credit

So thoughts? Are there any you absolutely have to have or do you think you'll hold out for a bit?  If I could I would snatch up all 4 right now!  I want those holiday plates pretty badly lolol.  In any case you can find the new plates here on Bunny Nails.  They retail for $17.99 and have free shipping worldwide shipping.  I will be throwing myself upon the mercies of the upcoming holidays to ahem increase my stash.  Lol my wishlist is once again swelling.  Randomly more than anything at the moment I'm wanting a carbonated water maker.  I keep forgetting the name of it but every time I go into Target or Bed, Bath, & Beyond I keep staring wondering when the price will go down.  Gah!  In any case thanks for reading and I'll see you next post!

Plates I Love Interview: Messy Mansion Nail Art

Hey lacqueristas and fellow stampaholics,

As you know I've started up this new feature called Plates I Love! on my blog.  Today's post is part deux of my Messy Mansion feature.  If you didn't read Part 1 check it out here. Today I got the chance to pick the brains, so to speak, of the creator and owner of  Messy Mansion nail art plates Julia McGowan, and I think you are gonna like what she has to say!  So without further ado let's start the show ;)

When did you become interested in nail art and what led you to stamping nail art in particular?

Around 18 months ago, I decided that I'd had enough of mud, pirates, and dinosaurs.  As the mother of two little boys (now 5 and 2) I really needed some girl time!  I'd loved painting my nails as a teenager, and I even had some of my old polishes from back then!  But my clean up was horrific, and I knew I needed to refresh my skills, so I turned to Youtube to find some inspiration.  That's when I came across nail stamping.  I loved that it looked so quick and easy, and that after buying the initial plates and stamper, you didn't have to keep paying for supplies to keep your nails looking fancy.   I bought the cheapest stuff I could find on eBay, dug out some thick encrusted brown polish to stamp with and got started.  Except I didn't realise you had to remove the plastic off the plates, so after throwing them in a corner, buying a new stamper, and watching more videos, I finally worked out I had to remove the film!

How did you decide to launch your own brand of stamping plates?

I first decided to design a plate when I wanted some images that nobody seemed to stock.  The idea was to get the designs for myself and sell off the rest to hopefully cover my costs.  Once I got started it ballooned from there!  I wanted more designs, people kept suggesting ideas, and I got some great feedback on my plates, which all encouraged me to just keep creating.

When you are creating your plates what inspires you?

The weirdest things!  Greeting cards, wrapping paper, jewellery, wallpaper, ancient manuscripts, artwork, the tiles at the back of my fireplace, trees on the drive into town... basically anything that grabs me visually, that has a beauty and form to it that I want to capture.  I've loved drawing and creating since I was a little girl, and before I got into stamping plates I designed jewellery, did some interior design, as well as lectured in Multimedia at a local college.  I love to capture the essence of the theme, but try to avoid the clichés... especially with events like Christmas etc.  I get great satisfaction out of creating images that are instantly recognizable, but still a little bit quirky and different.

Are you creating for your fans, yourself, or for someone else in particular?

All of those.   I started creating for myself, and I still do that.  I don't make anything that I can't imagine in a manicure, or that I wouldn't wear myself.  Having said that, I definitely listen to my fans and use their ideas as inspiration.  I love hearing what people want, and I love their reactions when I can give them what they are after. I really get a buzz out of seeing the creativity and awesomeness folks make using my plates.  It makes me happy. 

What big plans or crazy ideas do you have for the future?

Shhh.. can you keep a secret?  ;)  (Let me insert myself in the interview here lol clearly I can't!) Well... more plates, obviously.  But I've also been working on stamping polishes and indie polishes that all fit in with a theme.  Sometimes I can't find the exact polish I want for a look I have floating around in my head.  So my upcoming "Waterworld" image plate will come with an Indie polish called "Waterworld" and a stamping polish that compliments it called "Seafoam".   I often have folks ask me what polishes I'm using in my manis, and so I thought it would be really cool to make polishes and plates that all worked together.  Kind of a one-stop-shop so people can re-create a look without having to hunt around for specific polishes. 

I'm also organizing the production and distribution of a range of plates a graphic designer friend put together.  The LilyAnna plates should be released later in the year.  Can't wait!

Sneek Peeks of upcoming plates in 2014

Whats YOUR favorite brand/creator of nail art plates?

You really can't go past the other Indie plate makers.  I swoon whenever Natalie from Nailz Craze releases more plates, and I'm hoping to catch up with the creator of Emily de Molly soon because I really want her gorgeous new plates too!  (And plus.. she's super cool to hang out with.)

If you could change one thing about the nail art scene what would it be? 

I actually love the nail art scene.  I've met so many fantastic people through it and made some wonderful friends.  I occasionally hear about dramas, but being in Australia, by the time I get up in the morning and get on to the internet, it's all over.  Which is how I like it.  LOL Seriously, the creativity and generosity of the nail art community really blows me away.  It inspires me to create more, think more, express more, push the boundaries more and collaborate more.   We live in a rural area, and by having such a great bunch of people to be involved with, even if only on the internet and occasionally in person, it hardly feels remote at all.   If I could change anything, I'd have us all live closer so I could check out everyone's manis in person!!  Maybe an international road trip is in order!!

Anything else you want to share with your fans?

That's the toughest question.  :)  Just my favourite quote, I think.. “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do that. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.”  - Howard Thurman.   So just be brave, whatever that may mean for you.  Oh.. and post your manis on my facebook page!  Your awesome manis inspire me.  :)

You can purchase Messy Mansion Nail Plates here

Add your lovely manis and keep updated on the latest previews on her Facebook here 

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So ladies what did you think?  Isn't she so damn cool and more importantly kind?  I have to say reading about her difficulties when she initially started stamping made me laugh out loud.  How many times have I heard someone say what the hell is this little sticky crap over the top of the plate (referring of course to the blue or clear film like it was back in the day).  I'm so glad she kept at it though because I am always so excited when she releases new plates!  Her shop reopens on the 25th of November so get your mouses ready and warm up those carts :)

I'm also looking forward to these coordinating stamping polishes and bases.  She is totally gonna rock our worlds! I hope you all enjoyed reading this interview and let me know what you think.  I have more plate makers upcoming,  but if there anyone YOU want to hear about in particular let me know!   Thanks so much for reading and I'll see you next post! 

Plates I Love!: Messy Mansion Nail Art Edition (Pic Heavy)

Happy Friday Stamp Tramps ;)

Welcome to my new feature called - Plates I Love!  I will be featuring brands of stamping plates that I have tested out myself and can attest to the quality of and know for a fact that the creators are well...creative.  These will be two part features - in the first segment I'll talk about the brand and show you some fabulous nail art creation and in the 2nd I'll be interviewing the creator (click here for the interview).  I think it'll be kinda awesome to get personal insight into the process of their designs.  So let's start the show!

The first brand I'm featuring is Messy Mansion an Australian based company created by the wonderful Julia McGowan who I discovered through my AIS group!  I will always have a weak and sentimental place for Australia, a country I lived in for half a year while studying abroad, so of course when I heard of these plates I had to snag them up! Julia is seriously seriously seriously talented and to date has some of the most innovative plates I have EVER seen.  This is saying something for a lady who owns, no joke, hundreds and hundreds of stamping plates from all over the world (my inventory is coming soon).  Today I used several of her plates to create a special manicure to go along with this feature and I'll be showing you some of her other plates later as well.

Mani-louge

Basecoat/Topcoat: OPI Natural Nail Base Coat/Poshe Fast Drying Topcoat

French tip bases: Orly Satin Hues Satin Joy and Satin Reflection

Overcoat: PolishedbyKPT Green Awakening

Accent: Liquid Sky Lacquer Solar Plum

Stamping polishes: Konad Special Polish in Black Gold

Stamping Plates: Messy Mansion MM20 and MM06

Blurred to capture holo and green flecks - the shade of it all!

Let's pause here for a moment so that I can show you some of the plates Julia created which started my fanatical obsession with her awesome products so below are a few of the plates Julia has created thus far...

The following are coming soon!

The 411:

Stalk Messy Mansion here 

Enrich your nail art soul and collection here or here

Plates are $7 AUD with $2.50 AUD shipping worldwide  
 

So now you know what's so hot about Mrs. McGowan aka Messy Mansion.  The images on her plates are massive as in they fit my wide and long nail beds like a dream and the engravings on these plates are genuinely some of the most fantastical and imaginative artistry I have seen come out of a stamping plate company.  In addition the quality and etching of the plates is flawless!  You will hear me utter not one word against this brand.  You will see me run falling screaming and tumbling to get my hands on a preorder for her plates, and try desperately to create nail art that is worthy of their beauty.  Yup full of hype today but every word I say is true and more!

 

Shade

A little about today's mani starting with Liquid Sky Lacquer Solar Plum because I don't want you to be an idiot like I was - it's a UV changing polish not a thermal which means unless you are sitting in a tanning bed or out in the direct sunlight this bad boy won't shift.  Don't be ridiculous like me and email the seller and then have her politely explain that a full spectrum lamp just won't cut the mustard.  Lol I love you Carolyn! I also used PolishedbyKPT to give the iridescent green effect you see over all of my nails except the accent and I really love how that turned out!

 Sun

So thoughts? I wonder if it was too much to show a mani and her plates together in one feature?  I could use so feedback so let me know what you think! Do you prefer to just see the plates and have me talk about the brand or to see nail art and then split from there with a separate post about the plates and the brand?

I realized after I did this mani that it has been entirely too long since I have done a bling mani! How is that even possible? I mean I used to live for the bling bling.  Lol well tis the season coming for all of that so hopefully I can get a bit in during these holiday months.  I totally adore this nail art.  It's completely over the top and impractical, but it's so shiny and pretty I can't stop staring.

Finally, I'm always for supporting creativity and ingenuity in the stamping and polish world.  I love all of my plates, but my indie ones have a special place in my heart for being unique and cool.   Thanks for reading and come back tomorrow for the interview with Julia.  I promise it will be worth your while and I'll see you next post! 

World of The Worlds feat MoYou London Artist Collection Nail Art

Hey lacquer ladies,

I'm really loving my new MoYou London plates!  They are even more beautiful and more versatile than I realized.  Today I have a mani I created for their Facebook contest.  It's all kinds of involved and took me an obscene amount of time to put together because I kept changing the base colors, but the final result was well worth the effort.  I should tell you though even as cool as this came out I didn't win any accolades or free plates.  Lol guess I'll have to keep trying!

Base coat/Topcoat: CND Stickey/Poshe Fast Drying Topcoat

Confetti Polish Wedding White L'Oreal Grecian Gray

Stamping polish: Essie No Place Like Chrome, Konad Special Polish in Black Gold and Red

Color Accents: Acrylic Pain in Yellow and Blue

Stamping Plate: MoYou London Artist Collection 06 
 

I can't tell you how much detailing I put in with acrylic paints.  This is advanced technique stamping because I first stamped then filled in my images as I desired and then restamped over those details.  I'm particularly proud of how well the center 2 nails came out.  Believe it or not they were the easiest ones to create the outer two designs nearly killed me.

I had a lot of difficulty creating the space ship.  I changed the base to co behind this polish about a trillion times.  In hindsight I feel as though I should have stamped it on a black base and made it silver after all.  I actually ended up layering with slight crossover silver and black stamps of the space ship in duplicate and then stamping down the lightning bolts.

 So I finally took one of the full plate designs out for a spin.  They are not technically difficult to use at all.  You need to be able to pull out the elements of the design in each segment you like and retranslate it onto your nail.  I'm working on a MoYou tutorial right now to show you ladies what I mean when I say that and also that there is nothing wrong with these plates.  For some reason or the other some ladies in my stamping groups and instagram are struggling.  Again I don't get a red penny from MoYou in fact they get all my red pennies, but these are some of the highest quality plates I own! Some of them do however require a little finesse and in all honesty I really believe these plates especially the full image plate ones would be more challenging to the new stamper i.e. someone who hasn't used a variety of plates across many brands using many different polishes. 

                                         

So thoughts?  This one was a doozy! I'm going to keep working with these plates with the aim of one day winning a design contest.  Honestly the winning design was spectacular! Really beautiful so that gives me something to look forward to.  In any case upward and onward to the next mani.  After the difficulty of this one I'm scaling down a bit for the next few posts just keeping it clean and simple.  Thanks so much for reading and I'll see you next post!

Hot Off The Stamping Press: New Tourist Plates from MoYou London

Hey lovely lacquer ladies,

I've got a quick post here with more stamping plates releasing from the MoYou London Tourist Collection!  Honestly this is probably the collection that I favor the least of all the plates.  I really love ones I have but there are several in the lasts few releases that are Back To The 20's, 30's and so on that I just didn't like.  The main reason being that they were sort of outfits you could stamp onto your nails in the XL size of plates and each of the outfit images on the XL plates are massive.  I have some fairly long and wide nail bases and I would be hard pressed to make these images fit.  They released around 5 or so plates of that variety that I passed on.  That's why I'm pretty pleasantly surprised to see these new tourist plates.




































 Instead of offering the mega-sized outfit images that will not fit a regular nail bed these two plates feature images that I'm more interested in with designs closer to those that drew me to the MoYou company in the first place.  These are based more around the recent Explorer Collection themed plates featuring imagery revolving around Australia and Spain.




I do think it's a bit odd though to have recently released the Explorer collection and then put similar imagery on the Tourist Collection.  However what's kind of cool about this set of plates is that there is really no geogrpahical area that can't be covered from such a broad vantage point.  Though I guess the same could be said for the Explorer Collection "shrugs".  In any event the images from either collection do not overlap at all despite the similar themes.


 


This plate for me is a little wack-a-doo.  Lol I'm not trying to be mean or funny, but look how insane the eyes on both of the faces are.  Lololol.  I do have to admit though that I love the matador, psalms, and floral motifs.   So what do you think? I'm  definitely not as impressed as I was by last week's release but I'm glad to see the potential of the Tourist Collection heading back into the direction I initially loved.   These plates will release on Friday as presale and ship out on the 1st week of December.  As usual they retail for 4.99 Euro and can be found at the link above.  Thanks so much for reading and see you next post!

Japanese Dragon Garden

Hey lacquer ladies,

I have another MoYou London nail art mani today!  I know my loyalalist follower has been asking for some (Moore :) so I'm trying to keep pumping them out.  I'm starting out a touch slow and will build up.  I definitely will have full-image plate image nail art coming along with a little trick that I do in my head, but makes more sense in literal translation if you can't picture designs in 3D to help you create them.  Today I'm using my pen-ultimate favorite collection of the bunch.  Yup you guessed it - the Suki Collection!

I still have so many Halloween polish untrieds to go through it's a bit pathetic, but because I do I'm gonna keep using them even if my theme isn't necessarily in the same vein.  Plus how gorgeous is Dollish Polish's Red Rum from her Halloween 2013 Collection?!?  Freaking too gorgeous is the answer! Also this polish was pretty much opaque in one thick coat.  I think you ladies know how I feel about one coaters (lusts fulfilled!).  I also chose to accent this mani with a rare Nubar jem in my collection.  Absolute is a scattered blue holo, also gorgeous, but it took 4 coats to build this puppy up.  I probably should have grabbed another one of my holo's but this one was the perfect contrast for the raspberry yumminess of Red Rum.

 

I chose MoYou London Suki plate 02.  I have been fantasizing about this plate since the day I got it.  It has everything that makes me think of old school Japan - pagodas, tigers, various blossoms, koi fish, samurai and more.  Daisuki! Translation:  I love it!  I could create a million different designs from this one plate.  Lol maybe I'll do a self challenge that way.  One plate 5 designs.  Yup it's on!  In any event I fell hardcore in love with the various dragons on this plate in particular the triple segmented one that allows you to pick up different parts of the sinuous body and stamp them ad lib.  

Up close and blurred a bit so you can really see the holo effect :)  If you look at my index finger you can see I connected two of the parts into one.  This isn't tough but it does require precision.  I also did some mirror stamping because some of the flowers weren't going in the direction I wanted so I had to reverse them.  I wonder if anyone even is interested in my tutorials anymore? Let me know if you are interested.

So thoughts?  I have to say I love this but I redid the accent nail an unseemly amount of times because it kept turning out completely different than what I wanted.  I also need a recommendation on an opaque DARK GREEN stamping polish that is NOT metallic.  I keep running into this issue and it's driving me bananas!  So there we have it.   Do you have any preferences for what you would like to see next?  Embarrassingly I own almost every single plate MoYou London has made though half are on their way to me but if you want to see something in particular do let me know!  Thanks for reading and I'll see you next post!

Hot Off The Stamping Press: MoYou London Explorer Collection

Hey hot stampin mama's,

I have some more nail art news from the creative labs of MoYou London.  They released yet another collection last Friday.  I'm a touch late the the stamping press is still steaming ;)  This collection is really one after my heart!  It was designed by two ladies in my AIS group Lisa and Mel and I have to say they did a bang up job.  As someone who enjoys a trip or two and values the richness of the world's cultures the Explorer Collection satisfies my inner anthropologist in the best ways!  




































These Egyptian themed plates are making me want to cry.  If they get some Babylonian and Sumerian stuff going I will just die.  Although the Mayan and Aboriginal themes are nothing to scoff at.  Yeah I wasn't kidding when I said this get's my anthropological juices going after all one of my college majors was Anthropology. Anything involving an ancient culture with ties to the development of a written language and I am there.  I love love love this collection!





 Ah the one is everything as well.  Ankh and felines there is so much mythical allusion here <3




For those who are wondering the MoYou plates are some of the best quality I've come across.  I got half of my order of plates this weekend including The Comic Book Collection and The Artist Collection and my jaw nearly dropped.  I have some cool nail art coming this week so stay tuned.

 Scarab beetles and the Sphinx dying seriously dying over here!

Ayer's Rock people this is Ayer's Rock and the Dreaming Circle! Love it!

So thoughts? What can't you live without? I can't live without any of them thus I will have them all!   According to the MoYou team this collection is going to have many more plates added to it in the near future.   As usual these plates retail for 4.99 Euros and they will be shipping out on the first weekend of December.  Also some great news for ladies with shorter nails and nail beds the XL plates which measure roughly 1.5 x 2 cm will now come in the smaller size of 1.2 x 1.5 cm.  I will of course be sticking to the XL though my nails will be shrinking in terms of length soon my nail beds are still massive.  In any event thanks for reading and happy stamping ladies!