Release the Hounds: Pueen 2014 Stamping Buffet Plates Are Live On Amazon!

Hi ladies,

Quick post just to let you know the plates are now live on Amazon.  I also found out for my Canadian readers that Nail Polish Canada will be stocking these as well so sign up for updates.  If you want to get the plates on Amazon act quickly because they have already sold out once today and then they put up 8 more!  It's my understanding they have sold out on the Big Cartel Pueen site so this is likely the only source until they restock.

Happy hunting darlings, nd see you next post!

Release the Hounds: Pueen 2014 Stamping Buffet Plates Are Live!!!

Hey Stamp-a-rellas,

Quicky little post to let you know those Pueen 2014 plates that I have raved and raved incessantly about here and here are now live on the Pueen BigCartel site!

 They are retailing for $20.99 USD + shipping ($4.99) for per set.  As an FYI they still aren't up on Amazon yet and since I have Prime I will be waiting for them to go live there first before purchasing, but I know several of you were waiting with bated breath (lol me included).  I honestly don't know how long I will be able to hold out if I can't get them today on Amazon.  However I am also purchasing an additional set for an friend so I think it will be better to wait and use prime as the mode of shipping.  So sad, but sometimes I'm practical...um yeah practical...sigh. In any event arm your mouses, fill your carts, and happy stamping ladies :)

Chocolate Vanity Poupee (Barbie) Nail Art Stamping Plate Review

Stamp-a-rellas,

I have another brand of nail art plates to show you today!  It's an indie brand called Chocolate Vanity located in the United Arab Emirates, and run by the very sweet Ruth.  I actually ordered a plate from this company a year or so ago, but because of issues with the etchings on the plates being very shallow and problems with the sizing of the images I never posted any designs.   Chocolate Vanity closed down shop for a little while to re-vamp their brand and now have released several new plates including the Poupee (Barbie Universe as I call it) plate, a Harry Potter plate, and a cartoon themed plate.  Because of the issues with the quality of the previous plates  I felt very strongly about quality testing this brand.  As my fellow stamperistas know I take my stamping plates very seriously and will never recommend a brand that I don't stand behind so let's get on to the review!

 

The Poupee Plate

Dimensions

This plate as a whole measures  21 x  15 cm, is lined by a high gloss plastic finish black backing featuring the Vanity Nails branding, and contains 6 full sized nail images and a whopping 90 other smaller Barbie related images!  I have a breakdown of the measurement of the full sized images below as well as comparisons of some of my other favorite brands.

Image Size Comparisons

Poupee - 2 x 1.6 cm
MoYou London Plate Pro 08 (non-XL) - 1.5 x 1.3 cm
MoYou London Plates  Explorer 10 (XL) - 2.2 x 1.6 cm
Bunny Nails HD B - 2.5 x 2 cm
MJ Plate VIII - 2.2 x 1.7cm
Fab Ur Nails Fun 2 - 2.2 x 1.7 cm
Vivid Lacquer 007 - 2.0 x 2.0 cm
Cheeky Jumbo 2013 - 2.0 x 1.5 cm
Bundle Monster CYO - 1.7 x 1.9 cm

The Etchings/Images 

I had my doubts and concerns, but the quality of the etchings on these plates is excellent!  I had very few images that had problems picking up with my Wet N Wild Black Creme and if I did I quickly wiped down the image with acetone and tried with Konad Special Polish (you can see those images denoted with a K next to them).  The only image I truly had an some difficulty with is the Girls Just Want To Have Fun image, and then it was only because the font chosen is so tightly packed together that it's a bit hard to read, but it stamped out like a dream with Konad.   Take a look at my swatches below (you can double click for a closeup). 

Note:  I chose to stamp every single image with my XL stickey black stamper.  It is my penultimate holy grail stamper along with my one from Magno Nails that was damaged.

Overall Impression

Chocolate Vanity has made an epic comeback!  The quality, originality, and sheer number and variety of images on this singular plate are all well excuted.  The first time I saw CV plates I got unbelievably frienzied. I know my regular readers already know what I mean.  I get this fever of stamping lust deep in my soul.  I have the same problem with red, nude, and brown holographic polishes!  I was so bummed when things didn't work out, but more than willing to give the brand a second chance and Ruth has risen exceptionally well to the challenge.  The images on CV plates are very original as is the case with most indie brands that I feature.   I can tell you now I don't own one plate that comes close to the Poupee one.  It's adorable, sweet, and girly to the max.  I want to show you one more plate that made me spaz and when you see it I know you will spaz too!

So thoughts?  You can find the Chocolate Vanity plates here on Etsy or you can message Ruth on Facebook.  This plate and others at Chocolate Vanity retail for $20USD the shipping to the USA is $25 via DHL, but if you are interested in purchasing the plates shipping will be free until the 31st of January if you buy at least 3 plates.  This could work out well if you have a friend or someone else that is interested in buying a plate or two to decrease costs.  Anyhoo I hope you enjoyed the review, and stay tuned for some Barbie related nail art coming up.  Thanks for reading and see you next post! 

This product was sent to me for honest review.  All opinions stated here are mine alone.  For more infomation please see my disclosure policy.

Updates: Pueen 2014 Stamping Buffet Nail Art Stamping Plates!

Hello stamperellas,


I have more updates for you regarding the new Pueen 2014 Stamping Buffet Collection!  If you don't know what I'm talking about go back and read my post showing the full collection and close ups of 3 individual plates here.  I forgot to mention this before in the original post, but if you wanted to know why Pueen named this collection Stamping Buffet it's because according to them you can stamp wherever you like on the plates without limitations to your imagination.  In other words this collection is like an All You Can Stamp buffet ;)  Cute eh?  Now, squee, I have another plate to show you up close! Presenting Pueen 51....



Every time I see another one of these plates close up I just want to scream!  Look at how ridiculously pretty this plate is.  I think this is going to be one of the more amazing collections of stamping plates that rolls of out in 2014 and it's still only January!  And more great news...the plates should be making their way to the US by next week!  Ah darn it! I wish Pueen would just let us pre-order them now so the minute they arrive they can start shipping them out post haste ya know?  Also some genius over a Pueen realized those horrible metal and plastic scrapers are so not the way to go when you want to preserve the quality of your plates and released these little pretties....

Yup plastic scraping cards! Kudos Pueen!  I'll be picking up some of these for sure when I order my plates however I will say they aren't the first company that mass releases sets of plates to do this.  I think Cheeky Beauty might have been first.  I use that card all the time along with one I got from Apipila Cosmetics to scrape my plates but these are so pretty I can't wait to try them!  So there you have it our fantasies will be shortly flocking to us by plane or boat or whatever.  I just absolutely cannot freaking wait (squee squee squee)!

Essie Sand Tropez: Nude Nails 5 Ways or Nude Skittles feat Vivid Lacquer Plates

Hey polished prisoners,

It's that time again when I start falling back in love with nude polish!  I never really fell out of love with nude polish.  I own so many it's a mess, but this is also true of my love of nude lipsticks.  Nudes are versatile and when they are well done they can be subtle or in your face.  They are my go to color range for interviews or hiding my love of nails in plain sight.  I'm just gaga over nudes.  If you are a long time follower of my blog you'll know Essie Sand Tropez is my go to creme nude.   I'm using it today  create a little nude mani after being inspired by a post I saw on instagram.

Mani-louge

Basecoat/Top Coat:  CND Stickey & Sally Hanson Diamond Flash

Basecolor:  Essie Sand Tropez & Black Liquorice

Stamping Polish: Konad Special Polish in Black

Stamping Plates: Vivid Lacquer VL005, VL009, & VL0010

Accents:  Pueen Gold Round Studs & LA Splash Striper in Gold Glitter, Gold Flakies

I don't really have a hell of a lot to say about the results here other than why didn't I do this sooner?  No matter which design I picked from the whole to propagate over an entire mani it would work and look pretty.  I freehanded the cheetah print nail which is probably the one nail I'm a bit unsatisfied with.  For my index finger I chose to place random pieces of gold flakies I have lying around over Sand Tropez and then stamped over the finished product.  This nail is one of my favorites.  The graphic triangle is the result of a scotch tape mani.  Somehow there is a a lot of technique happening, but the results work well together because of the joined color scheme.  Pulling out the images across my Vivid Lacquer plates was easy.  Once again these plates are so awesome!  And again Anni's plates make me happy to be a stamper!

What do you think? I'll bet you never thought black and nude could be so bold!  I am so happy with how this came out I can't stop smiling.  I think this is totally inappropriate for a sedate day at work in a conservative office, but come on this is Lacquer Lockdown and I don't generally do mani's like that though if there is an interest I certainly could.  Do let me know if so.  Otherwise thanks for dropping by to read and I'll see you next post!

Hot Off The Stamping Press: Pueen Cosmetics 2014 Stamping Buffet Nail Art Plates!

Stamping fans,

I could not hold my desire to share these plates with you for one more freaking second!  Mainly because I just saw the whole set preview and thought I cannot tell anyone IRL about how excited I am about these plates and have them get it as much as I my readers.  Pueen is going to be releasing this new infinity-eque plate series soon.  I want you to realize MoYou London has forever changed the game when it comes to stamping nail art.  As far as I know they are the first company to try the concept of full nail plate images, weaving an entire theme around one singular plate to create a cohesive collection.  Other companies have quickly hopped on the bandwagon including Dashica, MyOnline Shop and now Pueen.

So why am I so excited?  First, the quality of Pueen plates are second to none! I am thrilled with the 2 collections I have thus far.  Second OMG OMG its a full freaking collection of plates and what's more they will likely be much more reasonably priced than the individual plates we have seen to date.  Hey y'all know I own a huge amount of these plates but nothing and I mean nothing beats a bargain!  I want to throw myself around the room screaming in glee!  But ok ok let me just show you the plates first.

I also have a close up from the Pueen Cosmetics Facebook of two of the plates thus far! 

The above one is a little less my cup of tea but I like that this could be come a very graphic style mani with the right type of stamping!

Look at plate 70 it's just freaking incredible, and the one below is also utterly perfect for Valentines Day!

 Photo credit for all phots:  Pueen Cosmetics

 I've realized it I'm an addict.  I can't stop stalking these stamping companies, getting excited all by myself, and then unleashing it out into the nail art universe.  Lawd save me from myself!  So I have no idea when these plates are releasing but it must be soon because the entire collection picture is from Amazon, but no plates are available to purchase.  These will likely retail somewhere between $16-25 USD based on historical prices.  I of course will put up a post the minute they release or update this one, but feel free to stalk along with me on Facebook.  Happy hunting stamperistas ;)  Thanks for reading and see you next post!

Hot Off The Stamping Press: MoYou London Sci Fi Collection + Stamping Jewelery

Hey lacquer ladies,

So many plates rolling off the presses these days! I haven't actually posted anything regarding MoYou London for a bit and that is for several reasons.  One, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do a singular post on stamping jewelery released last week since I have mixed feelings about it which I'll discuss later, and two I had been reading about several issues with the last collection released, the Scholar Collection, having more errors and mistakes in them. The one thing I know about MoYou from personal experience is regardless of mistakes made they have always demonstrated excellent customer service with me.  I understand a lot of ladies are frustrated, but it's a small company and there are a lot more of us nail art enthusiasts out there than there used to be.  Again I wasn't too sure myself about the Scholar Collection, but I think in time the errors will be corrected and the collection as a whole will rise to a greater potential than it has initially.  Now that said let's talk about the Sci Fi Collection.

This is Lilu.  If you know your sci-fi genre well, which I do as a raging die hard sci-fi geek, you would know this name bespeaks deeply of the insanely awesome and ridiculously epic late 90's film called The 5th Element, starring Bruce Willis and the ridiculously beautiful model turned actress Milla Jovovich (lady crush extraordinaire).  Milla moved on to star in the ragingly popular and hugely successful sci-fi/horror gaming powerhouse cum film series Resident Evil. There she kicks all the ass, but more importantly the 5th Element set her career up to become as successful as it is today and the film itself has become iconic.  Ahem so with all that ramble you can understand how I've already revved myself up to expect quite a lot, unfairly due to my obsessive tendencies, from this Sci Fi collection with a character named similarly to a singularly iconic and utterly bad ass heroine.

Ok so...this is so not what I was expecting.  Please don't get me wrong these characters are the very definition of kawaii (cute helplessly cute), but lack a bit of the wam pow factor that I was looking for/somewhat expecting since MoYou plates in general always tend to wow me.

Once again, as with the Scholar Collection, I find myself asking why so cartoony?  The comment bubbles which to me could fit so easily into the Rebel Collection, which is rife with such images, and the figures themselves which could slide pretty easily into the Princess or Suki Collection threw me for a bit of a loop.  For a lady who is a regular watcher of X-files, Star Trek Next Generation, and Battlestar Galactica to name a few I wanted a bit more epic and less cartoon.  That said this plate and plate 3 below are by far the most adorable and useable IMO for nail art.  I find the robots here highly endearing in their own way and I'm a little reminded of the Disney/Pixar character Wallie.

Of all the plates I like the 3rd one best!  It's the most realistic looking and a bit closer to my idea of successful integration of intergalactic themes.  It's still very cartoony but moving more toward a Futurama type of appeal which ahem as you can tell from this geeked out post I also find very entertaining.  I guess ultimately I will be waiting for MoYou to release some more plates in this collection to really beef up the impact.  I'm interested to see what they come up with for full plated images.  Ironically, I find the intergalactic plate with the War of the Worlds feel from the Artist Collection closer to my idea of what the sci-fi plates should "feel like".  Here's hoping for Wokkie's and R2-D2's in the future.  For now these plates released today on the MoYou site.  Plates retail for 4.99 Euros.  Now onto the stamping jewelery...

























  


So above and below are some of the various jewelery designs that the MoYou team created using their new jewelery, nail polish, and stamping plates.  They are all brass pieces of jewelery of varying sizes and shapes that are painted over with nail polish and then stamped, filled in as you desire and then covered in topcoat to help the design last.  I have no idea if they are reusable because I'm unaware of how the brass would react to nail polish remover.  


 


I pride myself on being honest and honestly I don't like these overly much.  I'm a fan of jewelry that completes a look and balances out whatever outfit I'm wearing.  I love pearls and vintage pieces as much as I love feathers and fangs (yes I own earrings that have a multitude of both) and these just don't appeal to me for whatever reason.  I think the idea could also be a bit more smoothly executed than some of the items above.  The pink and lightening bolts in particular urk me looking somewhat incomplete all along the edges.  The top 2 and the lower 2 are by far the most successful and somehow I can envision crafting a gorgeous pendant if I could play around with the materials a bit.  These pieces retail from 3.49 to 5.99 Euros and the earring hooks are 0.99 Euros a piece.    I'm honestly interested to see what my readers think regarding both collections.  Thanks for reading and see you next post!

Hot Off The Stamping Press: LojaBBF Nail Art Stamping Plates!

Be still my heart lacquer ladies,

As I have said many many times this is such an exciting time to be a nail art enthusiast! Once again I've discovered a brand that has made me gasp, pant, and immediately defy every bit of common sense to get my hands on.  Lol.  I stalked this brand and the maker Cris until some of her beautiful polishes and absolutely every single plate she created were within the reach of my greedy and grasping paws!  Yup no shame at all in my stamping game I just had to have them. So enough with the gush let me tell you what I have been fantasizing about for the last 2 weeks.

LojaBBF is a Brazilian indie polish and plate maker run by the insanely sweet and accommodating Cris.  She can probably personally tell you the level of crazy I reached trying to attain her wares but she was calm as a cucumber the whole way through.  She has released 19 plates thus far and each one followed by the other left me more in awe of her creativity.  It's been a long time since I have been this impressed!  The last 5 plates in particular, which released this week, made me want to leap for joy and host a crazed tea party!  But by all means please be the judge of these precious beauties for yourself.

These plates just keep getting better and better right?  The detailing is exquisite and let me tell you you haven't even began to see how much more complicated and delightful these plates become.  Keep scrolling!

I don't know if I ever mentioned this, but Alice in Wonderland is one of my favorite Disney movies of all time!  When she's in the forest singing Good Advice, which is a top rated on my playlist, my heart breaks.  She and I have an unfortunate degree of a lot in common.

 
These plates are what I call absolute nirvana for a stamper!  Did you see the Katniss braid, falling Alice, the Cheshire cat, the utterly detailed an gorgeous abstracts along with the unbelievable themes?  My goodness these plates are everything!  I will also say that Madonna image is the best one I have seen to date.  I have plans for that one!

 

So what do you think?  Really an impressive new brand on the indie scene!  Do you feel your wallet burning and of course your obsession growing?  Unbelievable right?  These plates retail for roughly $7 USD per plate and shipping is around $10 USD to the US.  If you aren't a native Brazilian you can email Cris at lojabbf@gmail.com to place your order or contact her on Facebook for a chat.  To my Aussie ladies a little birdie told me that Messy Mansion will also be stocking these plates soon ;)  Now I have to do my best patient dance until these arrive and I can give you guys a little review as well as play play play!  I feel so impatient already jeez.  Anyway thanks for reading and I'll see you next post!

Cici & Sisi Jumbo Sets 1 and 2 Nail Art Stamping Plates Review

Hiya stampaholics,

Uniting under the sun of mutual stamping obsession is fun isn't it?  Today I'm reviewing the new Cici & Sisi Jumbo plates I ordered from Amazon.   For those of you who didn't see the first post on the Cici & Sisi plates you can find my original post here.  This post is fairly pic heavy so I'm just going to dive right in with that caveat that if you are interested in a particular element such as size comparisons of images from different places or the stamper itself or tips and tricks for using these sets you can scroll through first.

 Cover inside the faux leather binders before you get to the plates.

Each set contains 6 individual plates with roughly 24 full sized images and 12 smaller sized images.   The plates themselves measure 14.5 x 9.5 cm,  I went ahead like the obsessive compulsive woman I am and did a close up of all the plates for you to see.  I liked the results so much this is how I'm doing my reviews of plates from now on. 

Set 1

The back of each plate has a stiff plastic board attached (think MoYou London style).  Both Set 1 (white) and Set 2 (pink) have the website embossed on the backs for ease of recognition though on further inspection I have found no such website exists.

 Set 2

Note that as the sets progressed they continued the numbers in a linear fashion instead of restarting the count which I like.

The Stamper

As I said before each set as a whole comes with a small squishy grey stamper and a metal scraper.  Do yourself a favor and throw the scraper away it will just scratch up your plates and ruin your good time.  I saw some other ladies had some mixed reviews about the stampers that came with their sets.  The stampers are roughly 2.4 x 2.6 cm.  They are squishy consistency with a slight firmness.  These are NOT the sticky type of stamper (unless you file it) but do mold relatively well to rounded nail beds.  Furthermore because they are gray you can see any white images you choose to stamp very clearly.

My stamper did not come as some did in an extra oily configuration.  It came slightly squishy with little to no sticky component.  Things that bug me about stampers tend to be a lack of flexibility and durability which is not a deficit for the stampers I received in my opinion.  However I put some tips and tricks below to prep your stamper if you run into these issues.  I ended up filing my stamper which resulted in better image pick-up and an increased sticky component to the pad. In short the stamper is a marshmallow in hiding.

Tips/Troubleshooting

• Oily Stamper:  Wipe the stamper head over a few times with pure acetone on a cotton ball to remove as much of this component as possible.  Let dry completely and then repeat until the oily residue is gone.
• Stamper Wont Pick Up:  Take a nail file/emory board in soft grit.  I use the Harmon Face Values ones from Bed Bath and Beyond.  Starting with the softest grit side gently rub the surface of your stamper head holding the stamper still and letting the nail file slide back and forth (2-3x's back and forth so essentially 6 motions total).  Head still not sticky?  Flip the nail file over to the higher grit side and repeat the same action.  This should whip your stamper right into shape.

The Images 

Size Comparisons

The images are varied as you can see, and the full size nail images are around  2 x 1.5 cm.  To give you idea of size here are the measurements of some of my more reached for plates below.  Thinking on this I think I'll measure out all of my sets at some point and create a page to which you can easily refer but for now see below.

MoYou London Plate Pro 08 (non-XL) - 1.5 x 1.3 cm
MoYou London Plates  Explorer 10 (XL) - 2.2 x 1.6 cm
Bunny Nails HD B - 2.5 x 2 cm
MJ Plate VIII - 2.2 x 1.7cm
Fab Ur Nails Fun 2 - 2.2 x 1.7 cm
Vivid Lacquer 007 - 2.0 x 2.0 cm
Cheeky Jumbo 2013 - 2.0 x 1.5 cm
Bundle Monster CYO - 1.7 x 1.9 cm

As you can see these are on the more substantial sized end of things measuring exactly the same size as the Cheeky Jumbo plates.  So in the spirit of reviewing I went ahead and stamped out every single image on all of my plates and once again enlarged them for your viewing pleasure.  Phew - werk! I had no major problems with my plates, and even if I did that's why I live for Amazon because the minute something goes wrong with my plates I can ask for a replacement of that plate or the set and wahla it's done.  That's also why honestly I don't like ordering directly from sites for my plates unless it's Bundle Monster because their customer service is beyond reproach! Now you may notice a few of my plates have repeat stamps at the bottom where I couldn't get the image to pick up especially the first plate.  That's when I decided to file the stamper, but I have some more tips and tricks for you.

Tips and Tricks

• Image Won't Pick Up: Clean off your plates with nail polish remover and then file the stamper as instructed above.  Still not working? Then try switching your stamping polish.  I used Wet N Wild Black Creme for this entire review unless I definitely could not get an image to pick up then I switched to my gold standard Konad Special Polish in Black Pearl.  DO NOT FORGET TO CLEAN THE IMAGE WITH NAIL POLISH REMOVER WHEN SWITCHING STAMPING POLISHES ON A FINICKY IMAGE!
• Image Still Wont Pick Up:  Change the stamper and keep your gold standard stamping polish i.e. on one of the images I filed the stamper and stamped with WnW and got no pickup.  I switched to Konad SP and still got no pick up.  I finally switched to my XL stamper that is sticky kept the Konad and got excellent pick up.
• The Corner Images Won't Stamp:  This is all about technique and knowing how to manipulate the plate to your comfort.  Flip the plate over so the corner image is closest to your scraping hand and angled in the direction to which you want to scrape.  Do not over scrape the image.  Attempt one clean scraping 2 max to get a clear image and pick it up with your stamper.  Trust me this will work..
• My images are smeared:  Probably because you didn't do a clean scraping.  Try going over the image again to clear out excessive polish and use less polish over the image in order to prevent flooding the area.
• I have tried all of your tips and my images still won't pick up:  You are SOL...lol just kidding!   Contact Amazon and have them replace your plates.  Honestly I work very hard to make sure it is not my technique that causes an image to misstamp or not pick up.  That's why I also test everything on paper first.  If you are doing all of these things changing your stamper etc and it still isn't working you need to draw a line in the sand.  Again Amazon has great customer service so it shouldn't be that difficult to work out.

So thoughts?  I was fatigued in all honesty after swatching out everything and editing so I didn't do any nail art related to these plates yet, but after my results I'm fairly impressed.  These plates are very reasonably price of $29 per set which is roughly $5 per plate and with super saver shipping anything over $25 ships free so it's a win win.  Well at least my wallet says it's a win of sorts lol.  You can find the Cici & Sisi plates here.  Happy stamping and thanks for reading!  I'll see you next post...