"Antique Bronze Relic" Manicure

I was looking at one of the prints on an XL stamping plate and saw one design that I thought looked really interesting. It's a geometric pattern that looked kinda organic (peacock) and kinda tribal/sci-fi in a rather 5th Element or WoW Iron Dwarf relic kinda way. Nerd, I know.

I used:

• A beautiful duochrome polish olive-green from China Glaze that's a dupe for Chanel Peridot, called Rare & Radiant.
• A white Essie polish as stamping color. I didn't use a Konad stamping polish as it was too stark and opaque a white and I wanted something softer.
• An XL stamping plate in design "B" that you can get from cheeky-beauty.com
• Konad stamper and scraper
• Turquoise/Teal hexagon glitter
• Repositionable glue (if you have foil glue that works; anything that dries clear and tacky)

Tutorial below!

The “Yellow Polka-Dotted": Lemon Fizz Nails with Acrylic Bow and Pink Glitter Spots

Yellow polka-dotted nails with acrylic bow on accent finger and sequin heart on thumb.

Items used from left: China Glaze Lemon Fizz, Konad pink special polish, yellow acrylic bow with pink dots, and pink translucent glitter. QA30 stamping plate from eBay.

I was inspired by a pretty yellow acrylic bow and decided to do matchy-matchy nails to go with the theme. 

Apply pale lemon-yellow polish until opaque, and let dry.

Use nail glue (or indeed, super glue) to apply the yellow bow to the ring finger. Remember not to use too much. This type of glue is stronger with just a thin layer. 

Make sure your repositionable glue dries a bit before you start dotting on the glitter with a toothpick or dotting tool, or they won't stick. Simply dip the tip of your dotting tool in a tiny bit of glue and let dry so the surface is tacky and it can pick up glitter easily.
 Repositionable glue is available from arts n crafts stores (scraperfect.com has a really good one called Best Glue Ever if you prefer to shop online; they ship internationally). They're really the perfect thing for applying small pieces of nail art and glitter to your nails. 
For pink glitter, you can simply use any translucent duochrome pink glitter like the one I have above. It shouldn’t be too small in size or the dots won't be visible.

I used a random plate that was provided free when I bought a bunch of polishes from a seller in China. I'm not sure how you can get the exact same one but I 

Remember to let the glue dry before applying glitter!

I used Seche Vite topcoat.

Feel free to change the color scheme around and use different combinations! (Red and white, pink and black, blue and aqua, etc.)

[Nails] Psychedelic Swirls: Adventures with XL Nail Stamping Plate B

If you're an expert, you probably already know everything I'm about to say.
But if you like doing your nails but haven't heard of "Konad" or "nail stamping", it's one of the easiest ways to "cheat" and create intricate designs on your nails without visiting a salon.

People who get into stamping get quite fanatic about it, because it's such an economical way to jazz up your nail look. Plates and stampers can be re-used for years, and there are so many different looks and effects you can get into. It's also not hard as long as you use the right polish and good quality plates.

Stamping Tools:

To get started, you need a

• metal stamping plate with some designs on it
• a flat scraper (some people use old gift cards or credit cards)
• a rubberized stamping tool
• stamping polish (or any existing polish that is very thick, very pigmented)

Konad is one of the best-known brands that supply metal stamping plates and all the peripheral accessories like rubber stampers and metal scrapers (you can find them on naildelights.com). They also supply stamping polishes. Now Konad stamps and polishes aren't cheap, and there are so many different designs that you often find yourself in a "gotta collect 'em all" situation.


In recent years, many manufacturers have come up with alternatives to Konad, most of which are much more affordable. "XL" stamping plates like these below can have up to 40+ designs on them and cost as low as about US$7 each on Amazon and eBay, if you buy 3 of them.

Not all work extremely well, but most are ok, and a lot depends on the stamping polish you use.