Born Pretty Store Stamping Plate 05 Review and Nail Art

Press Sample

I hope you all had a wonderful, long weekend! I enjoyed Thanksgiving Dinner on three separate occasions this weekend, so I have much to be thankful for. Today, I am thankful for nail stamping! I have a fun and easy design using the Born Pretty Store Stamping Plate 05. I have been loving the fact that they are releasing new plates pretty regularly now. They are really affordable and come in a lot of different designs. This one in particular is called the Egypt Style plate and is only $1.99! Plus, you can get 10% off with my code: HANDX31.

Work Wear Wednesday: Halloween Edition

Hello! I hope you are having a fantastic week! It is once again Work Wear Wednesday! I feel like these weeks are going by so fast. This week I decided to do a Halloween version of Work Wear Wednesday. I wanted to incorporate Halloween colors without going overboard, so I created a two tone look that I feel is very work appropriate but with a little edge to it. I used A England Lady of the Lake and Sinful Colors Black on Black for this look.

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 4 Green

For the #31DC2014 daily nail challenge, Day 4's challenge is the color green! I love greens, especially deep forest greens. My all time favorite polish is St. George from A England, so today I paired it with another favorie Essie First Timer. I thought the contrast between the two would work really well. St. George is a holographic deep forest/emerald green and First Timer is a minty creme with no shimmer. I started with a base of First Timer and used the dry brush technique to brush St. George all along the outer perimeter of the nails inward. 

Swatch and Review of A England: Fonteyn

I have another amazing A England polish to share with you today! For those of you who haven't heard me rave about it yet, A England is an independent polish brand based in England which produces the most amazing holographic polish. I love it! I have several shades and this is the latest addition. My new polish is called Fonteyn, named after a British Prima Ballerina Margot Fonteyn is from the Ballerina Collection. Margot Fonteyn is pictured below:

From A England's website:

A soft silver holographic hue bearing a lavender tint, embodying all the grace and elegance of a Prima Ballerina.

When the polish first arrived, I wasn't sure I saw any lavender tint, but on the nail it is apparent and oh so gorgeous! I cannot get over the holographic shimmer in these polishes, simply stunning in person.

Nail Art: Chevrons and Clovers

 St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow!! I love St. Patti's Day, there is just something about corned beef, cabbage and potatoes that is so comforting. Being Irish helps too! I created this look with OPI Love.Angel.Music.Baby and my favorite polish ever: A England's St. George. I was inspired by @nailsofjessiek's (Instagram) chevron designs! I never thought to do sideways chevrons until I saw her amazing designs!

Swatch and Review of A England: Ascalon

Today, I have another addition to my collection of A England!! Ascalon is a beautiful duochrome polish. At a cursory glance, it is a grey hued color with holographic glitter, but I see gorgeous hints of purple and green. From A England's website they describe it as follows: 'Forged by magic and guided by our hero's sainted hand, the steely grey of his spire is alive with a swirling heart of lavender fire.'. Isn't that an awesome description? I can definitely see it in this polish in real life, but it is difficult to capture in a photo.

Nail Art: Christmas Glitter

Christmas is less than a week away! That thought stresses me out more than excites me. Once you become an adult, Christmas becomes stressful. Trying to figure out who's relatives' house you are going and how many gatherings you are going to attempt to make it to are what most of my stress is over. We decided to do secret Santas on both sides of the family this year, which makes it significantly easier to shop for gifts. I am excited for Christmas, but I need to make sure I have everything finished! Since I like to distract myself from stress by doing my nails, I am here today with more Christmas nails! My friend Abby agreed to do #bestietwinnails with me. Check out that hash tag on instagram! It is so fun! All it is is creating matching manis with a friend. I thought it was a great idea!

 

Polishes we used were:
Red- OPI: Quarter of a Cent-Cherry
Gold Glitter- butter LONDON: Tart With A Heart
Green- A England: St George
Glitter- OPI: Pirouette My Whistle

The A England we used for the tree is my favorite polish in my whole collection. That is saying something! I just love the holographic, rich foresty green. It is so rich and perfect. A England is just my favorite brand. Anyway, we started with red on our pointer and pinky fingers and gold on all others. It took about three layers to get full coverage on the gold. Then we added the tree, framing it with painters tape and creating the lines across with striping tape. Abby picked up some rhinestones from Sally's Beauty Supply, which were perfect for a tree topper! Then we used striping tape on the thumb and added a layer of red. Lastly, we added a glitter gradient to the red nails. It is a bit more design than I am used to, but I love it! It was really creative and was definitely a collaboration between the two of us! I love how glittery this is, but at the same time it doesn't look too crazy or out there. I hope you enjoy this as well!

Nail Art: A Random Sampling

 Hello all! I have a somewhat unusual post for you today. I have a few nail art designs I never shared with you on my blog, but I didn't think these deserved a post on their own, so I decided to lump three nail art designs into one post! If you haven't figured it out yet, I like to play with nail designs a lot. Often I feel like the design doesn't live up to my expectations so I'll leave it on for maybe a day an take if off. The next few designs were of that variety of nail art. The first was for #nailartsep on Instagram (@HandtasticIntentions) and the theme was football. My husband is a Niners fan and I automatically thought I could represent his team on my nails for a little while at least. I'm not a huge fan of football, but why not make my husband happy and do a little nail art in the process?

The next design was one of which I wished I had taken more pictures! I wanted to try a natural colored leopard print nail and I actually think it turned out pretty well. I used some simple dotting tools to achieve this look. Nude: Ruffian, Naked, Brown: OPI, Wooden Shoe Like to Know, Black: Ruffian, Ciré Noir, Top Coat: NYC, Matte Top Coat. Ruffian nail lacquer can be found at Birchbox which is exclusive to the site. I bought the classics set which came with a nude, black and red. Once I finished my design, I felt like I had to have a matte finish, and I really enjoyed the final look. Makes me wish I had a better matte top coat!

This last design is one I had originally planned on writing it's own post about, but I didn't really like this one as much as I thought I would. It was inspired by one of Miss Jen Fabulous' designs seen on her YouTube channel. Pretty easy to do if you have dotting tools and an interesting look. I might try this again with different and more contrasting colors. I used A England Tristam for the dark blue and OPI Thanks a Windmillion for the lighter blue.

This was a pretty random assortment of designs, but I hope you like them! Let me know if you want a tutorial on any of these!

Swatch and Review of A England: Tristam

I think you could tell by this post, that I instantly fell in love with the brand A England. I had my eyes on the beautiful emerald green called St. George for quite some time. When it arrived, it didn't disappoint one bit. I knew then and there, I had to get more A England. Tristam comes from The Mythicals collection. I don't know the story of Tristam, but A England's website has this description:

Tristam- the courteous knight 

The symbol of the knightly virtue, and romantic love. When Tristam and Iseult accidentally consume a love potion, fall helplessly in love. Despite facing numerous trials to test their secret affair their love was never known to fade.

I love how every name of polish from A England comes from something in English folklore or history. Tristam is a gorgeous deep blue with the same holographic effect as St. George. I love blue polish, so this was necessary. 

 

 

This is such a rich color full of depth. The formula was fantastic. It applies like butter and coats really well. I could have gotten away with only one coat, but I did two for good measure. I love the way this polish applies. It makes me happy. It is so gorgeous and shiny on its own, it looks like it already has a top coat! I again purchased it from Llarowe. I really love that site for buying polish. They have great service and good prices on shipping. I have my eyes on Lady of the Lake next!

Swatch and Review of A England: St. George

So sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've certainly missed it! I have another longer comparison post in the works right now, so that is what I've been up to. Right now, I have something I am very excited about. This has got to be my favorite nail polish of all time! That is saying something. I don't know if I could actually pick an all time favorite, but this is currently at the top of the list. A England is a brand I have never seen in stores, it is a smaller England based company. I'm not sure on all the details about the company, but I do know that I am already head over heels in love with the brand. The first swatches I saw online were of St. George. I have never seen anything quite like it. Of course, there are many similar colors, but none quite as amazing and stunning. St. George is an emerald green polish with tons of tiny holographic glitters. The glitter is very fine, so it isn't like a typical glitter, it reminds me more of a foil. Without further adieu:

 

Macro bottle shot

 

 

Direct sunlight

I only wish I could do this polish justice in these photos. I love it so much I can't bear to take it off! I have wanted St George for so long, I am so thrilled that I have it now. It took me a bit of searching to track this amazing polish. Since it isn't sold in stores I searched on their website for US distributors. Yes, I was that intent on finding it.  I bought mine from Llarowe, which offers a great deal on shipping. The polish was $10 and shipping was $2.07, not a bad deal. Usually shipping makes buying nail polish cost prohibitive. Llarowe is a great site to find indie brands, and if A England is considered and indie brand, this is my first indie polish! 

Once I got this polish in my hands, I knew I was going to love it. All photos above are one coat! I have no idea how they got all that beautiful, rich color and holo in there with one coat. It is amazing. The formula was flawless, I have absolutely no complaints about this polish. It really is stunning. I need more A England in my life, that is for sure. Check out the brand and you'll be hooked too. The only miniscule downfall to this polish is that it comes in a smaller quantity of .39 fl oz, but when you only have to use one coat, it makes up the difference. I can't say I love this enough. Love. Seriously, buy it. Thanks for reading!