July 2017 Favourites

This month has definitely flown by but that is kinda a good thing.  It means that we have only one month left of Winter then it's Spring!  Hopefully this year we will actually get some good Spring weather rather than an extended Winter.  I'm definitely over this cold weather.  Anyway, as it is the last day of July it is time for another monthly favourites post.  I have gone back to daily blogging this month, which means that I have a lot of favourites this month.  I'll try and keep the chatting to a minimum for you guys.

Nail Art

I thought I didn't do much nail art this month but apparently I did quite a bit.  In true Tracy style this month my favourites consist of pastel and neon manis.  In particular, this month I have been loving doing these multicoloured sponged backgrounds.  If you missed the tutorial on how I do these you can find that here.  It's super easy and you can use so many different color combinations to achieve different looks.
 

Stamping Plates

I have been making some good progress on swatching some of  my stamping plates.  I still have quite a few to get through but hopefully next month I can get through more of them.
 

Lina Nail Art Supplies 4 Seasons - Spring 01

It's probably no surprise that the Spring plate has ended up in my favourites as Spring is my favourite time of year.  Plus I do love floral manis and butterfly manis.  You can see my original post here.
 

Image from Lina Nail Art Supplies

Uberchic Beauty Collection 19

Another great collection from Uberchic.  I think there are some really cool images among these plates, particularly 19-02 and 19-03.  You can see how I used this plate plus pictures of the individual plates in this post.
 

Image from Uberchic Beauty

Stamping Polishes

At Aussie Indie Con I picked up a few new stamping polishes from Hit The Bottle.  I still haven't had a chance to try out the holographic stamping polishes yet but I did swatch the others I picked up plus a couple that I was sent from Hit The Bottle.  They all stamp perfectly.  I am so impressed with the quality and colour range that Hit The Bottle have.  If you are a stamper (or new to stamping) then I definitely recommend checking out Hit The Bottle.

Polishes shown are A Flock Of Seagulls, Call The Plumber,  Sparkling Cyan-ide and Snowed In!  I also swatched another polish but it's not released yet so I thought I should leave it out of today's post.  You can check out the coming soon shade here.
 

Indie Polishes

As you may be aware, I recently have added quite a few indie polishes to my collection (that's Aussie Indie Con!).  I have managed to swatch quite a few of them this month and have fallen in love with lots of them - no surprise there.
 

Celestial Cosmetics

I fell in love with three of the Celestial Cosmetics polishes this month - There's A Party In My Polish & You're Invited, The Hungry Mile and Twisted Selection.  Seriously these polishes are gorgeous.  You can see these pictures better in this post.
 

Emily de Molly

I didn't pick up many new polishes from the Emily de Molly table as I already own pretty much all of them.  I knew before I purchased Ava (top) and State Of Mind (bottom) that these would end up in my favourites post.  They are both amazing shades.  You can see more pictures of these two in my post here.
 

Grace-full Nail Polish Fruit Salad Collection

I am a huge lover of creme polishes and these are gorgeous.  There are a couple I probably wouldn't wear alone but they are perfect for nail art!  You can see my original post here.
 

Grace-full Nail Polish In Omnia Paratus Collection

This is another collection I picked up from Aussie Indie Con.  As they were a pre release I held off swatching them for a little while.  I know how frustrating it can be when you see something on someone's blog but you can't buy them yet.  Anyway, I love this entire collection.  In particular, I love Get A Hooker, The Subsect, Yes Purple! and Dodge Lancer.  You can see more swatches and my review of this collection here.

piCture pOlish 

I'm really not sure if you would consider piCture pOlish an indie brand or a mainstream brand.  They kinda sit some where in the middle I think.  Anyway, I did pick up a few new shades to add to my collection.  While I do quite like the neons I picked up, I did fall in love with Tasha and Haven.  Tasha is definitely a very "me" colour and Haven will always have a special place in my heart as it is the collaboration with Margaret (@loveslacquer).  You can find my original post here.
 

Mainstream Polishes

I pretty much tried three collections from two mainstream brands and I love them!  That is definitely a huge bonus when they are all collections that you have purchased yourself (not that they persuades me one way or the other - I definitely have spend money on things that I wish that I hadn't lol).
 

China Glaze My Little Pony Collection

I absolutely love this collection.  I really wish that you could purchase the limited edition collectors box, but sadly I couldn't find it.  I do love the polishes from this collection.  The real standouts for me would be Too Busy Being Awesome, Cutie Mark The Spot, Hay Girl, Hay!, I Just Canterlot, Where's The Party Canon At? and Songbird Siren.  You can see my thoughts on each of these polishes in this post here.
 

Color Club Coated Collection

I have been loving the latest two collections from Color Club.  While I disagree that this collection are "one coat" polishes, I love the colour range.  There are a couple of favourite Color Club polishes in this mix and the formulas are so much better.  I love all the colours in this collection.  You can find my original post here.  If you are curious how well they stamp you can find that here.
 

Color Club Pop Play Collection

If my memory serves me correctly I actually mentioned this collection last month because I had been using it a lot for nail art.  While I don't particularly like the formulas to wear as a full mani I still love this collection for nail art.  To find out my thoughts on each individual polish check out my post here.
 

Your Favourites
The top five posts that you guys have been viewing this month have come as no surprise to me.

China Glaze My Little Pony Collection
Color Club Pop Play Collection

Hit The Bottle Mixed Stamping Polishes

Color Club Coated Collection

Color Club Coated Collection Stamping Test

And there we have it.  That is everything that I have been loving this month.  I told you there was a lot of things.  It definitely has been a busy month this month with lots of new things for me to play with.  At this stage I still haven't fully decided if I will be daily blogging for August or taking it a little slower.  I am planning on doing the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge in September as well as doing regular posts like swatches, reviews and other nail art challenges.  So September is going to be absolutely crazy.  I'll just have to play it by ear a little I think. 

Let me know what you have been loving this month.  It can be a nail art technique, a certain polish or collection.  I'd love to know.

Lina Nail Art Supplies You're A Damasque Stamping Plate - Swatches & Review

Today I have yet another Lina Nail Art Supplies Stamping Plate to share with you. This time I have the You're A Damasque plate. Yes I know this plate has been around for quite some time but it's better late than never right? I actually thought I was getting through my pile of untried plates rather quickly but it turns out I still have another eight plates to do. Oops. Luckily for me it's only July (well nearly August) so there is still time to meet my goal of swatching everything I purchase before the end of the year, right?

Image from Lina Nail Art Supplies

This is such a girly image so it needed a girly base - eg pink.  So I did a nice baby pink and stamped over it.  Yep, completely stuffed it up and it didn't look pretty at all.  Fast forward to swatching Powder Perfect Tasha and I just knew that it was the perfect base for one of these images.  I love how this mani turned out.  It's so pretty and girly.

This next mani I am a little disappointed with.  I love the base (it's Essie Point Of Blue, No Shrinking Violet, Love Sheen, Art New-Beau and Muse, Myself over silver) and then stamped using Powder Perfect's Black stamping polish.  You may notice that the index nail looks different from the rest of the nails.  Well that's because I accidentally used a different stamper.  The squishy stampers definitely pick up more detail than a transparent stamper.

I think this is such a great stamping plate.  I do really like the images on it and they do stamp well.  I just apparently didn't have to best stamping abilities when playing with this plate.  Please don't hold that against the plate lol.

You're A Damasque is available from Lina Nail Art Supplies.

The Digit-al Dozen Does Birthdays - July 2017

It's birthday time for the Digit-al Dozen again.  This month we are celebrating two members birthdays - RoseLynn (Manicured & Marvelous) and me!  My birthday was last week.  Woohoo!  It was definitely an uneventful and low key day.  Really it was just like any other day, but with rainbow flowers and Nutella donuts.  Yum!  

Image by Micklyn

For my base I sponged on China Glaze Spring In My Step, X-ta-sea, Don't Mesa With My Heart, My Way Or The Highway and All Glammed Up (using this technique here) and stamped using Hit The Bottle Snowed In!.  Stamping design is from Bundle Monster BM-XL205.

I hope you had a great birthday RoseLynn and thank you again for finding this gorgeous design.  I really love it!

An InLinkz Link-up

Nail Crazies Unite: Beach

It's time for another Nail Crazies Unite mani.  This week we are doing another summer related theme - beach.  I definitely wasn't excited going into this theme especially seems we only just did ocean life for the last mani.  I'm sure it doesn't help that I am stuck in winter.  Anyway, enough complaining about the cold Tracy, talk about today's mani.

When I was younger I grew up living really close to the beach so we did spend a fair bit of time there.  One of my favourite things to do when going to the beach was finding shells.  At our beach, there was two main sorts of shells that I would find.  Little mini white shells and then there were these bigger shells that were brown toned on one side and had a beautiful pearl look on the opposite side.  They were definitely my favourite to find.  So today I have done a mani inspired by those shells.

For my base I used OPI Pearl Of Wisdom (over white) and stamped using Colour Alike B An Ice Coffee.  Stamping image is Lina Nail Art Supplies Born To Sail 01.

This mani definitely looks much prettier in person than in my pictures.

An InLinkz Link-up

Celestial Cosmetics Aussie Indie Con 2017 Purchases - Swatches & Review

I am so excited that I finally had a chance to play with the new Celestial Cosmetics polishes that I grabbed at Aussie Indie Con.  These are some seriously gorgeous polishes and I couldn't be more excited to add them to my ever growing polish collection.  Well actually, I am currently in the process of destashing a little.  I am running out of space in my drawers and I am not really wanting to buy yet another set of drawers, so it's destash time again.  Eek!  

Cockle Bay is blue with a really strong green shimmer, golden-green flakes and some holo glitter.  This was one of the Aussie Indie Con exclusive polishes.  I think it is so pretty and the formula is good.  I used two coats for my swatch.

Picture taken in light box

Picture taken in light box

Picture taken in light box with flash

Sample 20 is a lucky dip polish that I picked up.  I am not a huge fan of this one so it has been put into my destash pile already.  The formula is good and it's easy to use.  My swatch shows three coats.

Picture taken in light box

Picture taken in light box

Picture taken in light box with flash

The Hungry Mile has a purple base with a blue-purple shimmer and is filled with flakes.  This is another Aussie Indie Con exclusive.  I love this polish.  It's absolutely stunning.  It is a little on the sheer side and does apply unevenly.  I used three coats for my swatch.

Picture taken in light box

Picture taken in light box

There's A Party In My Polish & You're Invited is a dark teal based linear holo packed full of colour shifting flakes.  No surprise that I absolutely love this one!  I really wish that there was some sunshine around when I wore this.  The formula is great and it applies evenly.  I used three coats for my swatch.

Picture taken in light box

Picture taken in light box

Picture taken in light box

Twisted Selection has a purple base and blue shimmers.  I am a huge fan of these types of polishes.  I actually own a few variations of polish like this one.  The formula is easy to use, however it is on the sheer side.  I used three coats for my swatch.

Picture taken in light box

Picture taken in light box

Overall, I am so happy with my purchases that I made from Celestial Cosmetics.  They definitely have some great polishes.  The only on that I don't love is Sample 20.  It's not one that I would have purchased if I had seen it.

Multicoloured Sponged Nail Art Tutorial

I'm not one to do tutorials very often (in fact I believe this is the third or maybe forth tutorial I have done on my blog).  Tutorials are one of those things that I am not really set up to do (I don't have the equipment for video or knowledge on how to edit video tutorials - or the time!) and then I honestly don't feel like I do anything special or different to the tutorials that are already available. So why am I doing a tutorial today you ask? Well that's simple. I have been asked quite a lot on various social media accounts of mine how I do my multicoloured sponged backgrounds that you have been seeing a lot of recently. I am a little obsessed with them. They are quick, easy to do (which you will see) and the colour combinations are endless.

 Things you will need:

•  A base colour - I usually use a white base.
• Some form of clean up product. I use Emily de Molly Clean Up Crew. 
• A sponge I use a make up sponge.
• Polish colours of your choice.  I usually use a minimum of three polishes.  For this tutorial I will be using Color Club East Austin, Diggin' The Dancing Queen and Modern Pink.

Step by step instructions:

1.  Paint your base colour.  For this tutorial I have used Pretty Serious Cosmetic Presence.  Allow base to dry completely.  I usually add Seche Vite to ensure my base is dry before moving on.

2.  Apply clean up aid.  This will just save you time later.

 3.  Apply your choice of polishes randomly to the sponge.  I used the orange first, followed by pink and then purple.  There really is no method to what I put where or the order of the colours.  It really is just random.  Normally the polish doesn't run like it has in my picture but it was the only way I could show you what the sponge looks like.

4.  Sponge polish onto you nails.  Depending on how much you want the colours to blend (or if you have left gaps on your sponge) you may need to move the sponge around on your nails slightly.  If not, a simple up and down motion is all you need.  You may need to build up the colour (similar to when you are doing a gradient) so you make need to repeat steps 3-4 a couple of times.  Really this depends on what look you are wanting.  My picture shows one coat/layer on each nail.

5.  Once you have achieved your desired look remove clean up aid, clean up any mess and add top coat.

That's it!  Really simple isn't it?  Hopefully you have found this tutorial helpful.  If you give it a go make sure you tag me so I can see it.

Uberchic Beauty Collection Nineteen Stamping Plates - Swatches & Review

PRESS SAMPLE

The collection before the big 2-0!  Eek.  I seriously can't get over how many stamping plate collections Uberchic have done already.  It honestly feels like last year when they burst onto the scene, but I am going to say that is has been at least a couple of years now and what a great few years it has been.  Uberchic really have some fantastic images among all of their plates (I know I definitely get a lot of use out of them) and the quality is really good.  Anyway, today I have Collection Nineteen to share with you guys.

Image from Uberchic Beauty

19-01

The first plate of this collection definitely has a lot of summer related images and some great layering manis that you can do.  How cool are the strawberries and ice-creams?  I definitely will have to use those at some point.

Image from Uberchic

If you follow my blog then you will know that I recently swatched the Color Club Coated Collection.  As soon as I put on Yellin' Yellow I knew that I needed to stamp the cute little smiley faces over the top.  Neons certainly make me happy.  I think this image would also be really cute with different coloured neon faces.

I feel like it's been ages since I have done gradient stamping and I absolutely love how this turned out.  Polishes used are Pretty Serious Cosmetics Presence, Bundle Monster Monarch Dream and Mercury Bassline.

19-02

I quite like the images on this plate.  I am not sure I like that large circle image at the bottom of the plate though.  I think I would need to see some use it because I am really not sure how I could get it to look decent.

Image from Uberchic

Another really simple look but I think there is enough going on with this image that it doesn't really need anything too fancy to go with it.  For my base I used Celestial Cosmetics Twisted Selection and stamped using Powder Perfect's Black Stamping Polish.

I am sure you have seen me do this type of background a lot lately simply because I am currently obsessed with this 'technique' (I'm going to use that term loosely there).  I have had quite a few people ask me how I achieve this look so I have put together a tutorial which I will be posting tomorrow.  For my base I used Color Club East Austin, Modern Pink and Diggin' The Dancing Queen.  Stamping is down using Powder Perfect's Black Stamping Polish.

19-03

I think this may be my favourite plate from this collection.  I think there are some really cool designs on this plate.  Definitely calls for lots of neon....or maybe I am just loving neons so much at the moment that I want to use them constantly lol.

Image from Uberchic

For this first mani using this plate I used Emily de Molly State Of Mind for my base and stamped using Powder Perfect's Black Stamping Polish.

There is something about this next image that just screams to be layered.  I am sure that I have seen similar images to this (I have a lot of plates and have a lot of images so things all start looking so similar after a while).  Anyway for my base I used Color Club East Austin and stamped using Powder Perfect's Black and White Stamping Polishes.

Overall I think this is a great collection.   There are some really cool images among these plates which I am sure I will get a lot of use out of.

Collection Nineteen is available now from Uberchic Beauty.