Decals made from MoYou London Explorer 03 (again!)

The third plate in the MoYou London explorer collection practically screams to be made into decals.... it's pretty much a colouring in book for your nails! If you haven't seen my 'how to make your own nail decals' tutorial please click the link! Basically the technique allows you to neatly colour in sections of a nail stamp. I have previously made deals with the plate (here) and couldn't wait to try it again!

 Now I was a little bit lazy and only did 4 nails, but I quite liked the look, it allowed the Pastel purple polish (China Glaze Sweet Hook) to be shown off :)

The polishes used in the decal were:
Konad stamping black
OPI: Uh oh roll down the window (green)
Essie Raspberry (self explanatory colour there!)
Silver: Essie No Place Like Chrome. I actually used a dotting tool to dot the inside of the petals. It's subtle in the picture but really added another dimension! 

I hope you have enoyed this post and these nails! I sure did like them =D

Chanfie
xx

Langerhans Cells Inspired Nail Art: Nail Art Ideas Link Up January Challenge: Health and Wellness

I have always wanted to participate in a nail art challenge but they have always seem so impossible to me with 2-3 different designs per week!! Jacqui at Crafty nail recently let me know about the "Nail Art Ideas Linkup" that she organises each month with Brijit from Brijit’s Digits and Jemma from Eeeek! Nail Polish!  . These challenges are very chilled with just four designs per month, and no pressure to complete them all- Perfect!!! They are also very creative ideas, a bit different from the common themes you see in nail art challenges such as blue, dots, marble, etc :)


This month the first theme is health and wellness. Being a PhD student involved in medical research I immediately wanted to try some histology inspired nails. In my honours year I was lucky enough to do a lot of fluorescent immunohistochemistry which I imaged on a confocal microscope which is able to image very thin slices of an image and even build 3D images of whatever specimen your working with! The cells I studied were Langerhans cells which are dendritic cells which reside in the epidermis of the skin and have long arms that search for antigens and are the first step in triggering an adaptive immune response. Anyway...enough of that- all you need to know is that they are very beautiful! Here is some close up images (A=unactivated, B= activated). Sorry about the grainy image- its straight from my thesis!! The red and yellow cells are the Langerhans cells and the blue cells are the nuceli of the keratinocytes or skin cells :)

 And here is a less zoomed image- aren't they pretty??? (Yup I'm pretty proud of these pictures haha)

Ok and now for my attempt to recreate them on my nails :)

 I painted my nails first with OPI Black Onyx, and then with a polish I made to look like the blue 'hoescht' stained keratinocytes which has blue circular glitters and some holographic small glitters just for fun ;)

I then used white acrylic paint to paint the cells so they would stand out over the black. I made sure the cells arms weaved between the keratinocytes. I used China Glaze Sun-Kissed and China Glaze Shell-o to colour the cells.

I think I managed some likeness to the real thing but the arms needed to be finer. What do you think? Thanks for stopping by, and if you are interested in the nail art ideas link up (NAIL) follow this link.

Simple Handpainted Tribal? Design

As I promised in my last post, I have finally stepped away from my stamping supplies and hand painted my nails!

I decided I wanted to paint a pattern on my nails with grey, black and a fluoro polish and found this simple pattern from http://ingredingrid.com/

 I started off by painting the pattern down the centre of my nails. Unfortunately I couldn't fit many repeats on!

 

 I really liked my nails like that and wore them for a day before adding more of the patten to the sides :)

 I had a lot of trouble photographing the fluoro polish- if anyone has any tips I would be forever grateful!!!!

The Polishes I used were:
Fluoro yellow: China Glaze Sun-Kissed  (This is slightly shimmery and very opaque)
Grey metallic: China Glaze Awaken
White base: OPI alpine snow
and the black is acrylic paint :)

 So what do you think of this simple pattern?
I like it- It was easy to do and looks sort of tribal :)


Thanks for stopping by my blog
xx

MoYou Pro 14, 12 and Kitty 02 Mix and Match Stamping

Hi Everyone,
I hope you have been well.
I'm back from holiday which is slightly depressing but I've missed my blog, Fiance and puppy dog (in no particular order)!

I can't seem to stop myself from using my MoYou stamping plates....I hope I'm not being too boring. I think I need to push myself to do some hand painted designs...I always enjoy it, but it's just so easy to quickly stamp something!
For these nails I used 5 different stamp designs which were a little bit similar- all floral and finely detailed.

Pinky to thumb the designs are from Kitty 02, Pro 14, Pro 12, Kitty 02 and Pro 12. Sorry that you can't really see the thumb- I didn't get any good pictures and they are chipped now!
For the ring finger I used the reverse stamping technique on my left hand (tutorial here) so that the design was mirrored.

The polishes I used were:

Picture polish sky- which I have swatched below- it is the most perfect baby blue with the slightest hint of mint. The formula was very impressive too. Probably the best Picture Polish I have used so far. Has anyone else used Picture Polishes before? What do you think of them? I think they have the most perfect colours but for the non glitters, I've found the formula of some a little gluggy (Coral reef and honey dew were like this). All in all though I will continue to buy them as they have such stunning colours and most have a good forumla :)

For the stanping I used a konad  polish - Its just called dark brown, and it seems to have a hint of burgundy. 

Thanks for stopping by :)