For the Israeli Independence day I decided to create this white and blue manicure, inspired by the Israeli flag.

I really love creating nail art with gradients, I think this is a simple way to create beautiful designs.

For this manicure I used China Glaze - Hanging In The Balance and Wet n Wild - White French Creme to create the gradient, and on top of that I used a beautiful glitter coat by Innisfree - 109. I really love this glitter top coat, it's very delicate and pretty, it consists of white glitter mix (hex, square and bar glitter) and some square iridescent glitter (I wish there were more, I really love this kind of glitter in polishes) in a clear base. 

Innisfree is a Korean brand, and a good one I must say. For some reason, many Korean nail polish brands tend to have really strong (and sometimes unbearable) smell, but this brand doesn't, so it's really great for me. Their polishes are also so original and have so many glitter and flakes mixes which is not easy for me to find, so thanks to eBay, I'm able to get this brand. For now I have two polishes from Innisfree, but I have more on their way to me so I'm going to be one happy girl!

I decided to try making a tutorial video for this nail art, I hope you will like it and find it useful. In this tutorial I will show you how to create the gradient nail art as shown in this post.

Hope you'll enjoy it, let me know what you think!

I made this design for the competition that Sophie from My Awesome Beasuy is having at her blog. I bet most of you already know her fabulous blog, and you probably noticed that she really loves making designs with striping tape. So the challenge for this competition was to create a design using a tape method and 3 colors.

This is only my second design I've made with striping tape, and I gotta say it's a fun but very time consuming method (well I guess it doesn't have to be, if you use less tape than I did lol) but the result is fabulous!

For this design I've started with a white base, two coats of Wet n Wild White Creme. After it dried completely I used a thin striping tape to create a diamond shaped net. I filled the blank diamonds with my chosen colors which were Kiko 278 (Violet Orchid Microglitter), Wet n Wild  A Show At The Palladium (gold) and Color Club Beyond (black holo). After filling the spots I removed the tape and let it dry completely, and applied once coat of Poshe.

I really love how this design turned out, I think that the colors are working well together and it came out even prettier than I imagined, so I'm very satisfied with it. 

Be sure to check Sophie's blog to see the beautiful designs that entered this competition, and if you liked my design I would appreciate if you show your support at Sophie's blog :)

I received this stamping plate for a review from Born Pretty Store and I couldn't wait to try these out. 

When I was requested to choose one item, I knew it would be a stamping plate, but I had hard time deciding which one I want because Born Pretty Store has so many designs to choose from. Finally I decided to go with the plate CK-04 because I really loved the designs on it, and there were some designs I didn't have yet.

When I received it I was a bit surprised to see how actually small it was, but I needed to give it a try and see how it goes.

I started with a base color for my stamping: I applied 2 coats of Wet n Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint, and one coat of KIKO 298 to add a little sparkle. Then I stamped with Wet n Wild Black Creme.

The plate itself is not that big, it's 14x8.5 cm, and the designs were disappointingly small, not larger than 1.3x1 cm. Unless you have tiny nails, this plate will probably not fit your nails, but... You can get creative with it and try different methods, for example stamping twice on the same nail, or using a tape to create some kind of french tip nail art.

For the index and the middle finger I I stamped each nail twice because the designs were too small for my nails, but it actually looks like it's one large pattern so you can't really tell.

I really love how they both look and I will be using hem again in a full mani sometime soon.

The plate came with blue protective film to prevent scratches before the first use, and it has a backing paper to prevent cuts from the sharp metal plate.

As I said before, the designs are very small. You can see the comparison to Bundle Monster's plate (which are not too large as well). I've also recognized a lot of designs I'm familiar with from Konad's and Bundle Monster's plates.

Most of the designs are about 1 cm wide and 1.3 cm high, some are much smaller. Not all of them stamped well for me, and I had to try several times until I got a good enough image that I can use, but that can happen with other plates too.

Overall this is a nice plate but it probably will not fit most people's nails, As I said before, there are other creative ways to use this to create lovely nail art. 

You can find the plate I reviewed and many other stamping plates in this link, there is a large variety of plates, and the prices are really cheap. I know they also have regular rounded plates and the designs are supposed to be larger so that's worth giving a try. I know I will be shopping from Born Pretty Store for few new stamping plates for myself.

You can get a special 10% discount for your purchase if you use this code upon checkout: NL91.

Hope you liked my review. I will be happy to know what you think about it and if you have used any plates from Born Pretty Store and liked / didn't liked them, please share it with me :)

Today's NOTD is a lovely fresh mint color with a delicate glitter top coat.

Of course I had to matched my nails to my favorite mint polka dot blouse I wore for Rosh Hashana and this was my natural choice. I'm really into mint lately, it's definitely the new pink for me :)

I used Wet n Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint as a base coat (needed 2 coats for a good coverage) and applied one coat of OPI Pirouette My Whistle over it. Of course I used the legendary Poshe top coat for a perfect glossy and durable finish.

I think this mint color is a perfect match for this blouse and I really love how it looks together :)

I also wore my favorite bracelet from Shlomit Ofir's shop, who is an Israeli jewelry designer - I absolutely adore her jewelry! I fell in love with this delicate bracelet at first sight, and I just love these two little love birds sitting on this branch. You can find at her shop many more lovely designs inspired by nature and other elements. 

I know I'm really late with posting about this swap, but I decided to share it with you anyway. :)

This is my first nail polish swap I did with Amber - which is the best gal ever! She spoiled me so badly!

I gotta tell you that I was a bit bummed because we said we will be swapping for about 7 polishes, and then I got this HUGE nail mail from her with all the extras and felt kind of bad that I didn't send her as many things, but I promised to make it up for her and I have some really nice stuff that I bought for her and I will be sending them to her in few weeks.

I was soooo excited about this package, and she let me know that I should expect two things form my wishlist which was awesome! She got me Revlon Whimsical and Essie's As Gold As It Gets. I was so happy! Whimsical was impossible to get here and Essie looks so precious. 

Then of course you can see the lovely nail polishes she sent me and the goodies.

I was especially excited about the Sally Hansen color Quick pen because it is awesome for stamping and I got gorgeous results, and the black Wet n Wild nail polish is also amazingly good for stamping - but of course Amber knew that and that's why she sent me these polishes.

I also got the Burt's Bees lemon butter cuticle cream I asked for and I'm really addicted to it, I use it every night and the results are great. 

She also sent me a Konad stamping plate which is great because I'm addicted to stamping!

There's also a cute mini OPI set which I really like as well. Did you know that the minis are so adorable?! It's so tiny and cute! I don't know for how many times it will last but it's adorable! AND I love Katy Perry :P

Another surprise was Sally Hansen Byte which was simply gorgeous over black! 

I've received so many nail polish that I don't know when I will have the time to swatch it all! lol

This is the list of polishes I received in this swap:

OPI Pepe's Purple Passion

OPI The One That Got Away (mini)
OPI Teenage Dream (mini)
OPI Last Friday Night (mini)
OPI Not Like The Movies (mini)

Nubar Reclaim 

Revlon Whimsical

Essie As Gold As It Gets

Essie She's Picture Perfect

Wet N Wild Black Cream
Spoiled The Parking Meteor Expired
Sally Hansen Byte
Hard Candy Beetle

Amazing! Right? I'm so happy and grateful for this! Thank you so much Amber!

She's super nice and thoughtful and I know she has already set up for me a new swap with lots of things from my wishlist. Isn't she amazing? :D

I know it will be hard for me to top this because getting nice stuff here is really hard and the selections here is really poor, but I've got some really nice non polish stuff for her as well and I really hope she will like it :)

So that's all for my first swap. I hope you liked this post.

Wish you a great and lovely week!

xoxo

Natalie