Tips for shopping on YesStyle.com

I have been shopping on YesStyle.com lately, and I wanted to write some tips for people who may be interested in shopping on their website.  There are a lot of imitation websites that are similar to YesStyle in items and price, but YesStyle is legitimate and I have received what I ordered from them.  Keep reading to learn some tips for shopping on their website!

The first thing to consider when buying on YesStyle is what brand you’re ordering from.  YesStyle is a website that hosts many different brands, and it’s important to know that not all of them have a very good reputation.  When you receive a less-than-desirable item from the website, don’t blame the website, blame the brand that you bought the item from.  [Here] is a link to where you can view all of the website’s brands.  As you can see, there are a lot of brands to choose from.   On this page, you can see which brands are currently having a sale.

When you find an item you like, there are a few things to pay attention to when you’re deciding if you should buy it or not.  The first thing you should pay attention to is the overall brand rating.

After clicking on an item you like, you should see the brand name on the top left with a brand review rating and a customer satisfaction rating.  The higher the numbers, the better the brand is considered to be by past customers.  Hovering over the colored bar gives an explanation of the numbers.  When you find a brand that has a good rating and items you like, you can filter the website to see items only from that brand by clicking on the brand name or adding a manual filter.

On the left side of the screen, scroll down and select a brand to add a manual brand filter.

After you find an item you like by a brand with a good rating, the next thing to consider is how long the item will take to be delivered to you.  You can find this information on the item’s page.

The shipping of the item is different from the shipping of your entire order.  Items need to be sent to YesStyle from the brand’s warehouse.  When the items arrives in YesStyle’s warehouse, YesStyle will ship your order to you.  There are different shipping times on all items.  Items that ship in 24 hours will take 24 hours to reach YesStyle, ect.

In my experience, items that are marked as “24” hours took 3 days to arrive.  Items marked with 7-14 days took 23 days to arrive.  When placing an order, it is important to know that no matter what the shipping time says on each item, YesStyle will not ship your order until all items arrive in their warehouse.  That means, if you combine items that ship within 24 hours with items that take 7-14 days, your order will not be split up and those items will not be shipped before the longer ship items.  When you are ordering in bulk, order items from the same ship group.  If you want your order to be delivered soon, order only 24 hour ship time or ready to ship items.  If you add any 7-14 day ship items to your order, expect to wait a long time to receive your items.

The disadvantage with this method of shipping is very apparent.  I am not a YesStyle fangirl yet, and the reason for that is because I have had some horrible experiences in the past.  In an order I placed in 2014, two of the items were not available in the brand’s warehouse.  YesStyle doesn’t know this until they send the order to the brand.  If the item sells out without the brand updating its store, YesStyle will ask you to wait for the item to become available again before shipping your items to you.  Long story short, I waited 2 months to receive my items and I had to e-mail YesStyle many times asking them to cancel the items that were unavailable.  In every new order that I place, I add “Please cancel any unavailable items.” in case I run into that issue again.

You can add filters to view items that are ready to ship or ship within 24 hours on the left side of the website where the filters are.  You can add multiple filters at once, so you can add this filter to your brand filter.

As far as the shipping price, it is really reasonable.  If you spend over $35, you automatically get upgraded to free shipping.  Of course, the shipping speed isn’t the fastest, but if you order fast shipping items, you will receive your order in a timely matter.

It is always important to understand the size differences when you are ordering from brands that are from outside of your country.  The sizes are sometimes put into different formats.  In my opinion, finding shoes that fit well is difficult to do online even if you know your size.  A safe bet for finding shoes that will fit you is to order shoes that do not rise above your ankles.  Each item has a tab where you can view additional information.  This section includes details about the item’s measurements, ect.  The tab is called “Product Details” and is the default tab you will see when you scroll down on the item’s page.

The same tab is available for clothing items.  Some items are one size, and these items should be avoided unless you know your appearance matches the model’s appearance.  Buying one size items may be risky in many ways because the models can make clothes appear to fit, when in reality, they may not fit you because the model was a lot shorter than you may be.

It is always important to double check the sizes and make sure the item will have the highest chance of fitting you, especially if you are spending a lot of money on a single order.

Even after checking sizes, items may have odd quirks that will cause them to fit awkwardly.  Customer reviews are very important to read through, especially the negative reviews.

Clicking on the review count will take you directly to customer reviews.  It is important to read all of the reviews because people will mention if the item fits too short, is too tight, not tight enough, is sewn lazily, or is made of a cheap material.

If you are shopping for an item with no reviews, try to examine the quality yourself by viewing more photos of the item.  If you continue to scroll down on the item’s page, you will find a tab called “Additional Images”.  Here, you will find photos of the item in different colors.  You should look for zoomed-in photos of the item’s material.  If the item does not have any close-up shots of the material’s quality, one can assume that the company didn’t want you to see the quality up-close.

I will say that most items I have ordered from YesStyle are made with light fabric and are victims to shotty sewing. Sweater or knit items, socks, sweatshirts, and cotton products tend to be the exception.

When looking at photos of a model wearing the item, don’t get swept away by the model or the photograph, but instead imagine how the item may look on yourself.  For example, I look bad in baggy or “loose” clothes that are thin, even though those items may look good on the model.  I am also tall and have wide hips, and the majority of the models probably don’t fit my body type to a T.

However, items that are not shown on models are also difficult to examine because it’s difficult to see how they fit on someone.  When looking at photos with models, pay attention to these clues:

1. If the item is a shirt, did they tuck it in?  This may indicate the item is long and wide.  This item may need to be tucked in.
2. If the item is a shirt, pay attention to the very bottom of the shirt.  Are they hiding the bottom half or does the bottom half curl up?  This is a sign of bad sewing or cheaper material.
3. Look at side views of the product and focus on key areas.  Is the item baggy where you would want it to be tight?  Are there any awkward shapes being made by poor construction?  Does the item look “stiff” and awkward to move around in?  These are a few signs that the item was photographed to look attractive when it may not be.

Even after all the consideration you may have put into buying an item, you may still dislike it when it arrives.  This is why it’s important to understand the return policy before placing an order.  For instance, buying shoes on YesStyle is considered risky to me because I don’t favor their return process.  The shoes that ship fast on their website are not always the most affordable shoes, so I simply decide not to buy shoes on YesStyle.  To view the return guidelines, hover over your username at the top, go to “My Account”, and click on your order under “Order Information”.

Refunds on YesStyle do not refund money to your card.  Instead, you receive credit on the website to spend on other products.  I have never returned an item to YesStyle because many people mentioned that the customer has to pay for the shipping.  I do not know if this is true in all cases, but I usually end up holding onto items even if I dislike them.  I either attempt to alter the item to my specifications, or I donate the item so someone else can enjoy it.

Whenever I DO make a return to YesStyle, I will update this section to include more return information.

The last thing I’m going to write about are the rewards on YesStyle.  When you make an order, you earn 1 “Stylebuck” for every dollar you spend.  You don’t use Stylebucks in any way, however, which is a little upsetting.  What they do is add to a total amount on your account.  Every month your account will be reviewed and upgraded to a new status depending on the amount of Stylebucks accumulated on your account.  Every year your Stylebucks amount is reset.  Your account is reviewed on the day your account resets and if you have enough Stylebucks, your account may keep its elite status.

What I dislike about this rewards system is that it is very mysterious.  For instance, the website doesn’t specify a specific amount needed for any kind of Elite status upgrade or being able to keep your status at the end of the year.  I also wish members could use Stylebucks for something other than seeing them accumulate and then go away.  The discounts added to your account also do not reflect the price you pay for the item unless you click on the item.

When items are on sale, this may get a little annoying because the website lists the price of the item when it’s on sale.  After you click on the item, the discount you receive from your account’s status is applied.  If you are a customer with no status, you receive no discounts.  If you have bronze status, you receive a 3% discount, silver gets 5%, and gold gets you 10%.  

You will also get coupons when your account is upgraded.  The coupons I received are the $10 off of an $80 purchase.  Basically, you have to spend a lot to get anything out of YesStyle rewards.  The website does not allow adding more than one coupon code as well, which makes it difficult to get a crazy good deal by using your account’s elite status.

I hope you enjoyed reading my post about tips for shopping on YesStyle.com.  I know many people are afraid to shop internationally, especially from stores that ship from Asia.  Hopefully this guide helps someone out there! If you have shopped on YesStyle.com before, feel free to share your experience.

This is not a sponsored post.

Alli’s Guide to Buying Makeup and Beauty Products Online

Hello everyone!  I’m honestly surprised with the amount of followers I’ve made already, and I want to let you all know that I have big ideas for my blog that I’m waiting to implement sometime next week.  I want to thank everyone for reading my posts and I’m looking forward to being able to post regularly for everyone.  I just moved to another state and I have my personal possessions in two different storage units, one in California, and on in Missouri.  Yikes.. I’m waiting on my things from California to arrive before I drive to Missouri to pick up the rest myself.  I really look forward to giving my followers a great source of information, so I’m going to start off with this guide that I’m hoping will provide some new information about shopping online!

Last updated: 11/13/15

Most of the time when I tell my friends I shop online, they ask me why.  Plain and simple, I get better deals and I don’t have to fit any extra trips into my already busy schedule.  I like shopping online because I can choose from a wide variety, research the products on the computer, and then make a purchase online without sitting in the store for 30 minutes or being pressured by employees.  Buying online is great when I accidentally run out of a product I use everyday and would feel awkward going into a makeup store without it.  When I was a young teenager, I would also feel embarrassed to go into makeup stores because I had no idea what I was really getting into.  Basically, I find it easier to compare deals between suppliers and I feel like it’s safer shopping during busy holidays, especially if you have kids!

Before we start talking about actually buying makeup, I’m going to share some places where you can get some really good reviews and decide if the product is worth buying or not.  Besides going on official store websites and reading reviews, I like to check out Temptalia and then Youtube.

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Temptalia.com is a fantastic website to view product photos, extensive reviews, swatches, and user reviews.  I find that the reviews are very honest and to my best knowledge, have been very similar to my own opinions.  My favorite thing about the blog is that she keeps her blog updated and reports on limited edition pallets.  Her swatches are fantastic because her website shows dupes and gives the reader ways to save money.  I like not having to sit through a 10-30 minute review and just get the information I’m looking for on one page.

After I decide that I am interested in a product, I go on Youtube to learn how to apply it or get ideas for possible makeup looks with the product.  This step is important because no one wants to buy a product they don’t know how to use.  Usually if you step into a Sephora, they will tell you how to apply it.  However, if you don’t have a Sephora store close to you, the internet is the next best thing.  There are a lot of really great makeup artists on Youtube that have amazing reviews where you can see the product in action.

When you are set on buying a product, it’s important to do some research on online sales going on.  Whenever I purchase, I always use Ebates if I can.  I installed their toolbar so the little icon flashes when I can activate Ebates.  So far I have only received 7 dollars back, but as long as it’s something extra I can do to save money, I do it.  You should also sign up for any rewards program before you buy anything so you can start earning towards free rewards for continued business.

Similar to Ebates, I have heard of Studentrate.com but I have personally never tried them.  I plan on trying them and Ebates, possibly to see if they work at the same time, next time I make an order online.

Ulta carries a few popular brand names, but not nearly as many as Sephora.  Ulta also has some lines that are exclusive to their store, like It Cosmetics.  Shopping at Ulta’s website has a lot of advantages over shopping at their store.  For one example, online deals always include more than their store deals.  The only item I pick up exclusively at their store is my free birthday gift.  The great thing about Ulta is their gifts with purchases, and you can’t always get every GWP available if you shop at their store.

I LOVE Ulta’s Reward system.  The only downside is that their reward points expire each month unless you go platinum.  Going platinum isn’t very expensive, all you have to do is spend 400 dollars within the year to get platinum for the rest of the year.  When you go platinum, you get exclusive deals that the normal shopper won’t receive and you also get higher point multipliers whenever Ulta has an event going on.   When you go platinum, you can also get free GWPs with any purchase amount as well, but those deals are only online.  They also send out 5x points on specific brands and 1-day only sales up to 50% off single items. When I went platinum, my 3x point e-mails turned into 5x point e-mails.  Points turn directly into money back which you can spend however you want.  The store also carries drugstore items that may not be at the drugstore, so you can buy in bulk without having to go up and down the isles looking for the exact product you want.

The downside to shopping at Ulta.com is the wait time, their shipping takes a little longer than a week and it’s expensive to upgrade.  I don’t really like waiting a long time, but buying in advance is key to enjoying ordering products online.

I have shopped at Sephora since I was a teenager and I have spent a lot of money here, but unfortunately I never made a Beauty Insider account so I ended up missing out on a lot of points so don’t forget to make an account before you checkout!  So far, I can say that the rewards program is just “okay”.  The points you save up don’t expire, which is fantastic, but you can’t trade your points in for money.  Instead, you have a select few gift or full size items to choose from.  I didn’t like that aspect as much as the money back aspect because you don’t have free reign over how you spend your points.  Every dollar = 1 point, so it’s difficult to obtain a high amount of points unless you spend a lot of money or take advantage of events where you get free points with your purchase.

The amount of products at Sephora is also a big plus.  When they have items on sale, I usually have a lot of brands to choose from, silently hoping they have a product I’ve been wanting to buy on sale.  You also get to pick 3 free samples when you checkout.  So far, I have been a little disappointed with their free samples because most of them come with no packaging and instead come with the little “baggy” I have to cut open to use, so the product goes bad if I don’t use it ALL right away.  I have also had issues with Sephora not sending me the sample I requested, most likely because they ran out of stock.  They do, however, send a replacement sample.

Sephora’s shipping is amazing.  Sephora has new “Flash” 2-day shipping for 10 dollars and it lasts the entire year.  If you are Rouge status, you can get flash for free.  If you have flash, you can upgrade your order for 6 dollars to receive overnight.  Normal customers get free 3-day shipping on orders over 50 dollars.  Orders under 50 dollars can get three day shipping for 6 dollars.

I have a really good relationship with Amazon, but not when it comes to buying beauty products.  Although it isn’t makeup, I have ordered shampoo and conditioner and I could have sworn it was a knock-off.  Amazon is great on customer service and let you return items free of charge.  This can be a bad thing, however, because you don’t know if you’re getting a new item or not.  I have never worked for Amazon, so I don’t know if this is true or not, but I have heard chatter that some people will empty the high-end shampoo bottle and replace the contents with low-end shampoo, then return the product back to Amazon claiming they never used it.  Of course, if you run into this problem with your products, Amazon is really easy to work with as far as getting a refund for a faulty product.

Besides hair product thievery, I have read dozens of reviews about shattered makeup pallets upon delivery or customers receiving old product.  After my issue with the shampoo and conditioner, I decided to stray away from Amazon.  I have Amazon Prime and get free 2-day shipping, but it still wasn’t worth it to me because returning a product is still a hassle, and the point of shopping online is to avoid hassles.  I might shop for items that couldn’t be easily destroyed upon shipping like makeup brushes or other makeup tools.

If you have Amazon Prime, you can get pretty fast shipping on anything that is Prime eligible which is usually 1-2 days.  Not many prestige brands ship for prime, but if you find one, the shipping is really fantastic.

QVC, QVC, QVC!  This was the place I’ve been looking for.  The deals are everywhere.  You can get 2 for the price of one, product with a 20-50 dollar brush INCLUDED without any additional charge.  This is fantastic because you can save gobs of money.  The downside is the long shipping time and no rewards points, to my knowledge.  QVC doesn’t carry nearly as many brands as Sephora or even Ulta, but if they have one product you’ve been looking for a deal on, this is the place to double-check.  The brands I have seen are bare Minerals|Bare Bare Escentuals, Kat Von D, It Cosmetics, Tarte, Bobbi Brown, Clinique, Dior, Julep, Laura Geller, Lipstick Queen, Mally Beauty, NUDESTIX, Stila, a few skincare brands, and a few other makeup brands I’m not familiar with.  Even though the shipping is a long wait, I think the deals are worth it.

Sometimes Zulily has prestige makeup brands in stock, and they are always easy to spot on the “New Today” page.  I have seen skincare lines as well.  The only thing about catching these deals is that they are usually only around for 3 days.  After about 3 days, they go off of the website and you’re unable to buy them.  When prestige brands show up, they also sell out pretty fast so it’s difficult to get an item you’ve been looking forward to getting.  I’d say that this may be one of the last places to check for deals because they don’t really cater to beauty products the same way they cater to clothes.  Zulily shipping is not very fast.  The times in which you receive your order can be all over the place.  You can, of course, pay for faster shipping, but not everyone wants to do that.

If you buy beauty items from the “Ready to Ship” area of the website, you can get your order a lot faster than you would be able to if you ordered from the new items available.  However, most of the “Ready to Ship” items are off-brand, so it’s hard telling the quality of the product if you’ve never heard of the brand before.  If you’re looking to save money and prefer trying off-brand items, this may be the place for you!  Above all, I think it’s good if you’re looking for beauty products besides makeup, but the shipping speed is something to keep in mind.  Buy in advance!

Shopping on the brand’s official website is also a no-brainer as far as options go.  I haven’t done this yet, however, because I always find a better deal somewhere else.  I think that the time to buy on brand sites is if they have a crazy holiday sale and the product you’re looking for is on sale on their website.  Most brand websites, if not all of them, give you a coupon code for 15-30% off your first order on their website for signing up with your e-mail address.  I only know of one brand website that gives you reward points, which is Tarte.  I feel like this is the downside.  Without reward points, parts of me feel like I’m missing out and making empty purchases.

That’s all for my guide so far!  I hope this article can help someone find better deals online.  If you know of any other online stores or have any experiences you want to share, feel free to comment!  

Trying “Smoky” Nails

After watching NovaNailsInc’s video on “Smoky” nails on Youtube, I decided to get them a try myself.  I really like wearing darker polishes, and I thought that the “Smoked” look gave black polish a little bit more of an edge.  I think the smoked look can be used to add a lot of variety, especially if you’re wanting to mix up your nail designs a bit.

For my entire look, I used: Milani top coat mixed, Sally Hansen X-treme black, Sally Hansen diamond quick dry, Seche Vite top coat, Konad stamping polish black, CiCi & SiSi stamping plate, and a Pueen stamper.

I went to the store and picked up some nail polishes to test this trick with.  By the way, when I say “the store”, I mean Walmart. I found some low-priced top coats so I picked up two just in case I messed up.  For my black polish, I picked up Sally Hansen X-Treme in black.  I took them back to the hotel and opened one top coat bottle and the Sally Hansen polish.

I bought two Milani brand top coats. They were about 1 dollar each. The one of the left is what my mixed one looks like.

I wasn’t sure how many drops of black to put into the top coat because I wasn’t sure if it varied from brand to brand, so I tested along the way.  I put in 20 drops and stopped, thinking it was enough.  20 didn’t work well for me though and I ended up adding about 33 drops into the top coat.  When I felt like that was enough, I shook the bottle and began applying.  My first attempt didn’t turn out so great and I could see the black streaks in the top coat.  I had to REALLY shake the bottle and let the black settle before getting a good result.  I ended up with a good result after 2 coats.

After the polish, I stamped with CiCi and SiSi and Konad, then added Matte Magic by China Glaze because I felt like they were too shiny.  The shiney-ness might be due to the quality of the top coat.  Although the polish looks like a solid gray polish, my nails were long enough to have the translucent effect when held up to a light and outside.  I don’t wear fake nails so my nails aren’t as long as the one in the Youtube video, but I was still pretty happy with the results even though they weren’t as dramatic.  I think this trick would work great to create new shades of existing colors at a low price.  I’m looking forward to creating a translucent white and rose colored polish.

Result after 2 coats and stamping

Result after matte

Translucent-ness!

Introduction to Nail Stamping

Have you ever wondered how some people paint their nails with amazing patterns that look close to impossible to do without being a professional nail artist?  Many people jump through hoops using tips and tricks trying to get patterns to appear perfect, but nail stamping skips all the pain and agony.  Using just a few steps, you can achieve the look you want without spending 6 hours on your nails.  Nail stamping is the technique of transferring designs from a metal plate to a stamper, then onto your nail.  I have read other nail stamping tutorials while I was learning how to nail stamp, so I thought I would compile all of the resources into one post.

Quick Links: Store list for nail stamping products

Last Updated: 11/14/15

Before I begin talking about nail stamping, you’re going to need to buy or locate the following items:

1. 100% Acetone.  This is used to clean your stamping plates between transfers.
2. A stamping polish.  If you don’t have any stamping polish, you can attempt stamping using a high quality, thick, and highly pigmented nail polish.  Pictured: Konad Black.
3. Nail stamping plates.  When you first buy your plates, they may have a film attached to the metal like the plate on the left.  Before use, make sure to remove the film.  After removed, your plates will look like the one on the right. Pictured: CiCi&SiSi nail stamping plates.
4. Stampers.  You should have at least 1 nail stamper. Pictured: Konad double ended and Pueen Double ended.
5. A sticky lint roller.  This is the only way you should be cleaning your stampers.  A stinky lint roller is really important if you want clean, crisp images and if you want to care for your stampers.
6. At least one scraper.  Pictured: Old hotel keycards.
7. A way to apply acetone.  I personally use a towel because I don’t like using cotton pads, but cotton pads will work.  Use this to clean your image plates.

After you locate or purchase the above items, follow these steps to begin nail stamping:

1. Apply stamping polish to a design on your stamping plate
2. Slide the scraper on the metal plate to remove excess nail polish from the design etching
3. Use the stamper to pick up the nail polish remaining on the stamping plate’s design etching
4. Push or roll the stamper onto your nail.  Make sure that your base color is 100% dry.
5. After you have transferred the design onto your nail, clean your stamper using your sticky lint roller.
6. Clean the plate with 100% acetone using your preferred method of removing nail polish.
7. Repeat until done.

1. Before you stamp your image onto your nails, make sure your nails are completely dry.  After I add my base color, I apply Sally Hansen’s “Top Coat Dries Instantly” when my nails become tacky to speed up the drying process.
2. Stamp designs are applied with a thinner coat of nailpolish and therefore are easier to remove from your nail.  If you mess up your design, you can use nail polish remover (Not 100% acetone) in attempt to remove the flawed design.
3. After you transfer your design, applying a final top coat is important to keeping your nail design long lasting.  I use Seche Vite as my final top coat.
4. Learn how to “Float” your top coats.  “Floating” refers to applying polish to your nail without the brush tip touching the polish.  Floating your top coat prevents your design from smearing or smudging from the brush tip rubbing against your designs.  To float, apply a big drop of polish and manipulate the “top” of the polish bubble to cover the rest of your nail.
5. Clean your nails, stamper, and plates, before you stamp.  Stamp in a well-lit room and make sure your stamp and plate is free of dust or other tiny particles to ensure a crisp image will be stamped.
6. If your stamper is not working, make sure you primed it.  Also, make sure to check that any thin film is removed from your stamping plate.
7. Never ever clean your stamper with acetone.  Always use a sticky lint roller.
8. Don’t use metal scrapers on your stamping plates or they will eventually scratch your plates.

Stamping Polish – You can use certain brands of thick high-quality nail polish to try stamping.  These are polishes that can cover your nail on the first coat.  I tried this to begin with and I got really frustrated because the images wouldn’t transfer properly.  I prefer to use a good stamping polish because there is a lower chance of failure.  The brand that I began using is Konad because I heard a lot of great things about it.  I purchased it trough Amazon and waited a week to get it.  I bought the black and white Konad and so far, both of them have worked perfectly for stamping.  There are a lot of other brands out there that I plan on trying soon as well but I recommend Konad for beginners because it is easy to work with.  The price ranges from 6-8 dollars a bottle depending on shipping method and if it is on sale.  I have had a great experience with Konad’s white and black stamping polishes, but I have heard mixed results about their metallic colors.  Another great brand I’ve heard about besides Konad is Mundos de Unas, which I’m looking forward to trying myself!

Do you NEED special stamping polish?  No.  You can try the polishes you have already, as long as they’re thick.  I can’t guarantee they will work as well, but some stampers use other polishes because of the color variety.  If you’re first starting out, I think it’s best to start out with a stamping polish until you get more comfortable with the process, then try experimenting.  Stamping can be very frustrating when it just doesn’t work.  I felt that frustration myself when I was first beginning.  Sometimes it’s best to have success so you can dabble in failure without feeling like quitting all together.

Buy Konad on Amazon: [Link]

Stamping Plates – Stamping plates are metal plates that have designs etched into them.  Different brands have different quality plates.  The first set of plates I bought were Cici and Sisi Plates I bought off of Amazon.  They worked great for me when I was starting out and the set came with a lot of designs.  I paid 30 dollars for my plate set and it came with a stamper, which was the first stamper I used.  When selecting a plate set that will work good for you, measuring your nail bed and nail length is important.  Some stamping plates have designs that are too large and won’t show up well if your nails are smaller.  The opposite is also true.  Most stores selling plates have dimension information on each design so you can be sure the design will look great on your nails.

A very popular and loved brand is MoYou London.  Some plates pop up on Amazon that include prime shipping, so it’s best to be on the lookout for those!  MoYou’s plates are more expensive, at around 15 dollars each.  The link at the top of the post includes other great shops for unique plates that have fun designs.  Not all plates are as expensive.  You can find many 1-5 dollar plates at Bundle Monster that work just fine.

Here is a link to the CiCi&SiSi plates I purchased on Amazon: [Link]

Scrapers – Nail scrapers will sometimes come with nail stamping kits or with a stamper.  I advise against using scrapers that are metal because they will eventually create scratches on your stamping plates.  The plastic ones are alright, but many of these scrapers are small in size and flimsy.  I use cards for scrapers.  You can use old gift cards, old credit/debit cards, old store cards, old school IDs, hotel room keys, ect.

After putting your polish on your plate, you should scrape with the scraper in a diagonal motion that mimics the design you’re trying to stamp.  Stamping designs that are geometric, solid, or lots of lines is difficult because you need the right amount of polish, applied to the right areas, with the right applied motion in order to fill all the spaces correctly.  Alternatively, you can put gobs of stamping polish and then scrape, but that’s just a waste of money.  Let’s say you’re trying to use an image that has lines that start at the top left and go to the bottom right.  You want to think about the direction you’re planning to scrape.  I usually scrape top left to bottom right.  I would put the polish on the top left corner, a little on the sides and a little in the middle.

Stampers – Here is where things get tricky.  There are many different kinds of stampers and some stampers work better for different people.  For example, my nails are wide and grow very long.  They have a prominent C-curve so I prefer to use a marshmallow stamper.  A marshmallow stamper is super squishy and soft so you press down on the plate to pick up, then press on your nail to apply.  A marshmallow will cover all angels of your nails, including the sides.  If you have short nails that are flat, you may prefer to get a hard flat stamper that you roll to apply your image.  It’s best to start with one stamper you think you might like, then branch off to others if you begin to want something better.

Owning more than one stamper is not a waste.  For example, I ordered Konad’s stamper not knowing it was hard.  However, I use it for my toenails because my toenails are flat compared to my finger nails.  I also use the small side of it to pick up smaller single image designs because it’s a lot smaller than my marshmallow and won’t pick up any extra patterns.  Having more than one stamper also allows you to complete advanced stamping techniques easier, like mirror stamping, color stamping, and decal stamping.  I’ll talk about that later.

When you first buy your stamper, you need to prime it.  To prime a stamper, you need to buff the top using an abrasive tool.  I use a nail file on harder stampers and a Mr.Clean magic eraser on soft squishy ones and lightly file on top with a nail file.  You should only have to prime your stamper once so it’s important to go slow and keep testing to see if your stamper is primed to your liking.  You can always prime more, but you can’t undo any damage you may have done by over-priming.  A good indication of when you are done priming is when your stamper loses its “top shine” and begins to look matte.

Do you have to spend a lot of money on a quality stamper?  No.  I bought my marshmallow stamper off of Amazon for 7 dollars.  The stamper I bought had a few horrible reviews, but I believe the bad reviews are because those buyers didn’t have the proper information on how to care for/prime the stamper.  Stampers, in general, are not that expensive.  The PUEEN stamper I bought had removable stamp heads and the Konad stamper had its stamp heads built in.  The benefit of the removable heads is that you can replace them and you can take out one side to keep the stamper standing erect.

Buy Konad hard double ended stamper on Amazon: [Link]

Buy PUEEN double ended stamper on Amazon: [Link]

Sticky Lint Roller – You may think this is a weird thing to use when you’re doing nail art, but it is vital to the care of your stamper.  When cleaning your stamper, do not use anything besides a sticky lint roller.  Cleaning or dipping your stamper in acetone will destroy it over time and make picking up images more difficult.  After you pick up an image and transfer it onto your nail, you push your stamper against the sticky roller.  Viola!  In one motion, the rest of the design is transferred to the sticky roller and you’re done cleaning it.

100% Acetone – You need a strong polish remover to clean your plates or you’ll be at it scrubbing for DAYS.  I recommend getting a large bottle of 100% Acetone to clean your plates so you don’t have to keep going to the store to buy it.  Most people use cotton swabs to remove nail polish but I hate the way it sticks to my fingers so I actually use a hand towel.  I ick a flat surface that is protected from any spilled acetone.  I put the towel underneath the plate and begin.  The process for my cleaning is putting a little acetone into the cap.  I pour some out of the cap and onto the spot where the stamping polish got all over.  I let it sit for awhile and then when I see the polish breaking down, I lift a part of the towel from underneath and then use it to wipe/dab the polish off.  Alternatively, I get the acetone on a brush, dab some with the brush, then wipe with the towel.  Keep in mind that if you use a towel, don’t use a towel that you like.  The nail polish will ruin it and will probably create stains that won’t fade.

Advanced nail stamping – Advanced nail stamping is where you can really let your creativity shine.  There are a lot of possibilities when it comes to advanced stamping.  The most common advanced nail stamping trick is color stamping.  Color stamping is when you pick up the image from your plate like you usually would, but you paint colors for your design right onto your stamper.  A lot of patience is needed for advanced stamping because there is a lot of dry time involved.  For color stamping, you need to wait for the polish on the stamper to dry and then apply a thin top coat to your nails.  When your nails become tacky, you can attempt to transfer the design onto your nails.

Alternatively, you can do decal stamping.  I have done a lot of decal stamping because it’s easier for me to get the timing right.  Still, each design can take up to 30 minutes to be ready to transfer onto your nail.  When you decal stamp, you pick the design up with your stamper and color it with polish as if you were going to color stamp.  However, when you finish, you paint over the entire design and your painted colors with either a solid color or a top coat.  After that, you wait for the design to dry, peel the dried decal off of the stamper head, and pat it on your nail.  Mistakes I have made with my decals included using too much polish underneath my decals.  When I used seche vite, the decals were pretty heavy by themselves and became even heavier on top of other nail polish.  Using nail polish behind your design instead of top coat when you already have your base color on is the best way to keep the build-up down on your nails.  Decal stamping also works great with single designs because you have more control over where the design will land, as opposed to using a stamper.  I recommend using a soft stamper for decal stamping because it’s easier to peel off a design from a soft stamper as opposed to a hard one.  A stamper that can stand on its own is crucial.

Mirror stamping is another technique I’ve recently seen.  This technique involves picking up a stamped image and transferring it to another stamper in order to mirror the design.

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How to hack Animal Crossing: New Leaf

So I’ve been playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf in multiple hotels and then at the new apartment before we got internet because entertainment was going outside and playing 20 questions.  I stumbled across a post on Facebook about a hacked town’s dream address.  The town was desert themed and had palm trees and sand everywhere, which I thought was really interesting.  Naturally, I love to design and these new possibilities instantly got me excited.  A quick Google search pulled up multiple guides, which I read and gathered information from.  I’m going to post my OWN guide, however, simply because I want the resource for myself in case I want to do this again later and forgotten how to.  I’m going to make my guide easy to understand, with all the information in one place, so here it goes!

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Quick Links: Leaf Tools, Acnl Editor, NLSE, Acre Editor, Cygnus (Under Step 3), Delia’s list of hex codes.

NLSE guide for Mac users.

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New Updates:

!Warning! Pattern/Error in new Acnl Update – So, since Acnl Editor updated today (September 19), I decided to try the new functions to see how they worked.  I successfully created a mixed normal and perfect fruit tree, changed PwPs, and I enjoyed the new “larger” and more sleek design of the editor.  However, I tried to upload a pattern for the first time and did not have success.  Stupidly, I uploaded a pattern using a QR image.  The result came up all glitchy-looking but I thought maybe that was a flaw with acnl editor.  I saved and injected into my game and it did something gamebreaking.  It created two mayors.  My second character’s name was changed to question marks and a Chinese character, my town’s name was changed to question marks, and Isabelle recognized me, as well as my mayor character, as the mayor.  I didn’t do too much fiddling as my “second mayor” because after I started up with her, I looked at my designs.  All of the designs were changed to the glitchy-looking pattern and when I tried to select one, my game froze.

Having a second mayor interested me for a little bit, but after my screen froze I decided to scrape the idea completely.  I tried to figure out if it was the pattern that caused this problem or not, so I uploaded the pattern as a acnl file into acnl editor.  The pattern showed up correctly.  I saved it and put it on my SD, then injected into my game.  The injection didn’t seem to change anything and the only mayor it effected was the mayor I gave a new pattern.  I can only assume that the pattern tool does not always work.  I’m not willing to try again, however.  Let this be a reminder to always save your most recent copy of your game!  You may need it later.

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Introduction and General Information

Hacking your acnl game allows you to edit almost anything in your town.  You can change the layout, switch out villagers instantly, edit your home’s exterior and size instantly, spawn items, remove rocks, move buildings, and all of that jazz.  Doing different things requires different programs, however.  For example, if I wanted to start editing the landscape and design aspects of my town I’d need to have all my PwPs unlocked, which would require LeafTools.  After that, I’d place the PwPs through Isabelle in-game then move them using Acnl Editor.  However, there are tools that don’t work for everyone.  Many tools are also integrating features of hex editing and abandoned tools such as LeafTools.  Today, actually, Acnl Editor updated to include Leaf Tools’ feature to unlock PwPs.

To read extensive and detailed functions of all of the tools mentioned here besides the Hex editing, please read Delia’s post.

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Exporting and Injecting Save Files

First, I’ll start off by saying that all you really need to hack your game is your 2/3DS, a digital or cartridge copy of Animal Crossing, and the knowledge of inserting and removing your SD card to and from your 3/2DS to your computer.  You don’t need to buy a cable or any software, which is nice.  There are two ways to get your acnl save state off of your DS.  The first way is for old version DSs only, which have the ability to edit the RAM of your DS game through the 3DS’s browser.  This is only for old versions of the DS because the new versions got updated to remove this exploit in the browser’s system.  If your system is  9.x up to 9.5.0-22 and not 9.5.0-12 then you can use the RAM hacking method of getting your save.  If not, you will have to use Homebrew. To check your version, turn on your device and go to settings.

If your device is old, you are looking to get your acnlram.bin.

If your device is new, you are looking to get your garden.dat.

The way I extracted my save was the RAM method, which was easily followed.  I used acnl editor to do these steps.  I recommend reading the entire post for warnings. acnl editor – After following and reading the warnings and information, select either the Homebrew or RAM method at the very top of the page and follow the steps.  You will learn how to easily export and inject your acnl save file.

Now, there are warnings sprinkled over every post about hacking that you will read.  Pay attention to them.  Read them.  Edit at your own risk.  Make backups.  Be wise.

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Editing Your Acnl Save File (THE TOOLS!)

After you exported your save, you can either save and quit your game or turn the power off.  Now, acnl editor had an update just today that allows you to do some things that LeafTools lets you do, like unlocking PwPs.  I’m pretty sure LeafTools only works on old versions of the DS, but I’ll include the link for those that are interested.

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Leaf Tools –  When you get to the page, click on the download link at the bottom of the first post.  Add the files to your SD card.  Do not move the files into any folder, just drag them into the main directory of your SD card.  Next, put the card back into your 3DS and look for the QR you want to read on the Leaf Tools page.  When you found it, load your Mayor and make sure you can walk around after you exit your house.  Press the home button and then press L+R as if you were going to take a photo.  Click on the QR button and then align the camera to the QR code.  Enter and exit a building and the hacking should be visible.

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Acnl Editor – Editing in Acnl Editor is a lot easier than manually editing the HEX of your game.  This editor is visual, which makes things a lot easier.  Please read Delia’s FAQ before you use this tool.  She explains what not to do and the limitations of this tool.

Placing Patterns – Right clicking in this editor “copies” anything your mouse is on, and left clicking will place whatever you had copied.  You can click and drag in this editor, which makes editing patterns a breeze.  To edit patterns, I recommend placing your patterns on the ground with 1 space around each one.  Take a photo of the patterns on the ground in-game and then when you put your SD card into your computer, you have a photo reference of which each pattern is.  You can then go into the editor and copy and place the patterns however you want.

Landscaping – Click on the “Search” button and type in the kind of bush/tree/flower you want.  You can also simply type “bush”, “tree”, “tulip”, or “pansy” to bring up multiple variations of the same variety.  Click on the one you want to place from the drop-down list and then left click where you want the item to go.  To clear a space, like a rock, look for the black dots on the map.  Right click on an empty spot and then click on the black dot, which is a rock, and then left click to delete the rock.  All plants are spawned fully grown, unless specified as “growing”.

Editing Items – To edit items, open the “Search” box and then click on “Dressers”.  You can search and spawn any item you want straight into your character’s dressers.  You can also put items into your pockets, or outside on the ground.  If you want to put the item outside on the ground, follow the steps I instructed in “Landscaping”.  It’s basically the same, you just spawn it on the map instead.

In my experience, spawning items directly to the dresser has been a lot more reliable than spawning items outside.  From outside spawns I have encountered items that appear as red leafs.  When I pick them up, sometimes they vanish completely.  Other times, they will be invisible inside my house and I have to exit then enter to see the item.  So far, I have spawned entire dressers without any of those errors so I recommend spawning items in pockets or dressers instead of outside.

To delete items, just right click an empty space and right click over what you want to delete.  You can click and drag here too, which is useful for deleting ALL YOUR ITEMS.  Heheheh.  I recommend spawning fish, bugs, or underwater items you can’t put on the ground into your inventory.  I haven’t tried to spawn them outside before because I was too afraid.

Editing building positions –  When editing building positions, I suggest getting a piece of paper and writing down information like original plot location, who is in which house and where, where you’d like them to be, ect.  You can see the original plot location by looking at the two number sets that follow the building name under the “Buildings” tab.  It’s important to know your characters’ order because the house lists go from 1-4 and don’t display your characters’ names.  It is important to look at the original placement and write down the new placement because you won’t be able to view the map under the buildings tab.  In order to make sure you’re moving the building correctly, it’s useful to write that information down.  Here are the placement locations:

Image made by http://delia-song.tumblr.com/

The yellow dot is the coordinate you have the find.  The blue space is the area that the building will take up, and the pink is the buffer area where you can’t plant bushes or trees.  For example, if I know how much space a building is going to take up, I put flowers down in-game to measure.  Next, I find the coordinate that is marked in yellow so I know exactly where the building will go.  I hover my mouse over that spot and then write down the coordinate that displays.  Next, I go to the “Buildings” tab and change the numbers to reflect the new ones.  Think of the yellow area as the “core” of the building.  It’s the part you have to move to get the building exactly where you want it to be.

When you load your game and inject, you will be able to walk through the buildings you move and the spot they used to be in will be “solid”, as if the building was still there.  Think of this as a preview.  When you save and quit, the changes will take place and the placements will be “locked in”.

If you’re looking for a program version of acnl edtior, I recommend NLSE.

If you’re looking to edit acres only, I recommend Acnl map editor.

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Hex Editing – Hex editing is what unlocks the remaining capabilities like upgrading your house, changing your mayor name, town name, native fruit, ect.  Hex editing might sound scary and complicated, but don’t worry.  Other hackers have already done most of the complicated stuff (Like Delia..) so you don’t have to figure out which code is what or what ANY of it means because they already did that for you.  All you really have to do is get a program, open your save file, and then look for the value to edit, edit it, save, then inject.  That’s it!  The guide recommended by Delia is here.  I downloaded the program there called Cygnus, which worked perfectly for basic editing.  You can read the whole guide, but all you really need to know is step 5 and 6, how to count and locate a specific location in the code and how to turn numbers into hex.  Basically, to count, you will find the row, the you count the column.  Columns are read like this:

00  1  2  3  4  5  6  7-8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F

A little trick is to remember that the row starts with 00 instead of 1 and that 7 and 8 have dashes in them.  You probably don’t need to change numbers to hex and if you do, Delia posted resources that do those things for you.  She also translated most of the numbers for you, like numbers to make your town tree larger.  Now you know how to count the column, so let’s look at the hex codes Delia posted here and I’ll tell you how to read them.

I’m going to use the house expansion example, because this was the first hex edit I did.  I’ll be honest, house expanding was the most annoying and time consuming thing I ever had to do in the game, even when I had the bells to do it.  Needless to say I wanted to do this with my new character.  Anyways, let’s look at the codes.

First I’m going to make the exterior larger.  You have to change the exterior size and the interior size if you want your house to reflect a fully expanded house.  You also have to pay the 10,000 bells and fast forward a day to meet Lyle before you expand your house.  Quoted from Delia’s Tumblr, here is the code:

Mayor House Size Blocks: 0x57E84 – 0x57E8D
Mayor House Size Values: 01 – 07

To read this value, you have to keep in mind what you learned from the guide.  The last number in the code is the column and the other numbers before are the row.  Basically when you look at “0x57E84” You need to locate row 57E8 and then count the column until you get to the 4th column.  The “0x” is just the amount of 0’s that come before the row number.  You can ignore it, I guess.  I ignored it.  So, open Cygnus and find row “57E8”, this will be on the left and will appear as “57E80”.  After you find it, count to column 4.  Since we want to expand the house all the way, we’re going to change the value to 07.  If you headed her warning, your code is probably 02 because you expanded your house to get out of the tent.  Do the same procedure for the second code.  Look for “57E8” and then find column D.  Change the value to 07.

On the top part of her guide under “resources” she has extra code lists for people who are editing their home exteriors or villagers through Hex.  Most of the capabilities are being moved onto editors such as acnl editor so in some time, we may not have to hex edit at all.

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