The Lacquer Ring – Mandala Inspired

So as it happens I have no stamps mandala-ish nor did I really know what mandala inspired really was. I asked our expert and of course the one that picked this prompt, the #goldmasta V. I sent her a few pictures of some stamps that I could possibly pass as mandala and she approved of this one. Of course you did.. the one that was something I’ve never done before that was for sure to take me forever…. lol

I decided to use my Uber Mat that I got for Christmas. When I got it I feel like all of my creative-ness went away lol I know that the opposite is supposed to happen… I’ve been watching a lot of how to’s with the uber mat capability and in making your own decals so I decided to give it a shot.  I sent the one that I tried to Sib and she loved it so decals it is..

 

First step was to choose my colors, online mandala inspired were both plain and just the design or multi colors or different shades of the same color. I went for a white base with the black outline and blues for that pop over the white.

 

Step 1: Using my Ubermat I painted a layer of clear in 10 positions on my mat

Step 2: Once dry enough, using my stamper, I stamped the desired design on all of the clear spaces I had painted

Step 3: Now here comes the tedious part, Using a brush or a dotting tool, I painted in the desired spaces (tip: Do all of your smaller spots first or lighter colors and then you can fill in overtop of it with another color for the spaces around it, as you will be flipping the decal over anyway)

For this step I did one color at a time and just put a drip of each color one at a time and started to color in my spots

Step 4: Once all desired spaces were colored in, I went an extra step as I hate white base polishes.. I don’t know about you but I feel like I can never get a white to look perfect on my nails. As you will see from my picture I also did 10 white spaces as well. This next step was to gently peel up my decals one by one and while slightly still wet from the colors to place them overtop the white to make the white on my nail more opaque and make my life easier

Step 5/6: Once my base coat was applied, one by one I painted a white layer on my nails. While the white from each nail was slightly wet not quite dry and not freshly painted, I peeled up the design I made with the white as shown above and applied it to my nail

Step 7: Using a clean up brush and tiny scissors or a cuticle cutter cut the overhanging detail and press down to secure. Once fully secure continue cutting off excess and getting excess off with polish remover and your clean up brush around your cuticles

Step 8: Top coat and done

I am no expert, as I said this was my first time ever doing these and they for sure need some improvement. If you have any tips or tricks to help me out in the future please, please let me know!

Tools used for this mani: (for prep) Sally Hansen cuticle gel, cuticle pusher, cuticle clippers, file (for mani) cuticle clippers, tiny scissors, MoYou Bridal Plate 06, nail polish remover, fine dottig tool, and two clean up brushes one angled & one straight.

Here is a close up of the design 

Polishes used for this mani: OPI Nail envy base coat, China Glaze white out, Cirque Monte Carlo, Cirque Cabana Capri, Illamasqua Boosh, Lemming Lacquer Curiouser & Curiouser!, OPI My Pal Joey, jessica Barely Blueberry, and Cirque Twilight

Now for the mani pics 🙂

For my right hand I did the decals and for my accent hand a gradient using Cirque’s Monte Carlo and Twilight

For my left hand I did the decals on each finger and for my accent just used Cirque Twilight

This picture I know is very bright, I was messing with my camera options and just really liked how vibrant the colors looked in my decals

For once I liked how my right hand came out better than my left, I am sure it has something to do with the fact that my left/model hand my pointer finger nail broke this week 😦

 

So there you have it, my Mandala inspired and first time making decal nails! What tips do you have for me or others that want to try the decal look again? What do you think of all of the girls mandala inspiration nails?  Check em out below!

TLR – Man nails

This month, we did back-to-back TLR’s with the holiday next week. Last week as you already know was ‘Cream’ color.  This prompt is ‘man nails’, done by or inspired by.

I tried very hard to get Don to do my nails… yea that didn’t work.. lol.  I had him instead come up with nail colors and inspiration.

Don’s original choice was he wanted ‘hooker red’ so he chose Nubar’s Lustful Red. Okay color down, then he looked through all of my stamps and came up with the splatters from my MoYou stamp. He wanted me to use black so I did Illamasqua’s Boosh. He said the colors and the stamp reminded him of when the Venom Symbiote took over Spider-man

 

Here are the inspired by my man nails..

This is the inspiration for the nails, This is Venom vs Spider-man. 

Venom vs Spider-man nails

This is Venom taking over

Venom taking over Spider-man nails

Venom vs. Spider-man nails

Venom

There you have it, what do you think?

Check out the other girls man nails

The Lacquer Ring – Turquoise shimmer

Hello to anyone that reads this anymore… lol I am sorry.. I suck I only barely post twice a month it’s bad, but my life is hectic, not that anyone else’s isn’t… trust me I know.

To fill you all in as I think I sort of touched on, my husband’s brother(my brother-in-law), his fiancé (my future sister-in-law), and their two children moved back to NJ from AZ and are living with us for a while until they get on their feet. I took off a couple of days from work to help them move in and things are going well I think we got our schedule going with everyone in the house now… oh and did I mention in case you don’t know we also have 3 horses… not really horses lol but three large dogs 😉 lol. So with preparing for them to come and getting settled and all it’s been hard for me to paint, or blog but I am trying to come back 😉 I love my blog I love painting my nails it’s so relaxing as most of you know, it’s just finding the time which I am going to make sure that I do 🙂 Plus Ashley and I were doing our nails together a couple of times already so I’m getting her hooked hehe

#TheLacquerRing is also trying to come up with another segment twice a month like this for anyone that wants to collab like Stamping Saturdays for untrieds and such so keep an eye out for that 😉

 

 

Before I begin with the actual TLR post for this week, I want to first welcome our two newest exclusive members! Rei and Shelby Lou! Welcome Ladies to The Lacquer Ring!!

For this post, it was turquoise shimmer, I have always really wanted to try the turquoise gem nails, so why not… UGG! So for those of you that have tried it and did well, you suck. Those of you that don’t know I will explain… So it’s sort of like water marbling.

• You paint your nails the base coat in this case mine was China Glaze’s Too Yacht to Handle.
• Once dry, you can stamp a gold and/or a white a little bit as most turquoise has those hints. I used OPI’s Love.Angel.Music.Baby and China Glaze’s Dandy Lyin’ Around.
• Again once dry you drip a couple of drops or only one of black into water I usedIllamasqua’sBoosh. Once it separates and is a big circle, again like water marbling but without the bullseye you lightly spray hairspray or alcohol on to it.
  • From there the black will separate and make a watermarbly or a turquoise design.
    • You dip one finger at a time in the water (unless you’re pro- I’m totally not) and while under take a pin or a toothpick and swirl it around in the top layer of the water to get the excess polish at the surface
• Oh and before I forget in case you didn’t already knowing from water marbling TAPE, TAPE, TAPE, or latex. Just like water marbling this is MESSY, MESSY!
• Once done you can sponge a little bit of the goldish and/or white again if you’d like
• Top Coat and done (Oh and since this was turquoise shimmer I also did a coat of Enchanted Polish’s Ice Castle overtop for some extra shimmer)

With that being said I don’t know what I expected for my ‘first time’ but it wasn’t this… lol I like how it came out but it’s not as turquoise gem as I’d hope.

So what do you think of this? Have you tried this look and how did you make out?

Don’t forget to check out all the other girls posts for TLR and make sure you welcome our newest members! 😉

The Lacquer Ring – Tokidoki Unicorn

So as you have noticed the pattern we usually post TLR on Thursdays bi-weekly. Well this prompt we were all turds and super busy that we have all posted scattered rather than together like the intention of TLR. In any event this prompt was picked by Lesley @Misfitlesley inspired by the Tokidoki Unicorns that Frosso sent us last year. They came in these cute little boxes that you get a random one and surprisingly enough we all got different ones! Too stinkin cute!

My unicorns name is Dolce and I love him. I used OPI’s Going My Way or Norway? Then I hand painted on an angle Julep’s Carrie. For the sprinkles I hand painted on Opi’s Hey Baby and Cirque’s Tavern on the Teal. I painted the unicorn horn on my index finger using a nail art white. Finally I had a stamp of a small heart and I used Illamasqua’s Boosh and I hand painted the crossbones below it.

 

Isn’t Dolce too stinkin cute!

Make sure you check out all of the other Unicorns everyone got and their take on their little friends nails 😉