The Lacquer Ring – Beach/Tropical

Are you Sea-Rious? That’s the polish I chose to use for this look by Glam Polish from their Under the Sea collection. This is what started my brainstorming for this look and my decision to go more Beach rather than Tropical for our TLR theme.

I still have yet to get my macro pics quite down as good as most bloggers Perhaps below if you have any recommendations for me, I’d be happy to hear. I am currently using my Iphone 6 along with my macro clip on piece I got on Amazon. Sometimes I use the lighbox I have sometimes I don’t but I don’t have a problem with lighting so much as I do the clearness of Macros..

Anyway, Are you Sea-Rious? is a gorgeousssss seafoam green holo with shimmer and holographic aqua micro-glitter. It’s a textured polish which also reminds me of the beach but I did use a top coat in this case.  I stamped a large seashell on one of my nails using my MoYou plate. I used the same MoYou plate that has the same seashell but a bunch of little ones on the other fingers. I used Essie’s Good as Gold as my stamping color.

I’m even wearing my mermaid ring to match my beach theme today 🙂

Please let me know what your macro tips are 😉 Please check out all of our lovely TLR ladies we have some new members 🙂

The Lacquer Ring – Seafoam

Whoa, two back to back posts on the blog!? That’s right! This time I have our latest TLR post for you Seafoam.  This color is perfect for me not only because I have  A LOT of Seafoam green and blues, but because our car color was Seafoam Green! Before our Camry we,  had a Seafoam Green Altima. Don hated it! I got it just before we started dating so he basically had no say in the color! lol  I bought it used so I really didn’t either, but I loved it, of course! He always said it looked like toothpaste! 😦  In any event, I had plenty of options for this theme.

I ended up choosing Cirque’s Julep and I did an accent nail using Lime Crime’s Milky Ways and some polka dots with Julep.

 

 

So our Altima wasn’t quite this sparkly, I wish it was, but it was a gorgeous color

Make sure you check out the other TLR girls, be sure to welcome them as we all have!!

Have a good weekend all!

The Lacquer Ring – Red

I am not sure who picked this month, however with the color and the next theme in two weeks I am thinking it was me, you’ll see why. Either way this month (as always) we have great colors and themes in store. Check out how #TLR does red!

My husband was so sweet and bought me the Ciate advent calendar for Christmas this year. I had so much fun opening it up each day, he gave it to me early so that I had a present each day of the month! For this look I am using one of the Ciate’s I got called hutch, I love how hookery this red is. lol I also used Pretty Serious’s Viscous Vampire.

Don and I have been watching Supernatural on Netflix lately… with the name of the Pretty Serious color I chose, I call this mani ‘My Bloody Valentine’ after the name of the episode we just watched 😉

I painted two thin coats of Hutch and then painted Viscous Vampire as a gradient on the tips

This second pic is more accurate of how it looks in person, sometimes the lighting is just so hard to get with some of these polishes! I do like however in the first pic how you get the different shades of the glitters. Pretty Serious website description states there are both red and fuscia in there 😉

Well there you have my red mani just in time for Valentine’s Day! Check out the rest of the TLR girls for their manis!

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!

The Lacquer Ring Turns 1 – Baby Blue

Can you believe it! We have been doing The Lacquer Ring for one year already! Our very first post was our special polish Nicole got for us collab with Unicorn Bubbles. From there, we took off with each of us picking a color collab and a nail art theme collab.

This month’s pick was Lesley and she chose baby blue. My nails are atrocious right now! My brother in law and future sister in law and their two kids and possibly dog are all moving in for a while in less than two weeks now. I have been cleaning and organizing to make room for them. To say the least my hands and nails have taken a beating 😦

Luckly! I already had this gem (along with many others 😦 ) in my folder to post so it worked out perfect. This is Delush Polish’s Springing in the Rain. It’s a sky blue crelly filled with sprinkles of white and fuchsia glitters that remind you sunny days are ahead! (taken from Delush’s website)

So what do you think? I find it funny only because to me this is such a spring color and we are having nothing of the sort here on the East Coast. Today will be going up to 90, that’s not normal for our Spring.. smh How is the weather in your parts of the world? And how are you feeling this springy blue?

Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TLR gang’s looks. Oh and I almost forgot, we are cooking up some surprises for you this year in our upcoming TLR year, keep an eye out 😉

Stamping Saturday – Elsa nails

Today I am going to the Philadelphia flower show. The theme is celebrate the movies inspired by the films of Disney and Disney/Pixar. As you know since there was so much hype over Frozen you KNOW there will be some Frozen displays. This gives me a chance to use my polish I got over Christmas!

So before you get scared, no I did not do full-on Elsa nails.. BUT I am going to bombard you with Elsa images, etc to set the tone since Frozen is literally EVERYWHERE!

I got Different Dimensions No one Elsa but you. It’s a holographic silvery blue polish with added shimmers, microglitters and real sterling silver flakies (direct from Different Dimensions website). I then did an accent nail using Orly’s Sweet Peacock and stamped a snowflake using Essie’s Blue Rhapsody.

Are you ready for Frozen overload? Here goes….

This went perfectly with Orly’s Peacock I really think that the vibrant shiny blue really brought out the shimmer and holo-ness that is this gorgeous Elsa color and visa versa. What do you think?

Don’t forget to check out the other girls Stamping Saturday looks.

If you have a look and want to join us, well c’mon then!

get the InLinkz code

Lastly before I go, in case you weren’t already singing it… you will be now ; )

The Lacquer Ring – Splatter

I’m baaaack! Back with my prompt for The Lacquer Ring nail art for the month of January. I picked as you can tell from the title, Splatter. The girls were ready to curse me out, but I just had to! I love the way that splatter looks and versatility of the look. I decided to go a little differently this time, I wanted different textures or finishes, check out what I came up with, I love it!

For Christmas my husband kept saying he really wanted to get me a nail polish but with my stash how in the world could he possibly know what to get. I sent him my wishlist tab that I have on the blog LOL but he didn’t want to be bothered.. said it wasn’t special enough. I told him well most of what I have on my list that are ‘special’ it’s just because I cannot find them, and spouted out a few. Well Guess What he found me!!!!…. OPI’s Here Today Aragon Tomorrow SUEDE VERSION! I couldn’t believe it, super awesome, have not been able to find this in forever!!!

I did two coats of HTAT Suede and splattered Essie’s Penny talk for my different finish of metallic, and then chose a holo to splatter using Dollish Polish’s Walker Bait.The holo is sort of hard to see, I would have rathered a more vibrant holo but I’m in love with how it came out, what do you think??

 

 

Do you hate the work that goes in to splatters too? I’ll let you in on a little secret if you don’t already do this… I use OPI’s glitter off on my cuticles and the tips of my fingers where I know I am going to make a mess. You can use glue, or anything else that you would normally use say when you marble, makes clean up A LOT easier 😉

Go check out the other girls Splatter nails.

 

The Lacquer Ring – Magenta-ish

So it’s that time again, The Lacquer Ring is back at it, and this month is Lesley!  She chose and I quote, Magenta-ish, lol. I wasn’t quite sure which color to do, I don’t know that I have very many Mangenta colors. I have more this is definitely pink, or this is definitely purple colors so I hope you agree on my choice, haha!

For my TLR mani I chose Morgan Taylors Sarong but so Right. I did a little french mani tip using Sephora Formula X’s Light my Fire. Take a look and tell me what you think, Mangenta-ish enough?

I was going to do some Hello Kitty inspiration since Lesley and I both share the love for her, but I didn’t have enough time. Next time Lesley, next time 😉 lol

So there you have it Magenta – ish!  Check out the other girls Magenta manis

 

The Lacquer Ring – Inspired by Frosso

This month as you saw in our color inspiration post, we are doing nails inspired by Frosso. She is a very dear friend of ours who is behind the now retired blog Lacquer Me Silly. As sad as we are to see her retire, I’m sure you will see her pop up on Instagram from time to time 😉

How can one choose just ONE look of Frosso’s to be inspired by, I love all of her nails. With Halloween being this week, I decided to do one of her Halloween looks… since Lesley took the look I wanted. LOL Just kidding! She did an amazing job! All of the girls did!

I chose Frosso’s Halloween splatter. This is her look:  She transferred her files to wordpress so you can check out the full article here.

 

For this look I painted two coats of OPI’s Can’t Afjord not to. I splattered China Glaze’s Liquid Leather, Ulta’s Snow White, Sinful Colors Happy Ending, and Opi’s Do you have this color in Stock-holm. Not only can this look be messy but depending on your approach it can use a lot of polish so be careful.

I have only done one splatter, and had forgotten just how messy it can be.. wow LOL

The good thing is that I thought to use OPI’s Glitter off on my fingers so it minimized clean up a lot… however the way I held my hand when I did it, I didn’t think to glitter off my hands too… SMH

This is how it came out though, and I must say I absolutely love it!

 

So there you have it. This is my inspired by Fross Halloween splatter. What do you think?

I know I’m late but in case you didn’t already see the other girls posts, check them out now!

Stamping Saturday – Wildwoods by the Sea

My local peeps will love this theme and color! This weekend it’s Labor Day weekend here. I just got these GORGEOUS colors from Philly Loves Lacquer and I have one of them to show you today. As she is local her polish names are cool because you can relate to all of them. The inspiration for her to start her line was drawn by her fascination with the history and landmarks of the City she loved and she combined that along with her love for nail polish and voila Philly Loves Lacquer was born!

Today I have Wildwoods by the Sea. Everyone knows that in this area Wildwood is THE place to be during the summer. Especially this ‘last’ weekend, Labor Day weekend. Wildwood will be Packed to the core this weekend with anyone and everyone celebrating their last fun in ‘the sun weekend before the unofficial end to summer.

“Love those wild wild Wildwood days”

Wildwoods by the Sea is “is a creamy deep dark seafoam base with a strong scattered holographic finish” so in other words, stunning. Sticking to the theme I stamped some seashells using my MoYou plate and Essie’s Good as Gold. Here’s my ‘End of Summer, Wildwoods mani’

So what do you think? What is on your nails for this end to summer 3-day weekend?

Be sure to check out the other girls looks to see what they came up with this Stamping Saturday.

 

Also, if you wanna join us, add your link below.

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Stamping Saturdays – Frittery Monarchs

Today is my 10th Wedding Anniversary, so I am scheduling this post to post today. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t ::fingers crossed:: My husband was in the Army and we were stationed in Texas and we got married at the Justice of Peace. As most of our family was not able to attend, once he got out of the Army, and we moved back home, we had a Vow Renewal Ceremony and Reception for our 5th Anniversary. Today, we have now been married 10 years, where the heck does the time go. You always hear people say it but I never thought I’d say it, it’s absolutely true. He still is to this day the love of my life and I can’t imagine my life without him.

So you are not loosing it, ( if you are keeping track that is ) TLR or The Lacquer Ring was due this Thursday for our Nail art challenge group post. The other girls are such slackers! hehe so we delayed until next Thursday. For this week’s Stamping Saturday I have a look that I am absolutely in love with.

This weeks look is Monarch butterflies. I used Ruffian’s Fox Hunt with one coat of overlay using Venique’s Forever Fritters, stamped with China Glaze’s Liquid Leather using MoYou Pro Collection 5 stamp. I then hand painted in the white dots using China Glaze’s White out.

I absolutely love the way this came out, it is sooo much prettier and shimmery-er in person.

Butterflies are very special to me. Butterflies always find me, all of my plants attract them, (on purpose 😉 )I have such good luck with them I even held a few before. But even more important than, that in my family we say they are a sign of our loved ones watching over us in a way. A family member had passed who loved butterflies and on the day of her funeral in the rain a butterfly landed on her grave as if to tell our family that she was alright. When my grandfather passed I felt as though every time I saw a butterfly flying so close to me or allowing me to hold it, I felt it was him doing the same. Has anyone ever had an experience like that at all?

There you have it, now go check out the other girls looks!

The Lacquer Ring – Chartreuse

So this month it’s Jess from Once Upon a Polish’s turn, for our color she chose chartreuse. I am personally not a big fan of this color.. lol I had to improvise. The closest I have to chartreuse was OPI’s Did it on em, because this is such an ugly color, again sorry Jess.. lol I decided that it reminded me of the 70’s. I chose to make my nails look like a 70’s couch or pants. I stamped Cirque’s Mink using my plaid stamp as well as Avon’s Saturn using the same stamping plate, just stamping it over the brown.

Here is my inspiration lol

Here are my nails

 

 So there you have it, there’s my nails for our Chartreuse collab. It’s not that I hate this color.. its more that I think it looks terrible on my nails with my skin tone, okay and maybe a little that I hate it lol.

Here are the other Lacquer Ring manis- keep checking back as we might have some late posts 🙂

Stay tuned, in two weeks will be her pick for our nail art theme 🙂

Don’t forget to check out my blog sale, just sold a few things so I updated the page.

Stamping Saturdays – Baby girl

Well no baby yet, but any day now! I don’t know if I told you guys or not but my brother-in-law and his fiancée are pregnant and my niece is due any day now! In honor of her arrival I did an overly girly manicure. She is being kind of stubborn so I was hoping that maybe this would help. Quite possibly she’ll arive tonight or tomorrow 😀

For this mani I painted two coats of Morgan Taylor’s Prettier in pink. Before I stamped, I also topped the pink with China Glaze’s Travel in Colour. I stamped Ulta’s Snow White using PUEEN36 stamp.

This is in my light-box

 This is outside in sunlight

AS I TYPE this post, I just got the call that she’s finally been admitted! She’s been having contractions all week and they wouldn’t take her… AZ is very strange! WOOHOO the nails worked!!

Don’t forget to check out the other girls Stamping Saturday nails

The Lacquer Ring – Tribal

As promised, we are back this time with my pick for the nail art theme and I chose Tribal. I had done tribal nails a few years ago when I first started my blog and did those free hand with all kinds of crazy fun colors so this time I went for a little less bold more simplistic.

Here are my nails when I did the 31 day nail art challenge

 

I went with Ulta’s Concrete Evidence as my base and stamped my MoYou plate on top using Sinful Colors Black and I accented some dots using Nubar’s Lustful Red.

You will notice I have nubs again!!! 😦 My nails were just getting long and I slammed my finger pointing straight toward the wall… (yea don’t ask, I’m clumsy) and my ring finger broke! I hate different lengths so I had to trim them all. Once they start to grow back though I think I am going to stick with the rounded look for now. 🙂

Well there you have it, here is my Tribal look, what did you think? Don’t forget to check out the other #TLR girls for their take on tribal.

 

Stamping Saturday – Hololaceness

It’s Saturday again! If you haven’t noticed yet, I changed my nail shape. I swore I would never go this shape, but I did. I love my squoval but ::knock on wood:: my nails are stronger and not breaking this way!

 

When I went to NYC a few weeks ago with some of the Lacquer Ring girls I picked up gifts for my mom and sister at Cirque. I got them Cirque’s Xochitl, it’s this amazing purple holo. Since I haven’t seen my mom I decided to use it before I gave it to her hehe! I stamped a lace design over it using Sinful Colors black

I have a giveaway coming up next week! Three winners!!

Check out the other girls Stamping Saturday look

Stamping Saturday – Jazzy Berry Swirl

As you read this, I am down the shore… or for those not on the East Coast ‘At the Beach’. That means I prepared in advance and did my post and had my nails ready! Wow that never happens anymore!

I got this gorgeous and my first ever Tip Top nails color from Siobhan called Jazz Berryblue. I love blues and she knows this, she is my polish twin we like a lot of the same colors and usually end up doing similar nails or colors often close together or at the same time. 🙂

Once I had two coats of Jazz Berryblue on, I used my MoYou stamping plate Sailor Collection-07 and Jessica’s Barely Blueberry for the swirls

I don’t think that the link is available yet, but be sure to go on one of the other girls pages to see everyone’s Stamping Saturday look if I don’t get time to change and add it!

have a good weekend everyone!

The Lacquer Ring – Holographic Pink

We’re at it again, this time it was my turn to pick! For our color collaboration I asked the girls to do a Holographic Pink look, or as a last resort if they didn’t have a holo pink, I asked them to do a ‘bright ass pink’ look. hehe I am keeping the nail art collab a secret so hopefully the other girls don’t spill the beans. 🙂

As I mentioned in my other post Frosso from Lacquer me Silly, Amy from The Fancy Side, and I met up in NYC and did some damage with some new Cirque polishes! I had one I was gonna use but I decided to use the one I got that day since I got it with two of the TLR girls. I give you Cirque’s PowWow.

I painted two coats of PowWow and stamped PUEEN37 using Darling Diva’s Diamond. I think this is like the third look I did with this silver holo, I’m in love but not as much as I am with this pink.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed my color pick and make sure you check out the other girls pink looks.

The Lacquer Ring – Cherry Blossoms

We are back for our first Nail art group post from the Lacquer Ring. As we said before, Nicole from Polish Me, Please was in charge of picking our color this month which was orange and our nail art group post which is Cherry Blossoms. I already texted Nicole last night cursing her because I was so frustrated and hating how my Blossoms were coming out. Damn you Nicole! lol

When I think of Cherry Blossoms I think of Pink. I did some research and found some other colors. I decided to go with the white variety.

My sister is in town for a few weeks to visit!! She was over the other night so I had her help me pick a base color for my Cherry Blossoms. She came up with two coats of Darling Diva’s Dangerous Driver. My branches I used a brush and mixed drops of Urban Decay’s Gunmetal and one of China Glazes’s Liquid Leather. For my blossoms, I dotted them on using Ulta’s Snow White. The Center I mixed Sinful Colors Happy Ending and Jessica’s Banana Peel. For the pollen, I lightly brushed the yellow again and tipped it with China Glaze Liquid Leather.

 

So these aren’t exactly as I’d hoped they turn out, but I ended up liking them. It was fun to see what all of the girls came up with. See theirs for yourself below!

 

Stamping Saturday – May Flowers

It’s that time again, another edition of Stamping Saturday. I absolutely love the Spring and the Fall. What I love most about Spring are all of my flowers, shrubs, etc blooming and sprouting again, and all of the pretty insects that come along with Spring. You can have your mosquitos though.. lol

Today in honor of Spring since we had such a wacky winter here in NJ, I have a flower mani. I’m going to be honest though, I don’t like it… I don’t know if it’s the color scheme or what but I’m not a fan and these will be coming off very shortly.. lol

I used two coats of Jessica’s Strawberry Shake it for the base. The purple flowers are using stamp Red Angel RA-308 and OPI’s Planks A lot, the pink ones are using Venique’s Flip Flop to the Beach. The other nails with the vines I used the same stamping plate and the green is Orly’s Lucky Duck with the same two flower colors just alternating. The center yellow was Zoya’s Darcy.

So what do you think? Any big plans this weekend?

Don’t forget this Thursday is the Lacquer Ring’s first bi-weekly challenge.

Here are the other girls Stamping Saturday looks

The Lacquer Ring – Unicorns Unite!

You have seen us all now for many weeks for our ‘Stamping Saturday’ looks, and on occasion its counterpart that didn’t quite take, ‘Textured Tuesday’ we are back with an all new endeavor.  After many weeks of texts/emails we have finally all voted and decided on our official group name.  The Lacquer Ring!

We are a group of crazy polish chicks who spend way too much time emailing each other all day long about polish, life, woes and more polish. While we haven’t all technically met in person (except for Cynthia & Lesley and Me, Amy, & Frosso), we are pretty good friends and hope that we can all meet one day. Unfortunately, the universe will end that day because that much awesomeness is not allowed all in one place. While you may already know the ladies who make up The Lacquer Ring, let me introduce them all, Including myself the other girls are: (PS totally took this last part from Cynthia because it was not only totally brilliant but absolutely true and couldn’t have said it better!)

Amy from The Fancy Side

Frosso from Lacquer Me Silly

Jessica from Once Upon A Polish

Lesley from IG @MisfitLesley

Nicole from Polish Me, Please!

Siobhan from For The Love Of Nail Art

Cynthia from Of Life and Lacquer

Our newest collaboration will be a bi-weekly post. Each month one of the girls is designated to pick both a color theme and a design/nail art theme for us all to participate together in a post. First up is Nicole for the month of May. She sent us all this polish to do a group post to announce our newest venture to you all. It’s Unicorn Bubbles by Candy Lacquer.

As soon as I got this polish I just could not wait to try it out so I did it overtop Zoya Darcy (which I also got from Nicole) so this look is from a few weeks ago. I did my accent nail with Darling Diva’s LE Miracle Cure

I just love how it made the Bubbles pop more made them appear to be brighter when in reality on their own are more of a pastel.

So knowing that we were scheduling this post for today I had wanted to try this over a pastel and did so last night. I did my left hand with Jessica’s Strawberry Shake it. Can I just say how much I absolutely love this bubble glitter overtop this pink, like I do not want to take it off love…

And finally, I was experimenting and trying to see what it would look like over other colors and so my right hand I used Jessica’s Barely Blueberry and this was how it turned out…

I didn’t hate it, it definitely looks more pastel overtop the blue and the pink, but I prefer it over the pink way better.

Well this was a longer post than normal! Lots of info, lots to look forward to hopefully you agree! 🙂 I will be back here for Stamping Saturday. The Official start date to the new Lacquer Ring bi-weekly posts is May 8th

Here’s the Rest of the Lacquer Ring gang