Double Post: Hime Gyaru & Ying Yang Drips

Hello m'loves, how are we surviving the freakishly wet summer of 2012? T_T

Anyhows, I have a double post for you today, since I didn't have much to say about of the designs as there wasn't much to it. Also, more apologies for my cuticles, I got fed up and went a bit snip happy with nail clippers...now I know why you're not supposed clip them -_-

The first design is a gentle step into the ever so slightly OTT world of Hime Gyaru nails from Japan.

In all honesty I kind of had another mind blank on what nail design to do, and all I decided was that I was going to use the ever so lovely Buttercup from the Revlon Colourstay range as a base. I then just blindly went into my nail decorations box and grabbed anything yellow based and ended up with this kind of thing. Normally I do my ring finger and my thumb as accent nails, however due to the unpractical use of gems and pearls and whatnot, I decided to keep my accent nail to just the ring finger. They did however last a fair amount of time before I decided to take them off (around 3 days) 

YELLOW: Revlon Colourstay - Buttercup
Gems & Pearls: Ebay

The next design I have is a Ying Yang/Drip effect design that I actually really like. If anyone watches the amazeballs Voussontbeauetbelle (i.e Becca) on youtube, you'll know that she often sports some wowza looking ying yang nails more often than not, and I just had to get involved! Me being one for accent nails and all that tosh, I decided to sport the ying yang sign on my accent nails and a drip effect on my other nails (God, I do like a good old drippy effect)

WHITE: Models Own - Snow White
BLACK: Barry M - Black

Given that my usual white is in Glasgow at the moment and I am in Edinburgh (making sure Mr Lacquerised doesn't die from starvation while his family are away in the sunny climates of Chamonix), I persuaded Mr L to purchase me a white from his place of work (Boots, however he only works in the opticians not the normal part of the store where I can easily peruse the contents for almost an hour!) and he picked up the Models Own French Mani white which I'd never actually used before. Personally, I find it a bit blah to work with...opaque-ish in 2 coats but can be a bit patchy and it has a weird consistency...maybe I'm just too used to my Ultra Pro one lol.

It was surprisingly hard/confusing for me to do the ying yang signs...I couldn't get them consistently the same shape...maybe I was overthinking it too much hehe.

Anyhows, if you don't know yet, Ive finally got round to opening my Etsy Shop, so have a quick peruse if you wish, and maybe even buy a set if you want hehe ;)

Till next time! :)

I'm (Finally) On Etsy!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Lacquerised

There's only 3 sets on the shop just now, I have plans to do a set of the butterfly nails, but I don't have my black with me >_<

Anyhows, have a look, suggest any changes (my banner isn't the best, I fail as MS paint aha!), pass on the link to anyone who might be interested!

Thanks for reading and hello to my new followers! :D

Things Are Finally Happening!

Hello folks,

just to let you know I might not post for another wee while yet! I've finally got the courage to start selling nail sets on etsy, so I'll be busy-ish painting nail sets for that (only a few though, dont want to get ahead of myself!) and after doing one set last night, I realised doing painting nail sets with ready painted nail isn't a good idea. So I'm currently sporting blank nails, which quite frankly horrifies me...

But hopefully I'll get back to posting normally soon! ^_^

Grapefruit Fizzies

Bonjour Lacquerised lovelies,

How are we surviving the summer? Are you somewhere warm and lovely, and are you somewhere a teeny bit temperamental like the UK? :p Right now it's rather humid, but switching between sunshine and rain...and wind...very odd.

Today's design isn't too intricate, it's a dotty ombre-ish kinda of deal, with a peach and yellow contrast which is a rather nice, summery pastely concoction methinks :)

Barry M is renowned for their polishes and peach melba is one of the good ones (I've been fooled by many a sheer/jelly polish!). It's a pink-ish peachy colour, opaque in 2 coats. Buttercup was a essential for me to grab asap, Allison of Amarixe on youtube raved about this on her blog (post here) as being an opaque pastel yellow in just 2 coats, which I've found to be extremely hard to find (Revlon Sunshine is a 5 coater culprit!) It's a such a lovely pastel yellow, almost like vanilla ice cream!

PEACH: Barry M - Peach Melba
YELLOW: Revlon Colourstay - Buttercup

Pastel Flags

I'd like to think that if I ever were to be a ruler of a country, that my flag would be nice pastel colours...I don't know why, but maybe cos pastel's are not as intimidating as loud garish colours :p

To make the lines, I used the gold as the base colour, and used striping tape to make cross shapes after the polish dried. I then filled in the spaces with a mint and a peach colour, and removed the tape (when the peach and mint were still wet to avoid the polish getting "torn" when lifting the tape) which then leaves the gold as an outline for the triangles and voilà, flag/cross shaped triangle type things...as you can tell, I'm  not the most eloquent when thinking of titles for my designs hehe.

Striping tape is a good wee favourite of mine to make crisp and straight lines, however my fumbling stubby fingers don't lend well to placing them in patterns anymore intricate than crosses and straight lines :( I got a 10 pack of different colours from ebay for dirt cheap, but you can buy one roll if you don't fancy having striping tape hanging about your polish box, which is what I have atm >_< 

GOLD: Barry M - Gold Foil
PEACH: Barry M - Peach Melba
MINT: 17 - Mint Choc Chip

You guys must be sick of my constant apologies of either manky cuticles or bad photos...but I will get my camera back at some point I hope!

The 3 polishes I used were lovely and opaque in one coat, which is good for a method like this as waiting for the polish to dry can lead to it lifting along with the tape.

You can also just leave the striping tape on to make straight lines, just apply topcoat on top and specifically at either end of the tape to prevent it lifting off.

Pastel Triangled Dots

Well hello my lovely followers :)

Has Mr Sun popped back out again wherever you may be residing, cos he has in Scotland hehe. Although it will no doubt last only a few days...

I'm unsure as to what to call this design...I just felt like using some gemmy dots as I haven't used them in a while and I didn't really have any ideas for a more drawing type design, so I took the lazy way out hehe.

Again, sorry for the crappy phone photo, but at least it's slightly better lighting than last time! XD

LILAC: Models Own - Lilac Dream
GREEN: Models Own -  Jade Stone
GEMS: Ebay

I have to say, Models Own is one of my favourite mid-range drugstore/high street brands for polish. They're £5 a bottle, however, the majority of MO polishes I've had are opaque in just 2 coats and they come in so many colours, and they also have boxsets of polishes as well! Barry M is also a favourite and are cheaper. but some of their polishes aren't as consistent with opacity I find.

But you should have a look at both brands, cos both are pretty good quality for drugstore/high street brands and they have all colours imaginable :D

Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty...

Hello nail lovelies! 

How are we enjoying the miserable weather that has ensued on the UK? :p Did any of yous do much for the jubilee or were even aware of it if you're not from the UK?

I'll be honest and say I did eff all for the jubilee as a) I wasn't even aware it was so soon (I thought it was in July for some reason...fail!) and b) I'm not one for Royal celebrations. Not that I hate them or anything (as the standard Scot does, I have to admit), but I've never seen the whole fuss with the Royals, I didn't even watch Wills and Kate get married lol.

Anyways, I've been on a cat obsession kick lately, mainly because Mr Lacquerised has 2 cats and I do have a soft spot for them. It first started with a pair of cat shoes from Daisy Street and then I bought a rose gold cat face ring from River Island, so I thought I'd top it all off by doing some cat nails hehe. But I still stand by the fact I love both cats and dogs the same :)

Many apologies for the crappy phone photos, I've given my camera as a loan to my friend for her graduation/graduation ball photos, and the sun was going bye bye when I decided to take a photo. And I also apologies for the stringy black bits, I rarely use my black polish (I usually use a black nail art pen, but that has run dry) so it's gone a tad gloopy! 

BLACK: Barry M - Black
WHITE: Ultra Pro - Pure White
PINK: Barry M - Peach Melba

 I decided to add a bit of a different touch to my usual nail designs and do a sort of puzzle type element to it by adding the cat's body to the thumb so I can "piece" him together hehe

I opted to do just paw prints on my left hand, since I'm left hand dominant and I knew my wobbly right hand wouldn't be able to deal with piecing together a cat so I thought it'd be better than safe than sorry :)