The Lacquer Legion: #LLAfterDark

Hello, boys and ghouls (oh, that never gets old)! Time for a spooky Halloween-themed mani! The Lacquer Legion prompt this month was "after dark"... and I don't know about where you live, but after dark here is when the bats come around to nom all the mosquitos. I love bats! Some people are afraid of them, but I think they're cute--and I appreciate anything that eats up all the bugs :) So I decided to do a mani representing that brief moment at night when the moon is out, the last bit of sun is disappearing, and the bats start emerging :D

Click the jump to see more!

Spider-Man Nails -- The Lacquer Legion Does Fandom!

G'day, boys and girls! It's time for another Lacquer Legion themed collaboration! This month, we celebrate the things in life we geek out for! TV shows, movies, sports teams, celebrities, comic books, you name it! Whatever you pay to go see, whatever you get excited about, whatever you have posters and T-shirts and collectible tributes to--put it on your nails!

I actually had to think a bit for this. I don't really watch TV, and I've already done manis celebrating my favourite sports teams, movie, book... what to do? Oh, comic books! My two favourites are Iron Man and the Amazing Spider-Man. As you cleverly ascertained from the title of this post, I went with the latter :D

"May" I Join the Lacquer Legion? Garden Themed Nails

Happy Wednesday! It's the end of the month, so that means another Lacquer Legion themed collaboration!

This month's prompt is "Garden"... so I took the literal approach:

The Lacquer Legion's April Theme: Glam!

G'day, boys and girls! As some of you know, I've been having a blast participating in the Lacquer Legion since it went live in January. Once a month, bloggers and nail enthusiasts all over the world create a design following a theme and share it with the world!

This month's theme is Glam, and as you may have noticed with my birthday post recently, this is not an look I have trouble with!

Lucky Royal George (aka Accidental Evil Eye)

Hello, my beauties!

I know, two updates in a row, right? But this is a special one. Today's post is my contribution for the Lacquer Legion's March theme! This month, the prompt is "Lucky". I like that the prompts are generally quite broad--it leads to so much diversity and creativity in the entries :)

I, in general, have a love/hate relationship with the concept of luck. I have met some wonderful people, had some amazing opportunities, been to so many places, and overall I feel very fortunate even though I am far from rich. However, I am not sure how much 'luck' really plays into that. I tend to believe things happen for a reason, we're part of a grander scheme, etc. When it comes to really "lucky" things, like winning contests/drawings; acquiring random events in games; escaping unscathed from klutzy incidents; not tripping, dropping, breaking, losing, dirtying, sitting on, knocking over, or spilling things, I have a really really really poor track record. (Let's just say "graceful" would never be on any top-ten lists of words that describe me.)

However, one time I did strike it lucky, and won a contest that scored me a bottle of Nubar's limited-edition commemorative polish celebrating the newest addition to Britain's royal family--Royal George Blue! (I did a swatch-and-review of it here.) It's the only polish I've ever won, so I decided the "lucky" prompt was the perfect time to pull this little bottle out again.

Outdoors in sun

Debut of The Lacquer Legion: Reinvention

Hello my dears!

Today I have a super fun post for you :D I have joined up with many other nail bloggers for a new worldwide collaboration: The Lacquer Legion. Similar to the old Polish Days collabs, once a month we will have a theme around which we all base a manicure to share with each other and with our readers!

The first theme is Reinvention. Lots of room to explore with this one. I have a nail design which, I believe, covers the topic in many ways. Let's get to it!

Lots of new things going on here! First, let's start with my nail shape. Anyone who has visited my blog before will likely notice the difference here. I've always had square/squoval nails. However, I kind of wanted a temporary change, plus I had broken off the corners of my thumbnail and one on my middle finger. I decided to try for an almond-shape nail, and ended up with something between almond and plain oval. I haven't decided if I like it or not, but it is new for me! So that's one reinvention.

Next, the base colour for this manicure, and a true reinvention. It's a frankenpolish! I started with a slightly sheer, frosty purple polish by Jane called Shock Value. I did not get any photos of it before, but it was one my mother had given me and I never really wore it. Was just kind of "meh". I added in a frosty pink and blue, neither of which I ever really used (I think they were both Petites, though) and then--the important bit!--a no-name thin glitter mix containing silver, gold, and rose gold small glitters. The resulting colour is not far off the original, but more rich, and sparkly! I love it, but can't think of a name. Any suggestions shall be considered ;)

A swatch of my franken when it was first created, and before I filed my nails.

I then went for a sort of unique type of French tip on my newly-rounded nails, using Dollicious Polish's Scene Stealer. I used a striper and then a detail brush to create a round tip with a sort of spire, like so...

And just to be extra-classy, painted the undersides as well. It looks very silver in this next shot, but it's really a cool-toned rosy gold.

Anyway, next was to add the "gemstones". I wanted to capture the look of those swirly, coloured polished rocks. I used Ulta Snow White, CoverGirl Outlast in Vio-Last , and a toothpick to create the swirly dots. I pre-made these on a plastic bag a couple of days beforehand, because the blobs do take a while to dry, and...

So yeah. I just dabbed on a drop of the white polish, then a bit of purple, swirled them around with the toothpick (but not too much), and allowed them to dry. Then once I had my cute gold tip in place, I carefully peeled them off with tweezers and used clear polish to adhere them to the middle of the nail. Finally, I used gold microbeads to carefully frame the "stone", giving it a sort of cameo/brooch look (I hope).

with the base colour in hand :)

The topcoat I used to seal it all in is KBShimmer Clearly On Top.

And one more in lower lighting. I love this shot :) shows the richness of Scene Stealer and how it goes well with those beads!

That's all for today! I hope you enjoyed my take on the Reinvention theme, and that you'll check out the other bloggers' great manis too. Click here to check out the Facebook page and see all the other contributions, and I'll see you next time! xoxo