Floral Appeal feat Liquid Sky Lacquer Head To The Bahamas and Enchanted Forest

Hey lacquer ladies,

In the interim between my blogging I've discovered so many amazing brands.  One happens to be Liquid Sky Lacquer.  God I love this brand!  As a self admitted holo whore shopping on her site for me isa skin to Alice romping through wonderland.  She makes super holos and some of the most amazing holo transitional polishes I have encountered.  So today I have two of my favorites for you along with some lovely stamping featuring my new Winstonia plates.

Head To The Bahamas is a nude linear holo - be still my heart.  Absolutely flawless and self leveling.  Pictured here opaque in 2 coats.  Yum

Enchanted Forest is a deep evergreen linear holo.  It is rather intense,  but requires a great deal of build up about 3-4 coats since the polish is thin, but it's totally worth it.  I used it here to create a gradient.

The technique I used for the stamping is fairly advanced.  I used one of the newish square shaped plates W-04 to create the art.  Stamping first and then filling in the pattern with acrylic paint.  After that I stamped back over the filled in image and wha-lah!  Instant pretty.

Indoors shot.  True to color but less fabulously holo.

 So what do you think? I've advanced quite a bit with my stamping skills though I still feel I've got lots more to learn.  If you are interested in purchasing either of the LSL polishes click the link above.  Carolyn is restocking on October 8th.  For the plates you can check out either the link above or my page for stamping supplies.  Thanks so much for reading and I hope you liked it!  I'll see you next post! 

I'm Back!

Hello lacquer ladies,

Lol hopefully some of my lovely followers have remained.  I have been so freaking busy since my last post.  School ran in and took over my life there are been periods were I was literally working upwards of 36 hours at a time.  This was for overnight shifts.  So yeah I've kinda only been hanging on my the skin of my teeth so to speak and blogging fell by the wayside.  I have had lots of poor naked nails, but as usual I'm back.  It's hard to abandon a passion especially one that has seen me through so  much.   I hope you'll stick with me or if you left rejoin me or if you are new welcome!  Now let's start the chatting shall we?

I have so much to catch up on!  I did do my part though to stay mostly on top of the new plates that have been coming out.  I mean let's be honest here - I am a stamping whore so there is no way I couldn't at least keep my ear to the ground regarding these.  I have amassed a score of new plates in the interim from blogging including both Pueen sets, Wistonia store sets, updated my Apipila and Sugar Bubble plates, added Mundo de Unas and Fashion Disaster 101 to to the collection, grabbed up the Jumbo Cheeky set, continued my growing obsession with Messy Mansion and Vivid Lacquer, and added the new Bundle Monster set (which hit my doorstep yesterday!).  Yes I have been busy although these have come in exteremely slowly after all it's been a while since I've blogged.  Oh and I failed to mention a new brand that has taken my wallet by storm MoYou London stamping plates.

Luckily I also have a backlog of mani's to share with you from some of these plates!  So I'll be doing that and I also wanted to take the time to let you know I updated the Stamping Supplies & Frosting tab.  It now has all new info concerning most of the plate makers out there.  Of course there are new ones everyday did you know that Emily de Molly, indie polish goddess extraordinaire is now actually making plates?!?  Crazytown!  So rather than listing out all the dets here just check that tab and enjoy the shopping bonanza.  I have also been working on adding pages for stamping newbies as I keep getting a lot of questions on my Instagram.  So expect those to be up shortly along with a few posts regarding stampers and the like. 

Anyway I'm glad to be back!  I apologize there aren't any pics here for you to enjoy, but the good news is it's black and white plus Monday so stay tuned for some sparkly pretty later on today!

Toodles....

Bestie Twin Nails - Blasian Color Nation!

Okay ladies long time no post again!

Today I have a special post!  Did you know that I'm very good friends with the lovely Vicky A of Boombastic Nails?  In fact I named her blog back in the days when she was just thinking about blogging.  I may have goaded her into it because she had some of the best swatches and pictures I've ever seen how could she NOT blog!!! Lol I sound insane but she's talented and she also happens to be my nail polish/nail art bestie for today's post. 

As you know I love my Instagram and there are always tons of tags running around over there one of which is the theme - bestie twin nails.  In short you and your nail art buddy pic an idea and colors and without showing the other create some nail art.  Vicky chose the theme - using tape in nail art and then I semi chose the colors - rainbow (but then we decided on full color spectrum).  So where does the "blasian" part come from? Lol - I'm African American/Black and Vicki is Chinese.  So there we are anyway without futher ado some bestie nail art...

Mani-louge (by finger):

Reds and Oranges: Orly Cherry Bomb, OPI A Good Mandarin Is Hard To Find, Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Cardinal, Essie She's Pampered, Claire's Little Dipper, Essie Tart Deco, and Sinful Colors Orange Creme

Greens: Color Club Artsy Craft, Essie Mojito Madness, Milani Neon Fresh Teal, China Glaze Starboard, Spoiled by Wet N Wild I'm so Jaded, and Orly Green With Envy

Blues: Orly Snow Cone, Orly Sweet Peacock, L'Oreal Royally Yours, Essie Mint Candy Apple, Essie Avenue Maintain, OPI Orge The Top Blue, and Essie Bikini So Teeny

Purples: Color Club Puccilicious, Essie Play Date, Essie Boxer Shorts, L'Oreal Lacey Lilac, Orly Velvet Rope, L'Oreal Royalty Re-Invented, and Essie Go Ginza

Black and White Marble: L'Oreal I Will! and Orly Liquid Vinyl

Pretty cool right?  Even though neither of us knew which exact colors we were using it turned out so similarly!  Lol I guess we are besties after all.  Vicky's came out so perfectly I feel a little embarrassed to even put my art up next to hers *waaahhh* She is so talented!  You can see more details of her art on Boombastic Nails.

Now I know you are thinking where did YOU use tape in your mani??  Well I did.  I put down one water marble (the black and white) and then taped off sections of it and water marbled on top of the taped off sections creating a double water marble!  Crazy cool right.  I used over 30 polishes to create this manicure, and at least 4-5 different colors and 3-4 brands for each "color" of the the spectrum.! My my how overly ambitious!  Anyway I hope you enjoyed this happy un-Easter edition of Lacquer Lockdown.  May candy bunnies rain from your skies and happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it! 

Tamira :)

NailArt March: Elevation Polish OOK & Gradients

Happy Saturday polished prisoners,

So I realized I need to be a little more on the ball about putting up these posts.  Seriously I have tons of great manicures to share, but I haven't put up the posts because it's a bit more time consuming than just throwing them up to my Instagram.  However, since I love my blog and all my followers I definitely need to keep doing that :)  So let me share one with you today that is a bit old, but still fabulous!  As you know I've been putting up a lot of my nail art March challenges and the 3rd one was gradients.  Around here y'all know I love me a gradient.  Never met one I didn't like and I've got about 3 techniques under my belt for creating the perfect one ;)  I really wanted to feature a One-Of-A-Kind Elevation Polish I got too a few restocks ago.  It's one of those "black & white" toppers but in the EP spirit it's blue, white, and black.  Think frosts on top of mountains and you'll get it.  Anyway I'll let the pictures do the talking!

Mani-louge

Basecoat/Top Coat: CND Stickey & Poshe Fast Drying Topcoat

Gradient: Orly Satin Hues - Satin Eloquence, Uniquely Satin, and Satin Finesse

Glitter Topper: Elevation Polish OOK #2

Stamping polish: Color Club Lumi-nescient

Stamping plate: Wistonia 111

 

Friggin gorgeous right?!? Okay no seriously what do you think?  The blue was a bit hard to capture due to the lightness but  I love love love this combo plus I love love love this glitter topper!  It's an OOK (I know don't groan it's really hard for me to get OOKs too!)  but here's some good news.  The brilliant Lulu of Elevation Polish was actually test running this pretty baby and released the final version on the 7th of this month.  It's called Haba Xueshan and you can get it on the 22nd of March on the EP website.  And before you ask, yes, I did get the final version because I want to do a comparison ;) I believe that's called being a helpless addict.  In any case I remember some time ago when Lulu was planning a brown/white/black combo that was supposed to be in this vein - I want that one too! 

So on another note I'm intending to spam you all pretty soon with my Satin Hues collection.  It will probably have to be in multiple parts I have a lot and I keep getting tons of questions about them so I figured I could put up some posts with the deets.  Look forward to it!  Thanks for reading and see you next post!  Toodles...

Rainbows and Stripes

Hiya polished prisoners,

Happy Saturday!  I'm exhausted it has been such a long week for this warden of the polish arena.  I have so much art to catch up on as well!  I'm in the throws of a deep and obsessive love with holographics right now.  It's killing me thinking of ways to wear them and ways to create cool art around them.  I looked at the last few polishes I have bought and most of them are holos! Ugh.  Wait why am I talking about this?  Today I'm not even featuring holo polish on the blog.  Okay back on track.  Today I'm putting up the second challenge of my nail art for March.  If you recall the challenges this one was for stripes.  I had a lot of fun creating around this concept because I like all kinds of stripes and though hee this could be so fun! So without further ado onto the art....

Ugh everything about Old Gold Buffy makes me want to cry - so pretty and perfect here!

Mani-louge

Basecoat & Topcoat: CND Stickey and Poshe Fast Drying Topcoat

Stripes: L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented, Sally Hansen Insta Dri Brisk Blue, Essie Mojito Madness, Essie Peach Daiquiri, and Zoya Pippa

Top color: Essence Vampires Love Gold Old Buffy, Orly Liquid Vinyl 

In its own way this is super pretty.  I didn't try to make it neat since I knew it was going to be covered up anyway.

This is cool huh?  I tried a laser effect like this once before last summer and it turned out horribly :(  I think because I didn't press the tape down hard enough and the color choice for the top was wrong so I'm glad this one came out so well though I did have my doubts.  I can definitely say my nail art these days is slowly improving.  I want to keep working on my freehand technique as well!  Are there aspects of your nail art that you want to improve?  Thanks for reading and see you next post! Toodles...

Spring Sprung Chevrons feat L'Oreal The Palace Life & Powder Puff

Hey polished ladies!

Hope everyone had a good week.  Mine was laced with frustration of one kind or another ah but I survived so there's that!  I decided to try out the monthly nail art Instagram challenge again.  Lol February was an an unsuccessful venture as I did about 3 of the 15-20 challenges.  I still need to share them here too.  I'll post the challenges below so you can see what's coming up.  This one for the 1st is already late but who cares when it's so pretty!  Anyhoo I'm using some polish selections from L'Oreal's Limited Edition Versailles Romance Spring 2013 Collection.  I chose The Palace Life, a soft pink girly shade and Powder Puffs a very creamy yellow with a bit of pearl sheen in the base which is very difficult to discern.  I have to say this collection is quite pretty.  The colors are all very girly, light, and fluffy.  In short perfect for spring!

Mani-louge

Base/Topcoat: CND Stickey and Poshe Fast Drying Top Coat

Base colors: L'Oreal The Palace Life & Powder Puffs

Chevron Colors:  Orly Luxe and Kiss Nail Art Striper in Dark Purple

So thoughts?  It's pretty straightforward and simple, but I think a good way to start off the challenge.  I freehanded this creation since I want to start doing more freehand for sure.  I love my stamping and will never give it up but sometimes its nice to get a feel for my ability to draw outside the lines as well if you know what I mean ;) and I think you do! Anyhoo this is my 100th post! Woot somehow I've been steadily plodding along in my own pace but I'd like to thank all my readers for coming along!  I'll see you next post and toodles...

Green Thing feat CrowsToes I Make The Path and Leo Dreams of Spring

Hey polished prisoners,

Happy Saturday!  I hope everyone had a good week.  It's been hectic on my end but fun! I am a very blessed lady.    I have to keep this in mind when times get tough or I feel like things are spinning out of hand.   Well living the dream and dreaming the dream are certainly two different things lol!  I would be wise to remember that.  Nevertheless I am still blessed.  Blessed in the friends I have and the gifts I have been given.  One friend in particular Lauri of CrowsToes I have been very blessed to make.  I've learned a lot from her sense of humor, and strength and dedication to working hard for herself and her family.  She's a bit of a role model on top of being an amazing soul!  In any case I told her about some types of polishes I was dreaming of and the lovely lady whipped them up for me!  Totally unexpected and totally amazing!  One of which is featured here.

The Leo Dreams of Spring...lol I named it.  It's supposed to be a polish based around my birthday month August.  It features bits of green to represent the peridot birthstone, purples for royalty, and gold cause I likes to bling bling  in a clear base ;)  When I first saw this I just stared at it and stared at it.  Shall I embarrass myself a bit and tell you a secret? I keep my CTs right on a shelf by my bed. They are my absolute favorite brand of polish and the only ones I treat this way (weirdo). Eh but you have to do what makes you happy.  I paired TLDOS with I Make The Path (this is probably undoubtedly one of my favorite CT colors of all time!) for this mani.

Mani-logue (in order of layering)

Base color:  Essie Mojito

Gradient:  Orly Satin Hues Satin Hope

Subtle sheen:  Lilacquer Selkie

Glitter:  CrowsToes I Make The Path and The Leo Dreams of Spring

Stamping polish:  Konad Special Polish in Black

Stamping plate:  Dash 3

So basically this mani is a feast of my favorites!  Y'all know I don't have anything but hype to say when it comes to my Essie's.  Mojito in particular from last spring was like crack to me.  Orly's Satin Hues will always have my undying love and I believe I have finally got them all I'm not even close to getting all of them but I'm still stalking like a mofo.    Lilacquer is a new brand on the blog, but I have adored this brand from the start because of the initial Japanese themed collection - did you know that a Selkie is a mythical sea creature in Japan? Yeah reading way to much manga.  And of course I love my Dashica plates.  The plate I'm using today is from the Dash set I won in the recent like and share FB contest.  I was thrilled and will talk more about these plates later.  And clearly I have already gushed above about CT's.    I know some ladies think that CTs are on the thicker spectrum of things, but I've never had a problem with them nor have I had to thin them down.  Personally I feel handing all polishes, particularly glitters, require a certain lightness of hand in order to not overwhelm your base color unless that's your goal.

 In any case I hope you enjoyed my little mani! You can find CrowsToes in all of their feathered glory either at Llarowe or Overall Beauty.  Lilacquer can also be found on Etsy and finally Dashica plates can be found here.  Happy polishing lacqueristas!