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 :)

All Aboard The Blog-Train!

Would you like a few cheeky extra blogviews or even a few extra followers by any chance? As someone just starting out in bloggger land, I am finding it hard to find places to advertise my blog, and a few extra views a day doesn't hurt ;)

I discovered this site called blog-train which adds your blog to a "train" of other blogs displayed on the home page, that allows other bloggers or non-bloggers to visit or even follow your site :)

I discovered this site when I was snooping on my page views to see the sources and wondered what the hell blog-train was hehe. There's no need to have an account, you just add in your URL and that's you joined the train :) The site displays your blog for around 10 mins, after which you'll have to re-add your blog again, but that's just though a simple "click" link. I was surprised at how easy it was, there's an option to have your blog displayed solidly for a few days or a week, but that's something you have to pay for.

A little (somewhat immature lol) detail I like is that you get points for re-joining the train and for viewing or following any of the other blogs displayed on the home page, which I think is a good way to discover other blogs as well, as there's various categories such as DIY, art and animals etc. The points element is also amusing for myself and Mr Lacquerised as I am currently beating him by 200 points XD

Anyhows, this helps a lot with promoting your blog and I've even somehow managed to gain a few followers...hello new followers! *waves* :)

Swirly Mess

Long time no speak folks! ;)

As you may be able to tell from the more recurring posts that I am already bored of summer and seem to go back to doing my nails for something to do :p

This design is my lazy attempt at water marbling, by just  blobbing on 2 or more polish colours onto the nail and swirling them together with  dotting tool or needle. I've yet to actually give water-marbling a shot, but it seems too much hassle, like making sure the water and polishes are at the same temperature, and getting polishes of similar viscosity etc. Whereas with dry-marbling (not sure if that's the official term of my version, but let's go with it lol) is a lot easier with a LOT less mess :)

BROWN: OPI  - San-tan-tonio
BLACK: Barry M - Black

I'm currently trying out the X-large sizing option for the photo, as it lets you see more detail (I currently use large) but I don't want the photos to be IN YOUR FACE y'know? :p

I would like to apologise for the wear and tear of my cuticles and just generally the area around my skin -_- The blue polish from my precious design stained my skin as I was taking it off D:

I also have a confession to make...as you may be able to tell, I don't actually take care of my cuticles as much as I should... *DUN DUN DUNNNNNN* I just find it all a bit of a faff to take care of my cuticles...I do have Sally Hansen's Cuticle Remover, and Burts Bees Lemon Cuticle Butter, but my cuticles never seem to end up nice and lovely :( I kind of expected the Sally Hansen stuff to magically remove my cuticles rather than just soften them I guess. I have a cuticle pusher but that doesn't seem to do the trick, but then again I'm kind of scared to use those scary cuticle clippers that look like pliers. I have th8is image of me somehow pulling my nail off 0_0 However, I am getting into the habit of using The Body Shop's Almond Hand & Nail cream so hopefully that should make things a bit better!

Till next time!