Oxygen Bar Just Blue Me Away!

Hello Lacquer Luvers! As promised, I have my first Valentine's Day mani to share with you guys today. Before I get into it, I just want to say THANK YOU to each and every one of you! LuvMyLacquer hit 1,000 followers this weekend and I am still over-the-moon with excitement about that! You all have been so supportive since day one and I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate you for joining me on my blogging journey and having me as part of this amazing community. 

Today's manicure is a little unconventional when it comes to the Valentine's Day theme. It's not your typical pink, red and white manicure but it sure is cutesy and would be great to wear on the day for lovers, don't you think? Let me share with you how I achieved this look. 

This manicure began with two coats each of Essie Play Date and Bettina 190. The formula for both of these polishes is really nice. They went on smoothly and had a high gloss finish without a topcoat. I chose these colors to play up the fabulous glitter I used, Loaded Lacquer Oxygen Bar. Oxygen Bar is described as matte neon pink, matte neon blue, metallic purple, holographic lavender and periwinkle hex and squares in multiple sizes. I love everything about this polish. The neon glitters are incredibly eye catching while the periwinkle glitter lends a softer feel and the tiny holographic glitter keeps it playful.

These stamping decals were created with Pueen43, Cult Nails Tempest, Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!, & China Glaze Gothic Lolita. I applied a coat of Orly Prisma Gloss Silver because..well, one could never have too much holo sparkliness, right? I sealed all of cuteness in with a coat of my favorite glossy topcoat, HKGirl, and voilà!

Do you all love this mani as much as I do? I just love the glitter in Oxygen Bar and it was a great inspiration for this look. Did you know that you have a chance of winning this polish and lots more goodies by entering my Fan Appreciation Giveaway? Are there any looks you'd like to see from me for Valentine's Day? As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

~Jessica

31DC2013 Day 4 - Green Nails

Hello Lacquer Luvers! It's Day 4 of the 31 Day Challenge and today I get to share my green manicure with you guys. If you've been following me for a while you know that green is one of my favorite colors so I was really excited for day 4. I also was excited to knock out some of my untrieds with this one. 

My mani began with a base of Essie Feed Me followed by 3 coats of Sally Hansen Ivy League. I've had this polish in my stash for about two years now *hangs head in shame* and have never used it. I didn't have any application issues with this polish but it was a bit on the thin side which is why I used 3 coats. It also had a few brushstrokes but that just made it perfect for nail art.

Picking up another untried, I used Sinful Colors Call You Later to create a glitter gradient. I stamped Cheeky CH7 on my accent nail and used a dotting tool with Call You Later to fill in the dots. I then went over those dots with Sinful Colors Flower Girl and topped my manicure with a coat of HKGIRL topcoat.

I'm honestly not too fond of this shade of green on me but I had a lot of fun trying new things with this manicure! This challenge is pushing me to try techniques and use colors that I haven't tried or used before and I'm really having a great time testing out my skills. As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

~Jessica

31DC2013 Day 3 - Yellow Nails

Hello Lacquer Luvers! Today's post will be as short and sweet as possible as it's a late one. I've had some Internet issues today and finally got my pics to load as I'm getting ready to end the day. Day 3 of 31DC2013 calls for yellow nails. If you recall a few weeks ago, I was on a yellow kick so I'm happy this made it into the challenge!

My manicure began with a base of Essie Feed Me followed by 2 coats of Essie Marshmallow. Next I began to create a gradient using Marshmallow, Sally Hansen Buttercup & Zoya Darcy with the help of a makeup sponge. I repeated this process 3 times. 

Next I applied one coat of Orly Prisma Gloss Silver over my accent nail. I used Konad Special Stamping Polish in white & RuiZ03 from BornPrettyStore for the polka dots and Mash46 for the flower design on my accent nail. My manicure was topped with 1 coat of HK Girl topcoat.

I seriously am deeply in love with this manicure! I'm really happy with how my gradients have been coming out lately. I've been working so hard on those! I'd love to know what you all think of my yellow nails! Would you wear this? As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

~Jessica

Tropical Manicure with Hummingbirds & Hibiscus'

Hello Lacquer Luvers! If you guys follow me on Facebook, you know that the past few days nail polish just was not feeling like being my friend. I decided to let it be for a while and come back to it a couple days later and guess what? It loves me again! Yay, lol!

I'm in a group on Facebook for nail art stamping and every Sunday there is a challenge. Today's theme is "The Sky's The Limit." For this theme, you can use any images you want to create a manicure that showcases anything you would see in the sky (planes, butterflies, birds, stars, etc). While going through my stamping plates I was inspired by images of hummingbirds. I Googled images of hummingbirds and was captivated by these two photos which also happened to include my most favorite flower:

Photo Credit: http://hoosiergardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/hummingbird-hibiscus-steve-byland-a-Fotolia_15250719_S.jpg

Photo Credit: http://shenthreedees.blogspot.com/2010/10/hummingbird-hibiscus-interaction.html

My manicure today began with a base of Essie Grow Faster. I used 3 polishes by Bettina to water marble all of my nails and used the same 3 polishes to do a gradient on my accent nail. The polishes I used were Peppermint, Ocean, and Marshmallow. I chose these colors to symbolize the grass, sky, and clouds. I know that Ocean isn't really green-green, it's more of a aqua/green kind of color but I liked the way this color combination worked better than when I tried it with a true green (Bettina Mojito).

Next I used M72 from a set of plates I purchased from BornPrettyStore and Sally Hansen Color Quick pen in Fuchsia for the hibiscus image. Then I used my Sally Hansen Color Quick pen in Green to stamp on the hummingbirds which were on the H26 image plate by Chez-Delaney. I completed this manicure with a coat of Good To Go topcoat by Essie.

I really do love the way my manicure came out today and am glad that I had the patience to wait out a couple days for nail polish to once love me again. I like the chrome/metallic in the Sally Hansen pens and how it gives the hummingbirds that bit of sheen that you see in their feathers. This manicure makes me want to take a trip to Hawaii! What do you guys think of this manicure? What would you have come up with for this Sunday's theme for the challenge? As always, I hope you all liked this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

~Jessica

Pink Wednesday & My Franken

Hello Lacquer Luver's & welcome to another Pink Wednesday! Today I have a pretty pink mani to share with you as well as two other goodies: a franken I made & a nail polish ring. I'm really quite fond of them both and am so excited to hear what you all think of them so let's get on to the pics, shall we?

Today's manicure began with a base coat of OPI Nail Envy. I chose Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Hot Magenta for my pink today. Hot Magenta can best be described as a hot pink polish with subtle shimmer and blue undertones. The blue undertone in this is really really beautiful in the sun. The formula on this is great, it applies very nicely and needed two coats to reach full opacity. The brush on the SHXW line bottles can be a bit wide for some people, but for me, I like it. Dry time on this polish was average and although it doesn't dry super shiny there isn't an absolute need for top coat either.

To make my mani more interesting, I went ahead and layered on one coat of my franken polish. This is a polish I made just before the holiday's. It's absolutely gorgeous layered over pinks and is incredibly stunning over darker colors like black. I don't know the exact measurements of product used to create this as I honestly just did it on a whim and mixed/poured until my bottle was full. The bottle was about 1/5 full with LA Colors Nail Hardener. I began to pour in a bit of Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter (a pink tinted base with iridescent glitter), Jordana INCOLOR Girl's Night Out (a sheer, virtually clear, polish full of pink shimmer) & some of WetNWild's clear top coat.

Pretty right? My one gripe about this over this particular pink is that you can barely pick up on the pink shimmer since it kind of just blends right in. However, as I mentioned before, this is really gorgeous over dark colors like black. I made a polish ring using my franken and WetNWild's Ebony Hates Chris. Now you get to see all the yummy pink shimmerrrrrrr!

 Isn't it purr-ty?

In the last photo you can REALLY see the pink shimmer. I absolutely adore it! It's just so sparkly, so unexpected, so ME! What do you think ladies? Like it, love it, hate it? And another thing, notice that I didn't have a name for this baby yet? I was thinking you guys could help me with that! So if you have any suggestions, please, leave me a comment below and perhaps I'll give it your name =) As always, I hope you all liked this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

~Jessica

Have A Hello Kitty Christmas

Hello Lacquer Luvers and Happy Monday to you all! Today I have a super cute holiday mani that I am so excited to share with you! I had posted my Pink Snowflakes nails over in a nail polish group on Facebook and the ladies really seemed to have loved my girly twist on a traditional holiday manicure. I loved that one alot, too, and it got me to thinking of what other girly design ideas I could create for a seasonal manicure. While going through my image plates I came across one with the perfect design on it and thought "ooooh! I've got it!" So get ready for super cuteness my dear Lacquer Luvers as I bring you a festive manicure with the always adorable, Hello Kitty!

Today's manicure begins with a base coat of Nail Envy Maintenance by OPI. I used two coats of Bettina Onix as my base color and three coats of Snow White by Zoya on my accent finger. The formula on these creams are fantastic and both were very easy to apply.

To bring on some sparkle, I layered one coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear VIP Pink over Bettina Onix. VIP Pink can best be described as a pink sheer (perhaps jelly) polish full of pink micro-glitter with pink and silver shimmer. This one is best used for layering since she's so sheer (and sadly discontinued). I am in love with this over black! Now, on to the cuteness!

Isn't that adorable?! Let me share with you how I did it. First I used Bettina Pink Bikini and BundleMonster image plate BM14 for the two pink snowflakes. The Hello Kitty image is from BornPrettyStore plate M71 & originally comes with a bow in front of her right ear. I used my orange wood stick to get rid of the bow while it was still on my stamper. You have to do this quickly as the Konad Special Stamping Polish in black that I used for this dries really fast. Hello Kitty got a pretty pink Santa hat using Bettina Pink Bikini and BM-214. A toothpick was dipped into SHXW VIP Pink and was used for detail around the rim and top of her hat.

Although my Hello Kitty is not directly centered on my nail (stamp placement can be so hard sometimes) I am extremely happy with this unique Holiday manicure! Do you ladies love it? HK looks so cute rocking her pink sparkly Santa hat & the pink snowflakes help to tie in with the holiday theme. Who said Christmas nails couldn't be pink and black and absolutely adorable? As always, I hope you all liked this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing tomorrow's post with you, xo!

~Jessica

10 Day Challenge: Day 3

Hello Lacquer Luvers & welcome to Day 3 of the 10 Day Challenge! Today's challenge is Favorite Book or Inspired by a Book. As I mentioned in the 14 Random Questions post, I haven't read in a while so this was really a challenge. I thought long and hard and remembered this children's book that I read over and over as a kid. It was called The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.

The Giving Tree is a tale of a boy and a tree. The tree always gave the boy what he wanted...shade, a swing, apples...and as the boy got older he needed more and more of the tree. One day the tree allowed the boy to cut him down to make a boat. When the boy returned the tree told him he had no more to give but the boy just wanted somewhere to sit. The tree allowed him to sit on it's stump & that made the tree happy that he could still be of use to the boy.

For my mani, I was inspired by the book's cover. I began with a coat of OPI Nail Envy and two coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Grass Slipper. This is such a great bright green cream. The formula was nice and the brushes are wide and tapered which made for easy application. I used Lucky Duck by Orly to stamp on some leaves from BundleMonster's image plate BM208. The red in the apple is Ali's Big Break by OPI & the stem of the apple is Chocolate by E.L.F.

The Giving Tree book cover:

What is your favorite book? What do you think of my book inspired mani? Don't forget that  Ms. Kelly from Posh For Polish is doing this challenge with me so please go take a look at her book inspired man and let her know what you think! As always, I hope you all liked this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing tomorrow's post with you, xo!

~Jessica