This One's For My Mom: Circus Animal Cookie Nail Art

My mom is unable to eat chocolate, so she's always had a few non-chocolatey sweet treats she favors. Peppermint ice cream, German raspberry candies, and Circus Animal cookies were some of her top picks when I was growing up. Personally, my pick out of those would be the Circus Animals! I've always loved the colors of the rainbow sprinkles against the pink or white frosting. Chocolate preferences aside, it's pretty hard to resist their sugary sweetness.

Mom, this one goes out to you!

Nail polishes used:
Salon Perfect Sugar Cube
Formula X Gemini
Formula X Pyrotechnic
China Glaze Sky High Top
OPI Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm?
OPI Suzi Has a Swede Tooth
OPI Good Grief!
Sally Hansen Sun Kissed
Sally Hansen Going Green

This look is simple and quick. All you need is a dotting tool and the right colors! Truthfully, choosing colors took the most time because I thought getting the right shades was imperative for recreating the Circus Animal sprinkles look.

This is also my manicure for The Lacquer Legion's Yummy prompt, because they are yummy in my tummy (duh).

Have you had these delicious cookies before? In working on this post, I just discovered a recipe for Circus Animal truffles, which I will have to make AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

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Textured Ruby Stars

Today is The Lacquer Legion post day and this month's theme is "after dark." I've got no shortage of Halloween nail art, so I've gone with something in a different direction this time. After dark... the stars come out! (But still kind of in a Halloween-esque color palette. Can't help myself.)

Nail polishes and materials used:
American Apparel Hassid
Zoya Chyna
Serum No. 5 Cut It Out vinyls - Lovely Magic

I'm still into textured polishes, no matter what the market says! I favor the ones without chunky glitter pieces, so naturally I'm a big fan of Zoya's PixieDust range and it's sparkly, small-particle goodness.

For this look, I used two coats of Chyna on my thumb, pinky, and pointer. For the two accent nails, I painted them black and applied the vinyls once they were dry. I painted over the vinyls like a stencil, peeled them off, and let the texture dry down. Voila!

Follow The Lacquer Legion on Facebook or Instagram for once monthly nail art prompts aimed at bringing together the nail polish community!

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Surface of the Moon Nail Art

It's once again Lacquer Legion day, and I'm cutting it a bit close! The theme is "Weird Science," which is so broad that I was almost paralyzed with indecision. In the end, I chose to try to depict the surface of the moon. Sean just got a really legit telescope and we have been doing a bit of sky-watching lately, and of course one of the first things we looked at was the moon. It's amazing to see the craters in such detail, especially where the moon transitions from the light to the dark side.

In this nail art, I used:
Formula X - Extraordinary
American Apparel - Hassid
Essie - Blanc
Nicole by OPI - Matte Topcoat

I used Extraordinary as the base, but then proceeded to basically cover it up entirely. The other grey shades in this nail art are just mixes of the black and white polishes listed above. I painted them freehand with a small nail art brush, in what I'm going to call a "painterly" style...

I'm on the fence about these nails. I don't know how moon-esque they actually look. My first thought was barnacles, while Sean saw carbon. I guess either of those would apply to the theme as well!

Follow The Lacquer Legion on Facebook or Instagram for once monthly nail art prompts aimed at bringing together the nail polish community!

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The Disney Diva - Ursula Nail Art

The Lacquer Legion's theme this month is "Fandom." Where do you even start with that one? There are SO MANY POSSIBILITIES! I've actually done quite a few fanicures in my day. Mythbusters, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Adventure Time...the list goes on. This time, I chose to do more Disney villain nail art. You may recall the Queen of Hearts mani I did recently, and here's another powerful baddie: Ursula from The Little Mermaid!

Here's a fun fact: did you know that Ursula's design was inspired by the drag queen Divine? Makes sense to me. Ursula is a pretty fabulous diva, despite being evil and all. There are some pretty diva-licious Disney characters, but for me, she takes the cake.

For my nail art, I've painted her tentacles on my four fingers and her *ahem* bust and necklace on my thumb.

Polishes used in this nail art include:
Floss Gloss Moon Baby (grey base)
LVX Aster (light purple)
OPI Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm? (dark purple)
Nicole by OPI Hit the Lights (yellow)
American Apparel Hassid (black)

I started each tentacle by painting a dark purple spiral and outlining it with black. Then, I filled the spirals with light purple dots, and stacked a smaller dark purple dot inside it.

Though the process for Ursula's tentacles seems simple enough, they took a while to complete. The hypnotizing spirals really demanded a lot of precision, so I tried to take it slow.

Follow The Lacquer Legion on Facebook or Instagram for once monthly nail art prompts aimed at bringing together the nail polish community!

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Visit Lumpy Space: Whatevers2009

This month's Lacquer Legion theme is "On Holiday." As it is summer and not December, this is obviously referring to the British (read: fancy) definition of holiday, commonly called vacation. Now, I could have done something a little more summery, but I decided to stretch the theme a bit and do a manicure I've wanted to do for a while now: a lumpy space landscape! Given the choice, this is where I would go on vacation if I could.

Confused? Don't be! This is another Adventure Time nail art manicure, inspired by the crazy Cartoon Network show. You may recall my character manicure or my Lady Rainicorn nails; these are the third addition to the group.

My favorite Adventure Time character, Lumpy Space Princess, is from Lumpy Space (go figure), a spacey world with pastel clouds and soft stars. I chose to paint a landscape spanning over my four nails with some additional clouds on my thumb.

Polishes used:
OPI Push and Pur-pull
OPI Vant to Bite My Neck?
Sally Hansen Pacific Blue (old version)
LVX Aster & Misa Loveliest of Lilacs (mixed)
Misa Ripe Raspberry
China Glaze Too Yacht to Handle
Finger Paints Lemon Sour
Nicole by OPI Matte Topcoat

While I didn't do a full tutorial, I did take some informal phone snaps of the nails along the way! You can see how you have to build up the clouds in layers: first blue, then purple, then aqua. The final steps include adding some soft yellow stars and a matte topcoat for that cartoon effect.

Follow The Lacquer Legion on Facebook or Instagram for once monthly nail art prompts aimed at bringing together the nail polish community!

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The Lacquer Legion Garden: Black-Eyed Susan 3D Floral Nail Art

This month's theme for The Lacquer Legion is "Garden" and, as I'm sure many others did, I chose to do floral nail art. Florals are something I've done a lot of, so I did two things to make this one stand out from my other manicures. First: I wanted to represent a specific type of flower, namely, black-eyed Susans. Second: I got the idea to put flocking powder in the centers to make them look more realistic and add a bit of texture and depth!

Nail polishes used in this nail art include:
Misa Ripe Raspberry - pink base
China Glaze Happy Go Lucky - yellow petals
Zoya Arizona - orange detailing
Zoya Louise - dark brown centers and detailing
Misa Lime Love & Zoya Hunter - mixed to create green stems

I finished the flowers with polish and topcoat before going back and adding in the fuzzy centers. Since you shouldn't topcoat over flocking powder, you want to make sure you do your topcoat beforehand so the nail art is flattened, smoothed, and protected.

To make the fuzzy centers, paint on polish where you want the fuzzies to be. I used topcoat to adhere the fuzz to my nail, but you could also choose a polish that matches the color of your fuzz. Then, using tweezers, drop flocking powder on to the wet areas of polish. Gently press the powder down into the polish, let set, and use a fan brush or fluffy makeup brush to gently dust off the excess.

I'm really REALLY happy with these. The fuzzy centers pop even more in person and add some awesome dimension to the flowers.

Follow The Lacquer Legion on Facebook or Instagram for once monthly nail art prompts aimed at bringing together the nail polish community!

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The Lacquer Legion Glam: OPI DS Glamour

The Lacquer Legion's prompt for this month is "GLAM," and though I've been a bit short on time for nail art lately, I couldn't let the day pass without posting something related to the theme! What better time to wear the lovely and rare OPI DS Glamour than on a day dedicated to glam?

OPI DS Glamour is a deep blue-purple linear holographic polish. It's hard to find now as it was very popular and then discontinued, but I was lucky enough to win one in a giveaway right at the beginning of my nail polish addiction.

Glamour can be kind of sheer, so to save on polish I like to layer it over blues. The other cool thing about layering it is that you can steer it in a more blue or more purple direction, depending on your base color. I chose to use Sally Hansen Pacific Blue underneath, which really boosted the blue side of Glamour, particularly in the sunlight. In indirect light, a bit more purple peeked through.

For more information about The Lacquer Legion, visit the official Facebook page. Skimlinks Test

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The Lacquer Legion Lucky: Maneki-Neko (Lucky Cat) Nail Art

March's theme for The Lacquer Legion is "lucky," and while I am definitely fortunate in many areas of my life, I decided to take this month's prompt in a more tangible and less abstract direction. My nail art depicts a maneki-neko; you may be more familiar with it as a "lucky cat." These Japanese figurines are often found in restaurants and shops, and are believed to bring good luck to the owner. Their paws are depicted in an upright, beckoning gesture.

The maneki-neko is painted freehand with a small nail art brush, and I added some black, white, and gold sakura around it on the other nails.

I took the stylized kanji on my thumb from this lucky cat illustration by Emma Barratt - I believe it is "fuku" which means blessing, fortune, and luck (maybe someone can confirm for me). Hopefully I didn't butcher the symbol too badly!

Shades used in this nail art include:
Seche Scorchin' Hot
Essie Good As Gold
Cult Nails Tempest
American Apparel Hassid

Have you seen one of these little guys before? I think they are just so cute and friendly!

If you'd like to participate in The Lacquer Legion's monthly challenges, be sure to like it on Facebook and follow @TheLacquerLegion on Instagram!

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The Lacquer Legion Adoration: I Adore Nail Art

I was brainstorming for The Lacquer Legion's "Adoration" prompt and, while there are many things I adore in the world, nothing seemed more appropriate for my post than nail art dedicated to... nail art! This manicure represents how much brighter nail art has made my life. Doing nail art, wearing nail art, looking at nail art, talking about nail art, I love it all.

I also threw in a little nod to a brand that I adore: OPI! I used all OPI shades for this nail art and tried to represent the ProWide brush (my fav) as the polish brush.

Shades used:
OPI My Vampire is Buff
OPI Big Apple Red
OPI In My Back Pocket
OPI I Just Can't Cope-acabana
OPI Who the Shrek Are You?
OPI Ogre the Top Blue
OPI Funky Dunkey

The technique I used in this nail art is similar to the technique that I used in my Trippy Drippy manicure. It basically involves making a manual gradient by creating custom blends of color to connect each shade to the next.

So, for example, on my middle finger, I painted red on the left side of the nail and orange on the right side of the nail. Then, I mixed my red and orange together and painted it in the middle of the nail. I did a bit more custom mixing and refining to make the transition smoother, but you could keep it simple if you'd like.

The polish brush, wand, and cap are all freehanded using white, black, and grey mixes.

Thank you, nail art, for being such a bright spot in my life!

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The Lacquer Legion Reinvention: Perforated Leather and Neon Faux Splatter

I'm so excited this morning because today is the first post day for The Lacquer Legion! I put together this new nail art challenge group to bring the nail community together in 2014, and I'm proud to have some talented ladies on board as admins with me: Rebecca Likes Nails, The Nailasaurus, and Work/Play/Polish. This month's challenge was reinvention, and I've interpreted that in a few ways for my manicure today.

First, you may have noticed that I have reinvented my own nail shape! I have been wanting to take the plunge and go round for quite a while now and I thought this would be a fitting time. I'll be able to refine the shape a bit more as my nails continue to grow, but I am happy with the way the round shape looks on me! I know I can always go back to square, so that's a nice safety net too.

Second, I thought it would be fun to reinvent the splatter manicure. I love splatters but they can be a bit unpredictable at times and are definitely messy. I started with a base of Essie Blanc, and then painted two coats of Orly Glowstick, a neon yellow, over the top. Then using a small nail art brush, I freehanded black splatters over the top with American Apparel Hassid.

Finally, I tried to reinvent the idea of nail texture. I've seen some great examples of 3D textured nails that were created without texture polish like The Polishaholic's quilted manicure and Nina Nailed It's cable knit sweater nails. For my accent nails, I created a perforated leather effect by pressing a dotting tool into semi-set polish. I later did some googling and learned that I wasn't the first to come up with this effect; check out The Daily Varnish and The Beaulieu Review!

Here is the step-by-step on the perforated leather nails.

1. Paint your nails with two or three coats of whatever color you want the leather to be.
2. Apply a thick coat of quick dry topcoat and give it 20-30 seconds to set. I used Seche Vite.
3. Apply two thicker coats of matte topcoat and give it 30-45 seconds to set. I used OPI Matte Topcoat.
4. Using a large dotting tool, press down into the semi-set polish. You want to press with medium, consistent pressure all the way down to the nail. 

BONUS TIPS!

• Work two or three nails at a time so the polish doesn't set too fast. 
• If you are having trouble with the dotting tool pulling up the partially set polish, wet the end to keep it from sticking. You will need to continually repeat this throughout the process.
• If your matte topcoat is leaving bubbles in the centers of the perforated holes, dip a small nail art brush in acetone and use it to gently erase the bubble.

I'm so so happy with the way these came out, and I can't wait to continue using this technique.

If you are participating today, make sure to hashtag with #LLreinvention. If you missed this month's prompt, be sure to keep up with The Lacquer Legion on Facebook and join us next month!

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Get Involved with the Nail Community in 2014!

One of the things that I like best about the nail community is how involved we all are. I am constantly seeing people supporting their fellow nail artists and bloggers through Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter! I remember how much I loved seeing everyone participating in the 31 Day Challenge together back in September. It really made me feel such a great sense of community.

For 2014, I am participating in two projects that I believe will help foster that same sense of community. I hope you will consider participating!

#NailGlossip
Twitter is a really fun and casual way to interact with the nail community, so it goes without saying that I'm really excited to be a co-host in a new, bi-weekly Twitter chat alongside Michelle from All Lacquered Up and Jen from The PolishAholic!

Our first chat is taking place this Sunday, January 12th at 9PM EST. We'll be chatting about celebrity polish collaborations & red carpet nail trends (the Golden Globes are that night, after all), plus we've got some giveaway prizes to hand out throughout the chat for anyone that joins in on the fun!

Follow us on Twitter @AllLacqueredUp, @ChalkboardNails, @ThePolishAholic and tweet using #NailGlossip. You can also RSVP to the chat on Twubs to follow the conversation, interact with us and get updates about future chats. Visit Twubs.com/NailGlossip to connect!

Giveaway Rules
In order to be eligible to win a prize during a #NailGlossip chat, you must be: A US Resident, follow @AllLacqueredUp @ChalkboardNails and @ThePolishAholic on Twitter and use the hashtag #NailGlossip. Winners will be randomly selected. You must provide your address within 48 hours of prize notification. Prizes will ship within 6 weeks of Twitter chat. 

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The Lacquer Legion

It's no secret that sometimes even the most creative artists get into a slump! That's why I love things like the 31 Day Challenge - they really get your brain going and thinking outside of the box.

But, let's face it, the 31 Day Challenge is INTENSE. And it only comes around once a year! I wanted to start a challenge group on my terms, and I gathered a fantastic group of ladies to help me out.

Once a month, Rebecca, Sammy, Leslie, and I will be putting out a nail art prompt for your interpretation. Each prompt will have a post date and a specific hashtag to link everyone up. Since hashtags work across all social media platforms, you'll be able to easily track everyone that is participating! It's low commitment and fun. Stretch your creative limits!

For January, the theme is "reinvention." Interpret it however you want, then get ready to post your manicure on the 27th using the hashtag #LLreinvention.  

Have questions? Hop on over to facebook.com/thelacquerlegion for more info (be sure to "Like" it for updates)! The four of us will be watching the page to answer any questions.

I really hope you will participate in these awesome initiatives! I think both of these projects will be so much fun and I would love to see huge involvement from the community. Spread the word!

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