Thursday, July 31, 2014

Literary Lacquer: Happy Medium and Honey Bee Nail Art


Literary Lacquers recently launched a new collection inspired by the book, A Wrinkle in Time. The collection consists of eight different beautiful polishes. I received all of them to review, but I had to share the first one I wore right away.

When I receive a set of polishes to review, I always reach for purple and then green if the set has those colors. This set has both, but something was different this time. I lined the bottles up on my desk and, surprisingly, the yellow one spoke to me and immediately inspired me to create something with it. I was kind of shocked because yellow is usually the last color I reach for. In the next moment I grinned because I remembered that this kind of inspiration is also how Amy creates her polishes.

Happy Medium is a beautiful bright golden mustard yellow linear holographic polish with yellow flakes. Capturing the holographic rainbow proved difficult for my camera, but it's definitely there. The formula was very nice and applied easily. I used two thick coats for the photos. You can read the passage from the book at Amy's shop if you want to learn more about the inspiration for this color.

xoxoJen's swatch of Literary Lacquer Happy Medium
xoxoJen's swatch of Literary Lacquer Happy Medium
xoxoJen's swatch of Literary Lacquer Happy Medium

And now for my inspiration!
Happy Medium's beautiful yellow shade just screamed bees and honey to me. So I looked through my stamping plates from Vivid Lacquer and found plate VL002 and VL008 which have flowers, a honeycomb, bees and a bee trail, perfect!

After selecting the plates to use, I decided to use the saran wrap technique that I learned in Debbie Crumpet's Simples group which has been an amazing learning experience so far. (Come join!) For the saran wrap effect, I chose an Elevation polish called Temperance to achieve the look of honey and I used 23 Chocolate from Mundo de Unas, Sinful Shine Wisp and the Vivid Lacquer white squishy stamper for the stamping.

xoxoJen's nail art stamping with Vivid Lacquer plate vl002 and vl008 bees
xoxoJen's nail art stamping with Vivid Lacquer plate vl002 and vl008 bees


You can find the beautiful Happy Medium polish along with the rest of the A Wrinkle in Time collection at the Literary Lacquers Etsy shop! And don't forget to follow us both on facebook (xoxoJen - Literary Lacquer) if you like what you've read and want to see our upcoming posts of the A Wrinkle in Time collection and announcements. :)

Monday, July 21, 2014

Cupcake Polish's Sweet Addictions August Box


Cupcake polish is releasing a new Sweet Addictions box for August and I was allowed the opportunity to review it! In the box is a Cupcake teal holo polish called Topsy Turvy, A Philly Loves Lacquer glitter polish called Trilby and some super cute nail shields from Love, Angeline. Together, they'll whisk us away to the Circus! Let's go!

Cupcake Polish's Sweet Addictions August Box

Topsy Turvy has to be the most electric teal holo I think I've ever seen. Doesn't it remind you of the super sparkly outfits all the ladies in the circus wear? You can expect a very strong, vibrant linear holographic effect and a subtle dance of golden shimmer from this polish. It is opaque in one thick coat, however; I used two thinner coats for the photos.

xoxoJen's swatch of Cupcake Polish Topsy Turvy
xoxoJen's swatch of Cupcake Polish Topsy Turvy
xoxoJen's swatch of Cupcake Polish Topsy Turvy
xoxoJen's swatch of Cupcake Polish Topsy Turvy


A Trilby is a hat with a short brim that's flipped up on one side. It's quite stylish and might be spotted at a circus. Trilby, the polish, is definitely more appealing with it's purple jelly base and confetti-like glitter. It even has tiny star shapes! I wore two coats over China Glaze Virtual Violet which adds a little shimmer behind the jelly, pretty neat effect! The polish looks great worn over white as well. If you want less glitter, just one coat over your favorite opaque polish will do it!

xoxoJen's swatch of Philly Loves Lacquer Trilby
xoxoJen's swatch of Philly Loves Lacquer Trilby
xoxoJen's swatch of Philly Loves Lacquer Trilby

And lastly, a special nail art manicure done up with some Stuck on Love Nail Shields from Love, Angeline! This is my first time ever to use nail art shields like these, I'm only used to french tip shaped ones. As soon as I saw the shapes (elephants, squiggles/stars), I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them! I had a lot of fun creating this look and it really wasn't difficult at all. Some of the tiny pieces seemed fiddly to me at first, but a good ol pair of tweezers took care of that right quick! Super easy, fairly quick and heaps of fun to use!
I used WnW Black Cream, Cupcake's Topsy Turvy and OPI Flamingo Tini Pink and a bit of dotting to create the finished look.

xoxoJen's swatch of Love, Angeline Nail Shields Art
xoxoJen's swatch of Love, Angeline Nail Shields Art

The Sweet Addictions box is limited and launches Sunday July 27th, 11:00am Central at the Cupcake Polish Online Boutique! Follow Cupcake Polish on facebook for this and other news!


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Friday, July 18, 2014

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Bloglovin wants me to post this so they can verify this is my blog. I'd love a follow if you enjoy my blog, if not just ignore this post. xD

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