Guest Post - Jacki from Adventures In Acetone

Hi Goddesses

Today's guest post comes from one of the loveliest people I know - Jacki of Adventures In Acetone.  Not only is she lovely, modest and mother to 2 of the cutest children who ever lived, she also does spectacular nail art that I can only dream of.  Everything she does seems so effortless and beautiful and perfect.   Grrrrrr :)
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Hello, all of you lovely readers of The Crumpet! I'm Jacki from Adventures In Acetone! Isn't Debbie the writer of one of the most fun blogs to read in the nail polish community? I am super honored to be writing this guest post for you all so thank you for being here!

This manicure was a huge hit on Instagram (@adventuresinacetone) a few weeks ago so I decided it deserved a proper blog post to explain how easy these are to recreate on your own nails! Color-shifting polishes and glitters have always been high on my "love to wear" category and this combo is no exception.

The color change was best photographed out of the direct light as shown above.

Here is how I did it:

• I started out with one coat of Sinful Colors Black on Black.
• Next, I added two coats of Ozotic 505 (a sheer color shifting polish).
• Then, I added one coat of Ninja Polish Hydra (a dense color shifting glitter).
• For the butterfly wing pattern, I used my own Butterfly Wing Tutorial and Sinful Colors Black on Black. (here's a tip: If you don't think you can free hand the wings, Nailz Craze has a stamp image that is very similar HERE!)
• Lastly, I used a dotting tool and Illamasqua Seance to add some dots.
• Seche Vite was used as the top coat.

What do you think? Will you try to recreate this design? I hope you liked my post and that our dear Debbie continues to enjoy her break so she can hopefully come back soon with some awesome future posts! Thanks for reading!

And a HUGE HUG and THANK YOU to Debbie for having me! xoxo

Literary Lacquers - Everything You Love

Hi Goddesses

You join me halfway through my recovery :)  I am getting the itch back again, just the energy and the actual doing .. not so much lol.  I am going to try and take it slow and steady and build up, so today, we try something new - the mini review.

This is designed to be shorter and sweeter than my older posts, and therefore less strenuous on me, but just as gorgeous for you!

Today we have one of my favourite brands - Literary Lacquers - who sent me her latest collection for review.  I chose Everything You Love first, partly because of the gorgeous photos I've seen of it, and partly because the name seemed appropriate.

This is a baby soft purple, a subtle newborn holo, brown-based.   I am starting to get jaded with purple holos, but this is *just* different enough to keep me hooked.

3 effortless coats, some Poshe and a mani that will keep you cooing like a pigeon all day :)

Guest Post - Jen from My Nail Polish Obsession

Hi Goddesses

Today's Guest Post is from a lovely friend, and although I should have posted it last week, I saved it for today cos it's her BURFDAY!!!  Happy Birthday Jen, and thank you for dipping your toe into those evil nail art waters.  Hope you have a great day - mwah xx
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Hello to all of you Crumpet fans!  I'm Jen from My Nail Polish Obsession and I am happy to be helping Debbie with a guest post during her busy times!  I'm friends with Debbie in several nail polish groups and she's super amazing!  I love all her posts and have wracked my brain over a nail art idea that would be worthy of a Crumpet post.  If you browse through my blog you'll see that the extent of my nail art is basically a skittlette.  So I went out of my box and tried something a little different - still easy, but different.  I love it!  So much!  I am very proud of how it turned out.  So let's take a look at this mani that's chalk full of gorgeous microglitters from Superficially Colorful.  

Superficially Colorful: Shop, Facebook

I used several Superficially Colorful microglitters from the up-coming Things I Love collection!  Here's the list of the polishes I used: Picklefarts (deep berry pink), Make Up Me Beautiful (fuchsia), British Chocs (orange), Dearhearts (gold), Wibbly Wobbly (peridot green), I've Never Been Ginger (tardis blue), Twiter Licker (aqua), All The Purple In The World (purple).  I basically painted half of each nail with one color, then painted the other half with the a different color to create a rainbow!  I then used Orly Au Champagne on my accent nails and used colorful gems to accent the white.  I changed up the order and the rhinestone accents on my right hand and did a little collage of them together for the last picture.  

Well I hope you liked my post.  Feel free to head over to My Nail Polish Obsession to check out my Blog!  I'm also on Facebook and Instagram!  Thanks for reading!  

The Sunday Rambler - a little early!

Hi Goddesses

I'm really missing you all so I thought I would check in with an update and some random thoughts.  My enforced break is teaching me things which are quite interesting ...


So, first of all, how am I?  Well, still pooped, but ok.  Not having the pressure of squeezing a blog post in every night has definitely helped and allowed me to READ !!!  Yes, read!  (Divergent, if you're wondering).  Beth used to love that we'd read together for 30 minutes each night, and blogging slowly ate into that, so she's happy to have her bookworm momma back!



Have I painted my nails?  Only once.  I feel a bit unfaithful painting them when I should be on a break, and I have too much choice.  Whomp.   I still have some beauties to review (Literary Lacquer so pretty, ditto Too Fancy Lacquer), but I have more than 1 of them to swatch (coming back to that later).



Then I have lots of awesomeness that has arrived recently - OPI tints, lots of neons and summer brights, Sation, Morgan Taylor, all of it SO sexy, but again, I feel like I'd be cheating if I painted my nails lol - what an idiot.  And I've also still been buying stuff, so I'm clearly not planning to disappear forever.


So what is this hiatus teaching me?  Well, a few things.  Let's start with the irony. You start with a blog and a dream, and for me, one of the definitions of success was that others would ask me to review their polishes.   I'm not going to lie, who doesn't love free product, but I'm very honoured every time a brand looks at my blog and decides I am worthy of representing them.



However, over the course of a year, that has grown into a monster.  It's gone from a few polishes a month to entire collections, and then my recent meltdown, when I had over 40 review bottles in my basket.   I'm in groups with some of the super swatchers - Cosmetic Sanctuary, Pointless Cafe - and I think I assumed I was a failure if I couldn't keep up.  If they could, why couldn't I?  I just needed to man up and power through.  Yep, turns up I can't manage that, and instead you end up a victim of your own success.



So whilst you're slugging through these reviews (the painting is easy, it's the rest of it that's a slog), you realise the thought of putting together a post with 6 polishes in it is creating a feeling in your stomach akin to being asked to eat liver.  It's the scale of it that weighs you down.  Excluding the painting and editing, it takes me over an hour to write a post for 6 polishes, and upload all the photos I use (and I know I use a SHITLOAD).



And whilst this is going on, I decided to start Missy's Neverending Pile Challenge, a fab idea, focussed on using your untrieds.  I had a Saturday where I ticked off 4 prompts and a GOT Polish prompt too.  I edited the photos and wrote the posts, and do you know what I learnt?   How quick that all seemed in comparison.    Editing and writing 4 separate posts seemed far more fun than writing about 4 polishes in the same collection.  Is it because I get bored, and so I liked having 4 different things to write about?  I don't know.  But it gave me thought.



So that's where I am right now.  I have no doubt I will be back, but I do think the focus of the blog will be different.  I think reviews will be shorter and snappier, and there will be more of those editorial pieces I love doing (like the ones I do in December), and I think I might use You Tube more too.


My dilemma is that I don't want to totally stop doing reviews.  I review regularly for some brands who are very dear to my heart, and in fact, friends, and I would never want to stop supporting them.  So that might mean that my reviews might have to break collections into smaller chunks, or do it a polish at a time featuring nail art.



My blog has always been wordy, and photo heavy - maybe the key to my sanity is finding a snappier, chattier way 80% of the time, whilst still allowing for some of those longer pieces at the weekend.


I know I'm not going to make it through 4 days without blogging, so I'm going to take it easy and post some bits and pieces.  



Have a fantastic Easter - lots of love xx

Goodbye-ish .... for a while

Hi Goddesses

I hope you're all well.  The truth is, I'm not doing so good.  I feel this post has been brewing for a little while now, so here goes.



So far, I've had the year from hell.  Landed a great new job, then on the last week of January I caught flu.  It's only just gone, but it's left with me a cough that has given me a torn muscle in my chest, and a large prescription for codeine.  Oh and in all those 8 weeks I haven't had a single solid night's sleep.  Throughout that time, I tried to blog, but the truth was, all I wanted to do was sleep or nap to make up for my deficit, and if I DID find the time to paint my nails, editing photos and writing about it just seemed too much hard work.



There was also my huge milestone of achieving a million page views - once you hit your goal, then where do you go - and the ENORMOUS Giveaway that went with it, which was just exhausting lol.



And then yesterday I crashed my car.  Not a big crash, but a crash nonetheless.  I feel like it's God or the Universe shaking their fist at me and telling me to pay attention, so for once, I think I'm going to.  I think I need to just STOP.  I love blogging, I truly do, but not at the moment, when I know I haven't got the energy for it.



So I'm going to stop, for a month, and see how that goes.   I always thought my blogging might have a shelf-life (especially when you see other bloggers burn out), but I don't want to be one of those people.  Blogging makes me feel like a creative, and it allows me to write, but right now, I think it's more important that I can just veg in the evenings and read books or watch TV.




There will still be one or 2 posts, there has to be - everything I have been sent for review will be reviewed and posted, but nothing else.

I hope that by being proactive and checking myself into blogging rehab, I can avoid falling off the cliff and burning out alogether.



So, bye bye for now, and I hope this is not forever, just an extended little vacation.


All my love, Crumpet xx

Guest Post - Claire from Kerruticles

Hi Goddesses


Today's guest post is someone who I literally see getting better each month.  It's Claire, from Kerruticles, and you have seen her on this blog before.  I am always drawn to the simplicity of her designs and that single bold photograph.   She's one of those bloggers who make it look so easy .... and effortlessly classy :)

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I was thrilled to be invited by Debbie to guest blog for The Crumpet. She is an amazing person who does so much for our lovely nail community that it is a real honour for me to be able to showcase some of my nail art on her awesome blog. I really wasn't sure what I was going to do for my guest post. I wanted it to be something different, or remarkable. Something worthy of The Crumpet; not just a run of the mill mani. Of course, putting that sort of pressure on myself meant that I just couldn't conjure up anything good enough to do. I was going to do a stamping decal. Then a complicated tape mani. Then I went blank. Finally, I settled for an abstract look. I saw a lovely, abstract pattern that wasn't too uniform and which I thought I could recreate on my nails.

I started with a base of OPI My Vampire Is Buff and then dotted the pattern on using:

• China Glaze For Audrey
• Barry M Papaya
• OPI My Vampire Is Buff
• W7 Black

I made sure to wait a good long time before top-coating, so that it wouldn't smudge. I typically only ever take one photo to use on my blog, but felt that would be inadequate for Debbie, who does so many, so I did take another angle for once: This is the pattern from which I drew my inspiration: [pin_widget url="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/490681321873347012/"] After all the self-imposed pressure to perform, I think I did OK. Not brilliant, but OK. It's not stunning, but it's certainly different and I enjoyed wearing it for a few days. Massive thanks again to Debbie for having me on her blog.      

The Never-Ending Pile Challenge - Pastel

Hi Goddesses

Here we are with Day 2 of the Never-ending Pile Challenge.  I have to say, I am finding this really fun!

For today's pastel, I picked OPI Puerto Vallarta Violeta.  If truth be told, I don't have that many pastels sitting in Mount Untried, so this was an easy choice.

The facts - I bought PVV nearly a year ago from one of my favourite eBay sellers, who sells a lot of old OPIs.  I'd heard a lot about it being a classic shade, but in truth, it's a little too pinky-violet for me.

That said, it's very pretty, and very nice, and it looks like it's always wearing a soft filter haha.  Although it has a different tone to Sparrow Me The Drama, I love the latter enough that I know I don't need both of these.

I then stamped using BM-412, a conscious effort not to just reach for a MoYou plate haha!!

I wish the stamping were straighter, but I like how there's a cool retro 60s vibe to this pattern.

I will probably miss Friday's prompt (a random untried) as I am really struggling to keep the pace this week, but I will be picking the challenge back up soon :)

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