Painted Sabotage The Mermaid's Song and more vacation pics!

Hi everyone! Long time no talk! We finally got back home on Friday and I've been working on a variety of projects since then, so I'm just now getting back to the blog. I've got a swatch for you, plus some photos from my trip to Michigan!

First of all, here's Painted Sabotage The Mermaid's Song, which was made to celebrate The Mercurial Magpie's first bloggiversary! This is a teal crelly with purple, blue, copper and silver holo glitter.

Painted Sabotage The Mermaid's Song. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.

I liked the formula on this one. I had to dab a little to place the largest glitters, but I had no trouble getting them on the brush. If I had to change one thing, I'd make the base slightly more translucent so the glitter showed through more. But that's a very minor thing! This polish is available here for $10.

I'm going to put the rest of the post behind a jump because it's very photo-heavy!



Once we made the very long and boring drive to Michigan, my family went up to the Traverse City area for a few days. We had perfect weather pretty much the whole time! Here are some photos from the beach at the tip of the Old Mission Peninsula (on Lake Michigan):

On the way to our hotel we stopped at a farm stand and grabbed some Michigan cherries!

The next day we visited Mackinac Island, which is in Lake Huron near the Mackinac Bridge. The island doesn't allow cars (except ambulances etc.), so everyone gets around on foot, bike or horse. You can get some amazing handmade fudge there!

Here's the best shot I could get of the Mackinac Bridge. It really is impressive when you're close to it (it's five miles long!).

We spent the third day on the Leelanau Peninsula, which is the long "pinky finger" of the Lower Peninsula. We went to the Sleeping Bear Dunes, an absolutely gorgeous range of sand dunes on the shore of Lake Michigan. Not easy to climb, but you get some great views from the top! (Well, we didn't go ALL the way to the top, just high enough to see the water.)

(That's Lake Michigan on the horizon in the photo above.)


Finally we drove back down to Detroit. But we couldn't go home without stopping at Frankenmuth for dinner! Frankenmuth is a village that was founded by Germans and somehow turned into a Bavarian Disneyland. It's pretty cheesy, but we've been going there for fried chicken and schnitzel my entire life, so I have a lot of nostalgia attached to it.

By luck we got seated right under the Fischer family crest (our last name was changed from Fischer to Fisher at some point).

It was a great trip, but I'm glad to be back! There's going to be some exciting ALIQUID Lacquer-related stuff happening this week, so keep an eye out!