All grown up, my brave girl

Last night, The Divine Miss M was treated to dinner by her Nan as a belated birthday treat, and it just so happened that she chose a restaurant in the mall ... I also work in the mall, so I joined them when I got finished up. After our ice cream, we headed over to Claire's to see if they had anything good to spend her birthday gift card on. M immediately headed for the clip on earrings, because, at 7 years old, she had not yet worked up the nerve to have her ears pierced.

When I saw the price for the clip ons, I was appalled. $12 for 3 pair of crappy plastic 'lost in 5 minutes' clip on earrings is crazy! I couldn't, in good faith, let my poor daughter get hosed for that! Soooo, I said "Hey, I bet you can get your ears pierced for the same price as the bunch of clip on earrings you want! You could spend your bday money on that instead ..." She looked at me with eyes that showed the wheels churning in her head. "But it's going to hurt!" she said. "It's only a quick pinch, baby. I bet it hurts less than when I snag a tangle combing your hair," I replied. She said "Nah, " and shook her head.

THEN, Nanny came in the store (she had been at Hallmark). When she heard that I had suggested M get her ears pierced, she shrieked "M, baby, if you get your ears pierced tonight, I'll buy you any pair of earrings you want ..." I then said "I bet they have your birthstone ..."

I think we convinced her!

Click to enlarge to see her pretty purple tourmaline earrings! They didn't have pearl, her true birthstone, tourmaline is the alternate I guess. Once they heal enough to switch out the earrings, I'll get her pearls.


She didn't cry at all. The first ear, she had tears well up in her eyes, but I think it was more nerves than pain. The 2nd ear was easy peasy because she knew exactly what to expect. Within 2 minutes, she was skipping through the mall singing "It doesn't even hurt one bit!" That's my girl ...

iNOTD: Blush Funkadelic (ETA better pics)

As if I have an iPhone ... HA! No, these pics are instead coming from the worlds SHITTIEST phone, the Motorola W490. Oh well. I'm sure you understand.

So, I have this teeny little set by the brand Blush that I picked up last summer at Ross for 3 bucks that I LOVE. Great colors, all jellies, great formula, great price ... So when I saw ANOTHER Blush set at Ross with similar, but slightly different jelly colors and slightly bigger bottles for 3.99, I was ON it! I did not HESITATE to spend my coffee money to obtain these pretties. LOL!!

So, first up, a sideways bottle pic. YAY! (FTR, I took these at work, which is also where I completed this mani, LOL, so, that's why you can see the random things like my tote and a industrial blow dryer for glasses, lolol!!)


From top to bottom, you see Boogie, a boring in the bottle dusty mauvey pink. There's always a meh in collections, right? Next is Stayin' Alive, a BRIGHT orangy red. You'll just have to trust me that it's super bright because it looks pink in the pic. Funkadelic is next, a bright but dusty aqua turquoise teal jelly. Could you DIE?! I could. After that is Can U dig it?, bright spring green. YAAAYYY!!! Next is Pychedelic [sic] which is a hot sunshine yellow jelly. Last is Hustle, a dusty medium-dark purple. The only one I couldn't care less about is Boogie. The rest are exciting! :)

Ugh, I hate that I'm posting such terrible pictures, but I'd rather post something than nothing at all. Here goes ... First pics, then review.

Funkadelic under fluorescent light ... 3 coats with Borghese Presto top coat.




Outside, overcast light.




SUN!!!! I got SUN!!!! ;)

OK, so it's photographing a little on the light side and slightly dustier, but overall, the color in the pics is pretty good. The first one is the best in terms of color. It's slightly neonish, so I'm not sure I would get better results with my real camera ... but I'll certainly give it a shot. At the very least, they won't be blurry, lol.

I had high hopes for Funkadelic based on my previous experience with the Blush brand of polish, which of course means that I was disappointed. :'( I LOVE the color, but this formula SUCKS! It was SO gluey and stringy, it felt like I was using decades old white out on my tips or hot glue or something. Coverage was pretty bad, these pics are all 3 THICK coats, I had no choice. I had to lay it on thick or deal with a huge, impossible mess. Even after 3 coats, it's still sheer in spots, but Presto did a decent job of evening it out. The worst part? Bubbles. I can see them down there ... lurking ... just waiting till I go to sleep tonight to rise to the surface and make my nails look STUPID!!! EEEK!!! As if they don't look doofy enough all filed waaaay down to make the 3 nubs (left pinky, right thumb and middle) look like they belong ...


*grumble grumble* Now my excitement for the other colors has turned to dread. I'll do a skittle swatch to see if any of them are salvageable, and if not, The Divine Miss M will love playing with them. Le sigh.


The End

ETA: Decent-ish pics

This was in my bathroom ... a little too blue.





This one was taken in the living room under regular, indirect CFL lighting. The white CFL washed the color out BIG time, but this is pretty close. It's just a tad more 'vivid' IRL.

Dollar Tree find: Maybelline Boot Leg

I'm kind of embarrassed to show these pictures because I've had this polish on since Saturday (so, as of today, 5 days), and it still looked pretty good this morning ... however, throughout the day, I got a ton of chips on my picture hand, lol! So I took some cruddy right hand pics tonight. *shrug*


So, this is one of the colors polish addicts have been scouring their dollar stores for, and I was lucky enough to find it last week! Woot!


True color was hard to capture on this one, at least under artificial light (I think it's just the nature of the purpley blue though, I haven't seen any color accurate pics elsewhere ...). Imagine a deep dusty blue with a vibrant purple flash loaded with silver shimmer ...



This one shows the purple off a little, aaand shows off my crooked middle finger. It was an owwie break. I'm working through it.


Can you tell I chew my thumbnail a little as a nervous habit? LOL



Ugh, hands are icky. Handwashing dishes + allergic to most lotions = dryyyyyy LOL! But let's talk about the polish. I used this over 2 coats of Essie Fill the Gap (don't want any stains! My niece's wedding is SATURDAY and she expects her bridesmaids to have sheer tips. Her auntie will comply even though it hurts ...), and topped it off with Seche Vite. So, what you see is 2 coats base, 2 coats color and 1 coat top. Boot Cut was THICK, but relatively easy to control. I had some glumpiness issues on the 2nd coat, and it was tricky wrapping my tips, but I managed. This wasn't going to dry all that well on it's own. You know how you can just TELL? Yeah. It was like that. However, after I added a thick coat of SV, it dried hard as a rock. Killer! All of these pics were taken on the FIFTH day of wear, and my 'hard on my nails' days are Sunday through Tuesday, so they took a beating. I am happy happy happy with the performance of this mani. I will definitely be scooping up a few more from this line (they had some bronzes I would have liked to have, just didn't have the muneez at the moment, so I'm going to go in with crossed fingers that the ones I wanted are still there tomorrow afternoon) if I can!

Anyway. It's 2:30 in the morning ... I just got finished baking The Divine Miss M's cupcakes because she was born this day at 6:54 PM 7 long years ago. *sheds tear* Tomorrow I'll have to devote a post to her to show you what I scored for the little lady off of FreeCycle tonight and what I found on my camera several weeks ago when I came home from work one night. It's so stinkin' cute, I guarantee you'll squee!

Night!

DOOOOOD!!!! KILLER giveaway at Painted Lady Fingers!!

Wish me luck! And good luck to you if you enter! This is probably the most ass kicking giveaway I've run across in a while. I don't often feel compelled to enter, much less do the blog entry part, so please check it out!!

Painted Lady Fingers

I've lost yet ANOTHER glass file, China Glaze Lemon Fizz, SH Insta-Dri opinions and Guess What I Found?!?!

And I can't justify spending the money on another. I SWEAR it was either in my purse, work tote, or on the coffee table. WHERE could it have gone?!? This is the 3rd one I've lost too. They may be better for my nails, but they are pricey to replace. Now where did I put my emery files???


Onto a not so recent NOTD, China Glaze Lemon Fizz!! I have no idea how long ago I took these pictures. Probably late February because I know it was before I went to Chicago/Indy in March ... Aaaannnyway ... These pictures also represent the first time I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri quick dry top coat, which I'm not all too happy with, but more on that later.






I simply LOVE Lemon Fizz from China Glaze's Up Up & Away collection! The color is a super creamy and rich pale yellow that reminds me of lemon icebox pie and Georgia in the summertime (I live in NJ now, but grew up outside of Atlanta, Ga ... I tend to reminisce). If I recall correctly, this was 2 coats with a base and a top. It *may* have been 3, but I rarely have patience for more than 2 coats, and it dried super thin, so I don't think it was. I was satisfied with the coverage, which was a pleasant surprise considering yellows tend to be quite difficult to work with. Dry time was excellent with the SH Insta-Dri, but ...








WTF is THIS SHIT?!?! I'm sure you noticed it in the first set of pics, the weird bumpiness, but the close ups are horrific! I always paint at night and then take pics the next day (or several days later), and this time was no exception. I was SO upset when I woke up to this crap. There was cracking on every single one of my nails, and they only got worse as the day went by. I was afraid it was the polish, but after consulting with the MUA nail board, apparently SHID is known for cracking on some people. It's a body chem thing I guess. I have since found that if I use SHID with dark colors, I'm ok because you can't see the cracks, but it straight up ruins light colored manis. Bummer caz it dries polish super duper fast!



And last but not least ... GUESS WHAT I FOUND (at Dollar Tree)???


Maybelline Boot Cut! Awwwww yeaaaaahhhh!! I'll post pics tomorrow. :)



So there you have it.



The end ...