A couple Sally Hansen Xtreme Wears

I managed to get 6 of these for 50 cents each last week (incl Concrete shown in my last post). Here are Blue Icing and Golden Child.



Blue Icing is a frosty/pearly ice blue with holographic bar and regular glitter.





Something about this just doesn't work. I feel like the glitter should have been a separate top coat or something because after the 2nd coat dries, it looks like the glitter under from the first coat is a bumpy, festering mess. :( The color itself is actually really nice for a frosty sort of finish. There is a bare minimum of brush strokiness which is the major fault of a frost polish. Oh, this is actually 3 coats. I was hoping that maybe a 3rd thick coat AFTER the first 2 dried completely would hide the weird bumpiness, but it didn't. This bumpiness isn't like an ordinary glitter polish where top coat fixes the issue. It just really shows as a mar under the opaque finish of the polish. What the hell, it was only fitty cent.


Golden Child is exactly the same kind of polish, just gold instead of blue.





This is 2 coats (I used this one the other day, and decided to try the 3rd coat to see if it would solve the bumpy look problem with the blue). I think the visible nail line has to do with the lighting because I didn't notice it outside of these pics. I'm pretty bummed about this one because it's like the perfect freaking gold for my skin tone, but I won't end up wearing it because it's so damn bumpy and ucky looking. Blah.

A couple of crafty finishes and recent NOTD

I finished up some yarn wreaths that I've been procrastinating on big time. The small blue one is Miss M's and is now hanging in her room, the larger gold one is for my sister in law for giftmas, and the gold on on the wall is mine! The instructions I followed are here: Yarn Wreath with Felt Flowers



Next up is a paper garland I was inspired to make after receiving an excellent holiday card (thanks Lems!!). I originally saw the idea on whip up and can't remember the original blog the instructions were on to give credit. :( Sorry. I used all 'on hand' materials; cut the squares, triangles and circles from cardstock and sewed them together with the off white cotton thread I already had on the machine. A few clear tacks, one bump on the head and some clippy doodads I had laying around, and I am ready to display all the cards we receive this year!!




As for the tips, I'm currently wearing Zoya Irene, but haven't taken pics yet. Last week I wore Finger Paints Autumn Moonlight with a no name sheer pinkish glittery top coat over.




And just for fun, here's a pic of my cat Grapefruit. He's 11 years old, and we've had him since he was about 4 mos old. He followed my sister in law home from the bus stop, or so she says, lol. She was only 12 then, and is now 23. :) Anyway, Grapefruit is my oldest baby, lol, and he gets to do whatever he wants WHENEVER he wants. What he wanted last night was to sit on the tv and annoy the piss out of Mr. Raz! HAHAHAAAA!! I present to you "Decoration Cat."




So, there was a Payday candy bar commercial on at the time I took this pic. I find it both hysterical and embarrassing that there appears to be a nutty turd as big as life on my tv. LOLOL!!! Mmm. Appetizing. Makes me want to run right out and get one.

That Girl ... That Quilt Along progress ...

So, week one was pick fabric.

Check!

Week 2 was cut the fabric.

Check!

And now we're on week 3, assembling the blocks. Here is my progress so far.

That is 80 strips sewn to 40 squares and 80 seams pressed. OY! I need a taller ironing board! Bending over it is killing my back, and I have 240 more strips to piece and press!!!

I'm a complainer, but in reality I am really enjoying myself. I'm new to sewing, and getting better and better with each cut and each seam, and more confident. I can't wait to see the finished result and ship it off to my friend's little boy!!

Oh, and here's the sewing machine I use, just for fun.

Some Claire's bargains = NIGHTMARE!!! (pic heavy)

Sooooo, Miss M and I got the head's up that Claire's would be having their 10 for 10 clearance sale over the last weekend. Since she had a birthday giftcard burning a hole in my wallet (not a mistake, lol. Her gc, my wallet), we were in there bright and early Thursday morning when the sale was set to start. We hit the proverbial "jack-pop." She got about a gabuhjazillion pairs of earrings to play with once her ears heal from piercing, a neon orange "pearl" necklace (she insists it's her birthstone, just orange. Don't ask me! LOL), tons of crap with "Awwwww, kitties!!!" on it, lots of "lickstick" and of course mommy made a bee line for the polish ...


So, I thought I had scored BIG when I saw this set:



Cute, right?!? A set of 7 mini creme brights for a dollar?!? Weeeeelll ... maybe not such a hot deal ... When I applied the first one, I noticed an odd smell. Is that Elmer's Glue?!? But I stayed the course and continued with my skittles ... As the first coats dried, I noticed that even though they applied opaque and creamy, they dried sheer and had sparse glitter. OK. Whatever. It could be interesting. So I carried on. Three coats later, and still smelling glue, I wondered if maybe these are peel off polishes.

Here's the red, blue, orange, purple and pink.

Inside, low artificial light

Outside, full sun

The next pics have the yellow and green on index and middle, but thumb, ring and pinkie have my other finds; Emerald City, Fire and Magic. I'll comment on those three later.

Inside, low artificial light

Outside, full sun

OK, speaking JUST about the 7 polish set, they *are* cute, but definitely weird. They would never have built full opacity. I was relatively certain by the feel of the finish that they were peel off paints. Sooo, I started peeling!

OMG!!!! WTF?!?!?! That shit STAINED!!! BAD!!!

Thank goodness, the stains have since faded (remover and acetone didn't touch it, but each time I applied another polish and removed, they got a little lighter. You know when you get gum stuck to your face after blowing a big bubble, and the only thing that can get it off is a larger wad of chewed gum, the bond between the bits of gum is stronger than the bond between skin and gum? I think it was like that concept), and I'm now just a little bit yellowed, but DAMN! That was the worst dollar I ever spent!!! I'm not passing these on, I'm throwing them OUT! BOOOO Hiiissssssss ...

Onto the other 3 ...

OK, this will be short and sweet because I don't have a lot to say about any of them, lol. Let's see the full sun picture again.




Emerald City (thumb): Foil/metallic style with bits of silver and green. Similar in concept to the Orly Foil FX line, but no comparison formula-wise. Thick, goopy application. Good coverage though (pictured is one coat) and it evened out fine. It's a nice color, just not my type. For a buck though, it's a win.

Fire (ring): Neon pinkish orangish red. Pretty sheer. 3 coats shown. Nice smooth application. My pic is no where NEAR coloraccurate, it's a neon. It's just not possible for a $50 camera to do, LOL!!! If you're used to looking at pictures of nail polish though, I'm sure you can see that one stripe of neony goodness on my ring finger and imagine this one stopping traffic. I want to wear this one as a full mani soon.

Magic (pinkie): Sigh. I don't really have anything *bad* to say about this polish, but I don't have anything *good* to say either. I know a lot of people really like this one, and some people even have it on their lemming list, so I feel bad for not loving it, but ... It's a darkish blurple jelly with golden shimmer. It's a fine color, but it's just ... not my thing, I guess. Here's a pointless close up indoors:







The end!

Miss M's birthday money nails ...

MEOW!!!!

Betcha can't guess how long these bad boys stayed on ... LOL!!! Oh well, it was good fun for the 80 cents she spent on them (thanks to mama and her bargaining ways!!). And how jealous are we of all those silly bands??? Very.

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!

Claire's Claire's Claire's!!!

I have a couple NOTDs for you ... both from Claire's. First up, my first ever Skittle mani! I bought a cute little set of minis on clearance a week or so ago. It contained 7 little bottles of pastels and brights with monkeys on them. I thought they were no names until I noticed that each of them had different words with the monkey pictures.

Sweet: a bright pastel lemon creme
Superstar: a bright pastel lime creme
2 cute 4 words: bright pastel blue creme
Whatev: purple shimmer
Smile: dark red leaning pink shimmer
Not Monkeying Around: lightish orange creme
Play: bright pastel pink creme








I'm wearing from Thumb to Pinkie: Not Monkeying Around, 2 cute 4 words, Sweet, Whatev, and Superstar. Aren't they awesome?! They are all jellyish too, which makes them even more fun. All required 3 coats except for Sweet (yellow) which took 4.

I gave The Divine Miss M (that's my 6 year old daughter) a skittle mani with these colors. After seeing mine, I had no choice, lol! It wasn't a request, it was a demand!

The only thing different is that she's wearing Smile on her thumb. Neither of us chose Play, so that one isn't swatched. It's just your basic pink.

Here she is holding a couple of the bottles:



The next NOTD comes from my intrigue with the whole Chanel Jade craze. According to many other nail bloggers, Claire's Dreamcatcher is a near dupe, soooo ... for $4 I had to see what was up.








I don't have this one in natural light as the weather hasn't exactly cooperated. We've had just a little snow here in NJ over the last week ... you know, nothing real big, just about 2 feet! LOL! But anyway, the color shown is pretty accurate. It's maybe a little darker in real life. Here's a close up of the color:




I like the color, a minty/jade green with a subtle shimmer, but it's really nothing all that special in my opinion. Application on this one was trrrriiiiicckkkyyyy!!! Glumpy as all hell, thick and didn't spread on the nail very well (I wonder if a little thinner would help this??). I had to keep dipping the brush back into the polish several times per nail. It took me 3 coats to achieve some semblance of even coverage. It was a super slow drier as well. I let it dry (with a thick coat of SV) for over an hour before going to sleep, and I woke up with sheet marks. :( Anyway, based on pics I've seen of Chanel Jade, Dreamcatcher is VERY close. I wouldn't call it a dupe, as Dreamcatcher leans a bit more green while Jade is bluer, but it would satisfy a craving if you just haaad to have it.


Last but not least, here are a few pictures of our winter "wonderland" (which I would refer to as a nightmare, lol):







And a little kitty torture (don't worry, he was only out there for a minute or so) ...




Hope everyone has a good night!!