REMEMBER ME? LOTS OF PICS!!

Whew! It's been awhile! One of the parts of having puppies in the house that I forgot was the influx of people that come over. The little cuties will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. Already. It's going by way too fast, and I'm trying really hard to not think about them leaving for their furever homes.

Thankfully this time I get to keep one, and I'm also super happy that Seven's owners have decided to get another Tinlee pup this time around. So my little dark blue ribbon boy, Ziggy Stardust, already is chosen. I, on the other hand, am still undecided on who to keep. It's a good thing I only have 2 girls to choose from because having more options than that would be impossible. At this point, my red girl, Queen B, is really trying her best to make me pick her. She is the absolutely smoochiest of puppies and is always kissing my whole face and trying to eat my nose. China Girl has thrown her hat into the ring, too, but I won't be able to decide for probably a couple more weeks.

Regardless, they are all adorable. I wish I could keep them all.

 

 

Seriously....what's not to love here?

I actually have managed a couple of manicures over the past 3 weeks. Of course, in 3 weeks I have only left the house twice, so I'm not doing them very often.

The base for this is an opalescent white by the Target exclusive brand, Defy & Inspire. I found this on a clearance rack, and it had no name on it, but I "think" it's Petticoat. Over that I used MdU Black and Uber Chic 10-01. I managed to snag a couple of those polishes on the clearance rack, and I really am a huge fan. Tyler was here for a week for Griff's 6th birthday and brought the topcoat with her. Just for kicks I tried it over a mani to see if it would smear the stamping, and I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't smear the black stamp, and it dried very quickly. 

The lighter orange here is Sinful Colors Skylark stamped with Mundo de Unas Orange. The design is from the Uber Chic 4-01 stamping plate. I was just in the mood for an orange.

This one was actually the first thing I did after putting my nails back on. I had removed them for the birth of the puppies. I wanted something light so I chose Zoya Pandora. Within the first hour of painting my nails this color, I messed up 4 of them. My initial plan was to stamp on top of the pink, but I wore it, damaged, for like 5 days. When I finally felt like doing my nails again, I ended up taking it all off, starting over on all of my nails but painted them the same color all over again. I was just too tired from lack of sleep to go choose something and the Zoya was still sitting on my table. I did finally manage to stamp on them, though!! I used Fresh Paint Emma and Uber Chic 4-01 for the design. The Fresh Paint polishes stamp very nicely.

Last Friday night we had Griffin's birthday party, and I've been hanging on to these Lego water decals for awhile. I finally decided to use them. It seemed appropriate since we gave him a couple of different Lego sets for his birthday. Griff thought they were pretty cool. I did the water decals over a base of Square Hue Monch, which is bright yellow.

Right now I hear some movement in the puppy pen, so I'm guessing it's going to be time to do some cleanup and give some kisses. 

EIGHT RANDOM MANI'S

It's Monday. Monday's suck. The end.

Here are eight pics that have been sitting in my drafts section feeling lonely and neglected. I decided since I'm in a craptastic mood I'd just throw them up here to get them out of the way.

Enjoy. Or not. Whatevs. After each pic I've posted what I used.

Square Hue Gibson Girl, Mundo de Unas Red, Uber Chic UC 4-02 stamp

Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Azure, Essie No Place Like Chrome, Uber Chic Christmas 01

Zoya Avery, Sinful Colors Bare, China Glaze Passion for Petals, gradient

OPI Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window, Loreal Because You're Worth It, LeaLac LLC-B stamp

Julep Winter, Mundo de Unas Dark Gray, Uber Chic 5-03

Ever After Bite Me, MdU Black,  Uber Chic 3-01

Sally Hansen Olive Branch, Essie Good as Gold, Uber Chic 5-01 stamp

Color Club Halo Hues Eternal Beauty, Mundo de Unas Violet, Uber Chic UC 5-02 stamp

And that's it for me. Even with posting all of these, I still have several more that are sitting in drafts.

I'm holding off on those; maybe they'll eventually earn a spot as their own post.

PINK AND GIRLY

Last Thursday we headed off to Illinois to spend a few days with my daughter and her fam. I think this is the third year in a row that we've gone there in February. The last two times we had bone-chilling, unusually cold weather when we got there. Not surprising since shit weather usually follows me wherever I go.

It was a nice change to be there this time. They have no snow, and the temps were around 40 degrees which pretty much feels like a heatwave compared to home.

I love visiting there, and every time we do, I give serious thought about just packing up and moving to their neighborhood. They live in such a nice area that has a small town feel but has all the perks (shopping) of being in a big city. We got our shop on a couple of times, and I came home with a bunch of new shirts and sweaters and more nail polish than I've bought in months. I do love a bargain.

Zero was obsessed with me, as always, and Griffin was just beyond adorable, as usual. We went out for sushi on Saturday night, and it was amazing. Our plan had also included indoor skydiving, but they didn't have any open times for us to go. Evidently that needs to be planned in advance a little better. Lesson learned.

I even made sure to get a pic of Griffin with me, which are few and far between since I'm usually the one taking the pics. That and it's even more rare that I think I look decent enough in a picture to actually post it.

For real, how cute is this kid? I absolutely want to eat him up.

I had done my nails a few days before we left and ended up leaving this same mani on for an entire week. To say I was sick of looking at it would be an understatement. It got lots of compliments when we were shopping, though.

I used Zoya Dot for the pink base and then stamped with MdU White and the DRK Themes Enlaced stamping plate. It turned out pretty much exactly as it was in my head, so I was happy with it.

As much as I liked it, I couldn't get rid of it fast enough when we got home Sunday night. When I was playing with Zero over the weekend, I had managed to loosen both of my index finger nails so I had to completely remove those.

Once I did that, I did a heart mani that I still have on now. I'm really missing the days when I had the motivation to do a manicure every night, but I just don't have the energy or inspiration. 

It took me two days to swatch and organize the new polishes I bought, and even that took a whole lot of effort. I easily bought at least 20 polishes, and while we were gone, my Square Hue and Julep came, so finishing it up was pretty time consuming.

On a super depressing note, when we went to Sally Beauty it was time to renew my membership, which costs $5 a year. This year it only cost me $2.50.

I'm still undecided whether I'm happy about that or horrified that I officially received my first "senior discount". I'm 56.....I don't feel like a senior.

Color me saddy-pants, I think.

IT WORKS!!

Oh, man. December 20th already? I am so not ready for this week. I feel like I'm actually forgetting things I need to do. Everything I have here is wrapped, but I'm still waiting for quite a few things to arrive, thanks to the extremely late list I received from my daughter. As of right now, she's not getting anything because it's all spread out across the country as the items make their way here. It's out of my hands.

Last Christmas Eve Tyler and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning putting together a Lego Christmas scene. Once we finished, she loaded it up in the car and brought it to her in-laws' house so that Griffin would see it under the tree and think Santa built it for him.

It was at that time I decided I was for sure going to buy the actual Lego Christmas North Pole set for this year. It's been hiding under the bed for about 6 months. I asked Tyler on Friday night what the plan was for it, and she said she wanted it to be set up at my house since I bought it. I then asked when she was coming home, and she told me she's hoping to come home Monday. It's a good thing I asked what the plan was, because this plan required me to get busy!

Let me make it clear I was not upset at this prospect whatsoever. I think putting Lego sets together is way too much fun. My biggest concern was where I was going to put the darn thing.

My next concern came about 2 hours in when it became clear to me that there was a piece missing from the set. I texted Tyler and sent her a pic of the missing item and told her to grab one and bring it home with her. I told her I was going to bed with the hope that maybe I was just blind and the piece would make itself appear on Saturday morning.

No such luck. Here I was, only partway through the first building, and I was stuck. It just so happens that I bought Griff two Lego sets for Christmas that were already under my tree, so I unwrapped one of them to see if I could steal the piece I needed. Of course, that set didn't have that piece. So I had to unwrap the other set, and luckily the piece I needed was there. Problem solved. I'll put the piece Tyler brings into the new set, and everything works out perfectly.

So I spent the next couple of hours playing with Legos. The whole thing was just about finished, and I was working on the reindeer, when I discovered I was missing a reindeer face. You have got to be kidding me. The reindeer faces are a common piece that simply have eyes drawn on it. So now I'm looking at the two buildings I already made, wondering if I accidentally used a reindeer face.

Well, shitballs. Next step? Start taking apart the houses I just spent hours building looking for reindeer eyes. And after all of that extra work, I discovered I did not mistakenly use it. Final solution? A black sharpie draws very nice reindeer eyes. Done.

I decided to set it up on the shelf under the tv. I'm not going to say a word about it. We're going to wait to see how long it takes for Griffin to notice it. I'm excited because he is going to love it! I will say I'm going to be a little sad to see it go home with him because it's pretty damn adorable.

I haven't done much with my nails, but I did manage a gradient and some snowflakes the other night, even though we still don't have any snow here.

This is the first mani shot with the new camera. I'm a pretty happy camper because this purple toned Zoya Carey and Zoya Caitlin gradient actually photographed perfectly.

After I did the gradient I did a bit of sparkle with Nubar Star Sparkle and then stamped with MdU White and the snowflake pattern from the Ali Express 12-51 plate.

I did this last Tuesday and just took it off tonight.

I'm really hoping the new camera is going to make my purple problems go away. I did take a pic of this mani with my old camera, and the old camera definitely photographed this as blue. Hopefully this is a good sign that there will be no more running around the house trying to get the color right. 

I'll have to do some more purples before I can say for sure it's the result of the new camera.

MORE MUNDO DE UNAS PROPS!

When I put my window hummingbird feeders up last week, all it really did was start making me more crazy. Every five minutes I'm staring at those feeders, willing my little male to make his first appearance. It was so beautiful out the end of last week and into the weekend that I actually fooled myself into thinking I'd see one. Any minute now.

I got up this morning to snow flurries. No hummer in his right damn mind would show up here yet. Woe is me.

One thing I did do, though, was go back to my 2014 hummingbird album to see the exact date I first saw one last year. I had thought it was at the end of May. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I saw my little boy on May 8th. So that's good. Here I was pouting because I thought I might have another month to wait. Turns out I may only have to wait a couple of weeks. I thought maybe this horrible winter everyone has had might slow them down, but in looking at the 2015 hummingbird migration map (yes, we freak hummingbird fanatics have a first sighting map), it appears as though they are still on the same schedule as last year.

Hope springs eternal.

Another thing I had done since last year was try to find a way to keep wasps away. They were a huge problem last year. With having the puppies, I didn't get many chances to sit out there and hold the feeder, but on the few occasions I did, I could only stand it for short periods of time because the wasps were intense. Mean bastards, too. There were a couple of times I just stood out there with the spray can, killing as many of those mother-effers as I could. They try to attack my little bird friends. Momma' ain't having that. I saw lots of people saying to take those little brown lunch bags, blow them up and hang them. It fools the wasps into thinking the territory has already been taken.

Now, it doesn't take a Mensa member to realize that a paper bag isn't going to be very practical when it rains. There are a couple of genius companies that actually make fake nests. Of course they do. So I bought two different brands, two of each. I'm going to hang one in the front of the house, one on the deck and one under the garage eaves. And I'll have a spare if the rain wipes one out. I pray they work. If they do, I'm looking forward to sitting with hummingbirds buzzing by my head and landing on my fingers.

Last night I decided I just "had" to try the white MdU stamping polish. OMG.

First off, this is China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-Le. I forgot how much I love this color. Seriously. Still one of my faves of all time. It be beautimous. I also mattified it with Sally Hansen's Big Matte Topcoat. That, too, is awesome.

So then I grabbed my Uber Chic UC1-02 plate and my white polish. Usually when I would stamp with any of the other brands, I'd have to clean the plate every couple of nails and add more polish. Not so with the Mundo de Unas.

I put the white on the top 1/3 of the design, scraped and stamped. And that is ALL I used for five nails. For the next four I scraped with just the remnants from my scraper. Then I cleaned the plate and my scraper and did the same thing for my other hand.

Are.You.Freaking.Kidding.Me? For all this time I've been super annoyed at how fast my stamping polishes would seem to be gone. Either gone or they'd start getting extra sticky from reinserting the brush so many times during a stamping session.

I am so in love with these I'm either going to make out with them or just downright marry 'em. And at $3.50 a piece, they are even more of a bargain than I thought they were. Totally worth the $14 it cost for shipping 14 of them. TOTALLY.

If you like to stamp, want to stamp, have had trouble with stamping, these could very well help you in your quest. I don't exactly suck at stamping, and these make it easier for me, and in turn, it makes it more fun.

I like fun.

WHY DID I WAIT???

I didn't plan on doing nails today, nor did I plan on doing a blog post even though I do have some mani pics lying in wait. But that all changed.

About a month ago I finally decided to bite the bullet and buy colored stamping polish. I've always only had black and white and used regular polishes for my stamping. Sometimes they would work, and sometimes they wouldn't.

After I asked around for who had the best ones at the best price, I eventually decided on Mundo de Unas. I didn't mess around, either. I bought 2 black, 2 white and 10 colors. And I've been waiting pretty impatiently for them to get here. A month is a long time.

Today they arrived. After I stared at them for awhile I decided to do something I have always wanted to do. It's not anything super exciting, but for whatever reason, I have always wanted to do plain old pink roses on a burgundy background.

You can't see it in the picture, but the Square Hue Surf Gypsy I used for the base has some very fine glitter in it. It's a beauty all on its own.

I went through all of my plates, and quite a few of them have some type of rose on them, but this BM XL07 plate from Bundle Monster has just what I wanted. A plain old rose. No leaves, just a rose. 

The MDU polish is amazing. It has a really nice consistency for stamping, in my opinion much better than Konad. It also felt like I needed less of it which is awesome. In the past it seems like whatever black and white stamping polish I buy it's gone in a blink.

I think it literally took me less than 90 seconds to stamp this. Even with a large area to fill on the plate, none of the polish got scraped out of the design which I sometimes have trouble with using normal polish.

If I wasn't so afraid I'd break my nose, I'd punch myself square in the face for not buying colored stamping polish before now. I'm thinking my stamping life is changed for the better. 

My day is made.