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. 

THE WAIT IS OVER - PUPPIES!!!

My entire last week has been just getting ready for the puppies and waiting for the puppies. Her first due date was on Friday, and on Monday we took her to the vet to have an x-ray, hoping it would show us the number of pups. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed at the x-ray because it only showed us 6 puppies. We left the vet and came home and hoped that maybe there were 1 or 2 pups hiding.

I started keeping track of Tinlee's temperature over the next few days, knowing that once it dropped to around 98, I could plan on puppies arriving in 12 to 24 hours. Finally on Friday at 5 p.m. I took her temp and it was 98.2. I immediately took it again to be sure, and then the waiting began.

The whole rest of the evening she did a whole lot of panting and was just generally uncomfortable. I spent my night trying to sleep in the recliner (trying being the operative word), and when I wasn't in the chair, I was sitting in the whelping box with her. She did the same thing with her last litter. When Kev got up, I went to bed for a couple of hours but then got back up to continue the waiting. I kept telling Kev he should go golfing because I thought he had plenty of time to do that. 

He finally decided late in the afternoon that he would go golfing. He literally said, "If we want her to have puppies, I probably should try to golf." He made it to the second hole of the course when I messaged him to come home because she was having contractions. 

I was delivering the first pup when he walked in the door 15 minutes later. Things went very smoothly and pretty quickly from that point. Her first pup was born at 4:56 p.m., and the last was born at 7:24 p.m. I'm happy to present Golden Grahams Diamond Dogs (a/k/a The Bowie Litter). My daughter again got to name the litter, and the pup's names are China Girl, Queen B, Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Starman and LDB (short for Little Drummer Boy).

 So here's just two quick shots of these precious little bundles.

 I couldn't resist this shot of puppy butts.

We are in love.

Right now my Custom Nails are off since I removed them when Tinlee's temp dropped. I wanted my nails short in case of any birthing problems. I'll probably put them back on later tonight or tomorrow. Right now I'm too tired to care.

I did this radial gradient awhile back.

I use Square Hue Kewpies, Square Hue Tomorrowland and Sinful Colors Rose Dust for the gradient. I wanted a soft white stamping so I used Cult El Porto with a floral pattern from Uber Chic 9-01.

I was a fan of this one. I didn't even do too badly of a job centering the design. I don't remember if I used a clear stamper on this one or not. Lordie, I really am suffering from brain fry from lack of sleep.

Now I'm off to the puppy pen. The little stinkers were born needing their toenails clipped, so I'm going to deal with that. I'm sure over the next 8 weeks I'll post puppy pics. My live puppy cam is also up and running over on Ustream and you can find it here. I usually turn that on as soon as I think of it in the morning and leave it on until I go to bed at night. 

They'll be much more fun to watch a few weeks from now when they're running around. Guaranteed.

A FEW TO SHARE

It's weird, but now that I'm retired I feel like I've had less time to post. I've been doing a lot of putzing around the house, and we've been spending quite a bit of time with our friends. 

I've also been spending time running to the vet's office getting Tinlee ready for puppy-making. Today we took the first of three drives to her boyfriend's house.

I've been still doing nails every couple of days, so I'll share a few different ones with you today.

The brown base on this one is Sephora by OPI Metro Too Chic, and I used Mundo de Unas Black and Uber Chic 7-01 for the design.

I really liked this blue one. The lighter blue is Square Hue Lake Louise, and I used Julep Sonia and Uber Chic 5-02 for the stamped design.

Finally, I had mentioned this flop awhile back.

I had just received my monthly Julep box which featured some sheer polishes. It also included a bonus white to use under them, Julep Brigitte. For some stupid reason I thought I'd try stamping with the pink sheer, Julep Kimball using a floral design from Uber Chic 4-01. 

While I will say that the sheer polish stamped very well, I loathed this mani. I did end up wearing it for a full day, and I actually had a couple of people compliment it, but I thought it was hideous. Still do.

I'd have to say the blue one is for sure my fave of this group, but I liked the brown and black combo, too.

Now I'm off to fix my thumb nail. I managed to knock it loose when I was cleaning the house yesterday. Last night I got it all cleaned up and reapplied, and for some reason the damn thing popped off after my shower this morning. I did a quick reglue, but I still don't feel like it's very secure for some reason.

I really need Custom Nail Solutions to start making the pink nails again soon. I really want to get a new set.

Oh, I almost forgot the most important thing - the hummingbirds have finally arrived!! I saw my first boy the other day, and I had a girl here this evening.

That is what officially starts summer for me, even if they are predicting freezing temperatures tonight.

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.

NEW HOLO TOPCOAT

A few posts back I discussed holo topcoats. After wandering the web to find some, I ended up buying two on eBay. They weren't expensive, and I figured I'd try them out to see what I like.

On Sunday night I tried out this one from Pixie's Polish. Her swatches looked great, and the price was perfectly acceptable.

I started with the light gray from Square Hue, Vice and then stamped using MdU Dark Gray and the FUN13 plate from Fab Ur Nails. Over that I did one coat of the holo topcoat.

It did make for a very nice holo effect, but as is often the case, it isn't quite as sheer as the first holo topcoat I purchased that I'm almost out of. I really wish there was a name on that damn bottle.

I'm not unhappy with the Pixie's Polish topcoat, but I do need to try it just over a color that has no stamping to see how much I really like it. If I'm feeling ambitious when I take this mani off, perhaps I'll try it over something darker on its own. For this one, I'm wishing I had done the holo and then stamped rather than covering up the stamp.

It's not a bad effect, especially in person. The stamping design is just super muted due to the topcoat. It's quite pretty in person.

Overall, I'd recommend it, I think. I like a linear holo the best, and this fits the bill even though it doesn't show that much in the photo.

One down, one more to try that I purchased on eBay from Spectraflair. I'll try that one soon so I can show you how good/bad it is.

BIG OLD ROSES

Gawd, I need some kind of a mood-lifter. For the most part, all of last week completely sucked, and other than a high point of going out for a great dinner last night with Seven's owners, this week hasn't been much better.

First, that whole face infection hurt like a bitch. Picture having a throbbing toothache....in all 32 of your teeth. Yeah. That's what it felt like. Then on Friday the sweetheart that owns Comet, one of my pups from last year, lost her 8 year old Golden to cancer suddenly with no warning whatsoever. I don't remember the last time I cried that hard. The family is devastated, and poor little Comet is completely lost and confused without his buddy. So once again I think to myself that I just need to unfriend every person I know that has a pet to avoid being sad when something bad happens.

Then it occurs to me that I have seven puppies out there in the world and have a semi-panic attack thinking about something bad happening to one of them. Pet ownership can really be a bitch.

In all honesty, a couple of good things did happen. Seven got dropped off on Tuesday night, and I got to keep her until almost 11 p.m. on Sunday. So I had a ton of time with that little love-bug. She finally decided to let her mom sleep in bed with us by the end of the visit. So nice of her. 

I also looked almost normal enough to be out in public, so on Saturday I took a ride to Marinette. My granddaughter was in a musical, Aladdin. She played "Lago" and did just a fantastic job. She's such a talented little girl and makes me proud every time I see her perform. 

It was also homecoming night so I got to see my grandson all dressed up and met his girlfriend. Adorable. Both of them. Ridiculously so.

Then out of the blue the front door opened, and there was my other daughter from Illinois!! I had talked to her earlier in the day for about an hour, and she conveniently left out how she was on her way to Toni's house. She wanted to just show up and surprise us all. It worked. I actually got a little teary-eyed.

Peyton was already at the theater so she had no clue Tyler was in town. When she walked on stage for the first time during the performance and saw Tyler sitting in the second row, she could barely contain her smile. Unfortunately, she wasn't supposed to be smiling. She fought off a full-blown smile and had a comical smirk on throughout the rest of the show. It was pretty funny watching her try to have a serious face. She was just too happy that Tyler made the 5 hour drive just to see the play and to see Treyson before homecoming. 

That's a dedicated auntie right there. She drove the 5 hours, saw the show, hung around for a couple hours after that and then drove the 5 hours back home. I think I got a text from her around 4:30 a.m. telling me she made it. Love that sneaky girl.

I haven't really spent  any time at all doing nails. This is one from a few weeks back.

I know it appears to be black, but it's actually a very dark brown with a nice golden shimmer to it, Square Hue Deep Space. I used Essie Good as Gold to stamp with, and the roses are from the Bundle Monster BM XL07 stamping plate.

For whatever reason, I just felt like doing gold roses that day. I'm not positive, but I don't think this one ever left the house.

NOT THE PLAN BUT LOVE IT

Last night was fun. I had a sleepover with my daughter, two of the grandkids and their friends. They had come to town to go to a play and since it got over pretty late, they decided they would spend the night with me. 

I made a pan of brownies figuring they might want a snack. One pan of brownies with two 16 year old boys does not go very far. I don't even know if the girls had any, but there's only one small brownie left. I lost count of how many cans of Dr. Pepper disappeared.

They didn't even get here until almost 11 p.m., and overall, it was just kind of a silly night. We played with free ghost hunting apps on our phones, and I told stories of the different strange happenings that went on in a couple of the houses we lived in. Unfortunately, my current house is ghost free, much to the disappointment of all but Peyton's friend.

Earlier in the day I had swatched the new Square Hue polishes that came. I wanted to do a water marble with two of them, but the three colors I tried were too dark together. Epic fail.

I did still decide to use the dark grey.

After I painted with Square Hue Y2K, I stamped with Mundo de Unas Pink and the LeaLac LLC-B plate. After that I did one coat of a holographic topcoat. I kind of thought the light pink was just a bit stark and flat looking without it. I really like what the holo topcoat did to it.

When I was doing my nails, I figured it would come off tonight so I could do something else to wear to work tomorrow. That's not going to happen because I really like this one a lot.

Hopefully your weekend was a good one, too!

IT'S WHITE WEEK

Summer is back!! And it looks like it will be here for the weekend. High's in the 80's in town which means close to 90 at my house. I'm so looking forward to pool time. I managed to sneak in a couple of hours today and came inside just as it started to rain. The rain didn't last very long, but it gave us a pretty good sized jump in the humidity. It was hot and stuffy enough that I actually closed up the house when I turned on the a/c. Even with that, I was still sweating my balls off when I was cleaning the house.

My time in the pool was spent watching the Hummingbirds and warding off wasps. So part fun, part annoying. After I got done cleaning, I sat out on the deck for a few minutes and fed some birds. They are going through more nectar than I think I've ever seen right now. All day long I get to listen to them chattering out there, and they are on me almost as fast as I sit down with the feeder in my hand. 

The gang over in Nail Fun chose white as the color of the week, and I decided to play along yesterday.

I used my latest Square Hue, iPolish, for my white. I may have a new favorite white. The formula on this one is fantabulous!! The worst thing about Square Hue is falling in love with one and not just being able to order it. I'll be super saddy pants when this one runs out.

For my stamping I used Essie Penny Talk, and I used one of my new Dana stamping plates. This design is from the Dana3 plate.

For $12 I got ten Dana plates. I had run across some random link where somebody had used them and given them great reviews. I figured for that price, I'd take the risk. I'm happy I did. 

Now I have to try to force myself to stop buying stuff! It would be easier if people wouldn't constantly post pictures of their new pretties.

No buy starts.....now.

 

DAMN YOU, STRESS!

I wish I was a drinker. Then maybe I could just do random shots of something throughout the day to make me un-stressed. Ever since I found out in May that I'll be having a smidge of surgery later this month, my moods have been swinging, and I just in general don't feel "quite right" even though I'm not sick. 

I'm able to specifically label it as stress because whenever I'm super stressed out, the left corner of my mouth cracks. Weird and annoying. And this morning I awoke to find that the right side has decided to go along for the fun. Thankfully it's not really noticeable so at least I'm not looking all joker-ish. While I certainly don't have any desire to wish for summer to be over, I'll be glad when the end of the month is past.

Tyler, Griffin and Zero headed back to Illinois this morning, and the house seemed very empty when I went home at lunchtime. I think Tinlee is pouting because she wouldn't eat her lunch. She should have been hungry, too, since this morning her tummy was upset and she didn't eat breakfast. Zero enjoyed eating his breakfast and then hers when I wasn't looking. Little shit. 

Now I'm counting the minutes until 5 o'clock so I can go home and clean the house so I can be lazy for the weekend. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll get some pool time over the next 4 days even though my previously nice warm pool water has now dropped back into the low 70's, thanks to the night time temps in the 40's. 

Here's some nails from last week.

I was wearing a light cream colored top with tiny purple flowers so I decided to do something that was kind of smatchy using Square Hue Notre Dame, Mundo de Unas Lilac and the Fab Ur Nails FUN 13 plate.

If I hadn't been too lazy to walk from one end of the house to the other, I would have looked more closely at the shirt and realized that I should have stamped with a darker purple. Oh, well.

This is one of those that I wasn't fond of while I was wearing it, but now that I'm looking at the picture, I like it more. I don't know why that happens to me so often.

At some point over the weekend I really should do a soak off. What I would really like is to do all new impressions and get a new set of nails, but evidently Custom Nail Solutions hasn't been able to get the stuff to make the solid pink nails for quite awhile now. I don't know what happened there, but not cool. I've had the French tipped ones, and that white is just too hard to cover.

Of course, that's money I won't spend if I can't get them, right?

NEWEST SQUARE HUE

Man, it does not feel like it should only be Tuesday. I'm not sure why, but these first two days of the week have just been dragging. I'm almost positive it should at least be Thursday by now.

I probably shouldn't wish the week away. On Thursday I'll pack up that grandson and grandpuppy of mine and drive about 3 hours, give them back to their rightful owners and then drive about 3 hours back home. It's going to suck. It won't be too long before they come back, though, since they'll come home for Griffin's 5th birthday party at the end of the month. 

This year's party theme per Griff is super heroes. He decided that I will be Wonder Woman. Seems appropriate, right? I was laying in bed with him the other night and we were discussing it. His mom already got me a Wonder Woman t-shirt to wear for the party. He informed me that if I don't have the WW pants, I am uninvited. Once I acted horrified, he advised that he was just kidding. The kid just cracks me up so much! 

On to nail stuff! 

I just love getting my monthly Square Hue polishes. They never fail to make me happy, and this month is no exception.

This is Square Hue Tune In. I liked this dark fuschia pink right away in the bottle and was surprised to find that it is a matte polish. I debated leaving it dull, but I opted for topcoating it. I used Mundo de Unas white and the Bundle Monster BM XL11 plate for the stamping.

I know I've said it before, but if you want a good subscription box, I'm still pushing Square Hue as a great option. They have actually come out with a second option for their service now. Instead of getting the three polish box, you can opt for the two polish box instead. The two polish box is $10.99 plus shipping, and you can alternate between boxes if you feel like you want more polish on any given month.

I was very lucky when I signed up. It was almost two years ago, and I got in at a time when they gave me a permanent discount and free shipping, so for me, it's only $14.99 a month. Can't beat that.

I'll cross my fingers that my price stays there for a very long time, but to be honest, even if the price goes up, I'll keep getting it. While I am still a Julep Maven, I find myself skipping their boxes the majority of the time. I do love their polish, but their pricing is high, especially considering the size of their bottles. If I didn't have the ability to skip months I don't like, I'd be canceling them.

The other nice thing about the subscription polishes? It's fun to have guaranteed polish to look forward to every month. Somehow I feel less guilty when those arrive as opposed to when I walk out of a store with some.

Not sure why.

LEFT IT AT THAT

Woke up today to find fall. 50 degrees, raining and just generally crappy weather. I wanted to crawl right back into bed. 

First thing I did was go to my closet to reevaluate my wardrobe choice for the day. Yesterday it was so nice that I foolishly assumed I should dress for summer again today. Obviously that wasn't going to work so I picked out a more temperature-appropriate shirt. And for those that know me, NO, I did not choose a long sleeved winter sweater.

I turned on the air conditioning for sleeping purposes and then turned the heat on after I got up. Seriously, that is a normal thing only at my house. 

Then for some reason even though he never touched the thermostat here at work yesterday when it was hot out, today the bossman decided he should crank the air conditioner on by setting the temp to 69. Um, thanks? Maybe I really should have opted for that sweater. I'm wearing bare feet in deck shoes, and my toes are frozen. 

A while back I had this entire plan for a mani all worked out in my head. Saran wrap it and then stamp over it with either white or black. Oh, my....the stamping over it did not work at all. Completely hideous. Luckily I only tried it on one nail, realized it sucked and just left it like this.

I hated this while I was wearing it, but I hate it less just looking at the picture. I did a base of Color Club Disco's Not Dead and then saran wrapped it with China Glaze Sun of a Peach, Square Hue Yellow Submarine and Wet n Wild Club Havana.

I really don't understand why it didn't look good once I stamped on it. But whatevs. That was so five weeks ago it no longer matters.

BEEN AWHILE SINCE I MARBLED

Today is my grandson's 16th birthday. So gross. I'm not sure where the time went, but it seriously seems like a blink ago that he was 2. I'd like to think that since he's 16 with a driver's license and a vehicle, that means he'll take a road trip to visit me. I do, however, remember being 16, and I wouldn't have walked 2 blocks to visit family, let alone drive an hour. So I won't expect him to be pulling into my driveway anytime soon. I'll still love him anyway. 

I just wish time would hold still for a bit longer. The grandkids getting older is making me older, and I don't appreciate it.

I bought a new shirt from Zulily awhile back and since it was actually going to hit 60 degrees today, I decided I'd wear it and do a mani with colors to match.

It's been forever since I did the loopy water marble. The last couple of times I started to, nothing would cooperate. I had much better luck yesterday. Every polish I chose worked, and I didn't have a single re-do. It made it fun.

I debated on whether I should do a white base, but I decided to go with Cult Hollywood Hills. I then used that along with Sally Hansen Hard to Get, Sally Hansen Peach Beach and Square Hue Collins Avenue.

The neon orange Square Hue, the darker pink Sally and the much lighter pinky/peach by Cult all match the colors in my shirt exactly. Crazy close in color.

I like this one a lot. Whether I'll leave it on for another day completely depends on my motivation level after work. Mabes I'll just be too lazy to do something new.

If it ends up staying on, I'm good with it.

I DO LOVE A GRADIENT

I feel like my long weekend has gotten off to a productive start. Yesterday after work I got the house cleaned, washed sheets, our pillows and our blanket. I bought a new blanket because the other one, which is also fairly new, wouldn't stay tucked in at the foot of the bed. We have a high profile queen size Tempurpedic bed which has given me nothing but trouble in finding blankets. I have a couple of super expensive down quilts that weren't really wide enough, so I had bought a really nice blanket from Kohl's. I thought I'd be clever and get a king size. All that did was hang down too long on the sides but still come untucked.

I've been searching for awhile and finally found an oversized queen blanket, and I'm finally satisfied. As I was putting it on the bed, Kev informed me that the other one kept coming untucked on his side because he's been untucking it. When I asked why, he said his feet get too hot. So all this time I've been swearing at it in the morning, and he was doing it on purpose. I have now told him to knock it off and learn how to put his feet out without untucking the blanket. That's what grownups (like me) do. I was happy to see the blanket still firmly tucked this morning. Of course, the extra 10" in the blanket length should make it a little more difficult for him to get out. 

Then today the guy came to clean the living room carpeting. I've been waiting to have that done since last spring. I didn't want to do it before we had the ceilings redone; didn't want to do it when the puppies were still here; then it was early spring and way too muddy outside as the snow melted. Finally all of those things went away and they were able to come and take care of it. 

I also cleaned out and refilled all of the hummingbird feeders which made them very happy. After that I had a doctor's appointment, and then we went off to buy flowers for the garden. I'm hoping to get a start on that tomorrow. Damn things were expensive! We spent over $400, and I'm still trying to decide what else to get for the front of the house. 

Tomorrow will be my only chance to play in the garden this weekend because from Saturday to Monday I'll be puppysitting Seven so her owners can go off and have a nice one year anniversary. 

Done boring you!

Here's my current mani. 

I started off with a white base of Cult El Porto and then used that along with Square Hue Lincoln Road and Color Club Hot-Hot-Hot Pants for the gradient. I used Essie No Place Like Chrome and the Bundle Monster BM-XL11 plate for the stamp design.

I'm a fan of this. It needs to go, though, and it probably will tomorrow night, assuming I can think of something to put on in its place.

TOTALLY STOLE THIS ONE

I have a minor body issue vent before I show off this mani I totally copied from someone.

Is it an old age thing? How come I weigh the same, wear the same size as I have for the past more years than I can count, but I now have a muffin top? I don't understand it. I don't remember ever being this uncomfortable in my own skin, and I'm not a fan. It makes me sad. The end.

The other day I was wandering around Pinterest looking for inspiration and found this mani. Well, it was almost this mani. She had done the stamping on only two of her nails. Doing accent nails isn't really my thing so I just tried to recreate it on all of my nails.

You can find her original of this one on her Facebook page, Esmalterapia4me. She does amazing stuff!

I don't know what colors she used, but I grabbed Square Hue Happy Creme and Cult Avalon for my pink/coral dabbed in random spots over white base. That flower is from the Uber Chic UC1-02 plate. And yes, I used my MdU for the white stamp.

I love how this turned out. Such pretty colors, I think. It feels very summery to me, and I may have to do this color combination again at some point. They might look awesome in a water marble.

I'm actually due for a water marble. I don't imagine I'll be able to get one done this weekend, though. I'm puppysitting for Razzie, and I don't think I could count on him to not run into my nail stuff. 

Seeing polish, distilled water and remover flying across the living room does not appeal to me at all.

FLORAL FOIL

Blah-de-da. It's Monday, cold, gloomy and raining. Seems about right, right? Supposedly it might change to freezing rain or mabes even some snow later. So yup....go us! We luvs it up here!

I hope the dripping sarcasm didn't get on ya.

Yesterday I was sitting around with nekkid nails and just could not decide what I wanted to do. Nothing sounded exciting. That's pretty annoying when I consider I have all of those lovely new stamping polishes. As I wandered throughout the interwebs looking for inspiration, there was just none to be found. Even choosing a color combination wasn't happening.

I seriously spent hours pondering what to do. After I sat on the bed and just stared at colors and stamping plates for what seemed like forever, I opted for trying some foils.

I received these free awhile back when I ordered some foil topcoat from a lady on Amazon. I really wanted to buy some more from her, but she appears to have vanished into thin air. 

Topcoating this kind of foil isn't usually a problem. It's the glossy ones that give me an issue. Still, using Seche Vite is not advised. Without thinking I used the SV on my pinkie nail and watched the small amount of silver in these foils shrivel. Not so cute. I re-did it.

I usually work these by setting up two at a time. The first two fingers I did two coats of my foil topcoat. To add shine I grabbed the Square Hue topcoat they had sent around the holidays. It worked really well. Just for kicks I skipped the foil topcoat and just went with the Square Hue for the rest of my nails, and it worked great! At some point I'm going to have to see what it does to the the more topcoat-challenged foil materials. 

I'm looking at my nails, and the tip wear is not good. Luckily this is a pattern that really called for a white basecoat, so nobody would ever notice that I'm losing some pattern. But I do. This will be coming off tonight.

Just for kicks the other day I did a search for Sally Hansen Prism Turquoise Opal on eBay. Occasionally I do that because I want it. Bad. I found one for $39.99, but yeah, that ain't happening. I found another one that was at $4.99 with only one bid, so I added it to my watch list and crossed my fingers that I'd hear my phone warn me when there was 15 minutes left. I'm happy to report that I snagged it for $11.00, and I am one happy camper. I snagged the Burgundy Orchid one, too, just because I could.

Oh! And I also decided to buy the 12 piece Kleancolor neon set because it was only $14 with free shipping. I couldn't bring myself to buy the China Glaze set because I didn't feel I could justify spending the price when I know I probs already have some very similar polishes. But $14 for a dozen? I'm all over that shit.
 
So yeah, my no-buy is going great!!

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.

FRIDAY GREEN

I'm doing a little add-on edit here - I think my post yesterday misled some of you. I was in no way trying to imply that I want people to take time out of their day to actually post comments on my posts. I was only talking about the view count that I can see for each post. As an example, most of my posts get between 200-300 views. The black/white one at the time I wrote yesterday had under 70. It caused me to wonder why. That's all I meant. Please do not feel like you have to comment. Ever! If you do, know that I am extremely happy to see and reply, but that's just a cherry on top of the sundae for me. I personally just like looking at the numbers and knowing that there are people out there that are interested enough to even look at the page. Now back to the originally scheduled post.......

Even though it's been about a month of working Monday through Wednesday, doing it still messes with my mind. Yesterday felt like Friday, and today feels like Saturday. Sometimes it's confusing, but it also somehow feels like some tiny victory when I realize that I still have one more day off then I thought I did.

It's been so nice here the past couple of days. Summer seems so close. And just to piss myself off I looked at the weather forecast and see there's a possibility of snow next week. Seriously? Unnecessary, Mother Nature. Get it together already.

Yesterday Kev and I did random stuff around the house. We put the trim back up around the bedroom ceiling finally. I also had to go around the ceiling and wash off all of the ceiling stuff the ceiling guy got all over the walls. Nice. I'm glad the ceilings are done, and they do look 100% better, but man, perfect they are not because they didn't take down any of the trim before doing it. 

I also had the hubby take the bathroom light fixture globes off so I could wash them. Much swearing ensued. I made the mistake of asking if I could do anything to help, and he told me I could buy a different light fixture. Ouch. That thing does not come apart or go back together very easily. It had to be done, though. That dead wasp needed to go, along with the dust.

On to nails.

I got my new Square Hue polishes a couple of weeks ago, and this green was in the box. It's nice! I do love me my Square Hue! This one is WPA. No clue what that means or stands for, but it's a pretty green. The stamped design is from the FUN 15 plate.

I've been having a whole lot of stamping fun with all of the new plates I've gotten recently. I'm really glad I haven't seen any more new ones I need to have. I've had little to no self-control lately when it comes to getting nail stuff.

Sometimes it's just hard to say no. And just when I think there's nothing I have to have, somebody sends me an email with another great deal. Yesterday it was Cult who had a buy one, get two free deal happening. Of course I had to jump on that. I have almost all of their colors at this point, but I did grab three more of their white and six colors I didn't have. I'm thinking it might be time for a no-buy. *sigh*

I really hate self-imposed no-buys. 

MY EASTER NAILS

I'm not going to ramble on and on today. I'm enjoying a Saturday of puppysitting Seven until tomorrow evening. She is not so much a fan of me sitting with my laptop on my lap.

Right now she is passed out under the kitchen table. She finally got bored and fell asleep because Tinlee didn't want to play anymore. So I thought I'd do a quick post while they are recharging their batteries.

Since I knew it would be a dog filled couple of days, I decided I would do a mani last night. If my Easter Sunday goes as it usually does, we'll be going out to dinner with my family. I figured I may as well do something Easterish.

I started by putting on just one coat of white using Cult El Porto. It's my favorite white because the formula is just so nice. We all know what a pain white can be sometimes.

Then I did a gradient with Cult The Roxy, Square Hue Yellow Submarine, China Glaze Spring in My Step and Sinful Colors Bright Lucite.

I looked through all of my stamping plates and was rather shocked that I don't really have anything Easter-egg-like. I finally chose this design from my MoYou Pro XL 03 plate.

I'm pretty happy with this. I love the colors in the gradient, and all of those polishes worked really well on the sponge. My only bitch about this is the fact that I didn't get the stamping design on straight. It was too late at night to be a fuss budget about it, so I let it slide.

All in all, I'll call it a success.

I hope you all have a great day tomorrow and that the Easter Bunny brings you some goodies. My mom still handles that for me by buying me a large chocolate fudge egg from our local candy store. Sometimes she'll also get some little bunny decoration, too, if she finds a good deal somewhere. 

You're never too old for Easter goodies. 

PAISLEY

It's so weird when the bossman is on vacation. I enjoyed not getting up early today to come into work. I got ready and went in around noon to get calls, return calls and even had a few people that came in unannounced. One guy almost gave me cardiac arrest because when I came back from the storage closet, I rounded the corner into the office and he was sitting there. 

There is a ton of stuff I want to do in that storage closet, but since he hasn't called to check in, I can't ask what I want to ask about it. Now I can't decide if I should just go forth with what I want to do or not. If I don't do it while he's gone, it'll never get done. When he's here, I don't have time to be hanging out in a closet for hours at a time. 

When I took off that water marble, I did a couple of left-hand only mani's just for shits and giggles.

I did a base with Sinful Colors Snow Me White and then used Square Hue Via Montenapoleone black for the paisley pattern from the Bundle Monster BM XL10 plate. That Square Hue black is a matte finish, and it stamped really well. I'll be using that again fo' sho'.

I've always been a fan of paisley, and after I took this off, I wished I hadn't. I should have done the other hand and worn it. Not that it matters, I guess, since that was Saturday night and I never left the house until today.

I'm practically dozing off in my chair and it's only 9 p.m. I think I will go find some nail polish to sniff.....I mean apply.
 

 

HERE'S YOUR WATER MARBLE, MARTHA!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, all you Irish folk. 

Yesterday was Kev's birthday, and I thought we were going to have over a week together. I love when that happens. But work called him today, and he decided to pick up an extra four day trip, so now I won't see him again until Saturday night.  The extra money is nice, but I surely do miss him when he leaves.

Sometimes it sucks to like your husband.

I've been so busy at work I was starting to wonder if I'd ever get around to posting this one before the "holiday" was over.  A few days ago Martha from Polish Makes Me Happy posted a picture of a shamrock water marble. She kind of hinted that one of us that does marbles should do it. 

I actually did this two years ago, but it didn't turn out so great. So I figured I'd give it another shot.

 

I remember when I did it the first time the hardest part was finding a couple of greens that would marble. I sort of had the same problem this time around. Eventually I got China Glaze Exotic Encounters and Square Hue Flower Power to cooperate to make my four leaf clovers.

It took a few tries on a couple of the nails, and I would have like to redo a couple again, but my China Glaze wasn't full to start with. Once a polish gets down to below half full, I don't like using it for marbles. While they are fun and cool to look at, they certainly can be a bit wasteful.

I do love the colors on this one. Very St. Patrick's Day-ish. I'd like to do some more water marbles because I'm kind of in the mood for them, but I can't seem to decide on a color scheme. I'll just have to keep thinking.

Enjoy yourselves if you're going out to drink some green beer this evening, and don't forget to not drink and drive. For realz.