Thanksgiving...crisis!

This isn't about nail polish. It's about cats. Just wanted to give you fair warning. Every year, I'm in charge of making the pies for our family Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house. Usually around eight to ten pumpkin pies. (Oh, and sucky cellphone pics ahead. I was camera-less on Wednesday night.)

Let me introduce you to one of the newest family members. This is Snowflake. She belongs to my nephew and lives at my mother's house.



Isn't she cute? She's less than a year old. (She's a foundling so we don't really know her age. Just that she was tiny when found.) Snowflake loves playing. She ran around under the kitchen table while I had pies baking and cooling. Pies number five and six were in the oven. I was sitting down grating soap (making this) when I heard a clatter...

...and found this on the kitchen table.


Yes, those are her paw prints in my pie. Unphotographed were the pumpkin paw prints across the kitchen floor, the pumpkin splatters on the table and the pumpkin crumbs on the wee little kitty chin. Lucky for her that pie wasn't hot. Snowflake went (forcibly) out the door to play outside and I sat down to laugh and cry. (It was about 10pm and I still had four more pies to bake.)

Annie said this is what comes of having little ones around.


I said she was never this naughty when she was little. Annie said she was never that little. Hard to argue with a cat.

I finished my pies and cooled them and stashed them away safely without further incident. In the morning I started loading them into the car to take to my sister's house. The last two were on the kitchen table waiting when Annie announced it was time for her breakfast. LOUDLY.

I obliged.

And came back to this! Kitty Krueger strikes again!


And again!


All I can say is, it's a good thing she's so cute.



Snowflake had a busy night. Time for her Thanksgiving nap!

Orly Mistletoe

Orly Mistletoe was one of my very first lemmings. I stalked eBay until I found it (along with some Orly a la Modes) for a reasonable price and then it sat in a drawer unswatched for, hmm, about a year. (I had a *moment* where I decided it needed to wait for Christmas). Luckily I had forgotten about it because this meant I didn't build up all sorts of anticipation only to be disappointed. Because I'm rather *meh* about this one.

Orly Mistletoe, morning sun


This is three coats (no top coat) and you can still see bald spots. Maybe it's just my bottle (and coming from eBay it could be), but the polish consistency is very thin. I could have added a fourth coat. I could have worked with it until I was satisfied. But Nars Zulu was sitting there waiting too. And I'm still a bit miffed with Orly's price-raising shenanigans. I went with the gorgeous green jelly.

Quirius Deep Denim

I was supposed to get this post up yesterday but ended up stuck downtown with a flat tire. Talk about ruining your day! I did get some pretty glitter polishes from Hot Topic out of the whole ordeal though. Anyhow! On to the polish!

Quirius Deep Denim, morning sun


I love the richness of this color.



Only two coats. Two ridiculously easy coats. If I'd been more careful, I wonder if I could have gotten away with one.



I used my usual base/top coat combo of Nailtek/Poshe. Application was dreamy. These are the kinds of polish that make me want to order more from a company. (I still want to put in another Quirius order but got derailed by China Glaze's holiday collection!)

Introducing Art Club GLAM

Wow, I've been crazy busy the last few days! Shopping for Thanksgiving (I'm in charge of pies, lol), getting crafty, cleaning house...the list is endless. I've had the same polish on for four days now and haven't even thought about changing it! When I finally got to checking my email and saw this press release from Color Club I thought I could really use some now...

Introducing Art Club GLAM

Fashion-forward nail designs are a cinch with GLAM. The high-quality, amazingly self-stickable decals lay right over nail, and a layer of top coat seals the deal.
Mix and match patterns, use on natural nails or embed them in gel, or over polish – it’s all up to you!




We seem to be seeing more of this type of full nail sticker coming from different companies. I think its a good thing, giving us plenty of options on design and availability. I for one am definitely interested in trying these. I'd like to see how well they fit on my nail. I've never tried false nails before because they are generally too short to cover my natural nails without cutting my nails almost to the quick. (Painful!) These appear to have a nice range of sizes to play with. =)

Golden Rose Multi Dimensions #10 (layered)

I was loving the bright and cheery orange, but had a strong urge for some shimmer and I remembered this little polish I had ordered from Golden Rose. Alone it's pretty sheer but I thought it might look good layered...

Golden Rose Multi Dimensions #10, morning sun (layered over Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up)


In the shade


Awesome. Layered over a bright yellow-orange it looks almost like the bottle color. More substantial. I love the subtle purple duochrome in the shimmer. I used one good coat of the Golden Rose and topped it off with Poshe top coat. (Eek, I totally missed polish on the cleanup...)

Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up

It's raining again. I think I'm going to have to pull out my lamp if I want to get any decent swatch pictures. All this rain is making me feel dull and dreary. Even the prospect of Nars Zulu (at the post office!!!) isn't enough to keep me excited for very long. My soul is dragging its feet. So, from the other day, Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up (I do like that name...)



Let's see...no base or top coat. Taken in the morning before the clouds rolled in, this was three coats. Sunny Side Up is a nice color but didn't want to play nice. Actually I think the brush was too stiff and caused the streaking that lead to the third coat. Wet n Wild brushes can be like that but for 99 cents I'm not going to complain. They make one of the best one coat black cremes out there. I'll love them forever for that. (Can you tell I'm sparkling today? *sigh*) I only wish a had better access to the brand. Until next time...*waves*

Diamond Cosmetics Chainmail Charm

I had meant to get this posted on Monday night after work, but ended up feeling feverish and leaving work early. I didn't expect to spend the next few days in bed! Now I'm feeling much better and have some catching up to do. =)

Though a bit delayed, here is Chainmail Charm from Diamond Cosmetics. Of course the day I put it on the sky poured rain all day. I ended up resorting to standing with my fingers directly beneath a light bulb to get a decent picture.



From another angle. Two coats (plus base and top coat).



Application was good, smooth and with a thin consistency. If you wanted to stretch your bottle you could layer one coat over a gray or black. Overall, more than worth the $2.25 it cost me. You can purchase Diamond Cosmetics directly from their website here.

*I was just double-checking the link to Diamond Cosmetics website and realized that they have a notice in the nail polish section about Chainmail Charm. Apparently there is a production problem and so the color is currently unavailable. Hopefully it will be corrected soon.

OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

I bought OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous because it looked so pretty in the bottle.



And in the sun it does sparkle. Very sheer though, this is three coats and you can see through it under strong light. I'm not loving it on me.



In the shade I loved it even less. The sparkle dimmed to a muted shine and under the fluorescent lights at work it looked downright dull. Bah. Hmm, my nails are approaching "talon".



So I chopped them off! Surprisingly, this made me like Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous more. But not enough to say I love it. Dry time and application were fine, I'm just not feeling it. Maybe its too similar to something I already have...anyhow, I felt a need to layer...



...and ended up with this! (Which I promptly smudged.) That's one patchy coat of Claire's Fresh Water (another extremely sheer polish). Fresh Water is very glowy, but the camera wouldn't capture that. The picture shows patchiness yet in real life its not so noticeable. Sort of vibrantly distressed and foil-ish. It lasted all of a day before I felt the need to change it. Which you'll see next time!