Unexpected greatness

Last Sunday while The DH shopped at Biltema, I went to ICA Maxi Botkyrka to buy some bread. Just inside the turnstiles there was some bargain bins and one of them hold bottles of nailpolishes, brandname Paris Memories. Who can resist to check it out when the sign said "20 Kr each"?? Not me. Lots of not Wolfie colors, but I found one brown with a metallic sheen and a dark cerise pink with a purple hue and bought them both. For polishes that cheep, you don't expect anything. But not only was it soooo easy to apply, it covered better than most polishes I own - 1 coat could have been enough and - it have stayed almost unblemished from Sunday to today, Friday. Some minor tip war on the left hand and two tiny chips on the right due to cooking ;-)They don't have a name, just a number on the bottom of the bottle and the brown one is  29.

Stamped with China Glaze Passion and picture was taken yesterday in the garage at work ;-o

It's going to be sooo interesting to see if the pink one behaves the same.

Wolfie in Sweden
where in our parts the wind blows and the rain is ice cold and in abundance :-( In the northern parts it was snowing yesterday! I just hate this time of the year......

Recent paintjobs

After spent the summer with only Borghese Hydrati on my nails and the poor suckers still looked like filo pastry, I decided to get back to paint them. Not that it makes them healthier (at least I think so), but at least several layers of polish do keep them "glued" together.
First one: Color Club "Be Bold" stamped with China Glaze "Hi Tek":

Second one : OPI "Black Tie Optional" stamped with China Glaze "Joy":

Third and latest:

You know that I have this hate/love thing going on with Zoya polishes - it never dried and it chipped instantly. Well, I gave up and gave them away to our nieces - but not all though. So, I saved just a few because the colors was so awesome and I hoped that maybe by some miracle, they would turn usable over time. So I bought out "Jules"  - two coats of Hydrati, two coats of Jules and one coat of Seche Vite. Then I stamped with Essie "Little Brown Dress" and one more coat of Seche Vite. And this time it dried and even though some minor chips fell of after a day or so, the overall mani stayed put for 5 days = small yayyy.

Rest assured, there are more to come ;-)

Gone with the wind

If anyone might wonder why the lack of post for the longest of times, it's cause my nails still refuse to behave. No matter Borghese Hydrati or not, some of them simply don't get better, but continue to peel and break. Of course, they do look better with polish on top, but that only hides the state of them. And during the summer times, but at home by the pool and on vaccation, I can't bring myself to continue to upkeep the polish.
The only thing that is better now than before the summer is the cuticles, no matter my total negligence when it comes to hand cream or cuticle oil the still have healed and look nice..I think I need to shape up with the hand cream though, my age is starting to show - on the back of my hands -  too LOL.

Sustainability

Is one of the areas where my employer has a program to contribute to a better world for all of us.

But for me it's also a way to describe how long a nail polish lasts on my nails ;-) After going crazy with both filopastry like peeling nails and several posh polishes don't delivering (with issues like drying time (if ever) and chipping), I found that the Hydrati base coat from Borghese is a little miracle Not that it has worked wonders on all nails, four are still flaking and breaking down to the quick nor has it made all awfull polishes working better. But still - some Zoyas that never worked before, now lasts 5-6 days without any wear and that alone is something to be happy about. And four nails on my left hand has stopped to peel completely and grows nicely.

So with two layers of Hydrati, NP of choice that works with that base coat and two layers of Seche Vite, my mani stays great for 5-6 days in a row. Yayyyy :-D

Rescue Beauty Lounge

When I was young and - ignorant?? with nicely longish nails, I splurged every now and then on polishes from Dior and Chanel. Figured out that it was better to have a great (even though even back then über xpensive) polishes that I used every single drop of, than cheeper ones that didn't work.

I thought the same thing went today, that price somehow equaled quality even when it comes to nail polishes. After tried some middle range ones like Zoya, China Glaze and Color Club, but when opportunity rose in form of an offer from a Swedish polish "club", I fell for the temptation and ordered six (but got only five) of them. When the package arrived I even managed to save them for Christmas, feeling that I was going to give myself something really special.

But these danged buggers just don't work. Not when I got them and not when I tried them with a different base coat earlier this week. After less than an hour, my nails looked like this:

the middle finger worst of them all. I used Seche Vite on the top and everything was dry. And no, I had not let my hands done any hard work at all, just read a book. I think the thing is that the polish didn't quite adhere to the nails, just formed a kind of floating layer......very very strange.

Never again will I buy such xpensive NP.....dream about them maybe, but not buying.

Surkärring??? Moi??

Ibland känner jag mig som en riktigt vresig surkärring, för det finns en hel del jag inte gillar i nagelvärlden. Sånt som många andra nagelfreaks ohhhar och aaahhhhar över.

Som - jag gillar inte side-by side manikyrer (ser verkligen urskumt ut) och inte heller där man målar "månen" i en färg och resten av nageln i en annan eller underliga "franska" varianter. Jag gillar inte tjocka fakenaglar, ska det va så ska det vara tunt och så verkligt som möjligt.....men fake där man bäddat in spets, det är ändå för snyggt:-) Fake som ser ut som fågelklor går fett bort - vem i hela fridens namn kom på den idén??

Jag tycker verkligen inte om gula lack, eller oranga eller klarröda ....eller vita om man inte har dekorerat dom förstås. Blåa är snygga men ett rent h-vete att ta bort. Avskyr lack som börjar flagna efter mindre än 24 timmar och lika illa är det med lack som inte torkar inom en rimlig tid (eller inte torkar alls) trots man har samma under- och överlack hela tiden.

Sen kan jag bara inte fatta hur det kommer sig att olika lack av samma producent (som Zoya och China Glaze) beter sig så vansinnigt olika? Somliga torkar, andra gör det inte. Somliga håller, andra flisar efter bara några timmar. "Vem ska man tro på tro på tro på, tro på när, tro på när allt är så här?" fritt efter Thomas di Leva ;-)

Nu har jag då bara köpt ett (i mina ögon) superdyrt märke på lack (RBL) och vilken besvikelse! Det var tamejden de absolut sämsta lacken (i höjd med H&M samt Vero Modas) jag nånsin provat. Första flagan föll efter drygt en timme och då hade jag ändå Seche Vite på toppen. Snacka om totalt bortkastade pengar :-(

Köpa nagelprodukter (eller tyger, tråd, böcker mm) i Sverige det gör jag bara inte. För inte ens om tullen lägger sina giriga små tassar på ett paket, så blir det hela ändå runt 30-50% billigare att köpa från USA. Fast böckerna köper jag från Amazon.uk för det mesta.

Som slutkläm så tycker jag starkt illa om två av mina naglar som fortsätter att skiva och gå sönder, trots det smått mirakulösa Borghesi "Hydrati" som baslack. Säger som min yngste gjorde när han var en pyttis "dua,dua dom!!"

Nu ska jag ha mig en kopp thé och en kanelbulle eller två :-D Och ja, det här blev på svenska - fråga mig inte varför för jag har ingen aaaaaaning.

Corporate color

Morning all,
Now how many people do you know who goes to work wearing the corporate color on their nails? I did. Unintentional. And - the polish lasted all week long. Put it on on Sunday, the pic is taken yesterday. Only one little chip on the middle finger - that's it:

Two layers of Borghesi Hydrati, Zoya Midori two layers stamped with SdP 404 and China Glaze Passion. If I had been really true to the company colors, I would have used a silver polish for stamping ;-p

Since I found the Hydrati base coat, I have been testing my way through the Zoya left overs, and by some mysterious reason, they suddenly work...except one...so far.

Have a lot to do, but not very much energy to actually do them, so I think I snuggle up under a blanket and dream of the FQ bundle that is on it's way across the sea:-)

Easter dots

First of all, thanks to a girl on the Makeup Alley forum, I think I have found the holy grail of base coats - Borghese Hydrati. It works superbly on my nails, the chipping has slowed down to almost nothing and it makes the manicure stay on for round 5 days without chipping, which for me is a record :-)

Happy with the sudden change of result for Zoya Jules last week, I decided to try out one of the few Zoya I have left (I gave the rest of them away cause they simply refused to work on my nails), a green one - Irene. And along with Borghese as a base (two coats) and three of the decorative polishes, I'm ready to hop around like the Easter Bunny LOL.

As usual the quality of the pic is not perfect, but at least you get an idea of how it looks - Easter Dots and I'm happy that I finally found some use for all these bottles of decorative arty nail polishes :-)

Gaudi nails ;-)

Talk about seriously bubble headed - this I posted on my quilting blog yesterday instead of here... sigh...

Anyhow - a couple of years ago The DH brought back some gifts for us from Barcelona while on a conference: a couple of soccer t-shirts for the kids and this beautiful trinket box in an Antoni Gaudi design for me:

and it has been sitting on a windowsill ever after looking pretty. Until yesterday.

Remember all these 60 bottles of art nail polish I bought from China some months ago? I think I said it before, but the quality of these polishes has left a lot to be desired for, mostly cause they never dry no matter Seche Vite ot Poshé. So they have been sitting there in a box, doing nothing. Until yesterday.

Not in a sewing mood I decided to try something with my new dotting tools (also from China for under 1 USD :-O) and started with yellow, green and blue. Then it struck me that the result was similar to the Gaudi box, so I checked it out and added red, white and black dots:

So here we are - a kind of Frenchie Gaudi manicure :-D Sadly my camera refuse to focus and give me crispy clear pictures, it's probably that shiny Zoya Jules fault. The upside is that all them dots and several layers of Seche Vite, makes Jules staying power so much better :-)

Am I dotty?

Got my new dotting tools last week (eBay, less than 1USD :-O) and played a wee bit:

Then scrounging up a piece of tin foil (chocolate wrapper) I looked at it and went hmmmmmm, maybe you can do something like this on your nails? Said and done, two coats of Borghese Hydrating polish, two coats of Essie "Little Brown dress) and on top of that one coats of a golden polish from Zoya, One coat, then a scrounged up piece of aluminum foiled and dabbed:

Sealed it with a coat of Seche Vite and know what? It have lasted the whole week!! I really like the effect, much more subtle than these horrible cracking polishes that many companies sell and many bloggers fan over, but more distinct than a sponge work. Makes me think of these old tooled leather wall"papers".....

Well today it has started to show it's wear, so during the weekend I have to take it of and come up with something new to try. Or....I might stick with a simple French??

They say it's going to snow 10-15cm (brrrrr) but they said that a week ago too. Right now it's old snow still up to the 3rd step of of from stairs and thick layers of pure ice :-(

Wonder why

people here is willing to pay 95-135SEK for a bottle of Nubar polish when you can get it for USD 5.5 on eBay???

So far I only own two bottles of Nubar - Raspberry Truffle and a clear one with reddish glimmers, but I must say they are the absolutely best polishes I have tried in a long time. Easy to apply, dries fairly quickly and it stays on for more days than imagined. The glitter one changes color of the shiny stuff, depending on what color you have underneath. In a not so distant future, I am going to invest in a nice little collection, just have to justify the purchase to myself LOL.

Troublesome plates

Some month or so ago I bought some "not all all Konad" stamping plates and have been trying them out ever since. The quality varies a lot and most of the flower, very lovely designs simply don't work - see me pout...I don't know what's wrong with them, but they load way to much polish and the flowers (and other  graphics) looks like big blobs :-( I haven' tried many of the small ones, but the few I used on some falsies, turned out OK.

This fishnet pattern worked excellently, but when I tried to add some flowers or stars, it simply wouldn't do. So I think I went through 4 or 5 manis yesterday ending up with this. China Glaze (not a name but lots of ins) stamped with one of the Krome's (also China Glaze) with a thin Frenchy tip. Can't say I'm to fond of it, but it's better than nothing;-)

Now if Konad could turn out several new designs each month, I would never have the need to stray into not 100% perfect terretory. Why don't they simply hire all these talented girls who now do their own thing, that way we would both have gorgeous designs and highest of quality at the same time = Kinder Egg LOL.

Handmade soap

I have some friends in the US who makes the most delicious handmade soap and of course they use only natural botanicals to scent them. I am in need of some soap right, but right now in this moment they don't have a large selection in store. Soooo I turned my eyes to Sweden to see if I could find a soap maker close by who use naturals for scent. But so far no luck - only horrible awful fragrance oils and even though I can bee tempted (Pomegranate sounds lovely) I know for sure that I'm never going to be able to stand the scent = shiver and shake allover. I can't for the life of me understand why you go through the whole process of making handcrafted soaps using natural oils and fats and then "destroy" it all with using synthetic scents.

Well, the search goes on :-) or I buy a whole lot of the same soap from my American friends.
Edited; both my marvelously gifted soapmaking, soapy friends now had several different soaps at sell at Etsy, so I placed an order from both. That way I'm assured that I'm getting the quality I'm used to :-D

And if you never have tested all handcrafted all natural soaps from a master soap maker, please do so and you and your body is in for a treat. Ever since I stopped using commercial soaps which contain almost no or none natural glycerine, my skin almost never need any lotion or such. If my skin for any reason should get overly dry, I just blend a nice little sugarscrub for using a bit of jojoba, some rice bran oil and maybe a hint of avocado oil, just enough to cover some table spoons of brown sugar, scenting it with what tickles my fanny - an aged Patchouli and Vanilla (bean infused in jojoba) work everytime:-) maybe a hint of antique Sandalwood and why not, a dash of Lavender concrete?
When you use this, take care so you not slip in the shower!!!

Ack, I feel a need for a bath or shower coming on - making me smell heavenly on a Saturday night:-D

Clean break

last week I bough on suggestion a tiny set from Orly called Rescue Kit containing a bottle of "glue", a jar of powder (acrylic maybe?) and a tiny buffer. You use it to fix splits, cracks and such and since some of my nails are suffering from several filo pastry like tips, I thought it would be a great idea to keep them together until they have grown out.

Well, I do still think it's a great idea, but I did put it on the nails just to keep tiny flakes in check and not to grow worse. I must say that I really love the feel and look of the nails now. Until....

I went grocery shopping and the self scanning system was down and I had to put all the things on the conveyor belt and then pack them all up on the other side and all of a sudden - pain..pain and when I looked at the left pinky, the whole nice long nail ( bait over 1cm) had broken of cleanly and disappeared :-( I haven't figured out what happened, but I must have leaned of the nails while getting the wares furthest away. Since the nail beds on the pinkies are so tiny, it looks ridiculous, but dang if I'm going to chlip all nails of too make them even. To top it of, when I tried to take some pics of that misery, the camera battery went dead and is currently recharging. And when that is complete, there will not be enough daylight left...= blaaaaaahhhhh.

And my dotting tools from China seen to have gone MIA, very cheap they where but nevertheless :-(

I really don't like

photo by Credit: Shutterstock
when companies state that their all natural products contain materials neither me or my friends in the Botanical Perfumery world has ever heard of. Like cold pressed vanilla oil.....in my world there are three vanilla materials; infused oils or tinctures (you put the beans in your oil of choice or high grade alcohol and let them steep until they smell like paradise on earth), vanilla oleoresin/resin ( en "hydrocarbon extraction") and vanilla absolute. Check out "Perfume and Flavour Materials of Natural Origin" by Steffen Arctander and read it all, he was a real master and the books is a botanical perfumery bible ;-)


Here I have to insert that I have been into natural botanical toiletries including perfumes since 2001, so I think I'm quite knowledgeable;-P But after much hassle with not very pleasant people in the same "industry" involved, I promised I would never open my mouth  questioning other peoples methods or products or how they conduct their business. But hey, some promises are meant to be broken - hahaha.




But, I mean it can be a possibility that some chemist has developed a method to press the oil out of the vanilla pods seeds? Can you imagine the price that would obtain? Not that vanilla absolute comes cheap, it is verrrahhhh expensive, but those seeds are tiny tiny tiny.


Like the ones in blueberries.....I do know that there are blueberry seed oil to get at the price of almost 2000 SEK for 500ml, these seeds are smallish too so it and it certainly takes an enormous amount of berries to produce a small amount of oil. But there is maybe the same phenomena as ever with other über expensive ingredients; you use cheep (but vegetable) oils like rape - and sunflower seed oils and then just run by the vat with the blueberry oil??? Or you just ask for a steep price for the end product. Feel free to call me cynic ;-) To be brutally honest, if you want a personal and lovely body oils, Crearome here in Sweden carries a nice selection and you can scent it anyway your heart desire with nice Essential Oils and Absolutes. Hmm, there are days when I regret that I didn't go into this all natural toiletries full time way back in time....now I just make them for my own, family and very close friends enjoyment. The reason is that the rules and regulations both Swedish and EU's are so ridged, that following them would cost a bundle or two. Here my bitchy side again -  I wonder if all the companies out there follow these rules to the T??
Side note - If I may brag, my own handmade handcreame rock .


Think I'm going to take of Zoya Caitlin which has behaved beautifully and stayed put for four days, looking pretty. The only reason to take it of is that a huge nail flake peeled of at the right thumb and so far, I never managed to get any extra polish on such bold spot to look good. I'm going to check my camera later, I think I have a pic of it, if so - I'm going to edit this post later. Edit - that flake tore of a large piece of the nail = short thumb nail :-( Now I absolutely need to re-do my nails before every tiny chip turns into a disaster. But first I have to go to a meeting at John school. Edit again - here is the pic of Caitlin and I agree, I'm not much good at photographing nails :-( But the polish along with Marley is veryvery good.

Zoya Jules

Looked in the bottle as a pale foilly goldy thing, but on the nails it turned boring sandy with a hint of sparkle. In fact, in fact it was so danged boring that I had no clue on what  to do with it - to stamp or to bling it or.....So I took it of as fast as I had applied it, hence no pictures. But you can find the color at Zoya's own website but I promise, it looks nowhere near it on the nails :-(
Verrrrahhh cold in Stockholm today.

Valerie - a bit of a dissapointment

Zoya's marly worked so well that I just had to take it of on Friday night and try out the (in the bottle) gorgeous Valerie. Could she really work as well, dry up and all? Well she did dry decently well (within 15 minutes or so per layer), but she really needed the help of Poché to be totally OK. But the downsides are two - tipwear started to occur fate only a couple of hours and the next day it started to flake.
This is what it looked just 30 minutes ago:

Since then I have taken if of, wonder how come that polishes from the same manufacturer behaves so utterly different. Marley stayed stead on my nails for 4 days, this one didn't even last a night. And - in the bottle Valerie looks absolutely stunning, with more colors going on that one thought was possible - burgundy, purple, gold...But on the nails, it mostly looks kind of purbudgy. It's only under the LED lamps on my Horizon that it looks it's very best....the trouble is - nobody but me sees my nails there;-)

Now I have to choose too try out  Zoya Caitlin or China Glaze VII, the latter looks quite alike Valerie in the bottle.

From a minus 16C wintery Stockholm,
Wolfie

Shame on they

who gives up ;-) Personal translated from Swedish saying "skam den som ger sig" LOL.
In this case it's about Zoya polish. Anyone remember I was so disappointed with the Wicked collect and had so much trouble with many of the ones I bought on eBay? They never dried, just got and scrunchy and gooy and I felt that was the money badly spent. I ended up giving almost all bottles away to our nieces and as far as I know, they don't have any problem with Zoya at all.

Well, when the new Intimate collection came out the temptation became to much, I couldn't help myself but ordered Marley, Caitlin and Jules. The first one I have tried is Marley -  simply gorgeous pale grayish lavender and low and behold, the first layer was dry after 10 minutes, the second layer dried too and with a top of Poshé, after 4 days it's still there and almost no tip wear at all :-O

In fact, it stay so well that I'm really reluctant to take it of and try out Caitlyn or the glorious Valerie that came in the same order. The only down thing was that Swedish customs got their greedy little hands of that small package and slapped me with 200SEK in additional fees and taxes. You would think they had more important things to mind..... In my experience there are always certain etailers whose packages they always every time catch - like Hancocks of Paducah (quilting stuff) and Enailsupply.

I think I'm going to try one of these beauties between loads of laundry and some test driving on my new Horizon, a miracle of a sewing machine so far:-) The DH cast his eyes lustfully on the large acrylic table that comes with in and uttered one word - LED!! Go ahead honey, pimp my Horizon ROTFLMFAO.

Winter wonderland

After going through some nude polishes, some Konad stamps for making a nice and lovely lace pattern, I totally gave up. And I ended up with this; Color Club "Who are you wearing" as a base and a China Glaze glitter - I think it is "Golddigger" as tip and a wee bit of fading.

Quite simple, nothing fancy but nevertheless good-looking:-)

Enough to make a grown woman cry

Yesterday I decided to try the blue version of the Byzantine mani and started with Orly's Witch's Blue. I liked it, but when adding glitter polish it went scrounge and I took it of, thinking "I have a blue China Glaze, why not try it out?" Said and done - bring out the Calypso Blue, but something with the application was not up to my standards and I started to take it of, immediately remembering why I never use it: it's impossible to get of and it stains the skin like nothing else! After using pads upon pads with remover, I drenched the finger tips in it and almost cried. My youngest son came into the bathroom asking me what I was doing, thought a bit about my explenation and then said "do you still have these falsies?" yahhhhh I answered and then he went "if you polish one of these falsies the next time and try to take it of, all your nails will be unharmed ."

Jeezzzz, how come he so smart? Next time I want to try a strange color, I am going to use it on a false first, that's for sure:-)

I've been good

John has suddenly turned to wearing sweats after living more or less in jeans for like forever - Sam on the other hand has gone through the reversed phase - strange.. ..

So I went into H&M to get John a pair of pants and a hooded jacket and while I was there - why not check out the cosmetic dept to see of they had any of the polishes I have read about on different blogs. I admit, I was sorely tempted to lay my fingers on a very bluish one, but managed to hold myself in check, even though it only costed 39.90 SEK. In my experience H&M's polishes sucks, so why spend another krona on them? Also saw a very beautiful eye shadow palette in matte - pink to grey, but once again - IMHO they are so badly pigmented that it's simply not worth it.

So I wait for my latest order from eNailsupply to wing it's way over the big pond - it's over 3 weeks since the order was confirmed...wonder if they have sent it of?

And while waiting for that, today it's time for a new manicure in the same style as the Byzantine one, but in blues and silver.

Later :-D

Byzantic glam

Welllll I did try the RBL "Moulin Rouge" once more and even though it is a joy to paint with, the time for it to dry is like never ever story, not even with Poshé topcoat. I admit, it did feel dry after an hour, but as soon as I got in contact with other objects, it scrunched and flaked. Sigh. So the five bottles of RBL polishes that I splurged on for Christmas, will be put away. Far far away. For that sum that these bottles costed me, I could have gone crazy on some Ilamasqua or Nubar...More sighs.

So of with that sticky mess and time to get creative, since I did love the color of "Moulin Rouge" in my small stash of NPs I did find it's almost twin - Color Club " Be Bold". So two layers of this, Nubar No G188 (fanciful name - huh?) at the tips, Zoya Richelle sponged in between finally topped with a layer of Poshé. I'm quite pleased with the outcome - this will probably be one of the manis you could ogle all day long LOL.

My time and inspiration for doing my nails have been about null this last week. I did have a quite boring French mani (some translucent pink from Color Club and the tip white from Yves Rocher) on for the first couple of days, but even if it started to chip after a short while,

it was kept on until yesterday, because no way I'm going out the door with undone nails ;-) Except for yesterday, when all I had time for was a layer of Nail Tek Ridgefiller. The reason why can be found here
Today is a day for rest and recouperation, I won't even do the laundry - it can keep intill tomorrow. So I decided to retry one of the RBL polishes - "Moulin Rouge" to see if it will behave better this time around. I mean, I do have the time to wait it out, I can just lay here with my hands on my tummy and double dare it to dry LOL.

Disappearing act

Nope, I have not disappeared completely, it's just that I'm terrible busy with sewing. And pinning. And ripping. And ironing. And sewing. And....And.... This is the most difficult project I have attempted so far, but I do belive I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel ;-) At least I hope so.
Have a lovely wintery weekend.

Pearly flowers

The last couple of weeks my nails have been without anything but polish. Yesterday though I found some blog by a girl who makes the most amazing flowers in acrylic. Somewhere in the back of my mind lurks some images on Youtube with someone creating such flowers, but since I found the smell of that little try-out acrylic kit I bought in December (or was it November?) so utterly offensive, so far I have refrained from even trying to make one single little flower.

Instead I made these (sorry the pic is taken with flash, since the natural daylight isn't enough to get any picture worth it):

On a bed of Color Club Glitz & Glamour I added one layer of CC Sugar Rush and before it started to try, I kind of swirled a piece of hardly twisted aluminum foil (why? had nothing better to use), then a thick layer of Poshé (which I have come to like much much better than Seche Vite). Then the pearly flowers - in the middle a rhinestone of lovely pinkish hue that I got from my sis at Christmas and then surrounded it with half pearls from Born Pretty.

This is far more unusual than I normally do, but I think they turned of kind of sweet. The worse thing about putting ornaments on your nail is that when the time come to remove it, the rhinestones and such are destroyed by the NP remover. Luckily mis sis was very generous with her gifts, so the rhinestones are going to last me a while.

I have some unstitching to do on the DWR quilt I'm working on..... don't think I ever have done so much un stitching and pinning with anything I have ever sewn as much as I have done with this project. Rather depressing process if you ask me. But I still really truly would like to know how these acrylic flowers are made ;-)

Ugly as sin

Just look at this picture!

Not only is the quality downright awful, put the mani itself is ugly as sin. I confess, I haven't truly been into it the last couple of weeks due to intensive sewing, but at least I do have had my nails painted one way or the other. But this time I think I outdone myself when it comes to sloppiness and choice of color. In my pink/red drawer I found a China Glaze I didn't even remember owning "Trophy Wife" and happily I put on two layers. Only to realize that warmish pink really isn't my thing (that is with a red tone - I only like and look good with pinks with a bluish hue)....so I topped it of with China Glaze "Mahoganie" in a thick globby French kind of way, but that really didn't do it either. So why not try a fishnet Konad stamp huh?? With Sally Hansen "Black Diamond"?? Oh my, it looks like a thing we have here that is called "Kassler". That is boneless whole porkchop in a net that is smoked like bacon (or a fat chick's thigh in a fish net stocking)  it's good with pasta, but not so great on your nails :-(

I think I'm going to stop being adventurous and stick with pale bluish pinks and white tips for a while. At least until the DWR quilt is all done and delivered. Said and done, put some white on my tips, cook dinner and then sew for a while. And the snow keeps falling - OMG - when will this white nightmare ever end???

Suckiliero

You remember that box from Asia some weeks ago filled with 60 small bottles of nail polishes?? Well I do have tried some of them and quite frankly - they suck! Some brushes are bent, some too long, some not even there (that is only the cap with no brush attached) and they take like forever to dry, if they do it at all. And if they dry, the color comes of the tip within the hours. It's no use getting upset, what did I expects for that extremely low cost??

So here I am with yet another variety of French, base layer Isadora's Arctic Frost, tip Color Club pretty in Platinum and then first silver glitter and then light brick colored glitter, with 7 tips where the glitter has worn of all the polish. Sigh. Well I better go downstairs into the basement and turn on the sauna like the DH called and asked me to and then - start on a Thai chicken casserole.

Spårhund

Matte har alltid sagt att jag är skitsmart, men jag lovar - det var inte jag som gjorde det;-P

Boring

I have still not found any manicure I liked, not even the French one turned out ok, so now I have on two layers of Isadora's palest pink shimmer. I'm down to half the bottle, wonder if they still sell it? Otherwise I have to look and see for something similar. Oh how I would love to find me some decent prized Nubars...I found some on Amazon.com but know what? The seller didn't ship to my address! Why I might wonder when amazon.com itself ships books and stuff without any problem.

Oh, you should have seen the look at the kids faces when faced with de luxe oysters;-) Not that I'm extremely fond of the (the oysters, not the kids silly), but I thought John was going to aim for the bathroom full speed ahead. Well real French champagne didn't sit well with them either....the only thing Sam like was the gigantic crab leg - poor kids - just bread and butter on NY eve.

With two doses of doggie tranquilizer, Fiona was semi alright. She did trot up and down the stairs and round and round, but thank heaven she didn't get into any hysterical fits like earlier years.

We did manage to stay up till the stroke of midnight, but after that it was goodnight. The kids had got dressed and went out, looking at fireworks and - shoveling snow! They cleared the path and to and fro the cars, such good kids they are:-)

I do need to do something about my nails, cause tomorrow it's back to work and vain as I am, I don't want to show up with bare nails ROFLMAO. But right now it's back to the sewing machine, time to start to assemble the melon wedges into circles...keep your fingers crossed.