Unleashed Memories

Good day!

Today I wanted to show you a manicure I did inspired by this:

This is a memory board that my sister made me for my birthday. I love the design on this and the colors are amazing!!!  I realized upon further examination that I had all of those colors in my stash.

That's when inspiration hit!

These are the colors I used:

Left to right:

Color Club Warhol

WNW French White Creme

Sinful Nail Art Striper Sour Grapes

Sally Hansen Lickety Split Lime

Konad Special Polish Yellow

Color Club Chelsea Girl

I painted my nails with a base of Sally Hansen Black Patent Leather. (Forgot the pics for that. Ugh.) BPL is a great pure black jelly-ish creme that is beautifully opaque in two coats and dries super shiny. Then it was time to break out my Konad/Fauxnad plates and my dotting tool/striper brush. This is what became of it:

I had to mix the neon purple and pink with white so the stamps would show over the black. I stamped roses, vine-y appearing images, heart and fleur de lis.

I think it came out pretty good!

What do you think?

Infinite Dreams

Good morning!

I have a little something that I picked up at Rite-Aid to show you today.

CQ Rustic Dream

Three coats, no base or top

Oh, how I adore a good duochrome...

I had seen some of the CQ polishes around on the blogs but it wasn't until I saw a different duochrome that I knew I needed it! 

Rustic Dream is one of my favorite kinds of duochrome. It's a nice brown toned orange that flashes pinky-red and what I think of as marigold. Kind of a golden brown yellow. It was very difficult to capture all of its facets thanks to the spotty sunshine. Nonetheless, this is stunning. I wore this for three days because I was enraptured.

There is one small issue I have with this. The application was super streaky and left a couple of bald patches. But I'm not certain it was the polish or my nails. I have a bad case of the peelies and have had since vacation. I mentioned before that every spring my nails get weird and refuse to play nice with polish. My left middle finger is the worst with it. Oy. Ridge filler was helpful for me but I will try this again once my nails get better.

I highly recommend this for any duochrome lover and the price is right too. I picked this up for $2.99 and ready to go back for more.

That does it for now. I'm way behind with lots to bring you so I will be working like mad writing and scheduling. Have a fabulous day!

Ain't nothin' like a Lambchop party

Good day!

I am bringing you the promised Essence pics today plus another look at the other Essence polish I own, purchased from Ulta last year.
Before we get to that, I'd like to address the fact that I am not speaking to my cats right now. They have all tossed me over for their auntie. Last night Trixie made herself comfortable on my sister's bed and stayed there all night. Then Dita and Gus decided they needed to be in there too. Mommy is not happy.
It is true that Trixie only sleeps in bed with me when Matt is out of town. It is also true that Trixie believes Matt to be a terrifying giant who is going to eat her soul. BUT. I am her BFF and I expect some loyalty. Like you do.

What really breaks my heart is Gus. He has always been my stalker kitteh. Every night he comes to bed with me, curls up at the foot and stares at me until I turn off the light. Every morning he's there, still watching and ready to follow me everywhere. Until now.  I'm just so disgusted. I can't possibly go on.

Since I'm feeling so sorry for myself, it's time to move on and show you some pretty nail polish.

What Do U Think

Three coats, no base or top

This is so pretty. As I understand it it is a dupe for Chanel Orange Fizz. Take from that bit of info what you will. I have yet to find a Chanel polish I'm lusting after so...yeah.

Anyhoo, this is a pretty peachy-orange creme with EXTREMELY subtle gold shimmer. Sadly, it is one of those that the gold goodness is most prominent in bottle. However, I did manage to capture it. This applies quite nicely and is okay in two coats but best in three.

Pretty...

Either way, this is one of those perfect Spring/Summer colors that makes you crave delicious fresh fruit.

It's also 99 cents. How can you go wrong?

The next little beauty I picked up is no surprise. I love me a good duochrome.

Where is the Party

Three coats, no base or top coats

Holy bats. This is sublime. It is an amazing duochrome. Basically it is a purple with silver/grey tones and flashes of green and blue. It applied really nicely and one could have gotten away with two coats but I always prefer three.

Finally, I have Just Rock It to show you all over again. I bought this last November at Ulta in Tualatin. The pics to follow were also taken with my old Lumix. Be warned!

Just Rock It

Three coats, no base or top coats

Just Rock It is a great navy creme. It's a little lighter than Orly La Playa. Again, it applies so nice. The brush on these is really fab and makes it very easy to apply quickly. Three coats is a must because it is a snotch sheer on two. No biggie but you can tell, yo.

So there ya have it y'all. I'm getting paid on Friday so you can be certain I'm headed back for more!

As for the cats, well...Trixie is trying her best to make it up to me in spite of her bad breath. We'll see how this goes.

Super snazzy at Freddy's! (Pacific Northwest Specific)

Hey guys!

I had the best day yesterday. I decided to hit up all the drugstores and whatnot in the area to see what I could see. (And pick up China Glaze Broken Hearted Crackle Glaze at Sally.) Anyway, I rolled into Fred Meyer fully expecting to be disappointed.
Why was I planning on being disappointed? Freddy's cosmetic department is really fucked up. They had Mlani ever so briefly and it was a little bit of polish and some bronzers and that was it. Then they dropped it! It had to have done well because the displays were always picked clean. (Besides by me!)
They were also the first retailer of this amazing bit of nail polish goodness. I speak of Cosmetic Arts and well...I heard from some people that it showed up in Portland area stores and that was it. Sure didn't make it to Eugene!
So frustrating!!! The final push that sent me over the edge was strolling into the West Eugene store and seeing LA Splash. It wasn't in Springfield and I didn't see it at another Eugene location. So, I flipped my shit and wrote Freddy's a very terse email demanding an explanation. That did not work so well and I gave up. I just decided it was best to expect Freddy's to bum me out.

Now, we can get to the point  of this. I walked into Freddy's beauty section, turned a corner and saw this:

ESSENCE!!!!

Holy bats!! I was so freaking excited to see this. I know Essence is at Ulta BUT the nearest one to me is two hours north. Not terribly convenient to get to. Also, I'm a cheapskate and did not want to pay shipping. This however, is less than a mile from my house and all I have to do to get it home is ride my bike. WIN!

Of course I purchased something. 99 cents is one of my favorite price points for nail polish. Plus, the Colour and Go numbers are pretty kick ass. I will be bringing you pics shortly!

So fellow nail polish addicts of the Pacific Northwest, rejoice! 

Here's hoping Freddy's will expand the offerings and start carrying some of those cool Trend Edition collections!

That does it for now. I'm about to demolish some ice cream before doing nails. (It's been one of them days, yo.)

MMM...ice cream...

This coffee sucks

Good morning guys.

I got all my morning routine done early and now I can post. YAY! I am disappointed in the coffee my sister made this morning though. It tastes like it was brewed through a dirty sock. Cheap coffee just ain't worth it, y'all. Now that I have that off my chest, let's move on.

Today I have another Mexican nail polish that I bought at Wal-mart Cancun.

Collection Teen

Unnamed Silver

FOUR coats, no base or top

I about died when I walked to the health and beauty section that day. They had this ginormous pallet of super generic nail polish set up. It was some kind of special because these were all priced at 10 pesos. Which came to about  85 cents U.S. There were terrible colors available but I managed to find this silver. I picked up a shimmery purple too but that disappeared somewhere between Cancun and Denver. No bueno!

At first, I was kind of meh. It's silver and I have several BUT then I noticed it has a green cast to it that makes it a lot more special. However, the one coat claim on the bottle is a major lie. Unless you want a sheer, streaky wash of silver. If you want opacity, you must apply at least three coats. Since my nails have been jacked since the trip, I had to go with four. The good news is that this dries amazingly fast so it's not that difficult to apply that many coats. 

It's not the smoothest formula but then again, I didn't expect perfection from a cheap, generic Mexican nail polish.  

Overall, it's a neat little addition to my collection and one that I will only use in the summer. Why? Because as with almost all of my polishes from Mexico, it smells HORRIBLE. At least in summer, I can do my nails in the sun room which has lots of air flowing in and out. Yikes.

So there ya have it for today. I'm off to work and hope it goes by quickly because it's my Friday. See you soon!

Crazy and good

Good morning guys!

I'm making a bit of a return today after spending two weekends insanely busy.
So what's happening?

1. I spent one weekend cleaning out my nail polish room and the office to make room for my sister and nephew, who have moved in for the summer.
2. I helped my sister move everything in last weekend.
3. Work. It's insane. I had a 10 hour day that involved lots of moving and resetting fixtures. Today, I will get to do most of it all over again. Hooray.
4. Thanks to Blogger being down, I now have a crazy backlog of posts to write. I just decided not to bother with doing anything with my pics until everything was back to rights. But, I do have some Sinfuls to show and my Pixie sent me my first Butter London polish for my birthday. Sweet!

That's what's been going on here. Yeah. So, here's hoping my weekend will be a bit more relaxing and provides me with enough time to do the things I want.

On a final note, I have a new update about Rallo. He is healing very, very well and he is totally back to his sweet, happy-go-lucky self. Mom snapped this pic of him because he was wearing what looked like the biggest, happiest grin.

I'm so happy for our little guy and so happy for dad. Life is definitely getting better!

See you guys in a couple of days. Have a good one!

Rallo the wonder beagle

Good morning guys. I wanted to update you on Rallo.

His surgery was really successful and he is healing nicely. He's very disappointed to be wearing a cone and hates that but he still has his sweet, happy personality. He and dad are both starting to feel better. Rallo was a little skittish towards dad but they're making up and getting back to rights.

Mom really appreciates all of the love and prayers that you sent for dad and Rallo. You guys are amazing.

:-( For my little fur brother...

Hi guys.

This is what's happening:

Last night my parents had to take their dog, Rallo, to the emergency vet hospital. My dad was out in the backyard taking some practice swings with his driver and Rallo rolled up right behind him.
The back swing hit Rallo in the face and he was injured very badly. He had to have surgery last night. He may not have vision left in his eye but the vet feels confident that he did not sustain any brain damage.
It is possible he may lose his eye but we won't know for some time.

My poor parents are beside themselves. My dad is really, really destroyed. He and Rallo are besties. My poor mom just doesn't know who needs comforting more, dad or Rallo. To top things off, they did not have the money for the surgery and so they had to ask us to help.

Matt has sorted things out for them but it really scared the two of us. No one really thinks about what happens if their pet has a medical emergency. We adore our kitties and would hate to be in this same situation. So we decided that Matt will cut back on golf and once I use my Sally gift card, I will be on a strict no-buy. We want to ensure we have quite a bit of our salaries saved should something happen.

I will keep you updated on Rallo's condition once I know more. I will see him today once he comes home from the hospital. That's one doggie who's getting lots of cookies...

Don't be tardy for the party

Good morning!

Today is my birthday and I wanted to show you my birthday mani.

Ring finger is two coats Nina Ultra Purple-Xing

The rest are three coats ELF Purple Pleaser

Sponged with Sally Hansen DVD and Wavelength

I really like how this came out. Plus, it is sunny today so I really get to enjoy the sparkles.

Sadly, this will be quick. I still have to work today. :(

Much love to you all!