This almost got one of my "evolution" titles, but I think that requires at least 3 versions of the mani, and this was only 2. I'm impressed so far with this Anise brand, which as I mentioned I picked up at DSW - & if you're wondering if I went to DSW & left with no shoes, I did buy some but my shoe hauls lately have all been incorporated into my vlogs on my other blog, if your interested =)
Anise Pearls for the Devil is very dark & does come off as almost black in many lights, but a closer look shows purple & turquoise layered over the dark grey base. I love vampy colors so no surprise I guess that I liked it on its own:
After a day or two I decided to stamp it up - I used China Glaze IDK & Bundle Monster image plate bm224. This is an interesting, kind of snake-skin pattern, and I switched it up a bit between my two hands. left hand the end with the smaller scales is matched to itself, right hand the end with the larger scales is matched to itself - and on my thumbs the design is stamped sideways, again opposite sides on the different hands. Hope all that makes sense LOL but you can see the different look that it makes depending on how you double-stamp. My favorite placement is my thumbs:
Didn't get as much catching up done as I wanted this weekend, but that's pretty par for the course I think LOL. I'm going to try & post a few more things today & get closer to current =) Thanks for reading.
Well, I think most of you have already met her on the blog, but I've been getting a lot of requests on YouTube. I'm telling you, that evil little inclination to name this vid something naughty - I'll let you use your own imaginations - was strong, but I kept it G-rated:
Maybe Dude will get a vid next =) Thanks for reading.
The rant has to come first. Because I have been SO PISSED OFF for like 3 days. Partly I can only blame myself, but mainly I'm blaming Canon & Microsoft.
SO - I did just enough research, in looking into my new camera, to know that it shot videos in a different format than my old camera, and that Movie Maker does not support that format. OK, so I'll have to switch to a new program, Live Movie Maker was supposed to support it. SUPPOSED TO. So I shoot, not one or even two but three different vids - a tutorial, a haul & a vlog - & I download Live Movie Maker ... and then, THEN I find the ugly truth: If you can actually get it to work with .mov files, you have serious luck & have won the codec lottery.
Everywhere I look online are people having the same problems. First it imports the video but I get no sound. I updated my codec pack, and then I get nothing! No sound OR video. So I try converting it using my normal video converter - one format was half-crap with the sound unsynced, the other was total crap quality although the sound mostly matched. WTF. Canon, why would you do this to me & everyone else who's not running a Mac that will actually accept this format without a fight?
Eventually, after digging around online & searching forums, I found a work-around solution. Turns out ZoomBrowser - which is Canon's software - actually has a feature I never had cause to use before, and can convert .mov's to .avi's. After my first attempt I wasn't to optimistic but I gave it a try with crossed fingers. Wonder of wonders it mercifully worked. However, I thought I'd then be able to use them in trusty old Movie Maker - nope. Denied. So I still had to learn Live Movie Maker.
I still hate it so far - it's all icons & no real (apparently now "old-school") drop-down menus, much like Office 2010. But I managed to fumble my way through editing this haul vid together. I hope you guys like it because it's made of blood & sweat & tears! I'm still not 100% happy with how the quality ended up after conversion, and I'm still working on lighting & stuff, but ... here's my first vid with the new camera (I do recommend checking it out actually on YT if you can since the widescreen is a bit more of a smoosh than the 4:3 was):
On to the bottle pics - like last time, I didn't try to keep every shopping trip separate for the pics, I just sorted them out by brand. First up are these gorgeous Sally Hansen Gem Crush glitters, several of which look like dupes to my eye for colors in the China Glaze Eye Candy collection:
Top row: Showgirl Chic, Cha-Ching, Big Money, Bling-tastic (Best polish name EVAR! You guys know that's my word LOL) Bottom row: Glitz Gal, Lady Luck, Razzle Dazzler, Be-Jeweled.
On to the China Glaze - as a side note, I don't remember if I mention in the vid but I only found the Eye Candy collection at one Ulta, so it may be more widely available now, or you may have to search it out:
Butter London, from the absurd Dressing Table box set ... I tried, I really did, to resist - I left them behind once but the second time I just gave in to the contrast of dark & light blings:
So, I'm all set for a while I think ... until I give in to that urge for more magnetic polish, hmmm... =)
As a side note, huge wide screen vids take eons to upload. I prepped most of this before bed, but the vid took like 3 hours so that's why it's getting posted in the morning before work. I'm really hoping we're in good enough shape I won't have to do 10 hours today - if I get home at a reasonable hour, I'll be catching up my posts &, if you people would like, posting the tut for the manicure I'm wearing in the haul vid. Thanks for reading
I'd like to say first, that going forward you'll start seeing a mix of pictures, some from my old camera & some from my new camera. I don't have a case for it yet, plus I don't know how to work everything yet, although I'm learning (& in some cases being rather pissed off in the process). So far the only thing that I'm unimpressed with is the manual white balance settings, they don't seem 100% accurate to me especially the Fluorescent H setting - but it's not a huge deal because most of the time it does really really well with the setting on auto.
Really enjoyed this polish. Considered wearing it matte for a day, buuuut:
Wasn't too impressed. Didn't enhance it much to my eye, just made it look kind of old & dirty looking.
Kind of a slow week overall - the mani I put on after this lasted me I think 5 days so I'm still getting back in the swing of things. Had a semi-fail over the weekend that still turned out pretty cool. Remembered/discovered that Movie Maker does not like the format that my new camera shoots video in =( And am planning to work 10-hour days the 3 days I work this week. So I suppose I should get to bed LOL. Thanks for reading.
The name is misleading - this is definitely a taupe. But I guess "Steel Taupe" wouldn't make much sense LOL. Here is Mom wearing Rimmel Steel Grey:
As a side note - with this manicure mom accidentally put top coat on instead of base coat. I told her she should take it off but she insisted she wanted to "experiment" by just doing base coat on top of that - well, long story short the next day came with the polish coming off several nails completely - a cleanly popped off nail shaped piece of polish LOL. I don't know that she'd welcome me sharing this "senior moment" with you all (we'll see soon I guess) but I think we all have our spacey moments. So if you're ever having a moment & make this mistake - just start over!
I had this polish on for a full week, Sunday-Sunday, with no chips. I picked it because I knew at the time I wasn't going to be on my normal schedule of every few days & I'm happy to say it lived up to my expectations, and I wasn't bored with it even when I finally did take it off.
Another of their Magnetic Effect Polishes, this is Nails Inc Trafalgar Square - I got this design by holding the magnet sideways, which is a bit tricky since you can't use the guide but still pretty simple as you only have to hold it in place for a moment for the magnet to do its job:
Just so you can gauge the wear, I believe I added Matte Magic to it Thursday or maybe Friday morning:
Here's a look in motion - so deep & 3D, I'm heavily leaning towards more magnetic polish for Christmas:
Almost caught up =) Just Monday's & my current manicure & I'll be current. Thanks for reading.
A simple, basic, gorgeous red - I had this on for nearly a week. In a few shots you can catch a bit of the pinkish duo-chrome, but it was so close to the main color it was really difficult to capture. From the Mineral FX collection, Orly Rock-It:
Those of you who've been following my blog for a while will remember the original version of this manicure, which I did in 2009 & you can see HERE. I'm still working on my side project of making monthly slideshows back to the beginning of my blog, & when I posted this one I got a ton of requests for a tutorial on this look.
For this year's version, for my base color I started out with Milani Brisk Orange:
I actually like my first version a little better LOL - one of the reasons I don't always like revisiting old looks, I swear that's been the case in several instances.
Here's the tutorial (which you may already have seen, considering it's been up for 2 weeks!):
Just a few more NOTDs to post & I'll be fully caught up. Thanks for reading =)
