NOTD: Neon Green Tiger

I have to start out by saying that I am posting this from my old piece of crap computer. My rage knows no bounds. My bright shiny new comp has become a piece of broken junk & is in fact no longer in my possession as I had to bring it in for warranty. A case of no longer being able to recognize the harddrive or some crap.

I'm usually pretty good at backing up important stuff. But I was horrified to look & see that the last backup of my polish spreadsheet is from February ... I really hope they can recover some info so I don't have to try & redo everything from the past 2 months.

Still, luckily I have old slow & dying but still apparently reliable, and so I'm still able to share this mani. A literal bright spot I suppose, although I'm finding it hard to be at all cheerful at the moment. Claire's Green Neon Konied with black special polish & plate m57:

Some of my nails required a double stamp, and I tried a couple different methods. On my ring finger (right) I stamped the base & then the tip of the nail; on my middle finger (left) I stamped the tip & then the base & it turned out better, although I'm not sure if that means better technique or just better luck on that nail:

The pattern on my middle finger really looks like all one stamp unless you're in super-close, but the line on my ring finger bugs me. I probably shouldn't have picked such an exacting design to start learning real double-stamping, but I wanted to wear this pattern.

So, that's how things stand for now. Being on this pc curtails the amount I can get done in my blogging time just from the extra time it takes to load anything. I'll keep up posting at least as far as my NOTDs are concerned, but with a possible ETA of up to 3 weeks to fix my other computer, I'm not sure how much else will get done. We'll see how well behaved old faithful turns out to be. Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Icing NOTD

So, I literally could not wait to wear this polish. It was hard to capture properly in a pic but taken all together these come close. And there's plenty of them since I ♥ Icing Blackout. I highly recommend clicking to enlarge & see the true beauty of this polish:

This is from my haul just this past weekend, as soon as I got it I kind of knew that it would be my next mani. I literally had to run outside to catch the 5 mins of sun that was all to be had all day long here, but it was worth it for the pics.

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Another Haul

It was an accident. Kind of. I was at the mall & happened to go by a Claire's, and they're having a buy one get one 50% off sale on their cosmetics. So I had to get a couple bottles of polish ... well, more than a couple, and then I went over to Icing & got a couple more:

Top row left to right: Icing Blackout & My Blue Heaven, Clair's Shine, Rock & Lulu Belle. Bottom row left to right: Green Neon, Sparkle, Rockstar, Dragonfly & Pink Rose.

Combined with yesterday's haul, this should tide me over for a while ... thanks for reading.

~Colette

Big Lots Haul

I was actually looking for some more of the body butter that's been working miracles getting my feet ready for sandals, but of course they were out of that. I went over to the polish without too many expectations ... but was pleasantly surprised:

Kitty toes in the corner =) Top row left to right: Golden Glimmer, Fireside Glow, Mauve Twinkle, Crimson Sparkle, Lilac Beam, Purple Twilight. Bottom row: Red Velvet, Holiday Bubbly, Golden Glimmer (again), Cocoa Shimmer.

Every time I get discount polish, I curse whoever put together these little two-packs. Trying to get all the colors I want without duplicates is usually impossible, so I'm reduced to deciding which color I want a duplicate of. On this occasion it was the Golden Glimmer. I have plans to start frankening once I get a hold of some bottles, so I thought gold would be a good color to have extra of for that. Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Naked Tips & NOTD

Fingertips! Before anyone gets any crazy ideas, I'm talking about naked FINGERTIPS people! LOL

I took just a tiny bit of length off of my nails, both to square them up a little & because they're almost as long as I want. Why then, you ask, take length off? Well, in the past when I've thought "one more week & I'll give them a file" I invariably break a nail the next day. Despite the biotin & everything else positive I've been doing for my nails lately, I didn't want to take a chance at breaking one low, especially as my short index finger has finally almost caught up to the rest of my hand. So here's a quick before & after:

I don't know why my hand is such a different color between these, both were taken under my natural lamp ... I took pics of my right hand too, but it's shamefully lopsided so I think I'll keep those shots to myself.

It's soooo nice having these nice shiny new Konad plates ... and yet at the same time makes it soooo hard to pick! I thought I had a hard time before with only 8 plates. But I did manage to come to a decision. This is 2 coats of Misa Dying Love Konied with China Glaze Passion (flowers) & (butterflies pinky to thumb) Cherish, Adore, Harmony, Emotion & Devotion & plate m36 (both images). I tried to find a ball or something round to use as a prop, trying to get all 5 butterflies in the pic, but I couldn't find anything so I just thought The Claw (anyone else remember that old wrestling move?) & did it freestyle for a few:

I don't usually get this into using multiple colors, but it was another gorgeous day & all of a sudden it seemed totally obvious to do a rainbow of butterflies & a flower that quite reminds me of a daffodil. And I think the dark grey base is my rebellion after wearing pink for 2 days.

Thanks for reading.

~Colette