Wow

Ok here are my nails with the 'sun' colour and a comparison. Not such a big change but still cool.

Ho ho ho

Yes, that's what I am for nail polish. Even when I'm away on holiday I would rather buy nail polish than a souvenir. Hence the reason why I ended up buying 4 bottles of polish from the Del Sol shop and 3 from a random but cute Korean store - which I will return to today.

Here is 3 coats of their Christmas colour 'Holly Berry'. I could have left it with 2 coats but I was on our balcony enjoying the view so what was the harm in an extra coat, it did of course make the jelly deeper in colour.

Later today I will take a photo of the nail colour in the sun, as our side of the skyscraper is in shade at the moment.

Anyhow, sorry about the quality of this post as I'm doing it from my iPhone. Oh look at that, iphone got auto corrected in the previous sentence but not this one.

Green and Gold

Melbourne Cup Day (you can google about it for info but basically it's a huge horse race) is a holiday in our town.  I got dressed up and headed to the RSL and volunteered to organise the race sweeps.  This year's theme was Australian. So I went Green and Gold.

My shoes were from Steve Madden and necklace and bracletes were from Diva:

Nails were two coats of Sally Hansen 430 Grass Slipper. I really love this colour but it stains my nails and fingers. I also put a layer of Revlon 900 Gold Get 'Em on top. They lasted for ages afterwards, which was a bonus because I got heaps of comments about them.

Best of all I won best shoes for the day!!!

Ekk!

I’m not even going to look at the date of my last post. No apologies just excuses ;-) I’ve been finishing my Masters. It’s done now. In the lull while I waited for my results I’ve been reading through nail polish BLOGS and drooling at all the new polishes I missed out on!

So here is my first haul, from Ebay:

Revlon - 940 Facets of Fuchsia and 051 Starry Pink.
Instant must haves – I bought two of each.



Del Sol - Girl’s Night Out and Pretty in Pink.
I love a novelty polish – these ones change colour when you go out in the sun. Plenty of sun where I live so these will be great.



Fantasy Makers - Glow in Dark
Again,,, novelty polishes are my downfall. I bought 3 because I’ll be giving two away at Xmas time. I’m a little sad because the family of boys that love nail polish are moving away at the end of the year,,, that leaves me with only one boy left to manicure.



I bought most of these from the ebay shop 702musthaves and I have to say she was so helpful when I was trying to track down the Revlons. Will buy from her again. I’m not paid to say this by the way.



Haul two is all OPI. I come home after work and saw a message from C in msn. Catch of the Day (or one of those online shops) was selling heaps of nail polishes. So I stocked up on basics, knowing that I tend to by otherwise (see previous polishes lol).

Funny Bunny and Happy Anniversary
I don’t have much luck with white polishes :( and also you can never have enough layering polishes



Mod About You, Kiss on the Chic and Passion
I’m sure I’ll find the perfect pink for me some day. Maybe it will be one of these?



Lucerne-Tainly Look Marvelous, You Don’t Know Jaques and Yucatan if U Want
There are some pretty yawn inducing colours in this haul isn’t there? I'm sure my favourite out the lot will be Lucerne-Tainly Look Marvelous, despite it’s sucky name.

Too little?

Yes I know I have neglected this blog, to be honest my nails (actually cuticles) are just as neglected. In fact last week the hubby (who I don’t actually call that in real life) asked me about my lack of nail polish. Work has been too stressful over the last while – I have had no work-life balance between it and studying my masters.

This is my first week of holidays – and you guessed it – I’ve been doing work – teachers need to work over the holidays so that they are prepared for when school starts up again.

To celebrate the end of term I painted my nails this:



Nail colour – Maybelline Salon Expert – 420 Cutie Pink
Swipes – Face of Australian Private Jet
Lines – Kiss Nail Art Paint – SPA10 Silver Glitter
Base and top: Rimmel 60 seconds – 740 clear


This eighties inspired job was two coats of the Cutie Pink – I really like this colour. To do the purple, you just swipe the brush again some paper towel to dry off some of the polish and lightly brush it over the nail. And then I used the nail art polish to bling it up. It’s a nice simple manicure that has people grab your hand to look at it.


The only other manicure I really did during this term was this one:





Colour: Revlon – Passionate Fruit
Art: Kiss Nail Art Paint – Black
Base and top: Rimmel 60 seconds – 740 clear

I really like this colour, and it only took two coats. I really love that it is scented! Why can’t all polish be scented? It smells just like my Lip Smackers from first year uni – berries. Unfortunately, my then boyfriend and my now husband hates that smell. Oh well, can’t win them all.

For ages I had been trying all the blacks that I had on my konads, but none of them worked very well; most looked brown or grey after I had printed. But then I realised that I should use the black nail art paint I had, so I gave it a go. Yay for me it worked!

The inspiration for my mani are a pair of my favourite shoes. These are from Betts. These won me ‘best shoes’ at a Melbourne Cup lunch. They are really comfortable although they look scary to walk around in.

Green without envy but with glitter

Last Friday we had our school's swimming carnival. My team colour is green - hence my nail colour.





Three coats of Jordana 971 Green Glitz. It went on easily and lasted for 7 days with only minial chipping and edge wear. I was really surprised. A pity that the green reminds me of peas all-be-it with awesome little flicks and bars of glitter.

Iron Fist

After weeks of wearing nothing but clear and nursing my stunted nails to a nice length – but totally giving up on my cuticles – I finally got to paint my nails this weekend.

I have been dying to do this mani since my Iron Fist shoes arrived. But before I get into the mani, I’ll tell you all about my tale of woe come good.



The first time I saw these shoes was on a random flickr account and I though ‘OMG I need those!’ and so I tracked them down. Iron Fist Zebracorn. It wasn’t until before Christmas that I decided to buy them and just to make sure I was buying the right size I checked out the online store’s size conversion... I would have normally ordered a size 9 US (which is a size 40) but according to their own conversion table I would have to buy a size 10...

When they arrived I was devastated. As soon as I saw them I knew that they would be too big. I checked the sizing on the actual shoe and sure enough – although it was a 10US it was also a size 42. I sent the store an email explaining the issue and was told that I could send them back and get replacements...

The cost of returning them would have cost the same as buying a new pair! So I ended up just buying another pair and they gave me free shipping. This all went well and now I have my dream shoes.





BUT – I decided to sell the big pair on ebay and someone bought them like straight away – and well why shouldn’t they? So I posted them off...

And then it rained and rained and flooded and flooded. The shoes got lost. A month or so later, Australia Post still hadn’t delivered the shoes, so I went though and put in a inquiry hoping that it could all be sorted out and I could refund the person without losing money myself.

Eventually the shoes arrived, but the packaging was trashed, the shoe box destroyed and the shoes were damaged. I was freaking out, but the buyer was so nice and decided that the marks the shoes now had would be fine and were nothing that she wouldn’t do when she wore them herself. She should be given a knighthood or something.

So yes, here is the nail art. Warning: if you don't like ragged and torn cuticles then don't look at the following images.





yellow: Face of Australia LUXE - Lemon Sorbet
green: BYS - Matte Mint Green
blue: Sportsgirl Nail It - Hello Sailor
black: Kiss Nail Art Paint - SPA12 Black
clear: Rimmel 60 seconds - 740 Clear

Plans

I’ve been very naughty lately but it’s been a little stressful so my fingernails and cuticles have copped it. We have a new principal so I’ve kept to clear just to be on the safe side – but this lady wears blue eyeliner half a centimetre thick under her eyes so from now on I think colour will be okay.

Anyway, WARNING: you are about to see some ugly nails – with no clean up:



Three coats of Rimmel 285 Style Hunter. Not the most attractive nail polish in my collection – it’s matt, and the colour reminds me of 1980’s Tupperwear.

I feel that I’ll be konading tonight.

I’ve been working on my sewing – actually putting more effort into planning what to sew than actually sewing. Polyvore is my friend:

Pammy's Collection

This is a very rough guide – so what I’ll end up with will be different of course I'm just concerned with colours and items atm. For instance it is winter here for about three weeks in the year and I have no need for that many jackets – but if I make them short sleeved and unlined etc then I can wear them over a cami.

Almost every top I wear I have to put a cami underneath anyway - because my huge boobs make everything look obscene. Why do plus size designers design tops with necklines that are so low???

porto...what?

So what has been keeping me away from my polishes?



This photo was taken 10 days ago - and I had already been nursing it during my last post but it slowly got bigger. Finally a few days ago it went but it had already grown past the owie part of the nail - phew.

To cheer myself up I used Rimmel 230 Portobello Pink. It was three coats, really easy to apply - I happen to love their wide brushes. Today the edge wear is a little too visable but then again I was moving furniture and music equipemnt today so I wasn't being to kind to my nails.

I really don't understand the name of this polish though. Although I haven't really researched portobello in detail - I don't see anything pink about it from the wiki page.

Opps

I'm about to show you an awesome colour but far from awesome mani - I'm too impatient sometimes.

Revlon - Tropical Teal







It was three coater - although I didn't wait long enough between coats and made bubbles everywhere and because it then took ages to harden I smooshed and dinted it. Oh well - a little glitter will fix that right up.

My left thumb nail has a tear in it half way down - I'm trying to be very careful with it buy covering the tear with a teabag "bandage" so cross fingers I don’t lose half my nail. What’s worse is that I have no idea how I did it!

Resolutions

I painted my nails today a really awesome turquoise – my favourite colour – but there were issues. I’ll take photos tomorrow.

My new year’s resolution is to bake and sew more. I’m a home ec/hospitality teacher and to be honest the spark went out for me and cooking a while ago. Whenever I’m actually trying a new recipe it’s for the new recipe book I’m making for my students. I’m trying to get my mojo back – and just baking stuff for the heck of it.

Sewing takes up time and even though I love it while I’m doing it, just the thought of the whole process make me not want to do it. The kicker for me came about because every Christmas holidays I go through my cupboard and donate everything that I haven’t worn during the year – except some sentimental stuff. And I realised that I only have 1 thing in there that I made myself – other than my wedding dress.

Before I get back into sewing for myself though I had to finish these two dresses for my mum:





I love the blue and purple fabric – so hopefully I have enough left over for a skirt.

Ek, where does the time go?

I have had these photos ready to share - sorry!



Face of Australia - Cotton Candy

This was three coats and as you can see it was blotchy, I should have tried another coat over it and next time I will. I think the colour suits me pretty nicely. After a few days of this I then tried out the BYS cracked nail polish:



I was pretty messy with the application but man it got some attention! Will be using this again - I should have gotten more colours - so it's just black for now.

And what better to end the year on, then with my ugliest mani for the year:



Face of Australia - Lemon Sorbet
Lippmann - Happy Birthday
OPI - Mad as a Hatter

It truely was an ugly but bright mani. However because I was impatient and just piled the glitter on without waiting between coats I smooshed it pretty badly - oh well LOL.

I was thinking I might post about shoes and my clothes sewing on here. I'm dying to show you the new shoes I ordered - they have a terrible tale of woe.