Playing catch up...



If you've been following this blog for a long time some of you may remember a few years back when a few bloggers and myself started doing a weekend post which was sort of a "get to know you" kind of thing.  A little catch up on what we do outside of nails and how we spend our free time when we're not polishing! I actually can't even remember what it was called and I did spend some time looking without much luck.  At any rate I'm bringing it back for awhile to see how it goes.  I've seen a lot of bloggers disappear over the past few years and I think it can be hard to balance life with blogging sometimes. I struggle A LOT with my other blog so this will help me tie them together and it also helps us get to know each other. It might also help me keep you in the loop as to why I can't always post as often as I want to.  Of course if this isn't your thing you're welcome to skip these posts!  They'll only go up on Saturdays so it will be easy for you to skip over them. No hard feelings. :P  

Some of you might notice I sort of lost it the last few days of the 31 day challenge.  There was one challenge day I didn't feel particularly inspired by and then I never seemed to get my groove back after that. However, I'm still really happy with myself and when this post goes live I'll have published the same number of posts this month as I did the previous THREE months combined.  So I can't feel bad about that.  Caoimhe helped me out with some of my nail art (and some of the distraction! :P) but even she got tired of it eventually.


I've also just finished my FOURTH week of training for my new job position.  It's been really jarring since the position is very different from my previous one and the training has been a hot mess.  For starters the training manual is over 300 pages. THREE. HUNDRED. PAGES. Of codes and rules and exceptions and....it's a lot.  Then there's the fact that we were meant to move to the corporate office next week but last Friday they decided to move us early.  Always fun to not know where you're going to be. Or when.  Though we have an official training schedule we've not followed it. At. All.  In four weeks we've had as many trainers and each does things totally different and we have a different schedule depending on the day.  It's just...been overwhelming.  The good thing about it is that my new position is a 27.5% raise AND I get all the same benefits from my company (which is an amazing place to work for btw). So I can't complain too much but it's been a bit of a struggle.  Monday our computers were down for awhile so we did some training modules instead. I found the above "grammar cat" in one of the modules for business grammar.  Ridiculous.



I've also mostly solved my sleeping issues. If you follow my other blog you might know that I've been struggling with CFS/ME for sometime now and the insomnia it causes has plagued me for YEARS. I don't think I've had a good nights sleep in over 10 years.  A lot of my yoga buddies swear by essential oils so I've been learning more about them and working on using them for my ailments.  I made a mix for sleeping recently and although the smell of it is a bit odd it WORKS. Like really works.  I generally use it in my bath or diffuse it at night. I fall asleep in minutes and stay asleep all night. Plus no medication hangover the next day. My husband complained about the smell initially but even he couldn't complain after a good nights sleep.  Well at any rate I've got a ton of swatching to get to for you guys! Next week you can look forward to the new Barielle collection and then I'll have the spring Zoya's for you soon as well.  I hope you all enjoy your weekend! How was YOUR week?

Zoya Naturel Satins

 
Today I have swatches of the new Zoya Satin collection for you.  According to the Zoya website the satin formula is a hybrid between matte and glossy polishes and is not intended to be worn with a top coat. They actually do dry semi matte and I didn't use any top coat for my swatches.  I found them to be very easy to apply, each is shown with two coats, and they dried fairly quickly considering. Obviously with no top coat you'll have to wait a bit longer for dry time (I usually use a fast dry TC) but they didn't seem to take an extraordinary amount of time.  I really loved the finish.  I do love matte finishes but this is a nice low sheen so it's good for people who want to mix things up but don't care for the matte look. It's also a great alternative to a nude manicure if you're looking for a professional look or something more low key.  The colors are really flattering as well.  The finish reminds me of a matte topcoat after a few days when the matte starts to get semi shiny.  I also found them to have just a TOUCH of pearly sheen to them. Without further a do, here they are!
 
 

Ana is a light toasted almond cream.

 
 Brittany can be best described as a rose mauve cream. 


Leah is a lavender tinged taupe cream. I really loved the color of this one. It's a really interesting color and was super flattering on me.


Tove is a misty slate grey cream. This was a favorite for me as well. It's sort of a nice blue grey.


 Rowan can be best described as a suede taupe cream.


Sage is a mossy sage green cream.  This one was my absolute most favorite of the bunch.  I LOVE greens and this one is just so soft and pretty.  Which one is your favorite?
 
 
**These polishes were provided to me for my honest review. I have not been paid for my opinion**

There's oil in them thar hills!


So today's post is going up a little bit later than normal but can we all just take a moment to appreciate the reason? My husband gave me an early birthday present; a NEW computer with a TOUCH screen. I'm so excited to be using it and I can't believe how much easier it's making blogging!  At any rate today's 31 day challenge inspiration is a topper that isn't glitter. So I have some nails I actually did awhile back (hence the shorter length) which I've been dying to squeeze in somewhere! They're done by marbling the China Glaze Bohemian collection over a black creme! I LOVE the way it turns out. I hope you enjoy them! :)
 

Back in the day...


Today's inspiration for the thirty one day challenge is to recreate an old mani you did.  I actually do this fairly frequently for my Flashback Friday segments and it's usually reserved for mani's that I did before I really had the skill to do them and now I that I do (or at least I'm closer!) I want to do them properly. For today's remake I just randomly chose one.  So here you go! This was originally done as part of the Purple Crumpet Fairy challenge which is funny as now I'm doing them again for Crumpets Nail Tarts! At any rate the original prompt was to use the oldest polish you had.  For me it was a now almost 18 year old bottle of Mary Kay.  Since that wasn't the challenge though I decided to go with a different base.  I also switched up the purple because I no longer have the Zoya I used originally.  Though I made a few changes I think it still counts as a remake! The original version is below! :)



Which is your favorite?


A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle...



Today the inspiration for the 31 day challenge is a fish tail braid.  I'll be honest, I tried this several times but I could not get the criss cross just right and at some point I gave up.  Yesterday was rough for me  ( hence why I skipped a day) and as you can see it was also rough on my nails as I'm now back to this squoval shape for a bit. It does feel a bit freeing in a way since when my nails get long they do get in the way somewhat but still it had to happen mid-challenge. At any rate I did this fish tail with alternating stripes rather than the overlapping layers.  Then I added some bright blue green nails to cheer myself up! ;P  Hope you enjoy!


Let's talk decals...



Today the challenge for Crumpets Nail Tarts 31 day challenge is decals. *Le sigh*...decals....so let's talk about that for a minute. You have a few options when it comes to decals for your nails. You have your basic sticker type, water decals which work similarly to temporary tattoos, sticker type which are made with actual polish, Minx heat activated type, and the DIY options which include making them on plastic OR a stamper.  A lot of options right? I hate the stickers so we'll just get that out of the way right now. I've never seen them look like anything other than what they are; a sticker on your nail.



I have a few water decals I like fairly well but they're not full coverage and let's face it, I'd find a way to screw that up! So those are out too.  Then there are the sticker type which are made of polish which CAN actually look pretty decent. Notice I said CAN. Yeah....IF you have the exact perfect shape and size of nail for it and manage to get it stuck on just right and smooth it out before it's too late and then your top coat doesn't eat the top half and blah blah blah...no matter what size I choose I always end up with either half my nails naked or not enough large ones left to do my thumb becuase I had to cut them all down. WHO are they making these things for?


SO....having already tried and failed numerous times at decals on plastic I decided to go the stamper route.  It actually worked fairly well though I did have some issues.  For my first time doing it I feel very happy with the results.  I started with my ring finger and the decal was obviously too short so I improvised with the white at the bottom.  You can tell that I let that one dry too long (I used a fast dry topcoat which I know is meant to be a no-no but I've only got so much time!) and it cracked JUST slightly.  For my next several I only let them dry between three and five minutes before applying.  There is a touch of smudging which is blah but overall I'm satisfied.  In the future I think I'd wait a hair longer to apply the colors and the final topcoat layer.  I applied these directly to dry polish too since the decal was still tacky and I think that made things MUCH easier than my first attempt to apply one on wet polish. I hope you enjoy them! :)





Flashback Friday; These things go round...


Today's 31 day challenge inspiration was a white base.  I don't know why because I use white bases ALL the time BUT...I freaked out a little on this one.  I think after having some fairly specific days I got a little uneasy at such a wide parameter.  SO....the other day whilst perusing the web to see if I'd already used a certain title for one of my blogs (does that ever happen to you? lol) I came across a real gem of a mani from 2011.  Though the original mani was done on a light grey base I felt that white would work well too so I ran with it. So today you get a double dose of art!  Above you can see my version today.  Originally I think I had some trouble with the stamping, this being from my early stamping days, and in an effort to help it I decided to fill in the stamp some with a nail art brush.  I used the same stamp and color for stamping and I still didn't love the way it transferred but it certainly didn't go on terribly.  I filled in less of the circles this round and went with a matte topcoat instead of shiny.   I didn't love the end results the first time and I really still don't.  When you stamp the color transfer is much lighter than when you fill in with a brush so there's just a weird difference in the shade that bothers me.  However....I think I did a MUCH more preferable job this go round!  Scroll down for the original...if you dare!!


Don't get me wrong, I do like the design of this and I really like the blue on grey too.  I think for some reason the difference in depth of color is less noticeable on the original design and that may be due to the darker base. I think I like it better filled in more too but I wanted to leave it more clean this round.  But good grief check out that terrible cleanup and ragged mess of cuticles! I think this was from the days before blogging was anything for me other than a way to show my nails off to family and keep them all in one place for me to keep track of my progress!  At any rate, which version is your favorite?


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