Mini-haul TJ Maxx & Marshalls

I found some good deals on nail polishes today!

Blue, Green, Purple Glitters

7 limited edition series, classic colors for $5.99 or .85¢ / bottle!

essie ridge filling base coat

 There were more essie colors for $3.99 each.

Kiss Stick On Nails Review

Sophisticated Merlot

 I bought these nails awhile ago. Like several months back. They are self-sticking and I thought it might be best to use them sooner rather than later. The sticky backing is not covered. I don't know if they would dry out and I didn't want to take that chance.

 So today, when I was rushed to get ready to leave the house, I reached for these.

These nails are very temporary. The back of the box cautions to avoid prolonged exposure to water. The nails come off by soaking them in warm water. There is no damage to the natural nails with this product. They are super easy to put on too.   Just make sure to push up from the bottom of the nail, to get it out of the try, holding the nail from the tip, so you don't touch the glue with your finger. They are super sticky.

 The box comes with 2 trays of stick on nails in various sizes.

 At the top of the trays are numbers. 

If you know your nail size, you can find the coordinating number in the tray.

Some of the nails have a rinestone in the center of the flower

I did have to file the thumb nails where the nail rests against the cuticles. 

My cuticles are this shape _____and the rounded nail end doesn't fit snug.

I really like these nails. The design is blue gradient with white floral nail art, with a rinestone in the center of some of the nails. The length is short so they are a comfortable length. 

I do recommend putting on make up first, and then the nails after washing your hands, because prolonged contact with water will loosen the sticky substance. They are on the pricier side of Kiss nails $8.99 for 24 nails. However, if you find them on a half price sale, or with coupons, the cost is not too bad.

I hoping that when they are removed, the sticky substance will dissolve so I'll be able to use them again with Kiss Self-Glue Mega-hold Stickers or be able to glue them on with nail glue.

Update: These lasted 2 days. I probably could have gone one more day but I had to wash my hair. Removal was very easy. I'm going to try to get the "glue" which is like that stuff that mailers use to stick one thing to another (like a soft bugger-hee!) but this stuff is more heavy duty. I'm going to try to use pure acetone on a q-tip to get the stuff off the back of the nails so I can reuse them with nail glue or mega-hold stickers.

Have you tried these stick-on nails? Did you like them? What has been your experience? Let me know in the comments below.

I can show you now!

Our daughter is coming back from NYC tonight. She graduated from university in December and works from home so she's almost always here now. I can't do secret scrapbooking when she's always around.

I have been holding onto 2 of these for a the last few months. My daughter would ask what I was planning to do with them, and my answer would always be vague.

 I turned these cheese wedge boxes into these:

Trinket Boxes!

The one on the left is for my mother, and the one on the right is for my daughter.

Mother's trinket box side with trim

 I found out, after trimming all the paper away from the intersecting edges on my daughter's trinket box, that trimming wasn't necessary. The thin scrapbook paper folds sharply and when glued down, doesn't keep the lid from closing on the bottom of the box. Next time, I won't trim away the excess. I would advise though to let it cure overnight by keeping the lid on the box. That way it dries to the ideal shape to fit onto of the bottom.

Daughter's trinket box side with trim

 Each box has a surprise in the bottom.

Interior: Mother's trinket box

Interior: Daughter's trinket box

Each box also has a set of diskpics of my daughter's graduation.

I punched a hole in each disk and mounted a small photo on the front. I got the mini-photos by cutting them out of 4x6 collage prints. On the back of the disks, I wrote a caption. The disks are strung together with elastic gold cord for hanging, freeing up the trinket box for other treasures. I just wanted something different than a scrapbook to commemorate the event.

Rainbow Nails Using Broadway Fashion Diva Nails Short Length

I won this box of nails in a contest.

Now they are short length which is a nice size for me, BUT I've got short nail beds.

 In this picture, I'm trying to show you how my natural nail edge would show through these nails, even though they are short in length. The Painted tip and design just doesn't come down far enough to cover my natural edge.  And unfortunately, I lost most of my nail growth during the Great Desperate Phone Call of last Sunday. Our daughter was in NYC for the first time, she was lost, and it was after midnight.

I reverted to my old coping mechanism of chewing on my nails. By the time she was directed by my husband to where she was supposed to be, I had one nail left. Egggadddsss!

Anyhow, I decided to do something other than file down the bottom of all these nails, losing most of the curlicue design along the nails.

I took most of the colors in this Wet n Wild Nail Pail, and painted a line on the backside of the nail, below the french tip. The Broadway nails bases are clear so the polish shows through.

I thought I took a picture of them before I applied them but I guess not.  I selected the nails, held them on my natural nail to determine where my natural nail edge was and how much nail polish to brush on the underside of the glue on nails. The tabs on the glue on nails made it easy to hold and paint with the polishes. Each nail was painted a different bright color.

After the polish dried, I glued on the nails. I painted 2 coats of clear glitter polish over the nails, followed by a coat of quick drying top coat.

Natural light shots

I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out.  I like the length. 

They are short and don't get in the way with typing.

Coupons...I've had it

Sometimes I get so tired of shopping, I just don't go.

I'll take out everything from my fridge freezer, (only freezer I have) and see what's what and that's what I cook from for the week...or next. Same with the pantry which is just a tall cupboard beside the fridge.

I used to chase sales and beat it to the stores with my coupon binder.

I got burned out.

I came to realize that if I miss a sale with a coupon, another one will be along shortly.

I believe in following the store's purchase limit. Like Walgreens has a limit of 3, although I've read they don't follow it but I will. 3 Dawn or 3 boxes of Kleenex on sale, with coupons, and I've got a little stock pile going until the next sale.

Just recently, I put the binder away. I'm just burned out on cutting the coupons and folding and trimming to get them in those dang baseball card holders.

I've gone positively prehistoric with coupons in legal size envelops.

When you overspend, when you get burned out, when you get overwhelmed, when you get discouraged, when you just can't take it anymore...

Give yourself a break.

Fing'rs Hardcore Nail Addict Argyle French Tips Review

Sometimes, it's really nice to have nail art designs already on the fake nails, and all I have to do is glue them on my nails.  These nails are great because they are short in length and fit my natural nails pretty well. The kit comes with glue or stick on tabs. The stick on tabs are for when you want to wear these for one or two days. I've read that some people get 3 days wear with the tabs.  The tabs release when you soak your hands in warm water. Like washing dishes.

When I wore them, I used the glue. Minimal air bubbles appeared. 

Sorry for the crappy pictures. This was before I got an iPhone. The nails were very comfortable to wear and looked really cute. I really liked the argyle design on the tips.

Mosaic 1 Update

I got a few compliments about this design yesterday.

When I tried to explain how easy it was to create, one lady didn't believe me.  Seriously, I'm no artist. So if I can slap on random nail polish to accomplish this look, anyone can.

Here's how I did it:

I painted all the nails a neutral color. (These are Kiss Oval Active Full Cover glue on nails) I used Revlon's Gray Suede as a base coat.  

When that dried...I got 7 colors (all the colors from the Wet n Wild Nail Pail) ready. I started with 230C Saved By The Blue, swiping it across my thumbnail.

From there I just radomly dabbed or swabbed the other nails with the same color, varying the size.

I went on to do the same with all the other colors. I didn't wait too long for the polish to dry before going on to the next color.

Once I got all the nails painted, I waited for them to dry. After a few minutes, I got a bright pink nail art polish. You can see the stripes in the photo above.  Well, I didn't quite like that so I got out the black nail art polish.

With the black nail art polish, I outlined some of the sections on each nail. Not every section though.

The blue areas seemed really too much in-your-face to me. So I got the white nail art polish and put 3 dot-like marks on the bigger blue sections and 1 dot-like mark on the smaller blue sections. I learned in photography and graphic design classes that visually, 3 of something is more appealing than 2. I forgot a lot of things from college but I never forgot that.

After the polish dried, I swiped clear glitter polish over my nails. When that dried, I applied a clear top coat.  It looks like melted crayons.

It really was easy and a lot of fun. The best thing though is if you don't like the results, you can just take it off with nail polish remover and start over.

Disney World Travel Journal

Earlier this year, my family took a trip to Disney World. I'm a planner. I had a big, zippered 3-ring binder with page protected printouts of every detail of our travel plans. It contained all the confirmation pages, menus, coupons, etc that I printed out on 8.5x11 paper. I had empty page protectors for all the brochures, and things that would go into scrapbooks back home.

I also designed a travel journal. Something smaller than a bread box and more intimate than the binder. The first time we went to Disney, I had printed out journal pages that went in the binder. Each night, I filled out the questions of the day, and made little notes. I was glad to have it when I wrote up my trip report and scrapbooked but to me those journal pages were too structured and boring.

It was probably a month before our trip this year and I was wandering the aisles of Marshalls.  I found this blank journal:

I paid $3.99-$5.99 for this. Can't remember. But I know it was cheap. It's 5.25"x7.5" with 104 pages. We were staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge, going to take the Sunrise Safari, and I thought this Safari cover was perfect.

I wasn't looking to make this one of those swanky, professional looking, serious heirloom-type journals.  I just wanted something that was more fly-by-the-seat, not based on appointments or schedules. There for, the pages are not in any order of occurrence.

 With my Cricut Expression cartridges and Cricut pens, I created pages of things we hoped to see and do. We never made it to Mickey's Philharmagic this time, but I really liked the page I made.

 I made pockets at home with tags for some of the pages. For the countries, I used the Destinations cartridge.

Free, daily activity at Animal Kingdom Lodge

Left side: All the tabs I made for pages I didn't make of things we didn't do since we decided not to go to Hollywood Studios

I left spaces for journaling, and adding bits of paper along the way. I brought 2 travel guides and cut out the pics and printed info to glue into my journal. Luckily, I remembered to bring along a glue stick. However, the little scissors on my mini-swiss army knife were a chore to use.

 For every day we were on vacation, I pasted a cricut cut-out to a page.

Left side: Empty tea bag packets and coaster from the Concierge Lounge.

I left space for journaling each day but some days, glued in emphemera took the place of so many written words. 

Every scrap of paper was admissible into my journal, even things we didn't use or end up needing.

After the trip, I had what I wanted. A more intimate, thorough, and picturesque travel journal.

Now all I have to do is decide of if I want to cut out the blank pages so the book lies flatter.

Do you have Disney Travel Journal? I'd love to see it. Post a link in the comments section.