Where have I been and What have I been up to?

This week has been an unbelievable beast.

At the beginning of the week, I had 2 days, maybe it was 3 of migraines. Along with the migraines came insomnia. Like I can't get to sleep before 7am insomnia.

Well, I got the migraines taken car of, but the insomnia remains. I did get to sleep around 3:30am and I thought that was excellent because it was so "early." Ha-ha!

Today was the first day I've gotten out of the house. I went to CVS and did two things I swore I wasn't going to do. I bought magazines (because I had a 20% off the total purchase coupon) and...

I bought freakin' CRACKLE polish!

This is what happens when you feel like your head's going to explode from pain and then the pain goes away. You are bonkers and do things you said you weren't doing.

I said I wasn't going to buy any more magazines until after we move to California. That's not going to happen until the end of November. Now here I sit with 4 new magazines.

I haven't gotten on the crackle polish bandwagon. It just didn't seem like something for me. But then I saw a really cool pirate nail art on youtube using crackle polish and I was intrigued.

On the shelf at CVS there was a buy one get one half off tag for Sally Hansen Crackle polishes. When I went through the register, I had $3 CVS extra bucks back on my receipt and no 50% off. I had used a .50¢ off SH coupon too. The tag had expired 5 days ago and hadn't been removed. I guess with the $3 ECBs and .50¢ off coupon it was near enough half off. Next time I'll look more closely at their sale tags on the shelves. (*TIP-CVS will have Sally Hansens Buy One Get One Half Off starting Sunday)

Last week, I ordered some Barielle during a 30% off and free shipping deal. (Did I mention I had put myself on a no polish buy. Yeah, that's working out well too!)

Barielle Aura Angora, Cashmere or Loose Me, Polished Princess, Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat Antiqued Gold, Ink Splatter

I'll swatch these later, of course.

And because I've too much time on my hands...

Some screen shots from Aunt Marie's Trailer from the new show Grimm.

Aunt Marie's Tin Can

On the NBC website, Marie's Trailer is interactive. So I took some pics with my iphone.

The Big Leather Book of Knowledge

(Don't know if there's a name for it. I call it the book of spells, 

knowledge, legends and what-nots required for all supernatural shows.)

First Page. "G" for Grimm.

Inside the book: Drawings and handwritten notes.

Ok. I seriously LOVE handmade books like this. 

One of the reasons I watched Charmed--just to see stuff like this.

The inside of Aunt Marie's trailer is wicked cool. The ceiling has charts and maps decoupaged to it.

I love the way this is decorated. The attention to detail is amazing!

This is some place where I'd love to hang out.

 Apothecary chest with bottles on top

 Wardrobe

What they've done inside of this trailer is a tribute to creativity and decorating genius.

Makes me want to go out and buy a Coleman trailer, gut it and fix it up like this.

Have you seen the ads for Grimm? If you follow it on twitter, you can see the full premiere with a secret link and code.  Grimm premiere's Oct 28. 

Can't wait!

Essie Sew Psyched

I picked up this Essie during a nail polish shopping spree in September.

Essie describes this as "a cashmere-soft sage pewter."

 I applied 2 coats over Kiss Everlasting glue on nails. No base coat or top coat. It dried very fast between coats.

I'm not, yanno, in love with this color on it's own. But I think it will be good for nail art.

What do you think of Sew Psyched? Do you own it?

What are your favorite Essie colors?

Kiss Everlasting French Petites Review

I have short nail beds, which makes wearing "real short, short, and medium" french tip nails difficult.

I found these at Ulta a few months back. 

That was the only place I saw them until recently. I've seen them at Target and CVS last month.

It comes with glue, (that was dried up), a cuticle stick and nail file.

I sized up the nails as best I could. My left hand seems to be more "petite" than my right hand.

The pinky nail on my left hand is the size I normally use but in the petite it's too short and doesn't go past my finger like the other nails.

My middle and ring finger on my right hand don't seem to fit as well as the others. I used the same size nails as I normally do for other lengths but they don't seem to be big enough for these 2 fingers.

About an hour after I glued on the middle and ring fingernails, I see that they didn't hold completely at the cuticles' edges.

Pros: 

Length--they are a really comfortable length for me to wear. I can type easily.

Appearance--At a glance they look natural on my hands.

Cons:

One nail fits my nail bed but does not extend a little past my finger like the other nails.  The length is too short.

Not enough medium sizes numbers to fit my right hand properly.

Conclusion:

I won't be buying these again. I think I'm better off buying larger/longer lengths and cutting them down so I have a proper fit width-wise across my nails. 

Have you tried these petite sizes?

"Watch this space"

Watch this space. Watch THIS space. What this SPACE. 

Nailene tweets:

"Want the latest in artificial nail adhesives? Our new Nailene Ultra Tabs, only in the UK, will soon be Stateside! Watch this space for info!"

Ok. Or just, yanno, go to CVS in Costa Mesa CA. Because that's where I found them in August.

*click here for Nailene Ultra Tabs review*

Why do they say ONLY in the UK?  I just don't get that. I mean, maybe they are in limited release in the US, but they are not ONLY in the UK any longer. Infact, they are manufactured in Lake Forest, CA. That's on the backside of the Nailene Ultra Tabs packages that I have.

So whaddua I do?

Do I tweet: Um, ok, then why do I have them in my possession here in the USA?

Do I just let it go?

My head is going to EXPLODE!

And while I'm on a rant...

There's a certain fake nail company, which I will not name right now, who allows people to post pics on their FB page, LIE that the pics are theirs, and the pics do NOT belong to them.  Yeah, they are stolen pics. Very easily researched online.  And I wrote to the nail company, told them what's going on, where to find the stolen and obviously professionally shot photo, and yet they do nothing. And FB does nothing.

I've had at least one of my own pics stolen from a FB posting and I guess that's just fine and dandy. After that happened, I started to put my logo into just about EVERY photo I posted on here, to the point of being obnoxious. 

I HATE thieves and despise lying!

What you think about stolen photos? Have you ever had a photo stolen? What did you do? Have you ever found someone else's photo that you knew was obviously stolen? What did you do about that?

Am I making too big of a deal about this?  Tell me what you think in the comments below...

Fake Nails Collection Consolidated

As you may know, we are packing to move. I have been coming up with ways to move my fake nails, and polish in the car. Everything has to be reduced in size as much as possible.

These are the piles of packaging that are going to the recycle bin.

Oodles of Noodles...er...plastic

So my collection went from that to this...

Everything now fits into a shoe box!

I took all the nails (well 98% of them) out of their packages and put them into snack bag zipper bags. I cut the front of the box and put that in with the nails so I know what is what.

Nail Glue pens from packages

Nail files from packages fit into a rigid box that some nails came in.

Cuticle Sticks from packages now recycled into a rigid plastic nail box.

Now I can take my nails in the car when we move, and it won't take up much space. Another thing this project did for me was take the "mystic" out of my collection. I struggle to "destroy" anything that is visually pleasing. That made me hesitant to open the pretty nail packaging and use the nails.  Now that I've cut open every box and removed the nails, I'm freed of that emotional hesitation.

I had made a video of all of this, but it was putting even me to sleep. 

So I used Magisto on youtube and remixed it into this silly video montage.