My first crackle!

Good afternoon, my darling readers!  I know crackle polishes are no longer all the rage now, but I've been wanting to try them since I first saw them awhile back.  When I saw this for sale on Wishes of a Blue-Eyed Girl's blog sale here, I knew I had to get it and try it.  Since this is blue, I thought it would look pretty cool over the China Glaze Strawberry Fields I was already wearing.  This is 1 coat China Glaze Crushed Candy over CG Strawberry Fields, which is reviewed here.  I finished with 1 coat of Out the Door.

Without further ado, for your viewing pleasure:

I love the blue over the pink.  This is the truest as I could get the colors.

Even though crackle isn't as popular now as it was, I like the effect.

I'll definitely be using Crushed Candy again.

I know the trend has gone away from the crackle polishes, but I do like it and I've never really been a trend follower anyway as I pretty much march to the beat of my own drummer and always have.  Have you used a crackle polish in the past and how did you like it?  Do you still like to use crackle polishes even though the 'trend' is now over?

As always, thank you for spending a few minutes of your day with me!  Huggles!

Wanna walk through Strawberry Fields with me?

Good evening, my darling readers.  I must thank you all again for your patience with me.  We've had another  weather change that my body isn't coping well with.  I decided the heck with it and I'm going to try to at least do a few things I like doing to get my mind busy at least.  :0)

Today, I have a polish my hubby bought for me.  He is of the opinion that I have enough polish, but we can't ever have enough polish, can we?  ;<)  This one is China Glaze's Strawberry Fields.  It was in the display with the Breast Cancer Awareness stuff when I picked it up and I mistakenly thought it was one of that collection, but quickly realized my mistake once I got home and looked it up to see which polishes were included in that collection for this year and last.  I do like this color though, it isn't too pale and it isn't too dark.  It's more of a hot pink with a shimmer.  If it has shimmer or glitter, then it has my name ALL over it. *giggle*

Lately, I've been using a new base coat, Beauty Secret's Ridge Filler, because I've noticed several of my nails have developed ridges recently.  As I am no where to being a professional nail tech, I have absolutely no idea what causes ridges or why I've suddenly developed them, but I know I don't like them.  Some are just barely noticeable while others are quite ridged.  For this mani, I used 2 coats of the ridge filler, 2 coats of Strawberry Fields, and 1 coat Out the Door, the formula on this polish is very nice and went on without any difficulties.

Without further ado, for your viewing pleasure, the photo's:

Isn't she a pretty pink?

If you look just right, you might be able to see a hint of shimmer here.

The shimmer decided to be shy and hid from my camera in this shot.

I can see myself using this polish quite often in the future.  Do you have this polish and if so, do you like it?  If not, would you consider buying it?

As always, thank you for spending a few minutes with me this evening and I hope you come again soon!  Huggles!

A little history

Good Tuesday morning, my darling readers.  Today I have decided to share a bit of my story with you.  I suffer from a spinal cord disease called Arachnoiditis.  It's an inflammation of the nerves in the spinal canal.  I'm including a link here if you'd like to read more about it.  As a pain control option, I decided in 2003, to have an implant done called a Spinal Cord Stimulator or SCS, for short.  My first actual implant was done October 19, 2004 (our great nephew was born that day) and was a St Jude/ANS Genesis system (non-rechargeable).  It was supposed to last about 5 years.  Unfortunately, it didn't.  My 2nd system was implanted on January 16, 2007 (my hubby's birthday).  The system I have now is a St Jude/ANS Eon (rechargeable). You can read about the St Jude's/ANS systems here.

This past Thursday, I had an appointment with the company rep from St Jude to check and see approximately how much battery life is left on my system.  We can't get an exact reading but know we're getting close to it being at the end of life of the battery.  Unfortunately, after we were done checking everything out, I didn't realize my system was turned off until 3 am Sunday morning, but by then, I was in so much pain, I'd been in bed for over 24 hours because I could barely move.  Without my SCS, my pain becomes absolutely unbearable and even the smallest things become nearly impossible to do.  Just going from a sitting positing to a standing position was making me feel like I was dislocating both of my hips, even with pain medication.  Thankfully I finally realized the SCS was turned off and I got my remote and turned it back on.  It took a few hours to start feeling more human again.  Now I'm feeling much better and am finally functional again.

So now y'all know why I disappeared over the last few days.  And if I disappear in the future, it'll most likely be because I've had some kind of flare up that I've needed treatment for.  Which just reminded me, it was recommended at my last appointment that I have an injection done in my SI Joint, which my hubby and I have talked about and I decided I am going to do, so I will be off my feet for a couple days after I have it done, but since I'll know about that ahead of time, I can be prepared for it. :0)

I want to thank you all for your patience with me and to let you all know how wonderful I think you are!  This is a great community to be part of and I thank you all for accepting me into it.  I do have a nail post planned for later this afternoon, so keep your eyes open for it later today. :)  Have a great morning!

And as always, thank you for spending a few minutes with me this morning!  Huggles!

No H8: Let's Stop Hate in the Nail Blogging Community

Good early morning, my darling readers!  I'm standing today with my fellow nail bloggers in the movement to denounce hate in the nail community.  We're all wearing purple mani's, since that is the color chosen to represent the anti-bullying campaign.  As a child who was bullied, this is something I really feel strongly about since bullying is NOT okay.

Bullying is not funny. It is not cool. It is not right. And more importantly, it is not okay. 

Most of us are, thankfully, residents of countries that support tolerance and many of our families have settled in these places simply for that reason. Generations later, it is our responsibility to perpetuate that message of tolerance across our new social platforms, including the internet.

As members of the nail polish blogging community, we all share a love of beauty, color, and lacquer. Other than that, we are remarkably different: from our race to our religion to our hair color...even to our polish application techniques. To marginalize anyone because of those differences is completely unacceptable and today I take a stand against that. I refuse to allow other people's view of "normal" dictate how I behave, believe, and blog. 

You may recognize this from when I did my Chronic Pain mani because it is the same polish.  I will upload another photo of my current purple mani later today as it is currently 4:38 am and I really need to get myself to bed since I have a doctor's appointment in the morning.  I just had to post this before I could sleep though.

As always, thank you for stopping by to visit with me for a few minutes.  Have a good morning!  Huggles!

And now some more Different Dimensions

Good evening, my darling readers.  As you already know, I ♥ me some Different Dimensions polish!  I have two of her polishes to share with you this evening.

Since yesterday was Election Day and I got this polish when Missi had a promotion on her Facebook page a couple months ago, encouraging voter registration, I decided to wear the polish she sent me, which is called Right to Vote 2012.  Application of this polish is a dream.  It glided on smoothly and the glitter applied pretty evenly over the nail and I had no issue with any sticking up anywhere.  It has a slight hint of bluish grey to the base with white hexes and the glitter is red and blue.  This would also make a great 4th of July polish.  I used 1 coat of Beauty Secret ridge filler as my base and 4 coats Right to Vote with 1 coat of Out the Door to finish it off.

Without further ado, for your viewing enjoyment:

Look at those pretty blue & red glitters.

Can you see those white hexes too?

Overall, I think this was the perfect polish choice for Election Day, for me.  :0)

Up next, Red Room of Pain, after the jump.

Quickie post-UPDATED with photo's.

Good afternoon, my darling readers!  Just a quickie post for now.  I got nail mail today!  On Halloween, I won the Scariest Nail Bottle in the US Contest that Love Nail Polish held on her blog Addicted to OPI-yum.  The original prize was 4 glitter polishes to replace the 'scary' bottle that I entered.  For several days, other polishes were added to the prize kitty's (there were two prizes) until the first prize totaled 11 polishes and 2nd place totaled 9 polishes.  Well, I received my polishes today and am so excited!  I also received a handwritten note that will be going into my nail scrapbook and be treasured.  I'll update with photo's later tonight.

The box has arrived!

The first thing I saw when it arrived was this lovely hand written note. ♥ it!

What is that I see peeking at me?

All nestled in bubble wrap just waiting on me to unwrap them.

If you want to see what I received,  unwrapped, please click on read more to continue.

A Leopard Print FAIL!

Good afternoon, my darling readers.  I hope everyone is having an excellent Sunday!  I've spent the last several hours trying to get the mani I'm now working on just perfect and just been irritating myself.  All because this new 'coalition' of women who call themselves "Clean Up or Die" can't stand to look at messy manicures and it's made me extremely self-conscious now and feeling a bit unwelcome in the nail world.  Thankfully, I started my blog for myself and my friends and anyone else who happens to want to stop by and visit.  Those who are bothered by my clean-up methods don't have to stay and look at it, there is a little X at the top right hand of the screen up there, please place your cursor on it now and click your left mouse button to exit my blog now, thank you!  For those of you who are staying, thank you!  I appreciate your time and I appreciate you!

Now on to today's mani.  I tried, I really did, to do a leopard print and it was all going well, until I got to the part where I was supposed to do the outlining of the spots.  And then it all went wrong somehow.  Now it looks more like some kind of abstract art piece to me than leopard print, so if you want to consider it a sucess for abstract art, then that is good, but as a leopard print, it's not so good.

And now, for your not so good viewing pleasure, lol:  (I started with 1 coat of Beauty Secrets Ridge Filler as my base coat)

The base color, Wet n Wild, Megalast, Disturbia-2 coats.

The darker pink dots are China Glaze Strawberry Fields and the lighter pink dots are LA Colors, Color Craze, Summertime.  (I apologize for the white polish everywhere.  I didn't notice it until after I took the photo's.)

The white outline is Sally Hansen, Hard As Nails, Hard to Get.  I then topped everything off with 1 coat of inm Out The Door.

What do you think?  Is this a leopard print or does it look more like an abstract art project to you?

Thank you for stopping by to visit with me today and I hope you come again to see what tomorrow's mani will be.  Huggles!

My first attempt at nail art...for Halloween!

Good evening, my darling readers.  We had our trick or treat tonight.  Not as many treaters out tonight, thanks to the cold, wind, and rain so we had a bit of candy left.  It's also the first time in awhile that I didn't really dress up to pass out the goodies either.  Just didn't feel up to it.  I hope everyone else had a good evening.  I've been attending an online blog party being held by Addicted to OPI-yum on her blog and Twitter and have been having a blast!  She also announced the winners of her "Scariest Nail Polish Bottle in the USA" and I am the lucky first place winner!  What a surprise and honor!  This is the bottle that took first place.  

Scary looking bottle, isn't it?  The blog owner was so nice she decided to send all the entrants a prize.  Wasn't that sweet?

Halloween Nail Art after the jump