Welcome to My Zoo!

We are indeed Blessed. I received a call late last week from a lady that had Goliath at her house-He had been living feral and was trying to adopt her home/critters! I zipped up there so fast, I was like greased lighting! He was about 3 miles away and across a mani river from us....

I was so shocked and surprised I couldn't even cry until later-He had been missing for almost 3 months, and here he was back home:0) We took him to the vet and he was surprisingly unharmed...2.5 pounds lighter, a broken canine tooth (a low fever) and very freaked out. Pics below...

First night home...growled and purred while he ate...growled at EVERYONE!

After seeing the vet and after some normalizing-Happy as a clam on my bed!

 

He was not happy about Rowan, but he is teaching her some manners, lol! All three on my daughter's loft bed...Dove was freaking thrilled to see him but not happy to share the moment with Rowan-note the ears, lol!

The even better news...it took him all of 3 days to start his normal habits again, like his spot on our bed, expecting his food dish to be in a particular place and all that stuff cats do :-D

OK, mani time and a wee bit of spam...
I had this crazy urge to try a mani I had seen on Pinterest ( I do have an account there under Gott, come visit!)...so here is my version!

Rainbow stripes under black! I used the skinny striping tape for this...I have been waiting like crazy to try this!

 Below, my thumb...this took way too damn long but so cool looking! it makes me happy, lol!

More mani spami....
Below, one of my new Etsy polishes, called Glacier...the blue shimmer is not as "out there" as I would like...

 

 And below, Secret Galaxy over Glacier...DROOL!

Another new polish of mine... Moon Shadow over black...Purple lovers, drool!

 

And the last of the bunch for this year, Bat Crap Crazy (2 coats) long story, it's a phrase our current Governor uses, lol....

What do you think...spammed out yet?! And YAHOO for good critter news!

 

Sinful Colors Cinderella & Spring Glitter Blizzard!

I am so tickled that I found the Sinful Colors Cinderella, because I love it!
At any rate, I thought I would try it over white since it seemed so sheer...

2 coats of SC Cinderella over 1 coat Orly Softest White

This was a restful color to wear...I don't know how else to say it. It glowed and played pink peek-a-boo but it felt heavenly to wear....

After I took that off...and only because it started chipping...I decided on something more rowdy :0)

I want some shiny sun and green growing things, so I decided I needed some shine on my nails...

2 coats of Essence Break Through with 3 different glitter polishes: Spoiled Papa-Paparazzi, Wet N Wild Hallucinate and un-named Sally Girl silver glitter. The first picture of the Essence polish is the most color-accurate---a pink-ish purple and very pretty.

Yikes, Shield your eyes! 

It was hard to get the silver glitter to show without glaring or looking black, but see if these pictures work...

Ok, I am done with the spam-fest. I hope your weather is lovely and your friends and family are close. Take care!!

Unicorn nails in a Winter Wonderland (Spam alert!)

OK, there are NO unicorns on my nails, but the color combination reminded me so much of my childhood vision of Unicorns, that the name stuck! Also...a co-worker that I respect said it was very wintry-looking...I happen to think she was right as well :0)

I used my first Zoya favorite, Gaia, 2 coats and heavenly looking.

So pretty all on its own, but then it came to me, it needed some delicate sponging! I sponged with my new Essence Choose Me! I was a bit too heavy on that, so I sponged a bit more Gaia over E-CM

I loved how this looked, but no, it wasn't quite right.....

I sponged over that with Catrice Forget Me Not, Also from Buzzwheedle and put one coat of Sally Girl un-named glitter

*drools*

OK, now for the winter wonderland... We received 8-10 inches officially...but where we live it was closer to 20 inches of snow. Since I wasn't willing to go back OUT in that mess, here is a picture from my porch, LOL!

Fun, huh?! I am so glad we have a 4x4 vehicle! People sliding into other people, onto sidewalks and stuck in the middle of roads....you name it, we saw it! I feel very fortunate at times like this to have a home that is safe and warm. Our state is friendly to transients and homeless and we have a large population of homeless people. I just want to cry when I think of the people that are sleeping in cars or outside at times like this....their choice or not.
Take care and hug your loved ones...furry or not!

UM Grizzly Mani

Today and most Thursdays during football season, we are allowed to have a University of Montana Grizzlies Jeans Day at my workplace. If we want to wear jeans, we have to wear the UM Griz school colors, lol. Works for me since I attended/graduated college there. And I will do almost anything to wear jeans and a nice T-shirt, lol!! Normally we have to wear dress slacks, nice blouses and dress shoes. Not ultra conservative, but not casual either. So here is my Maroon/Silver mani, those are the college colors :0)

Revlon Ruby Ribbon, which is a "suede" polish (2 coats), 1 coat of Sally Girl silver glitter over that, and one heavy coat of SV over the top.  *SIGH* sparklies are so pretty!

I am still wearing regular polish over my gel polish that was applied 9/22. So it has been a full week now and I will show you how they have changed over the nail polish removal, wear and tear. See the picture below and don't ralph at the staining :)



The red arrow shows the only cracking that is noticeable to picky me....a little notch in the nail wrap I did with the gels. VERY little...but I pick at stuff like that, so it is important. I wrapped all my nail edges with the base coat, 2 coats of sheer pink and again a base coat layer. Not bad! The green arrow shows how the whole thing is growing out. If you click on the picture, you can see the raised line of the gel polish a bit away from the cuticle. Also, they are losing their lovely shininess, but that is totally workable. After all, the goal was to protect my thin nails, provide a smooth base for regular polish and nail art, and maybe prevent nasty *^#%* stains from happening! So far, it's meeting my goals! I will probably re-apply the gel over this weekend, because I hate that much gap near the cuticle.

Take care, and be safe everyone!

Grurple Leopard Print!

I know...but that was the best I could do on 5 hours of sleep and not nearly enough caffeine :0)
I have a few pics of my Sunday/Monday/Tuesday mani and then the one I just finished...it's cool! The first one...not so much, heeheeeheee! But dessert first! YUM!

I wanted to try out the leopard print BM plate finally....and I made myself NOT copy all the pretty summer manis out there...yellows, oranges, etc....Even though I really wanted to-those look awesome! So I went with SH Mint Sorbet, Orly Charged Up, and Sinful Colors (cripes, now I have to get the bottle!)Ahhh, Last Chance!! I love that deep rich green.



I did a diagonal stripe with Charged Up, but it's fairly runny and sheerish, so in hindsight, scotch tape would have helped me get a nice thick layer the first time around. It took a few swipes with the brush, look-

Too pale!  I also did the SH  Mint Sorbet on the opposite side, not worrying too much about neatness and this is why!

Last Chance covered the imperfections. I actually planned the purple for the middle, but that is where the lack of sleep kicked in-grrr.

Then a quick coating of some cheapy little BonBon blue-green glitter that I got for frankening.

I almost left it there...pretty! But I wanted to see how the leopard print did across the glitter. I used Wet N Wild Black to stamp with, and it works pretty darn good! I just realized (light bulb moment) that I have been pressing WAY too hard on my scraper and stamping tool to pick up the pattern...I think I have been actually pushing the polish out of the plate pattern and making it look funky-hmmmm sometimes too little sleep can be enlightening...
So again, the finished mani with SV over the top-A little darker thanI wanted, but still pretty in my opinion.

It's Grurpalicious! Try saying that five times fast and see if you don't get arrested! Hahaha..

OK, now the boring mani...pretty, but boring

That's it...I did add a leopard print in black on my ring finger last night and THAT looked pretty cool...That is one that bears repeating...stamping over a holo polish-niiiice!

Hey, did ya notice my cuticles? I followed a fellow blogger over to loodie loodie loodie and she has an awesome site if you want to learn about nail care. I took some of her advice to heart and found a product hanging around that I multi-purposed and started using on my cuticles and hands (feet too, btw) and my hands and cuticles are looking amazing, I think. Amazing because my hands have always been ultra dry with mangled cuticles. My mom taught me to push my cuticles back regularly, but that only goes just so far. At any rate, the constant moisturizing with this mixture of vegetable/vegan oils has really helped. Three Cheers to Loodie!! (Even my crazy little piggies look better for the moisturizing!)

OK, enough blather, have a great night and stay dry, smoke free and safe, where ever you live (we have forest fires here)



"Salty Margarita" Franken and subsequent mani!!

OK, I confess, I saw one of the new Barielles on one of the sites I follow  (Candy Coated Tips) and I was highly intrigued by a  nude colored-flakie polish ...not clear...NUDE!!!I didn't know the flakie goodness could show through. SO of course I had to try this, I had some pretty sheer french mani colors floating around (doesn't everyone?!)
Tried the palest pink/beige one, liked it, made one for my friend, but then I got this wild hair and added Nubar 2010 to this polish, a sheerish day-glo green that was cheap and a liquid staining machine. I like the way it looked and couldn't leave well enough alone...good thing!
I added a bit of my new fave glitter, Sinful Colors, It's All About You...OMG!!!! Yah, I am loving this stuff!!! Check out the mani first and then the ingredients. You might be able to see the flakies better if you click on the picture...

1 base of white polish, then 2 of Wet N Wild Sunny Side Up (orange) and 3 coats of my new Salty Margarita franken :0)

What do you think?  AWESOMENESS in a bottle?!?? Yeah, I almost did an "Angry Birds" mani...that will be another weekend...but I wanted something equally silly/bright. I do believe I succeeded!! I can't quite get away with something this wild at work (actually, I probably could).

Day-Glo green/yellow!

I picked up this little mini from Sally Beauty Supply and it was tiny but cheap and I wanted bottles for frankens LOL!

No name on it, I thought it would be sheer, it was. It took 3 coats, but WORTH it! Look!

That is 3 coats with topcoats sandwiched in between... So I let this site overnight to enjoy that almost glow-in-the-dark green/yellow glory! It really grew on me, I can tell you. But since I didn't think my boss would appreciate something that "in your face", I tried to tone it down with stamping.

I used SH Aquamarine Chrome polish...man, these ROCK for stamping. I got the idea from Sammy on her blog, http://nailasaurus.blogspot.com/p/stamping-polishes.html

Thanks, Sammy!

A little bit of smearing because I didn't wait quite long enough for drying :0(

But this is friggin Awesome in my book!!