Swatch: Joe Mocha + TLDoS#14 BBQ Fun

I totally rushed this one, I'm sorry! I wanted to be done and have a certain look for going to the PNE tomorrow so here we go.

First up my base of Joe Mocha, a nice rich brown colour with a very subtle shimmer. Went on opaque in two coats and dried shiny.

Very rich, pegged for a hot chocolate/mocha manicure in the future.

Reminds me of chocolate.

 With Julep January as an accent red pepper (mmm!) I put on some grill stripes using black striper.

AND I'M ALL CAUGHT UP!!

Hannah from Polished Prisms
Victoria from The Manicurator
Alyson from Beads, Nails, Food
Amanda Murphy Mandy's Polish
Sue O'Connor  Creative Nails by Sue 
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish
Charlotte-Louise Charlotte's Nails
Jessica from Nearly Natural Nails
Karine from Karinea0a 
Jen from The Polished Zombie
Jessica from Jessica's Nail Tales
Ashley from One Nail to Another
Pryanka from Nail Sparks
Anna from Polished Cousins
Maribeth from Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite
Kayono (aka Johanna) from Neues vom Kellerkind
Amanda Schott  from Counting Down to Bliss
Nichole Mowery from Adventures of the Nail Friends
Stephanie Oblas from A Little Polish
Becky Barnett from Glam Fiend
Elysse Patty from Elyssian Beauty

TLDoS#13 Inspired by Something in your House

I cheated a little bit for this one. I looked around my house and all I could really find was the couch with a complicated repetitive pattern (in colours I don't own) and the zebra print pillows in the TV room. So I looked around my room and my eyes settled on something else.

A pair of tiny gold earrings that Branden got me a couple Christmases ago =)

I keep losing the backing since it's a little bit of plastic on a very thin post. I need to find more before I can wear them without worrying about them all the time. These have a LOT of sentimental value though, and I'm glad I can pay tribute to them =)

Clearly I started with China Glaze Dress Me Up and then I picked up the only metallic gold I have, Golden Rose 335.

Booooo!

As you can see, it unfortunately matched too closely with the underwear, and didn't show up. I needed something more yellow, leading me to Julep Nessa.

MUCH better

In the sun <3

So there you have it =) This is much more subtle than I usually have but I really like it. I think next time I'll be another colour underneath so it stands out more but other than that I think this turned out all right.

My one regret is that my item isn't as interesting as everyone else's...

Hannah from Polished Prisms
Victoria from The Manicurator
Alyson from Beads, Nails, Food
Amanda Murphy Mandy's Polish
Sue O'Connor  Creative Nails by Sue 
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish
Charlotte-Louise Charlotte's Nails
Jessica from Nearly Natural Nails
Karine from Karinea0a 
Jen from The Polished Zombie
Jessica from Jessica's Nail Tales
Ashley from One Nail to Another
Pryanka from Nail Sparks
Anna from Polished Cousins
Maribeth from Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite
Kayono (aka Johanna) from Neues vom Kellerkind
Amanda Schott  from Counting Down to Bliss
Nichole Mowery from Adventures of the Nail Friends
Stephanie Oblas from A Little Polish
Becky Barnett from Glam Fiend
Elysse Patty from Elyssian Beauty

Swatch: China Glaze Dress Me Up

I finally get to try another Hunger Games polish: China Glaze Dress Me Up! It's a medium brownish pink creme which actually matches my skin tone really well without making me look like I have mannequin nails! I actually really like this colour.

This is two coats, application was a DREAM. I even poked the thumb by accident, and it smoothed itself out. You can see how shiny it dried too. Gorgeous. Now to put some nail art over it =D

TLDoS#12 Summer Nights

A couple weeks ago we had a FANTASTIC thunder and lightning (NOTE SPELLING) storm. About the same time I saw this post on Spektor's Nails, leading to this tutorial:

The effect was so cool that I had to try it! Everything is easy when it's broken into steps =)

Here we go:

I started with Julep Maggie and then set up my little workstation (aka the floor of my room).

Ulta Snow White and Essence You Belong To Me, Break Through, Let's Get Lost, A Lovely Secret

So I didn't take pictures of steps (even though I intended to). I just started sponging starting from the cuticle end of my nail in a cloudy shape, and then more stripey down towards the tips. Then I added white using the brush you see in the picture above. Then, like the tutorial, I put either the light blue or the darker at the tips where the lightning strikes.

It's not terrible!

It looks really good from a little bit of distance actually

Other hand =)

 And then of course I couldn't resist glitter ==

Odille 74

Like rain!

Or sparks!

I think I'm going to fall behind again because I don't really want to take this off O_o; SIGH. But yay! Go see all the rest now =D

Hannah from Polished Prisms
Victoria from The Manicurator
Alyson from Beads, Nails, Food
Amanda Murphy Mandy's Polish
Sue O'Connor  Creative Nails by Sue 
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish
Charlotte-Louise Charlotte's Nails
Jessica from Nearly Natural Nails
Karine from Karinea0a 
Jen from The Polished Zombie
Jessica from Jessica's Nail Tales
Ashley from One Nail to Another
Pryanka from Nail Sparks
Anna from Polished Cousins
Maribeth from Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite
Kayono (aka Johanna) from Neues vom Kellerkind
Amanda Schott  from Counting Down to Bliss
Nichole Mowery from Adventures of the Nail Friends
Stephanie Oblas from A Little Polish
Becky Barnett from Glam Fiend
Elysse Patty from Elyssian Beauty

Swatch: Julep Maggie

Here we have the base for my next nail art. Maggie is a dark purple glass fleck (I KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS NOW). It took two coats, went on beautifully as is usual for Julep =)

The lighting around this morning made it hard to get pictures but you can see the flecks in the bottle really well. I forgot how much I love purple after all this blue you know!

TLDoS#11 Summer Days

All I can think of is blue skies with fluffy clouds. I had to think of something other than sponging since I've done that already (and I'll be doing that again) soo using Essence You Belong To Me as a base, I decided to do clouds using the Saran Wrap method, which has been all the rage lately (apparently). I used Ulta Snow White and dabbed some on.

This had a very rough texture but it does look pretty cool. I decided this was too subtle and it needed some depth so I tried using my dark grey Golden Rose 187 to get it.

Kind of ruined my sky effect but I don't think I'll keep this on long. It's crunch time for the Lazy Days of Summer Challenge and THIS time I want to be on time.

The others =D

Hannah from Polished Prisms
Victoria from The Manicurator
Alyson from Beads, Nails, Food
Amanda Murphy Mandy's Polish
Sue O'Connor  Creative Nails by Sue 
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish
Charlotte-Louise Charlotte's Nails
Jessica from Nearly Natural Nails
Karine from Karinea0a 
Jen from The Polished Zombie
Jessica from Jessica's Nail Tales
Ashley from One Nail to Another
Pryanka from Nail Sparks
Anna from Polished Cousins
Maribeth from Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite
Kayono (aka Johanna) from Neues vom Kellerkind
Amanda Schott  from Counting Down to Bliss
Nichole Mowery from Adventures of the Nail Friends
Stephanie Oblas from A Little Polish
Becky Barnett from Glam Fiend
Elysse Patty from Elyssian Beauty

Swatch: Essence You Belong To Me

I have always considered this colour to be a pastel blue creme that reminded me of Taylor Swift. However, I've heard of it described as minty green, with shimmer?? I'm just not seeing it guys.

Unfortunately, these pictures don't help my case. My camera thinks it's a mint green too ;_; OH WELL.

Oh yeah! Four thin coats or one thin plus one thick coat will have you covered. I STILL THINK IT'S BLUE. Dried shiny, and quickly =)

Just some scenery from Roe Lake for you

Roe Lake is a little ways from 100 Mile House in BC, where Branden's grandparents have a plot of land. They have a trailer parked there and use it as their summer home. The area is beautiful.

That's all.  Hope you liked =)

TLDoS#10 Favourite Fruit!

So I'm now REALLY EXCITED about this one. It turned out really well! After my little caterpillar fail I am really happy about this. I AM SQUEEING AS I TYPE.

So I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I want to try watermelons and strawberries sometime, but I'm not the biggest fan of those. I really like black cherries, and blueberries, and kiwis but those first two are  little bitty fruits with no interesting patterns and two other people in the group have done kiwi. I looked up some summer fruit though, and found the PERFECT one =D

Let's see if you can guess <3

I started with Julep Emmanuelle, and mattified it.

That's an interesting fuzzy effect =)

The next step was to dot on Sally Hansen Salon Cruel Heart, a dark vampy red that looks purple in the bottle.

Does this look familiarrrr?

 =D?

Other hand ^^

 I wasn't done! This looks great on its own, but I thought I might get some... depth? I added some random scattered dots with my smaller dotting tool with Julep January =)

I like it!

 Other hand again~

=)

I really like it! No topcoat by the way. Do you like it as much as I do?

I just realized I didn't tell you. In case you didn't guess: I LOVE POMEGRANATES =D

Image source

Here's all the rest!:

Hannah from Polished Prisms
Victoria from The Manicurator
Alyson from Beads, Nails, Food
Amanda Murphy Mandy's Polish
Sue O'Connor  Creative Nails by Sue 
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish
Charlotte-Louise Charlotte's Nails
Jessica from Nearly Natural Nails
Karine from Karinea0a 
Jen from The Polished Zombie
Jessica from Jessica's Nail Tales
Ashley from One Nail to Another
Pryanka from Nail Sparks
Anna from Polished Cousins
Maribeth from Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite
Kayono (aka Johanna) from Neues vom Kellerkind
Amanda Schott  from Counting Down to Bliss
Nichole Mowery from Adventures of the Nail Friends
Stephanie Oblas from A Little Polish
Becky Barnett from Glam Fiend
Elysse Patty from Elyssian Beauty

Swatch: Julep Emmanuelle

Well this is a colour I'd never thought I'd use after the one time I did!

Julep Emmanuelle is a milky light pink that takes some building. I don't think it's meant to GET opaque - it's a french manicure type polish. It dried absolutely shiny and did build up nice. I'm using it because I need a neutral base for my next nail art and I didn't want to use Julep Pippa.

Pictures!

I think this is like 5 coats. It'd be perfect for a glitter sandwich...

The VNL (Visible Nail Line) isn't bothering me that much.

Other hand =D

So that's that. Next up: TLDoS#10. On the home stretch!

Another day of poutine!

Tuesday was a downtown day and of course that means we stopped for some poutine! =D

There was a new place that opened at the beginning of July called Mean Poutine (#getdrunkeatpoutine). It's the size of a large closet but don't let that fool you...

HUUUUGE.

You see that fork? That's your reference. This is twice the size of the La Poutinerie poutine. It was also fantastically delicious. The fries were beer-battered I think. The cheese and gravy were good by me too. I somehow managed to eat the whole thing. And I didn't feel bloated! Points over La Belle Patate there too.

So here's our breakdown. I think this is an amazing one, and for a classic poutine, this beats Frenchies, but can't quite make it up past beer gravy and whatever Dunn's puts in theirs. If you're gonna go, take someone to share with! My friend couldn't get through all of hers and I had to struggle a little bit =P

1. Dunn's Famous
2. Preston's
3. Mean Poutine
4. Frenchies
5. La Poutinerie
6. Fritz
7. La Belle Patate

Check out the updated list here <3

On our travels, we came across something that almost deserves its own post. Aveda (a hair salon) had tea samples outside when we were walking to the Japanese Konbiniya. It was tea! Peppermint Licorice Root tea.

No sugar, no caffeine

This tea was incredible soothing and a little bit sweet, and omg I had my first teagasm. A jar is about $30, and I'm going back in September when I feel better about money.

I wouldn't feel so bad about money if I didn't go into Sears today, but if I hadn't, I wouldn't have gotten these fantastic boots!

So beautiful! (not colour accurate)

I had a good day =D

OH, since we're talking about food, I found this picture in my phone:

Seriously Seafood Penne

It's from The Mill Marine Bistro and was Robyn's victory dinner for getting through math. It was delicious, and the outdoor seating was fantastic, with a great view of the seawall (which I didn't photograph because this delicious food was in front of me).

By the way, I'm going away this weekend (as of about right now) so I'm scheduling some blog posts for the next two days until I can come back and tell you about my mini vacation. Hopefully they work, if not, it's only two days 'til I return so don't miss me too bad =D