It's Christmas!

Though this post is literally nothing other than a "Look at my Christmas nail polish!". I wanted to do something fancy for my nails this year - my friend Lara found a great Xmas tree design that I really wanted to try. But to get the proper triangular design I needed to use sticky tape, and I didn't have the time in the lead up to Xmas to actually do it justice. So I just got out my five Christmas nail polishes and plonked them on.

And the only reason they are Xmas nail polishes are that they are from various OPI Xmas ranges - they put out Xmas colours every year.

So we have - from left to right - Music Hall Curtain Call, Baby It's "Coal" Outside (see what they did there ;) ), Dear Santa, Merry Midnight and Gone Gonzo. I love all these colours, for various reasons.

Music Hall is a wonderful Copper type colour. Or is it Bronze? I'm so bad at all those types of colours! It does have amazing coverage on the nail - all you really need is one coat.

Baby it's Coal Outside is a wonderful sparkly black. But it is slightly less good on the coverage - needs two layers to be truly opaque.

 Dear Santa is a sparkly red. And actually I think it's one of my favourite reds. But I love anything sparkly.

Merry Midnight is a sparkly purple. The coverage on this one is less good - even with the token two coats, it needs more. It is however gorgeous and I wish I had got a photo to do it justice.

And lastly Gone Gonzo - which is just blue glitter - but so tightly packed that it doesn't really need anything underneath it. And it is ultra effective - really eye catching.

A very sneaky intermission

Just wanted to update people on the state of my bangle holder - I have started work on the hand. Based on a glove pattern that I have; I've had to make a few changes to the pattern - when I was following it, it didn't match the size of the bottom of the hand/wrist. Unfortunately, because I changed the number of stitches, I also had to change how the fingers fit into the rest of it. In this pattern, you crochet a number of stitches, chain 2 and then skip a number of stitches before crocheting the original number. And then you do that again, for another finger - it gives a basis for the fingers to be worked on. But I had to change the number of stitches to make and then to skip, and then I had to play around with my finger sizes. I didn't want them to be too big, because I still need my rings to fit on them.

And so far - this is what I have...

New Nail Polish!

This week is an exciting week - for me anyway - because I finally have some new nail polish! It's an early Christmas present from my Mum, because Adore Beauty was selling OPI bottles for about $10 - which is half the price that you'll find it at David Jones. I managed to get three colours out of her - one by itself and the other two in a pack. Usually, when I get a pack of two or more colours, I lose out somewhere; honestly, that would be the reason that I have some of the less extraordinary colours. But this time, and this pack, I really didn't lose out at all!

 On the right...no, I mean left...we have Pepe's Purple Passion. Though why it's Purple, I'm not sure. Because it's the reddish-toned one. Even though it's the Muppet Collection, for me it's more of a tribute to Pepe Le Pew, my favourite Looney Tunes character.

 In the middle, we have "You Don't Know Jacques", which I think is from the French collection and is a gorgeous taupe - the type of colour that is very in right now. And finally, OPI Ink. One of their more boring names (unless I'm missing something) but a colour that I spent years drooling over in the store. I could never justify it, but I always wanted it. So I was uber-excited to finally get it.

 As I couldn't paint my nails evenly (unless I went in for a stripe) I painted You Don't Know Jacques and Pepe's Purple Passion on one hand, because I think they go quite well together - so well in fact, they're hard to tell apart in this picture.

And on this hand, I have OPI Ink - I just wish you could see the awesome blue glitter it has to it. It sparkles in the right light, which is just how I love my nail polish...

Slackness...

So, once again I have been a little slack - very slack in fact - about updating this. I have only two excuses - I have been a little busy with the real world; attempting to find work sometimes can be very draining and time consuming. And my nail polish has been - to say the least - BORING! The colours have been a bit blah, and I have been too busy doing other things to update them.

 So two weeks ago, we had <-- colours. Another red (very like Edin-burgundy) and a nice, if pale, purple.

 Prune Danish, and I Lilac it Hot. Unfortunately, as Lilacs go, it's really not that hot at all. The purple was a bit translucent, as you can see. Pretty, in a pastel, Spring, type of way. But somehow lacking. Though, if I had done the red over the tip, as I considered, it would have looked much better

 And last week, it was Pink Before you Leap - a sort of sparkly pink - and Sonora Sunset. Which is, once again, one of those classy colours that I for some reason buy and then never wear. Though, if I ever get married, I will be wearing this colour...

 ...well, actually, I won't. I'll be wearing It's All Greek to Me...

 Unfortunately, the pink - though wonderfully sparkly - was also totally transparent.

And this was just...classy looking...

Some design...

I think this week is the first time I've been truly surprised and happy with the nail polish I dragged out of the back of my bookcase. Because this week, I pulled out "It's All Greek to Me" which is my all-time favourite colour. Along with Pistol Packin' Pink, which is less beloved, but does work well with the other.

 And when I say this is my favourite colour, if you made me choose from all the bottles I have (and believe me, there are many bottles to come) this is the one colour I could never do without. Admittedly, I would prefer it if you didn't make me choose...

 I was also happy because these colours work well together. I've been a bit tired of clashing colours that I can't even wear on the same hand, let alone the same nail. And I also got a bit tired of one colour on one hand. I can't remember the last time I limited myself in that way. So I wanted to do something different - something new - and these colours were perfect!

 One of my friends sent me a link to a nail polish blog a few weeks ago, and they had some nice simple designs that I had never thought to do before. Admittedly, I didn't think I would be doing them any time soon - especially with the colours I have been dragging out lately. But I realised this week was perfect. First I covered all my nails in Pistol Packin' Pink (2 layers).

Then I just used one layer of It's All Greek to Me and painted it diagonally across the top of the nail. Technically I should have used tape of something to make it neat, but I'm a bit impatient like that. And I have to say - I love it! the colours work well together and my nails look fancy and funky at the same time. Honestly, I'll be hard pressed not to do this style all the time now...

Lucky Dip

Otherwise known as "the challenge, week 5". I went with 'the lucky dip' because it is very much like putting my hand in and seeing what I'll get. And quite scarily, I often get a surprise!

On my left hand this week is a colour that came as a rather big surprise. I remembered that I had it - it's a sort of red/maroon/burgundy - but I had forgotten what it is called. The name has practically come off the sticker, but I can still read it. And imagine my surprise when I discovered it was named after one of my favourite cities - this week, on my left hand, is Edin-burgundy.

Not the best colour, I have to say. I love red, but I prefer reds that shimmer or sparkle - this one is a creme, so it does neither. And I know from experience that this one is not fun to get off. The red just goes everywhere and stains my fingers until I have spent ages wiping everything in sight with nail polish remover.

On my right hand, is the much more favoured Don't Socra-tease Me. Unlike the red, this is a great colour! I suppose you could call it coral or melon or something, but basically it's an orange with a pink shimmer. It's from the Greek collection and it is an amazing colour. It also won't stain my fingers when I try to remove it on Saturday.

What I do love about owning Edin-burgundy (and believe me, this is the only thing) is the fact that I managed to buy nail polishes named after the two cities I have lived in. I am not sure how many more colours I have named after cities, but I suspect they might give me some indication of where I should move next...

 .....

And now for Week 6 - I meant to post this two weeks ago now, but what with one thing and another, I didn't get the pictures uploaded until yesterday. And as the next lot of colours were so uninspiring, I didn't really want to give them their own blog. So they have to  piggyback onto Edin-burgundy.

 Week 6 was a very boring week. I pulled out an iridescent white, called "Think it's Pink? Pastel" and a nude called "Embrace".

 And honestly, nude is the best word for Embrace. It left my right hand looking like I didn't even bother painting it. I alternated the pinky nail just for something different, but honestly, I shouldn't have bothered. It just made me look a little lax with my nail polish.

A crafty intermission cont...

So I have come to a decision about what to do with my metres of French Knitting! I realised, recently, that what I really wanted was some type of jewellery hand to put all my bangles and rings on. I have somehow amassed quite a few of both, but because of my total disorganisation, I can never get to them and don't wear anything as often as I should.

Originally, I was going to crochet a glove, stuff it with...stuffing...and tada, a hand. But I realised, that instead of that, I could wind the French Knitting around a cylinder and make a wrist-like thing from that. So I got a cardboard tube (from the middle of the paper towels) and I cut slits in both ends, and then proceeded to expand the ends, to make them more wrist-like. The original plan was to have the wrist and into the bottom of a hand.

However, this was a lot more difficult than I first anticipated and it took me ages to get the cardboard to stick out in the way it was meant to. I then realised that I had nothing to put on top of the wrist, so how could I stuff it? What would I cover it with?

As for sewing the french knitting together - so annoying and time consuming. Unless you're incredibly lazy like me. I just sewed thread straight up and down through all the rings of the knitting, about an inch apart. Of course, it doesn't hold well together, but I'll figure that out later.

But back to covering it - I went back to my 'crochet a glove' plan. So I found some cotton to match the top of the wrist, and then I started crocheting a glove pattern I had, from just below the thumb. I'm not sure yet how it's going to look, but I am quite hopeful that it will work. And if not, I'll pull it out and start again.