Well, once again I have to offer up my apologies for not updating in a long time. I was sick for a week in October, then I had some computer troubles and the computer eventually just quit working altogether so I was without a computer for a week while I waited for my tech to be able to look at it (he had several other computers to work on first before he could even look at it when we got it to him). Once he did get a chance to look at it, we found that it'd be best for us to just get a new computer; so we got a refurbished one from our tech, then had to get things reinstalled and such. My niece came over for a couple short visits, and there have been a lot of other things going on too. As usual, this time of year gets crazy busy with the holidays and a lot of my friends and family members have birthdays this time of year, so... I apologize in advance if I fall behind here yet again.

Anyway. Some things coming up that I am going to be trying very hard to get done and posted here: NEW wheel storage. If you read the post about nail display wheel storage then you know the CD case thing... I have since decided that while for some it very well may be an ideal solution for me it is not. The wheels have a snug fit in the CD cases, and in trying to get one of the wheels out to add a new design, the polish popped right off from one of the other designs. I was able to redo it but I wasn't happy about it. I think if you are not going to be frequently removing the wheels for any reason the CD case storage is still ok... but if you are like me and like to use the wheels a lot (I try to keep topcoats/sheer colors separate from darker nail colors so I can test the layering possibilities before actually painting my nails!) then it's not going to work so well in the long run. So, I am working on a new storage solution for my wheels. Hopefully I can get that worked out and completed before the holidays, but I can't make any promises.

Also - I am working on a tutorial for how to make your own nail art decals. This is something new I've been messing around with lately and I think I've gotten the hang of it now and can do a 'how-to' on the process. This is something I think a lot of people will enjoy learning about; it gives you the chance to do some very creative and 100% personalized designs on your nails and does not require much of an investment in money to get everything you need.

I'm also working on my nail product wish list for the holiday season; if anyone has any suggestions for things that they think I may like please feel free to share. I love having lots of things to look at and admire for my wish lists... I'm open to all suggestions, from brands of polish, specific colors, or nail art supplies you think I'd find handy (like dotting tools etc.).

I have a couple new products I want to try to review, and I am also going to try to get a "basics of nail care" post up at some point as well.

So as you can see I have a LOT on my to do list for this blog; but I also have more lists of things to do with other things so when I can get to any of these things is a mystery and I can't even guess right now when I can get to any of it. But I will do my best to get something new and interesting posted soon!

Thanks for reading (if you got all the way through that!) and thanks for commenting and subscribing too you guys... all that combined really makes blogging worth it, even if I can't get around to posting as often as I'd like here. I appreciate your sticking with me through all this chaos that is my non-nail-blogging life! ♥

I still cannot get my journal image to change; so once again I have to do it this way. The polish pick of the month for November is....




China Glaze "Spin Me Round"!

I have been trying to update the journal image with a new polish pick of the month but it will not save it; I'm having the same problem with my journal image on a different blog. When I test the image, it shows up fine, but I click save changes and it never goes through for some reason despite saying changes saved.

So... I'll just have to do it this way for now I suppose.

This month's polish pick of the month is Finger Paints "Wine Wristlet", a beautiful, dark glossy creme finish wine red/plummy color. It is darker than pictured, however if you were to only apply one coat it would be about what it looks like in the picture. However one coat is somewhat streaky, so two or three coats is best and gives a fabulous dark bottle color, again remember that the actual bottle color is darker than what is pictured, though there was no flash used in the picture nor was there exposure compensation used.

I think this is something only I would do...

I've filled all but one of my nail display wheels to this point, and I need more wheels. But, it occured to me that I needed a better way to store the wheels than just popping them into the drawer where I keep my nail art supplies. I couldn't seem to come up with anything though.

I found a solution when I was looking for an answer to another question - whether one should apply top coat on the wheels after painting them or not. Which for the curious seems to just depend on your personal preferences. Anyway, I came across this storage idea for the wheels on this blog: Wixology. I have to wonder why I didn't think of it myself.

A soft-sided CD case!





I had a couple old cases lying around the house, but in cleaning out the accumulated junk lately, my dad came across them, didn't think we needed them and got rid of them. So I got a new one from Dollar General for $3. It will hold 36 CD's, which means it's nail wheel capacity is 18. The wheels - only speaking for those from Head2Toe Beauty, with 18 tips per wheel - are slightly bigger than a CD, so the case provides a snug fit for them.

I really like this idea because it keeps all your wheels together, it's portable in case you ever have any reason to take the wheels with you when you go somewhere (?), and it's easy to flip through them to see your options. If you just number the wheels, like I do, rather than writing the color brands/names on the wheel's label, you can print out your list of colors and tuck it into the front of the case where the  index card is; OR, since you only put the wheels in one side of the sleeve (b/c they're thicker than a CD they take up more room that way, trying to fit one in each side could lead to breaking!) you can print off your list for each wheel and place it in the other side of the sleeve behind the wheel. I haven't done that yet, but that is my chosen method for keeping the list of colors with the wheels.

I need more wheels, but am out of money (again... le sigh) so for now it's going to have to wait. I ordered some wheels and polish for my sister-friend... really wanted to get more for myself LOL but I decided it was better to get a gift for her and not be selfish.

A somewhat unrelated note: I know I haven't done swatches or polish of the month in forever; I'm trying to get all my stuff sorted, and there's a lot going on in other areas of my life. Nail polish is still taking the back seat to other things these days. I've gotten through about half my stash with the wheels; I just need to photograph the wheels & get the pictures up here. I know it's not the same as swatching the colors on my nails, but it's the best I can do for now and it's MUCH faster than swatching on my nails. And they do actually give a really good idea of what the colors look like, so it's not a bad thing. I'll try to get pictures of the wheels I have done so far on here for you asap, but I can't make any promises when I can get to that! I will try to get the polish of the month picked and up some time today though.

Because I sure am!

Ready for what you ask? The beginning of the 2009-2010 NHL season of course! The season opens on Thursday, October 1st for the league as a whole. My own hometown team starts their season with a home opener on October 2nd. I am GIDDY!

What does this have to do with nails? Only this:




Now, I know... my NHL logo is not perfect. But I'm not very talented when it comes to drawing my own designs freehand (in my opinion... feel free to disagree with me at any time lol) AND compound that with the fact that your nails provide a tiny little "canvas" to work with... all things considered I think I did a dandy of a job.