Call Your Girlfriend

Oh I forgot to put this in my last post...

I've been listening to this song a lot lately. It is originally by a singer by the name of Robyn who apparently is really big in some places but I've never heard of her?? Super weird because I am a pretty big music buff, but anyways... A girl group from Sweden called Erato put up this AMAZING vocal cover of Call Your Girlfriend on youtube and boy is it impressive. To keep the beat they use little cups and play what I like to call "The Cup Game". My boyfriend and I keep this beat ourselves if we're bored at a restaurant and have non-breakable cups! I thought it was super neat that they put the two together. Did I mention that their voices are phenomenal and their harmonies are stunning?! Well, just listen for yourselves...




I wish I had this much coordination and talent!

I feel so damn nostalgic.

If you mentioned the words "Sally Hansen Nail Prisms" to a nail polish addict, they will most likely flip out and start going on about the ones they want or the ones they have. Now when I was young, I'd say maybe 12? I had a few of these and I used them a ton but I had no idea of their future value. I'm pretty sure I eventually threw them out when I grew out of my pre-teen nail polish phase. I rarely used nail polish in high school so little did I know what I had thrown out. Now a days, the Sally Hansen Nail Prisms are pretty highly sought after and some of the more popular/favourite ones are hard to find. It makes me feel like kicking myself in the butt thinking that I threw out some of them!

Well imagine my surprise when I stumble upon a random blogsale while browsing around on kijiji. This wonderful blogger just happened to have an almost complete collection of the prisms and was selling her back ups to make some extra cash. I jumped on the chance and picked up nine; she threw in the tenth as a gift. I was super excited and antsy waiting for my package but it finally arrived today! Of course I have pictures of their awesomeness, though these pictures don't capture their true colours as it is late and I'm using terrible artificial lighting. I will probably try to post actual pictures at a later date. Today I'm just too excited and want to get these up!

Sally Hansen Nail Prisms

These are Lapis Amethyst, Ruby Sapphire, Ruby Opal, Garnet Lapis, Lavender Opal, Emerald Amethyst, Golden Cinnabar, Turquoise Opal, Amber Ruby, and Platinum Plum. Here are some close ups. 

It was so exciting when the familiar golden lids came out of the package. They are all such gems. Each one more beautiful than the last. I attempted to take a picture of how beautiful they are on a nail wheel, but alas, my lighting has failed me once again. 

I hope that gives you a decent idea of just how pretty these are. There are far better watches out there which are super easy to find. My new pride and joy is the Turquoise Opal. I know that it is very popular amoung the lovers of these nail polishes so I am really going to treasure it! 

I have a lot of photos stocked up and ready to go on my computer so I expect to be posting more! For those who read this I hope you are excited as I have a few new beautiful things to show you and lots more on the way!! 

Ayley

Success!

So my choir had their very first concert of the season and it was a HUGE success! It was beyond amazing really... I felt so overwhelmed with happiness by the end of it that I was actually riding on a bit of a high. It felt so good to be back on a stage sharing my passion with the audience and the choral members around me! I seriously love every single person in my choir, which doesn't normally happy, so that makes it even better.

Oh and guess what?! Everyone nailed my choreography!! All I got were great reviews... not trying to toot my own horn, but just sayin! I think it all really came together. I feel extremely proud that I made up and taught all my own choreo with great patience and understanding. I've never done that before so it was a pretty cool experience.

I know I've been lacking on the blogging, I feel like I'm letting myself down. But, now that some of the hecticness is over (minus working overtime during the holiday season, OH and planning all of my choirs caroling) I should have more time to paint and take pictures of my nails. Except, my nails are a little sad right now. Whenever I break one I have to file them all down to that same length meaning they are little stublets right now. They feel absolutely terrible.

To make me feel better about my crappy nails I've been listening to this song... okay really it has nothing to do with my nails, I just freaking LOVE the song. It's this amazingly gorgeous piece preformed by Rajaton whom I love. Ever since I had the solo in butterfly for my graduation I've been hooked on their music. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!

The beauty of "ugly" greens.

I'm currently preparing myself for a nail polish order I should be receiving in early December. The polishes I've purchased will be my very first from Cult Nails, created by the lovely blogger, Maria Morrison. Everything about her polishes draw me in, from the unique and interesting colours, to her animal and vegan friendly products. Even the way she packages her nail polishes is awesome! They come on a bed of cotton balls, helping to prevent bottle breakage AND remove your old nail polish once hers arrive!

The polishes I've ordered are the hypnotic collection, as well as the new super powers collection which I'm splitting with a friend. Some how we liked the exact opposites of each other in the new collection so we are each taking two!

Now I say I'm preparing myself for the new polishes because while I love olivey green, I've never worn the colour before. In a Trance from the hypnotic collection is just that, a yellow/olive "ugly" green and is surprisingly one of the polishes I'm most looking forward to getting. When I say "ugly" I mean it is one of those "so ugly it is beautiful" colours. (I don't know how else to explain it) I always thought a colour like this would look pretty good on me. I have a warm olive skin tone that I think would compliment this specific shade of green, but I was never brave enough to try on the one polish I had purchased in this colour category. The polish in question is China Glaze's Peace on Earth from the 2010 holiday collection.

China Glaze Peace on Earth

China Glaze Peace on Earth

Unfortunately these pictures are making my fingers look a little red and my nails are nubs right now >.< ... I swear my skin is olive and this looks way better in person! The two colours (from what I can tell from internet swatches) are pretty similar but I will do a comparison when I have them both in my hands. The most noticeable difference I can tell for sure is the finishes. I'm not a HUGE fan of the finish on Peace on Earth. It is brush strokey and a little too thick for my liking. I'm excited about the slight shimmer finish of In a Trance and the lack of brush strokes in swatches!

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my easing in to this kind of colour. I'm very excited to try In a Trance and the other polishes I've ordered and I will finally be able to say I'm one of the Cult!!




Oh... and this is almost too good to be true but... there may be a gold lettered and number bottle of Unicorn Puke in my near future... AHHHHHHH!!!!! 

Money Now, Sleep Later!

This is going to be a super quick post as I need to get my butt off this couch and do some wii fit before heading STRAIGHT to bed!! Ugh. I hate having to work early in the morning. Oh well. Anyways, today I was downtown handing in the final papers for my application to esthetics school and happened to head over to one of my favourite cosmetic stores, Holt Renfrew. My amazing sales associate was holding the new Deborah Lippmann Stairway to Heaven for me as it FINALLY came into the store. Canadian stores always get things WAY after Americans. So not fair! My SA knows me so well that she also put a few other things aside for me knowing that I would immediately fall in love. Today she surprised me with the Deborah Lippmann Dance Music mini's and a polish I had never ever heard of, Money Now Sleep Later.

I was actually shocked when I first saw MNSL. How could something so beautiful not have caught my eye before? No one was talking about it on my favourite forum and google was at a loss for it as well! As soon as I got it I immediatley texted the one person I know who would be excited by it, the lovely Shayna who writes the awesome blog Polishjinx. She quickly called Holt Renfrew putting one on hold for herself (oh how I love enabling!) and found out that it's an exclusive, only available at Holt Renfrew and Barney's NY. Now normally I complain about all the exclusives that American stores get and how hard it is for us Canadians to obtain them, but us Canadians FINALLY get something cool and exclusive! WOO!

Here's a fast picture of the bottle and a small swatch. It's hard to capture the actual colour... it's really a shapeshifter. Try to picture a blue version of DL's Wicked game but better. Like a peacock in a bottle! I'm in love!

Deborah Lippmann Money Now Sleep Later

It's been soooo long!!

I feel horrible! I've been neglecting my poor blog. :( In my defense I've been super busy lately. Work, family, and friends are so time consuming! Not to mention my choir rehearsals and preparation for our first concert coming up on the 19th! I've had a little extra stress as I'm choreographing a few African songs that my choir is singing. It's not like we're doing crazy hard movements or a lot of real dancing. It's just that I have to put movements to  different rhythms for different singing parts. Sometimes up to 6 separate parts at once! Not only do I have to make all the dancing up, but I have to make it look good without looking overwhelming and I am no African dancer, so it can be very stressful. Then I have to attempt to teach these movements to 40 guys and gals who aren't necessarily the greatest dancers. They're doing great though and the pieces are really coming together!

Anyways, I haven't had tons of time to paint my nails over the past few weeks which is really disappointing. I've gone from painting my nails every two days to once and if I can squeeze it in, twice a week. I'm trying to make a point of getting back into my old nail routine as it is a stress release for me... we'll see how it goes. One of the manicures I did manage to fit in was with my absolute favourite nail polish, Scrangie. (Thank you so much to the lovely lady who gifted this gem to me! <3)

Rescue Beauty Lounge Scrangie

Rescue Beauty Lounge Scrangie

Rescue Beauty Lounge Scrangie

Rescue Beauty Lounge Scrangie

This is such a chameleon purple. I had to take quite a few photos in different lighting to get pictures of all the different shades of purple it turns. The under lying blue shimmer makes this polish come alive. It is totally me in a bottle.

 The application was pretty flawless. I found it a little on the thick side but I'm afraid of putting in the polish thinner I currently have. I picked up one a long time ago at Sally's Beauty supply and I'm not sure that it is really top notch. I'll have to investigate some better quality thinners before I try to fix the nail polish love of my life.

This is my first ever Rescue Beauty Lounge polish. I haven't been able to bring myself to purchase any from the website with such a steep shipping fee. >.< Oh well, this was my main lemming and I'll have to do some real investigation of colours before I attempt to make a full purchase!

Well, it's time for me to go to bed and finally sleep in after what seems like ages of working at 6 am. I'll leave you with a song my choir is going to be performing at our first concert. This is not Prairie Voices singing, but it's an awesome version!

The Texas ChainNail Massacre.

One of the main things I hate about my work is how intense it is on my nails. I'm constantly trying to prevent coming home with chips, peeling, cracks, and all that wonderful kind of stuff. Normally a good sturdy manicure helps to fix any possibility of this as nail polish gives my nails so much strength. Unfortunately yesterday was an exception. Although I had a beautiful Reggae to Riches manicure, my thumb nail cracked and cracked hard! I'm a girl who needs symmetry when it comes to her nails, so I ended up having to file my nails down to little stubs.

This always hits me a little harder than it should... when I was little I used to bite my nails so badly that they would bleed and constantly hurt. My nails were always past the quick and looked terrible. My dad used to tell me I had "boy hands" and it always made me so upset. No little girl wants to have boy hands! So when I was in my teens my mom let me get gel nails for a year. They were awesome, gel is so hard to bite through! :P But as most of you know, gels/acrylics are TERRIBLE for your nails. When taken off, my nails were a thin, peeling mess and I ended up having to start from scratch. I discovered nail polish as a way to make my nails harder and a way to make me stop biting. I never wanted to ruin such a pretty manicure!

Anyways, now when I have my nails short it reminds me of my little boy hands. I decided to make myself feel better by painting my stubs with one of my favourite polishes, Raindrops by Illamasqua.

Illamasqua Raindrops

Illamasqua Raindrops

Illamasqua Raindrops

I love the silver flakie sparkles in this polish. Props to the lovely lady who designed this with Illamasqua for their contest! Though most Illamasqua's are opaque in one coat, this one requires three to get the coverage you see. This is really the polishes only flaw, otherwise the application is a dream. 

I'm finding I like posting images similar to the third picture as it shows me a better view of how I applied the polish. I'm able to view the cuticle line a lot more. So excuse the thigh skin picture! :P

Now that I'm looking at these pictures, I'm sort of realizing that maybe my nails aren't THAT little after the nail massacre... but they still seem short to me! Grow nails... GROW!

Ayley