Welcome to The City of Desire.

Close to summer, actually. But here are two colors that are much more appropriate for the season than black and plum!

The pink crelly is Kristen's creation, Bonnibel. The mint green polish is mine. I'm calling it Faerie Wing. It has silver sparks in it!

Since I have no hands to borrow to swatch my polishes, I'm trying to do a better job getting close to the cuticle line in a neat curve. It's hard to get a good-looking cuticle line with darker polish, though...

Now, these two are mine! The light blue-gray pearl polish is called Blue Pearl and the blue confetti/glitter polish is called Leo's Painting. That's right, another Soul Blazer-inspired polish (the other being Saint Elles), ha ha!

Blue Pearl has a gold shimmer that doesn't really show up in photos.

Leo's Painting reminds me of those malted milk Easter Eggs, lol...

Aw, come on, man! I thought these guys were supposed to leave in the spring!




But if you don't think this is cute you have a heart of stone.

We had to deal with White Footed Mouse Apocalypse in our kitchen this winter, and now it appears some newcomers are trying to come in. Last winter we live-trapped and released seven mice (a mommy and her weaned babies) and over the past week Search Cat has alerted us to this guy and a large adult mouse who may or may not have been a pregnant female. Damn! We live on the edge of the woods, so this is kind of inevitable. I found a noticeable gap in the foundation of our house that I had better fill up with spray foam or something, lol...

This guy and the big lady(?) got a trip five miles away to a public park. As far as wildlife goes these mice are actually pretty sweet and innocuous in spite of their diseases and chewing behavior. They aren't bastards like birds and groundhogs. I hope we don't get any more, though!

When you have over eighty nail polishes and don't know what to try next, sometimes this happens.

The pink iridescent glitter polish is mine, the pale pink with the silver glitter topper is Essie Minimalistic topped with Luxe Effects in Set in Stones. Because Minimalistic was so damn streaky in three coats that I had to cover it up with something!

I'm calling my polish Rose Quartz, even though it isn't terribly imaginative. It has some texture, but I think it's still pretty wearable--meaning the glitter hasn't been catching on anything, ha ha! I put everything but the kitchen sink into this polish, provided that it was pink. I think there might be rainbow flakies in there, too, though...and silver holo shreds? I made this polish about two months ago, but I have the notes somewhere.

Maybe it would look better on longer nails, but I can't do long nails. I just can't!

I do love that warm pink color with the green shift.

I really love the color of this one. I had to mix two different greens together because blue-green tinted with cosmetic white looks really gray!

Good durability on this one, but it was pretty hard to remove. Damn those large hexes! But what an impact! And at least there was no staining!

It's normal to have to use 2 layers of top coat with a polish that contains large glitter, but I actually used 3 for this one--1 coat of Gel Setter and 2 coats of Speed Setter. Some people like textured polish. I love my polish to be smooth and glassy. I think that only 1 coat is mandatory, but in order for me to enjoy it I like to use 3. That would be a tough sell, but to each his or her own, I guess.

If only applying glitter nail polish were as easy as making it!

Actually, it does take a lot of trial and error to come up with a decent glitter polish, but I'm not terribly skilled at applying polish with chunky glitter and I know it. That's why I got butterflies stuck to the bottom of my nail, ha ha!

I'm glad this polish survived, because I really was inspired to do something with bright butterflies on a dark background. I call this polish "Mysterious Glitter," after the BGM in a particular event in Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song when you're chasing a red, glowing butterfly through a town at night that turns out to be the soul of a dead man. I know these butterflies are pink, but still...

If you're noticing a strong green shift to this polish, it's because I added a bit of pink/green mica to the suspension to take the edge off the black. Only the green interference shows up, lol...I think it looks pretty cool. I keep wanting to do off-black instead of black because I'm very pale with Soft Summer coloring and black polish does not flatter me at all.

I'm trialing another polish right now--blackened cobalt blue with electric blue micro flakies, and if it chips in twenty four hours I'm going to put my head through a wall. I only feel at peace with myself and the world if I'm wearing blue nail polish. If it fails it will be such a waste!

Here is a nail polish that ended up being very chip-resistant. I'm calling it "Fluorite," because it really reminds me of fluorite, lol...Please forgive the crappy manicure I did this time. I have a cold and I just slapped it on quickly because I wanted to see how it looked.

I probably should have shaken the bottle more to get a better distribution of glitter. Even if you use a glitter suspension base, you do have to shake it up a lot! I do like that pastel violet. I'm thinking I'll try to use it again as a creme polish without glitter and maybe put some blue shimmer in there.

It started out pretty sheer but it built up nicely with three coats. I used Essie Speed Setter as the top coat, and CND Sticky Base Coat underneath. Still can see a wee bit of nail line in there, but unfortunately if you want do a jelly or crelly and be able to see the different layers of glitter the polish has to be sheer enough to show them. Otherwise you end up with lumpy submerged glitter and a damn mess!

I actually have very small hands in real life, LOL...

This picture totally sucks, but it was the best I could do with an iPod touch and crappy lighting.
I call this nail polish "Frozen Dream." I do think it holds up to close inspection. Pretty durable, too. And it's blue!

If ten of my nail polishes pass my own personal test, I'm going to open up an Etsy shop yo!

EDIT: this is NOT supposed to be Frozen themed! But dammit, that sure looks like Elsa's dress!

Many apologies to anyone I left hanging when I quit posting for several months! We had a tough time with Booboo's recovery from dental surgery that I didn't really feel up to talking about (mostly because it was gross) and after that I just fell out of the habit of posting.

Nothing has really been going on around here other than minor drama. On the visual novel front I've been playing Shinigami to Shoujo for the PSP. I think it's a good game but it's fairly slow-paced and easy to put down and forget about for a few days. Also the font is very small. There are some similarities between it and Taisho Alice, and while it might not be as attractive of a game for casual players Shinigami to Shoujo at least doesn't indulge in vulgarity. I don't like it as much as Getsuei no Kusari, though. That game really hit my strike zone even though it apparently turned off a lot of players with its brutal realism. Ha!

I've got a rash on my neck right now that's driving me nuts. I haven't had an eczema flare-up there since 2007. I'm thinking it was caused by a hair product. Life sucks!

After 10 years of good luck and health my Booboo has to go under the knife, so to speak. His left incisor is loose and Thursday morning he has to have it pulled. Of course I am scared. He hasn't been put under since he was neutered at 10 weeks, and I didn't even have him yet. Aside from wellness exams he's never had to have anything done to him at all. I know I shouldn't be so ridiculously anxious, but it's in my nature. Poor Booboo. I hope we can wrap this up for him quickly.