Santa & The Unicorn Princess...

(Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.) Keeping up with a nail blog is harder than I thought. Especially when you have other areas of your life that are demanding more of your attention these days.

I'm trying though. I may procrastinate and almost-but-not-quite bother to make posts on a fairly regular basis, but every week or two, I let the guilt of letting down my legions of loyal fans get to me, and I finally upload all my pictures and edit them in Photoshop (oh, God, even just describing this process is exhausting...), and then come here and write some amazingly clever post that leaves you all in googly-eyed awe for the rest of the day, because my posts are just so worth the wait...

So anyway, let's get right down to pictures.

First up, we have a layered mani that I did... uhh... a while ago. But not too long ago. After I got my Clarins 230. Which was right around the same time that I got my first Kleancolor haul. And as soon as I saw Kleancolor Neon Purple next to Clarins 230, I knew it was Unicorn Princess love forever.

 

With flash. This is the most accurate picture of the bunch, color-wise. Can you see why I wanted to pair these colors?

Without flash.

A different angle, to show off some of 230's rainbowy goodness.

Then I was like, "Well, a Unicorn Princess would probably have, like, glitter too, right?", so I added a coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell.

Holyglitteringunicornprincessofdoom!

This picture kind of makes me lose my mind with unicorn-induced euphoria. So many colors.

One thing I noticed that I didn't anticipate is that adding the Chunky Holo Bluebell kind of obscured the Clarins when viewed from an angle. From straight on, I could still see the reddish shimmer, but at an angle, all I saw was the Kleancolor. So that was kind of sad.

Still, it was kind of nice look. I think if I was going to do this manicure again, I'd probably skip the Chunky Holo Bluebell (even though I think it's very pretty--especially in the bottle *drools over that picture again*), and I'd only do one coat of 230 over the Neon Purple instead of two. Two coats was pretty, but it turned the Neon Purple darker and gave it more of a red tone than I had really wanted. Plus I spent sixty dollars on that bottle of polish, and I fully intend to make it last!

And, because it's already five days after Christmas (and eight days after Yule--and I flaked out on BOTH holidays this year!), I figure I should probably post my holiday mani.

I was originally planning on doing all ten fingers with Kleancolor Metallic Red and a coat of OPI Fresh Frog Of Bel Air, but like, two days before Christmas, I painted my nails with Kleancolor Silver Spark and decided that I liked it's simplicity so much that I was only going to do a single holiday accent nail. This mani pretty much summed up my feelings about the holidays this year.

Okay, guys, everybody squeeze in for a group shot! Silver Spark, stop making that face!

Here's me during the holidays this year: Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Oh, it's Christmas today? Blah.

A close up of my accent nail. My dad and his girlfriend kind of loved this nail, I think. It makes me so happy that they get excited about my manicures.

Let me just say this: Kleancolor Silver Spark is a BITCH AND A HALF to remove. Foil method next time, for sure. I didn't think I'd need it, but dang was I wrong.

I dunno. Much like the actual holidays this year, I don't have much to say about this mani. It happened. That's about it.

I've got more manis to post, but, to be totally honest, I hate editing pictures to get them ready for posting, and two mani's worth of pics is all I'm willing to edit in one sitting. But just know that there are more where these came from...

Anywho, I'm running out of steam. It's been a long year, and I'm kinda tired tonight. Hope you all had a happy Yule/Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Festivus/whatever, and that you all have a safe and happy New Year's!

For 2011, Aren OUT!

The Fact That There Are Christmas Themed Pringles Containers Already Is Killing My Soul.

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH.

I just wrote a kind of medium length entry about how I've been dealing with depression for the past few months, and how there's a lot of stressful stuff going on in my personal life right now, and how I feel like that plays a big part in me not having the motivation to update my blog more often, and I added a whole bunch of pictures, and then Blogger ATE IT.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!??!??

(Sigh.)

Fine. I'll upload all the stupid pictures again. And come up with captions for all of them. Again. But I will not retype the post. I have my limits.

...I hope you really appreciate what I'm dealing with for you right now. No. Really.

*groans*

Okay, soooooo. Here:

To make up for not posting very often, here are a whole bunch of pictures in one post. We'll start with some old ones that my Facebook friends will probably recognize from my "I Love Nail Polish" album:

First up, a little snowman I did last winter, using just the nail polish brushes and a toothpick for the eyes, nose, and buttons. Unfortunately, I decided to wait several days before snapping this picture, and you can see how beat up it is. Still cute, though.

This picture was actually taken to show off my then-brand-new Bamboo Pen & Touch, but it features one of my very favorite polish combos: OPI Ate Berries In The Canaries and OPI Sun-body Loves Me!

My very first go at stamping using my Bundle Monster plates. I let my boyfriend pick the colors and design. He said he wanted it to look like a creamcicle.

He was a good sport and let me stamp his nail, too. I decided to play to his masculine side with a tiny tribute to bacon.

My first--and only--attempt at sponging. Not very pretty. Maybe I'll try it again someday...

I believe this was my second attempt at stamping. Plus freehand tips.

Oh my God, my cuticle line in this picture kind of makes me want to vomit. Still, this was one of my favorite stamped manis. The green really popped in real life.

I have a LOT more old pics, but I'm gonna save some, because I'm probably gonna need to to another of these picturebomb catch-up posts in the future...

So, on to more recent things!

A kind of lazy Halloween mani using this years Wet n' Wild Fantasy Makers polishes in Black Magic and Spooky Pumpkin. Again, I waited until I was ready to take the polish off to snap the pics, so it's looking a bit rough here.

This is the mani I actually wore on Halloween. I was thinking out loud about what I should do, and my boyfriend suggested bats on an orange background, so that's what I did. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed with a coat of Wet n' Wild Fantansy Makers Spooky Pumpkin, and the bat stamps from my Bundle Monster plates.

Oh, Clarins 230. You whore. <3

And lastly, and certainly leastly, I figured I'd throw in a shot of yours truly, doing what yours truly does best: Not knowing what the crap she's doing.

This is how I roll...

Okay, then. I hope throwing all these pictures at you was enough to make you forget that I'm a crappy blogger. Come back next week. Maybe there will be more words and pictures to look at or something.

Okay, I Can Die Happy Now. (Except Not Really.)

Someone *coughcough* got her bottle of (♪♫ daa-da-da-da-da-da-daaaaaa! ♫♪) CLARINS 230 today!!!

Mmmmmsorainbowy. ^___________^

Unfortunately, no pics in this post. I know, I know, super boring. It's been really shitty and overcast lately, and indoor lighting just doesn't do my precious justice, so on the next sunny day, I'll snap some pics.

 But I'm so excited, you have no idea.

A special thanks goes out to my friend, Lindsey, who actually placed the order for me, and with whom I'll be going in on a 48 piece Kleancolor haul tomorrow. Yeah, that's right. Twenty four brand new colors each. Ohmygodicantwait.

And that's in addition to the three polishes I ordered on Amazon the other day.

So I guess I really am gonna have to stop slacking, 'cause I've got a butt-ton of swatching to do soon. And I should probably stop spending money on nail polish for a while, too, before I go completely broke.

Anywho, I'm just all stoked about my new shinyshiny and wanted to share my deep and everlasting joy with the rest of you.

That is all.