Let's evacuate!! :D

We've got better information now, and the current projected path of the hurricane goes right over my house. Literally- look at the image!

However, you don't need to worry. My family and I will be perfectly safe. My dad built his house to be able to withstand hurricanes, and even during Katrina he only lost a couple of shingles. Not bad!

He's got a generator that will power the whole house and the air conditioning, so we'll even be comfortable if (when?) the power goes out. The worst part is listening to the weather as the hurricane passes, and that's not even that bad in his house thanks to all the insulation!

Now, our home may not do so well, but even it came through Katrina with no real damage to speak of. I'm crossing my fingers, and I'm fairly sure this whole thing will be a non-event.

Thanks for the well wishes, though! I appreciate it.

See you on the other side!

Anyone up for a hurricane party?

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Soon-to-be Hurricane Isaac

Original image from AccuWeather.com.

Well, now, this isn't good. As you can see from that little star on the map there, I'm gonna be affected by the coming hurricane. Oh, how fun.

Because of this, my family and I will be going to camp at my dad's house. He's got a wonderful whole-house generator that means we won't have to go without power even when the power goes out. That means we'll be able to sit in air-conditioned comfort there, instead of dying of heat stroke at my house. (Ok, it's hyperbole, shoot me.)

I may post a bit here and there, depending on ... well, stuff. We'll see, right?

Cross your fingers for me that I'll still have a home to go back to.

Hurricanes suck.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Jessica Fall 2012- Spicy Dream

Holy wow. Can I just say I'm in love with the Spicy Dream collection from Jessica? Seriously, I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love these polishes.

When I saw the flyer for this collection, I have to admit my first thought was, "Meh." Gee, more browns and bronzes. Yippee. That only lasted til I opened the box containing these sweet polishes, though, because even in the box I could see the texture that these polishes have! There are two creme polishes, a shimmer, and three gorgeous glitters.

Let's look at the cremes first. Crimson Tattoo is a red so deep it almost looks brown. This is my kind of red...rich and lush and dark. It makes me think of fall, and maybe of steamy activities better left to the imagination! ;)

Brown Sugar is a creme brown that's well named- it's the brown of brown sugar, like the gingerbread cookies that appear every winter. Both of these polishes are gorgeous on their own, but they make amazing bases for the glitters... but we'll get to those.

Next is the single shimmer of the collection- Cinnamon Kiss. This color? Omg. There are no words. This is the color that I bought and rebought for years, loving the deep red and the gorgeous shimmer. It's not terribly unique, but it sure is gorgeous. The first car I bought using my own money was this color!

I actually wore this color first, and loved the way it looks against my pale skin. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of it. I'm scatterbrained, apparently. It's gorgeous, but I made the mistake of applying it right before a bath, and soaked a bit too long. I don't know WHAT I was thinking!!

My favorite polishes of this collection are definitely the glitters, though. When I opened the box, I saw these and actually squealed in delight! The glitter in these is so incredibly fine that they're almost a foil finish. It was really difficult for me to figure out what to call these!

Champagne Bubbles is a very pale, almost white glitter, and I haven't tried it on the nail yet. Gingersnap is a golden/silver-leaning polish, and Pumpkin Delight is more bronzey/red.  Gingersnap and Pumpkin Delight both have a duochromey, color-changing feel to them that's really difficult for me to describe.

So, instead of wear these as they are, I knew I needed to layer these. I paired Crimson Tattoo with Pumpkin Delight, and let me just say that I am absolutely in awe of the finished look.

See what I mean about the color? It's so dimensional, and it looks simply magical on. I've gotten compliments wearing this too, people asking just what I'm wearing because they can't stop looking! It felt good to share the Jessica love!

If it will stop raining for a bit, I'll try to get outside and show you what this looks like in sunlight. It's definitely worth looking at. It's been so hard to photograph!

Since it's 3am, I'll go ahead and show you the rest of the photos and hopefully get to bed. But I had to share this with you... these colors are simply magical!

The Spicy Dream collection was provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Some sketchbook pages and an update

I worked on this page for quite a while over a span
of weeks. I think I'm happy with it? Maybe...

Whew, this last week or so has been a rough one. I'm not sure why, totally, but I think I may be fighting with a cold. When I get sick, the fibro pain tends to intensify, and I end up not good for much. I haven't even been journaling much, and my nails have been bare for two weeks or more. So sad.

So, in the interest of forcing myself out of my shell and writing a bit, I wanted to share a couple of images from my sketchbooks. This first one is in my tiny notebook, only 4" x 5.5".

I'd started out with the profile in the corner. I've been trying to learn how to draw pretty female faces, as I've written about before. This was an exercise in patience, as it took a lot of tweaking, erasing and redoing to come up with the finished sketch. Overall, though, I think she's a pretty one, and I actually really like the band in her hair. Small victories, yes?

Then there was this. I'm very interested in hand-lettering things, interesting ways to create letters. I found some interesting fonts (are they still fonts when they're hand-lettered?) in a book, so I sat down and played with them. It was fun.

Sorry it's been so quiet here. I'm hoping that when the weather cools off, I'll feel more like myself again. This summer has been a tough one, as usual.

I look forward to fall.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

A muted, fall design

Today's nail is something more simple, something less flashy than I usually wear. (I know, I know, but I don't ALWAYS wear super-bright neon glitter and spangles!) I was thinking of fall- sweaters, falling leaves, and the general feeling I get around the holidays.

This was a very simple design to do. I started out by mentally dividing the nail into two diagonal sections. I painted the bottom half in Zoya Noot, a deep rich grey creme color that I absolutely love. Then I painted the top section with Zoya Rekha, a deep burgundy creme. Both colors are from the Zoya Designer Collection for fall 2012.

I loved the two colors side-by-side, but I wanted to accent where they came together. To do this, I painted Jessica Wing It in connected swooshes across the join. Jessica Wing It is a lovely incredibly muted creme color from the Awakening Collection that accented the two base colors beautifully.

I liked the nail at that point, but felt it needed something else. At that point I reached for Zoya Elisa, a bright metallic red from the Diva Collection that really pops against the dark creme base colors. Unfortunately, this was the hardest thing to capture! My camera did not like the combination, so the photos I'm showing are the best I got from two sessions! Ah well... it happens.

I finished everything off with a coat of ProFX quick dry topcoat. My bottle is starting to get goopy, and thinning it isn't working so well. I think it's about time for a new bottle. Still, it's lasted nicely!

I'm really liking this combination of colors. I may have to wear something similar to this on my own nails soon!

What do you think? Would you wear this? Leave me a comment, tell me what you'd change on this one.

Polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Blue Dots Everywhere

Whee, I have more nail art for you! This one is deceptively-simple looking. It's easy to do, though, and I love the end result!

I started out with a base coat of Zoya Song. It's a gorgeous color, deep, rich, and metallic royal blue! Once that was done I was strongly tempted to leave it like this.

But no, I had plans for this. Once Song was dry, I painted the tip half of the nail in a slant using Jessica Sky High. It's a light-to-medium blue creme that looked gorgeous next to Song! To tie the two together, I added a stripe of Zoya FeiFei between the two.

The sparkling effect of FeiFei looked really nice between Song and Sky High, but I felt like the junction needed something else. So, I added a stripe of Jessica Barely Blueberry over FeiFei, so that there was a nice transition between them of light, dark, light, dark. Then I added a coat of Jordana Glitter in Lunar Lights over the lightest blue stripe, because you know I have a thing for glitter. :D


Don't get me wrong, I could have left it just like that. It would have been beautiful, but I wanted more. So, I pulled out my basic black and white nail art polishes (my white was White Canvas from Milani, and the black was a striper from the Dollar Tree) and added contrasting dots- white on the dark blue and black on the light blue.

I feel like the end result is whimsical and silly, but still not too overdone. (It takes a LOT for me to consider something overdone...) I love the big round dots, even if I do wish they'd been more consistent. I need more practice, clearly! But overall I think this could be a really fun look!

You could also do this look in any set of colors you like. I can see this with various purples, or monochrome in shades of grey. You could even do this with contrasting colors! (Note to self, do one of these in blue and orange...)

So what do you think? Cute, or junk? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.