NOTM | Metallic + Neon

Howdy!

I feel the need to say that this post could be a really long! So, it’s probably best you get comfortable in your seat because you may be here for a while.

Two years ago, my nana was living in the nursing home that my mom works, but unfortunately she was not able to stay there because of money so she went up north to live with my Aunt Laurie and Uncle Mike. The drive there is about four hours, and it’s a lot for one person who isn’t use to being in a car for that long! If you have wondered why I haven’t been talking about my regular holiday crafts or shenanigans with her, this is the reason why. At the time, I thought I would write a post about the transition but I couldn’t get myself to do it, so I’ve been rather quiet about the subject in general.

And then… I got a message from my friend Brittany, whether or not if my mom would allow her to take me up there for a surprise reunion. I was excited by the possibility of seeing everybody again, but extremely nervous because of opening old wounds but when my mom came in saying that it was okay, I was so freaking happy! The really mean part about this was that Brittany, Laurie, Mike and I had to keep it a secret from the rest of my family for three days! What was funny though was I pulled what Brittany did to me the night before the Five Finger death Punch concert in 2016. On Friday, my nana sent me a funny video and even though I had no plans of talking to her before the surprise, I just kept chatting to her through Facebook and I ended it the way I always do with “love and miss bunches” knowing she had no idea what was going to happen the very next day!

Our family is known to pull great surprises! It started with my Uncle david and then it went to his son, my cousin Chris, who I think perfected it that everybody has it embedded in their heads! Somehow the torch was passed to Brittany and I, and it was great! My nana and Chris’s wife Amber cried! And yes, we got their reactions on video too!

After we surprised my nana though, we had about an hour and a half to kill before everybody showed up, so I had some crackers because I got motion sickness in the car, thanks to my damn nerves! And I don’t know what made me ask this question, but it just came out of my mouth. I asked nana if she had any nail polishes and while I was there, if she could paint my nails for me. I think it made her feel good to be able to do this again. She even remembered to put the napkin underneath my fingers so we didn’t ruin my shirt!

My Aunt Laurie had some really interesting colors in her collection, but I went for one Halloween-ish color and some metallic polishes too.

Let’s focus on my hands first; they are usually the most complicated to do because of the way they are placed. Since I am not able to unbend my elbows, I can’t just hold out my hands for her. Instead she has to come closer to me to be able to reach them. A lot of the times, we miss sections of the nail itself or they get upper part of the skin and she has to use her finger or Q-Tip to wipe it off. I always feel like she’s giving me the “nana touch” when this happens though, so I usually try to keep her from trying to fix it.

Once we finished with the fingers, we took a little break for both of our sake’s because while this was going on, I’m pretty sure we were holding our breaths the whole time! We needed a quick breather before moving on to the toes. At least the toes would easier for her because I could easily move my feet wherever she wanted to have better access to them.

For this, I thought it was only right to have this neon green color, as my crazy /Halloween flare. I knew I was going to use it, there was no way around it! What was neat about was that since it was a vibrant hue that we only needed one coat! Honestly, all three of them were like this, so that pretty was handy! Anyways, my nana had less mistakes when it came to the toes and even though it was weird to have polish back on my nails after so long, there was nothing more cuter than the reaction on my nephew’s face when it realized my toes were green two days later!

Everytime I go on a trip, whether it was long or short, I always wish for more time. This was no different. I truly miss because around my nana everyday, but I know how much she enjoys being there with my other family members, they take really good care of her and I feel like it would be selfish of me to linger on the separation. I have to be supportive of where she is now, and we respect that we both have other things going on but when we have a free moment, we can talk about things on Facebook. I don’t think it will take another two years for us (or any of my family members) to get together again, I refuse to accept that reality. However, we may have to wait until spring to make it happen though!

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How do you like my nails for October? What is the longest you have went without having fingers or toes painted? Let me know below!

Nail Polish Haul

Howdy!

As I mentioned in my last Christmas post, I have so many nail polishes that I got as presents that I ended up putting them in a separate post! I have a total of 17 polishes between the two brands I was given!

 Wet n Wild:

I guess Blondie wanted me to get into the package without any issues because they were absolutely no plastic on the items when I unwrapped it. They probably did that to be able to lay the DVD on top! The whole set is a bucket with toe dividers and a nail filer! I actually won’t use the dividers because I can spread out my toes on my own, one of the perks of using my toes to grip everything! I also gave the filer to my nana since she tends to use those more than anyone in our family!

The polishes that came inside the bucket are all “solid” colors. She managed to find a set of polishes without any glitter, which seemed lucky because everytime I see these things they always put a couple of glittery ones! Another thing that puzzled me was that they never put a clear polish to help the others set on your nails because I know everybody says that the colors doesn’t chip off so easily once you apply the top coat.

My nana is really into pink and nude shades so these four were right up her alley! I think my favorite of this batch is the first one on the left, it’s called “Wet Cement” and the first thing my nana called it when she pulled it out of the bag was “concrete” which means the same thing, right? It’s a nice gray that isn’t too dark or light, it’s a nice medium. I’m actually planning on using that one with the one right next to it and that is called “Undercover”, it’s a dull pink; not obnoxious or anything, very subtle. The next is what I consider a true “nude” shade, its name is “Private Viewing” and this might be used more by my nana because she tends to be gravitated towards them by some reason! Lastly, we have the lone baby pink called “Sugar Coat” which just sounds cute! My mom thinks this would be good to wear at my sister’s wedding this summer!

These might be used the least between the two of us. Out of all of the polishes though, these three have clever names! I actually love figuring out what companies call each one, because some can fit them like a glove or not.

The purple-ish shade is called “Through the Grapevine” and even though this picture is a bit blurry, it does show the color as a lighter purple, I think it has hints of pink. I wouldn’t consider it as a grape color, because I think they’re darker most of the time but this was actually my dad’s favorite! Next is of course a ruby red, the title on the back is “I Red A Good Book”. I always categorize a deep, almost bloody red as a seductive color! I don’t know why, but I just do! And finally the last in the package is “I Need A Refresh Mint” and this is another one that I feel doesn’t fit its name right, mostly because when I think of mint as a color, it’s always a light green.

According to my nana, these polishes are very smelly! She said that if it wasn’t so cold on the day she painted her nails, she would have needed all of her windows down. So I might have to resort to having one of my parents paint my toes!

Secret Lace:

These were the set of polishes that my Aunt Laurie and Uncle Mike got me for Christmas. They came in a cute, baby pink pouch that zips up in the top and honestly we could stuff the others in it because once I took out the plastic that had them standing in the middle so you could look all around at the different shades, there’s a lot more room to store more of them inside!

Unfortunately, these polishes did not provide names on the back or the label, so I’m forced to describe them to the best of my ability, so forgive me! It also has more than the 7 colors I was given in Blondie’s present.

These are the bold colors, they all tend to look good for fall/winter but they are all genuinely gorgeous! Okay, we’re going to start from left to right again.

This one is a black, I think. It has some glittery notes throughout but it’s not bad. I think we’re going to have to try it out to see what it exactly is for sure! The next is a true royal purple, this might be another favorite of my dad’s if I ever get a chance to wear this year! We both love our purples, but I tend to draw the line at the lavender shades! It looks like a navy blue in this picture but it is definitely a purple! Anyways, next is a yellow shade. My nana already has a nice, bright yellow but this looks has a light mustard-y hue to it.

And next is a “white” shade that has a tint of blue/gray/green inside it. It’s not totally white, there’s something in it giving a different tone altogether we’re just not sure what it is yet! I think everybody’s in agreement that this next polish is the most interesting one, it has a copper and burnt orange effect to it! It could be a good fall shade to wear! The next is a very deep red, I think it would better to consider this one a bloodier shade of red than the previous!

These were the four glittery polishes! Last year, I found a nice gold, glittery polish from Sally Hansen and it has the shiny notes throughout the actual color, it’s not actually glitter speckles sprinkled in the formula like these are, and honestly these are the hardest to remove despite the fact they make your nails look pretty!

I realize now I should have added this first color along the other solid colors but I had a whole system that kind of got messed up whenever I took these pictures, so anyways it’s here with these guys instead! It does have some glittery essence to it, but not like the other three beside it. It is a nice, ocean-y blue that my nana might use throughout the summer! And then we have pink glitter, if you hold it to the light the pink looks like a purple, so it can be confusing on what it actually is! The other two are very easy to figure out. You have a nice gold glitter that might add some pop to the other yellow polish, same goes with the blue glitter as well!

What colors do you like out of the 17 polishes I have listed above? Are you Team Bold or Team Glitter?

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What I Got For Christmas 2016

Hello!

I know I’m late and instead of repeating myself, I’m just going to move on and talk about what I got for Christmas anyways!

We celebrated a day early which is something we never do, but some of us had to work on the actual holiday so we had our fun the day before! Honestly, the whole weekend was a bit of a blur! I wouldn’t be surprised if I miss one or two things!

Last year, my dad was really sad that Blondie wasn’t at home Christmas morning opening her presents with the rest of us. So after Brandon got off work that Saturday afternoon, they came to the house before making their way to nana’s house. We opened our presents from each other there. Chipper and ChiChi went first, ChiChi got her favorite bag of treats and a brand new bed, while Chipper just got a huge stocking of chew toys! He wasn’t there maybe five minutes and he had broken into one of the toys!

We were forced to open our big presents first. Blondie and Brandon got a Keruig and I got a printer, which I’m amazed by it because that was definitely not on my list, nor have ever mentioned to anyone that I wanted one! Later, my mom told me that it was dad’s idea. I understand why he wanted to get it for me, mostly for my project but… it was a bit of a shock for me to say the least!

Moving on to what my sister got me, she had called nana’s house earlier in the week. I told both nana and mom, “well, I know it’s not for me because she never wants to talk to me” and it actually was for me! She was asking about nail polishes and she was going to buy the set I had included in my Christmas wishlist but she found another one instead! What was so interesting though was what she had put on top of the bucket they all came in, she used three rubber bands to attach Beauty and the Beast DVD!

After seeing these which pepped me back up a bit, I went back to the ones “Santa” got me! I went to the DVD and CD shaped presents first and I discovered I got my first Asking Alexandria album “From Destiny To Death” and then I found out how I only received one CD, but that’s okay because I’ll be buying more here soon! Anyways, I unwrapped a DVD that made me scream and no, I’m not joking! Chipper even freaked out and almost knocked me down as he came over to check on me! My mom and I can’t find Bad Boys on TV anymore (where it has the cuss words included) and it sucks! Well, I got them now! I actually still have the second on my part of the DVR.

The next thing I opened was a stack of different things. I got my fourth or fifth Five Finger Death Punch shirt, two different candies, and the third DVD I received was Olympus Has Fallen that my mom had tricked me the day before! She had asked in the car driving back home which one we already had and she said they bought London Has Fallen again! And then while I was unwrapping this I kind of sat and thought to myself like, “she tricked me!” One of the last things I got were two packages of candies! I got some sour gummi worms – I’m a happy camper!

Now when we went to my nana’s house! The first thing I remember opening was the present I remembering spotting while we were making the chocolate bark. You never grow out of looking at what’s underneath the Christmas tree! And even though I sort of found out what my nana got me was a book, I had to connect the dots and I realized she got me this dream book that we saw in one of her holiday magazines. I didn’t think she needed to get me anything because she’s been giving me money from all of the chores I do for her whenever I come over, but she saw this and thought I needed it. Everybody is in love with it!

After going through hers, I moved on to what Laurie and Mike got me and I got another set of pretty nail polishes, except these were smaller and had glittery shades! I’m going to publish a haul tomorrow of all of the polishes I got so keep an eye out for that! I also got some nice Christmas tree socks that have aloe inside them! They’re very cozy! Lastly, they got me a white fuzzy blanket that has “Let It Snow” and baby blue snowflakes all around! It’s very warm, I now have 3 blankets on my bed now but I don’t care!

I also got some gift cards but I decided not to show those off, sorry! It was a pretty good Christmas. Very different and maybe bittersweet but still fairly good all things considered!

What did you get for Christmas? What was your number one favorite gift?

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NOTM: Holiday Nails!

Howdy!

As you might’ve seen, I didn’t necessarily have a post for Thanksgiving but in my defense I wanted to, I literally had the colors picked out in my mind but the whole month of November sort of went by faster than I think any one of us thought it would!

I knew I needed to get my finger nails trimmed, so my nana ended up doing a few of my toe nails too! At the end of the visit, we had some free time and I asked her if she could paint my toes. She said yes and we went all out for the festive colors! I know I usually talk about the different brands of polish we use but I know for a fact that I’ve used all of these before, so I’ve decided to not go into that again. Sorry!

However, I do want to discuss why I wanted to go all Christmas-y with my toes!

I like to scroll through Pinterest and look at the different designs you can do on a person’s finger nails and of course I see the designs and doubt that I would ever be able to create something like that on any one of my toes, but I did want to try it out and my nana was open to doing something a little out of the box! We’re used to doing mismatch colors on each toe so in a way, it wasn’t that big of a deal!

I knew she had a dark green polish and I thought it would be a perfect tree color, even if it turned out like a Halloween emerald! We had to add two coats to make it look as close to the shade on the bottle. After that, we left the big toes to dry and then we moved onto the others and I decided to keep the theme as best to my ability and chose both a royal blue and red polish. As those began to dry we went back to the big toes and added some special things and this was where I got to do the small details!

I used a toothpick and stuck it into the sparkly gold polish and I tried to make a line in the middle of my toes to represent tinsel. This was easier said than done! After that, I figured that it would be smart to pick bright colors for the bulbs that you place on the tree so my two original colors were a lavender and bright yellow. I did the purple first because I knew that would show up with one coat, unfortunately my yellow wasn’t a good idea. When I went to place a yellow polka dot on the opposite side of the toe, it wouldn’t show up with just the one coat so at the last minute we switched it out with the purple again and there you have it! A mini Christmas tree painted on my toes!

What do you think of my nails? This was my first try and I am doing it with my own toes, so please don’t be mean in the comments! 

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Fall Nail Polishes

Hello again!

Back in May, I wrote a post about my favorite spring nail polishes! Now I’m back with my second post discussing some fall colored polishes!

If you guys and gals don’t know, I don’t get my nails professionally done. I’m super ticklish and unfortunately with my condition Arthrogryposis, I can’t move my hands much less my fingers out enough for somebody to give me a fresh coat of paint. Luckily for me, I don’t have to go without getting my nails painted because my nana loves doing them for me! She also has a lot of patience too! Every color is in my nana’s collection and in a matter of three years or so, we’ve consumed a lot! Sometimes I can’t be trusted in the beauty sections at the store! I’ve had family members try to redirect my attention somewhere else, that’s how bad I’ve become lately!

I’ve sort of upgraded to 11 bold colors that I felt represented autumn for myself! I wanted to wear very bright, pastel-y shades in the spring and summer; now that we’re heading into fall and winter I like to wear a lot of darker colors and this is no exception! So let’s get right into it!

Milani 

This time I wanted to separate them out a little bit more, so each batch of polishes are divided into their own sections. So beginning with the brand Milani surprisingly my nana a few of these little bottles!

26 “Quick Teal”

Despite the orange shades in this post, this one is the only bright color of the bunch! I actually added it for a reason. Just because I prefer dark shades for fall and winter, doesn’t mean I can’t add a pop of color sometime! However, I’ve never tried this shade so I can’t tell you how many coats you have to put on to get that color of the bottle. I do think it’s a good color to have if you’re like me and wear black and browns a lot during the colder months!

581 “Lavender” 

Here’s what is so interesting about this one. I am not a fan of glitter-y polishes, mostly because they are such a bitch to remove if you had to put on more than two coats. Also, I’m picturing lavender as a very light shade and this isn’t light at all. It’s more of a royal tone and that’s the reason why I put it onto this post, because I am a lover of darker purples than lighter.

99 “Blackberry Baby”

The first thing that popped into my head when I grabbed ahold of this bottle was that it looked like a burgundy shade of red. It’s very dark, in ways “seductive” as the normal bright red tone, but on the sides of the container it has little glittery notes. I’m not entirely sure if that’s the bottle reflecting the kitchen light off of it or if it does in fact have glitter inside it.

46 “Black Magic”

As I wrote out the name and number of the black polish on the right, I kept picturing Emilia SacconeJoly singing part of the chorus of Little Mix’s song “Black Magic” in my head.

Anyways, yes my nana has a black polish in her cabinet and surprisingly enough, she is the one who bought it! She’s only used it a handful of times, but she has had black nails, but I haven’t, which is shocking considered my reputation! I think I would wear it if I could figure out how to take away the glare, I want a matte shade of black than anything else!

Pure Ice and Wet & Wild:

These were the only two polishes that I chose that obviously don’t belong to the same brand. Both of these polishes were given some legendary names I have to say! Again, we’ll be starting from left to right again!

775 “Frosted Ice Celestial”

This one I feel like is more in the late fall and early winter category than anywhere else! The Teal from the beginning belongs in this post than this one does, but I liked the royal shade of it and it did remind of the last bit of November and the months after! Like with the Blackberry Baby this one also produces some glossy effects from inside the bottle. Whether or not, it’s from the flash of my camera is totally another story!

206 “SaGreena the Teenage Witch”

I’m not joking, that is the name of this emerald color of polish! Trust me, I had to do a double take while I was writing it out! I thought it was so cute!

This symbolizes Halloween for me, along of course with the orange polishes I selected down below, but this is a very mysterious color. It’s not bright like in a happy sense as to the one I included in the spring collection, but this is more, the only way I can describe it as if a stranger–a mysterious woman walked around a dark corner trying to tantalize a man or woman; like a spider does with prey! Sorry for the crappy metaphor, I really tried!

Sally Hansen

As you might know if you’ve read my previous Nails Of The Month posts, my nana and I are big fans of Sally Hansen! We have tons of different versions of polishes and you can clearly see that here in this line.

150 “Sun-Kissed”

I have added two different shades of orange onto this post, one is lighter, whereas this one is the bold, in your face, pumpkin shade of orange that we all sort of gravitate towards at this time of the year! I like the title as it does remind me of the Sun Kist drink that I no longer drink!

136 “Go For Gold”

This was one of the last colors I had on my toes! I want to say maybe July?! I think so. Anyways, this is another one like the Frosted Ice Celestial that I feel like it doesn’t necessarily belong in the autumnal category, despite the fact that people do consider gold as a fall stable sometimes, I wouldn’t say a sparkly shade of gold would fit for this, but still I had to add it into the post!

375 “Gone Grey”

This title made me think of both the “Gone Girl” and “Fifth Shades” books!

You’re probably wondering why I wanted to put a gray shade into this post. Well, honestly I think gray is neutral color that basically fits any season except for maybe summer! It has more of a slick look to it that I really liked for the whole feeling of fall for me!

470 “Unbreakable Heart”

This one ultimately belongs on the winter part, but I also had to remind myself of both apples and cinnamon, it has a kind of warmth quality that I am, well everyone looks for during the start of the colder months! October and November has hints of orange, yellow, brown, red and sometimes a dark shade of green too! So I couldn’t leave it out completely!

460 “Snappy Sorbet”

Lastly, we have this light shade of orange. Even though, it has more of a coral look to it! It’s not in your face as maybe my Junior prom dress did (I looked like a big ole salmon!) in 2009 but I think it’s still a good fall inspired color! If you’re missing the summer, this is a good shade of both pink and orange you can wear for the start of fall!

So what do you think of these colors? What represents fall to you?

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