Nerd Lacquer Giveaway

I know, I never post. I really need to get better about that, but I've been so busy I hardly remember that I even have a blog, let alone that I need to post in it.

Anyway, Emily over at Sassy Lacquer is having a giveaway for 4 Nerd Lacquer polishes. This is so incredibly generous of her, considering how hard it is to get your hands on NL polishes at the moment.

So scoot on over there to read the terms. (this link will open in a new window) You don't want to miss this.

Unicorn Puke Giveaway

So, I haven't posted in awhile. I'm hoping to fix that by actually taking pictures when I do something I want to share with people. Seems simple right?

Anyway, the reason I'm posting today is because one of my favorite nail polish bloggers is having a contest right now where she's giving away a bottle of Unicorn Puke from Cult Nails! The details are here if you're interested. It's a gorgeous polish and it's absolutely generous of her to give it away!

A giveaway!

Do you love shiny holo nail polishes? I have to admit that I don't have a lot of experience with them, but I have been known to try to make my own colors when I couldn't find what I wanted.

One of my favorite nail art bloggers, Blingernails, is having a giveaway for some China Glaze nail polishes and some powdered pigment called Spectraflair. I've seen her do some pretty amazing stuff with this pigment, and now she's giving some away to a lucky reader to celebrate having 100 followers!

So, if you're interested, go to this post right here, and enter.

Nails ahoy!

So, my last mani lasted so long that I actually had to remove it. It just wouldn't chip or peel or anything along those lines. I'm kind of amazed. I think that Seche Vite top coat might be my new favorite thing for my nails.

I soaked some cotton balls in pure acetone, pressed them lightly to my nails and wrapped my nails in foil to keep it from evaporating. Fifteen minutes later I had completely clean nails... no scrubbing needed. Awesome.

That brings me to the current nails: It's 1 coat of Gelous, 1 thin coat of Easy Going, 1 coat of Seche Vite, 2 coats of This Is It, 1 coat of Seche Vite, 2 coats of China Glaze Fairy Dust, and finally two coats of Seche Vite.

My husband-equivalent thinks that there needs to be some sort of contrast, but I haven't been able to decide what to do. I lack plates, so no stamping, but I don't know if I just want simple tips. Anyone have any ideas?

This whole painting extravaganza took about an hour and a half, mainly because I get super-cautious in between coats. I was also getting caught up on this season's Doctor Who episodes because for some reason I wasn't jumping to watch them when they were airing. I'd look down at my nails around the time an episode would end so I'd start the new one and do a coat or two, not think about it for about 15 minutes, do another coat or two. You get the idea.

About Doctor Who, I'm not really sure how I feel about the big reveal in regards to River Song's true identity. Maybe I'll be able to fully process the new information before the second half of the season airs.

I know I promised some reviews of two of the new series on ABC Family. I'll try to get them up soon, especially since there have been more than one episode of each show aired already. I need to get better about this.

I want to go out and play!

One of the things I hate the most about being unemployed is that I'm stuck in the house trying to amuse myself all day. Sure, I apply for tons of jobs, but honestly it doesn't take long to run out of job postings to respond to, so I spend most of the day just trying to kill time.

Most of the time I'm knitting while watching TV. It's productive, sure, because I get knitting projects done and this helps increase my wardrobe and bank of accessories. Lately I've been painting my nails a lot, and this gives me another creative outlet and as it takes time, it helps to fill out my day.

For instance, yesterday I did this:

Sorry it's blurry, but it turns out it's not all that easy to take a one-handed picture with my camera, but here's hoping I get better as I practice. At least you can see the sparkle.

If you're interested, I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White as a base coat, then one coat of Sinful in Innocent (lime-ish green). I put a thin coat of Seche Vite on to help it try and solidify it. Then I waited awhile I decided to do next.

I grabbed a bottle of Sinful (sensing a theme here?) in Let's Talk, which is the purple, and my Scotch tape. It's the Satin Finish Giftwrap Tape if you're interested....using Chloe's Nails method for scotch tape manis I did each finger separately and when I got to my right hand, I mirrored the slant of the purple, so on my left hand the purple is on the right side of my needle and on my right hand they are on the left side of my nail.

1 more coat of Seche Vite. Then 1 thinnish coat of China Glaze in Fairy Dust. Then 1 more coat of Seche Vite et voilà they are done and super strong. I was tapping my nails on the table just now and they almost sound like I have acrylics. I'm planning on keeping these at least until tomorrow so I can show my knitting group tonight.

Speaking of knitting, I've been doing a lot of test knits lately. I have a tab of my Ravelry projects page if you want to see them all, but I'm a little light on photos at the moment. That should change in the next few days. I've got a pair of socks on my needles for Sock Knitters Anonymous as well. I feel sorta overwhelmed crazy about the number of WIPs I actually have right now and I'm going to use this blog to keep me accountable for getting them all done. Expect pictures.

Lastly, television. I'm working my way through the last season of Angel on Netflix Instant during the days while I'm knitting, and I'm mildly enjoying it, but it's really not the same can of beans as Buffy, which I did enjoy quite a bit.

Look for reviews of a couple of new series on ABC Family: Switched at Birth and The Nine Lives of Chloe King. I'm writing those up right now and at least one will be up sometime tonight.

I'm alive! I swear!

Wow, it has been a really long time since I've posted.

Let's see, since my last post I finished my Master's degree in French and moved back to where I was living before I went to graduate school (didn't see that latter part coming, but I'm very happy to be back).

I've gotten very involved with some local knitting groups, so I'm spending a lot of time with them, knitting like a fiend, watching TV (which I do as if it were my career), and various and sundry activities. On that front, I'm leaning towards doing some knitting pattern design and maybe starting a video podcast on said subject. More research is needed on that though, as I have only a little knowledge of the web-hosting needs end of the whole deal.

I'm going to make a better attempt at reviewing television shows and sharing news. I watch enough of it, I really should attempt to write about it. I like writing. It sorta makes sense to put the two together.

Weirdly enough I'm also finding myself playing with cosmetics. I've gotten really into Sweet Libertine mineral eyeshadows and I'm doing a lot of color experiments with them. Nail Art has also become a nearly rabid hobby. I paint my nails in some new crazy manner almost every day. Heck, last night I spent several hours reading posts from Chloe's Nails, mainly out of curiosity but I was quickly taken in by all the cool products and tricks that weren't around when I was in high school and in the middle of the nail polish kick.

In fact, I'm about to hit my nails with some polish remover and do something crazy with them in the morning. Any suggestions?

Coming soon: Pictures of my manicures! Pictures of my knitting works-in-progress! Reviews of TV shows, especially new shows! Gratuitous usage of exclamatory punctuation! Stay tuned...

I-Cord Cat Bed of Doom!

If you've read my blog before or encountered me on Plurk or Ravelry, you know that I'm a participant in the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry. I've just completed my first term, and I love it so much that I just enrolled for my second.

(P.S. if you think you might be interested in such fun, mosey on over to the Rav group and sign up. It's tons of fun, and you get so much knitting done!)

Anyway. Each term there are class selected, and each month of a term, there are assignments for those classes. One of them this term was Herbology.

The February assignment for Herbology was to create something that involved at least 1 yard of i-cord. For those of you who are not knitters or crocheters, i-cord is the devil, and most of us fibery folk would rather run and hide than to make it. There were lots of fantastic projects that used an insane amount of the stuff.

I, myself, made a hat that had a decorative i-cord trim, and I'm pretty happy with the results, even if I have know other use for this hat than to humiliate my cat, Nuisance, with it.

My original idea for this assignment, however, was to process and entire Lion Brand Pound of Love into i-cord and to knit it into a Grandmother's Favorite Dishcloth. Obviously I wouldn't be using it as a dishcloth, but I thought it could be something that Nuisance would enjoy curling up on. But, we were prohibited from using an i-cord mill, so I put aside the idea.

Well, now that we're on "April Break" between winter and the spring/summer terms, I decided to finish this project, both because I liked the idea and because I really wanted to get rid of my Pounds of Love.

I discovered that one Pound of Love isn't enough for this project. I need most of a second ball, so I have an interesting two-color effect. I knit up the resulting i-cord on US 15 needles and used my fingers to weave in the ends. Here's the resulting hugeness

I think Nuisance approves.