Nail Polish Review: A Girl Obsessed

Once upon a time my good friend Lacey of My Boyfriend Hates Makeup fame introduced me to this really groovy chick who wanted some graphic work done for her business Facebook page. This is how I met Samantha of A Girl Obsessed.

So in exchange for a couple custom made banners (and insert shameless plug here: if you’d like a custom banner of your own, just let me know!) I got my first AGO polish. And I couldn’t be happier.

I chose Berries and Cream. Right now I am seriously enamored with white jelly polishes. I mean serisly.

Unfortunately my macro shot does not do this justice. As you can tell it is extremely blurry. But I can’t retake… My battery died on my camera. Pfft. Anyways. Berries and Cream is, like I said, a creamy white polish with large hot pink glitters, deep fuchsia hex glitters, deep turquoise mini hexes and a ton of micro glitter. It is chock full of all my favorite colors lol

 

Here it is at two coats, a coat of Gelous and a coat of Out the Door. Completely smooth. You can’t even feel the big dots. Which are super easy to fish out, btw.

I seriously dig how white glitter polishes work. I can’t wear regular white polish, but when you add glitter to it. EHRMERGERD!

Here’s a somewhat out of focus macro shot of Berries and Cream. It’s so freaking PRETTY I COULD DIE!!!!!!!!!!

At this time it doesn’t appear that Sam’s store is open while she’s changing shifts and getting things settled. But again, I’ll be sure to let everyone know when it does open up!

Nail Polish Review: Cosmos Lacquers

I’ve got some awesomely talented friends. I mean seriously. I don’t think any girl has friends that are as awesomely talented as mine. You might think you do, but you don’t. Not in the slightest!

One of my good friends is venturing into the murky waters of Indie Polish making. I tried to do that- but failed horribly. I think anyone that ventures into making money off their hobby is seriously seriously risky but usually always rewarding.

Tia’s doing an awesome job cultivating Cosmos Lacquers first line of polishes. Umpteen tests and retests have been done…. Failures have been cataloged and noted…. I’ve watched her each and every step of the way and I have to say I haven’t been more proud. She is REALLY doing a bangup job.

First off in the review is C3P-Oh no! I love the name of this one lol

C3P-Oh no! is an awesome shimmery copper with deep copper micro square glitters interspersed.

It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? I’m not usually a huge fan of coppery-orange polishes. They usually don’t work with my skin tone. But I was pleasantly surprised with this one. It has just the right warm undertones that make sure that it’s not going to turn my uber-pale skin look jaundiced.

This is it with just one coat. You can see while it’s shimmery, it is very opaque. If you were to use it over a polish like OPI’s Deutsch You Want Me Baby I could imagine how wicked it would look. I may have to horde this precious and do that this fall!

And here it is in two coats, complete opacity reached with no streakage often found in shimmer polishes. Now the glitter doesn’t show through quite as well, but you can still see it.

Next up is the beauty that is Fairy Princess. A gorgeous shimmery pink polish with small gold circles it’s a gem.

And yes, it might look like the circles are curling a little, but rest assured it’s just the angle my camera caught it at. They lay completely flat. I love how the little circles look like stars almost.

The first nail is with two coats of Fairy Princess, the rest have three. It really is a very subtle spring-time polish. I love how it glows and shimmers in the light. When I had this on I honestly couldn’t stop staring at it lol.

I am seriously in love with this polish. I love how the gold glitters catch the light and twinkle just like you’d expect a fairy princess’ crown to shimmer. *sigh* I love it.

I will have more polishes to review from Cosmos Lacquer and once she gets her etsy shop up and running, I will edit this post to provide the information. She’s looking at the last part of this month, early June for her store launch. I’ll be sure to keep you all posted!

Before and Afters of the WheeSan Abode

So as I stated before, we’re moving. I’m going to try to document the move WheeSan style. We’re special, so you’ll have to bare with us lol.

We’ve got a great house though. Or the beginnings of it. It was built in 1872, and parts have been added in what I think would be like the 70’s judging by the décor lol. Four bedrooms, two full baths (the one upstairs that we’ll use has a clawfoot tub!). A sewing room for my mama. A covered patio that we can use for smoking outdoors (NO smoking indoors anymore.)

It’s gonna be great. We’re not going to be living on top of each other! WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!

So I’ll give you a micro tour of the house before and after.

Here’s the before shot of our living room. All the windows were painted shut (I loathe people that paint and do this. Windows are MEANT to be open. Drove me nuts as a child with a father that turned the AC on in early April!)

The trash had to be picked up (of course). I had to remove marker marks from the walls, baseboards and window seat. They’re still not completely gone, but I don’t think they ever will be. We may end up completely stripping the molding, baseboards and window seat down to its original woodwork.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh so much better. And the floors prolly look better now since hubs mopped…..

He’s such a good boy <3.

But hey, the marker marks are pretty much gone. And some parts of the wallpaper didn’t come clean. It’s like textured canvas wallpaper for crying out loud LOL the most hideous stuff I have ever come into contact with lol.

We’re planning to remove the wallpaper and painting the walls a nice light peach almost white color. Above the bay windows we’re going to paint the words “There’s No Place Like Home”. On the east wall we’re going to paint a “family” tree and put family pictures on it. Kinda like this:

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So yeah, we have some pretty lofty plans.

Well evidently I didn’t get a before picture of the dining room. Oops. But here’s the after either way. Just imagine this with really grimy looking floors. *shudder*

We’re going to put up a chair rail and faux wainscoting about 2 feet up the wall. I think it’ll look great once it’s done.

Here’s the before shot of our kitchen. Yes, it’s small. But it’s serviceable. And this is my daughter, being uber special.

After removing the cabinet that didn’t need to be there and extensive cleaning, it looks MUCH better. Like 100 times better.

Here’s the kitchen from the hallway. You can see out into the laundry room and the backyard. I haven’t gotten the baseboards and molding clean in this area yet. But it will happen. Either that or the shit’ll get painted over. And the tile will probably get replaced. Cause I hate this linoleum.

This will be my mom’s sewing room. This room wasn’t TOO bad. The carpets had to be shampooed majorly. But it has a sliding door off to the right of the room and tons of natural light (and major windowage. I’m jealous.)

Here it is after I cleaned the windows and shampooed the carpets. And vacuumed up the mini-hamsters the shampooer threw up. *shudders again* Dunno if we’ll paint the paneling or not. I hate paneling. It’s so dark and…. 70s.

Here’s a shitty picture of mom’s room after we shampooed the carpets and what not. I again, didn’t get a before picture. But there were horrid stains in the carpeting. Like hot pink and purple stains. Not sure what it was.

Onto the upstairs. This will be our bathroom. I plan on major things for this space. Like a new pedestal for the sink. New tile. New paint on the walls. Going to go for a zen-like ocean side spa feel. Lots of light blues, greens, whites, splashes of bright turquoise. Gonna be PRETTAYYYYY. And there won’t be fishies. Or dog poop.

This is the before picture of Cassie’s room. Not a whole lot has changed. The trash has been picked up, the carpets cleaned and vacuumed (why is vacuum such a weird word? I don’t get that.). It’s nice and pink and uber girly. She LOVES it.

Here it is nice and clean. She has soooo much light in here. I’m kinda jealous. Had this room been bigger, I probably would have cabbaged onto it myself.

Here’s Colly’s room before. Yeah, not the color I would have chosen. Wayyyyy too dark for a  kids room, but for right now, Coll doesn’t mind it.

And here’s the after. Don’t mind the mini-hamster hairballs left over from the carpet shampooer. Those’ll be gone in no time.

And here’s our room. I don’t have an after pic, because I suck. Just imagine it without the toys, minus the pack-n-plays and the godawful lamp. Oh and the carpets are cleaner. Gotta love that gold shag. Woooooo wee…. I haven’t decided how I’m going to repaint our room. I’m still up in the air on that. If y’all have any ideas, I’m more than happy to hear them. I like The Beatles and Marilyn Monroe- hubs is pretty much just stuck on cars and anything Boondocks Saints related.

And here it is. In all it’s glorious splendor. It sure does look smaller on the outside than it does on the inside. Guess it’s just one of those “Can’t judge a book by its cover” kinda things. We have a lot of cosmetic repairs to do outside. The porch needs to be fixed, the guttering needs replaced. The gingerbread on the top eve needs to be fixed. The Virginia creeper creeping up the north side of the house needs to GO. But the backyard is huge and there’s a flower bed just begging me to plant some pretty posies in it. Needless to say…. I’m smitten.

So, keep checking back. I’ll be posting more as the moving process ensues.

Feeling Neglected?

Well…. Things have been pretty hectic around here lately and I’ve been lagging majorly in posts. And I’m sorry about that. Turns out that the Good Witch has had a house dropped on her, figuratively speaking. The owner of the park where we live has decided to close down and rent exclusively to roughnecks and construction workers. So this meant that I, along with my mother, husband and two children had to find a place to live after two long years of pretty much bliss.

Yeah, not everything’s roses. I won’t miss the smell of cow shit. I won’t miss the flapping of our trailer skirting when the wind is strong. I won’t miss the speed bumps in our park that have pretty much shaken my boobs to the point I think THEY’VE lost weight. I won’t miss the fear that I feel every time I hear there’s a chance of tornadoes. And everyone that knows me probably thinks that sounds stupid because I LOVE tornadoes, storms, anything like that. But when you live in a tin can…. Things just get real. Really fast. Especially since the Joplin tornado.

But I will miss the quiet. And the sunsets. And the fact that my children can play in my yard and I don’t necessarily have to worry if someone’s going to snatch them, or they’re going to get hit by a car. I’m going to miss sitting outside with my mom on warmer nights and listen to the crickets chirp and the frogs and toads sing. I’ll miss my kitty.

My sweet, adorable Queenie. We’ve decided we’re not going to take her with us. It just wouldn’t be fair to her. She’s a country kitty, and an outdoor one at that. I can’t have her in the city without the fear of her running away or getting hit by a car. We’re currently looking for other options for her.

I’m going to miss the summer nights when the storms are rolling in and the adrenaline I feel as I see lightning arc across the sky, knowing that my shutter was getting it at the same time.

It’s a heady feeling. Knowing that you’re standing next to a huge lightning rod with a metal camera attached to your head. I freaking love it. Granted, I should still be able to get SOME decent lightning shots. And as long as the storms are farther away, I can always go to the levy west of where I’m currently living and get some there   So not all hope is lost.

I’m going to miss the rainbows that come unexpectedly after one of our numerous storms. I get a pretty much unrestricted view. It can be breathtaking.

Granted, this is a pretty shitty picture. So, sorry about that.

I don’t like moving. I hate it. I hate change, even though I welcome it with open arms. I don’t like packing, I don’t like loading, I don’t like unloading, and I’m not real thrilled on unpacking. I wish we had enough money that we could hire movers, even if it IS just across town. But alas, made of money we are not.

But it means I’m moving out of this godforsaken trailer. With the shitter that constantly breaks. With the landlord that messes up everything he touches. With the rank smell of cow shit that seems to permeate your very pores. We’re leaving all this, and our memories, to make memories in a new house. A bigger house. One that we can mold and change into what we want it to be.

Its got charm, potential. It was built in the late 1800’s, which means gingerbread trim at the pitch of the roof. A window seat tucked into the living room. A pass through converted into a cabinet.

It’ll be ours in no time flat.

But enough of this maudlin crap. Not everything has been shitty as of late. Well, there’s been more shit than shine, but that’s the way the world is.

I have a pinup shoot planned with one of my favorite polish people and a gal that I met very early on in my photography career. I am SO looking forward to this.

I got to have one of the first peeks at a good friend of mines polish company (of which there will be a review later on after I get moved!) Cosmos Lacquer. Here I’m wearing Who Let the Dots Out over butterLONDONS Disco Biscuit. Freaking gorgeous.

I’ve taken up hand embroidery. Although I haven’t done any on this piece in awhile. I basically do it when I’m low on cigarettes, which is pretty often lol.

I got a new polish from one of my favorite indies- LynBDesigns that she made especially for me with my favorite TV show Castle in mind. I’ll have a review of it soon.

I’ve been taking pictures of creepy buildings. I’m going to be starting to go around in the country to get pictures of barns, windmills etc. for our dining room walls. I love driving around and getting “lost”. It soothes the nomad that resides deep in my heart.

And I’ve been enjoying the beauty that Kansas has to offer.

So yeah… Things got real shitty real quick. But they’re on the upswing. Slowly but surely wins the race.

We’re going to start moving into our new place next week. I honestly can’t wait. I’m so tired of living on top of each other.

I end this post- Onto bigger and better things. Onward and upward. By the grace of God go I. Keep looking back to see my newer posts. Because I swear, they’ll come. Thanks for sticking with me.