Nice Nails # 11: The Spooktacular Version!

Hi guys, 

I am still here, honest. I'm just doing a good impression of someone who's comatosed. Well, I'm a teenager- what do you expect? (Although my brother has an uncanny ability to start practicing his guitar the moment I put my head on the pillow. Seriously, uncanny.) And on top of being uber tired, I have a shed full (okay, but it's a considerable pile) of college work, a lot of typing and finding the write documents and just generally getting organised with my Leadership Qualification for GGUK. Then, when I have spare time, I'm trying to get the hang of balancing writing books and writing blog posts. I'm getting better at it, but we're not there yet. 

However, I'm learning better how to handle my new laptop so this is improving. 

And I've set reminders and deadlines for blogposts and chapters of my stories. 

And I spent WAY too long on the John Lewis site making a collage of the clothes that one of my characters wears. Though she is currently in a First Holy Communion dress (if in doubt, just don't ask!)

Seriously, I so want to ask Izy from Top with Cinnamon how she balanced A levels and blogging! (But she's too amazing brilliant for me to bother her with such silliness!)

But here are (Okay, so they are last years) Halloween nails (I was ill, and I didn't think that you'd want to see Halloween nails in December!)

(Although maybe you do, tell me)

I used Barry M's Gelly High Shine Nail Paint in Mango.  Cause, you know, gotta get a bit of Halloween colour in there somewhere!

The bat stickers came in a nails kit I got several years ago. It seemed to be a bit of a waste using all the bats in one go, but it's Halloween. Let's go with a bang people!

Plus, they seem a bit out of place with my normal style for the rest of year.

And my toes were glittery and black. 

So... Happy Halloween!

Nice Nails #10

Anyone up for a bumper issue of my poorly photographed, okay-ly photographed nails? 

Why is it so hard to photograph your own nails? Apart from the fact that it leaves just one hand to both hold the camera(phone) steady and press shoot? Yeah, it's a mystery. Plus, I can never work out which position to put my hands in so that they look pretty. 

This, is a very VERY very posh nail polish. Yeah, very posh. It's a Clinique one that I got given as a present. I'm not trying to be a brand snob here, but it was a very nice nail polish to use. Not to thick and gloopy, and not to runny. And it lasted for like, ever. Until I got bored one time and started picking it off. Then it still lasted for like, ever, until I got bored and tired of chipped nails and redid them. But it was a lovely set of nails. And due to no fault of anybodies except possibly mine, that little finger? It was a third time lucky attempt. And I got very frustrated, pulled some silly faces, and so Mom had to lend a hand. See, her Brownie instincts are still strong. 

The chipped nails were replaced by these. And, news flash: I AM CURRENTLY WEARING THESE NAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM UP TO DATE WITH THE "NICE NAILS" POSTS!!!!!! To be honest, I thought that the day would never come! I am going though a Frozen kick (I am literally listening to 'Let it Go' as we 'speak'), and so these nails are Frozen inspired. Loosely, you wouldn't really be able to tell. I did think about putting a glitter coat over the top, but it's hard to take off afterwards. I used two Barry M Gelly polishes (Prickly Pear and Watermelon/Guava, I can't remember), and one Clinique polish (the silver one).  Yeah, not very Frozen-y, but hey, I've got a load of compliments on them, so they can't be that bad! 

:) 

Nice Nails # 9

Shall I let you into a little secret, I found these photo's in my computer, and I can't even remember when my nails looked like this. But they were there so I thought I'd put them in a post anyway. 

Mainly red with a silver feature nail. 

What do you think?

Nice Nails # 8

They were taken in a hospital. In my defense over very bad pictures on a less than perfect background, they were taken in a hospital. With limited resources. And taking it with one hand. Which is hard. Especially when you're using the hand that you do NOT favor. 

Plus, to be honest, the nails aren't that good when we had got to this point. It had been like, two weeks. Who still has perfect nails after they've been wearing them for a fortnight?

Autumn colors don't last very long around here. They 'blossom' for a day or two, and then they fall of the trees, and then it rains. And then they get trodden on. 

And hence the autumn colors are quickly replaced my mush slush color on the floor. Which looks like something left by a dog with a bad owner who doesn't carry nappy sacks with them. Yes, you know exactly what I mean. You also now know that I can't spell the fancy word for it that begins with 'ex'. Not that that should come as a surprise. This is when we call it 'winter'. Around here, it is a long season. Think The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. 

It also doesn't help that I didn't go any where with trees during 'Autumn'. 

So it's official. I've got Autumn colors withdrawal syndrome. So lets get my Aunt to put random autumnal colors on my nails, and everybody happy. 

Plus it inspired my Aunt to go random with her nails too. And her pupils noticed. (Or one little girl did anyway.) Random wins. 

Nice Nails # 7

One day, I will be up to date with these Nice Nails posts. The only reason that I have any confidence that this will happen is because there is not a lot of words to each post, and because I have let my nails go rather of late. And so haven't been taking pictures. And so there's no posts to write. 

Before you look at these pictures and start worrying that I've gone all goth/emo/scene (Mom), let me explain. I have not gone in for an alternative fashion (I spend most of my time in pajamas anyway), I was going for a Bonfire Night theme. Due to Bonfire Night being more than 3 months ago we will go with a...

With a...

With a...

Can anyone think about why someone would have fireworks in February? When someone does, that's why my nails look alarmingly (Mom) dark. 

You can't really see with my dodgy pictures, but...

Actually, due to my hands both being in the picture, Mom took the pictures. For once, it's not me. 

You can't really see with THE dodgy pictures, but these nails are really cool. They sparkled. Oh, do they sparkle. Oh, they sparkled. 

Just take it from me, they were a lot better than they look in these photos. To be honest, I don't even know why I bother showing you, but hey ho. 

Just use your imagination. Please? 

Nice Nails # 6

It's a well known fact. All the best bloggers have big massive gaps when they don't publish a post for coming close to two months. You didn't know that? You should. It's the sign of a really professional blogger. Seriously. 

In my defense, I've spent more than half of that time without my laptop. And a lot of the rest of the time I've been asleep. And the rest of the time?

I wanna have some resemblance of a life you know. I wanna DO things (like pretend I can cook). I don't wanna spend all my spare time glued to my laptop. Especially as sometimes it doesn't work. (It's nearing retirement age. Laptops do not have to work till they are 65.) 

Although in a unexpected twist, it was a problem with the router which meant that I couldn't blog last night. It did said to fix the problem with the wireless connection I should try connecting it up with a cable. Little laptop, you and me are going to have a little chat about the meaning of the word WIRELESS. It means WITHOUT a wire or a cable. 

So do you like my nails. I think that I had these in about November. 

Yeah, I really am that behind. Just wait till you get the post on my New Years resolutions. 

These nails were painted red with a little bit of glitz to match the Boots Christmas catalogue. How about, because it's February, we pretend that they are to match the Canadian men's hockey team, because they are currently (as I write) winning the gold medal match. 

My aunt did these for me. (You can tell, they are so much better than anything that me and my Mom try and do.) She very kindly used her polish, because she has a lot more than me. 

Do you not find, that with nail polish, you want quite a few so that you have a wide range to choose from, but if you have a lot, you're alternating and so you don't use each individual one all that much, and then they get old and claggy. It's just a loose loose situation. Unlike the hockey match, where both teams are guaranteed to at least have a silver. 

Yeah, I'm supporting Canada. 

If any body asks. 

Please don't anybody ask.

Nice Nails # 5 - Out With The Old, In With The New

A bit of trivia for you. In my pictures folder, there is a folder called "2013" were all the pictures for the blog our. Yup, I'm afraid for you that means I plan to continue blogging in 2014. Sorry peoples, this blog is no short term venture. In that folder, there are folders "September" through "December" where there is a folder for each blog post, but there are also folders for the blog's I've got pictures for but haven't written up yet. I just realized as I made a "December" folder, I have a Nice Nails 5-8 in my 2013 folder. And that doesn't include what I've got on at the minute. 

Oops. I think I'm a bit behind. 

Another bit of trivia for you. I have absolutely no idea which "alignment" I should write the blog in:

Left, or

center. 

At the moment, I seem to be doing a bit of both. This is not a chess worthy strategically planned move people, this is just how it is happening. I'm leaving it all up to the fate of Blogger. I mean, I can change the alignment, I can change it quite easily, I just don't, because I don't know which it should be. I've not read the blogging manual people. I'm winging it. But, it's time for some consistency. So, I ask you, which should it be? Which format do you prefer reading it in? Leave your answers in the comments below. 

Okay, so on to nail polish. 

Remember how last time I painted my nails a very pretty hot pink color, which alas, as I told you, had to be thrown out afterwards due to extreme gloopyness? (Don't you just hate it when nail polish goes old?)

Well, this is that polish. It's sad, it's got to go. I'm upset. I do have one really similar though, so I guess I'll get over it. (I just had to upload that photo twice. The first time it was upside down. I thought you'd appreciate it more if it was right way up.) 

These two also reached the end of their days. :( It just wasn't to be any longer. One was too used up, and the other just had to go. Not quite sure why, it just did. It needed to go to keep the others company.

Now I was in a predicament. I had no base coat and no top coat. And so, introducing, the wonderful, most practicle, most brilliant, 

Okay, I've got chemo brain, I can't actually think of any adjectives (they are adjectives, right?)

So, introducing my new dual purpose top and base coat:

It's by Barry M. My older cousin has assured my Mom that it's a good buy. So has my Aunt. So it should be good stuff. I can't tell you how good it is, because I haven't actually used it yet, but it's been used on me and it seems to make my nails last okay. As a general rule, they get changed too often to really find out. 

And then we were feeling a bit adventurous. We went for some colour. 

We stayed with Barry M, mainly because they had the colours I wanted, in the "Gelly" range. Again, I can't really comment on what it's like, because I'm not trusted to do my own nails, but I can say that it looks pretty good. 

I actually wanted a dark green, possibly a bit metallic, but we couldn't find a dark green, metallic or not, so we went with "Key Lime". It's the color of Mike in Monsters Inc. And dark green or not, it's a bit different to the other colours that I've got, and that's kind of what I wanted. And it will be a good seasonal colour come spring, espesially as I'm not big on wearing pale colours on my nails.

.

"Mango" (which is bright orange- although even with my appalling photography you can see it's bright orange) was brought purely with Halloween in mind. (The Halloween Nails are under #7. I'm thinking about having a jiggle around and saving the Halloween nails until next Halloween. Because at this rate, it's going to be January before we get to them.) It could just as well of been called "Pumpkin".

Now, the plan was to use the points on my 'Boots Advantage Card' to pay for the nail polish, but they have one of those barrier systems where you line up in a concertina before getting to the tills. And we just didn't think we could cope with that, a wheelchair, and those cardboard chocolate stands. So Dad went to buy the nail polishes and Mom took me to wait outside. Have you spotted the dilemma yet? Yup, guess who had the Boots card. Oops. 

And then here is a great example of "Great Minds Think Alike". The family friend who painted my nails last time also decided that I needed some new nail polish. And brought me a treat. (People keep doing that. Everyone seems to feel the need to give me stuff now that I'm ill.) And she treated me very well, and brought me very nice nail polish. Nail polish so nice (and so posh) that it came in a gift box, with shiney letters on the top. 

I told you she got me some very nice stuff. It's been decided that they're being saved until Christmas. Or saved for Christmas at any rate. They're very sparkley. The set of three nail polishes came in a very nice (actually very handy) little zippered pink bag, and were wrapped up in paper inside (and I will admit, I found this very exciting.)

Apparently, these are this year's winter colors. I have been told the names of the colors, but I can't remember. Chemo brain. It does that to you. They're very nice though. 

And, my treat did not end there. She got freebies for buying stuff, and so not only did I get very nice nail polish, but I also got a very nice make up bag, a very nice blusher, and a very nice lip thingy. I'm not quite sure what it's called. 

So, how about that then. A 'Nice Nails' post were you've not had to look at my feet!

Nice Nails # 4

Can you tell I'm backtracking? 

What gave me away? 

Is it the fact that I'm writing another blog post about my nails about 30 seconds after publishing the last one? Yeah- that might be it. I can't paint my nails that fast.

Actually, I can't apparently paint my nails at all. For some reason Mom has got it in her head that I need someone else to paint them for me. I must admit, I need someone else to paint my toes (full length plaster of paris casts kind of have a habit of getting in the way a bit) - but no, Mom, I am perfectly capable of painting my own finger nails. 

Well, maybe not perfectly capable, but I'm okay at it. We'll go with adequately capable. However, I can't do them apparently, and as Mom didn't want to do them, she looked around for someone else, and stumbled open a poor family friend who was visiting. Surprisingly she has actually been back since. I know- I'm shocked too. 

She did a very good job, despite the fact that the nail polish was very bad. It got thrown out afterwards. It's sad, it was a pretty color, but alas, it had been opened to long, and it had gone gloopy. And gloopy nail polish is just not worth the headache. I mean- it's not like the world is going to run out of pink nail polish any time soon. 

I decided to go with a 'plain' look this time (can hot pink ever really be called plain?). They've been all jazzed up good and proper the last couple of weeks, but this time we were going for the classic(ish) look- no glitter top coat, no stickers and no feature nail. Just good old pure block color. 

Now, I appreciate that these pictures are bad. Even by the normal bad standard of my photos, these are bad. Me and Mom (it's slightly impossible to take a picture of your fingers if they're busy holding the camera and pressing the button) were just having a bad picture taking day. You've heard of the bad hair day- this is it's photographic equivalent. 

So, the classic hot pink very gloopy nail polish on all nails (fingers and toes) looks like this:

Are you impressed? No? Didn't think you would be, but I thought I'd ask any way. It was worth a try. 

Maybe. 

Nice Nails # 3

Remember how last time I'd had my nails done they were done by my Auntie and that's why they looked so good?

Yeah, well they were done by her again. You can tell. They don't look slightly dodgy.

Well, they do, but that's only because of my photography efforts. One day, now not actually imaginary blog readers, they will get better. One day, you might actually be able to see what I am showing you. As it is, you can't really, so I will explain.

Toes: Dark pinky-red on all toes apart from my big toe, which is pink with a yellow and white flower on it. 

Fingers: Dark pinky-red on all fingers apart from my ring finger, which is pink. All nails covered in glitter. 

I've tried to keep this short and sweet- because I am very proud of my nails and want to tell everyone all about them (they're still getting lots of compliments in hospital) but now people are actually reading my blog, I have to be careful. I don't want to put any one into a sleeping beauty like slumber. 

So on that note, see ya!

Nice Nails # 2

Roll up, roll up, imaginary blog readers. Its another one of those boring nail posts. Hey, I'm not wearing make up every day for the first time in years. Not even the concealer. I'm having withdrawal symptoms. I'm bigging up the nails. Learn to live with it. 

Okay, neither me or my Mom can take credit for these. These were Auntie Sue. You can tell. They look professional. The pictures don't. Better than the last ones though. Hey, we're improving. 

So, what did you think? We wen't with blue this week. And glitter.

Sparkle sparkle. 

The nurses were very impressed with my nails. Not impressed enough to let me keep it on for the general anesthetic though, and so this, my friends, is what my nail polish looked like as it was taken off. 

They have posh nail polish remover at the Christies. I'm serious. Like really posh. Like the conditioning apricot kernel stuff. Mom liked the smell and kept sniffing it. I had to keep reminding her that that might not be such a good idea. 

So... You likey?

Nice Nails # 1

Okay my imaginary blog readers, here is a very boring post. I'll give you a quick synopsis. Here are some very bad pictures of what my nails currently look like.

We'll actually, here are some very bad pictures of what my nails looked like a while ago. Chemo means you get a bit behind. Any one any problems with that? No? I thought not. 

So.... 

To start with, here are some pictures of what I used to make the fabulous creations that are my nails. Okay, so the pictures aren't great. We're working on it people. 

Due to the fact that it totally isn't obvious what's actually in the pictures, I'll tell you what they are. The two bottles are the base layer and top coat. I got them just after Christmas. They're not brilliant, but they're pretty good, and they've lasted okay. The main problem with them is there's not enough in the bottles to get out enough without spending about a minute in between each nail wiggling the brush around in the bottle. 

The two bottles in the middle were my chosen colours. Both were also brought just after Christmas in the January sales at Boots. They're both the Scarlett and Crimson brand, which is done by Ruby and Millie for young teenagers and Tweens. But I liked the colours, so they'll do for me. That's also where the stickers are from. If you need any clarification from the really bad photo, they're little black roses by the way. 

We are working on the pictures guys. Its hard when you're camera takes worse pictures than your phone. And you can't really walk around to find the best place to take pictures. 

And now we're moving onto the toes... 

Aren't you just so excited? (Just pretend... Please... I'm ill... Do stuff to make me happy imaginary readers...) 

So, onto toes. I kept with the roses, this time going for pink instead of black. I only had one set of black. And red polish, because roses are red and all that. I didn't go with the top coat, because I, in my current plaster of paris full lengh cast situation, have to ask Mom to do my nails. It's a stressful situation for both of us. She almost does a very good job. But I decided not to push it with the top coat. 

So what do you think? Not that you can really see... I am working on it people, honestly! Okay, so...

Thank you for not reading I guess.