i finally got that handbag that got away!

WHO LOVES DISCOUNTS AND COUPONS? This girl, that's who.  Originally $89.00 I got it for under $30.00 because I stacked coupons and discount things.  I had bought it a month or so bad for $67.50 and returned it because that was too much.

It's SO cute in real life.  The sides have lace all over them and it sparkles.  I tried to take a few pictures but couldn't get a good full shot. Anyways, here are some detail shots.

Close up of the lace.  The glares are the sparkles.

IDK what this is, but it's detachable lol.

I LOVE the gems all over this thing!

CUTE liner! Bag is huge, holds tons of my crap!

I don't know who Sienna Ricchi is, never heard of her, but the bag just caught my eye a while back and I love it. It has the perfect amount of inside pockets and space. Love Love Love!

Anyways, to stay relevant, here is a possible repost of E.L.F in Champagne, I think.  This shimmer gave me mannequin hands!!  I can't remember if I posted this before of if it was just patiently waiting in my backlogs.  Oh well. Enjoy (=

DERP. this manicure is a DERP.

I need to figure out how to remove the word "DERP" from my vocabulary.  I catch myself saying it instead of "oops" or in situations where "my bad" would apply.  I need to stop raising eyebrows.  That quirky weird thing I have worked when I was 17, but at 23 I'm really just getting people to question whether or not I need to be admitted to a clinic.

Well, for the time being, here is a derp of a manicure.  I said I need to figure out how to remove it, I haven't removed it yet, rofl.

Sinful Colors "Unicorn" (yellow)
Sinful Colors "Timbleberry" (red)
Confetti "First Kiss" (pink)
BEACH BALLIN'

I should've left it alone even though it makes so sense as it is.  But I ended up destroying it with that fucking black shatter. I don't like it. It just ruins things. Looked like a fun beach ball kind of.

Now it looks like it has been camping at Death Valley for 3 weeks without a tent. DEAD. AND SHRIVELED. This mani looks thirsty!!  HOW DOES A MANICURE ACQUIRE HUMAN TRAITS?  God, black shatter is rewriting the science books here. Ugh I scrapped that shit off my nails right after I took the pics.  I know you all enjoy watching my nail blunders happen. You're a sick bunch. But it's ok - I love it too!

It looks like it has cancer. Tarred and slimy. ITS FUCKING. UGLY. LOL. I love how I can just freely go off like a lunatic here and I won't raise your eyebrows at me... d'awwwwwwwwww grouphug! no? ok.

Further evidence of the FUG.

Hey guys, I have a present for you :D :D :D

DERP.

 

Thanks ladies for reading and putting up with my blunders, bitching, ranting and eyebrow raising behavior. Love, Cathryn

franken "MISCHIEF"

I made another franken this weekend.  I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.  Sometimes mixing polishes can be a bit of a crapshoot and I have made my share of formulas that just don't work.  It's nice to get a decent one (=

Three coats of "Mischief"

I used a super cheapo bottle which has a really weird brush but the formula was decent enough to not suffer from my carelessness.

 

Ingredients:

L.A. Colors (has a name but I don't know it) Purple Jelly
L.A. Colors "Jewel Tone"
L.A. Colors "Live"
Unnamed Funky Fingers

This is approximately equal parts.  Definitely click to enlarge, there is a lot of detail that is destroyed with the photos compressing.

& then I added "Live" on the tips.

It played nicely since it -is- an ingredient!

Bonus freehandy-lines I added to "Choose Me!"

essence "Choose Me!"

WOW where did this week go?!  My head was buried in the books as the post-spring break panic is here.  Professors all of a sudden realize that since we had a week off - now its double time.  Yawn, I'm bored of writing paper after paper after paper.  LOL @ me for choosing english as a minor.  It was between math, chemistry, history and english.. options were limited ya know?

Anyways this'll cheer me up.

Essence "Choose Me!"

Please click to enlarge these, this is really a beautiful color and finish.  Since we know I'm *amazing* at describing polishes, here we go: a bluish green micro-glittery foil looking delight.  I tried.

GORGE.

This polish tricks your eyes I swear!  Indoors and without flash it is very very green.  But it's also very blue.  Couldn't capture what I see, exactly, but this is pretty close.

99. cents at Ulta

Two pretty pinks!

Thought I would change up the tone a bit, instead of complaining I have some raving to do!  I've previously stated how pleased I am with the Essence Colour and Go polishes.  I went to Ulta this weekend and they had restocked them so I picked up two.  Today I am showing you "Ultimate Pink" along with my first Ulta polish (which left me pleasantly surprised!)

A beautiful magenta creme!

Two coats with TC

This was a creme-y jelly kind of polish, leaning more towards a creme.  It looks kind of squishy, too.  It jumps off my nails, I love it!

This polish is called "Encore Pink" and it straight up reminds me of ballerinas, lol.  It's very pretty.  This is 3 (maybe 4??) coats?  I can't remember but I usually habitually put on an extra coat than necessary just to round things off nicely.  This could be wore with 3 OR 4 and still you could achieve opacity.

Flash

Flash

So I put both of these pictures, even though they make the polish look like two different shades, because it does vary in the light setting you're in.  Just by turning my back to the light when taking the photo makes it look a lot darker.  But it isn't a flat color, it plays nicely with the light and sort of chameleons to the lighting.

All of this being said, in reference to my last post - that beautiful magenta cost me 1.06$ while this pastel pink was somewhere in the 2$ range (Ulta has 2 for 4$ sale going on until beginning of April I believe - knowing the quality of the polishes now, that's a nice deal! Especially since they're 5$ a piece normally!)

Price does not equate quality. Lesson learned (again and again)

worst formula EVER and a haul

EUGH. I have encountered the worst, most awful formulated nail polish in my entire life.  I have 5 year old dollar store polishes with more grace and dignity than this one.  And I'm mostly pissed because this is supposed to be a somewhat reputable brand.

 BEHOLD Finger Paints "Chrsyanthe-mum's the word"

This is 3 coats.  I orignally did my nails once, and it bubbled and had drippy marks all over it.  So I tried again and added a little thinner.  Then that still wouldn't work.  So I added more thinner. STILL SUCKED.  This nail polish was so freakin' thick I can hardly even describe it to you.  It left severe streaks, would go on my nail and then drip all around my cuticles.  I don't know if this was a bad bottle, or what, but I've never, EVER worked with such a pain in the ass polish before.

One coat.

Streaks streaks streaks. It was SO goopy.  If I screw something up I will take fault for it, but at this point in the game I know how to apply nail polish and many other aspects of it.  This was not lack of skill - this was lack of quality. And that upsets me.

I rarely buy polish that costs more than a few dollars unless its a holiday or I did something good.  I bought this at Sally's for 4.49$ with my club card.  It pisses me off that it was so shoddy.  And it also pisses me off that I found a green I like but probably won't ever wear again!  Something tells me something went wrong here; either a bad batch or someone had left the lid off of the bottle at the store or something.  I can't comprehend a 5$ polish being that much of a POS.

Pretty ring though (=

 Accented with Funky Fingers "Under Mistletoe"

What I picked up yesterday:

Ulta "Red Carpet Red"
Ulta "Encore Pink"
L.A. Colors "Jewel Tone"
BIGGEST PIECE OF CRAP EVER
Essence "Choose Me!"
Essence "Ultimate Pink"

What gets to me the most is I bought Jewel Tone, Choose Me! and Ultimate Pink for a DOLLAR each - and I love them.  I go outside of my norm and spring for a 5$ bottle (full price) and it blows.  The Ultas were on sale - 2 for 4$!  You win some and you lose some, I get that.  But this is my blog and I like to bitch when bitchin' is necessary LOL.

A Franken - Tippytoes (pic heavy!)

I think I am going to officially name all of my frankens after My Little Ponies.  Why the hell not, it is so much easier!  So I really love this one, but have you ever been sitting there mixing colors and have an "aha!" moment of perfection and then realize you basically all ready have that color?  I did.  I basically re-created China Glaze's "For Audrey" with a slight hue change and some glitter.  But I'm keeping it!

"Tippytoes"

It's a *little* more green.  And you can see the glitter better in the bottle than on the nail.  It's VERY subtle!

Indoor flash

Indoor flash

So then, as usual, I thought "You know what would be PERFECT over this? HIDDEN TREASURE!" So yea, I shlapped it on.

Outdoor - indirect sunlight

Outdoor - direct sunlight

DROOL.

I usually don't take pictures outdoors unless it will really benefit the color and show all the details.  Hidden Treasure is most certainly one of those colors to capture in the sun!  Oh it made it perfect.  Every once in a while I do something I like, and every once in a while I do something I hate.  This time, I LOVE it. Love love love.

Ingredients:

Funky Fingers "Wild Child"
Sinful Colors "Unicorn"
L.A. Colors "Energy Source"
Icing "Starlight"
Pure Ice "Don't You Wish"

And in true "Cathryn Form", I have NO idea of the recipe as I just mixed until I found something I liked.  Sorry, I'm good for that.

OK SO THIS IS IRRELEVANT BUT LISTEN UP.  Anyone grow up in the 80's or early 90's?  There is this website, Ghost of the Doll, which archived all of the girly toys released in those years.  I literally had a nostalgia freak out when I discovered this site.  It has pictures, years released, photos and more details about each toy than you can even comprehend.  If you're anything like me, the next 3 hours of your life will be spent on that site wishing you were a child again.  In which case I'm Sorry or You're Welcome, LOL!

Sinful Colors - Timbleberry

What? Is a Timbleberry an actual thing? I don't feel like googling but going on Sinful Colors history of ridiculous color names I really am leaning towards "no".

Four Coats of Timbleberry. Three would've been enough!

A rich deep coral red orange creme. lol.

I like this color, which is weird considering it is very close to orange.  This one STAINED MY FINGERS REALLY BAD. Heads up.  Might want to use the foil method when removing this color if you ever decide to wear it.  I like it very much! Fantastic formula, didn't NEED four coats but I did it anyways.  So that's it. Simple post today.

But I made a very pretty springtime franken I will share with you all very soon. I LOVE IT.

green green green.

My news feed is FILLED with green fingers!  I'm not crazy for most greens but there are a few a like.  This is how the pink haters must've felt around Valentine's day, meanwhile I was in my glory! 

Ok so there is a slight discrepancy about this polish. It could be either of two different ones.  And it is trying to be both.  I can't figure out which it is because the two are almost identical in the bottles.

Either Funky Fingers "Wild Child" or "Tribal"

This is a green I love (= Although it has some blue in it, there is plenty of green!  What is this? Turquoise? IDK.

Wish I knew which it was!

Gorgeous regardless!

UNICORN & how to kill a mani in 5 seconds!

This color is the second one that I found in the bucket of random Sinful Colors at Walgreens.  First of all, the name is so irrelevant I had to buy it.  Secondly, it looked really pretty in the bottle.

FIVE RIDICULOUS COATS OF "UNICORN"

Yea, 5 coats. Enough to make me never use it again.  Also, the lobsterhands are out of this world in this pic.  I think there might have been *some* slight skin staining from the previous color I had on, which was a bright corally red.  But this is mostly just a contrast thing here.

Observe ladies, as I successfully KILL a perfectly fine manicure.

One coat of SH Hidden Treasure. Not dead, yet.

I should have left it here.  I should've stopped.  It actually looked really pretty like this.  But it was like, oh I don't know.. 3 AM and no sunlight, obvs, so its full beauty has not been captured in this pic. Ok, onto the murder scene.

Ew. Sorry.

I publicly apologize for doing that.  I don't think I like the shatter.  I said originally I didn't hate it, but, this is FUG. FUG FUG FUG FUGLY. For those of you who don't know fugly means "fucking ugly" - and that is the perfect description of what I have created.

Also this has got to be the most layers of polish I've ever worn. Lets count! Counting is fun.
2 coats of Orly Nail Armor
5 coats of Sinful Colors Unicorn (lol)
1 coat of Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure
1 coat of my HG TC
1 coat of Shatter
1 more coat of my HG TC

THAT'S 11. My standing record!

Sinful Colors - Savage

I was wandering through Walgreens and found this bucket of Sinful Color polishes that weren't on any 3 of the displays in the store.  I'm not sure if they are discontinued or what, but I picked two of them up plus a third I found on the main display.  The one I am showing you today is one of the bucket polishes!

Sinful Colors "Savage" and my Neener helping me with my mani.

She was VERY helpful, actually!

3 Coats and TC

This polish was strange.  It tried completely matte and stained LIKE A MOTHER EFFER. I forgot my base coat so I had to buff buff buff.  I did a pretty decent job fixing it though.

The flash in the last picture kind of brightened the color up a bit.  It's a bit darker and a little more "dusty".  It's pretty though, I definitely like it!  Sinful Colors are available at Walgreens for 1.99$ (=

confetti "first kiss" & i won a prize :D

This week was ass. Just sayin'.  It was long and enough crap went down that I don't even feel like complaining about it. OH YEA, YOU READ THAT RIGHT. Moving along.

I was moving some of the polishes off my desk when I found one I hadn't seen in quite a while, Confetti "First Kiss".  I have quite a few colors along these lines but I can't help it, they're my favorite.  Pink cremes are all I ever need.

"First Kiss" - 3 coats.

I had this on for a whole day before photographing it, so that is why we have some chips-n-wear.  I bought this at CVS for 1.99$ and thought the brand would be comparable to Sinful Colors.  Maybe not.  Formula left lots to be desired but the topcoat evened it all out.  Streaky and thick were the major issues; even thinner didn't help all too much.

My hands took a BEATING TODAY.  I worked this morning for 5 hours and was inevitably on diaper duty.  Between the constant switching of powered latex gloves that sucked any sense of moisture out of my skin and the cheap foaming hand soap provided by the daycare, my skin was WHITE, like ashy white.  I don't know how many times I applied lotion but it was not even helping.  I think if I worked full time there this blog would be no more.

So I won a giveaway that I had completely forgot about.  I woke up from a nap earlier and found a package on my bed and it totally cheered me up!  Alicia from Painting 'Em Up held a 15 follower giveaway with the prize being Icing "Electric Sapphire" and since the turn out was rather small she decided EVERYBODY WINS and sent us all a polish.  I -love- that attitude.  She wrote me a letter explaining she could only find so many of said polish but sent a really pretty blue glitter with hints of green instead; I am not disappointed, its so pretty! Can't wait to wear it :D THANK YOU!!

"Starlight"

BTW - the height of this polish is almost the exact height of my British Literature II textbook (which it is leaning up against in the picture).  That damn book is over 3000 pages and the most awkwardly shaped annoying-to-carry book I've been faced with yet.  It bulges out my school bag, lol.

FRIDAY YES & NEXT WEEK IS SPRING BREAK SO NO CLASSES. HAPPY CAMPER.