Coming up soon: Convention, round two!

Hello dear readers!

It's been ages since my last post, mainly because I work at a cafe at the moment, and 99% of the time when I get home my nails are destroyed. Polish doesn't last more than a few hours in this line of work.

HOWEVER! I have managed to do some swatches, which I will be posting soon. And more importantly, I'm doing a convention!

This past Passover I opened a nail art booth at a Sci-fi convention, and now I'm going to do it again in a month or so from now. I've begun preparing nail wheels to showcase my work, and today I'm posting the first one.

This one is superhero insignia, predominantly Marvel because I'm kind of a Marvel fangirl :D I'll probably do at least one more comic-oriented wheel, although that'll be a mix of villains and heroes. We'll see if I even spill over into a third. In the meantime, there are lots of geeky but not-comic things coming up soon- I'll post them as I finish them!

What do you think?

NOTD: Water marble, Loki edition!

So like nearly everyone else on the internet these days, I've been fangirling like a boss over The Avengers, specifically over Loki. Well, specifically over Tom Hiddleston. If you'll allow me a hipster moment, I have kind of always had a thing for movie villains*, so I guess this is pretty predictable for me!

*Before you ask, Usrula is my favorite Disney villian. The Little Mermaid isn't specifically my favorite Disney film overall, but Ursula is just the best ever :D I'll probably do nails inspired by her some day.

Also, I've always been a Slytherin at heart, so even though Slytherin is green and silver, I do love me that green-gold motif. I'll probably do a lot of green-gold nail art and jewelry over time.

On to pictures!

Left hand shade

More pictures under the jump

NOTD: Nubs! And pink!

I mercilessly filed my nails down recently, now they're the shortest they've been since I stopped biting. Why would I do such a terrible thing? Sadly, having long nails sort of interfered with playing the harp. A little. Well, a lot. I hope eventually I'll figure out how to play the harp with long nails, but for now they keep getting caught in the strings and end up making a horrific buzzing sound. And when they get caught too far in, it hurts!

So. Short nails. That still doesn't excuse the pink, but I decided to try it out. It's only barely pink, anyway, it's seriously blackened.

Behold:

Welp.

I have to say, having short nails makes it much harder to be neat. I've pretty much mastered the technique of applying polish without needing any cleanup, but somehow with short nails that all goes out the window. Also the topcoat completely smeared my design. It's frustrating, because I waited around twenty minutes before applying topcoat and this *still* happened!

I used one coat of Orly Moonlit Madness over black, and the silver is a no-name brand which I love to use in marbling. Oooh, maybe I'll try marbling next! It's been a while since I've done that! It's also been a while since I seriously sat down to make jewelry. I should do that too.

I think my ADHD is coming out. Now I'm in the mood for potato chips.

Chic Metalix, part 2

I'm finally getting on with this collection! Only four more to go after this.

I decided to dive into the redheads of the family, since these colors seem to be a good representative of the weather around here.

Unfortunately, my sunlight pictures all came out on the blurry side, I'm still getting used to my new camera. On the bright side (no pun intended!) pretty colors!

Individual swatches and reviews under the jump.

NOTD: Crackle skittles

Hi all! NOTD and then a quick update.

Shade

Sunlight

So this is a set of Chic Metalix under a lovely black crackle that I've worn here before by a German brand called P2. Not everything in this picture has been swatched yet , but they're coming!

Life update under the jump:

WOW Cosmetics

I think this is an appropriate subject for my "triumphant" return to swatch posts, as in "Wow, it's been ages since you did a swatch post!"

Well yeah, it has. I don't really have any excuses either. I know I'm going to have to retake a large number of my swatch photos- looking back at them over two months later, I'm not really happy with any of them. The ones from WOW are ok, hence this post now.

So here's the deal with WOW cosmetics: They're a domestic brand, and they have some really affordable cosmetics, plus their spread of polish colors is interesting. They don't have a ton of colors yet, but from what I've seen I like what they have.

I have three for you today:

Click the jump for close-ups and reviews!

Well, I just made a breathtakingly bad life choice!

Hi there, my darling nonreaders.

Let's skip over the "omg I haven't posted in aaaaages!!!1!!one!" formality and conclude universally that I'm a lazy failure at life, without the pretty words.

I might post some swatch pictures I have archived tonight. I might not. I hope so though. But that's not why I'm here right now (also I'm at work, so no access to those pictures anyway).

I bought a camera today. You see, apparently my credit card company was supposed to have been offering me all these deals for the past six years, but somehow I slipped through their cracks and never got any of the discounted crap they are constantly bugging their other customers about. So now all of a sudden they woke up and realized hey, in six years people rack up a HUGE amount of points even if they have pretty modest spending habits! And woah, most of those points are expiring soon! We'd better offer her something fast!

So offer they did. And stupidly, I accepted. Most of their potential offers were boring but practical things like towels and vaccum cleaners, but the camera was something else. I've always kind of wished I'd gotten in early on the whole youtube vlog thing, because back when that kind of thing was just starting out, I actually had an interesting life. It could have been a fun diversion.

Now? Now I'm almost 25 and I've done virtually nothing interesting with my life whatsoever. On the surface it seems like I should be cool: I have a harp, I make jewelry, I do nail art (even geeky nail art!), and I'm a geek, which is apparently what the cool kids are these days. But in practice I'm about as boring as dirt, because I get lazy or depressed and spend most of my time derping on the internet looking at all the interesting stuff other people do, instead of doing it on my own.

A camera could change that though. If I learn how to trick my own psyche well enough, I could actually guilt trip myself into having a life. I could start a vlog! Then if I actually stick with the commitment of posting once per (???) I'd have to actually do stuff worth talking about on camera. If all I have to say is "well, I got home today and read some fanfiction, then I scrolled through tumblr for a while, then I prepared some frozen shnitzel for dinner and went to sleep" then I won't be able to make a vlog. And if I don't make a vlog, then the money I spent on my camera will have been wasted. And that is just sad, considering it's A- a really good camera, and B- a really expensive camera. ($1,125 before the discount, $460 after. No I could not afford that even post mega-discount. At least it's in installments...)

Alternatively, I could guilt trip myself in practicing harp frequently enough to occasionally record and upload music. Or do tutorials in something, meaning I'd actually have to clean my room.

What I guess I'm trying to say here is: This blog will no longer be solely for nail polish and jewelry.

"But Leah," none of you say, "Don't you already have a personal blog?"

You're absolutely right, nobody! I do have a personal blog. But consider the fact that it is embarrasingly derpy and fangirly, and I'd like this one to be more of a thinking blog. Or at least a derping eloquently blog (fat chance). I might crosspost things now and then, if it's pertinent to both blogs.

It's entirely possible that this project will be abandoned within a week. Or a day. I can tell you that not having a life is freakisly boring, but it's so easy! I don't know if I have the willpower to stop being boring. But I'm sure as hell gonna try, or at least convince myself for the next few hours that I'm going to try. It usually goes right out the window the second I get home (fandom is really difficult to pull away from, you guys).

I have to stop rambling now. It's long over time.

Hey you! If you actually read this entire thing you are my new best friend. Have a cookie!