Many Nails of Many Days

So yes, I did disappear again. For some reason, I thought I could post at least occasionally while packing up my Michigan house prior to closing on the sale of it, caravaning cross country with Mr. Karen and I switching off driving our pickup and a 26-foot rental truck, then unloading and unpacking in Idaho. Turns out I couldn't. But now we have unpacked enough boxes that I can sit down and write for a bit without feeling horribly guilty, so here I am, aiming to catch up on about six weeks of nails of the day looks.

When I flew east as mentioned in my last post, I was wearing Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Snow Way, appropriate for the wintery weather. I think this was the second half of the box I opened when I wore this same design back in 2013.





When I got to Michigan, I wanted a change but didn't have time to do a full mani, so I just covered up the strips with Wet 'n' Wild Garnet My Heel Broke from the Holiday 2015 collection. The textured finish made for easy touch ups, which were needed since I was dinging my nails regularly while packing up stuff in Michigan.



Before I left for my conference (also mentioned in my last post), I changed to another polish from that Holiday 2015 Wet 'n' Wild collection, Where My Ho Ho Hos At. Again, I went for a texture for ease of touch up, and a neutral color to go with any outfit (not that I generally worry about that, but I was going to be socializing with people who might).



Here's a slightly blurry shot of this polish with a backdrop of some curtains that were in our house when we bought it 26 years ago and we never got around to replacing.



In the nail art session I taught at the conference, I demonstrated stamping by adding a scroll design in black on top of Where My Ho Ho Hos At. (I should have also demonstrated how to use a clean up brush, but time was limited.)





Post-conference, I returned to Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips, this time the Fur-ocious Vocals animal print from the 2012 Avril Lavigne collection.



I took time out from packing up our house to go to a party; I went quick and simple for that, with one coat of Zoya Godiva, since the textured approach was working well for me lately.



I added a second coat of Godiva a few days later.



As those of you who follow my Instagram (thekarend) know, I also took time out from packing to go to a Michigan Nail Girls meetup. My Godiva was the most boring mani there, but I'm just glad I was able to get away and have fun chatting with the ladies and swapping polish and seeing Native War Paints HQ.



Just before Mr. Karen and I started driving back to Idaho, I did something I don't remember doing for a long time: I took off a polish only to put it right back on. All the packing, including my thousands of bottles of polish, had not been kind to my nails, so I had to trim them back some, but Godiva had been good to me, so I reapplied it, topping it with Native War Paints Silver Nickels, which has many sizes of silver holo glitter in a clear base.





We were very fortunate and had good weather for our long drive across the country, which meant much sun for me to enjoy the rainbows sparking off Silver Nickels.



Since we pulled up with the big rental truck, I've been so busy unloading and unpacking that it was only yesterday that I took off the Godiva/Silver Nickels combination to put on a badly needed treatment sandwich.



Right now, most of my stash is in boxes in the garage, the Helmers partially disassembled for easier transport, but I do have more recent purchases more readily accessible, along with the four boxes of very special pretties that I packed separately and kept in the pickup rather than letting them fend for themselves in the big rental truck, so I will be able to do manis and swatches in the meantime before I get my stash setup in its new home.