Recent NOTDs and a Mini Trip Report

So yes, I did disappear last week, and as per usual when that happens, I was travelling, this time to my home away from home in the mountains of northern Idaho. To start the week, my nails sported Zoya Stevie, posed below with a giant leaf along one of the trails we hiked. My arm is dirty from clambering over a huge pine tree that had fallen across the path due to a big storm that blew through just before we arrived in town (and my wedding ring is off because as you can see, my fingers were turning into sausages because that's how they do in the heat of summer when I exercise).



I didn't have time to do a fresh mani for the trip, so Stevie is actually layered over a previous mani, Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips in Pinkies Up, which were a gift from the lovely turtlechick. I tend to overlook the glittery strips, figuring I have tons of glitter polish that will give the same effect, but the advantage of the strips is I can put them on two minutes before bed next to Mr. Sensitive Nose. I really liked this mix of rose gold and silver glitter with my skintone, too.





As usual, I got great wear from the Sally Hansen strips; here they are six days later:



I almost ended up wearing just one coat of Stevie over the strips, as the rose and silver glitter underneath gave the lilac a pretty glow, but I decided I needed a second coat to better camouflage the growth gap at the base.

Mid-trip, I took all those layers off and put new strips on, in the Fl-roar-al design, which was a limited edition from last fall (the clearance label on the package tells me they weren't a sell out; I got them for $2.62).



I'm sorry to say that when I made the change, I saw that my peelies are flaring up again, even though it's summer, when my nails usually do better, and I was trying (and mostly succeeding) to remember to wear rubber gloves when I did dishes on vacation. But hey, they're only nails and they'll grow out again. It's especially hard to get upset about stuff like that surrounded by natural beauty like I was last week.

View up one of the ski slopes, covered in wildflowers this time of year:



The elusive huckleberry, which only grows at certain altitudes in certain soil conditions; we found and picked some on several of our hikes:



Flowers were all around, some with bonus butterflies:







And sometimes nature came to us, like this mule deer visitor looking in the back window of our condo:



I was so busy hiking and relaxing and helping Mr. Karen with a furniture building project that I didn't get into the city to look at nail polish, nor did I buy any online the whole time; I guess I can manage a no buy if I'm distracted enough!

Mont Bleu Design Contest

Earlier this month, I shared some sparkly accessories from Design Glassware by Mont Bleu and asked you to decide which of three nail file designs I should submit to a contest they are holding, in which the winner will get to see her design produced by Mont Bleu and also be provided with a number of the actual files. The poll closed last Friday, and in a one-vote squeaker, the design I called Elegance came out on top.



I will be sending that design to Mont Bleu and keeping my fingers crossed that we win, since of course I will be doing a giveaway of the files should I be fortunate enough to be chosen.

That's all for now; I hope to be back later with some nail polish swatches provided work does not devour my lunch hour/blog writing time.

Sparkly Accessories from Mont Bleu Plus a Poll

Two posts in one day? Believe it. My photo folders are overstuffed with things I want to shared, so I'm doubling up today. I could have bumped the nail wheel, as I so often have done in the past, but it's just getting back to its routine so I didn't want to disrupt that.

I've written before about how much I like Mont Bleu crystal nail files, so I was delighted a while back to get another package of goodies from them to review.

The file in this package was the large 195mm long size; you could do a lot of filing with this before having to stop and wash it.



Here's a comparison of the big file with the medium (135mm) and small (90mm) sizes I usually use. I keep a small one in my purse at all times and like it so much I ordered a half dozen similar ones to give to friends.



Another thing I keep in my purse is a bag hanger (the one I wrote about in this post). This package had a bag hanger as well, decorated with clear, red, and burgundy crystals. Nice as that was, I was immediately distracted by the compact mirror, the top of which is completely covered with different sizes of red and wine crystals.





The compact is gorgeous, and feels so solid in my hand. This is a special occasion piece, perfect for primping in public.



Continuing the elegant theme, the package also contained a wooden handled hair brush decorated with red and clear crystals. The bristles are a combination of boar and nylon massage pins. It's by far the nicest hair brush I've ever owned.





Rounding out the package was a jewelry set in red crystals: bracelet, earrings, and ring.



The Design Glassware by Mont Bleu website has products like these plus many more available for purchase. Right now I've got my eye on a bracelet made with aurora boreale crystals. Every shipment I've got from them has been well packaged and arrived in good shape. The files I ordered came in less than two weeks despite having to cross the ocean to get to me.

In other Mont Bleu news, they invited me to participate in a competition for bloggers to submit ideas for new designs for nail files. I was asked to come up with three ideas and then have you, my readers, vote on the one you like best. Your choice will be submitted with the winning designs from the other bloggers participating, then the Mont Bleu experts will pick the winner. That winning design will be produced by Mont Bleu and the winning blogger will be awarded a set of the files with the design. Of course, should the fates align and my design win, I would do a giveaway awarding files to readers, without whom there would be no blog and no opportunities like this.

After pondering, I decided on the following ideas. Please excuse my rough mockups; my contact at Mont Bleu assures me their designers and work with any type of sample/draft, which is good as my image editing skills are not the best.

#1 Nine Patch

This was inspired by one of my other hobbies, quilting, and incorporates two shades of my favorite color, purple, with an accent of green, which is calling to me more and more.



#2 Double Rainbow

This design illustrates my theory that if two or three colors are good, six are better.



#3 Elegance

And this last design is the other side of the coin, showing that sometimes restraint is called for.



Voting starts now and will continue through July 25th. The poll will be on my sidebar for the duration (just under the About Me block).

Which is your favorite design for the Mont Bleu competition?

The products shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the products for my own use.

Nail Polish Displays, Special Minsk Edition

I'm sorry for just disappearing like that; I was on that trip to Belarus that I mentioned a while ago. I intended to do a post before I left to say I'd be gone, but between going to Illinois to spend the long Easter weekend with family and getting ready to fly overseas, I just ran out of time. Ah well, I am back now.

I spent most of my time in Minsk either in the offices of the company I'd gone there to work with or sleeping in the hotel, but I did get the opportunity to explore the city and surroundings both on my own and guided by some of the folks I was working with. I found it all very interesting, if rather challenging at times since I don't read or speak Russian.

Here's the National Library; there's an observation deck on top of that jewel-shaped section, and at night, it turns into a sort of jumbotron, with ads and desgins scrolling and shifting across the surface of the jewel.



At night, many of the buildings are lit up, making for very attractive street scenes like this one, looking toward the main train station.



I've never visited any Soviet or former Soviet country before, so the hammer and sickle motifs especially caught my eyes. This one is on the monument that tops the Hill of Glory outside the city.



Minsk is not all buildings and monuments, of course. There are many parks and green spaces, too. Here I am in Victory Park on my last evening in the city.



No trip would be complete without looking for nail polish, and I did indeed find some. Unfortunately, most of it was locked up behind glass, so I couldn't pick up all the colors one by one to ponder them the way I tend to do here in the US. Even if I spoke Russian, I don't think I would feel comfortable asking to have every color pulled out for me. I certainly didn't feel comfortable asking the work colleagues I'd just met to ask that for me. Pity, because a lot of it looked really interesting, from brands I'd not seen before or had only seen online or via swapping: Sahara, Hi-Tech, Golden Rose, Dance Legend, Kiki, and Belor Design, among others. I also did see a handful of brands that are readily available here, including Chanel, Dior, Jordana, Orly, and Sally Hansen. There was surprisingly a lot of Sally Hansen, actually; I saw Complete Salon Manicure, Xtreme Wear, Crackle, Magnetic, Gem Crush, and Diamond Strength, along with a lot of different treatments.











Fortunately, I found a couple shops where they had polish in open displays, including one store that had several large metal bowls on stands that I could just paw through. These places got most of my nail polish budget for the trip, though I did impose on one of my newly met work colleagues to get a couple of pretties liberated from behind a counter for me to buy as well.





I don't know if I'll ever go back to Belarus; I'm not sure work will require it, and going as a tourist is harder than many other places (for US citizens, anyway) due to the visa requirements. I hope I can return, and if I do, I will try very hard to learn the Russian words needed to at least make a good attempt at communicating which nail polishes I'd like to buy from the glass walled fortresses.

Not Nails

 

Over the weekend, I was catching up on organizing photos on my laptop and realized I had completely failed to take any nail photos at all (or face photos, for that matter) when I met up the weekend before with The Holo Queen and traceyloveslacquer. Oops. I did take this shot of some brightly colored shirtless (and headless) male mannequins on my way out of the mall after we'd had lunch and shopped.



Perhaps I can distract you from the lack of nail photos with this sunrise I captured at the gas station the other morning as I waiting for my tank to fill up:



And here's my newest sock monkey, a pocket size that Mr. Karen bought for me when he was off on his guys' trip a few weeks back. I've since decided that this pocket in my purse is not a good home for him, as he fell out into the parking lot when I was getting out of my car once. (I have also since cut off his hangtag, but I don't think that will help him not tumble out as it wasn't that heavy.)



I'll be back next time with photos of my nails, since right now I need to do some catching up with work stuff. What are you catching up with in your life? Or are you super organized and on top of things (and if so, can you tell me how you manage that)?

Goodies from Mont Bleu

Design Glassware by Mont Bleu has been very kind in sending me products to review in the past, and today I've got more good stuff from them to share.

Since this is a nail blog, I'll start with the mini glass nail file. This particular one has Swarovski Elements (I just call them "crystals" but I'm not an expert on these things) in turquoise blue, clear, and smoke.



I don't see this exact file on their site right now, but there are so many options in the mini nail file section I might have missed it. There are decorated ones similar to this for 8 Euro and plain ones in a variety of colors for 4 Euro. The decorated ones (I'm not sure about the plain) come with a case to protect the working end of the file. The stones are still exposed when the file is in the case so it's easy to spot/feel when grabbing out of one's purse. When I first started carrying one around, I was worried about the stones coming off, but the mini file I've got in my purse right now is perfectly intact after over a year of me pulling it out and putting it back in and even losing it at the bottom of my bag for a while.



The next sparkly item I have to share is a business card holder. This is brushed metal decorated with jet black crystals on the outside and lined with black short nap velvet-like fabric. It's the perfect place for me to store the indie polish brand cards I've been gathering as I try new lines. This one retails for 19 Euro (other crystal colors are available in the same style); the undecorated version is 10 Euro.





Because I was just eagerly pulling out items from the box and not reading labels on the individual packages, I wasn't sure at first what this next item was. It was pretty, I did know that: a silvery disc decorated with crystals from clear to pink to fuchsia.



The outer ring could be unwrapped (and then rewrapped with a satisfying magnetic "snick").



Then I figured it out—the outer ring could not just be unwrapped but rotated to make a hook, a purse holder (a.k.a. bag hanger) to hang one's purse off a table instead of putting it on the floor or on the back of a chair. I wondered if it would be sturdy enough for my purse, into which I cram as much as will fit, and am happy say it did just fine. The back of the disc has a black rubbery insert that keeps it from slipping; I used it on a highly varnished and slippery restaurant table the other day and it stayed right where I put it. This sells for 16.90 Euro.



The last item is a bit of a departure from what I'm used to seeing from Mont Bleu, as it's made with pearl-type beads instead of crystals. It's the Shamballa Bracelet. The one I got has peachy pink pearly beads, though many other colors (and ones with faceted beads) are available; prices ranged from 17 Euro (plain beads) to 27 Euro (crystal beads) for the ones I looked at on the website.



I do wear bracelets sometimes, but hadn't encountered one with this fastening mechanism. Basically, you make it big enough to fit around your hand by sliding the section between the "tails" to one side, then slide it back once it's on your wrist. The black cord is a bit fuzzy, so the sliding takes a bit of tugging sometimes. The full size beads at the end of the tails help with sliding it back, but can get distracting while wearing the bracelet. I found myself a bit distracted by the clacking of the tail beads on the other ones sometimes. If you don't wave your hands around while talking the way I tend to do, you might not even have that clacking happen.



Every time I look at the Mont Bleu website, they seem to have new products. I just ordered a few things myself that may show up in a future entry. You can use code BLOG20 in the Voucher field when you check out to get 20% off, plus right now they're offering free air mail shipping (even international) for purchases over 38 Euro, so you can be sure I added enough to my order to qualify. I love a deal.

The products shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the products for my own use.

Travel, Guest Nails, and CrowsToes Merope

If you also read my old school online journal, Hat on Top, Coat Below, you already know that a few weeks ago my mom moved into the rehab unit of a nursing home, coincidentally on the same weekend I'd already planned to be traveling to a conference in Green Bay, Wisconsin. As things worked out, the move went well enough that I was able to attend most of the conference events, though I did miss a few things in order to check up on things via phone.

Taking care of my nails had slipped down on my priority list what with all the other stuff going on, so heading in to that weekend, my peelies were atrocious. The night before I left for the weekend, I cut my nails short (sadly, it wasn't possible to cut off all the peelies even though I went to nubbins), put on a layer of the old formula Orly Nail Defense that I save for situations like this, and toppped it off with Instant Artificials to smooth things out as best I could.



One of the activities at this year's conference was creativity sessions, and I agreed to lead one on nail art. Because we only had 50 minutes, I decided to focus on dotting. I think it went pretty well; the ladies seemed to have fun experimenting on nail wheels and a few asked where to buy dotting tools.



Even though it was a busy weekend, I did take time to paint my nails. I stayed up late one night and put on one of the duochromes from CrowToes duochrome Pleiades collection, Merope. I didn't bring my lightbox with me, so I snapped these shots in the best lit part of my hotel room—over the sink. Unlike some duochromes, this didn't need a dark base color to look its best. I used Sally Hansen Age Correct Growth for my treatment (another thing I've been hoarding; I scooped up a bunch of bottles when it was discontinued), followed by Instant Artificials, two coats of Merope, and Diamond Dry top coat.



Merope has a blue to plum shift that's quite visible. (Also visible: the fact that my cleanup skills are not so great after midnight.)



Here's Merope in the winter daylight filtering in through my hotel room window the next morning:



A new event at the con this year was a silent auction, and I donated a "mini manicure" (basically shaping if needed and polish). I brought a wide variety of polish options in an attempt to have something the winner would like regardless of her taste. I had cremes and shimmers in a rainbow of colors and neutrals and a wide variety of glitters, with drugstore and salon and indie brands all represented. The auction ended up being won by the partner of my fellow lacquer lover, koroshiya (not her real name, but the name I first knew her by—we met years ago on an old school general interest discussion board). Rather than have me paint his nails, he gave the prize to koro, so before I left to go back to spend time with my mom, she and I sat down in the hotel meeting room and played with polish. She ended up deciding on Skittles with mostly indie brands. The light wasn't great in that room, so unfortunately my photos didn't come out very well, but you can at least get a flavor of the finished mani.



Right hand (above and below): thumb—Cult Nails Flushed, index—Sinful Colors Star Dust over Cult Nails Flushed (I'm pretty sure), middle—Polish Revolution Glitterbox over CrowsToes Alcyone, ring—Pahlish Marbles on Glass over Wet 'n' Wild Wild Shine Black Creme (I think), pinky—Smitten Polish I Feel Wicked over Wet 'n' Wild Wild Shine Black Creme.





Left hand (above and below): thumb—Cult Nails Disciplined, index—Happy Hands The Worst is Over, middle—Contrary Polish Bauble, ring—Pahlish Combustible Lemon over Contrary Polish Bauble, pinky—Cult Nails Bitten.



There were not a lot of stoplights on my drive between Green Bay and Mom's nursing home, but when I did find myself at one, I enjoyed looking at the color shift in Merope.



This all happened almost three weeks ago now, and I'm happy to report that Mom did so well in rehab that she progressed from being in a wheelchair to using a walker to being released to live with my niece, the nurse, and get all her therapy in a home-based setting. This may not be the long term solution but it seems to be the best option right now. I unfortunately haven't been able to visit since she moved as I've been suffering from a cold/flu/sinus thing and didn't need to be spreading those germs around. I am feeling much better and once I stop coughing I'll be heading back to Illinois. Thanks to all of you who have included my mom in your prayers and have sent good thoughts our way; I think it helped!