L'Oreal Sparkling Soirée Holiday 2014-- Almost Midnight

  As much as I love to wear purple clothes, sweaters, coats, shoes, bathrobe, lol, purple nail polishes have never been my forte.  Maybe it's because of the superfluity of the color in my wardrobe-- I'd rather something more complementary and less matchy-matchy.  Maybe it's those elegant bottles and brushed gold caps, or maybe it's the fact that this purple leans warm and dusky and not cool and royal.  L'Oreal Almost Midnight, from the holiday 2014 Sparkling Soirée collection, spoke volumes to me.

L'Oreal Sparkling Soirée Holiday 2014-- Almost Midnight

Nicole Love Your Life + Essence Black is Back-- BCA Pink Wednesday Week 5

Hello hello!!  This is my final submission in Andrea's Breast Cancer Awareness Go Pink for October event, and I'm so freaking late that I don't even know if I'll provide/add the inlinkz thing at the end... I guess we'll both find out when we get there, lol.
Life has certainly gotten in the way this week, and all is, for the most part, well.  I'd been looking forward to wearing this manicure on Halloween like, all month, and wouldn't you know, it just wasn't meant to happen.  Sleep and spending time with family trump giving myself super cute Halloween/Pink Wednesday nails.  So, I'm going pink on Friday.  Did I mention it's the beginning of my three day weekend?  And that I slept in until 10:38 this morning?

This is Nicole Love Your Life over the most fabulous jet-black creme, Essence Black is Back.  Love Your Life has these adorable pink hearts suspended in a clear base with little holographic glitters.  It is absolutely adorable and perfectly girly, but a complete and utter pain to apply.  You've got to fish for the hearts, as is to be expected, but by the time you get them on your nails the whole thing is a ridiculously thick, gloopy mess.  Forget about adding topcoat at that point.  I've read in a couple different places that the best way to handle these types of glitter is to pour a little polish out and place the hearts on your nails with a cuticle stick.  After two failed tries, that's what I did, and then brushed over the top with the glittery base.  After topcoat, it's still thick, but wearable. 

So there you have it!  Thank you so much to Andrea for organizing this awesome, fun, and supportive event.  It's been a blast, and I hope we're all even just a little more aware of how important it is to get yourself checked and be proactively healthy.  Me?  I'm going to get my behind off this chair and go run some bleachers this afternoon.
Take care, and God bless.  Here's the inlinkz.  I got in just in time, with a little over an hour to spare. ;)

My Niece's Nails

Well, I've had a good three month stretch with no breakage, but it finally happened a couple nights ago.  It wouldn't be such a big deal to file them all down, but my nubbins aren't even cute.  So I didn't think I'd be doing any polishing for a good week, but then the opportunity presented itself last night while I was hanging out with my 8 year old niece, Ali.  We got into my stash and she chose three colors for her manicure-- Nicole Respect the World, Zoya Trixie, and Zoya Edyta.

Yes, this girl chose an olive/hunter green for her mani, all on her own, with no prompting. lol.  And does she have an eye for color, or what?  I never would have paired the aqua NOPI with Edyta, but they look kind of awesome together.  Here's the finished product.

Ali let out the most excited "Ohhhh!"  when I first painted Edyta on her little fingers.  Haven't we all done that when we're experiencing a mind-blowingly gorgeous new color for the first time, even just in our minds? ;)

Anyway, here's a parting shot of my pretty little nailista, so proud of her awesome nails. 

I told her I was going to put her on my blog, as long as it was okay with her mom, and she was stoked about that, too.  I sure do love this girl. <3

Have a most awesome weekend, and thank you for reading! :)

Nicole by OPI Fresh Squeezed

April is Prevention of Cruelty to Animals month, so this post is dedicated to the cause, and the furry friends that are so near and dear to my heart.  The ASPCA is a national non-profit and the first humane society established in the US, and orange is their color.  I only have one orange in my stash at present, usually reserved for the years my NBA team makes the playoffs, but this month presents another lovely opportunity (and it's questionable if I'll be wearing it for my team at this point....)  This post is pic heavy with some cat spam at the end.  You have been warned.

Nicole by OPI Fresh Squeezed is kind of a red-orange, made so by fuschia sparkles the camera has a hard time capturing.  The third pic is as close as I could get.  If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can very faintly see them.  It's a lovely, vibrant color with orange, silver, and gold sparkles, as well.  The brush is on the small side, but the formula's fantastic, albeit a little sheer-- this is three coats with a slightly visible nail line, so if that bothers you, steer clear.

This post wouldn't be complete without appearances by my little furbabies, so here they are. :)  This one is my baby Beau, a dapper one-year-old little boy C and I adopted from our local Humane Society (where I volunteer; I fell in love with this little guy's sweet and playful nature one afternoon, and the rest is history!)

This is my little girl cat, Sally.  She won't look at the camera for anything and growled at me every time I turned it on her, so this is the best pic I could get out of her. lol.  She is seven.  C adopted her from one of his coworkers a month after we were married.  She's feisty and independent, but so sweet and lovey when she wants to be.

Here are links to the ASPCA and my local humane society.  If you're interested, please take a moment to check them out!

http://www.aspca.org/

http://willamettehumane.org/