The Christmas Tag

I was tagged by the lovely craftynail to talk about Christmas with y’all….I’m not really feeling Christmas this year, but maybe I can put a little Antipodean spin on it for you guys 🙂

1 Which holiday do you celebrate?
Christmas. Santa comes, we all eat too much, play backyard cricket, and talk.

2 What are you doing for the holidays this year?
I’m having Christmas day at home with my fiance, which is lovely, but it’s the first time in the 8 years since I moved from the country that I haven’t gone home for the day. I am however, going down on Boxing day to hang out with my family for five days, yayy!

3 What’s your favorite holiday drink?
It’s hot here at Christmas so we don’t really have all the lovely warming cocoa and stuff to drink…hmm. Beer?

4 Candy cane or Gingerbread men?
Both! Especially gingerbread men though, after many years I’ve got them down to a fine art. I look forward to having kids one day so we can make them together 🙂

5 What’s your favorite holiday/Christmas song?
“Last Christmas” by Wham. So very eighties, it never fails to get stuck in my head.

6 What’s the weirdest gift you’ve ever received?
A remote control helicopter from the father in law to be. I’m still speechless with wtf.

7 Have you ever made a snowman?
Nope 😦

8 What is your favorite winter fragrance?
I love the smell of Christmas trees, mm.

9 What is at the top of your list this Christmas?
I’d really love a sewing machine, but due to the massive expense of our upcoming wedding, we’re not having gifts this year 😦

10 What is most important to you about the holidays?
I don’t really know, to be honest. I don’t have a religious background, and I often feel like Christmas just creates a lot of stress. I do love that I get to see my family though 🙂

Gosh, I’m not a total Grinch, I swear…I guess you can’t be crazy into Christmas every year.

Penguin-O-rama

Penggguuuinnnnsss! I am so in love with these little bad boys, and it breaks my heart to know that they’re going to chip (probably sooner rather than later, wahh!) so I thought I’d best make sure they were well documented here.
I found the awesome tutorial for them here several months back, but put off trying them until I had a seasonal excuse, or until China Glaze Blue Island Iced Tea appeared in my travels (it still hasn’t 😦 ).
They’re really very easy. The base is my For Audrey that was suffering a bit of tipwear after two days, the black is uh, random black polish by Manicare that I use for nail art, the white is Sally Hansen White On, and I think I used a cheap orange from a brand called Moda or Mode for the noses. I used a dotting too for the eyes and a teeny brush for the noses, but the rest of it was just freehanded using the brush from the polish.
Mary over at Swatch and Learn really does make some amazing tutorials and awesomely simple designs for beginners. Head on over for a read, you won’t be disappointed!

Also, see that nastiness on my index finger, just back from the nail? That is dozens upon dozens of papercuts. Oh, the joy of Christmas mail outs.
Merry nearly Christmas!

A second chance for Audrey

Okay. As much as I am a super unique and awesome snowflake…sometimes I buy something just because everyone else has it. Nerr.
China Glaze For Audrey is one of those polishes. I just thought it would be supercool and I’d wear it all the time and love it forever and ever. I wear Toffany jewellery, I love Audrey Hepburn, what’s not to love?
Then I wore it, hated the CG skinny brush, hated the plasticky formula, and chucked it in my storage box.
I decided to give it another try, and with a little care and concentration it actually turned out quite well, and I think I like it. It’s the week before Christmas and I haven’t done any Christmas manis at all, but I don’t think I can be bothered. I’m always happiest when I paint to my mood, occasions be damned.

So in summary, I’m sorry Audrey, I’ll try to love you more in future.

OPI Top Ten- Red Lights Ahead, where?

Another Top Ten post! I think I’m nearly done, there’s maybe another three to go? I liked this a lot more than I expected to. I think blue-based reds look better on my skin, but this was a surprisingly pretty …

My very first Bellabox

It’s been a bit of a slow blogging week this week…the silly season is hitting me hard and I’m feeling really worn out. I’m also finally starting to panic about the wedding, eek!
Anyhoo, back to the pretties. Fortunately, pretties are relaxing, ahhh.
All these monthly sample boxes have been around for awhile now, but Bellbox is the first one I’ve tried. It’s a soundly simple concept- try some new stuff, maybe like something, and then by a handy coincidence you can purchase it through the same seller-ta dah!

The packaging was really cute and nice 🙂 I had the self restraint to actually wait to take piccies before opening, for which I gave myself a big pat on the back.

Goodies! Santa stuffed this box full of awesome with-
Allegra Rhodes Hand and Nail cream. A nice cream, packaged in a pretty cool little cube jar. It felt very nourishing, wasn’t crazy about the scent (Ocean Mist, I don’t like “Ocean” smells) but it does come in other scents. I’d consider buying, a 175ml container is AU $32.95 and I’m not sure it’s that great.
John Frieda Frizz-Ease Secret Weapon finishing cream. A quite generous 30ml sample. I’ll have a play with it later (currently my hair is all tied up in a pretty ponytail, complete with bow). My experience with John Frieda has been a bit hit-and-miss, many of the products I’ve tried have been very greasy and heavy. Still, I’ll reserve judgement until after testing.
Emerginc Multi Fruit cleanser and Emerginc Protocell cream. Cute little single use samples. I’m a bit excited to wash my face tonight! To be honest though, unless some earth shattering miracle occurred I’m just not going to pay AU $55 for a cleanser and AU $119 for a moisturiser…dang, that would put a dint in my nail polish budget!
Compeed patch- I’ve actually used and bought these before. They are simply the best thing on earth if you have a blister. Doesn’t rub or peel off like a bandaid does, and genuinely relieves the pain of the blister. Brilliant.
And last but most certainly not least-

This super cool Savoir Faire Limited Edition palette, oooh! I got a ‘summer’ one, and I actually really love the colours. One or two of the eyeshadow shades are ones I would normally not wear, but I think it’ll be really fun to play with them in summer. There’s also a pretty blush, an eyeliner, mini mascara and a lipgloss. I think I’ll get a lot of use out of this, especially for travel.
Overall, I’m pretty impressed with this little box! Possibly the December box is a little more special than other boxes, but for AU$15, if the boxes to follow are any good I think I’ll enjoy them 🙂

OPI Dating a Royal

I like to think there’s a prince out there for everyone…possibly not an actual proper one, but meh, who cares. Even if you can’t really date a royal, you can always paint your nails as if you were. Ooh, who’s …

To dream the impossible dream…

Phwoar, what an excellent weekend I had! Finally organised our wedding invites, got all my housework done, and went out to dinner in Williamstown with friends. I’ve always loved Williamstown, and soon it will be even more special because we’re …

OPI Top Ten- Bubble Bath & Alpine Snow

I decided to do a twofer post for these guys, as Bubble Bath is notoriously sheer, and Alpine Snow is, well, white. Meh. I did the freehand French tip method again, cleaning up with a wee little brush. Surprisingly it …

OPI Top Ten- Kiss me on my tulips

I’ve been meaning to wear this beauty for days and days, and it’s finally time, yayyyy! This is a pretty bangin’ pink. It’s a hot, hot, almost neon but not quite pink. It has a nice, fluid formula, and while …

Rag rolls

Lately I’ve become obsessed with rag rolling my hair. I’m going through some sort of metamorphosis, I feel, becoming more and more who I’ve always wanted to be (at least in a physical sense). Perhaps I’ve finally reached that special age where you stop caring what everyone thinks and do what makes you feel your best…if so, I’m delighted.
Anyhoo, enough musing, back to the important stuff-hair! The rag rolling thing started as a sick day experiment, and I fell in love. I’ve had a lot of fun so far trying different things, with varying degrees of success. I tend to love it even when I have crazy clown hair like today, but depending on how many rags you use it can be really very subtle and not mental at all 😛
There’s a really good tutorial here. I haven’t done a step by step or anything, just a couple of piccies from the morning after that I thought might be a giggle.

After I rolled it all up, I put this groovy scarf on to sleep in. By the next morning there are epic fuzzies sticking out, but I’m still rockin’ it.

Under the scarf is the rags themselves. Mine are made out of chux wipes, but you can use pretty much any fabric, old t-shirts, sheets, etc. I was trying out a different setting pattern, so some are rolled under and some over. Cool.

Unrolled and they’re really pretty epic. Had it all stopped here, my day would have rocked a little harder. Buttt they were kinda tangling, and I read a tutorial last night on how to brush out a set. Unfortunately I turned this knowledge into how NOT to brush out a set.

OK. Getting pretty concerned here. My epic halo of curls was turning into a ‘fro! What to do????? Keep brushing until it formed a wearable shape was really the only answer.

Now, I am a little nutty, and was (fortunately) in a quirky mood, so I elected to simply rock this fro of epic proportions, although it wasn’t quite what I had in mind. Please don’t let this put you off trying out rag rolling or something similar though, I promise it doesn’t always turn out quite so scary. I plan to try some rollers or something soon, to see if I can get a more uniform curl with less tangling. But so far there’s a lot of reasons to love the rag curl- it’s cheap, relatively easy, and unlike methods involving heat, it actually stays in my hair for more than 45 minutes, squee!