HPB Presents: Fall Favorites!

Hello gorgeous! How's the weather? We're under a "winter weather advisory" for freezing rain right now, and it's 29°F. Miserable. But that's when I get to put on my favorite sweater and cuddle up with a special someone and some hot chocolate (or hot apple cider) in front of the TV and binge watch TV shows on Netflix (last night's discovery was Once Upon A Time... OMG!). 

Today, I'm doing another linkup with Hobby Polish Bloggers, and this month's theme is Fall Favorites! For a while I couldn't decide what was my favorite thing about autumn, or how to depict it on my nails. Is it the turning of the weather, going from miserable to lovely? Is it the gorgeous change in the leaves? Is it the fat squirrels running around, preparing for winter? Yes. And so much more. 

And then it hit me: my favorite sweater. Seriously, the first day it was below 40°F, I was rocking that sweater. And I have worn it at least once a week since. I friggin' love that thing! And yet, I don't have a pic of it. Sorry :(

But I do have pics of this mani!

At first I didn't like that the red was so uneven, and then I realized it's a sweater.
Everything's uneven about it lol

The grey and burgandy, the fat stripes... everything about this mani turned out exactly how I wanted. And it was easy to do, I just freehanded the stripes with a small-ish brush. Two layers of LAC's Lost Soul, then a layer of Diamond Claws by Dragon Claw Polish, and then laying down the stripes using Sinful Colors' GoGo Girl. I used acetone and more Lost Soul to clean up the lines, and then topped with Diamond Claws. Pretty easy, pretty fast, and I'm thrilled. It perfectly sums up autumn to me.

Hobby Polish Bloggers is a wonderful group of women that I am proud to be a part of. So many lovely women who are experiencing the same struggles that I do: trying to get more views; trying to balance a full-time job, children, nail care, and the blog; nail care; the lust after new polishes by amazing creators; breaking a nail and being unable to salvage it... All of the trials and tribulations. They're there for me. I also get great tips and tricks from them, and new goals to aspire to (like someday being able to paint half as well as Narmai over at PiggieLuv). 

Every month, HPB does a linkup. Here's this month's participants: 

An InLinkz Link-up

I hope you have a lovely rest of your autumn, and please enjoy a hot cocoa for me!

In the comments below, please let me know what you're favorite thing about Fall is!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's Turkey Day here in the 'States, which means a lot of people are either going to be stuffing their faces with stuffing here soon.

I'm going to be stuffing my face with my family and then going to work (I'm getting paid double, who am I to complain?). My son's gonna have a blast with his Grandie while I man the phone lines. If you have DishNET Wireline as your ISP, call in to threaten to cancel and say hi :)

This Grunge look has been really popular lately, if you've been watching Pinterest. I liked it, but then i got bored of the one-direction and threw in some side-slashes. Now I love it. Honestly, I'm not a huuuuge fan of browns and oranges and gold so I'm not 100% sold on it, but it is pretty.

After struggling with my camera for a few hundred pics, I just went with my old cell phone... It seriously has a better camera on it than my Nikon, which I can NOT for the life of me get to take pics that are up-close. So frustrating! I honestly think it's broken. *sigh*

ANYWAYS I hope you Americans enjoy your holiday! Eat, drink, and be merry!

*SEMI-POLITICAL RANT, PLEASE IGNORE*

I feel that Thanksgiving is a time to be together as a family. Retailers should NOT be forcing their employees to work today. Me working today is totally voluntary, I requested it, as did my coworkers. I will NOT be shopping until after Thanksgiving is over, even if I have to pay full price for the items I'm keeping my eye on (I'll probably go nuts at Cyber Monday too). It's called Black FRIDAY, and in my opinion, that means it STAYS ON FRIDAY. 

I also feel Christmas should stay out of November, but I think that's because I'm a December baby.

Pumpkins!

Ahhh I love fall! The colors (which is funny, I'm a cool-color person), the weather (the temperature! the rain! the lack of humidity!), the food (squash soup!), the clothes (finally can wear jeans without dying. also, sweaters.), the holidays (Halloween! Thanksgiving!) and my electric bill (seriously!)! I love EVERYTHING ABOUT FALL. Okay, the whole pumpkin spice obsession is a bit out of hand, but EVERYTHING ELSE I LOVE.

This list should also include pumpkins. I really, really like pumpkins, and finding the perfect pumpkin always stresses me out because when I find my "perfect" pumpkin, I psyche myself out because someone else could probably not destroy it like I am preparing my kitchen with newspaper to do.

So, I made my own pumpkins!

Cleanup was really hard for me with this orange because it's so sheer, I had a hard time seeing it (there are a few other reasons, like I have a hard time differentiating certain shades of oranges and pinks (which actually did not help while I was building up the orange... couldn't tell where I'd put the first layers...), and I was watching True Blood in really low lighting. Sorry!), so please excuse the mess.

I still love how these turned out! These just scream "Fall is HEERE!" to me.

Please meet Flower. Apparently it's a brand you can buy at Walmart now? I'd never heard of it before. The orange, Eye of the Tiger Lilly, really caught my eye, perfect for pumpkins, right?? ...Not so much. This polish is very sheer, and I'd actually like to call it a Jelly. I layered it with Sinful Colors Cloud 9  to get some opaque-ness and it gave it a very, very subtle glitter. 

Application is pretty good, not very streaky. It is a little thin, but not too bad! Even with two topcoats, there's shrinkage and wear happening after only two days :( 

You can see my cuticle butter in my cuticles... oops. Lush's Lemony Flutter, if anyone's asking.
You can also see where I couldn't figure out where the orange and the pink were lol

I really like these, despite all of my flaws (I'm still learning freehand...), and the issues I had with the polish.

Candy Apple Nails

I was wondering what to do Saturday night, so I went with my default- I did my nails! But what did I want to

do? My mom gave me the answer: Candy Apple nails! They turned out cute, and I've been wearing them ever since :)

These were pretty easy! Just sponged the colors on, and then add the caramel topping :)

I used Sinful Colors Unicorn as my base. I was planning on letting it show with the other colors,  but that didn't happen.
Unicorn is a very soft yellow creme. Very pretty.

After the sponging, before the matte coat. I tried to make every nail unique. No two apples are alike!

Here's with the "caramel" applied. I added a matte topcoat to the apple. I mixed a soft brown creme I have with a gold I recently bought to create the caramel, and then topped it with my Wet'N'Wild topcoat.

I guess I didn't get as much disparity as I wanted, all the red is on the right side of the nail. Oh well, they still don't look the same!

To finish, I added a stem and a leaf on top. I think they turned out really cute!

All done!

So what do you think? Totally fall, right?