Winning Makes Everything Better

Good morning, Kitschies!!

I took too many of these last night...

source

So I'm moving a little slow this morning.  To make myself happier and forget about the hurt for a bit, I want to announce a *winner*!

The winner of the Zoya polishes provided by Verve 360 salon has been chosen!!  Out of 108 valid entries, who has already responded to her congrats email and chosen by random.org (which picked #35) was...

Thank you to everybody who entered!!  Keep an eye out for another giveaway coming up soon. :)

Once Upon A Time...

Good morning, Kitschies!  It's shaping up to be another busy day, so I'm going to put together this post while I can.

WAAAAAYYYY back in October, Mason and I took a road trip to Cali to visit my family.  It was time for the annual Walk to Defeat ALS (I walked, well, skated) in support of my Mom who was diagnosed with ALS over 10 years ago.  While I was visiting, I had to make a trip to their brand new Ulta to see what was up for grabs.  I was happy to find two great polishes.  But first, let's look at what I wore *out* there.

I started my trip to Cali with a holo, albeit not a strong holo, but a holo nonetheless.  I mean, how can you visit the Sunshine State without sporting a holo on your tips?!  This is 3D Fantasy from the ChG Tronica collection.  It's a really pretty coral-y pink with a quiet linear holo.

On our Ulta excursion, I lucked out and found L'Oreal Owl's Night from the Project Runway collaboration.  I loved this polish.  Super dark but it has a warm copper glow to it.  So, so pretty!  I haven't worn this since but you can bet it'll see good rotation through my collection.

I also found Skyscraper from ChG Metro collection.  It was the first time I had seen this collection and this was the only one that really jumped at me.  I did two coats of this pretty navy blue jelly with silver glitter (except for the middle finger where I obviously did 3).  This one didn't wear so great on me - I had some big chips within two days. 

Seeing these pics makes me really miss my *long* nails.  While the nubbins are more manageable, I like the way the long ones look.

OK...time to put my skates on...things are ramping up here.  Have a great Thursday and don't forget to enter my giveaway (you only have a few days left).

A Nom for Wednesday

Happy Hump Day, Kitschies!!  It's been a bit chaotic here at the clinic the last few days and I haven't been at my work station much.  It's lunch time now and I'm squeezing in a post because...how can I ignore you?

This is one of my favorite go-to recipes; I fix it at least every few weeks.  Chances are you have the ingredients on hand!  I originally found this in a Kraft recipe magazine but thanks to the wonders of the internets, you can now find it online.

Smothered Chicken & Green Bean Skillet
4 small boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
2 cups frozen green beans
1 can (10.75 oz) condensed cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp dried thyme leaves
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese 

HEAT large nonstick skillet on medium-high heat. Add chicken; cover. Cook 5 to 7 min. on each side or until done (165ºF). Remove chicken from skillet.

ADD beans, soup, water and thyme to skillet; cover. Cook 6 min., stirring frequently.
RETURN chicken to skillet. Cook 1 min. or until hot. Top with cheese. 

NOTES:  I go between using cream of chicken, cream of mushroom and cream of chicken and mushroom soup - it's whatever I have on hand and really, I can't tell the difference.  

See?  You have all that stuff sitting in your cabinets and in your fridge right now, don't you?

Soooo good!  And the boys eat it without complaint (which is a miracle in my house).


Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday!  I'm off to eat some food so I can get back to the grind.

And don't forget to enter my giveaway (you do not have to be a follower).  You can check it out HERE.

It's Giveaway Time!!

Hey, Kitschies!!!  I think it's about time to give back to my lovely readers, don't you?

I have been contacted by Verve 360 to host a giveaway!  Wanna know what you can win?  ONE lucky winner will get two new Zoya polishes: Anja and Jem.  These two colors are great for all skin tones and are prefect for the Winter season.

Anja

Jem via The Polish-Aholic

These are both super gorgeous colors (I have them both)!  So, what do you have to do to win these two beauties?  Fill out the following form then sit back and relax!  

And now for the fine print...

*Open to US residents only.

*Entries will be taken from NOW until 12:01AM EST on 1/30/12 (that's one week).

*I will verify all entries and will announce the winner by 1/31/12.  The winner will have 24 hours to respond.  If I do not hear from them, another winner will be chosen and announced.  The same rules apply to them.

Good luck!!

A BIG thank you to Verve 360 hair salon in Pittsburgh for letting me give back to my readers and for providing the pretties for this giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I Got Purple-itis

Good morning, Kitschies! We tried to take the boys to the snow play area on Sunday but that was a big fail.  The snow area was closed for "unsafe conditions" - I don't exactly know what that means but I'm assuming that meant don't go sledding unless you want to run in to big, hard rocks.  And seeing as I've sledded in to my share of hard, inanimate objects, we chose to sled at another place.  It was cold and windy and we didn't have much fun, but Nate *did* enjoy himself for the little time we were out.

Every week, Polish-aholics Annonymous on FB runs a challenge.  I've been participating in the challenges, but I haven't done a corresponding blog post about any of them...until now.  Today's challenge was ombre/gradient nails.  In case you don't know, ombre means having colors or tones that shade into each other —used especially of fabrics in which the color is graduated from light to dark.  Don't worry...I didn't know the exact meaning, either.  Yay!  We learned something today.  You can go back to bed now. :) 

On to the pics, shall we?

I initially tried a white to black gradient, but it didn't turn out so well.  I had to hand mix two shades and it just didn't work.  So, I went back to my Helmer and dug around a bit - and viola!  Here's my purple gradient nails!

In the previous picture, the index and middle fingers look pretty similar, but IRL and in more natural light, they're not quite as close in color.

You can see here that while they're similar, they are not the same.  IRL, Mira looks to dry a bit darker than what you can see in the bottle.  But in all the pics I took to compare the nail to the bottle, they look identical.  Strange.

This is the first ombre mani I've done and I like it enough.  I just don't care to wear a different color on each nail.  It kinda drives me crazy even though I like the effect.

Here's what I used.  If you click on the pic you can read the color names better.

Pinky

Ring

Middle

Index

I didn't get a good bottle/thumb pic, so check out this swatch HERE for a good representation of the color. 

So...there ya go!  What color(s) would you have used if you had done an ombre mani?

Why You No Green!?!

Good day, Kitschies!!  It's FRIDAY!!!  It's supposed to beautiful weather this weekend, so we're planning on taking the boys sledding on Sunday.  I can't wait!  I think it'll be more for me than the boys, but it'll be fun either way.  Saturday will be spent getting things done around the house so we can play on Sunday.  What do YOU have planned for the weekend?

I have a fun mani to share with you today.  I've done a few like this before, but of the 3 I've done so far, this is, by far, my favorite.

I started with a base of a pale, pale pink Color Club (I cannot remember the name of it right now).  I wanted something light but not as stark as a plain white.  This super pale pink worked perfect!

Then I splattered ChG Four Leaf Clover (yes, that really *is* green, almost a neon green, but it would NOT capture correctly at. all.) and Orly Charged Up (purple) alternately on each nail.

For a more color-accurate pic, check out this swatch by ALU.  No matter how I tweaked the settings on my camera and no matter what I did in Photoshop, I could NOT get that green to look green.  Strange.  Usually I have trouble with purple.

I loved this mani!  Some of the polish dragged when I put on top coat and usually that would bug me but this time it gave it an almost watercolor effect, a la David Mack.

And just as a little side note, I've noticed I've picked up a few new followers here and there and I want to say WELCOME and thank you!  It's amazing to me that people are interested enough in what I do on my blog to follow me.  Keep an eye open for a giveaway to be happening very soon!  Happy weekend!

Perfectly Vampy

Good morning, Kitschies!  It's Thursday...what does that mean?  Not a whole lot other than it's one day closer to the weekend.  WOOT!!  The last few days have been much quieter here at the clinic (thank jeebus) and we're getting back in to the routine.  I'm still fighting a head cold (thanks, Mason) so I haven't done much in the way of exercise since the end of last week and I'm starting to feel like a bump on a log.

I have a pretty, pretty polish to share with you today.  I picked this beauty up during Zoya's polish exchange program last spring but hadn't tried it until recently.

Zoya Anja (from the Smoke collection) is a gorgeous vampy deep wine creme.  In the bottle, you can see a few random sparkles, but they're nowhere to be found on the nail.  Indoors or with indirect lighting (this pic was taken indoors under "daylight" light), Anja looks almost black, but I love these kinds of colors!

In the sun though, Anja is a gorgeous deep purple wine color.  So, so pretty.  This is a color that would look good on any skin tone and is good for pretty much all occasions.  Vampy.  Sexy.  Gorgeous.

See?  Three different lighting situations (this one is indirect sunlight), three different colors.  One of the many reasons I love Anja. 

This is the only one I have from Zoya's Smoke collection, but I really want to pick up Cynthia, too.  Do you have Anja?  What do you think of her?