Distant Memory

I'm always on the lookout for good deals on polish (and everything else too). I like to think it's because I'm a smart consumer and not because I'm cheap. =P So while at the drug store one day for something totally different, I picked up a bottle of "Spoiled by Wet n Wild" polish. It was $1.99, so there wasn't much to lose. Plus, this is the first cheap polish I've seen with the flat, tapered brush I fell in love with while trying out Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure.

I got Spoiled in "Distant Memory," which is a pretty teal in the bottle. It dries a little on the matte side, so I had to put a top coat on it.

No Top Coat

Inside, it looks like a bluer teal close to a peacock blue. But outside, it transforms into a teal on the greener side and is really beautiful. One of these days I'll actually think about taking pictures outside, but this one is definitely more stunning in the sun. Here's the picture with a top coat, which doesn't look that much different using an iPhone camera, but I promise it's like night and day in real life.

With Top Coat

Liquid Crystal

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I'm playing a bit of catch up today... I grabbed some of the China Glaze polishes from Sally that have holographic glitter in them. I've been looking at them for a while now, but wasn't interested at $7 a pop. At $3.50 a bottle, I'm more interested. ;)

The first one I tried is Liquid Crystal, which is a light blue base with big pieces of glitter in it in every color under the sun (purple, blue, red, green, gold, and silver). The fine glitter in the polish is holographic, and depending on the light looks either purple or silver. Both looked pretty good, and I loved staring at it and moving my hands around to make it change color. Maybe I just have too much free time! In this picture (sorry for the lighting!), the holo glitter looks silver. I couldn't get a good picture of it looking purple on my phone...

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Quidditch Rings Square

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Sorry I haven't been around much lately... I've been doing a ton of other things and haven't had much time to post. But I've been planning my Harry Potter Double Knit Blanket of Awesome, and I realized there were some key items missing from charts I could find online. One of these was the rings/goals from Quidditch, which I figured would be an easy one to figure out. So I spent a little time today charting out goal posts, and this is the result.

Update: This pattern is now published and available as a PDF on Ravelry.
Alternate versions of the chart not included in the final pattern are still included below.

Alternate Version 1: 45x65, 3 rows of border

Alternate version 2: 45x65, 5 rows of border on the sides and 6 rows on the top/bottom

Alternate version 2: 45x60, 5 rows of border on the sides and 6 rows on the top/bottom

Here is a picture of my finished double knit square:

Yarn used:

  

White on White

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I've been so into the Olympics that I haven't posted that much recently. That and I haven't accomplished anything worth writing about! But I was scrolling through pictures on my phone and found something I had forgotten to blog about.

I painted my nails with China Glaze's White on White last week so awful results. First of all, I think Liquid Paper (as in correction fluid, white out, etc.) would have done a better job. White on White is watery and runny (my least favorite kind of polish to deal with), so I had to do 3 coats to get it looking good. Add that to the top coat and base coat (for a grand total of 5 coats), and I was done with nails for the day. Then I stuck my finger in something not 5 minutes after all of that and messed one up.... So I took it all off and gave up on White on White. Maybe it will be good for a French manicure one day, but I'm never painting my nails completely white with this again.

Here's a photo. Sorry for the yellow lighting, but I took this with no flash in a room with a sorry excuse for light bulbs.

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Hermione's HBP Hat Take 3

I don't know if  you've noticed, but I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. It might be more accurate to say I'm a huge Hermione fan though! I made her cable and lace hat from the 6th movie for the third time over the last couple of days. This time, I made it grey (since that's the color it's supposed to be) and used bigger needles to make it bigger for my ginormous head. You might have guessed, but I love it!

The hat is made with cotton blend yarn so I really hope it won't stretch out much. It's the perfect size the way it is now. The others fit, but they weren't loose enough to be comfortable. I have enough yarn to make another with some left over, but I'm hoping to make matching fingerless gloves someday. I'm taking a break from knitting for a couple of days because I'm burnt out!

Thistle

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I have been working on this Thistle Cap, and I don't like it. I don't know if it's the cheap yarn I'm using (Red Heart) or my brain messing up the pattern, but I hate it. And it looks so good in the pictures! I didn't do all the ribbing on the bottom and was going to opt for more pattern repeats, but I just finished it as is.

OMG, Blogger let me upload a horizontal picture!! =P Anyways, I've got 2 more hats to start and finish in 8.5 days for my OWL. I don't think I'll be able to do it since everything is so busy right now, but I'm going to try!

Yarn used:

Purple Posy

I tried another one of Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure a couple days ago, but forgot to post it! This one was also on clearance at Target, so I think the shade is being discontinued. It's called "Purple Posy" and it's a bright red-purple creme. I did 2 coats as recommended, but I still put a top coat on. I tried it without a base coat this time, so we will see how it works. I think Parrot might have lasted longer without either the base or top coat because the clear polish started chipping first. I'm guessing it was the base coat, so this is my little experiment to find out.

Parrot

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Ok, I'll admit it... I am a sucker for a clearance bin. So when I saw some polishes on clearance at Target, I grabbed a couple. I liked this one so much that I went back and bought another in the same color. Plus a few more colors, of course!

This is a new brand for me... It's Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure. The color is called "Parrot," but it reminds me more of a margarita than a bird. Green is one of my favorite colors, but I'm more partial to blue nail polish because honestly they make better shades in blue. But this green, oh man, this green... I love it! This is one of two greens ever that have gotten my seal of approval, so take note! And I think this one is seasonal/discontinued, so go snatch them up at Target while you still can!

So you've got that I love the color... But I also love the brush! It's thick and flat, so two swipes covers my bigger (thumb) nails and one covers the smaller ones. This can have a tendency to pool polish on the sides of the nail, but once I got used to it I was a pro. Another great thing is that the end of the brush is rounded, so the polish easily takes the shape it's supposed to at the base of your nail. It's great for me to have that idiot-proofed, because I suck at getting that rounded base and I'm too lazy to go back and fix it.

I did two coats as recommended, but I topped it with Seche Vite and used Seche Clear as a base. I know it says not to, but I've seen a lot of reviews where people tried to use it as written and it chipped like a mofo. I've been wearing it for a couple of days now and it still looks great minus the typical edge wear, so no problems here! This picture was taken when I only had one coat on, but you get the idea:

It probably looks more yellow to you than it does in real life. I promise.

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UNC Beanie Take 2

I made a UNC beanie for my aunt last month, and a work friend saw it and wanted one for herself. So I made another and *gasp* actually followed the pattern correctly this time. Now that I have done it the right way, I think I like the wrong way better. =P

Here they are side by side. The old (wrong) one is the bottom picture.

Frenzy

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I picked up a cheap glitter polish for $1.99 at Target and broke it out yesterday. It's Sinful Colors in Frenzy, and I didn't have high hopes after hating their Irish Green with a passion. I like it though. Glitter is pretty straightforward, so I guess it's hard to mess that up unless you have big chunks or something. Frenzy is a blue and purple glitter that could almost pass for 4th of July red and blue at a distance. The glitter pieces are small, so they're not annoying (but it is harder to get a clean line).

Feast your eyes on Frenzy!

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Emjoi Micro-Pedi

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I've been subjected to a lot of QVC in my time (thanks mom and grandma), but I've never bought anything off of QVC until now. I caved and got an Emjoi Micro-Pedi, which is a battery-powered callus shaver. It came in 3 colors, but the blue had sold out. I grabbed the purple because white is boring! I love the color because it's girly but not bright.

I've been rough on my feet over the years. I've worn heels, gone barefoot on all kinds of surfaces, and scraped them all over. I've got some pretty hard and thick calluses, especially on my big toes. I tried a Ped Egg, but it made my feet rough since it was pretty much like running my heels over a cheese grater. Once I even tried clipping the bottoms of my feet with nail clippers (highly painful, don't try it at home kids!). Nothing really worked for me... Until now!

This thing clearly works because you see so much skin coming off while you're using it. Then you're left with baby-soft feet that look and feel better. I'm gradually filing them down just in case, because you can seriously hurt yourself if you take off too much. Still, after the first use I noticed a marked difference between the before and after. I wish I had taken photos of the results! (There are B&A pictures on their website if you're curious.) The machine is so simple to use, and you can rinse it off so it's not like you're using a dirty, gross product over and over.

Another awesome thing I just found out is that there will be an attachable manicure tool available in July. Could I love it even more??

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Fast Track

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I dipped back into my Hunger Games polishes tonight, and painted my nails with China Glaze's "Fast Track." I'm usually not one to go for anything in the beige family, but it's quite pretty. It's a translucent beige-y color with a gold shimmer. It looks good in a dark room and in brighter environments.

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Irish Green

I hate having watery polish, and this one was the king. It's "Irish Green" by Sinful Colors, which in the bottle looks like the brightest, most obnoxious neon green I've been able to find. I was so excited to use it, so of course it sucks. =P

I rarely clean up my nails while I'm polishing them, but I had to with this stuff. It was either a) make a mess or b) do 15 coats. I opted for the mess because I'm impatient. This is what they looked like when I was done. Note that I cleaned them up while polishing and they still look like a mess!

As you can see, it's a bit translucent. I'd prefer a more opaque look without having to do multiple coats. This is probably 2-3 coats and I can still see through it. Another problem is that it's a great Kelly green inside, but is an acid, Rita Skeeter green in sunlight. It's maybe a little bit too 80s for me in the light.

The search for the perfect green continues...

Working on my Lotus Hat

I'm working on my Lotus hat today, which I've been putting off to do other things. I've done about 10-15 rows this morning, which is as much as I originally had before I stopped. The pattern calls for 3 pattern repeats (Chart A) for a short beanie, and I planned to do 4 because a lot of people on Ravelry recommended to do so. Now I'm thinking I might need to do 5 since my head is so big. I guess I'll play it by ear when I get there!

I wish I could make this horizontal!

For my OWL in HPKCHC, I'm making 8 hats in 3 months. I'm a bit behind, as we're halfway through the second month and I'm not even half done with my this, which is my fourth hat. So I need to speed it up!

Shower Together

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I've been holding off on painting my nails since I've been doing interviews this week, but I missed them so they're newly painted a beautiful peacock blue. This is China Glaze's Shower Together, which is a medium peacock blue creme. I absolutely love this polish, and I think it's going to be added to my favorites list. I like it so much, I'm debating getting another one in case they stop making it.

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Mini Slytherin Scarf

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I've been working this month on a mini Slytherin scarf for Nox. I wanted to try out my pattern with US 6 needles since when I make it with US size 7 needles it's a bit big. It took me a while because I hate monotonous ribbing and I also hate weaving in ends. =P

Here's Nox modeling the scarf for me:

And here's a comparison of the two scarves:

Yarn used:

  

Rainbow

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I painted my nails the other day using China Glaze's Rainbow, which is an iridescent white polish. I was really hoping for a full rainbow of colors in the shimmer, but it ended up looking mostly pink to me. It's translucent, but I didn't have the time or want to spend the effort to see what it looked like with several coats.

I tried an anti-yellowing top coat underneath because I already had it on. It obviously wasn't intended to be used as a base coat. 8 out of 10 nails are chipped today, and I painted them late the night before last. Not a good track record! But I did use it for something it wasn't intended to be used for... Mea culpa.

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