Water Street Blue

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I tried another cheap polish today and I am in love with it! It's another NYC In a New York Color Minute in a color called Water Street Blue. It's a vibrant, bright blue creme that I love to death. This and their High Line Green are my new favorite spring colors. The best part is... They cost $1.72 at Walmart.

The picture is a little lighter than the color looks inside, but you can still tell it's awesome.

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Better be... Gryffindor!

I was Sorted into Gryffindor this morning! Rooooooooar!! I can't wait to get started on all the awesome activities including Marauder's Missions, Hallows Hunting, collecting Chocolate Frog Cards, and Horcrux Collecting. I don't even know what half of those are yet, but I'm still excited! They sound so cool...

I found out that I can rack up about 20 Chocolate Frog Cards for participating in break month stuff, so the madness begins!

Here's my new Gryffindor avatar... Or "robes" as they call them in HPKCHC.

Here Today... Aragon Tomorrow

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I have a confession to make. Apparently I can't read, because I bought this polish because I thought the name was "Here Today... Aragorn Tomorrow." I snapped it up for the LOTR reference and the ranger green color. But OPI wasn't doing a Lord of the Rings polish, they were doing a Spanish collection.

The color looks black with no flash, so I had to use it to show that it's a really dark, almost black, green. The traditional park benches here are painted a similar color the call "Charleston green." The polish also isn't opaque when you put it on, so it's a 2- or 3-coater (which annoyed me since I didn't have much time to do it, so they're messed up).

 

Color swatches for the matte version of this polish online look awesome. I'm hoping to come across it in the future...

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East Village

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This morning, I tried another cheapo polish: NYC in East Village. It looked like a gorgeous teal in the bottle, but man was I disappointed when I used it....

It went on in the thinnest layer I've ever seen and lightly tinted my nail. It was like looking at my nails underwater, minus the water. Which is cool I guess if that's what you're looking for, but if I spend that much time doing my nails I want it to be substantial. So instead of putting on 75 coats, I used what I lovingly call the "pile on" method. I pile on about 4 layers worth of polish and smooth it out as best I can, let it sit a while, and put a final coat on top (followed by a top coat, of course). This gets me through those super thin polishes without making me tear my hair out.

The only problem with this method is that is takes a lot longer to dry because the wet layer is super thick. Which normally wouldn't be a problem... But real life kind of got in the way and I messed them up (that's what I get for doing them in the morning). So I ended up taking it all off anyways, but I got a picture before I did.

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Learning to Crochet

I started trying to learn to crochet a couple of days ago. I got two whole rows of single chain before I gave up and went back to working on my scarf... But I did it! See my pathetic little chain?

Gothic Lolita

I was so in love with Electric Beat that I decided to try another of China Glaze's Electropop collection -- Gothic Lolita. This one is a medium purple (reddish purple, not blue purple) with a hint of shimmer. I'm starting to realize that I like flat colors best, but I still like this one. It's not that different from NYC's Prince Street, just lighter and redder.

Also, I think I've been doing my nails a bit too much because they're starting to peel. So I put a little oil on them before the polish (and took it off before polishing of course!), and put on 2 coats of Gelous to (hopefully) harden them up a little.

WIP It Good!

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I started an old-style (Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets) Ravenclaw scarf in February and I was planning on using it as an ongoing WIP (Work In Progress) between all of my HPKCHC activities. This way, if I finished all my projects for the month early and didn't want to start anything new, I'd have something to work on that's pretty mindless (meaning great to work on while watching TV). But the NQFYs (and possibly the main group later on in the month) are having a WIP challenge, which means I have to finish it by April 25th... And then save it for Detention in May.

I was only 20% through this scarf in February, but I've been working on it nonstop for about a week now, and I'm currently between 60 and 65% finished. These numbers aren't very encouraging! I hope I can finish it by the end of the month and still have time to swatch for my OWL (I have one out of the 5 swatches I need done so far)! I've also read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on and off while working on my scarf, and I finished the book last night. Onto Chamber of Secrets!

(on a side note... Every time I write CoS I have a problem deciding in my head whether to say Crown of Swords [a Wheel of Time book] or Chamber of Secrets. I might have to start writing the second Harry Potter as HPCoS.)

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Electric Beat

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I've been wanting some of the China Glaze Electropop collection, but my Sally Beauty Supply doesn't have them in stock. =( Luckily, Holly's Sally is way better than mine and she picked them up for me! So today I tried out one of them called Electric Beat, which is a pastel blue. It's great for spring, and a definite departure from the Hunger Games colors which remind me of fall. It looks a little more periwinkle in the picture than it does in real life, but it's not that purple.

Anyways, I'm beat... I decided to update the blog from yesterday and today so at least I got everything done! Good night!

Same color, different light. This is more accurate.

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Stuffed Things?!?

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I've been motivated by my buddies in HPKCHC to step out of my comfort zone, and therefore I've learned to do a lot more in the last few months than I would have otherwise. So when my fellow NQFYs decided to host a Penguin Along for all of the HPKCHC members, I decided to do a real penguin... Not just a penguin design on a dishcloth.

So I got out my yarn and my needles, grabbed a few cotton balls from the bathroom, and I was ready to knit a little penguin. I finished him in less than half a day, although I'm not really sure how long I spent knitting because I wasn't keeping track. Not long after I started, I had my first softie or amigurumi... Whatever you want to call it! He's a little wonky because his eyes and wings are on crooked, and he leans a little when standing... But he looks like a penguin, and that's what counts!

Yarn used: