trace face philes 1700 follower giveaway!

The Trace Face Philes is hosting another awesome giveaway! I suggest everyone go enter-- no joke! But
maybe you shouldn't... because I want to win :)
This will be my second time attempting to win Gosh holographic. my nails waaaaanttttt ittttttt :c



Look at those prizes!

Honestly, I'd be ok with winning second prize, the bottle designs are adorable, as are the colours-- and, I can't get my hands on essence way up here in the Great White North!

emma likes painting her nails

Milani One Coat Glitter - Red Sparkle, Essie - Russian Roulette, Wet N' Wild - Black Creme

I like it a looottttt.
The idea of painting my nails always appealed to me, especially when I was a little girl. The clean up, the smell, and the feeling of it on my finger nails, however, kept me from ever owning a substantial amount of polish, or from painting my nails every day.

A couple of years ago my good friend Rebecca started getting really into it, and as her collection expanded, her talent increased, and she started herself a pretty popular blog!

I've spent days just staring at the pretty things she does to her nails, and i've been practicing and aquiring pieces here and there towards my own nail polish collection. I think it's pretty safe to say that Emma, just like Rebecca, likes nails.

Now, I am by no means as talented as she, or some of the other bloggers out there. I certainly have fair share of bad nail care practices! My nails are horrible. They split and peel and on one nail a ridge breaks, every single time. I've been working on taking care of my skin-- and my nails-- more and more. I want them to be pretty! especially now that I've bought my first set of stamping plates-- the possibilities for designs are endless!

:((

I used to do a lot of artwork: painting, drawing, sketching, all of it. Lately, I've been more into cooking and crafting ( I still doodle in all my school notes though!) so for me, nails are like tiny little canvasses I get to carry around. I can look at a piece of art whenever I want! It's the perfect medium for me to get out all of this pent up artistic need. Here are a few things I've done, and I'll try to include the names of the polishes! If I can remember them, that is...

This was China Glaze - For Audrey and OPI - Sparrow Me the Drama mixed with white! I like to polka :)

For Audrey, again, with Nicole by OPI's - Silver Texture Coat and freehanded cheetah using a 2-way nail art pen.

I used Nailside's Explosion tutorial to pull this off! OPI - Planks a Lot, Wet N' Wild - Black Creme and Sally Hansen Insta-Dry - Silver Sweep! Can I just say that I was super proud of this? It took me about an hour to do one hand-- and I didn't get lazy either, I did them both! It was hard work. Cowey isn't too impressed by nails though. The polish and acetone smell so bad, she makes faces when she smells it! And if I try to pet her after painting my nails she scurries away. do not want.

And then I started trying half moons! And I think they're awesome. This was For Audrey and Sparrow Me the Drama again. Can you tell what my favourite colours are yet?

Milani One Coat Glitter - Gold Glitz, Wet N' Wild - Black Creme, and the cheetah stamp from Konad m57. yeah, I owned one plate for a while! (thanks Kathryn!)

China Glaze - Strawberry Fields, konad m57 stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dry - Silver Sweep and Wet N' Wild - Black Creme

For Audrey, stamped with the same zebra print as before using Kleancolor - Metallic Aqua. The coat of armor accent nail was made with Milani Jewel FX - Silver, and quite a bit of free time with a toothpick!

There's a good reason For Audrey is my favourite polish-- it's my favourite colour blue! That's why my Sweet Mint EOS is also my favourite :) This is the same zebra print again, stamped with Silver Sweep over China Glaze - Dorothy Who! I was so happy Rebecca convinced me to get this polish! It's my favourite out of all the glitters I own.

This was my first day getting nail mail! This is China Glaze - FYI from the OMG Collection! The only holo polish I own, and I worship it. I ran out to my front porch to take a picture, I spent days staring at my nails when I had this on! I stamped the pretty curlique from BM07 as accent nails, and on one pinky the cat image from BM04, as a tribute to my cat Mistoffelees who passed away earlier this year! That cat image will probably be the most frequently used from all of my plates!

yeah, I went there. Floral nails on my second day with stamping plates. the colors used are Sally Hansen Insta-Dry: Pink Blink, Blue Away, Presto Pink, and Whirlwind White; and China Glaze - Four Leaf Clover. The rose image comes from BM14

I love this delicate, simple look. This was Essie - Ladylike stamped with Essie - Power Clutch using the leaf outline image from BM11.

I've done a lot of things with my nails, I just haven't documented all of it!
Last night, though, I pumped out these babies:

BAM! YES! There is a little family of owls living on my hand!! (only one hand, laziness did kick in. the other hand is the night sky~)

I first saw this mani on Chalkboard Nails, for the 'Inspired by a Tutorial' day of the 31 day challenge! I fell in love immediately.

I didn't think the owls would look so great if I left the little halfmoons as bare nails, at least on my nails. So, I started with a coat of Black Creme, and then a coat of Nicole - Make a Comet-ment (which is a dupe for OPI - Yule Love This Silver and China Glaze - Fairy Dust!). I thought this kind of made a starry night look, owls are nocturnal after all, right?

The Momma owl was made with a really gross American Apparell brown I have, the colours were separating into orange and pale brown and poop brown, so I had to mix it up before using-- but it was the only brown I have! Yellows are OPI - The 'IT' Color. Other colors are OPI - Ogre the top Blue, OPI - Sparrow Me the Drama and Kleancolor - Mystic Grass. I don't actually own an orange polish, so I got creative and mixed red and yellow, just like in primary school! Go me.

They're crooked, sloppy, not the best looking owls-- but whatever man! There's a family of owls living on my hand! They follow me around everywhere and it's awesome! They remind me a bit of the Owltons!

But poor Momma owl. She was the first one I did, and her eyes are just so crooked, I feel so bad for her!

Hahahahaaaaaaaa. Ahhh. Too funny. I left the 'starry night' on my other hand as it was, but added a coat of Sally Hansen HD - LCD, this combination is amazing. Do it, put it on and go look at it in the sun! I'd take a picture to show you, but it's been a rainy miserable day here on the island!

Speaking of miserable, my nose has been running like a leaky faucet since I woke up, and now I have the hiccups :( I'm going to go cuddle Cow and make some tea. Maybe even study? nah probably not. I have a lot of crochet-related posts coming up, and I'm going to figure out how to make a little catnip mouse for my kitty! She deserves it, now that October has rolled around she isn't in heat anymore! This means she's been the most well behaved little kitty in town.

Although... waking me up at 6:30 this am by meowing in my ear and knocking stuff off my dresser, just because she was hungry, was probably the wrong idea. I was pretty grumpy.

Well, I hope you liked my pictures! I'll probably throw in a picture of my nails with each of my upcoming posts-- for now I'm going to go be sad and sooky and sick.

Be talking to you!
Emma

Finally!

I am back online!

After several months I can finally write posts again! My laptop cord broke, and my laptop battery won't charge at all, so I've been computerless. I was using my boyfriend's tiny netbook, but didn't want to clog it up with my photos of food and cats and crochet and whatnot. So, I waited. His netbook also kicked the bucket. Thankfully, my kind friend Jeff offered to have me buy his laptop cord from him, so I can write school papers! (and blogs more importantly ;))
No. Not more importantly. School first! Play later!
Thank goodness I have a week off soon, so that I can blog all I want! haha!

I have a lot of back logged posts, and I'm hoping that pretty soon I'll be able to build more readers. I have a lot to say, but not many people are reading it!

So watch out-- soon I'll be blogging it up old lady style. I've been doing a lot of crocheting, and cooking, and nail painting! And, I'm going to share it-- soon.

As soon as I get home from school that is :)

Be talking to you~

emma likes houses

well at least, i like living in them.

Dear Landlords of the city:
Why don't you want me to have a pet?
Cowey is the tiniest, cutest, least destructive cat ever. Well, i mean she does knock everything off of tables and dressers and counters and break them, but those are my things! not yours! She turns a year old next month, and she is still so itty bitty.

I mean, look at that face.
Sincerely,
Emma.

I like cats. I like cats so much, that while I am looking for places to live and living with my boyfriend (because I am just too allergic to my own house) I keep going home to visit the kittens and take naps with them and cuddle and love them.

I didn't feel very bad about it while they were in heat, because man are they ever annoying.
But now, Peter has gone away to live with Laura in a new home, and Cowey and Mars are just hanging out all lonely like.

I want to bring her to me so that we may cuddle.
And once we have a real place to live, she can have another little catty friend belonging to my boy, and they will fall in love like us and it will be beautiful.

...
excuse me.
I really like cats, sometimes I sound crazier than I actually am.

But in all seriousness, finding a pet friendly house is nearly impossible! And when I do find my dream house, of course a desperate pregnant couple snatches it up from me.
seriously. if it wasn't for that, i'd have a place to live.

so today, i am making soup.
and i'll tell you all about it.
soon.

but  right now i have to go visit my kitty cat and remind her that she won't be lonely forever!

Pumpkin Pie and Peanut Butter Pretzel Brownies

Once I came back to the city myself and Laura of Laura Hates Gluten decided to surprise our boyfriends (whose birthday's are a week apart) by making them special desserts, and a really delicious (if I do say so myself) dinner.
Five hours of solid cooking resulted in a rather lovely meal, four full bellies, and a lot of dirty dishes. For my Pip I made the best Pumpkin Pie I have made to date. As a gift for Laura's bf I made Peanut Butter Pretzel Brownies. Now, I finally have the time to write up an entry about it!

Starting around 1:30pm, I spent six hours on my feet making dish after dish. It was a lot of work, but it was quite fun thanks to the fact that I spent it with one of my best pals. We listened to great music the whole time, and it was a really beautiful day.

Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake

Hello!

While I was at my mother's last weekend I asked my boyfriend to send me a recipe for something delicious he'd like to have made. So he did, and after my poor kitty passed away I asked him if he could come out to be with me for the last few days I was there. I was pretty upset.

And he did! Because he is a sweetheart. So, while he was riding a bus for ~5 hours, I made him this cake!

Unfortunately I didn't take very many pictures while I was making it. I got a little too into the recipe, but I did take a picture of my Mom's super cute egg timer!

 

A Ladybug!! I think she said she ordered it from Avon! I thought it was adorable.

coping with loss: bake bread.

I miss my cat. Like, a lot. She was my best friend for five years, and it saddens me that she isn't alive anymore. It breaks my heart that this really awesome cat doesn't run around being beautiful and funny. But she lived a very good life. Most of the sadness from her death stems from the fact that she doesn't get this chance to live anymore, because man. She was great.

I spent something around ten hours crying the day that I found Misty, and then because my head and heart were hurting, I baked Raspberry Almond Bread. 

 

 

 This recipe was colorful, fragrant, and took long enough to make that it was a welcomed distraction from grieving. By the time I was finished the kitchen smelt pretty tasty, and I enjoyed the bread with a cup of tea.

 I toasted the crap out of almonds, all my byself. I crushed some raspberry and folded it all into the thick batter. In the recipe Joy says to spoon it into a loaf pan, but my batter was really thick. i had to push it into place, rather than spread it around. My butter wasn't exactly room temperature, so I feel like that might have been where it went wrong.

 It still came out amazingly well though-- look at how pink that batter is! It was so pretty. The almond extract made it really fragrant, and it gave the bread an overall nutty taste. Biting into the raspberries was a real treat, too.

 And voila. Bread: made. I brought home the leftover loaf, but unfortunately before it could be eaten Mars managed to break into the platic wrap for a nibble, and then knock the entire thing into the litter box.

Faaaaantastic. Good one, Mars. So long bread! It was good knowing you while I did.

I'd like to share with you guys the gravesite my mother and I made for Mistoffelees. I wanted to plant a garden over her grave, so that I could watch it flourish and grow. It made me feel ten times better to actually wrap her in a warm blanket, give her some treats, and lay her to rest.

 

We planted yellow flowers, to match her eyes. There are two big yellow lilies, two little leos, and another plant I can't entirely remember. I replanted a forget me not next to the solar light, and painted that small rock the day before I left home. Mom also brough home pansies, our favourite flowers, and we managed to get nine plants out of one purchase! six pansies are planted in Misty's garden, the most important ones to us being a beautiful orange one, and a big bright yellow one, with black accents.

Pansies are wonderful flowers that have grown in all of our gardens. I'm really glad to see them there. I can't wait to watch this garden grow! We're planning on adding cat grass as well, and some rudbeckia once they grow. 

RIP, pretty kitty. I miss youu.

RIP Mistoffelees, my first pet.

I can't believe this is actually happening.

In what kind of cruel world does the day I make a blog centered around my love of cats also become the day that my very first cat passes away?

I've had Mistoffelees since she was a month old. Three days ago was her fifth birthday, and now she's gone.

 

I told my step-dad not to let her out last night, because when she goes outside late it's hard to get her back in. She left, and didn't come home. I was up until 2:30am calling out to her, and woke up at 7:30 to see if she'd come back.

I had a bad feeling in my gut yesterday, I'd heard a car make an awful noise and immediately started thinking all the worst case scenarios of the whereabouts of my cat.

I was getting ready this morning to go around to my neighbour's houses, show them pictures of her, give them my number. I called the SPCA to tell them to keep a lookout for her, and they told me that they had received a call about a cat from my area who'd been found deceased. I went, and it was her.

That cat was the first pet I ever owned that was mine. When I imagined my future, living in my own home, it was with her, and my kitten Cowey.

Over the past few months I've been slowly getting used to the fact that because I'm away from home for so long, Mistoffelees has become my Mother's cat. So we've both suffered a huge loss today.

So many of my closest friends have had to say goodbye to their most beloved pets. My only hope is that she's with them now, and they're having a good time.

 

For now, I'm just going to continue to love the crap out of Cowey.