Lazy Sunday w/c 7/7

Hi Goddesses

Happy Sunday!  Apologies for missing this post last week, but I was proper poorly with my sinuses.  However, this week, I'm going to feature the best posts from the last fortnight, so that you don't miss any of the good bits!

Life has been very hectic this week - work has been super busy, and it took a couple of days for my sinuses to get themselves back with the program.  I also had an interview for a promotion at work, with all the prep that comes with it, so no wonder I got a bit run down.

I'm going to start with something exciting first. This week, OPI released details of their holiday collection, and as they usually do, released the details about 5 years before the polishes are due out.  THAT however is not the interesting bit.  The interesting bit is that over half these polishes look interesting - when was the last time we felt that about OPI ?

Colors shown from left to right: The Spy Who Loved Me, Casino Royale, You Only Live Twice, Die Another Day, Skyfall, GoldenEye, The World Is Not Enough, Moonraker, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Living Daylights, Live And Let Die, Tomorrow Never Dies.

There does feel to be some sameyness in that lovely orange and red section on the left, but to the right ... well, I don't know about you, but they look different AND exciting to me.   Fingers crossed they really do look awesome when they come out.

Luckily there's been no mouse trauma this week, but there has been some HELLA nail mail.  I'll save the photos for a haul post, but I have been very spoilt by myself, and some other people - 

* an awesome swap with Meann from My Online Shop - she wanted some polishes, and in exchange sent me LOADS of exciting stamping plates.  You'll see them very soon

* I was Employee of the Month at work and as part of my reward package I got some vouchers - I spent half of them on some British nail polishes, as I know you're dying to see more of them on the blog.... not many .... just 39 or so ....

* I finally received my Jade polishes - you know sometimes how everything that can go wrong DOES go wrong?  Well this package got returned to Ninja Polish without leaving the US and had broken bottles in it :(  Wonderful service from Rhonni tho - she replaced the breakages and got it back out to me in double quick time.  Yay!  Jades!!!

* and I got my set of Bundle Monster 3 stamping plates - all of which are SUPER cool.  Lots of fun to be had there.

And in other news, THIS amazing collection got released this week - 

If you haven't yet tried Cult Nails, you really are depriving yourself.  They are excellent quality, well priced and genuinely original.  Every collection is well thought through, and this particular one was designed and named by Maria's 13 year old daughter, Coco.  How cool is that?  Cannot wait for them to arrive :)

So, let's look at some manis shall we ?  I'm not going to show every post I've done for the Summer Challenge over the last fortnight, but these are my faves -

Beach Towels - 



Cricket - 





Independence Day (for which I still owe you a tutorial, sorry)



Summer Chevrons



Seashells with DS Glamour

Last week was Indie Week on the blog, and I posted 

Dollish Polish We're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat



NerdLacquer Regeneration



Hungry Asian Sneeze Breeze



All That Glitters Spottie Dottie in light and dark



Red Carpet Lacquers Clover

The Giveaway came and went during this last fortnight - 15 lovely British polishes and a load of chocolate and sweeties.  Well done to Missy!   The main reason I do Giveaways is that they are my best way of getting feedback.  Although I have some brilliant followers who give me feedback ALL the time, the only way I can guarantee getting a couple of hundred suggestions / comments is a Giveaway, and I'm fine with that.    Thank you for all loving this blog as much for the writing as anything else - that means a LOT to me.

Ironically, the main request through the Giveaway was for more swatches of British polishes - so this week was Swatch Week and featured quite a few.  A VERY popular request was Nails Inc, so, in pleasing mode, that was the first one I posted .... and it bombed.  I mean like seriously, wings chopped off bombed.  Lol.   So either the people who wanted to see that post didn't see it, or you were lying on the Giveaway (I don't think so) or you hated the 3 polishes I chose.   I dunno.   But lol and maddening, all at the same time.

These are the best of the rest -

Models Own Blooming Pink teamed with Candy Lacquer Love Letters



the AMAZING HITS Hula and Salsa



and Bettina SPAM - here's Apple Green - wow!

Overall, I've been in a bit of a blogging funk this week.  Most days, I haven't even wanted to blog, which is not like me.  I think that was partly cos of stress at work, and also because Swatch Week didn't inspire me, so half the posts felt like a bit of a chore, rather than something I could get giddy about.

I'm also caught a little between the old world and the new world.  I know the exact format I want the blog to take going forward, and what types of post you can GUARANTEE to get on each day - like scheduled programming; also, my mum would cook the same meal every Monday, a different same meal every Tuesday ... routine can be good :) - and I'm itching to get to that place, but I have shitloads to empty out of the vault in the meantime :)

Luckily, everything that's going IN to the vault is of better quality than what's coming out of it, which is great, but I already have about 50 "new posts" in there - aarrrgh - maybe I'll just have to accept that.   So, as I was itching for newness, I spent 2 nights this week redesigning the blog, first the background, and then the header (which came from THIS brilliant tutorial).   I think I was starting to outgrow the old splatter background, and was looking for something a bit more "grown up".   The good news is, that now I know how to do it, I can change it whenever I want lol - yay!




I'm going to leave you today with some more giddiness - the new Zoya Collections.  Personally, I much prefer there being a short gap between the press release and the "going on sale part" (OPI take note; we get bored easily) and these babies go on sale today or tomorrow.  The very first post that went up left me a bit meh, but then yes, that Scrangie woman posted them and suddenly they all look amazeballs. I know we all laugh about it, but what IS her secret power ? How does she do it?   She can make ANYTHING look good, and if she can't, then you pretty much know it's rubbish.  She IS the Ultimate Goddess, so I leave you now with links to her posts on both Collections.  Drool away :)


Designer - http://www.scrangie.com/2012/07/zoya-designer-collection-fall-2012.html



Diva - http://www.scrangie.com/2012/07/zoya-diva-collection-fall-2012-swatches.html





Enjoy xx :)