My poor rat baby

I was going to organise some good make up posts today but I had to postpone that as one of my rats has become sick.

I had to take Elric to the vet today. We came back from the vet with two kinds of antibiotics.
The vet says he has the flu and that I also have to start force feeding him more food with a syringe as he seems a bit weak.
Here he is all wrapped up in my scarf after the trip to the vet while I ate a sandwich.

NOTD - Like a ........... leopard aka Konad time!

So this afternoon after work I actually sat down to do some real Konad nails!

Since my nails and small and crap lately due to removing my acrylic nails I figured it would be a bit easier.

I have always had trouble with Konad-ing due to having BIG nails (due to having big hands)
I was right, smaller nails made it much easier. YAY

After looking at a bunch of nail blogs yesterday I decided to go with a multi-colour leopard print.

Leopard print is good because it doesn't have to be really precise or neat (unlike lace or sharp lines) so I was happy I chose this pattern

I did slip once (yellow nail) I applied top coat too soon to one nail (green nail) and didn't pick up the pattern on the stamper properly on one nail (purple nail)

For my first proper attempt at a Konad mani I am pretty happy with it.

Polishes are:
China Glaze - Sun Worshiper
Color Club - What a Shock
Color Club - Warhol
Color Club - Lava Lamp
Sinful Colors - Dream On
Konad Black

Meme Thing + Cute Animal Pix!

So everyone was doing this question thing and it looked a bit fun so I did it.

A. Age: 26
B. Bed size:Queen futon, black timber YUM
C. Chore you hate:I really hate washing up, it ruins your nails, I am allergic to a a lot of soap and I hate getting my sleeves wet.
D. Day: It's Monday
E. Essential start to your day: SHOWER, I can't function with out one!
F. Favourite colour: Orange/Red
G. Gold or Silver: Silver, don't like gold at all really
H. Height: About 5 foot 3
I. Instruments: I played keyboard and guitar but was rubbish, I am learning harp at the moment.
J. Job title: System Support Analyst (IT stuff)
K. Kids: No thanks. Pets please
L. Live: Sydney, since I was 14 before that, Batemans Bay on the south coast of NSW
M. Mum’s name:Claire
N. Nicknames: Hols (hate that one) Miss Holly, Holly Monster, Hollycaust, Skwid, Fissel
O. Overnight hospital stays: Lots and Lots, being born with a blood clot on your spin will result in that tho :s
P. Pet peeve: People who chew with their mouth open or talk while chewing.
Q. Quote from a movie:'I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain'
R. Right or left handed: Right but I try to be Multidexterus for two reasons 1. It makes harp easier as you have to use both hands a lot.
2. I feel like it might unlock some secret hidden power in my brain hahahahaha!
S. Siblings: One little sister and a younger brother in law
T. Time you wake up: 5:30 weekdays 8 weekends
U. Underwear: I always wear boyleg crazy coloured ones (Hot Pink, Red, Black, Bright Blue)
V. Vegetables you dislike: I like nearly all vegies but I don't like Sweet Potatoe and I really had pine nuts (if they count at all)
X. X-Rays you’ve had: A MILLION of my spine, hips, knee, feet, head. One of my face when I broke my nose. A few of my teeth and recently my toe I broke
Y. Yummy food you make: I make a really great capsicum and artichoke fritatta and I make awesome cupcakes.
Z. Zoo: I LOVE the Zoo and go to all the Zoo's here. Taronga


Also here is a totally cute pic of my cats Odin and Luci, they don't usually hang out so I was so excited when they lay near each other and stretched out their little paws to each other nnnaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Also, anyone live near a sephora or will be ordering from them anytimes soon?
They don't ship to Australia and I need hourglass extreme sheen in Siren or I will die!

Weekend Ended - comedy, party, latex

Wow so It's Monday again already! The weekend went so quickly.
I had meant to write up a few posts about all the things that had been going on make up wise.
Life totally got in the way and I was busy all weekend. Friday night I went to a comedy show at Sydney Entertainment Quarter. We went to see one guy in Particular, Steve Huges.

Above is Steve Huges, he is a stand up comedian and used to play in some amazing heavy metal bands, if you don't mind swearing a lot look him up on youtube.

There were a few supports, and being that I am not very impressed with many comedians (mostly because I am frigging hilarious all day every day Bwhahahaha) I was prepared to be bored. Then out onto the stage comes Rhys Nicholson (pictured above) My first thought was 'hmm this guy looks like a really gay version of Matt Smith from Dr Who" which is awesome. In addition to that he was soooo gay and totally hilarious. I laughed my face off, so that was a nice surprise. We went out into Newtown for some drinks after but everyone was a bit tired and our energy petered out and we all went home at about 2am.

On Saturday I had make up college which was 'smokey' eye which I found infinitely easier than the normal shadow in the crease look. Probably because I am used to packing dark make up around my eyes. Hahaha!

Saturday night my friend Chris was singing with a glam metal cover band and wanted me to do some Pink and Black make up on him. I also had to go to a housewarming party and a bunch of friends came over beforehand so we drank and played Rock Band while I did some make up then I played too while we wasted time before we went to the party. I will have to post some pics because my hair looks great heh!

Another cool thing is last week I weighed myself and found I weigh 72kg, I have lost 7kg since I started Weight Watchers in Normal0 falsefalsefalse EN-AUX-NONEX-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 February. I have lost 500g a week every week, that's half of what I want to be losing per week but at least it's constant and I am not being very strict or exercising that much, so I am happy.

For motivational purposes I have been checking out some latex outfits I LOVE. Both the below are made by Ooh La La Latex on Etsy. I haven't bought anything from them yet but I have been asking questions about items and their responses are always quick and the items are custom made.

I think I am going to get the spiky bra for myself when I get my bonus next month, the other I will have to wait till I get rid of a bit more weight. I plan to wear my waist cincher corset with them as no matter how skinny I get I don't like showing off my tummy :o

Anyone else love/hate live comedy?
Who loves/hates latex?

Lord of the Rings Cross stitch - who wouldn't love one?

Non make up post for today!

In summer which was over in March it is far too hot to knit many things, and I get bored with things far too easily. So I decided to learn cross stitch.

Cross stitch is a sort of different kind of relaxing to knitting, I find the actual act or stitching much easier because you are pretty much just doing crosses. I suppose it can be likened to Gater or stocking stitch in the knitting world but I hardly ever knit something that simple.

The harder part is that you have to stare at little squares to see where you are and you have to thread a needle all the time which is annoying.

Anyway, this is my first attempt and I am pretty happy. It's a birthday present for a friend who loves Lord of the Rings (it's a Gandalf quote)

I got the pattern from super cool Etsy store Bombastitch.

There are other great patterns like these:

Kristy from Bombastitch also has completed cross stitches for sale for very reasonable prices :)
$4 for a pdf pattern and instructions is great! Check out her store!
BOMBASTITCH ON ETSY

The Nail Tradgey

So one of the things that was not so cool about learning the harp is that I had to cut all my finger nails off, and crack them off as they were acrylic.

Now my nails are short and ugly *pout* and waiting for them to grow out is very annoying.
It has made me depressed and I am unhappy with any polish I wear at the moment :(

Until, when I was going through my blog reader and there was something extra interesting on a great nail polish blog called All Lacquered Up. Michelle's latest post was a link to another nail polish blog - Chloe's Nails.

WOW Chloe's blog is full of interesting and amazing scotch tape manicures!

The two below are some of my absolute favorites! (click on them for the link)

I am a big fan of scotch tape manicures, I used to do my 'Burlesque - naked moon' manicure using tape.

Check out Chloe's post about using Scotch Tape here.

Needless to say they has inspired me to do something a bit more exciting once my nails grow a bit.

The MAC Incident

So you see a lot of people who love MAC, people who refuse to buy MAC and a bunch of degrees of between the love end to the hate end of the spectrum.

I like some MAC products, others I think are fad-ish and a waste of space and some are just unremarkable.

Nail polish is a good example, over priced and not very unique is what I think of most MAC nail polishes, however I LOVE Biker Blue (from Jeanius) and it is one of my fav polishes at the moment. I'm wearing it right now! Tricolour Lipglass is another item I don't really get, it doesn't really go on tri coloured at all.

They have great things too, Viva Glam 1 lipstick, CCB's, Naughty & Haute Mascara.

I like the penultimate Eyeliner (but the jumbo one is unusable as it is MASSIVE)

Also selling eye shadows in just pans is awesome if you want a lot and want to take them places.

The other thing that doesn't sell me or totally turn me off MAC are the collections.

They Disney villains was amazing, and quite cute was great, but I find collections like Jeanius and this new beach one very boring and sort of tacky.

A few people complain about customer service, I have never experienced really bad service, and on one occasion the Sydney PRO store saved some of the Villains items for me for a day so I could buy them, which they don't have to do and items were selling out fast to that was nice.

So being an 'I think MAC is ok' I was happy to buy the new Quite Cute lipstick Candy Yum Yum. Hot pink is my new obsession and this lipstick is the IT of hot pink!

I went to my local MAC counter to try it. It was sold out there but I knew it was still available on the Australian website but I thought I should check it out IRL before I bought it. I swatched it on my arm then went around to all the other counters swatching their other pinks, there really wasn't anything like it.

Needless to say I rushed home and ordered it (along with Morange and Lady GaGa Viva Glam 2) I was sooooo excited but 9 days later my order had not arrived.

I logged into the website to check my order status which was still in 'Received', meaning they had received my order. You can’t email customer service so I had to call ( I hate calling people!) The girl who answered (Mandy) was really nice and helpful, took my details and said she would call me back. Within 20 mins she had called me back saying that she had the warehouse looking for my order and if they didn’t find it she would get the items and express post them to me herself and email me letting me know by tomorrow morning.

The next day I hadn’t heard anything by 2pm so I called back again, got Mandy again, she said she that she hadn’t heard back from the warehouse and she would check and get back to me. 10 mins later she calls back saying she was express shipping my items now with a gift. ‘OOOOOOooo yay’ I think, it’s Friday so I will get it on Monday!

Monday I get my items YAY. Candy Yum Yum is awesome, I look around in the box, no free stuff! I got a bit sad, I don’t need free stuff but it’s a bit sad when someone tells you that you’re going to get some then none turn up. I emailed Mandy back and she told me that the gift had been mailed separately on Monday morning. ‘Ok weird but ok’ I thought and was a bit sad.

That was until Tuesday when I got another MAC package, what was in it? I thought maybe some samples or an ugly lip gloss. NOPE. It was travel size duo fibre brush and palette with 4 eye shadows. WOW awesome I was so excited.

So even though my stuff got lost I got it, and more cool stuff to boot.

Now Candy Yum Yum is sold out online too, I will treasure mine!

I write more about the actual products but for now enjoy and iphone photo of me at work enjoying my new lipstick!

M I A . . . Where is Holly?

The end of April and the start of May have sucked for me.
I have been battling a flu virus for weeks and it was slowly working me down.
Just on easter it struck, I had to have a few days of work.

Unfortunately, one of the coolest industrial shows ever was on on Good Friday.

The killer Band Nachtmahr was finally in Australia with Grendel and Cervello Elettronico, who I also love.

Nachtmahr

To make it even cooler my besty best friends band Shiv-r were supporting.

Shiv-r pics by Jacqueline Jane

Whenever they play and I am free I end up being their, make up/costume/ merch bish.
It can be stressful and a bit of work but also super fun and we get to hang out backstage and get really drunk (and watch everyone change out of their sweaty stage outfits!)

Here is Wendy from Shiv-r and I with Thomas from Nachtmahr, all quite drunk being nerd backstage.

Here is the token waaassttedd iphone photo of Pete and Wendy (Shiv-r) and I
We are so drunk we are actually drinking beer!

I will post a few more pictures of us later as my make up and hair was awesome.
Needless to say we stayed out quite late, it's winter here, so it's cold and this made my flu very very bad.

I was barely surviving and getting through work, sleeping as soon as I got home.
Then last week I was soooo sick I couldn't get out of bed, so I decided to go to the doctor.
I noticed my little toe on my left foot looked bruised so I figured I would ask about that too.

Turns out it was broken! Who would have thought!

'OMG Holly how did you not notice your toe was broken?!' you ask?
Well if you don't know me IRL and haven't noticed in the above pictures I am actually in a wheelchair. I can't feel my legs from my knees down so had NO IDEA that my foot was even hurt.
Poor little toe! I have to go back for an x-ray in 6 weeks to see if it healed ok.
I was surprised that they actually don't do anything for a broken toe, they can tape it to your other toe but that's about it. Since I don't walk around on it there was no point taping.

Unfortunately I had chosen this time in my life where I was dying of the flu and broken myself to take the initiative to start a few thing I have really wanted to do.

So a few weeks prior I mad an appointment with a Harp Teacher!
Owen Torr, he is awesome and has played with the Sydney Symphony and Australian Chamber Orchestra plus more.

Here is me sucking at harp practice while dying of the flu.

The other more exciting part of my new life initiative was to enrol in the Make up college 3Arts here in Sydney.
It was the first make up school in Australia, is awesome and conveniently is a 15 min walk from my house. I will post about this a bit more soon, with pics!