Treasures: Black Flowers, Shattered Fingernails, and Emeralds in the Parking Lot!

Hi All,

I found three interesting treasures this week, and I wanted to share with you.

 Treasure 1: Shattered Fashion

I recently tried out OPI nail polish because my sister-in-law told me that is how she keeps her nail polish on for so long. I was the one day wonder with my home maincures, they look good for a day and then turn into a redneck french manicure, all the color chips off the tips! Gah! She told me to use a good quality base coat, 2 coats of OPI color and a good quality top coat and it lasts longer. I was dubious. Ever the bargain shopper, how could expensive nail polish make a difference from my dollar stuff, but I tried it. Guess what? It worked! So I have a couple of colors of OPI now, and I can get four sometimes five days out of a manicure now, totally worth it!

OPI colors: Nomad's Dream topped with Black Shatter

I heard that OPI made something new called Black Shatter. It's black, you paint it over your color, and then it "shatters" right on your nail. I was grocery shopping and one of my favorite checkers had this cool black pattern on her nails and I had to comment, "Cool nails, is that OPI?" She told me it was the new Shatter! It looked so cool, so I ran into Beauty Brands a few days later and picked up a bottle. I painted it over my boss's hot pink toe nails, and it looked awesome! So I painted my fingers and toes with Nomad's Dream and topped it with Black Shatter, it looks totally cool! It has kind of an animal print look to it. It shaters really fast, so you have to be quick, and as my favorite checker told me, "Only one coat." Follow up with a glossy top coat because Black Shatter has a matte finish. This is mine four days later, only one little chip.

Oh, I also learned this great trick, using a crystal glass nail file!  They it your nails really smooth and they never get dull, you just throw it in the dishwasher or run under the tap and dry, and it's as good as new.  so it won't end up in a landfill.  Better for your nails and better for the earth, plus it looks so pretty that if you get a snag you have to fix and you whip out your glass crystal file everyone knows how fancy you are.

Here's the one I use, we put the art on these right in my studio and sell them in our Etsy shop!

Featuring my art, Tatiana's New Dress, here's the link, we have other designs too!

Treasure 2: Emeralds in the Pavement

This second one is kind of funny. It seems like it's rained here in Missouri every day for two weeks or more, and we hadn't seen the sun in ages. The other day this big bright ball appeared in the sky! We were so used to seeing the sky looking a greyish-green, the signature color for skys everywhere during torando season in the midwest. So the sun shone like an old friend, I was so happy to see him that I made any excuse that I could to go out side during work. "I have to check the mail..." "I left something in my car..." etc. On one of my trips, I happend to look down to find that the still damp cracks in the parking lot pavement and noticed a beautiful emerald green color. What was the treasure? Alge.

Alge growing in a crack in the parking lot at work = too much rain!

Alge growing in the cracks in the parking lot, holy cats! That's a pretty good sign that we've had waaaay too much rain! So of course, I ran to the car to grab my camera because I've never seen such a thing except when I visited Seattle WA, and people there don't tan, they rust!

Treasure 3: Midnight in the Garden of Petunias

I went by Hilltop Nursery in O'Fallon today, with my son, they mostly deal with professional landscapers, but this year they opened up a little section for the general public, so we were curious and thought we would pop in. We perused the tables looking at the vegetables and flowers they had to offer. The something caught my eye, a little pot full of black, yes black petunias! I was delighted, I've never seen such a thing. So we kept on moving through the greenhouse and I found a whole bunch of them, the tag said "Black Velvet!"

Black Velvet  Petunias

Then, next to them we noticed some black ones with yellow stars! They are called "Phantom!" Ha! These were so darned cool. So I asked the man running the place how much they were, "Three dollars a pot." A little more than I wanted to spend, but I have already shopped the hardware stores and Walmart in my area and haven't seen these yet, so I picked up three!

Phantom Petunias

The man told me, these are both brand new varieties. I got one Black Velvet, one Phantom, and one that looked like kind of a mix, black with a couple thin yellow streaks. These are really striking, and I wanted to tell you all to watch for these dark beauties!

Phantom and Blacdk Velvet varieties look really nice together!

 That's all for now, my daugter just arrived with two more treasures, my grandchildren Olivia and Rhys, off to play!

Blessings!

Mickie