I’m back :) Did you miss me?  So lets get the bad news out the way first – my nails really suffered on holiday (not on purpose, I just seemed to cop a lot of breaks in a row) and the worst of the lot is a mammoth rip on my middle nail on my swatching hand. I’m still debating if I’m going to blog while it grows out, it’s truly ugly right now.

Here is an instagram snap of it I took last night – this is after a week of it growing out already :(  As you can see, it was really deep under the free edge.  I picked up an Orly Nail Rescue kit to try and fix it after reading so many rave reviews but this was just too big and too deep and it kept reopening.  The weird texture around the edge of the tear is where I used the rescue kit which is stopping it from ripping any further across the nail (phew!)

Ok on to the good stuff – my super haul!  I admit, I bought more polish than I meant to – 47 bottles in total!  So brace yourself, this is a photo heavy post.  Any polish with a * next to it is one that I’ve already worn while on holiday.

 Joe Fresh – Teal Cyan, Violet* and Magenta*.  I really wanted more of these but I only got to one supermarket that sold Joe Fresh cosmetics and the stand was mostly cleaned out :(

 American Apparel – T-Shirt, Office, The Valley, Peacock*, 7th and Alameda*, Smoke Dazzle

 Quo by Orly – Tease, The Blue Box*, Essie – Trophy Wife*, Chinchilly*

 Color Club – Metamorphosis, Daisy Does It, Orly – Spazmatic*, Can’t Be Tamed

 Nicole by OPI – Kim-pletely In Love*, Rainbow In The S-Kylie, Call Me Classy

 Sally Hansen Insta-Dri – Mint Sprint*, Brisk Blue*, Lickety-Split Lime*, Speedy Sunburst*

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri – Silver Sweep* x 2, Pronto Purple (replacement for my almost empty bottle), Raspberry Race.

I picked up all of these mainly for stamping, I love this SH line for stamping and I kind of wish I had bought even more of them.  I saw some awesome bright colour stands for these polishes but kept forgetting which ones I had already bought :(  There are just so many more colours available in Canada than here in Australia (why on earth we don’t even have silver I don’t know…) and so much cheaper – I paid about $6 a bottle shopping the specials, compared to about $14 a bottle here.

 Wet N Wild – Black Creme* x 2, Party Of Five*

Again, stocked up on the black creme for stamping as my konad black has dried out and everyone rates this one highly.  I’ve tested it and I don’t think it’s as opaque as the Konad black but clean up is a million times easier so I’m debating over whether to buy a new Konad black too.  I wish we could get Wet N Wild here in Australian stores – I heard a rumour that Priceline were looking into it a while ago but nothing else (I even asked them on twitter when I tweeted about these but didn’t get a response).

The random bottles! Revlon – Flirt, Sally Hansen CSM – Gray by Gray*, Finger Paints – To-Teally Hot, Zoya Zuza*, China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint (not a HTF polish yet I’ve never been able to get my hands on it until now so I snapped it up when I saw it), Dynamite – Methyl Blue

Claire’s Accessories Minis – Forever Ombre set.  These polishes don’t have their own names but it was marketed as an ombre set.  To me ombre needs the same finish on every nail so I don’t see me wearing them as an ombre manicure but I love the individual polishes so why not!  The silver on the end looks similar to China Glaze – Lorelei’s Tiara.

Claire’s Accessories Minis – Precious Metals set*.  There is not a single glitter here I don’t like, I’ve swatched them all as skittles and they’re gorgeous, I wish they had been available in full size bottles.  I would have snapped up two sets but this was the last one left sadly. However all the bottles have full sized brushes that are bent because they hit the bottom of the bottle, not impressed with that.

My new acrylic organiser I picked up from Walmart for $10.  This was a nightmare to bring back in my suitcase, I immediately regretted buying it when I tried to pack it but I’m pleased I worked with it even if it did take up a lot of space.  It holds pretty much everything I use – cotton wool, cotton buds, files, buffers. manicure sticks, toe separators, konad stamper and scraper, hand creams and cuticle creams, polish remover, lacquer thinner, top coat, base coat, cuticle remover, nail scissors and clippers, cuticle clippers and my new Orly Nail Rescue Kit (I don’t have a separate picture of that but it was another holiday acquisition as it’s perma sold out on Transdesign).  See told you it holds a lot!

My new stamping plate binder – trading card binder inserts are virtually impossible to acquire here in Australia, so I raided Staples and snapped up some inserts and a new binder for them (three ring binders are unique to North America) – this item was another PITA to pack and bring back as it took up so much suitcase space.  I also grabbed some cute animal pattern paper from Michaels to use as backing because the plates slide out quite easily – it hasn’t solved the problem but it looks nice at least!  At some point I’m going to label all the slots with the plate names

As my stamping plates no longer need a drawer in my Moppe, I bought some Recollections glitters from Michaels too for nail art in the future.  I grabbed a twelve pack of hex glitter and two six packs of ultra fine glitter.  I wish we had a decent crafts store like Michaels here in Australia.  I could have bought half the store (but my suitcase was already full with my organiser and binder at this point, dammit).  My BF was too tired from shopping and full from dinner so he stayed in the car for this stop – he regretted it, I got berated for so purchasing so much glitter!

I did go to a couple of Sephoras but honestly, it just didn’t excite me as much as I expected.  I did want some of the Sephora by OPI polishes, but none were unique enough that I had to have them.  Same for Nails Inc polishes.  In the end, we hit a mall in Vancouver after dinner on the night we flew home (our flight wasn’t until 11.45pm…which ended up being 00:30am after delays, yuck!) so I grabbed these bits in Sephora that night because we had some left over money.  Tarte Amazonian Clay blushes in Tipsy and Blissful, Tarte Primers Mini set that I grabbed by the till, Sephora Glass Nail File (mainly just wanted the protective case so I could have it in my  handbag, I hope it’s a good one), bonus freebie Fresh Sugar Mini Lip Treatment set as it was my birthday month.  I would have liked more Tarte blushes but I was honestly too tired to spend time swatching.  I do wish we had Sephora here because I probably would buy little bits and pieces from time to time but it’s just too expensive for crazy hauling on my budget.

And last but not least, a bonus snap of my BF and I at the Britannia Mining Museum in our sexy hard hats waiting to go on the mine tour.  This was probably one of my favourite days on our holiday – we planned a road trip up to Whistler that day with a forecast of 1-3mm of rain.  Sorry Canada, your forecasting sucks.  We got less than half way before deciding the rain was never going to stop and the fog was horrendous so driving was a nightmare so instead we stopped at this museum and had a blast learning about mining in Canada. Our ad hoc day also included a stop at a micro brewery and going to the movies to see Prometheus.  Absolutely loved it all.

I have a couple of squirrel collages for you all too – wish we had squirrels in Australia (everyone I know in Canada knows how much I love squirrels, so much so that all the birthday cards I got while I was there featured squirrels!)

 A royal rumble in the park – black vs grey

 Various squirrels and chipmunks spotted around Ottawa.  Black squirrels are the best!  Turns out their western cousins are much more active and almost impossible to photo.