I was excited to try out my other Messy Mansion stamping plate, MM06. I tried the damask pattern this time. It's a little tricky to center on the nail, but I still think they turned out pretty.

I used China Glaze Flying Dragon for my base. I got a mini bottle on eBay. I'm glad I did get a mini and not a full size, because it takes longer than usual to dry, even with Seche Vite fast dry topcoat. I did 3 thin coats.

I've never had a problem with China Glaze's formula before... but this one was tricky to work with. It's a royal purple color with blue & pink micro glitter. It dries gritty & matte, so you need a topcoat to make it shiny. I stamped with Maybelline Color Show Metallic's in Bold Gold.






Disclosure: The products above were purchased with my own money. I was not asked to blog about them.

P.S. I also did a little video showing how I paint my nails. Mostly because I get asked a lot how do I keep my nails so neat when painting. It's not really a tutorial, it was mainly to show people after painting my nails for 3 years straight every 1-2 weeks, I've developed a steady hand- so it is rare that I ever have to do more than swipe of a q-tip if I do get paint on my skin.

Now.... the only exception to that is doing a gradient or stamping... those are messy and you will get paint on your skin, I do! I don't have a tripod, so I balanced my camera on a book, lol. There's no sound... but you get the idea!

The boy rats have kept things interesting here over the past few weeks. (I have 4 boy rats. Templeton, Teddy, Remy & Emile). First Teddy came down with a respiratory infection and had to be treated with antibiotics and separated from the other boys.

When Teddy finally rejoined the other guys, he decided he wanted to torment Emile (as usual), chase him around & fight him. Only this time their fighting got out of hand. The day after they had fought I picked up Emile to notice a scab on his one finger. At first I thought he had just torn off a fingernail fighting. But when I looked closer... he was missing half his finger!

Surprisingly, there was no blood anywhere in the cage, which is crazy. Because when a pet rat just pulls off a nail it bleeds like crazy. There was just a scab. I decided to separate Emile while his finger healed so he wouldn't pull the scab off accidentally. Less than 2 weeks later he is doing just fine, just missing part of his finger... though he doesn't seem to notice.




Then... Saturday. A little after my husband had filled all the rat's food dishes up. We noticed Templeton was heaving/gagging and drooling. He must have choked on something, most likely a lab block. He gave us such a scare because the choking went on for at least 30 minutes. He would heave and gag and drool. It was terrifying. I would pound him light on his back and sides, we tried giving him an oral syringe with water. Eventually he started to regurgitate this food colored... drool... (gross I know, sorry- but may be helpful to another rat owner out there). I kept wiping it away with a tissue. He really gave me a heart attack.

About 40 minutes later he was doing much better, though sleepy. I got this cell phone photo of him napping in our emergency rat towel. I didn't want him to have anymore solid food that day so we gave him baby food sweet potatoes for lunch and dinner. Today he his back to his normal self, thank goodness!


   
Templeton. And Templeton below yawning... check out that crazy tongue!

Just two weeks after Cherry passed away... we woke up Friday morning to find Belle had passed away during the night. When I woke up Baby Rat (Violet) was cuddled up next to Belle. Belle was our last little dumbo eared girl and the last of our adopted rats from Star's Rat Rescue.

We only had the girls a year. Cherry & Belle were born in the same litter at Star's Rat Rescue on Christmas day in 2011. They traveled 1,500 miles from South Dakota to Philadelphia when we adopted them last August.

Belle was always petite, she would run on the wheel a little bit. She was very spoiled in her elderly years always popping her head out of her hammock for a treat before any of the other girls got one. Belle was very frail and had one small mammary tumor on her chest in her old age.



 

While browsing photos on Instagram one night looking under different hash tags for nail polish, I came across Philly Love's Lacquer. A Philadelphia Indie Polish maker. Being a fellow Philly girl I was so excited! I don't know of any other indie polish makers in my hometown! (Philly Pride!)

I ordered the duo of Rocky & Adrian. Adrian is a sky blue with shimmer and Rocky is a gorgeous glitter, packed with blue, white, silver and holographic bar, stars & micro glitter. (Sadly they are out of stock at the moment. I hope she restocks the holo top coat 'It's Always Sunny'... sometime soon! I want!)

When my order arrived it was in such cute packaging! Shipping only took one day... but that's because I'm local and only a few zip codes away! :-p

After seeing swatches of this kit on Oh Three Oh Four blog, I had to have it. The colors are very me. And the price was right. You get four colors, a nail art brush and some chevron stickers for $3.99. There are actually 4 different kits, with different color combinations. You can find them online here at Cherry Culture, in stores at Rite Aid, or on eBay. I ordered mine from this seller.

• Aqua was thicker but a bit streaky. I needed 3 coats. (It also stained my nails during removal.)
• Brown was a bit runny, but I only needed 2 coats. 
• The Gold Glitter is nice and thick, I only needed 2 coats. 
• Nude was runny and took a bit longer to dry. I needed 3 coats. 

Cherry, one of my dumbo eared girls passed away this past Monday. When I woke up, she had already passed sometime during the night.
 
Cherry & Belle were adopted from Star's Rat Rescue of South Dakota last August. The girls traveled 1,500 miles to reach Philadelphia PA, thanks to a lot of great people that volunteered for the rat train. Cherry & Belle were born in the rescue on Christmas Day 2011.


Both the girls are elderly now, and both had mammary tumors. Cherry had two tumors, the one on her hip was getting quite large. But she was too frail and old to survive a tumor removal surgery. She was getting around okay on their one level cage, until she passed away the other morning.

Belle is now living with Buttercup, Baby Rat, Pumpkin, and Toffee after some intro's this past week. Buttercup was very territorial and that is why the dumbo girls never lived with her before.