Ice Cream Hunt

I’ll keep this short, because I’m pissy at the utterly counter-intuitive nightmare that WordPress’ block editor has become (shouldn’t have to Google a “how-to” on every. single. action I try to carry out) but Mr. Finger Candy and I found this fun, new-to-us ice cream shop in Carp, Ontario called Carp Custom Creamery, and their heavenly, undoubtedly totally calorie-free confections are ah-mazing. So amazing, a recent jaunt out to the wee Town of Carp for a much-coveted tub of Easter Egg Hunt inspired some fun, thematically-appropriate nails for the long weekend.

Carp Custom Creamery sold over 1,000 litres of Easter Egg Hunt this season, and its run is now finished for the year, but I can assure you that they have many, many more tempting treats, including ice cream cakes, waffle cone tacos, hand-spun milkshakes and so many delicious flavours of ice cream, it’ll make your head spin. My husband and I found this place one bitterly cold February day when it seemed totally reasonable to be standing out in -17 degree temps, holding a cup of Pop Tarts ice cream aloft (I’d do it again in a frozen heartbeat!)

Depending on whatever miserable – but necessary, sigh – public health-related lockdown measures are in place on any given day (also feeling pissy about Ontario’s ever flip-flopping, wholly ineffective approach to the pandemic) you can roll on up to Carp Custom Creamery for cups and cones, shakes and tacos, or grab a few pints for home. On our last trip, we sampled the super popular Coffee Break (if you’ve ever had an affogato – espresso poured over rich vanilla ice cream – this creamy, caffeinated confection tastes exactly like that), Peanut Butter & Jelly (tasted exactly as you’d expect) and Nerd (black cherry ice cream studded with tart Nerds candy; it was SO unexpectedly delicious, and just look at that gorgeous grape colour! I sense another manicure coming on!)

Okay, feeling less cruddy now. I guess ice cream has a way of doing that. 🙂 Anyhow, TL;DR;JD (too long; didn’t read; just drooled) get thee to Carp Custom Creamery – you won’t regret it.

Sweet Heart

Sweet hearts for your sweetheart!

Frighteningly Delicious!

Well, it’s just downright spooky how well these adorable Halloween cupcake nails turned out!  This manicure also marks the third time this week I’ve done nails featuring a cute little critter with creepy eyes…or AN eye, singular.  Yummy!

La Patisserie

Just a few end-of-summer treats to sweeten up this hot and humid Saturday night.

Actually, pastries of any variety (but for the 3D Fimo kind I’ve used here) don’t tend to fare very well in the humidity.  I went to a wedding once in a very beautiful – but un-air conditioned – venue in the very dog days of summer, and the cake slid apart in the middle of dinner.  Being in frosting-covered pieces didn’t diminish its taste one iota, but knowing how much wedding cakes cost – A LOT – and knowing how much planning and effort goes into creating one – also A LOT – it was a bit of a shame.  But a delicious shame, like all the very best ones. 😉

The Dessert Tray

Around these bloggin’ parts, I don’t just love nail art designs that put the candy in Finger Candy, I also adore all of the many, many polishes that remind me of sweets, which, in fairness, is most of them – I can find (non-edible) yumminess in just about any tiny-n-toxic bottle of lacquer!  For your Sunday perusal, here is a photo gallery of some of my favourites. No nibbling on your delicious-looking nails, now. 🙂

Foot Candy

No, I have not changed the focus of this blog to foot fetishism…yet.  Rather, I received a rather awesome pair of ice cream-style ballet flats for Christmas (generous gift-giver: me!) that were just begging for a sweet matching mani, and who am I to deny my shoes when they’re calling out for love?

This manicure is your basic drippy waffle cone design, but the shoes are a different matter altogether. Available solely (heh) through Shoe Bakery, these flats, and their many gorgeous high-heeled cousins, are handmade, custom made and beautifully unique – edible-looking, wearable works of art that are now inspiring this edible-looking, wearable work of nail art.  I can’t wait to give these guys a proper workout come the spring and summer – just in time for ice cream season.

Glitter Cakes

Or cake, singular, of the cup-type variety, which is actually a quite large, crystal-studded nail charm from Daily Charme. Nail charms are one of those embellishments I have a hard time getting behind, and not just because even at their tiniest, they’re still rather obtrusive. No, my issues stem from the fact that they’re very “one look”; unless you have mile-long talons that can accommodate a jewelry box worth of studs, charms and crystals, the best you can do is to simply lay the charm on your nail, the end. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And so knowing that, I thought I’d highlight this adorable, but simple, cupcake charm by laying it atop another product I often struggle to find multiple uses for, mega glitter bomb crelly (ugh) and jelly polishes (here KB Shimmer’s Sweet Egg-scape.) I absolutely adore these kind of polishes (they always either look like jam or sprinkled frosting to me) but their utility is limited, particularly those featuring some of your more unique colour combinations. So it was great fun to find a polish that plays off so nicely against the cupcake charm, with Sweet Egg-scape’s pink, silver, red, turquoise and periwinkle glitter picking up the tiny iridescent flashes of the charm’s crystals. Sweet and charming.

The Gingerbread Man

Hey, would you look at that, actual nail art!  I’ve been going all hot and heavy lately with the swatches; I had started to wonder if I could still actually put detail brush to nail.  Apparently I can!  Three cheers for me and my featureless gingerbread man, who apparently has no defining characteristics but for his gumdrop buttons, poor sod.

Just Desserts

I have become quite enamored as of late with Instagrammer passionforbaking‘s account, which features beautiful photos of the incredible baked goods she produces on a daily basis (oh sure, I get up and fire off two loaves of country white and a pan of edible gold-flecked cupcakes before dawn every day, don’t you?) as well as snapshots of her absolutely drop dead gorgeous kitchen, which I very nearly covet in the biblical sense of the word. Decorated entirely in shades of baby pink, icy turquoise and cream and bearing more than a passing resemblance to the idealized version of the 1950s kitchen (turquoise and white checkered linoleum floors, chrome-rimmed tables, turquoise pleather diner stools and polka dots aplenty), it’s a pastiche that somehow manages to sidestep any twee obnoxiousness that might otherwise come along with a 1950s style kitchen outfitted entirely in shades of Easter egg.

So when I recently purchased these sweet little fimo cane decals, I thought it might be fun to copy a bit of passionforbaking’s fantastic culinary and decorating style, but on my nails. I have no doubt her creations are about 8,000 times yummier than the goodies I’ve laid out here (although I barely notice the food, so enchanted am I by her kitchen), although I think I got the overall aesthetic right, particularly the tiny little Jadeite cake stands holding my fimo sweets aloft. Just about good enough to eat!