Springin’ Sprinkles

If I have learned anything over the last year and a bit of pandemic life – and that is highly debatable; in most respects, I actually feel like I’m regressing – it’s that our existence is fragile, and we could all use a hell of a lot more sprinkles. I’m talking here about metaphorical sprinkles – those sparkly, too-fleeting moments of hope and joy and love and understanding – but also the real kind, the ones composed of corn syrup and cellulose gum and palm oil, and a certain childlike glee in having your foodstuffs adorned with the same.

It was with that thought in mind – “Want pretty sprinkles for sweet foods!” – that I placed an order for a beautiful mess of items from Sprinkle Pop, a candy maker I found through the always dangerous platform of Instagram (dangerous in that I can always find some completely random new area of interest to occupy my time and money. Bespoke sprinkles – *snort* – is just the latest.)

Sprinkle Pop’s surprisingly tasty adornments – flavoured jimmies, metallic spheres, glittery dragees, and colourful mixes loaded with tiny, hand-piped extras – come in three sizes, eight ounce jars, four ounce jars, and two ounce sample packs. The sample packs give you about a quarter cup of sprinkles, which in my (newly acquired) experience will decorate about three dozen cupcakes, or two sprinkled-spackled cakes. Here’s the Robin’s Egg sprinkle mix (perhaps my favourite) sitting prettily atop some cupcakes I recently made (chocolate with salted caramel buttercream icing, in case you feel like driving yourself mad with desire, and yes, they were totally delicious!)

I chose six sample packs, three perfect for the just-passed Easter season (from left to right, Hangin’ With My Peeps, a mix of pastel jimmies and tiny royal icing Peeps; Egg Hunt, another springy rainbow mix studded with hand-piped bunnies and carrots; and Robin’s Egg, with its sweet, speckled eggs) and three just-because-they’re-pretties (from left to right, Royal Plume, a fun mix of bright, peacock-inspired hues; Love You a Latte, a soft, Valentine’s Day-appropriate blend of coffee-flavoured jimmies; and Leprechaun Loot, which is clearly going to have to wait until next year to properly exercise its lucky charms.)

Then because I have plans for them, I bought two mixes in the slightly larger four ounce size, Dark Unicorn, a sugar’corn-studded blend of blacks and brights and neons, and Strawberry Shortcake, which is delightfully self-explanatory.

I even managed to derive some nail art inspiration from Egg Hunt!

Neat! Important, necessary, critical to my existence? Definitely not. But a sweet diversion in a world that could use a lot more sprinkles, and a fun thing in my life.

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.

Hoppy Easter (and a Hoppy Birthday to Me)

So here it is, proof positive that whether it’s on my nails in polish or on a piece of paper with gel pens, all of my attempts at drawing an animal result in some gigantic butt’d aberration that looks like it’s suffering from a wicked case of conjunctivitis.  At least this chunky fellow is wearing a mask and maintaining social distance from those carrots.

I made that little card yesterday for my parents, who are used to my laughably childish creations, and we ran it by their place, along with a COVID care package containing ah-mazing Indian takeout (hit up karara.ca if you’re in Ottawa, peeps), chocolate chip cookies, raspberry cream cheese pie, toilet paper and a whole mess of silly comedies and rom-coms.  Don’t ever say I’m not a great daughter when I’m bringing my parents both Indian takeaway AND the TP necessary to deal with the aftermath.

Though, even at a distance, I think my parents could have done without their son-in-law showing up dressed like a pirate bike messenger.

We did the lightning fast trading-of-the-care packages via the garage, while my mom danced a trio of stuffed bunnies in the window and my father – so randomly, like a Kids in the Hall sketch – ran out of the house with his BELT looped around his neck, shouting that he was so bored he was taking HIMSELF for a walk.  I think they might be going a little stir crazy.  They just looked so excited to lay eyes on us for the first time in over a month.

Which is a feeling I’m coming to be quite familiar with.  I miss my parents more than is probably healthy for a 43-year-old; the urge to run at them with a tackle-hug, the kind I haven’t given since I was probably a little kid, was practically overwhelming.  I had to dither by the car for a couple of minutes to keep from bursting into tears, and then I bawled the entire way home.

Doesn’t help matters that tomorrow is my birthday (I’m turning 43 bullshit years old, if you’d like to send me a cake made of toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  I’m the one behind the Haunted Mansion doorbell.)  I’m an only child (duh) and kind of a spoiled one at that (double duh) and the big joke among my family come April is “How much are we going to get hosed for Sandra’s birthday dinner this year?”  Like hosing isn’t a foregone conclusion when I insist on going to a restaurant that only lists its market prices (and now I’m crying again thinking about the Kir Royale and seafood risotto I will not be enjoying at Giovanni’s on Preston tomorrow.)  It’s only-child-indulgence on a massive birthday scale, and I think my parents enjoy lavishing it on me just as much as I enjoy receiving it.  But this year is going to be kind of different.

Yeah, okay, so like my inability to draw creatures, probably all the proof you needed that my parents and I are close is this envelope addressed to “our princess.”  You can also see where I got my artistic ability (joke; that wonderful little doodle my mom did there is a reference to every stick figure drawing I ever made of “us is the family” – dog, Boo Boo; dad, glasses and two hairs; mom, miniskirt and curly hair; me, bangs and a tutu; cat, Puddin’.)

Anyhow, we made out about as well my parents did with this reciprocal gift of roasted garlic tomato sauce, apple cobbler with caramel sauce and these adorable little chocolate bunnies, which I immediately decided to take outside for an Easter photo shoot, because I’m clearly bored as crap.

A 2020 EASTER BUNNY STORY, IN THREE PARTS

After spending some time in quarantine on my parents’ kitchen counter, a plastic bag acting as their PPE, the bunnies were feeling severely cooped up, and so they decided to venture out into the world.  It felt very big and very quiet.

They made it as far as the front flower bed before they got freaked out by the silent emptiness and decided, like everyone else, to go back inside and get drunk.

It did not end well.  The bunnies now have to go take a nap.  The end.

Good to know I haven’t lost my (stupid) sense of humour!  Speaking of, you’ve got to have one to go out in public looking like this!  Easter weekend fashion in the age of Corona, folks.

So there’s all the mostly welcome weirdness we’ve been up to this weekend.  I hope you’re having weird and wonderful ones yourself, friends – may they be just the hoppiest. 😉

On the Hunt

Hop to it, friends, those chocolate eggs aren’t going to find themselves!  Wishing you all a nice end to your Easter weekends.  Mine is closing out with a big dinner at my mom and dad’s.  My mom’s an excellent cook, with a particular emphasis on blow-out holiday meals, so this should be fun!  Watch this space later for any updates I can manage on my turkey and roast potatoes and GRAVY coma. 😉

But talk of chocolate and holiday feasts aside, if you’re trying to hunt up this festive nail look for yourself, I regret to inform you that this is one of those deeply aggravating posts where I used two polishes (heck, potentially two brands) no longer in existence, Candy Lacquer’s Ring Pops glitter topper over Smitten Polish’s Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass (then whose Easter grass is it precisely?)  I believe Smitten operates under the name Dreamland these days and I’m really not sure of Candy Lacquer’s status.  But both of these polishes, despite being years old, are still trucking along just fine, and so I put them to good use in this very Springy manicure that looks like a macro shot of the inside of an Easter basket filled with sweet treats.

Chick ‘N’ Mix: A Mini Lush Review

Everybody sing it with me now: “Chicken, chicken, you can’t cluck too much for me…chicken, chicken, why don’t you come down off of that tree?”  No, not familiar with that one?  I suppose that’s not too surprising – I didn’t know about the Chicken song either, a children’s ditty by a singer named Nancy Cassidy, until it was featured in one of Orange is the New Black’s first season episodes, “The Chickening” (that’s the one where the residents of the Litch, starved for decent food, exercise and mental stimulation, embark on a crazed poultry hunt for a wee chicken that appears in the yard one day.)

This chicken, a Chick ‘N’ Mix bath bomb from Lush’s Easter collection, is a little less revered than OITNB’s prized poultry, although I’ve no doubt some of those ladies would shank their own grandmother for an unsupervised bubble bath.  Separated into three parts – chick, shell and adorable little concealed bunny bomb – this gigantic bath ballistic cost a whopping $10.95 Canadian and is really intended for multiple uses, although I just threw total caution to the wind and chucked the whole thing in my tub en masse.

Like just about every other bath bomb I’ve purchased and used this year, the Chick ‘N’ Mix fizzed out in just a little under 30 seconds.  I didn’t have time to fire off a single photo of the bath art either, because there was none – both halves sunk straight to the bottom of the tub and dissolved quite neatly.  Dejected, I tossed the little orange bunny bomb into the mix and thought about how that’s $11.00 I’m never getting back.

This is the part where I try to justify another dud of a Lush purchase by noting that the Chick ‘N’ Mix bath bomb did provide me with some Easter weekend nail art inspiration. But I’m growing tired of limited use items that don’t behave as promised, don’t smell as described, AND put a neat dent in my pocketbook in the process.  That’s not the kind of inspiration I need!  I mean, it’s inspiring me not to want to purchase any more Lush bath bombs, but I’m fairly certain that’s not the inspiration Lush needs now, is it?

Also, this bath bomb was pure nightmare fuel.  Ahhhh, KILL IT!  KILL IT WITH FIRE! Beware the rabid chicken bath bomb, friends, as you really ought not to share your tubby time with critters frothing green gunge at the mouth.  Sage life advice, from me to you. 😉

Easter Weekend

Loveliest of Easter weekends to you, friends.  Being not so religious, as well as hailing from the kind of small, WASP-y family that does things like vacations in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, my Easter weekends typically involve travel and a whole lot of outlet shopping.  Or they did when I was a kid; my mom and dad and I – “us is the flamily” – passing horse-drawn Amish buggies on the road, catching fireflies in the parking lot of the motel, buying ultra preppy oxblood penny loafers at the Bass outlet and scarfing endless plates of incredible fried chicken at the restaurant where the waitress didn’t even blink when I said I wanted mashed potatoes and gravy as all FOUR of my sides. Those were really great vacations. 🙂

But this Easter weekend I’m home, simply enjoying a few days off from what has so far been a rather busy April.  Quite a few social events and a new-ish exercise regimen that keeps me hoppin’ like a bunny.

Speaking of, here are a few items guaranteed to put a spring – and THE Spring – into the Easter Bunny’s bounce.  Remarkably, these are all things I pulled from around my apartment.  I didn’t have to go rummaging in seasonal storage for anything.  So when I was joking a month or so ago that it’s always Easter in my apartment, I guess I really wasn’t joking?!

My favourite speckled egg wreath makes another appearance here, alongside, on the left, some very cute little cracked egg votive candles, a neat stack of Peeps-scented wax tarts from Yankee Candle, an actual Peeps-shaped wax tart from The Bathing Garden in Keep Your Temper, and KB Shimmer’s Where My Peeps At, which is pure Easter in a bottle.

Then over on the right we have a gigantic, three-part Chick ‘N’ Mix bath bomb from Lush (there’s a cute little bicarbonate bunny inside the huge chick), a speckled wax robin’s egg from The Bathing Garden in Blackberry Fudge, a clutch of pastel Reflections markers, a wee little ceramic cupcake perfect for hiding tiny treasures, another Peeps-shaped wax tart from The Bathing Garden in Looking Glass, two frosted sugar cookies from London, Ontario bakery A Couple of Squares and a large glass jar filled with a half dozen hand-painted cardboard eggs.  Hoppy Easter!

Springtime Polish Picks

As I did for Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be a fun exercise to go through my lacquer collection and pull some Springy polish picks, with a few Easter gems thrown in for good measure.  A couple of these polishes are from actual Spring/Easter collections, but most just remind me of this time of year – cold, steely skies, crocuses and daffodils just beginning to poke through the snow, pastel eggs nestled in crinkly plastic Easter grass.

Starting off with the most obvious pairing, we have KB Shimmer’s Where My Peeps At and Smitten Polish’s Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass.  I think this combination looks like jellybeans nestled in chick fuzz nestled in plastic Easter grass.

Next we have another KB Shimmer pick, Full Bloom Ahead, paired with Different Dimension’s Luminosity. Full Bloom Ahead is one of my favourite polishes, and also one of the first indies I ever bought.  I think it looks like Spring flowers caught in an unseasonably late snowstorm.  Luminosity is just dang pretty.

Next we have yet another KB Shimmer pick – this time Make My Gray – paired with ILNP’s Mega.  I like the way the holographic rainbows in Mega’s depths mimic the steely grey glitters in Make My Gray.

Finally, we have the very eggy combo of Delush Polish’s 50 Shades of Yay paired with Glam Polish’s Ladies Choice.  50 Shades of Yay is one of my favourite, but rarely worn, polishes.  I think it looks like delicious rainbow Peeps cake (the delicious part being the cake; Peeps are the work of the devil, adorable though they are!)

Bunny Leavings

Ugh, not those kind of leavings, gutterface, although I suppose I should have clarified – here I’m talking about Easter Bunny leavings.  Totally different thing!  Doing a manicure inspired by one is adorable and festive.  The other suggests some latent scatological leanings that I may need to address.  Still, although I’ll paint all manner of subject on my nails (the Guacamonut still ranks up there as a random favourite), I can guarantee you that shit will absolutely never be one of those things.  Sorry if you were hoping for this blog to take a deeply dirty turn at some point.

Okay, back to this end-of-the-day Easter manicure.  Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass from Smitten Polish (now Dreamland Lacquer) is the star of this show, acting as a very artificial-looking base for a smattering of pastel-hued, eggy dots.  I love this polish in the sun, its gold glitter twinkling prettily with every shift of my hands, but Not Your Mama’s Easter Grass does its very best work in the shade, taking on a look not unlike a Pointillist painting.  Or, going to the other end of the cultural spectrum, Floam.  I love it, I love it, I love it, AND it just happens to look great alongside some sweet and simple nail art.  The Bunny would approve – a more than fitting spot to park his bounty. 🙂

14 Carrot Gold

Ba-dum *ching*!  Happy Easter weekend, friends.  Hope you’re hoppin’ about with your friends and families having a wonderful time.  I’m inside, where an indoor kitty like me prefers to be anyways, working on my nails and just enjoying some downtime with Mr. Finger Candy, so I’ve already got that good time situation sorted. May you enjoy yours, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. 🙂

Peep This Polish

The temperature took an unwelcome turn for the bitter today, and just as I was starting to warm up (wah wah) to this spring business.  I may have mentioned one or two or 50 times this month that I’m DONE with the cold weather, but as always, no one’s listening – certainly not that asshole Mother Nature, probably off being all bohemian and flighty, working on her flower crown for Coachella or something.

So I thought I’d usher in the warmer weather my way, with a favourite springy polish, KB Shimmer’s Where My Peeps At?  This polish, a beautiful mix of rainbow-hued circle glitter in a yellow crelly base, is spring plus-plus – very Eastery.  As such, I don’t wear it very often, but when I do, I always get a ton of compliments.  And for good reason!  It’s super adorable (like jellybeans nestled in chick fuzz) and so much fun.  I’ll definitely be wearing this one come Easter. 🙂