July Band of Bloggers

As mid-summer approaches, my mind drifts to vacation times, getaways or mini excursions out and about.  One-tank trips.  Parks to explore.

Do you take a summer vacation or do small getaways?  What do you have planned?  If not, what would be your ideal vacation or retreat?  What are your favourite local haunts?  Give us some places to hang out!

No real summer plans this year (or any year; I don’t do summer very well) save just getting through the dang thing.

But!  My dream vacation?  The mere idea of which gets me up nearly every day at the butt crack of dawn to trawl the pool or pound the pavement in the hopes of whittling my arse down to a Doom Buggy-acceptable size?  The dream that is so potent, it practically comes with its own smell?

Disney.  Disney World, actually, classic Orlando styles (don’t get me started on the incongruities of someone who wilts like a pansy in the heat vacationing in central Florida.)  I used to go just about every year with my parents when I was a kid, and indeed, it’s where Mr. Finger Candy and I enjoyed two weeks of blissful – if humid – honeymooning, but we haven’t been in years.

Time to rectify that in a major way.  And we can start with something I have ALWAYS wanted to do, but which my parents – bless their otherwise terrifically indulgent souls – could never quite manage, 13 straight trips through my favourite place on Planet Earth, the Haunted Mansion.  I’m trying not to hype it up too much, or denigrate all of the other very, very important moments that have occurred in my life (graduating university, getting married, owning a home) but I think it’s going to be the very best day of my life. 😉

And not like they weren’t a lot of work or anything, but I’ll be sporting these nails when I do eventually get there, my second go at recreating the Mansion’s iconic Damask wallpaper, complete with eerily shifting eyes.

I am not going to lie…as summer starts revving up…I am catching myself daydreaming not only about vacation, but also fall scents.  I am sure it may be too early for some and others melt fall scents year round, but I must ask…where are you planning to order your fall smell goods from?  It can be vendor wax, candles, bath and body or perfumes.  Just spill!

Save a pending Sniff My Tarts custom order, 3/4 of which is mint-based (so more winter there) I have no outstanding orders.  But I’ve always wanted to get in on The Bathing Garden’s gore-geous collection of Halloween-themed bath and body care.  I’ve been so impressed with my two orders thus far, and I can’t wait to see what beautifully creepy little items they come up with for the upcoming haunting season.

Please feel free to answer these questions in the comment section below.

And we hope you’ll visit these Band of Bloggers blogs and help support the blogger community!

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Jaybird at The Candle Enthusiast

Jessica at The Meltdown Blog

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Lauren at LoloLovesScents

Liz at Furianne

Sandra – me! – at Finger Candy

If you are a blogger and would like to join the Band of Bloggers for our monthly posts, please contact us.

Eye Spy

This combination of polishes, ILNP’s multi-chromatic flakie topper, Paradox, over Enchanted Polish’s plum holo, January 2015, reminded me so much of the colour and effect of the wallpaper in Disney’s Haunted Mansion, I added some not-so evil eyes just to seal the ghostly deal.  These nails should keep the haunts of the Mansion extra happy, but all the same, keep your eye(s) on this one. 😉

999 Happy Haunts

When I was a kid – and okay, maybe even now – I dreamed of living in the Haunted Mansion in Walt Disney World.  When my parents and I would visit the Magic Kingdom (a nearly yearly event) we’d ride the Mansion, squished side by side by side in our Doom Buggy, and I’d imagine what it would be like when I lived there by myself (with my husband, if he was lucky and shared my affinity for gloomy and ghost-infested dwellings.)  I wasn’t scared by the thought of sharing my home with a bunch of restless – albeit benign – spooks, and I positively loved the idea of cruising around my palatial, decrepit abode in my own personal Buggy, ending every day with a giant jazz party in the attic graveyard.  I remember one year on one of the day’s multiple go-rounds (no day at the Magic Kingdom was complete without at least a few visits to the Haunted Mansion) the ride stopped directly in front of Madame Leota’s crystal ball long enough for me to start optimistically thinking that maybe it would never start back up again and we’d all be forced to stay there overnight.  But Disney is nothing but a well oiled machine, and when the ride started back up 10 minutes and four repeated séances later, I left my little dream behind…at least until the next ride a couple hours later. 🙂

These nails, which draw inspiration from the gothic, Damask-style wallpaper that lines the halls of the Mansion, have been a long time coming.  Until now, I just didn’t feel like I had the tools, the skill or the time required to pull them off (egads, they took an eternity.)  But thanks to a new set of ultra tiny dotting tools, one rainy afternoon and a recent flurry of experimental nail art that hasn’t turned out half bad, I thought I’d give them a shot.  All in all, not a bad effort befitting my favouritest place on earth. 

These nails also represent my return to the Nail Art Ideas Linkup and my interpretation of May’s week one challenge prompt, travel and tourism. My husband and I have not taken a holiday in forever, and I long to visit Disney World and the Mansion so badly, it’s almost palpable. It very nearly rolls off me in waves, and I’m pretty sure there’s a smell associated with it, too (in case you’re wondering, Disney World smells like various combustible gases, churros and sweet, sweet air conditioning.)

And how’s this for thematically appropriate?  For the black detailing on these nails I used a polish I picked up last Halloween simply because I knew one day I’d find a use for its little tombstone-shaped bottle, Wet N Wild’s Fantasy Makers in Darkest Hour.  And lo, I did indeed find a use for it, in a manicure about all things haunted, appropriately enough!