Winter Wonderland

Winter Wonderland, so accurately named by my sister.

Butterflies and flowers and snowflakes, because I had a magically butterfly-filled chick-flicky week leading up to Christmas this year. I'd love to dish the details, but a nail blog probably isn't the place for it... haha!

I used my new Avon Mirror Shine in "Glisten." It took two coats to get it like this, and boy are they shiny. Did you know it's difficult to photograph something super shiny with white stickers on it? Good thing I took advantage of our visit to Aveda and their salon with a billion lights. I was redeeming a birthday gift postcard for a free perfume essence in a scent of my choice. And if you must know, I got the oil in Fire Nature #20. :)

What I used:

• Base Coat and Top coat as usual, lots of top coat though
• Color: Avon Mirror Shine Nail Enamel in "Glisten" -- 2 coats.
• Stickers: Random leftover stickers from some sticker sheets in my box. Don't have the labels for them anymore.

Happy New Year!

Another Haul!

Yaay, I am SO official, another HAUL! These are some purchases I made at Sally Beauty Supply after having a crappy school-related meeting where the lady I was talking to wasn't very nice to me. My solution? Starbucks Javachip and Sally nail stuff. Bad mood crisis solved!

From Left to Right:

1. Sally Girl Nail Color #812047: I knew I needed this color for previous nails, but I can't exactly remember what I needed it specifically for. I haven't used it yet, but it should come in handy.
2. Sally Girl Nail Color #812070: Gold confetti circles! This one is so fun. I used it in my last Christmas nail set. Click here to check it out. A little gold flourish without having to stress out too much about it.
3. China Glaze Nail Lacquer with Hardeners in #718 Watermelon Rind 80226: This is the Christmas green I needed. I don't really have greens in my collection, but I needed it for the Christmas Nails. Worked well, but a little more transparent than I was expecting. The nice thing is that I got a Christmas green that I can also use over the rest of the year too. That was the challenge in finding just the right color...
4. China Glaze Matte Magic - Flat Finish Top Coat: This stuff was on the sale rack and I figured I'd go ahead and try it. I haven't tried it myself yet, but my sister loves it. She wants nails that aren't too girly (which is difficult to accomplish) and she wanted a top coat to keep her nails strong, and this stuff is apparently the stuff of miracles for her. She said it started chipping off, but probably because she had already put on base coat and top coat and THEN this stuff, just cause she was excited about it when I brought it home. We're thinking it'll work better if its put on top of a basecoat instead.
5. Cina Stickers: Holiday Cheer: Soooo cutie. Love the reindeer and santa. Used them in my Christmas nail set as mentioned above (clicky here)!

Yay Haul!!

Merry Christmas 2009!

I did a supah christmas theme this week. :)

From left to right: Christmas bow, stocking, present, gingerbread man, candy cane, reindeer (my sister's favorite), snowman, santa, holly, christmas tree.

These took a long time to do, but luckily I've discovered that if you play video games in between coats it can really make the time go by.

Used a LOT of stuff for this one. Here we go.

What I used: (in the order they were applied)

• Base coat - the usual
  
• Gold Dots: Sally Girl Nail Color "#812070" -- 1 coat
• Sparkles:  Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Nail Color in "09 Disco Ball" -- little bit on each nail
  
• Snowflake Stickers: From a pack I bought on eBay. "Professional Nail Sticker" Sinyemei. Cut with a scissors and then applied to the edges of my nails. 
  
• Gold Color: Savvy Nail Lacquer in "Golden Honey 627088" -- 1 stripe across the tip
• White Stripe: OPI Nail Lacquer in "Alpine Snow" -- applied with a toothpick
• Red Stripe: Wet n Wild Nail Color in "Red Red" -- applied with a toothpick
• Green Stripe: China Glaze Nail Lacquer with Hardeners in "718 Watermelon Rind 80226" -- 3 coats across the tips
• Stickers!!! My Favorite part! Cina Nail Creations "Holiday Cheer 133879" and the snowman is from another sheet I got on eBay. 
• Top Coat - the usual -- 2-3 coats.

I love them! They're so busy and crazy, they're awesome.

What I learned:

•  It's difficult to find a green color that I will use for the rest of the year. There are plenty of Christmas greens out there but I didn't want to buy something I'd only use once, so I'm glad I found this China Glaze Watermelon Rind. It's fun and sparkly and should be useful for other nail designs. It's a lot more translucent than I was expecting so it took more coats than expected to make it look solid, but I like it. 
• I had my first experience with using a real nail file that my sister bought as part of a present for my birthday earlier this month. I've been using some little files that were 99 cents for about 10 files? (what seems like a million, I keep finding more) at a grocery store. Thought they were fine, but then this new file from Body Shop is fabulous and gold and makes filing SO smooth and easy and FAST. Who would have thought? Anyway, I'm sold, and I love using the "real" kind of nail file. Yay my sister!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Nails!

Yaaaay Christmas Nails! I love Christmas. I love the corny songs, getting the same presents every year, even the Christmas junk that I used to hate when I was little and now would love as a Christmas present.
 
These are my favorite nails yet! They look like wrapping paper. Sooooo cutie. I hope they last a LONG time because I'm not gonna wanna get rid of them anytime soon. The idea is thanks to a youtube tutorial and a suggestion from my sister to put snowflakes on red instead of blue. The snowflakes and larger white dots (snowballs) are stickers, the little white flecks are painted on with white nail polish.

Note to self: I need green nail polish. I don't have any green!

What I Used:

• Base Coat: Avon Nail Experts Smooth Beginnings: Base Coat --1 coat? I can't remember if I did a second.
  
• Red: Wet n Wild Rock Solid Nail Lacquer:  #227 "Rockin in Rubies" -- 2 coats plus touch-ups
  
• White specks: OPI Nail Lacquer: "Alpine Snow" -- applied with a #306 Winning Nails by WorldWide Nail Art brush
  
• Stickers: Professional Nail Sticker, Sinyemei Nagel-Kunst from eBay.
  
• Top Coat: Avon Nail Experts UV Gloss Guard: Top Coat -- 2 coats
  
• Drying Agent: Drip Dry by OPI -- 2 drops on each nail
  

What I learned?

My left hand is INCREDIBLE shaky right when it matters, when the brush has white polish on it and it's about to touch my right hand fingernail. I'm steady up until 1 cm away and then BAM shaky shaky shaky. It's kind of nerve-wracking, actually.

ADVENT NAILS!

Happy Beginning of Advent! Here's to the Advent wreath candles.

What I used:

• Base and Top Coat: the usuals
• Purple: Finger Paints #806199 "It's An Original"
• Pink: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in #28 "Almond Crunch"
• White: OPI Nail Lacquer in "Alpine Snow" 
• Glitter on all nails: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails #09 "Disco Ball"

I'm so close to vacation I can just feel it.
By the way, today's my 26th Birthday. Yay me!

Toodles.

Thanksgiving Nails

School's been busy, so quick updates this week. These are the nails I brought home for Thanksgiving break. (.... last week?! CRAZY!)

NOOOO The nail patches are awesome!!?

It's true. Well, it still needs to be verified beyond 30 minutes of awesomeness, but I love them.

My sister surprised me a few weeks ago with these nail patches by Sephora, that you can view by clicking here. She had bought them on sale just for fun, because she knows about my latest obsession with nails. She and I had previously browsed through the nail section and upon spotting these, I immediately said, "That's stupid. That would never work." I was convinced that you had to cut the edges off, which in my case would be a horrible scenario because I have horrible aim and using scissors (no matter what the size or precision) to cut off excess plastic layer would not work. I assumed that it was retarded that anyone would pay more than what a nail polish bottle costs to buy some one-time-only nail patches that will never turn out okay.

She gave these to me later on, saying that even though I wasn't interested, they could still possibly be awesome.

They would either be awesome and the most wonderful thing in the world, or just as retarded as I initially suspected.

Well, thirty five minutes after the fact, I'm leaning toward the awesome side of the spectrum. They're easy to apply, and they ended up looking better than the paint jobs that I normally do every week (which sorta kills me, to tell you the truth.) And now I'm starting to suspect that my sister secretly looked at some amazing reviews and saw that I'd be wrong so she super spy purchased them for me, knowing how awesome they are. Cause my sister is super sneaky psychic sometimes like that, sometimes.

Anyway, yea, I like them. You peel off clear plastic from both sides of the colored patch, then apply it to your nail and wrap the end over the end of your nail. It's thick enough to take off and re-position if you mess up (suprisingly I didn't! isn't that weird!) but thin enough so that the excess that is hanging off after you fold them under rips off quite easily. And then you have perfect-looking nails that take less time than I usually take to apply a coat of perfect non-dinged nail-polish that gets removed with nailpolish remover just like the stuff from a bottle. UGH!

Geez. Okay, I hope they last the "yea but how long will they last" skepticism that's ringing in my head right now. I'll be sure to write about that later on this week and post a status pic of how they're doing. But beyond that, I like the nail patches.

What I used:

• Nail Patch in "502 black strass" by Sephora.  

 Ugh that just KILLS me that I only have one bullet point this week! And on a product that I immediately bad-mouthed at first sight. *shame* 

My latest purchases: Avon Top Coat, Drip Dry by OPI

Avon Nail Experts: UV Gloss Guard Top Coat

I really love this stuff. It's a lot thinner than my previous topcoat by Nailene and it never leaves little bubbles on my nails. That, and I love how it makes my nails look like they don't have a top coat on. I prefer that to having a clear layer floating on top of the colored nail polish.

I bought it from Avon through Amazon: Here's the link if you're curious. $3.99 + 5.99 shipping, but I pretty much got it for free since I opened up an Amazon Credit Card and will be getting a $30 credit back on my bill. Yay freebies!

Drip Dry by OPI: Lacquer Drying Drops

Previously I've used Sephora by OPI Nail Colour Drying Drops but that was $14 (plus shipping if I didn't have access to a store... which I don't, during the school year). Instead I found the next best thing on eBay, from the seller jenbyk for $6.99 + $1.95 shipping, which ended up being super fast.

So far, no complaints. It works the same as the non-sephora affiliated drying drops, and I'm guessing it's the same product but with a different label. I like it.

Evil ghost nails

 It's amazing how fast October whizzes by. Wasn't I just saying I'm excited for having multiple weeks of Halloween Theme nails? And now November is right around the corner.

Before anything else, can I just say... I love the new topcoat I got from Avon. It's awesome and perfect.

What I used:

• Base Coat: Avon Nail Experts Smooth Beginnings Base Coat -- 2 coats
• Color on Orange Nails: 
• OPI Nail Lacquer in "In My Back Pocket" -- 3 coats, maybe? This stuff is really thin. 
•  Nicole by OPI in "Razzle Dazzler" -- 1-2 coats.
• Color on Yellow Nails: Sephora by OPI Nail Colour in "Cab Fare" -- 3 coats minimum. 
• Stickers: Professional Nail Stickers by Sinyemei. These stickers came from three different sheets (ghosts, bluish stars, white stars) I wish I could give you more info on them but they don't say much on the packaging. 
• Glitter: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Nail Color in "09 Disco Ball"
• Top Coat: Avon Nail Experts UV Gloss Guard Top Coat -- 2 coats. 
• Drying Agent: Drip Dry by OPI Lacquer Drying Drops -- 1-2 Drops per nail.

These nails feel really comfortable, compare to the last few weeks. Maybe it's the way I filed them or something, but they seem much more wearable. That, and I can still use my thumbs to type on my phone without pressing down more buttons than I need to. I have the LG Xenon w/ the pull-out qwerty keyboard so sometimes square ends can really make it difficult to text...

Okay that's it for Halloween, I guess! Till next time!

Halloween themes continue! Cats and pumpkins and stars.

Super excited about these halloween stickers I got on ebay. :) They're so much fun.

• Base Coat: Avon Nail Experts Smooth Beginnings Base Coat -- 2 coats
• Tips: Nicole by OPI in "Razzle Dazzle" -- 2 coats
• Stickers: Professional Nail Sticker by Singyemei, taken from 3 different sheets
• Glitter: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Nail Color in "09 Disco Ball" -- 1 half-coat
• Top Coat: Avon Nail Experts UV Gloss Guard Top Coat -- 2 coats (NEW purchase!)
  

 Love to top coat. No bubbles anymore. Yay!

Halloween Nails continued...

Quick update on this one because I forgot to upload my photo!

October Week 2 -- spider webs!

Shoutout to my cat ZETA who unintentionally makes her debut today!

Inspired by a tutorial I found on Youtube here:

 Halloween Nails Tutorial - by fumsmusings

I really liked the spiderweb design she made, so I added it to what I thought were already finished nails. I had ordered some halloween nail stickers off eBay, and, being upset that they hadn't arrived yet, my original plan was to do some plain orange with black tips. I dunno, some sort of spite fit because the stickers weren't here yet. Wouldn't have proven anything to anyone, wouldn't have done anything, really.

But anyway, I got done with the orange, then I put on some yellow to make it an "ooooo shimmery!" kind of look, and then my black tips came out okay. So... I felt like adding more.

Then I looked online for halloween nail tutorials, and t's amazing how many tutorials out there and it's even MORE amazing how IMPOSSIBLE it would be for my non-dominant hand to even TRY anything these tutorials suggest. Plus, a lot of them are tutorials on how to draw on a fake nail that's not attached to anything. And sure, anyone can do that. But when they're your own nails and they're attached to your hands already, you can't exactly follow a "Learn how to draw a Frankenstein" tutorial 10 times in a row.

Anyway, the youtube link again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTGVp2YOYQ4 See for yourself!

I like my nails now. No more spiteful plain nails!

What I used:

• Base Coat: Avon Nail Experts Smooth Beginnings Base Coat -- 1 coat
• First color: OPI Nail Lacquer in "In My Back Pocket" -- 3 coats
• Shimmer: Sephora by OPI Nail Colour in "Cab Fare" -- 1 thin coat
• Tips: Sally Girl Nail Color in "Poser" -- 2 coats
• Spider webs: Petites in "French White 417" -
• Applied with Nail Brush: Winning Nails by Worldwide #306 Nail Art
• Top Coat: Nailene Acrylic Strong Topcoat -- 1 coat
• Drying Aid: Sephora by OPI Nail Colour Drying Drops

What I Noticed:
I'm pretty sure you can use any kind of thin brush to paint designs. No need to shell out the money for an official nail brush, since it just gets coated with nail polish anyway.

This was my first time freehand drawing on my own nails. I know 1) for SURE I am right-handed and 2) thin lines are hard to make with frickin' nail polish and 3) I feel like I oughta try this more often!

Happy October!

But first I have to apologize for not following up on my claim to do something spectacular with my ocean theme stickers. I did... but I didn't write about it. So here's a picture real quick:

My favorite is the crab on my right index finger because it looks like "AAAAAAAAAAAAAH" like the slugs from Flushed Away. It's like, "AAAAAAH A SHELLLLL!!"

The background is gold, plus red plus orange plus blue plus blue glitter plus a black tip. I'm not gonna bother saying what each nail polish is cause I'm tired and it's 1:00am and I have school tomorrow.

These nails were fun but they felt pretty gross by the end of the week. The stickers started chipping off and my nails felt rough and textured... dolphins got decapitated ... nasty stuff. And it was really hard to get them off. But hey, they were fun and I got a lot of compliments last week, so that makes it worth it, right?

This week... marks the beginning of October. Unfortunately only my Christmas stickers came in the mail and I'm still waiting on the Halloween stickers. Hopefully they'll be here soon.

But in the meantime, Happy Beginning of October!

What I Used:

• 
  
  Base Coat: Avon Nail Expers Smooth Beginnings Base Coat
• 
  
  First color: OPI Nail Lacquer in "In My Back Pocket" -- 2 coats
• 
  
  Second Color:
• 
  
  One or two coats of OPI Nail Lacquer in "Alpine Snow"
• 
  
  One or two coats of Sephora by OPI Nail Colour in "Cab Fare"
• 
  
  Third Color: OPI Nail Lacquer in "Alpine Snow"
• 
  
  Glitter: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Nail Color in "Disco Ball" -- Just a little coat on the white part.
• 
  
  Top Coat Nailene Acrylic Strong
  
  

Yea, they're kinda backwards in color, compared to real candy corn. But I did it on purpose! I've been doing dark tips a lot lately so I figured it was time for some light ones.

And the verdict is... meh.

See how they look textured and bumpy? I ended up with bubbles, which I've read is what happens if the coat you put on is too thick or the coat underneath is still wet. I'm gonna blame the top coat for this one though, because even my sister said that the Nailene stuff is too thick. It doesn't go on smoothly like my other stuff and it kinda "glops" on.

Another complaint I have about this set of nails is that the OPI nail Lacquers are too thin. It takes two coats just to get the color to be bold enough so that streaks don't show through. Those happen to be my only OPI Nail Lacquer colors, and conveniently they're both too watered down. The yellow is fun though, it's glittery. It just needs a coat of white underneath or else it'll show whatever's underneath it.

And a final complaint is that these nails took too long to dry. I used my drying drops and everything, but that only dried the top coat, and I could still smush the color around. In fact, I tried to open a window and ended up putting a dent in my thumbnail. And then there were a few casualties through the night... my middle finger and thumbnail had to be erased and completely redone. And even today, 24 hours later, they're still a little soft so they haven't dried completely yet. That's annoying.

Well, at least I like them somewhat, right? I like them enough to keep 'em, but at this rate I'm expecting something else to happen that'll make me abort the whole thing. I like how long they make my fingernails look, though. And I piled on the polish so much that they almost look fake. And that's good, right?

Anyway, Happy October.

Sally Haul 9.15.09

my new tweezers and stickers from sally's
 

Sorry, you'll have to excuse the drastically overstated use of the word "haul" to describe my two-item purchase at sally's, but I really couldn't help myself.

I went to Sally's and finally bought the Ocean Life set of Nail stickers by Cina, and a Tweezerman set of tweezers to use when I apply the stickers to my nails.

closer look at the sally's sticker so you can see what I mean

The awesome thing about Sally's is the Sally Beauty card. I became a member in January this year for the fee of $5 and got a $5 coupon to use in store the next month. Being a member means that you get a discount off of everything in the store. The secret to finding the price is to look at the numbers on the Sally tag: The actual price is written as a price with the dollar sign and all that good stuff. But the members price is at the end of the long number above that -- so my Stickers costed me $3.49 instead of the listed $4.39... which is awesome. And to top it off, I also used a 20% coupon that was good toward my entire purchase, so I got some super savings there too. I'm pretty happy right now.

my old tweezers from my swiss army knife with a U.S. dime for size comparison

The tweezers were a purchase long in the making. I've been using my tweezers that came attached to my swiss army knife but they just aren't doing the trick. I mean, they worked in that they did their job but after my fiasco with the black hearts jumping off the plastic sheet I decided to go for some good ones. We'll see how it ends up -- either terrific or a waste of $3.50...

Oh yea, and I bought a set of Halloween stickers on eBay for $4.89. They were an international purchase so they'll take 7-14 days but I'm still excited. Halloween nails here I come!

And... I can't believe I finally got the ocean life set! Expect great things from me next week when I use these puppies. I have been wanting this set for EVER but didn't really know how I'd use them, but boyo, do I have an idea now. This oughta be good.

Glittery Blue tips and flowers

My sister said these are her favorites of all the nails I've done before. She said that she always wishes I would buy the ones in the store but that I always end up going for the ghetto ones instead. *shrug* ... 's true.

This week's glitter and blue tips are inspired by a set of fake nails that I keep seeing in stores. Of course, I love looking at the nail section in Target and Walmart and now that I've copied an idea that I've seen before, I can't find a picture of them online. But yea, I did copy the idea from somewhere.

  

What I used:

• Remover: Equate Regular Nail Polish Remover to remove last week's nails -- four cotton pads did the trick (soaked and used all four sides).
• Base: Avon Nail Experts Smooth Beginnings -- 2 coats
• Glitter: Sally Hansen Hard Nails Xtreme Wear Nail Cor in 4860-09 Disco Ball -- 1 coat over half the nail and some touch-up dabs after the first coat dried
• Blue Tips: Nicole by OPI in "It's Up To You" -- 2 coats, then some more glitter on top of the tips again
• Stickers: Combination of the flowers found in
• Cina 3D Nail Decals Item #CI-18013 and
• Kiss Nail Accents #NS13
• Top Coat: Nailene Acrylic Strong Topcoat -- 2 coats
• Drying Aid: Sephora by OPI Nail Colour Drying Drops -- 2 drops per nail
  

OTHER NEWS!

Coming up in October!!

I'm really excited because I just won an auction on eBay for 5 sheets of Christmas nail stickers. Now I'm on the prowl for a good deal on halloween stickers. I love halloween and plan on doing Halloween Themes for the entire month, so be on the lookout for that. :)

Also -- I found this awesome site that's an online nail community / message board system. CoolNailsArt.com Lots of nails and lots more nails. Most of them are way longer than I can handle, but I love all the designs. I've never gotten my nails doen professionally so it's pretty exciting for me to see what people are capable of doing with nail polish...

Pink hotness, yep!

But first an update on the nails that I posted in my last blog:

They held up surprisingly well! My family went to Reno for a 4 night vacation at Harrah's and I was so sure that they would end up chipping by the end of the week. At the base of the nails I could see the color lightening a little, which meant (or at least I thought...) that they would start peeling and chipping. I'm used to lighter color meaning that the nail polish is separating from my nail surface and only hanging on because it's connected to the rest of the polish that's still attached. But hey, it lasted well until I got home.

Removing the nails was interesting. The last time I used stickers I had applied them to fake nails, so it was simply a matter of peeling off the nails and putting something on something new. Since then I've graduated to using my natural nails. When you wipe your nails with nail polish remover, you take off the nail color and the design on the sticker but the plastic stays on your nail, leaving a sticker-outline of the color you had underneath it. Then you have peel off the sticker and remove the polish leftovers and THEN you're done. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's about two more steps than I'm used to dealing with, which is a bummer but not SO bad, I guess.

Okay the new set:

What I used:

• Base coat: Avon Nail Experts Smooth Beginnings -- 1 coat
• Color: Sephora by OPI Nail Colour in "Lost Without My GPS"-- 2 coats
• Tips: Sally Girl Nail Color in "Poser" -- 1 coat
• Accent Color: Savvy Nail Lacquer in "Golden Honey" -- 1 coat (little stripe on the black tips)
• Stickers: Broadway Nails Fashion Diva Nail Art "Find Me" -- applied with my pocket knife tweezers
• Top Coat: Nailene Acrylic Strong Topcoat -- 1 coat

Stuff I noticed:

1. The stickers are difficult to get off the sheet. I had at least 4 stickers go flying when I picked them off.
2. The stickers have examples on the back of how awesome your nails would look if you put more than 2 stickers on them. In real life, they just look ridiculous, like you couldn't decide which stickers to use and just kept going and going. Plus it's impossible to get them in a straight line with my left hand, which adds to the ridiculousness.
3. I'm getting better at painting on tips. Even my sister says so. :)

Why Nails?

There are dozens of nail websites out there, all with really great information on proper nail care and professional procedures for real manicures and all that. I've read a bunch of them, and they're helpful and awesome and there's really no need for me to re-state everything I've learned online because it'll just come up in the same Google searches as everything else.

But I don't care. :)

I like doing my nails. It's the "me" time that I can take to just relax and think about something really simple like shiny glittery color and straight or curvy lines as opposed to all the really frustrating things in life that I could be thinking about (like stupid chickens... but I won't go into that).

My nails grow pretty fast so I take advantage of the length to do things on my natural nails that people otherwise do on stick-on fake nails. The paint jobs last about a week for me before they start chipping. I like to do different designs with stickers and nail polish, and I tend to get compliments from other girls when I really take some time to get it all done and pretty.

Here's an example of my latest set:

So, till next time! Yay!

A change of topic

After two weeks of not blogging in my "ideally daily" blog about hamsters I've decided, based on the excellent advice of my sister, to switch topics. To nails.

Hamster goodbye!

Not every day is a thrill ride roller coaster of emotions...

Nothing to report today. Kricket and I were on separate sleeping schedules today and never interacted, other than a quick check on her water and food.

In all honesty, hamster owning is not always a thrill ride. In fact, you may end up with days like I had today where you don't even see your hamster much, other than the occasional squeak and digging and chewing sounds. They're nocturnal, so you kind of have to sync your "awake" schedule together and figure out when both of you will actually alert and approachable.

I'm a firm believer in not waking hamsters up. Since I love hamsters and when I talk about them, I get a lot of "oh, hamsters are MEAN" or "my room mate had a hamster and it was EVIL" responses. The truth is, if you mess with a hamster you're gonna get bit. FACE IT. It's the only defense the little scrappy cutsey furball has against retarded people who bother them. I've only gotten bit maybe... four times? Ever? In what, 6 years of being a hamster owner? I'm actually pretty convinced that hamsters are never evil and that all of them can be hand tamed, as long as you have the patience.

Some tips:

• Start hand-taming when you FIRST get them. That means staying calm and relaxed and letting them sniff you and get to used to you first, then making little steps toward picking them up. Eventually let them walk all over your hand (that means you're gonna spend time with your hand in the cage) and then start picking them up slowly. But stay calm! I swear, don't be all stiff and fearful and expect them to be relaxed. It'll be okay. It really will be okay. It will be okay.
• Never wake up a hamster and expect them to thank you for it. Hamsters get up to do little errands during the day but they don't always want your attention when they're out and about. For example, Simon was my long-haired syrian sweetie boy who only bit me once... that ONE time I saw him awake during the day and thought "Everyone else just picks up their hamsters, I'm gonna do it." So I stuck my hand in there and tried to get him and BAM, youch! That was the one and only time he ever bit me, and I deserved it, so yea. Don't touch your hamster during the day.
• If you're not sure whether they're awake and alert (even at night, when they're supposed to be) take a look at the ears. My sister likes to call them "teacup saucer ears" because when Kricket's really alert and ready to socialize, her ears are big and round. Completely open and not even slightly folded. So that's how I know she's in a good mood (that and she's standing on her hind legs and trying to get out of her cage and trying to interrogate me with her nose from two feet away).

So that's my two cents on that. (although as far as two cents on hamster care I have about a bucket full of loose change to spread around)

Everyone wants to read about my hamster

So the dealio with this blog is that I’m going to write about my hamster-related business (not really business, just my personal “business” that is hamster-related) in hopes that new and experienced hamster owners alike can read about a fellow hamster owner’s experience with her hamster. Each entry will start off with what I did that day and then the second part will be little tidbits (hambits? No, that sounds gross, like droppings or something) of information on my hamster, hamster experiences, hamster stories, etc. Today’s tidbit is that I’ve started a hamster blog. Ta-da!

I used to run a hamster care website called http://www.hamsylvania.com/, which will eventually be put up again (which, by the way, I’ve been saying for about three years now), but if you’ve ever done several revisions of the same website you’ll understand me when I say that it can get a little redundant. Plus I never really know if anyone’s looking at it. So I’m here in blog form now, hoping it works out. It might seem at times that I have a split personality cause I like to use parentheses to interrupt myself, but the beauty of blogs is that I don’t have to edit it all out like I have to in school papers.

Yay. Okay, let’s get this show on the road.

On April 7, 2008 I bought a little orange and white Syrian hamster from PetCo. She has been the boss of my life ever since the first time we made eye contact. I wasn’t even looking for a hamster and suddenly in an eye-level little glass cage this girl comes barreling out and puts both her paws on the glass and looks me in the eyes. I gasped and loved her instantly, but left without her because I knew I didn’t have to buy every cute little animal I see in the stores. Well, I couldn’t stop thinking about her two days later, so I decided that I’d go back with my carrier and if she was there, I’d get her and it was destiny and fate and totally meant to be, and if she wasn’t then it was just a cute hamster I saw that one time. Well I got back and there she was, seemingly waiting for me to take her home and that’s how it all started!

Her name is Kricket and she’s the bossiest little weirdo queen. I didn’t name her for a while because I wanted to give her a “weird” name cause she’s “weird” and wrestled over names like peanut (which was too common for me) and hazel nut (which doesn’t work cause I hate a girl who’s named Hazel) and one day my sister said the word “cricket” (I dunno, she was talking about crickets I think) and I said, “Cricket!!” And of course naming a hamster “cricket” wasn’t weird enough, so we changed it to Kricket and it fit her perfectly.

So the saying goes, “Her name is Kricket. Cause she’s weird.”