Introduction

Hello!

My name is Jolène. I live in Edmonton, Alberta, the part of Canada that mostly justifies the stereotypes of Canadian weather (but hail from a more temperate part of the country, and fie on this stupid incessant cold). I was once truly enamoured of nail art; as a child, I did nail art designs on others at the swimming pool club my family belonged to, wielding toothpicks and braving nail polish fumes from my perch at a table in the girls' changing room throughout the summer. For many years now, that fell by the wayside.

Until I came across this bit of LOTR genius from Sarah Waite at Chalkboard Nails, retweeted by a friend on Twitter.

WELL THEN. Suddenly my 30-odd collection of nail polish colours was insufficient. My plainly-painted nails were boring. I longed for the summer days in which I'd march down the street with my ladybug-shaped backpack clinking and clanging with polish bottles of every imaginable colour.

I'm still small fry. I'd guess my collection to be at around 250, and I don't yet need a spreadsheet for it. I've promised myself to stop at a full Helmer, and we'll see how that goes (wah wah, setting myself up for future failure). I currently post about 4 - 5 times a week. My hope is to focus very much on nail art instead of swatches-- there are a ton of wonderful swatching resources out there (check the sidebar to the right) and I don't want to reinvent their wheel. I will probably emulate others' designs from time to time, and there will always be a credit and a link back to them in those situations.

If you have any questions, or random comments, or you feel the need to tell me about your day, or what you dreamt about last night... then talk to me! I'm Canadian, remember, and we're a generally friendly folk.

J.

POST-SCRIPT: My approach is to link to all of the indie polishes I use, as it may be difficult for people unfamiliar with them to track them down. All of the commercial polishes were purchased by me in-store, a rare occurrence, or from Nail Polish Canada -- it's a wonderful site with excellent selection, easy ordering, super-fast (and inexpensive!) shipping, the whole works. I completely recommend them. And no, they did not ask/pay me to say this. :)