Still in GA, and playing around...

Things are very much still up in the air as we wait to find out when we need to be in NY, so we are just enjoying the time we have here and getting this house ready to move out of. We were planning to travel up the eastern seaboard to get to NY, but have decided to travel to OH first as my Mom and Step-dad have graciously allowed us to winter our travel-trailer on their property, since all the parks in NY are closed for the season.

In the last few weeks I have been working on some more clothes for my Monster High doll. (I'll get back to Barbie stuff too, once we get moved. I love Babs and will always come back to her, but I'll tell you I am loving the challenge of creating for the uniquely shaped MH girls!) I created a top to match the Purple Gingham Skirt I created a few weeks ago. This one was completely from my own mind and I love the way it turned out.

My next top was created using a Barbie doll pattern that I reduced and altered to fit the MH body. I was very curious to know if this would work as I have several patterns for Barbies and would love to use them to create more clothes. For the most part the process was easy and worked rather well. Because of the exaggerated curve of the Monster High spine, the back doesn't close completely like I'd like it too, but with some time and tweaking I think I can make the work too. I love the way the top turned out and will be adding some slim black ribbon trim to it to finish it off!

November Already??? (pic heavy)

Happy Anniversary to my dear husband and me. Twelve years ago today I married my best friend and soul mate! I look forward to many many more years of happiness! =D

It's been ages since I blogged, as many of you also are facebook friends you might already know how my life is right now, but just to play catch up... hubby's deferment was approved, so our new report date is the 10th of December. We are still heading to NY and are trying to decide when we want to leave GA. I saw my doc on Halloween for my final appointment and have been given the all clear to get back to normal life. (although he did say not to over due it, no gymnastics and such! ;-D lol)




Speaking of Halloween...money was a little tight this year so we kind of made due. My youngest was a soldier, my middle was Jack Skellington ad my oldest decided he wanted to dress up too. He was a character of his own creation. He was the God of Fortune from a story he is writing. (no he wants to steal my cape because it's so warm and comfy! =D On a side note I've had that thing for close to 15 years {it was a gift from my Dad and Step-mom!} I love it and now that they are back in fashion I cannot wait to wear it this Fall and Winter! ) We had tons of kids...nearly a thousand!!! How do I know, you ask...well I bought a HUGE pail of 1000 suckers and aside from a few dozen kids that came around twice and a small handful of kids at the end, I was only giving each child 1 sucker, and after 2 hours of trick or treating (ours lasts from 6-8) ALL the suckers were GONE!!! There were tons of really creative costumes, but honestly none of them topped the adult wearing the homemade Optimus Prime (Transformers) costume! It even had working lights!!!

On the crafty/doll front I have been playing around making clothes for Cleo...I started out with a simple one piece vest pattern I created, I altered it several times and ended up with half a dozen various felt and denim versions. Then I used a small scrap of left over denim (I'm repurposing the legs off an old pair of jeans!) to create a halter top. Since all my ribbon is in storage in NY I took 12 strands of sewing thread and sectioned it off into 4 thread groups which I braided to use as the halter ties! Next up I created 2 different skirts... a slim pencil skirt with black trim and this purple gingham trimmed skirt! All of my other Cleo pieces can be seen over in
my Flickr photostream.

As far as nail go, I have been keeping them painted most days, but I've been rather lax in taking pics. :-( But here is my Halloween mani... Revlon's Mad about Mango scented polish on my ring fingers, and 2 coats of China Glaze's Ick-A-Bod-Y from their 2010 Halloween collection. On my ring fingers I did a quick free hand jack o lantern face. Right now I am wearing this pale simple pearly number. I've got 4 coats of OPI's Pearls of Wisdom on all my fingers. On my ring fingers those layers are mixed with 3 coats of Wet n Wild's Party of Five Glitters which I them topped off with Hard Candy's Matte-ly in Love (which I am totally in LOVE with, and seem to use it over nearly everything! lol)

So in a nutshell that's what's been going on in my life. Next week I'll be busy working on cleaning and painting and such to get ready to head to New York. (man I'm still not totally ready for that, but hey that's where the Army wants us so that's where we're headed. We'll make the most of it! :-D ) Thanks for stickign aorund and reading all this. HUGS

Holy Holo Batman...

Last night before bed I decided to add a coat of Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Pink Rose Diamond over top of yesterday's Into That Dark Knight polish. OH MY GOODNESS...talk about wild holo-goodness! The Nail Prisms are some of the most holographic polishes I've ever seen. The are discontinued but still available on ebay. (just know that the ones with Pearl in the name are NOT holographic!!!) Pink Rose Diamond is sheer enough that on dark polishes it really doesn't change the color of the base that much at all! Just to really show off the amazing holo-ness I posted short video over on my flickr page. The resolution is crappy as my camera just did not want to focus on my nail, but I am pretty sure you can see the amazing look!

On the doll scale I sculpted my first pair of clay shoes for Cleo...of course they still need to be baked. Hopefully I'll do that tomorrw. (I really miss my candle warmer mini oven right now!!! lol) I need to sculpt a few more things so I can justify heating up the oven. BUT so far I really like the shoes!

Woohoo!!! I was crafty! lol

I started a project yesterday and for a first attempt I'm pretty happy with them! I made my Cleo a pair of shoes! I have actually made a few changes to both the shoes and the doll since the picture in the above link too. I used some lightweight cardboard and photo paper to make the outer sole and the inner soles respectively. I used a strip of ribbon as the uppers and a piece of Q-tip stick for the heels. They are just prototypes as they aren't sturdy enough that I'd feel comfortable selling them. (which is my ultimate goal) But for a 1st attempt I'm pretty darn happy with them! I think I want to 'brand' my shoe line, kind of like red soles are symonymis with Louboutins. I think I want to use a dark teal or aqua as my 'branding' color. I have painted the soles and heaels of this pair with a wonderful nail polish called Figi by Petites. (it's an inexpensive brand at Walmart or Kmart!) I'll share that pic tomorrow.

I want to make some molds of Cleo's feet and legs. Hopefully I can cast them in plaster and then make polymer clay shoes and boots around the molds. If my ideas work I should be able to then remove them and they will be wearable. I also want to sculpt shoe bases that can then be decorated with fabric and ribbons too. There is a lovely lady in Finland who goes by Tarja, who amongst other cool things, makes amazingly cool shoes for several different brands of dolls. I HIGHLY suggest you click on her name to visit her Flickr photostream! =D She is definitely a creative inspiration for me!
On the nail front I switched polish the other day to a custom color I created a while back. I absolutely LOVE holographic polishes and wanted to create a black. For the most part I succeeded! I say for the most part as I used a good bit of navy in my mix to keep it from being overwhelming (and I only had a small bottle of black but a large one of navy! LOL) And while this color reads black on it's own, next to a true black it definitely comes off as Navy. But you know what...I LOVE this color and the holo-ness of it is awesome! I hope you like it! I call it Into That Dark Knight. What do you think?

Well I suppose I can update even if...

I've got nothing really to share. We are still in Georgia for now. We will most likely be here until about the middle of November. We are doing well, although I must say I almost regret having the movers take our washer and dryer! But thankfully we have been having gorgeous weather, so I've been hand washing laundry and hanging it out to dry. Going to the laundramat is too expensive and takes too much time. So I don't mind the hand washing. And since we get high 70s to 80s most days, the weather is perfect for laundry.
No crafting has been done lately, since I packed everything but one small box of sewing. (Clay is too hard to do on the road) I haven't really been in the mood to sew, so I spend much of my free time playing on facebook. Yesterday was a birthday party for a dear friends' son. While we were shopping for presents we got our boys each a few things too. My husband and I each got a goodie too. Donnie got a cool remote control car and me, well I got my first Monster High doll. I decided to go with the Dead Tired Cleo de Nile.
This is their 'sleep over' line. Cleo is the most 'human' looking of the monsters and honestly I like that about her. The rest of the dolls are really cute, but It's truly a line that doesn't really interest me. So that being said, why'd I even get her? Well to be perfectly honest, it's a market that is huge and once we get moved and settled I fully intend to get back into making doll clothes and accessories. I love Barbies and figured since Monster High and Liv dolls also fall into the 1/6th scale that my creations should be featured with those dolls as well to really promote them to their fullest potential. (so yeah I'll be getting a Liv doll sometime in the future too.)
I love Cleo's face paint but think I might customize her just a little bit. Actually I already started that. lol Initially her hair was full of strands of gold mylar strands. While I liked the look of the shiny 'higlights', mylar is horrible as a fiber. It ends up as a nasty stringy mess if it gets caught wrong. So I decided to remove it all, and I love Cleo much better already. Her hair was pulled back into a 2 part half ponytail which I thought cute. I upped the ante just a bit by braiding the left and right sections for about an inch or so, then braiding the 2 braids into a single one. I really like the look. Cleo's eyes are currently green, but I am thinking about repainting them blue instead. My other 'issue' is her lips, I think they are painted too full, so I might wipe them and repaint them a little softer. I think it will take me a little while to get used to the unusual shape of the MH bodies, they are very thin, and have an odd curve to them. But I am looking forward to the challenge.

I've also been painting my nails every couple of days, but haven't been photographing them, because I guess I didn't want y'all to think ths had turned into a nails only blog. I've kind of felt that it was better not to post anything at all rather than post things that nobody is really interested in. So I don't know how often I will post for now, but hopefully there will be some nails, sewing and who knows what all else. This is what I am currently wearing. It's a custom color I mixed up that I call Turning Leaves. It's a sheer-ish pumpkin orange color that I really enjoy. It's odd because I am not normally a fan of the color orange, but it's a perfect shade for fall and October specifically. And this shade I think looks really good. I hope you enjoy it too! BTW if I ever show a shade of polish that interests you, please feel free to let me know. I am happy to share small bottles of any polishes I have, if you are willing to pay for the shipping! ;-) Later friends!

Wow, October Already!

How amazing is it that it's October already? I know many of you are friends with my on Facebook, so most of you have already heard what I'm about to say, but if not, I wanted to let you all know what happened with my back. And yes I said "happened" because as amazing as it sounds, my back issue has already been solved. After my nerve tests barely 2 weeks ago Tuesday, I had an MRI on Thursday. This past Tuesday I saw my Primary Doc who referred me to a Neurosurgeon. I was told by my doc that it could take up to ten days just to get a date to get in to see him. But due to a wonderful woman at the clinic that did my nerve tests I got a call from the Neurosurgeons office this past Tuesday. Unfortunately the 1st available appointment they had was the 4th of October. Which at that time would have been the last day that we could be in Georgia before moving to NY. I explained this and told them that if they had any cancellations to please call me and I could be in within 30 minutes. Amazingly I got a call from the office Thursday morning asking if I could come in at 1pm. Of course I agreed. Turns out the disk between my L4 and L5 vertabrae had ruptured. And not just a little bit. Within 5 minutes of being in the office. the doc (who it turns out is one of, if not THE best neurosurgeon in Columbus GA)said my rupture was one of the worst he'd ever seen and he wanted me to have surgery the following day!!! So needless to say the last 3 days have been a roller coaster. I left his office and went to the hospital for my pre-op procedures.
I was admitted to the hospital Friday at 11 for a 1pm surgery. I came out of anesthisia around 4:30 and amazingly was up walking to the restroom within 30 minutes! Within 2 hours I was able to put full pressure on the nurses hands with both feet (whereas before the surgery I couldn't do that with my left leg!) I now have a 2-3 inch stapled incision in the center of my back right about hip level. I am truly amazed at the change that this surgery has done! It will still take me about 45-60 days to be back to 100%, but I feel wonderful. We still are not certain that my husbands orders to NY will be deferred. But his Command Team here cannot imagine any reason why they wouldn't. So as of right now it looks as though we will be here for a bit longer. I'd love to say I'm going to be doing some crafting, but as of Thursday evening 90% of our belonging have been packed and are on there way to storage. We don't plan on trying to get them returned since we will most likely be moving in the next 2 months. So we will just live with the small amount of stuff we kept. (hmm who knows we might like this 'simpler' lifestyle? lol)

Thanks for reading along about the chaotic mess that has been my life the last few weeks! Luv y'all! =D

Just an update...

Hi friends! We are still in GA for the moment. As of today the movers are due in on Wedsnesday.
This past Tuesday I had two nerve tests done, those were very intriguing. In the 1st test the Physical Therapist who administered it attached electrodes (I assume) to various spot on my legs and basically shocked them to determine how much my nerves were affected. The next test was similar, but tiny pins were inserted into my legs at various points to again assess the amount of nerve damage. (that test was NOT fun at all!!!!) And well the results weren't good. The PT was expecting to find some nerve damage, but was surprised to find as much as he did! He said you expecct to find that amount in someone twice my age or older. :-( Which I must say surprised me, as that morning I got out of bed and manged to come downstairs with no sharp pain! Turns out that the most likely reason for that is the disc in my spine most likely herniated out so far as to no long be pressing against the nerves. So it was on to have an MRI done yesterday. Yet another very interesting test. The results of the MRI confirmed what the PT suggested on Tuesday. So at this point our future is up in the air as we wait for me to go back to the doctors' on Tuesday. When I talked to him earlier this week, it sounded very much like surgery will be in my future. The crazy thing is we have no clue as to where this will take place. So life is pretty crazy, chaotic and stressful right now. So if you all could send some prayers, positive thoughts, good energies or whatever you believe our way I'd truly appreciate it. I'm not worried about the surgery, but the unsettled elements, well have me unsettled! lol

Update...long and wordy, sorry :-(

Argh I hate being away from my blog...it's been almost a month and well life has been a little crazy! Aug. 12th was the last time I made a post. That week we found out that we would be heading to the Spring Valley area of New York as our first Army Recruiter duty station. (My husband just finished his recruiter school this past Thursday and is now HOME! =D) The following Saturday I got out of bed to answer the phone, only to discover it was a telemarketer. So I crawled back into bed and rolled over to get more comfy, when BAM!!! my back felt like it exploded! The pain was horrendous and just getting out of bed to use the bathroom (like 10 feet) left me sobbing. I called my husband (who was still in South Carolina) and cried. He told me I needed to get it checked out. I had my oldest son run next door to see if our neighbor could drive me to the ER. I ended up at the hospital for almost 7 hours. They gave me 3 shots: an anti-inflamatory, a pain med and a muscle relaxor. Told me to go home and call my dr as soon as possible. Well the next day was Sundau, no body was in the office. I tried Monday, but no one answered the phone and no way to leave a voice mail. By Tuesday I had been in bed for almost 3 days and everything I read about back pain said not to stay laid up more than 3 days, so on Tuesday I ventured downstairs...SLOWLY and rather painfully! But I was finally able to get in touch with the dr and had an appointment made for that Thursday. My appt was almost pointless as the dr did nothing more than listen to me, feel around on my lower back for about a minute and order x-rays. Went and had those done and went home to wait. I got a call from the neurology dept to set up a nerve test. Unfortunately she said with this type of injury they have to wait 4 weeks from the inital injury. Soooo I won't see them until the 20th of this month. Let me tell you this in amazingly frustrating as we have to be in NY by the 10th of October! (My house is still in a lived in state and very little packing has been done since I have been unable to bend of stand for more than a few minutes for over 2 weeks now. This could not have happened at a worse time for me!!! But I know things will get taken care of one way or another, so I'm trying not to let that stress me out)

So needless to say I have nothing to share with y'all on the nail or clay or doll front, and sadly probably won't until after we get moved. I miss crafting something fierce and wish I could play. But until then, please know that I am reading all of your blog posts and following along with everyone! Take care and I promise to get back to blogging as soon as I can! Much love! <3

MOTW...sort of

Well as I sat down to paint my nail, I realized I had totally forgotten to take a picture of the mani I just removed!!! Argh, so please excuse the fact that I only have one nail painted! But this is what I was wearing on all 10 digits until about 2 hours ago!

I started off with 2 coats of Barielle's Snow Day. They call it an ice blue metallic with silver undertones. I call it real pretty. After this I used 2 coats of Maybelline's Blue Brilliance. BB on its own is really sheer but it is a lovely color that tends to shimmer with pinks, purples and greens depending on the light. It kind of disappearred over SD, but I swiped it diagonally on my nails. (it's on the portion below the black dots.) Ok so I guess my next step was pretty obvious but I added black dots in acrylic paint. After that dried completely I added 2 coats of Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat.


On a crafty note I have been attempting to sculpt little polymer clay guinea pigs for Barbies. It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with my first one! =D

MOTW

Well I had planned to share this one with you yesterday but Blogger didn't want to co-operate. Soo here is yesterday's mani. I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with this one. The end result turned out gorgeous, but getting there was a royal pain. Color 13 on my wheel is by Piggy Polish, it's called Teal me About it. In the bottle its a luscious glowly teal. Sadly this color is DEFINITELY a layering polish. It took me 5 coats on my sample wheel to get it to look halfway close to the bottle. :-( (and once you throw the pink of the nailbed, well you're screwed! So I chose another of my e.l.f. polish from the other day. This one is called Blue Mist. Like it's Lilac sister, Blue Mist went on very sheer and rather streaky. It took me 3 coats to get a nice covereage, although had I not been putting TMAI over top of it, I would have gone with a 4th coat. I added 3 coats of TMAI and then did a thin strip of Petites Figi. Figi is a much darker and more opaque verion of TMAI. In the end I did love the final results as with Blue Mist underneath the TMAI really glowed, and there really appeared to be a ton of depth to my mani. Sadly the downside to lots of layers of polish is they do then to peel rather quickly. So this glowy mani only lasted 2 days. :-(

MOTW

OK so next in line for my 1st nail wheel is #7 Milani Totally Cool. I wore it back in early June. Number 8 is a deep purple from Goldie that doesn't have a name. I thought I wore it already so I skipped it. BUT as you can see in my sample wheel pic it's so dark it's nearly black! Following that is b. Lilas Optique. This is another one I already wore also in June. This really is a neat polish as it looks totally different by itself!
This brings me to my mani today. Number 10 on my wheel is by Barielle it's called Jess' Champagne Toast (I don't quite get the name as to me I think of cream or amber when I think of Champagne, but that's neither here nore there. lol) I lucked out and foudn this color at my local Ulta comsmetics store on clearance, but it is available on the Barielle website! =D
JCT is a blue leaning lilac with a pink glitter. It dries kind of gritty so I decided not to do full coverage on this one. Saturday while out shopping for kids school supplies I stopped into Biglots and found a 5 pack of e.l.f. brand nailpolishes for $4.50.
While I don't really need any more polish, I loved the colors in these and it fell well under my $3 a bottle price cap. So into my cart they went. I laid down 3 thin coats of the Lilac shade. (Sadly these are out of stock on their website as they say they are reformulating them) I decided to matte all but my ring fingers before sponging on the JCT. On my ring fingers I added a white outline sticker of a hibiscus flower before topping off with a clear coat.
That's it for me for nails and that ends the purple reign (heeheehee) from wheel A, up next are some gorgeous teal-y greens! =D Later friends!

MOTW and a New Pet

Ok so today's mani is the next 3 colors in wheel A. I first laid down a base coat of Mystical by Petites, then I free-handed a diagonal triangle of Purple Pizazz Frost by NYC, and lastly I added another triangle going the opposite direction using my paler version of Lavender Marquise. I added a small lilac acrylic gem into the wet clear coat, and toppped it off with 2 more coats of clear. It's a fun mani because PPF and LM both change color slightly depending on the light. I initally thought afterwards that I should have placed the gems in the little overlapping triangle at the tips, but I think that would have driven me nuts. Feeling the bump of the rhinestone is odd, but not too terribly bad. I really wasn't expecting the rhinestones to stay on, but they are hanging on nicely.


Every now and again I peruse ebay looking for Barbie 'stuff'. The other day I was searching out animals and found a listing for a dog I had as a little girl. AND they were offering free shipping! Sweet. So needless to say I bid and won Beauty the Afghan Hound! Sadly she is in kind of rough shape, but her body (under all the fur) seems to be in good condition) So I think I will skin her and try to replicate her plastic pieces so I can maybe possible make as sell these. I am currently researching color variations for this breed as well as fake fur sources.

MOTW and more Barbie goodies

Hey y'all, sorry it's been a few days, been busy getting my kiddos ready for Back-to-School. My oldest started his Junior year of high school on Thursday and my younger 2 start 1st and 5th grade today. Yes our kids go back really early here! lol After having them home for a few monthes, it seemed strange for the house to be silent all day. I'll admit I slept for most of the day. I haven't been sleeping well for the last few weeks with my hubby being away at school so I guess I was catching up.

First off my MOTW (which I actually just took off today) was using the next 2 polishes in my first nail wheel. They are both by Sally Hansen. Royal Romance #2 and Lavendar Marquise #3. I started out with 3 coats of Lavendar Marquise which is a sheer pale pink leaning Lavendar. (the weird thing about this polish is there seems to be 2 variations of this color and I managed to get them both! One is distinctly pink while the other is more pearly with just a hint of pink (#4 in the wheel pic) even using 3 coats of each!) I had initally planned to do a french mani with the darker Royal Romance as my tip color. I tried using the curved tip guides and just couldn't get them centered right. So I decided to just sponge over it. While the edge of the tips still showed only up close, so I was really happy with my sponged gradient mani!)

Up next is a few Barbie items. I really should be cleaning and packing and all that good stuff, but I think I'm kind of in denial about this whole moving thing! :-( So I have been playing with clay!
I started out making a peach slice cane. I got the idea while eating my breakfast peach the other day. It took me some foodling and messing about to get the right colors for the peach flesh as well as doing a skinner blend to get the inner red shading you find in a fresh peach. I think I did this cane atleast 3 times before ending up with a color combo I was happy with! I ended up making it a round cane for ease of reducing, but simple cut each slice in half at the red center before gently shaping. I think they look pretty darned good! I spent several hours on Flickr searching for peach desserts looking for the best ways to use my slices. I'm happy to say I found several and look forward to making some yummy desserts eventually!

MOTW x 2

I have for you today my last 'ruby' mani of July. It's 2 coats of an un-named pink polish frmo the Goldie brand. I got mine in a back of 6 or 8 that I bought at TJ Maxx several monthes ago. The color is a nice silky pink creme. To bump it up a bit I added 2 coats of Nubar 2010 (which is by far my favorite top coat heck I ordered 2 more bottles so I wouldn't run out and so I could play with it a bit! ;-D) I really liked it shiny, but had seen other nail artists use a matte top coat over it. Mattifying it does something amazing. Since I recently found Hard Candy's Matte-ly in Love I knew that's what I wanted to do. Personally I love the subdued iridescence! BTW the pic with the spoon is to show what my mani looked like before I matted it. =D
I had iniatally planned to do 'peridot' (green) manis for the month of august, but I actually don't have that many green polishes and most of them I have already worn and posted. I really want to try and get through all of my polishes so I have decided to start at the begining! ;-) After a disappointing pedi using a color I had purchased (2 coats looked NOTHING like the bottle) I decided I needed a way to know what colors I had and how many coats each should take. So I picked up a pack of art wheels from Sally Beauty Supply (btw I have since found the same ones cheaper on ebay! There are 10 wheels to a pack and each wheel holds 18 samples. So I sort of sorted my polishes by color, grabbed my laptop and set to sampling every polish I own. Last week I filled up my last wheel with one of my holo frankens so I have more coming. Filled up all the wheels...omg that's 180 polishes! Well actually it's more like 162 as one wheel is pale polishes over black to see how they'd look! But still! lol


So anyways I am going to start at A1 and work my way through until I am all done! A1 is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Purple Potion This is one of the first polishes I bought when I got back into doing my nails. Hubby says his favorite color to see me wear is purple so there aer several. This one has a really great blue duochrome effect. and yes the 2 pics are of the same polish, I just wanted to show off the cool color 'changes' this polish can go through. (there will be another pic of this mani tomorrow too as I am playing around with some nail art!)

Cherry love and a 'finished' outfit

I LOVE cherries! They are one of my favorite fruits. Here in the last few weeks they have been on sale at the stores for between $2 and 3 dollars a pound. That's pretty good! So we have been eating a ton of fresh cherries with our meals. (and me as a snack. =D) Well last night I was enjoying my snack and happened to look down before popping this cherry in my mouth. And lo and behold this was what I saw! I KNEW I had to take a picture and share it!


I spent 2 days working on this top to go with my Round and ROund We Go skirt. I found this great deep rose colored material that was a dream to work with. Although the pattern needed editing a bit, I love this top! However... not with this skirt. While the deep rose of the top goes perfectly with the pinks in the skirt, there just isn't enough of those pinks on the front of the skirt. To me it looks weird. So I am going to try again with either a pale blue or a yellow-leaning green material. AND I will be making a 2nd skirt in the circular material, this time making sure that the pink part is front and center! =D

Woohoo, anouther outfit nearly done!

Well I have started on tops to go with the 3 skirts I finished last week. I think the one that I thought was going to challenge me the most was the pale lilac skirt. It's a rather unusual shade of purple. I lucked out with the lace and hoenstly didn't expect to be so lucky with fabric for a top, BUT I opened my box of purple swatches and right there it was on top and begging to be used. It's a pale shimmery lilac satin-y type material. It actually came from a friends formal gown she asked me to shorten for her a few years back. It's PERFECT! Thankfully there is a bit more of this fabric as I want to make her daughter dolls each an outfit using Mommy's fabric! =D I still need to add a few accessories to complete this outfit though. I am thinking about a purple accented silver necklace and a silver purse!

Next on the sewing line is a deep rose colored top to go with my Round & Round We Go skirt. Although I am thinking that the cut of this top will actually cover up the majority of the deep pink at the top of the skirt, So I might save it for another use and make either a teal or lime green top instead. We shall see once it's finished though! ;-)

No new nails today as the mani I did earlier is holding up amazingly wear. There is no chipping and very very little tip wear, which is awesome! That said I will probably change my polish today or tomorrow, so look for new colors coming soon!

MOTW and time for change...

So here I am again, it's Monday and well life is what it is. Feeling kinda blah today, but I will explain that in a minute. For today's mani I have another holo polish. This time it is Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Golden Tourmaline. This is a gorgeous candy apple red with a great gold shimmer and subtle holographic quality. I decided to do my accent nail in Romantic Blossom also by Sally Hansen. RB is a rich brownish red creme finish. I accented each ring finger with 2 hearts done in Golden Tourmaline. I am super happy with this mani. It makes me smile and that's a good thing!

On to changes and feeling blah. I mentioned a few posts back that my husband is gone to Recruiter school, we were hoping to get an assignment in Texas. We found out right away that, that wasn't gonna happen. Some of the places where we could wind up were Los Angeles (um no, don't wanna live there) NY (not keen on this at all either) Maine (um really 0_o) Tampa (urgh not really into big towns) Montana (eeep winters there, I shudder to think) and South Carolina. So needless to say we were really really really hoping for South Carolina. We we got our general assignment today. We are headed to New York. Can't say I'm thrilled, BUT on the good side we are headed to the Albany area as opposed to NYC like we both feared. It turns out the Albany area includes Connecticut, Massachusets, Vermont and Northern New Jersey too. Sooo it's not nearly as bad as we thought, but I'm not looking forward to going from GA (hardly ever snows) to WINTER!!! But our kids are super excited and even eager to shovel the stuff. (we shall see how long THAT lasts! lol) So over the next 2 months I will be cleaning, sorting and packing as much of our home as possible. Nine years worth of belongings for 5 people seems like a daunting task! *sigh*

But we are definitely ready for a change and I have heard this area is lovely. While I will bitch and moan, I really am an adaptable person and really do look forward to this newest chapter in our life!

MOTW and custom polishes

Today I pulled out a color I've worn before but hey I LOVE it! It's Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Pink Rose Diamond . This polish is actually what started my love affair with holographic polishes. (and heck even if you don't like pink the holo-goodness makes this a yummy color!)Sadly this line isn't available in retail stores anymore BUT it can be found on ebay quite frequently. Just be warned that the Nail Prism colors with the word PEARL in the name are NOT holographic! (But they are lovely sheer colors!) I started out this mani with 2 coats of Sinful Colors Star Fish which is a nice dusty pink. I added 2 coats of Pink Rose Diamond on top. After letting them dry I added black polka dots to my ring fingers with acrylic paint. Word of advice, be sure to let the acrylic FULLY dry before adding a clear coat. I smudged my right ring finger just a bit! lol


Trying to stick with my 'Ruby' manis for the month of July is kind of tough...I have been playing around with my Spectraflair pigment powder and mixed the pink I wore HERE. Plus I also made a purple and a charcoal grey! I am super excited because my order from TKB Trading arrived today. They sell supplies for making custom cosmetics, including nail polishes!!! I ordered some empty mini bottles for storing colors as well as sharing them, as well as the little ball bearings that help mix the polish. I ordered some syringes in 2 sizes (these are going to be used with my resin for mini making) and some cool holographic glitter.


I found a recipe for a deliscious looking cake on the Betty Crocker facebook page, and decided to save myself the calories and make it in mini. I am currently slicing a tiny brown wrapped cream color polymer clay cane into about a bazillion tiny almond slices for the cake topping. I forgot just how may strands the smallest disk on my extruder makes with just a peach pit sized piece of clay! (I'll have 'almond slices' coming out the wazoo!)

MOTW and Barbie goodies

My mani today is a nice straight red, fire engine red maybe even. It's called Red Tape by Wet n Wild. It's rather sheer, I've got 3 coats on my nails! But 3 coats covers pretty nicely and it dries really fast. The brush is also unique as it seems to be asymetrically curved which I thought was very nice. I want to do something to give this mani an extra pop, but at the moment have no idea what to do. Any suggestions?


Onto the Barbie front. I finally finished the ruffled tube dress outfit. I added pink and black shoes and bracelets, switched out the pink neck ribbon for a black on and added a nice gold bag. As soon as I can set up my 'studio' I wll get good pics taken and list it in my etsy shop. I have also been working on making dishes of Macaroni and Cheese. It's one of my kids favorite dishes. I initially was wrapping the clay around a toothpick and then quartering the wraps. but after a bit I realized that I was still reshaping them by hand so I just started cutting them my hand too. Taking out the wrapping step sped things up tremendously! I saved space in the dishes by baking mounds of pasta color clay to put under a thinner layer of macaronis. I am not a fan of the liquid polymer clay sauces as they need to be baked for them to set. Since I am often using plastic Barbie dishes this is well nearly impossible. So I came up with a mxture of glue and paint that I customize for that ever I am making. So, what do you think?

MOTW...watermelons! =D

No fruit says Summer to me more than watermelons, crunchy, juicy, sweet and sooooo yummy! I remember my mom buying these huge watermelons from the grocery store that would take up the entire bottom shelf of the fridge. And the smell, oh that heavenly smell! And heck nothing like spending an afternoon with your friends and siblings trying to see who can spit a seed farthest! =D I don't buy watermelons much these days as well they seem way too expensive and they just don't seem to taste the way they did when I was a kid. I'm looking forward to having a place where I can grow my own one day. But in the meantime I saw this video on youtube, by nail artist Robin Moses and just had to give it a try. What do you think?

On a non-nail or doll related front, my hubby is off again, this time it's only for 6 weeks, while he goes to school to become a recruiter. Today officially marks the beginning off the end of our time here in GA. We will report to our next assignment (unknown location as of right now) sometime in October. I'm glad he's off to school as this will be a good change for us but at the same time I can't help but be sad and well kind of annoyed that he's gone AGAIN. Nope not annoyed with him, just with life in general. And just like the last 2 times I moved I get to start all the packing, sorting, and cleaning with him gone. *SIGH* gets kind of frustrating, but hey this is what we do! LOL So starting tomorrow I will be buckling down to drudge work for much of the day and will avoid my laptop as much as I possibly can! (atleast until dinner time, then the evenings are mine!

Today I have been working on more 1/6th scale raspberries, and I started making scale mac n' cheese. I haven't decided if I want to do individual plates or do serving bowls. What do you think, or maybe should I do both?

MOTW

Earlier this month I order a batch of Spectraflair holographic pigment powder. This was originally designed for custom car painting, but some industrious nail artists discovered you can mix it with nail polish to make custom holographic colors! Since I missed out on many of the original awesome holo polishes I figured hmmm, $18 for a gram of this stuff, which will make about 9 bottles of custom polish was better than paying between $8 and $20 a bottle for the holos I missed. When my powder arrived I knew I HAD to play with it. I broke out a deep purple polish, some clear and the powder. I chose purple since I didn't have a purple holo already. You basically mix half and half clear and color and then add about 1/8th of a teaspoon of the pigment powder. Shake it all up really good and swatch it.
Keep adding drops of color or clear until the color and holo shimmer are perfect. The only downside to the powder is that it is silver in color so you won't be able to get a crisp color say a red, you end up with more of a muted frosty looking color. Which in my book is fine! =D I ended up mixing up 3 colors, purple, fuschia and a silver (which was actually just clear and the powder) I am planning to order some empty polish bottles as well as other things for making my own custom nail polishes and well I can't wait! =D I'm currently wearing my pink holo polish...any thoughts on a name? The color in the bottle is closer to the actual color of the polish. it's grey and rainy out so I'm trying to make do with my indoor lighting. lol

Argh, time slipped away AGAIN!!!

*sigh* time slipping away seems to be a recurring theme for me, and not just in blogland either. We've been home from our Reunion vacation trip for almost 3 weeks, yet I haven't finished blogging about it. My husband has been home from his last deployment to Iraq for about 3 and a half months and he's off again. (Thankfully this is only a 6 week stint for schooling here stateside, but still...) And heck my oldest son turns 17 next week! Where oh where has the time gone???? I would like to say I will try to be a more consistent blogger in the future but I really try not to lie and that MOST definitely would be a lie! Our lives are going to be turned upside down in just a few short weeks. As a recruiter we will be headed for parts unknown (well unknown at the moment anyways) We will get our assignment while Donnie is at school, but we already know that wherever we are headed we are due to report in October! One one hand October seems so far away, but knowing that I need to clean, sort, sell and pack the belongings of 5 people accumulated over the last 9 years is well, terrifying! So over the next 6 weeks I will be as busy as I can be trying to get as much done as possible. BUT one day I WILL be back and be active and current! LOL

So back we go to the reunion... Donnies' aunt had been watching me do my nails through Facebook and asked me to bring all my nail stuff with me to do her and her granddaughters' nail. I of course agreed and it quickly turned into no just their but anyone who wanted them done. I think I ended up doing almost a dozen sets of nails that day! =D It was a blast. The reunion itself was great with loads of great food and catching up with kin! We left Sunday afternoon, and stopped in mid Tennessee for the night. We made it home on Monday and were very glad for it. Vacations are wonderful but there is nothing like coming HOME! =D

The last few weeks have been filled with cleaning, relaxing, and just spending time together. (there's been a bit of procrastination going on too as I could have {and SHOULD have} been doing more to prepare for moving in less than 3 months, but I am doing some Barbie work and just finished some Chocolate Raspberry Parfaits (I'm not sure if I should have added spoons to these?) ...)
I have made several polymer clay raspberries, and plan on making quite a few more, but they are very tedious and time consuming as each little 'blip' has to be rolled by hand, then all the 'blips' are very very carefully rolled together into a single raspberry! But I like the way they turn out so I don't mind too much. I was searching Flickr the other day for raspberries, and found several desserts that inspired me. After messaging the owners of the photographs and getting their "Ok" I will be recreating several really yummy Raspberry dishes in miniature. I'm super excited as one Flickr-er gave me free reign of her entire photostream! YAY!!! She has some amazingly yummy looking foodie goodies that will be fun to recreate!


I am still working on clothing as well, but havn't 'finished' anything just yet. Well, I'm off for now, but will pop in when I can to update! Hugs to y'all! =D

Back to my Vacay recap and another MOTW

Eeeep, so sorry, didn't mean to be away so long. Let's see where was I, oh yes, last Friday was our 3rd leg in our trip from Georgia to Kentucky.
Amazingly the day dawned beautifully (although once again the power was out at the campground we stayed in, but that didn't hamper our efforts to be on the road by 8) We enjoyed the scenery for our shortest travel day and arrived at the Reunion site before lunchtime! (the pic is of a bridge crossing Lake Cumberland in Bronston Ky)We got the trailer set up right quick and headed off to the pool. (I threw some laundry in while the boys attempted to swim) I say attempted because the water was frigid!!! The younger 2 played in the water for about 30 minutes before their teeth started chattering. Meanwhile, my FIL arrived so my hubby took the boys off to go say Hi to their Pappaw. =D I stayed poolside to wait for the laundry to finish. I grabbed a book from the 'library' and settled in the sun to read. (can I just say that I am really good when it comes to making sure my kids get sunblocked, but suck when it comes to remebering myself!!!) Yup you guessed it, I burned my butt! (well not actually my butt but the backs of my legs all the way up to the tuck just under my tush! (argh I really wish I had taken my board short style bottoms instead!!!) And what didn't I pack...aloe! So needless to say I was rather uncomfortable the next few day! lol
Most of the family arrived Friday evening and we had a great time roasting hot dogs over the campfire and just hanging out! (more on the actual reunion tomorrow!)

Since I knew my nails would get scuffed up while traveling I left mine plain, so for you today I have my current mani. Special FX by Funky Fingers is a great rich red, (I figured since July's birthstone is the Ruby I'd make each mani this month include a nice rich red! =D) After 2 coats I added a swirl of polka dots done in pearl acrylic paint.
I much prefer using acrylics paints for my nail art as it doesn't dry as fast, so I don't feel like I'm wasting as much nor do I feel quite as rushed. After the dots dried I added 2 coats of Orly Fifty Four which is a sheer shimmery pink.

Ooooh ooooh ooh, I almost forgot to share the Barbie dress I made last week while we were camping!
I used some hand dyed pink knit material and made essentially a tube dress. To zhuzh it up a little I added a trio of ruffles down what was supposed to be the center front. I used the technique shown HERE. While I like the ruffles at the front I twisted it as I went to remove it and realized I liked them way better down the side. I did a bit of gathering at the neckline and then stitched on a gold hoop jewelry finding to hold the ties. It still needs a few accessories, but it will be up for sale shortly! =D