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

I interrupt my vacation recap for MOTW

Hey everyone! To those in the US (or American living abroad) Happy 4th of July!!! IN honor of the day I did a quick little Red, White and Blue mani. Hope you like!
The red is called Frosted Raisin, it's by a polish company called Love My Nails. I found this bottle while cleaning out a kitchen cabinet that I swear hasn't been touched in 3 years! Amazingly the polish went on beautifully. I used 2 coats, then a clear coat. I followed that up with 3 curving strokes of navy blue acrylic paint and 3 little dots of pearl acrylic paint as well. After the paint dried I added a layer of top coat and voila! =D
Wishing you all a safe and fun holiday. Please remember to take a moment out of your celebrating to remember the men and women of our Armed Forces; past and present, here and gone, home and abroad; for it is THEY for truly allow us to enjoy our freedom!

Onto Day 2 of our vacation... (lots of pics)

Well shock of all shocks Thursday morning broke to what but more pouring rain!!! We were up and putting up the jacks on the trailer by 7am and on the road by 7;30. While a small part of me wished we had been able to stay longer at Vogel, (it truly was beautiful) my saner brain knew that the rain would've made us all miserable! We headed off down the road and stopped for gas at a station/shop called Booger Hollow, I swear only in the South!!! LOL
After a bit of soggy driving we crossed into North Carlina for about 30 miles. (did I catch the Welcome to... sign, nope I missed it! LOL) The 'big' town we drove through in NC had several charming antigue/junk shops I would've loved to check out but alas not in the cards.
We continued driving and crossed into Tennessee. Our plan had been to drive on to the TN-Kentucky border before stopping, but Donnie was still wiped out and a bout of car sickness from our youngest (note to self, NO orange juice for little man on car trips!!!) had us deciding to cut this leg short by about an hour. The rain thankfully let up as we headed into the Tennessee mountains...It was very evident why they call them the Smoky Mountains. We ended up stopping at a family run campground about an hour south of the border. While it was nice we did experience a power outage for much of the time we were there.
The boys were bummed since the power was out they had closed the pool. :-( BUT the power came back on and we were not only able to play at the pool for a few hours, but watch a movie after dinner as well. The power went back out during another deluge of rain. Now me personally I was truly dreading trying to sleep as I am very used to having a fan on, and with the pouring rain it wasn't a good idea to leave the windows open. Thankfully the power was back on before we headed to bed and stayed on long enough for me to fall asleep. I'm not sure how long it stayed on as when we got up in the morning it was off again. No matter though as we were on the road by 7am again. (more pics from our trip are being added to my Flickr page HERE)

Holy Smokes it's July already!!!! (wordy, wordy, wordy)

Where on earth did the time go???? Sorry to have been away so long, but right after my last post I celebrated my 34th birthday. (Yay me!! =D) Didn't really do anything special just tried to relax before leaving on vacation.
My husbands' family reunion was the 25th so we headed out on Wednesday. We had planned to be on the road by 10am... we hit the campground at 9am to hitch up our trailer and be off. Well we had purchased a solid-arm weight distributing sway bar to replace the standard towing package. We didn't think it would take very long to install it...well boy howdy were we wrong! It was almost 2pm by the time we got the thing hitched up and got on the road. (in hindsight, things like that should ALWAYS be done the day BEFORE you leave. Although thankfully we discovered the 'tricks' to it and are now able to hitch up and be ready to roll in less than 15 minutes! =D) So anyways we hit the road and were on track to miss rush hour traffic in Atlanta, except Mother Nature had other plans and threw a horrendous storm at us as we were hitting the outskirts of ATL. Traffic slowed to a crawl as we slogged through copious amounts of rain and huge wind gusts. Now ATL is not my favorite place to drive on a good day so needless to say this portion of our trip was not cool. Thank goodness my husband is an excellent driver and we made it through the storm without any issues. However since the weather had traffic slowed to between 15-25 miles an hour by the time the storm let up we were stuck in rush hour traffic. (yes it literally took us almost 2 hours to get through the outskirts of atlanta!!!)
What should have taken us 4 hours ended up taking us 7!!!! By the time we reached Northern GA and Vogel State Park it was 9:00pm and pitch black, oh yeah and btw it was pouring down rain again!!! We hit the park after hours and grabbed our reservation info off the Late Arrival Board. There was a map, which sadly was poorly designed and a notice.
What did said notice say... Be Bear Aware!!!! ( the note went on to advise that a black bear had been seen repeatedly in the park/camp and reminded folks not to leave food out! Ugh talk about freaking me out. Thank goodness we found a pull through site right across from the comfort station! It was late and raining so we didn't even bother to unhook the truck fromt he trailer. We dropped the jacks (in the rain!) and settled in for the night. Within an hour we were all in bed!
I'll post about Thursday's journey either later tonight or tomorrow. Bye for now, friends