Wednesday, October 19, 2011

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!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

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?

Sunday, October 16, 2011

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!

Sunday, October 2, 2011

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