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!)

Cakes and sales

So I really enjoy creating things. When I finish them I usually snap a quick pic on my desk to share.(with all the 'stuff' behind it) Listing items in my Etsy shop seems to be a whole 'nother matter! Yes it takes me a while, but I don't even really mind sitting down (or crouching as is often the case) to spend a few hours taking photographs and editing them to best show off the product. BUT sitting dow to list each and every item on Etsy about drives me insane! It's not that I don't like writing the descriptions, that part is pretty easy for me. But it's the monotonous plugging in details that gets me...Heck I've had items where the listing took longer to do that making the item itself!!!
BUT if you're going to sell online this is something that needs to be done. It's silly to complain about lack of sales when the same few items have been sitting stagnant in your store! Thanks to the late night urging of a dear friend I listed these 2 cakes Friday night. Saturday morning I received a message from a gal in Canada asking if I'd ship the cream and chocolate one to her. No problem, (I prefer NOT to list shipping prices for international, but I will gladly do so after I adjust the listing accordingly) I emailed her back and confirmed that I would indeed find out how much shipping would be then alter the listing accordingly. Well not 5 minutes later someone ELSE bought the cake!!!!
My poor first customer was heart-broken, but I told her I would gladly make another cake custom for her! Then later that evening after posting my good news on Facebook, someone else custom ordered a version of the cake in Chocolate and Hot Pink!!! Soooo this just goes to show how important listing is!!!! (And listening to the urgings of good friends! =D)

My next project!

So I've cleaned off my table of all my clay stuff...at least for a little while. I need to focus on the Military ball we have on the 29th. I am making my gown myself. I made one a couple years back in 4 days, and it turned out pretty darn good. So with 2 weeks I shouldn't have much trouble. This dress is a little more complicated as I am actually combining 2 patterns this time. I am taking a tunic-length stop and replacing the hip area with a full length skirt from another pattern. The pic at the right is the top I am using...I am going to make this top as it stands from another fabric to make sure it fits properly before I use my good fabric. So that is my goal for today...make my mock up.
I found a gorgeous pale blue crepe satin that sparkles to make my dress from. I will take pics as I work.