I love this manicure! I used tape that I cut to mask off the chevron design.
The base color is Zoya "Dove" and the design is made with Sally Hansen "Pedal To The Metal" and Nicole by OPI "Sea How Far You Go."
Daily Self Portraits Update # 5
Here are my portraits for the week! Enjoy~
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#39 watercolor and gouache #40 watercolor and gouache #41 mechanical pencil #42 watercolor and gouache |
#43 watercolor and gouache #44 photoshop CS6 #45 photoshop CS6 |
Nail Polish Mondays: Patriotic Lightning
I used that lightning nail manicure again for this week. I felt a little patriotic, so I decided to show that off with my nails.
I used Milani 3D Holographic "509 HD" for the base coat. The blue is NYC "Empire State Blue," and the red is Sally Hansen "In The Red Creme".
Daily Self Portraits Update #4
Man I totally forgot to update this on Tuesday. My schedule has been all messed up because I had to evacuate because of Hurricane Isaac! My boyfriend, my cat and I are safe, but the one road going to our apartment is flooded and the power has been out there for a few days so when we finally go home, we will be coming back home to a fridge full of bad food. :( But anyway, less about hurricanes, and more about portraits!
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#32 CS6 #33 CS6 (it was my birthday!) #34 CS6 #35 Pen and ink and white colored pencil |
#36 CS6
#37 Pen and ink, watercolor and gouache #38 Watercolor and gouache |
Nail Polish Mondays: Monotone Lightning
I stumbled upon this tutorial for super cute lightning inspired nails, and I knew I had to do them.
This is another manicure that I did a while ago, so I don't remember what the black polish is, but I believe it was just some cheap polish anyway. The silver was Sally Hansen "Pedal To The Metal." The grey is Zoya Polish "Kelly."
Daily Self Portraits Update #3
It definitely doesn't feel like it's been a month already since I've started these daily portraits.
The top four are drawn in Photoshop CS6 and the bottom three are drawn in Corel Painter 12.
Nail Polish Mondays: Birthday Edition
My birthday is on Thursday, so for this week I'll be showing off my birthday manicure that I gave myself last night. I didn't really have a plan in mind, I just kind of grabbed two random polishes and went to town.
I used Sally Hansen's Pedal to the Metal and Milani's Silver Dazzle. I also used Seche Vite for the top coat, which was awesome because I was able to pick up my knitting needles and work on my knitting project with practically no wait time. I love that stuff.
Hope you enjoy!
Painted Couch
Well, it happened. I joined the ranks of the crazy people who looked at their couch and thought, "I should paint that." I had seen a few examples of people painting their couches online, and after reading all of them, I decided I would just forgo the textile medium and just use latex paint. My reasoning was that latex paint was already very flexible, so I wouldn't need the medium for that. Also people use the medium to heat set the fabric, but from what I know about that stuff, it's to set the paint so it doesn't wash out in the washing machine. And I'm not throwing my couch into the washing machine any time soon. This whole thing happened when I went to Goodwill to look for a coffee table or dresser. So of course I found an awesome love seat and couch that I couldn't just leave there. The only bad things about them were the grandma floral fabric and broken springs. Both easily fixable. I made sure we would be able to get them home somehow (we have a small sedan... not really fit for transporting a love seat and a couch) and then bought those suckers. Here's a breakdown of this project:
Love seat and couch - $115
Uhaul(we need a truck...) - $55
Oops paint (grey, eggshell finish) - $5
Total - $175
Really, I only painted the love seat, so I didn't know if I should include the couch in the prices and everything, but I did anyway. If you wanted to split up the couch cost and Uhaul cost between both couches, it would be around $90 for this love seat project. Anyway, here's a picture of these guys at Goodwill:
I didn't get any other decent before pictures of the love seat unfortunately because I was so excited about ripping the bottom out to fix the springs. I didn't get any pictures of that process, but it was pretty easy. I removed the legs and the fabric on the bottom and it revealed that one of the serpentine springs had come loose. Easy fix. I just used some pliers to work it back into place. I'll try to get some pictures of the big couch when I work on it so you guys can see what I'm talking about.
I had planned to paint the legs so when I had taken them off to fix the springs, I slapped a few coats of some white spray paint that I had laying around. I ended up leaving the legs off the couch for the entirety of the project so I didn't have to worry about taping them off.
Here is everything before I started painting. I got some "oops" paint from Lowe's for just $5. It was almost $20 off. Super awesome deal, it was in the color I wanted, the finish I wanted and was the only miss-mixed paint that they had at that moment. It was meant to be.
I knew I had to take it slow... I wanted to err on the side of more layers rather than less. Patience is rewarded. If I had just tried to slap it all on in one coat, it would end up blotchy and uneven. What I ended up doing was three layers. Layer one was about half water and half paint. Layer two was about 1/4 water and 3/4 paint and the last was only paint. This process worked out well for me. Of course, I cleaned the crap out of this thing before painting. It took a while because the couch has deep tufts and a lot of wrinkles and folds that I made sure to really get in to.
First things first, I took a small brush and tackled the tufting. I made sure I pulled each fold open and painted in there too. I didn't want people to sit on the couch, only for the folds to shift and expose flowers underneath the grey.
After getting in to the tufting and folds, I painted one layer over the whole couch. For the broad areas of the couch, I used a foam roller.
Day one, layer one. You can still see the colors from the fabric showing through.
Day two, layer two. Getting better. The fabric isn't showing through -as- much, but the paint is also pretty blotchy.
Day three, layer three. Pretty much right after painting. The wet paint is slightly lighter than what it ended up drying to. I waited a day to make sure the paint was completely dry, and then reattached the legs.
And here she is! I love how it turned out. It has a neat texture now. It's slightly shiny and at certain angles you can see the flower pattern of the fabric. Not the colors, mind you, but the way the fabric was woven.
A lot of people question whether or not painting a couch is a feasible option because they think the fabric will get "crunchy." I knew this was a possibility, but I figured that since I wanted to change the fabric anyway I could just try this painting thing out and if it didn't work I could just reupholster it, especially since the paint I got was so cheap. As of right now, the couch is kind of "crunchy" but it's been getting better as it's being used, which I expected to happen. So for the foreseeable future, this thing is staying painted.
All in all, it was a neat project that I saw somewhere and knew I had to try for myself. The original plan was to paint both couches, but I've recently decided that I wanted to try my hand at reupholstering the big couch. I thought it would be a neat dichotomy to take the matching couches and show an example of the painted couch, and an example of a reupholstered couch.
I hope you all enjoyed my painted couch journey!
Daily Self Portraits Update #2
I can't believe it's already been three weeks of me doing these portraits. It feels like I just started yesterday! Well here are my portraits for this past week:
All of these are done in Photoshop CS6. The fifth one is actually a small animation that you need to click on to see move. Enjoy!
Nail Polish Mondays: Holo Ruffian
This is actually a manicure I did a while ago, but I'm just now finding the time to put it up. I really like the look of ruffian manicures, so I decided to do my own twist on one, using my favorite nail polish as the base.
The base is Milani 3D Holographic "509 HD". Unfortunately I don't remember which nail polish I used as the top color, sorry!
I Heart These Earrings
So, as I mentioned a week or so ago, I recently got my ears pierced, and I've been making earrings all over the place in anticipation of being able to wear more cute stuff on my ears. Out of the blue I decided I wanted some cute, simple heart shaped studs and I had some left over brass from previous projects and decided that was the perfect material for these studs. I also took the time to take some progress pictures for you all to enjoy!
You can't tell from this picture, but it's actually two pieces of brass sandwiched and held together with rubber cement. I drew a small heart on a piece of paper and glued it onto the brass for a template.
Cutting cutting! It is very hard to take progress pictures like this with one hand.
Here they are cut out and ready to be filed. It was kind of a pain since they were super tiny, but eventually I managed it.
All done filing, so cute!
To attach the hearts to my earring posts, I used this two part epoxy.
Gluing. I kept having to readjust the posts because I was impatient and kept trying to move the earrings around before the glue had set, so the posts were getting nudged around everywhere.
And here they are complete! Again, I couldn't do any in the ear action shots because the holes are still healing but I really love how they turned out! It's really killing me that I can't wear all these earrings I've been making recently.
Daily Self Portraits Update #1
Here are my portraits from this past week:
Can you tell I enjoy digital painting? All of them except #15(bottom left) were done in Photoshop CS6.
Nail Polish Mondays: Galaxy
I've seen people doing space nails all over the place, and it inspired me to try it out for myself. All in all I'm pretty happy with it!
I didn't really use a tutorial for this, I basically just looked at a bunch of examples and pictures of galaxies and took a makeup sponge with random nail polish colors to my nails. The base color was Zoya, Dovima. I then sponged on NYC "Empire State Blue," orchid "Barely There," essie "Allure," a tiny bit of Nubar "G188," and Sally Hansen "Twinkle Twinkle." Phew, that was a mouthful. I probably didn't have to use that many polishes but I was basically just having fun sponging the colors all over my nails!
Laurel Earwarmers
I've been watching the Olympics for the past few days, and even though it's summer time, it inspired me to make these ear warmers. The warmers are inspired by the laurel wreaths that the winning Olympians would be crowned with. I had just learned the crocodile stitch and it ended up being the perfect stitch for this project because of how much it looks like leaves.
Here it is. A front view, side view and back view.
And here's how it looks being worn:
Front, side and back. I actually really like how it turned out and can't wait for it to get cold so I can wear it around!
Daily Self Portraits
Ten days ago I decided I was going to start a year long project where I would do a self portrait every day. Each day I post them on my tumblr and each week I'll be posting a recap of the weeks drawings. So low and behold, here are my portraits, in a bunch of different mediums.
| #1 ballpoint pen
#2 tria marker #3 mechanical pencil and graphite pencil #4 mechanical pencil #5 pastel |
#6 pen & ink and gouache
#7 pen & ink and gouache #8 mechanical pencil #9 black sharpie and gouache #10 digital (CS6) |
Nail Polish Mondays: Holographic
You do not know how many times I've taken pictures of this polish trying to capture the amazingness that it is. I had been lusting over holo polishes for a while and when I passed by one while at my local drug store, I knew it was meant to be and I took it home with me that day. It was so awesome that I didn't do any crazy manicures, I just wore it alone.
Here it is, Milani 3D Holographic - 509 HD. So. Pretty. I can't stop staring at it...
For the Home, Other, Tutorials
Letter Pillows
I've been itching for some new pillows for my awesome couch, and I ended up coming up with the simple idea of just using my boyfriend and my initials. And an ampersand. Here's how they turned out:
And I also took some progress shots for you all and will walk you through how to make these suckers.
Draw your letters out on paper, cut them out and arrange them onto a piece of fleece or felt. You want to use a fabric that won't fray on the edges. I used some leftover fleece i found in my fabric stash.
Realize that if you're going to trace them out, you want the outline marks to be on the back side of the letter so it won't show. Flip the letters over and rearrange them again.
Cut them out! (I added the little dot for the 'j' in the middle of the letters, there.)
Admire your beautiful letters.
Align your letter in the middle of your pillow fabric and pin it down. (I made my pillows out of 16 by 16 inch canvas fabric. You can use whatever you want. I just ended up using whatever plain colored fabric I had.)
Sew it up! For added interest, use a nice contrasting colored thread. I used a lime green thread.
Admire your beautiful sewing skills. Put the right sides of your pillow together and sew up the edges leaving a few inches open. Flip it right side out, stuff it, sew it closed and you're done! Yay, look at your pillows!
Here are mine arranged on my couch. I love them!
Nail Polish Mondays: Fireworks!
Please excuse the messiness around my cuticles, sometimes I get so excited after doing my nails that I can't wait to take pictures. I thought these ended up looking like fountain fireworks. After painting the base color, I taped the edges of my nails at an angle and painted a glitter gradation, with more concentration of glitter at the tips of my nails.
Unfortunately I don't remember what the base color was called. I borrowed my sister's polish. If I get a hold of her I'll make sure to ask her what it was! The glitter, however, was mine, and it's Sally Hansen Gem Crush, Glitz Gal
A Step by Step in Making Black Pointy Earrings
Like a lot of crafters, I have an excess of crafty things laying around my house. Lately, I've been trying to work my way through unfinished projects and extra materials I have. I also recently got 2nd ear piercings so I've been very excited to make myself some earrings that will fit in normal ear holes! (I have my original ear piercings stretched a bit, so normal piercings fall right out.) So combine trying to use up crafting materials with the need for new earrings, and that equates to me making over 20 different types of earrings in one day. After the first few ones I decided I should document the making of them!
Here are some of the materials I used in the beginning. As I went on I slowly added more and more out of necessity.
Materials pictured are:
- Super Sculpey
- black permanent marker
- metallic pigment
- a sharp blade
Materials not pictured:
- earring posts
- eye pins or head pins
- needle nose pliers
- glitter
- nail polish top coat
- two part epoxy glue
At this point, I knew I wanted to make some pointy black earrings. Unfortunately I could only dig up my skin colored sculpey, so after researching online for a little bit, I saw that some people colored their clay with permanent markers. I figured I could give it a try!
I flattened out the clay and colored it black.
Then I just worked the clay until it was a solid color. I repeated this process until it was as dark as I wanted.
Here's the final color compared to the original skin colored clay. Pretty drastic change! I have to say, this method worked out very, very well. Will use again!
Now I'll do a play by play of how I made the earrings~
I cut equal parts of the clay and rolled it into spikes.
Using a sharp blade, I cut the top at an angle.
I made a few of these and I highlighted the flat area with various things like glitter and metallic pigments.
The lid had plenty of pigment on it, so I just rubbed the flat area around on it.
Ta da! I had to do the glittery ones after baking, so you shall see those in a few pictures.
I wanted to make some ombre earrings, so I just dipped the ends into the pigment, and using my fingers I smoothed and faded it out.
Ta da!
I wanted to make dangly earrings, but I only had earring posts like these:
So I had to be inventive. I figured I could take a small amount of clay and some open eye pins and make little studs that I could attach the dangly part off of.
Unfortunately I only had head pins. So I had to make my own open eye pins. Also, since the studs were going to be so small and I wanted to make sure the pin would stay, I made figure 8 shapes out of the pins and squished then into a small ball of clay.
Like so. Then I squished it onto the earring post to make the back of it flat.
I ended up baking them like this to make sure they'd stay flat and then carefully popped the posts off and reattached them with glue.
Anyway, after making all my random clay pieces, I threw them in the oven to bake. According to my clay I baked them at 275F for 15 minutes.
Done baking! Also, the picture quality after baking kind of suffered because a storm decided to blow in and engulf all the nice natural sunlight that is the key to taking awesome pictures. Now, I love me some good thunderstorms, but only when I'm not trying to take photos for my blog!
After baking, I took a paper towel and rubbed off the excess pigment. I originally intended to seal these pieces with a clear acrylic sealer, but I couldn't find my sealer(I must have left it back in Texas :( ) and they actually don't rub off any pigment at all after taking the excess off. I also ended up liking the matte-ness that the black clay ended up getting after baking as well.
As promised, here is the glittering.
I basically just painted top coat nail polish onto the area I wanted glittered (here being the flat part) and then dunked it into the glitter. I used my finger to gently pat the glitter flat and into the to coat and tapped off the excess. I repeated this process with the black glitter. After they dried, I glued on the earring posts using this fella:
A two part epoxy glue. A little goes a long way, especially with earrings (even with the mass quantity I did) but it does set quite fast so you have to work quickly. I ended up having to mix up about 3 different small batches of glue to do all these suckers.
Here they are all glued up! After curing for a few minutes they were set enough for me to attach the dangly earrings together, and I was done! Woo hoo!
(Note: you may notice the ombre spikes I made for the dangly earrings here in the front right of the picture. I forgot to mention that before baking, I made eye pins for them and stuck them in. Then, after baking, just to be sure they would stay in place, I took the pin out, dipped it in the epoxy glue and stuck it back in. I've had problems before with polymer clay jewelry slipping off of straight pins after baking, so I like to do this just to ease my mind.)
And these are some of them completed! I wanted to display them on my ears, but they're still healing so I can't take out the studs for a little while. So my hands will just have to do instead. And in the mean time I get to stare at these guys every day until my ears are healed!
Here are two dangly ones. I actually love how they all turned out and I can't wait until I can wear them!
Nail Polish Mondays: Newspaper
I've recently become obsessed with nail polish. I usually try to do something creative with my nails, so I thought it would be worth it to update what my nails look like each week. I figured some people might enjoy that! So for this week, I did the newspaper manicure I've seen floating around the internet. Using this tutorial from wikihow, I went to town on my nails, and ended up loving how it turned out! I think I only had one nail that ended up smudged, but whatever.
For the base nail polish I used e.l.f. nail polish 1556 Mint Cream