Lemming Fix-Tristam!

Oh, I was so bad.....I finally gave in one night, surfing Llarowe's site and saw she had A-England Tristam in stock. This has been a lemming of mine ever since I saw it on Nihrida's site. Really, very few pictures do it justice. The camera does NOT want to pick up the purple tones in this polish, and it is very visible in person.

Enough talk, here are some pictures. This is almost a one-coater, but 2 coats bring out the depth....

2 coats, with SV topcoat:

 Above 2 pics in sunlight...didn't help the purple-pick-up issue, lol

 You can almost see it here....

 Above 4 pictures, under Ott light, indoors

Hahahhaa, my 80 full-sized bottles have arrived, now I can REALLY play with Frankens. I may have mentioned I am working on opening an etsy store...slow going, but that is ok. I want to put on some of my soap, leather, fleece and polish creations. Maybe some jewelry, too! I know, everybody and their dog is selling polish now, but I have wanted to sell my other crafts for a long time, but couldn't do craft fairs becasue I didn't have the space or money to build a decent inventory.

Pimp My Mani!! oh, and some gift /craft pics

I topped my last mani with some Franken holo topcoat that I made with spectraflair and suspension base clear polish. So, yea I made it even flashier, lol!
I have a new mani, but I thought I would do the holo re-do first, my new mani and then some gift/craft pictures.

Oooooo, all you holo lovers out there should be drooling right now, lol!! (Neelai, that is you!)
Ok, enough of that, on to tonight's mani!

Orly Ingenue, 2 coats and O My, Blingy!

Wow, I can almost see green, gold, and who knows what other colors flashing in this. I love this polish. It didn't take very long to dry, went on thinly and easily-a bit easy to pool if I put on to much, but easily corrected.
OK, next....
Craft stuff- I took lots of pictures, but I am only posting a few right now, and I will post more after the holiday if anyone is interested in how I did the boxes.

I took an Altoids candy tin and covered it with some upholstery-grade leather I bought off eBay. Remnants like this are fairly cheap, and many pieces were quite large. I glued the leather on with a specific glue that dries flexible and works with leather and metal. I wanted to make these for my girls to put tampons and pads in, because I don't know about other ladies, but I hate having these items floating around and most containers/bags are dead a giveaway when you pull them out of your purse or pocket.

This is one of the finished boxes. I planned on it being "simpler" but I had to hide some of the edges that were bugging me...so it got a bit fancier, hahahaha! The little knot on the lid is to open it.

Here are some nail polish frankens I also have made for presents for my girls...

Ok, enough pictures for tonight. I hope this gave you some ideas or that you at least enjoyed looking at the pictures. Take care and if you celebrate Christmas or similar holiday, enjoy, if you don't, take care anyway and enjoy your week!!

Soap the easy way..

I got this awesome deal on our local craigslist. I bought 2 huge boxes of melt and pour soap and all sorts of soap molds and other goodies for like $25. It was easily about $200 worth of bubbly craft fun! Here is one of the 25lb boxes of soap-takes a big knife to get the chunks loose...



This stuff is really easy to work with if you have a microwave and some microwavable glass containers. I have bought 2lb. blocks of M&P soap at the local craft place, Michaels for $10, that was why this was such a great deal.



I never measure or weigh this kind of stuff, again, pretty forgiving to work with. I like using glass because it doesn't absorb tastes and smells from the soap. This is a 4 cup measuring cup. I microwaved this much for about 3-4 minutes...checking and breaking up chunks in-between.

Not quite done, still some chunkies in the mix...nuke it a bit longer

Here are the scents and colors I decided to go with....Orange scent, orange soap color and some cool red/brown powdered mica (leftover from another craft, not sure if it will work ok), oh, and the soap molds. I just wipe these bad boys out with a dry paper towel to get any dust and kitty hair out. Add the coloring and scent to your preference and stir gently (I just used a butter knife, really!) then pour gently into the molds so they are level. The bubbles can be removed by spraying alcohol on the soap, but I just shave these off with a sharp blade when everything is done. The cards are to level out the molds. These should sit for several hours and then I can flex the molds a bit and they usually pop out very nicely.

Spring, really?!

Wow...just went for a quick walk up the mountainside  with Nova and it is chilly but gorgeous out. I am sure the huge pawprint I saw was a young bear. The snow is almost gone except for some plowed piles, and there are buds on the bushes. Even the birds are getting rowdy.

Have to decide what craft to work on today....Do I wash more fleece so I can eventually spin it? Or do I start carding some of the new colors I just finished dying? I have 2 large/whole sheep fleece given to me by a very nice lady. We bought a snowmobile from her husband and I was drooling over her sheep. Turned out she had some fleece from last year she didn't know what to do with. So I took a chance and brought the stinky guys home. I spread a big flat sheet out in my living room and brought one bag in. Darn thing filled up my tiny living room when I spread it out! At any rate, I skirted it as best I knew how and got rid of the nastier stuff. Our cat, Goliath thought it was nummy, and Nova, (our lab/border collie cross) was in doggie heaven, cause I let her sniff away. It actually wasn't THAT stinky....

I think I will wash some more, but here are some of the colors I have made so far with miscellaneous dyes. Can you guess which ones I used Kool-Aid on?!