New Polish Color

"Flat Iron Green" by NYC In a New York Color Minute, Quick Dry Nail Polish

Okay, so I saw this color in a magazine and immediately fell in love with it. In the light it's very green, but without the benefit of UV, it's an almost black color! I just had to find it! So, I scoured the shelves until I found it on the very bottom of the display at the local Wally-World. I thought for sure this would become my new favorite polish. But I was completely unprepared for this. I expected, with it being one of those 60-seconds-to-dry type polishes, that it would also be a one-coat polish. WRONG! It took 4 coats total. And it dries so fast, sometimes I couldn't get the entire nail painted before the drying kicked in. Lots of streaking going on.

On the up side, it didn't chip right away like most polishes. A couple days after applying it, I trimmed my nails and gave them another coat. And now it's the color, and coverage, I want! While not technically a "spring" color, it does a good job of playing with spring. This probably won't be one of my go-to polishes since it takes so many coats before it's looking pretty, but when I have the time for multiple coats, it'll be right up there at the top of my list.

In the Good Ole Summertime!

When the hot weather rolls around, we start making a lot of freezer pops. So many in fact, that I think it's time I popped into Target and bought a couple more of these. For now we just make kool-aid pops, but I want to start making some yogurt and fruit pops as well. The heat lasts quite a while around these parts so I have plenty of time to experiment with my freezer pops!

INSPIRATION OVERLOAD!

Everytime I get my new Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine my fingers just start itching to create something,

anything. I just need to get out the paper, the pencils, the markers, the glue. I dig out the paints and the brushes. I find my inks and my stamps. I go through the stash, looking for anything I might want to work with. And then I remember...I have no place to work. If it doesn't fit on the kitchen table-ette and it can't be done while perched on my end of the couch, then it's not gonna happen! So I have all these ideas, bubbling around in my head and they're just stuck there. They tool around, sticking themselves into my conversations. They poke their heads out when I try to read a book. They wag their tongues when I start smaller craft projects, screeching with indignation that I chose to do something else. It really does get noisy and crowded up there.

I suppose it's a good thing this whole full-time RV life is coming to an end soon. Just not quite soon enough for my creative self. (She gets a little crabby when I take away the scissors.) So, until that day comes, I'll stick to knitting on the couch and putting pictures into my Project 365 scrapbook.

Zentangles!

This is my first Zentangle. It's the opening page of my "scribble book". I read an article about Zentangles in the December issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors. And then a few weeks later I saw some new Zentangle postings on Craftster. And of course, I felt like I needed to try this out. I used to make these types of doodles all the time when I was younger, and I remember doing something similar for an art class in college. I have so many projects going at once I don't know how often I'll be doodling, but when the urge strikes I'm already set up to go!

Nerdy Fun

Somedays, this is exactly how I feel.

Pretty true. Unless your desk has no drawers! Of course, that would be pretty risque!

For real! Why is the English language so difficult?!

This amazingly fun gadget can be found here.

New Favorite Color for Spring!

Blue Me Away by Sally Hansen has got to be the best new color of the season! I picked it up as soon as I found it and K polished her nails as soon as I showed her the shiny blue bottle!

New cookie cutters!

I don't have any cookie cutters here in Florida. They are all in storage back in Michigan. I didn't think I'd need any here because it's always so hot, baking makes it miserable. But now we're having nice, cool weather (some would say cold) and I have no cookie cutters.

So I broke down and  bought some! (good sale!)

I bought a set of 3 heart-shaped cookie cutters. They're very cute. We made some brownies and I practiced using my cute new cutters. Yummy!

Anytime I've needed cookies before, I 've just used a plastic drinking cup and made circles. Like these I made for J's baseball team last spring

and the ornament cookies I made at Christmas

Straight forward and simple, still yummy. But I'd really like to have some of my special cookie cutters right about now. This cool weather doesn't come around often in sunny Florida!

Hey, Doll!

One of the projects in my plan for 2010 is to create a paper doll each month. I've been looking at various patterns and reading up on projects in some mixed media books and I have lots of ideas! This one is just a colored-in version, nothing major. I did have fun, though! I forsee making way more than 12 of these this year! Especially if my daughter plays along. She saw me coloring today and pulled out her Project Runway paper dolls and patterns that she'd gotten for her birthday a couple years ago. We may make this a mother/daughter project! How fun that would be! We'd be doing the same thing but coming up with completely different outfits. *She's way more stylish than me*

No! No! No!

all photos taken by me. it was a bummer of a photo shoot.

Temari toys

I am in love with the Japanese art of Temari! I just can't get enough of it!

I found a book at the library about Temari and since I love embroidery on a flat surface, I thought it'd be a fun challenge on a spherical surface. I was so right. It is a bit of a challenge, but once you have an understanding of how the needle positions work, it's so much fun! And even better yet - it's a great way to use up scraps! Anyone who knows me knows that I don't like waste. So all those bags of fabric scraps are now going into these lovely Temari balls! And anytime I find bits of yarn at the thrift shops I grab that up too. The yarn gets wrapped around the cloth to form the ball. Then the final layer is thread. Once the ball is covered, I mark the pattern points and get going!

These 2 are full size - about 10.5" circumfrence. In the back of the book the author states that Temari can be made on any scale. So I gave it a shot and made some mini-Temari as ornaments for the christmas tree.

They turned out really cute. They came out around 4" circ. I made them as a set to give as a gift. That's why they're not on my tree. I'll make some more later for me!  My next attempt will be even smaller! I want to see if I can make a set of earrings!

Yes. I'm just a little bit obsessed.

National Hat Day!!

I just found out that January 15th is National Hat Day! Why didn't someone let me in on this so I could prepare?! And why aren't more people wearing hats?! especially since they can get away with it today! Here are some pretties I found on the web:

Carmen Miranda, of course. Who wouldn't want one of these?!

1950's cocktail

found at Blue Velvet Vintage

Vintage Poet's Hat found at ModCloth

1920s Flapper (I die)

Found at 1860-1960: one hundred years of fashion and accessories

I love hats. All hats. But not all hats love me. I just have one of those faces that doesn't take well to hats. And not a lot of companies make fashion hats for those with locks!

For Christmas 2007, my MIL gave me a great big box full of vintage hats! Oh, what joy! It is one of my fondest desires to have a wardrobe that will allow such delectable head gear...once the dreads are gone...

You, know, I do believe I need to get out my box of hats and play.