A Very Important Issue

Clearly, I need to go shopping. I've discovered I'm missing two very important colors in my polish collection: navy and green. Yes, I have navies and greens, but what I need are non-shimmery versions, and the green needs to be somewhere between true green and forest, whereas all of mine are either spring green or leaning more towards teal. Oh, the problems of polish.

For now, I will just have to suffer through with the shimmery navy blue that I got as a stopgap a few months ago, but is really closer to royal blue, which isn't the same color AT ALL.

Yes, I'm being ridiculous. I know. But the color just isn't right.

Which means, of course, that I simply must make my way to Sally's a some point this week. Oh, woe is me.

At any rate, here is the first of two snow-themed manis I have planned, using the substitute color:

For the designs, I used the dotting tools that my roommate got me for Christmas.
Colors used:
Revlon--I have lost the name of this one, sadly.
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure "Ivory Skull"
Essie "Set in Stones"
Pop Beauty "Metallica"

I was going for a "gently falling snow" look, but I forgot just how densely packed "Set in Stones" is, and I ended up with a blizzard instead! I still like the way it turned out though--it's fun to look at.

Happy Holidays!

Reruns for a Cause

It recently came to my attention that October is anti-bullying month. I'm not entirely certain how this tidbit managed to slip by me. Had I known, I would have planned an entire month of blue manicures, since that is not only my favorite color, but the color for the whole anti-bullying movement, and this is a cause quite close to my heart.

On my personal blog, I've talked about this several times, though I don't think I've ever gone into detail.

The first time I remember being bullied, it was in the third grade, at our Thanksgiving party. a group of girls I wanted to be friends with intentionally changed the rules of a game they were playing to leave me out. When I realized what they were doing, I cried. One of them asked what was wrong, and I gave a rather nasty response. I got into trouble while they were the "victims" of my foul language.

Fast forward to middle school, and it expanded. I was made fun of for how I dressed, what I read, my grads--be they good or bad--the way I talked, who my friends were, anything they could think of. I kept a lot of it to myself, because when I went to an adult I was always told either that I should ignore them and they would leave me alone, or I needed to grow a thicker skin. On the few occasions they actually listened, they merely chastised the bullies, which only made things worse.

One guy was particularly bad. Not only did he make fun of me verbally every time he saw me--and we had several classes together--he would knock my books off of my desk, or out of my arms, pull my hair throw wadded paper at me, and leave notes in my locker once or twice a day. he was a known trouble maker, however, so the response from my teachers was usually, "Well, what do you expect us to do?" No amount of detention, suspension, or other punishments had an effect.

Do you remember Willow, from Buffy? Season one Willow, I mean. Shy, awkward, just looking to belong. That was me. Most days I wanted to hide or run away. It was hard to concentrate, and I frequently wound up crying in class--which of course only made the teasing worse.

One day, though, I'd just had it. Instead of feeling hurt, I got angry, just like that day on the playground. That guy had been coming up behind me between every class, putting his arm around me, grabbing my stuff, whispering nasty things in my ear.

And I got mad. I snapped.

I'd never once defended myself. I tried to be good. I either ran away and cried, or I found the nearest adult--just like we were supposed to.

But nothing ever changed.

So that day I said, "Don't touch me. Ever. I mean it."

He bounded off laughing. What could I, smallest girl in the seventh grade, do to him?

A few minutes later, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"I told you not to touch me!" I drew back my elbow and drove it as hard as I could into his face.

Except it wasn't his face.

It was my homeroom teacher's stomach.

In today's world of zero tolerance, I probably would have been expelled or at least suspended, especially if I'd hit my intended target. Had I not had the rapport I did with my teachers--and that one in particular--I probably still would have been punished.

I am not advocating violence in any way, but in my situation, it had the desired effect. Once he could breathe again, and I'd apologized profusely and explained the mistake (in the process drawing the attention of another teacher) he was understanding. Both teachers were aware not only of the boy's reputation, but that I was his favorite target. They were not aware of the severity, however.

The two of them told me not to worry about him any more, that they would take care of it. Sure enough, later that same day my science teacher caught him putting a note in my locker. He confiscated it. I still don't know what it said, but from that point on he wasn't allowed to so much as look at me, and within a few weeks was expelled, though I believe for an unrelated incident.

 

I still got bullied. I was still left out. But it was never again as bad as it was in seventh grade. 

Many years later, I met a girl who had bullied me in middle school at a fast food place. Do you know what she did to me? 

She hugged me. 

She acted like we were long lost friends, and that the last time we'd exchanged more than two words she hadn't tried to rearrange my braces. 

While neither of these two are on my Christmas list, the point I am trying to make is that no matter how bad things are, there's always someone who can help you. Maybe it's someone you dismissed before, thinking they wouldn't listen, or someone who hasn't acted yet because they don't realize how bad things really are. 

Second--it will pass. Eventually, they will move, or you will; you'll graduate, or they will lose interest, or you'll find that person or people who can help you. You'll look back, and their blurry faces won't even matter, except as a small stepping stone towards the strong, wonderful person you were meant to be. 

Bullies will always exist in one form or another. They make us stronger. 

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be looking for the door when one walks into your life. 

 

I've done variations on the blue layered mani before (here and here for those interested), and I really like this look. I decided to go skittles style for this one, because the whole idea behind stopping bullying is that everyone is accepted for who they are.

Colors used: 

Pinky: Sally Hansen Chrome "Aquamarine Chrome"

Ring: Finger Paints "Tiffany Imposter" and China Glaze "Dorothy Who?"

Middle: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure "Calypso Blue" 

Index: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Blue By" and China Glaze "Dorothy Who?"

Thumb: Revlon "Mysterious"

Don't forget to add some glitter. Never be afraid to shine.

Stamping Spam

Things have been a little rough around here lately. They're getting better, but last week was hard and I was pretty down. To cheer my room, my roommate picked me up a stamping kit that she found at Michaels, of all places.

I've been wanting to try stamping ever since I found out what it was, and I was so excited that I kind of tore apart the kit before taking photos.

The kit is by Salon Express, and includes a double ended stamper, a scraper, a rubber mat to hold the plate, and five plates. One of them has full tail designs, and the other four are decorative images. I think she said it was $10 (US).


I already had a background color on with another post in mind, but I decided to just stamp over it. For this manicure, I have Brash "Blue Dream" as a base, with Wet n'Wild "Metalica" for the ray design (top row, middle). For the flowers, I used Pure Ice "Touch Me Here."

Since this was my first stamping mani, it took a little getting used to the tool, figuring out the right motion to use to get a good stamp on my nail. As you can see on my thumb, the "full nail" images aren't quite wide enough for my nails--in face the only nail they give full coverage to is my pinky. It doesn't really matter which way I turn it--they either aren't wide enough, or aren't long enough, since my nails are naturally long, even when trimmed as short as I can get them.
Kind of disappointing, but I wasn't super thrilled by some of the patterns, anyway. I can do dots, I've done flowers, and I'm not really a big fan of animal print. The stars, however, got to me. That was the first thing I wanted to do, but my polish was the wrong color for what I had in mind. So I faffed around a bit and when I changed manis, I laid out the base for this:

While the star pattern came out fairly clear on the nail, once again you can tell that the pattern isn't large enough to actually cover the nail, and the edges came out kind of rough. I'm sure this had as much to do with my amateur technique as it did with the fact that this is a cheap kit.
One of the individual patterns was a moon and stars. I knew I had to do that one. I used the same colors for all my nails ("Metallica" again, with Revlon's "Mysterious") but obviously the two solid coats on my ring finger are much darker than it came out as a stamp over silver.

And yes, the moon is sideways on purpose. Because I am a geek and just can't do crescent moons the way they are "supposed" to be.
All of these manicures are pretty messy, since I was just playing around with them. Sorry. They were more for practice than aesthetics.


The most recent one I did was this. Here I have Sally Hansen "Vivid" over Finger Paints "Tiffany Imposter" with a little butterfly in "Metallica" (can't tell that's one of my favorite polishes, can you? I also adore the look of shimmery/glittery/metallic polishes stamped on cremes).
It turns out that "Metallica" isn't quite as opaque as I'd hoped. It can handle one color in the background, but not two.
I actually wore this one for a couple of days before I remembered to get photos of it. (Bad blogger! No cookie!) I'm still trying to determine if some of the issues I'm having are my technique, my polish, or the kit itself. Overall the images are printing pretty clear, but not always in their entirety, and sometimes I'll have extra polish around the image, which probably comes down to me not scraping it enough.

This kit has been a lot of fun to play around with, and if anything, it's made me one one of the nicer sets even more. I'll keep messing around with it and posting pictures so that you can see the various images that come in the set.

Foiled Again!

I love special effect polishes.


Pop Beauty "Split Silver" over Revlon "Mysterious."

I like them even better when they're metallic or sparkly.

Thanks for looking!

Summer Fun: Favorite Summer Memory

I want a manicure.

I'm not talking a, "Oh, look, I put pretty pictures on my nails." I mean a hand over hard-won cash so the cute Asian man with the indecipherable accent will massage things that smell nice onto my hands, make the peelies go away and give me pretty nails with pictures on them that I don't have to paint myself and won't break/tear/chip off in twelve hours. That kind of manicure. (Yes, it's a stereotype. Must most of the manicurists in my area are Korean. The one I went to when I had money was an engineer before the economy tanked, and he did lovely work. He's also one of only a handful that I've been to that I could understand more than one word in three.)

I kind of destroyed my hands at work today. I was moving fixtures and merchandise all day, and tore up my knuckles. At the moment, it's not too visible, but I sure felt it when I was washing dishes. My hands are so bad right now that I took that Burt's Bees Lemon Butter I talked about last week and rubbed in all over my hands in the hope that it would help with the dry skin, hang nails, and cuts and scrapes. And the peeling nails I've been fighting for about two or two and a half months have decided to come back with a vengeance, despite all I've been doing to prevent them (cuticle treatments, nail hardeners, conditioners and strengtheners). I actually can't cut my nails any shorter. I've tried. But they just keep peeling.

So I paint them to cover it up.

My favorite summer memory is an internship I did as part of my undergrad. I was a struggling art student, feeling lost and depressed at the end of my second year of school. I didn't like my major and had realized that art--as the administration defined it--wasn't how I wanted to spend my life, but in the back of my head I just kept hearing my dad's voice telling me what a mistake art school was, and what a waste of money since changing majors (and by definition changing schools, since mine only taught art) would mean starting from scratch as far as classes, loans, and grades, not to mention I had no idea what exactly I would major in instead.

At that point, I'd been knitting for about a year and a half. I had discovered knitting blogs, though I didn't yet have one of my own. I'd been designing my own projects, though at that point I don't think any of them were actually written down as patterns. I was scouring the web for more information about knitting--my one creative outlet that didn't involve a critique and a bad grade.

On my way out of printmaking class one day, I saw a flier for the TNNA PiPN Internship Program, which allowed students (primarily fashion majors, but others as well) to intern for various fiber arts companies doing things like sales, making samples, and sometimes even design work. I applied and was sent a list of participating companies. Lo and behold, at the bottom of the list was a single international opportunity: CNS/Mission Falls in Montreal, Quebec Canada.

I'd been dying to go back to Canada since my grandmother's funeral a few years before. I spent several weeks with crossed fingers, waiting to see where I'd be assigned.

The internship began with three weeks of training in Akron, Ohio in knitting, crochet, embroidery, cross stitch, and needle point before we were sent off to our designated locations.

My boss was kind enough to let me stay in his "winter" house, a duplex in the Plateau area of Montreal (very nice neighborhood).

That was my first time truely being on my own and away from home. I fell in love with the city. I learned so much about the world and about myself. I wrote 3/4 of the first draft of what would eventually become my first novel. I picked up sewing and haven't truly put it down since, and I absorbed every knitting technique I could find.

I could time the buses to the second. Public transport was affordable. Produce was fresh and delicious, everything was within walking distance and the things that weren't were easily accessable through the metro.

And then there was the underground city.

Google it. Seriously.

Festivals every week, international culture, buildings from the 1600s, and my favorite uncle an hour away for the only time in my life. I improved my French, met some amazing people, and spent every Sunday on the Mountain, watching LARPers, listening to drum circles, dancing, and shopping handmade goods.

Colors used:
Revlon #460 "Mysterious" (blue, thumb)
Maybelline Color Show "Porcelain Party" (white)
Essie "Exotic Liras" (pink)
Sally Hansen Diamond Strength "Diamonds and Rubies" (red)
Miliani Neons "Rad Purple" (purple)
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Just in Lime" and "Blue By"
Sinful Colors "Happy Ending" (green, sponged on top of "Just in Lime")
Cityscape done by blending S•X•Y "Dreamy Cocoa" with "Porcelain Party" and Pop Beauty "Black"
Claire's nail art pen for details (black)
Seche Vite for a topcoat

I tried doing an alcohol transfer like this one for the map, but none of the maps I had were printed using the right ink. So instead, I took the piece of map I'd softened with alcohol, tore off a small portion, and laid it over top a fresh coat of white polish. I sealed it in with 2 coats of Seche Vite. I used manicure scissors to neaten the edges and trim it to shape.

This happens to be the only time I've wished for those ridiculously long talons that are absolutely useless for everything but nail art. I wish I could have printed more of the map and shown a little more detail with the cityscape.

Just a break down:
thumb: Quebec flag
index finger: one of the yarns I was promoting, Mission Falls Tricolor (it's really hard to see with the topcoat, but there's red and purple on a pink base. The yarn is very pretty and I wish I still had some)
middle: map of the city
ring: cityscape and the mountain
pinky: maple leaf
Fini. Merci de lire.