A Sassy Conspiracy

The FIL, much like his son, is a big fan of the Walking Dead comics. The Chamberlains also love Christmas, so this year I decided to make them a few ornaments, with his being zombie themed. I found a great idea on the internets for zombie mistletoe (get it? MistleTOE?) and cracked out the Sculpey. Its roughly life sized and painted with acrylics.

Did my SIL and MIL’s nails this weekend :)
SIL is sporting a Bettina gradient (Groovie and Hippie), stamped with an image from the Drikk DRK-A plate using Konad Special Polish in white. MIL is wearing A-England Bridal Veil, stamped with another image from the Drikk DRK-A plate using Konad Special Polish in silver. I’m still getting the hang of my new plate so the patterns aren’t perfect, but it sure makes for fun nails!

I received my Drikk DRK-A stamping plate in the mail yesterday, Woo! I’m still getting the hang of stamping so its far from perfect, but its still pretty. China Glaze Dance Baby with Konad Special Polish in white.

This is two coats of my first nail polish experiment over OPI I Have a Herring Problem. Experimenting is fun!! (but i really need a proper base to work with). This topcoat was made using one of the chromatic pigments (35204 i think) sold by AnnasArtAsylum.

This is the boutonnière I made for the boy. I used the same bleached peacock feathers and grey peacock swords as in my hairpiece, and a vintage bee broach I picked up at the Ottawa Vintage Clothing sale a few years ago. He looked quite dapper in his BR Mad Men suit I must say, with his hot pink shirt and pocket square. I love a man in pink :)

I couldn’t leave well enough alone and decided to get in a little more practice with my konad set. This is from Konad plate M83, using A-England’s St. George polish. I still have some trouble with stamping, perhaps because my nails are very curved? I often either don’t get the tip or the base of the nail. But, with the exception of in macro shots, its surprisingly not noticeable. Also St. George was perfect for stamping – I’d dare say I like it better than most of my Konad special polishes! I’m excited to try some of the other Legends with my Konad plates now.

In my usual fashion, I ordered feathers about 3 weeks before departure, paid extra for fast shipping, then put them on a shelf and stared at them until two nights before leaving. For a project I nearly lost hope on, I’m really pleased about how it turned out. Even after finishing it I still didn’t know how it was going to fit in my hair (or what to do with my hair in general) but luckily on the big day the lovely lady at the salon seemed to know exactly what to do with it :)

This ombré manicure uses two polishes from the Bettina Disco Collection: Peace and Hustle. I started with 3 coats of Peace, then sponged the tips with Hustle using a small piece of a sponge makeup applicator, followed by a coat of Seche Vite. Both polishes are fairly sheer but i think that probably helped them blend as well as they did. I managed to pick of 5 of the 6 colours in this collection while in Puerto Rico, so I will probably try a few other colour combinations too. I think the effect is really gorgeous :D

I finally have a picture of my finished bouquet to share! In the end I only used about half of the jewelry pieces I bought for this project – I haven’t counted but no more than 50 pieces, tops. One thing no one seems to mention about these bouquets is they’re heavy!! Its a sharp, heavy, pointy weapon. I even convinced myself that security wouldn’t let me take it on the plane  (I could in the end, thank goodness). Thinking it best not to carry a cinder block around all day, i kept it small and sweet. All the best pieces are in there anyway so it worked out. I used a green/ivory silk hydrangea as the base and tucked the wired stems in through it one at a time, then wrapped all the stems together tightly with floral tape. The 3 silk leaves I saved from the hydrangea were used to cover the underside of the bouquet, secured in place with more floral tape. I used my jeweler’s hand saw to cut the handle down to about 7″, then covered it with a scrap of lace from my dress and knotted an ivory ribbon up the length of it. I choose one of the nicer left over jewelry pieces and used it to embellish the bow. Voila! Pretty, sparkly bouquet. :)

I don’t know why this surprises me so much, but this amazing manicure is two polishes I picked up at the drugstore. I guess that makes me a polish snob. This is two coats of Revlon Royal and one coat of Essie Shine of the Times, followed by a coat of Seche Vite. I’ve been wearing this for a couple of days now and still catch myself staring at my nails all the time. The blue almost glows. I love it so much, in fact, that I had to take photos of it and share ;) It also reminded me that, hey, i own a camera other than my iphone. Maybe I should use it more :)