Shirts!

    Last week I decided I would be creative and make a bleach pen shirt! I looked around on Pinterest for inspiration and instructions. This pin ended up being the most useful instruction-wise:

   Her shirt is so pretty! And she gives some really useful tips. Like that letting the bleach dry all the way gets you a white line, as opposed to washing the shirt with the bleach still wet, which leaves behind a little color. It seems like common sense, but I didn't think of that!

   So I bought myself a pretty blue shirt for $2.50 (they were on sale at work, so I got it extra cheap!) and went next door to Meijer and bought a bleach pen.
   I drew out my design on the shirt and let it dry. I had a lighter shirt, so I wanted completely white lines. Then I threw it in the wash and anxiously waited for it to finish.
   Then I pulled it out. Looked at it. And.... Nothing! The shirt looked exactly the same as it did before I bleached it! So, naturally, I tried it again. Surely it would work this time! I let it sit even longer, thinking that maybe this shirt just needed longer to absorb the bleach.
    This is the shirt after two tries:

   It still looked exactly the same as when I bought it (except maybe a bit more wrinkly).
   Determined to make a bleach pen shirt, I decided to try it again. Only this time, I bought a different shirt.
   And it was a completely different experience! Within minutes of putting the bleach on the shirt I started to see the color fading. So now I know not to buy Jerzee shirts for bleaching. Who knew they made bleach resistant shirts?!
   This is my third attempt:

    I didn't let it dry all the way; my lines were too thick for how absorbent this shirt was. The bottom design was about halfway dry when I put it in the wash, and the top design was barely on there - pretty much just long enough for me to draw the design.
   I had to draw it in three different segments. I drew the bottom design first. Then after washing/drying I drew the front half of the top design, washed, dried. Then the back half of the front. I had to split the top design into two parts because I couldn't spread the sleeve out like I wanted for the design I had in mind.

   Here are some tips of my own:

•  If you don't want spots on your shirt like mine has, let the bleach dry all the way.
•  To get thinner lines, hold the pen farther away from the shirt. You almost have to drag a short line of bleach behind you, if that makes sense.

   I still have some bleach left, so I'll probably make another shirt. At some point. Ha.

   Have a great week guys!

Embroidered Cards

   This is yet another off-subject post. I really do try to keep focused on nails, but I just can't help myself!
    My newest artistic endeavor is embroidering cards! I had these blank card-shaped bits of card stock lying around my room, and they were pretty lonely. I had been trying to think of how I wanted to decorate them and yesterday it hit me! I wanted to embroider them! But I had no idea how.... So after lots of research I finally figured it out! I found this awesome post about how to embroider cards (apparently you have to poke all of the holes before hand, which makes it super complicated if you want to do anything more than a regular stitch!). It was super helpful! I also found this amazing site that shows you step by step (with awesome, helpful pictures) how to do millions of different embroidery stitches! It's awesome!
   So far I've made three cards and am thinking up a fourth. I think I'm probably going to put them up on my Etsy to see if people like them. If they seem to do good, I'll make more and maybe open up a different shop for them so I don't have this random mish-mash of stuff in my current store. :)

   Here are some pictures!

 

  In other fun news (still not nails, sorry), I have a new (to me, anyway) old fairy tale book! Fairy tales are my weakness, and so are old books, so I absolutely can't resist an old book of fairy tales! Last week I bought an old book full of French fairy tales (it's written in English though, so I can read it!) from 1869. 1869! My oldest book yet for sure. Before this one my oldest was 1896 or so. And it's in pretty good condition. The front cover is barely held on by a bundle of threads on the inside, but other than that and one loose page the binding is great! It's amazing! 
   It's interesting though, because instead of the fairy tales being 5-15 pages like you usually see them, they're lots and lots of pages and have chapters! In my book there are only around 5 tales, but it's a decently thick book. I haven't started reading it yet (I'm waiting to finish my current book), but I can't wait! I'm so excited!

 
   I got so sidetracked raving about its awesome-ness, that I forgot to tell you guys the name! It's called (predictably) French Fairy Tales and was written by Madame la Comtesse de Segur. I absolutely loved her dedication! It reads:

To my Granddaughters,

Camille and Madeline de Malaret

My very dear children:

Here are the tales with which you were so well pleased, and that I promised you to have published.

In reading them, dear little ones, think of your old grandmother, who, to please you, has left her seclusion, and offered to public criticism the name of 

Comtesse de Segur 

   Isn't that great? She loved her grandbabies for sure! :)


   That's about it for now. And I might be getting a little sleepy...

   Have a wonderful night! (Or day, depending on where you are)  :)

Random Updates

   No new nail stuff yet. I've been busy creating graphic designs and reorganizing impossibly stuffed cabinets. I'll probably have a new nail post for you guys tomorrow or Thursday. Or maybe later...

   As you might already know, I absolutely love period clothing! If you've been on my Pinterest page, you know that I have about a billion boards dedicated to it! I just love to look at it, and if I was allowed, I'd love to feel the fabrics too! I think mostly what I like about them is that they are so elegant and detailed. They are just the coolest things to look at! I also like to sometimes wonder about who wore them and what they did...
   In light of that, I have a new project I'm going to start! I don't know if any of you guys have seen some of the amazing works of Isabelle de Borchgrave, but she is amazing! She makes life-sized period dresses out of paper! She is absolutely amazing! Here are some examples of her work:

   I'm thinking about making something like it except on a much smaller scale. It would probably fit on a Barbie or something.  I'm planning on making a dress from the late 1860s. I was hoping to make on from the 1880s, but I think the 80s will be a little too complicated for my first paper dress. This is kind of what I'll be basing my dress design off of:

   I literally have no idea what I'm doing with this project... I have never done anything like this before! So it might look decent or it might be absolutely terrible! We'll find out!
   I also have no idea when this project will be completed, but I'll keep you guys posted!

Wedding!!

   No nails today, just fun and exciting wedding stuff!!

   Here are some of the pictures I promised from the wedding last week! I think I should warn you - there are going to be a billion pictures in this post!
   As I mentioned about a week and a half ago in this post, this is from one of my best friend's wedding! The venue was absolutely gorgeous! It was in the backyard of one of the ladies from our church. Her yard and house are absolutely beautiful!

   Isn't that wonderful?! I would absolutely love to have a yard like that!
 
   Her decor was beautiful too! She didn't have much in the backyard (who needs to add anything to that?), but the reception was up the hill and her decorations were amazing! Here are a few of the pictures I took:

 

Lavender was her flower for her bouquet and everything else.

  

  These had wedding pictures from the older generations.

  This is a few of her table decorations! They were all so pretty!

Isn't this cool? She had a magnifying glass on one of the tables and I just had to take this picture!

Her cake platter! It's an old drawer - isn't that neat?!

Her guest book was one of my favorite things! She used a tall cage thing and had people sign in on tags and tie them to the cage! 

   Here are two of my favorite pictures of their rings! Her ring boxes were full of moss and were so pretty!

 
   And last but not least, here are some pictures of the lovely bride (and groom)!

Some pictures from before the ceremony

This is one of the first look pictures we took

Another from before the ceremony. Aren't they cute?!

The first kiss!! 

 Just after they were officially married!

   Hope you guys like it! It was a fun experience for me even though it was extremely nerve wracking!

Etsy Listing and Some Exciting News!

   Sorry for no posts in forever! I've been swamped with finals and moving all my junk back home and reorganizing, so I hadn't had time to do anything more than put one color on my nails!
   I've put up another listing on my Etsy store! I've got a new set of nails up for sale now! It's the same design I did a few weeks ago (the triangle manicure). They're only $10! You should go buy some from me! :P I have two color options (as you can tell); grey like the original design I made, and also a pretty blue!
   Here is a picture:

  I've also got some new designs on my toes and fingers! I don't have time to upload them yet though. I should be able to soon though! Here's a sneak peek of my fingers:

   As for my Exciting News: I'm taking pictures at my first wedding! I'm super excited and super nervous! My best friend, Ammie (the author of this blog) is getting married today and has employed me as her photographer! Luckily, I'm not alone; a lady from our church is taking some pictures too, which makes it a ton less stressful (especially since she's photographed weddings before!). It's an outdoor wedding in one of the most beautiful backyards/gardens I've ever seen. Seriously. It's amazing! If I could take you there I would! I'll have to post some pictures of it so you guys can see it for yourselves. We went to the rehearsal yesterday and took some pictures, so that made feel a lot better (I'm still nervous though!). :)

   Well, that's about all I have time for! I've got to go run around and get ready!

Tape Manicure

 Well this past weekend I was not feeling very inspired. Of course, I didn't feel like doing anything any way. I was swamped with school work and I was just feeling plain lazy. It happens. I have to have something on my nails though, so I just did an easy tape manicure. Here are some pictures!

 And yes, my left thumb and right pointer finger are not showing... For some reason the tape pulled half the polish off when I took it off! It was really weird. This shows you how lazy I was feeling that day; I didn't redo them!



 Now for some random school news, I have a really awesome final project for one of my art classes! I'm super excited about it!! I'm making a book sculpture of sorts. I'm going to hollow out 2 different sections (kind of like a book box) and make different scenes inside of them! It'll look something like this, except not quite. :)

 I'm using an antique copy of Little Women and the scenes are going to be made from the illustrations and things I've got lying around in my room (like postcards and whatnot). For example, one of the scenes is going to use the illustration where they're reading their father's letter. I'm going to cut it out, and set it up kind of like the picture on the far left. Then as the 'backdrop' (or whatever you want to call it) I'm going to put scanned copies of postcards that my dad sent me when I was younger! I'm super excited!! :)



These are the polishes I used on my nails this week:
     Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Pumping Iron
     Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Plume
     Revlon Multi-Care Base+Top Coat

Commissions!

So I'm super excited! I've had my first  two commissions! My soon to be sister-in-law wants me to paint her nails for her wedding and a lady at my church wants me to make her 2 sets of fake nails for her trip to Hawai'i!


My almost sister wants something fairly simple (surprise, surprise :) ). They are going to be French Tips with either flowers (made by my somewhat modified method of one-stroking) or with a cute little flowery bow thing in the top corner with sparkly outlines of sorts. I know how good I am at making sense when I describe something, so here are some pictures!

The other lady wants some cute little flowery things to 'blend in' with flowery Hawai'i. Her first set is actually the same as one of my sister-in-law's. It's the French Tip with the 'one-stroke' flowers. The other pair has a solid background with 3 of my modified one-stroke flowers with little swirly things and dots scattered around. Once again, here are some pictures of the latter design!

On a completely different note, I found this hilarious article yesterday. Apparently some lambs and their mom were trying to escape the cold and found their way into a store and tried to eat all of the Easter candy! I feel terrible for the owners, but the lambs look so cute you can't really be too mad at them.