Tag Archives: Nail Polish

paper-dolls…

15/01/2013 2:06 pm \ 28 Comments \
10-15 January

I’m kinda excited about the paper-dolls; the nerdiness and and childishness of it really appeals to me.  And the stats… monitoring my handmade wardrobe, what I am wearing, how I’m wearing it and with what frequency…  omg; the latent geek emerges.  Of course there are so many more important things in life to be monitored.  But this blog has never pretended to be particularly d and m.  Just the trivia, my friends, just the trivia.  The fun stuff  ðŸ™‚
Thank you for the compliments on my drawing, but seriously, y’know I really wasn’t kidding when I said my drawing skills are not all that crash-hot.  My paper dolls only look good because of the Fashionary …. you see, the figures on each page are already drawn in for you, naked, in very faint red dots.  All you have to do is draw in your clothes.  The line drawings on pattern envelopes can be quite helpful for that bit.  Then you just dot-to-dot draw in the rest.   And then colour in.  Yeah.  Everyone’s opinion of my drawing skills is dropping dramatically, right?
I bought my Fashionary, and also one for Cassie here.  And btw, this is not an endorsement; I received no freebies and I paid full price for both  ðŸ™‚
It’s been super humid and muggy here lately, a by-product of tropical cyclone Narelle off the coast.  The weather girl informed us that we reached our minimum of 27C in the middle of last night and then the temperature started rising and was over 30C by 2am!  Sooo hot!  The rest of today was hideous, as you can imagine!
It’s been a while since I wore these sandals and I love the brightness of the turquoise and aqua set off against the sludginess of my eggplant purply brown dress.  This photo is re-visiting how I sometimes used to try to take somewhat arty outfit photos; looking down from high at my toes, trying to get all the colours and textures and the gist of the thing in one shot.

Hmmm.  ðŸ˜€
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Not-naked toes

11/12/2012 11:00 pm \ 24 Comments \

“There’s only one thing worse than chipped toenail polish, and that is NO toenail polish!!”

These words of wisdom are oft repeated by a very good friend at this time of year… striking fear into the hearts of those of us who, at their peril, do not heed her advice and may well be called upon to account for the offending nakedness of their toenails in a social setting… !

We all have our own preferences.  Some ladies are faithful to one colour all summer long, something classic like coral pink, or a sparkly Christmassy crimson.  Some rotate between a select few “fashionable” colours, chosen to co-ordinate with their summer wardrobes.  One of us is very very fickle and changes colours once a week.  All summer long her toenails will stand testament to many and varied fleeting love affairs with a whole rainbow of crazy colours.
Ahem, that last one would be me.  I’m such a nail polish tart  ðŸ˜‰

I absolutely adore this new colour!  My Mum bought this one in Melbourne during our recent trip away.  Gorgeous, no?  It is not white, or pink, not even pale pink, not grey or even beige, but a sort of combination of all of the above.  A non-colour really.  Like the colour of nothing.  
Quiet.  Peaceful.
And so perfect for my mood at the mo’.  The pre-Christmas period is the craziest, most hectic time of the year, and painting ten little spots of a peaceful and quiet non-colour on the toenails is like ten tiny pearly pools of zen calm in my life right now.
Cassie and I bought different colours, and now I am kicking myself I did not get this one too at the same time, since I have fallen in love with it.  Drats.  It was much admired by my friends this morning too.
Double drats.
If I cannot find this polish locally I will have to invite Mum up, avec nail polish, for another stay!
So, let’s talk colour… what is your hue of choice for the summer tootsies…? and do you play favourites; or like me, are you a woman of whimsy?

Nail varnish: Buttercream, by Kester Black
Sandals; Misano, from Marie-Claire

Disclosure, in case you are wondering: this is not an endorsement, and this was not a freebie; we saw and purchased our nail polishes at a craft fair, of all places! and paid full price.

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May Day

01/05/2012 7:15 am \ 24 Comments \

… and the first day of Me-Made May ’12.
And thank you all so much for that lovely feedback yesterday!
I’m actually excited today and feeling motivated about taking the photographs again.  This is good, hopefully that tide of enthusiasm will carry me along for a while… 😀  I’m also very keen to see everybody else’s outfits over on the Flickr group.  Thinking about that,  I decided it would be sensible if I made a further addendum to my pledge; that I try to incorporate mostly garments that have been made since the last me-made challenge, so that I am not going over old ground, so to speak.  Don’t want to be boring, hehe…
Today is a beeautiful sunny autumn day but with a bit of a nip in the air; so I am wearing my chiffon maxi-dress made last October, and my little black snakeskin cardi, that is a few years old now but is a good match shape-wise and style-wise for this dress.   Actually, I experienced a marvellous moment this morning; marvellous, that is, from the point of view of a middle aged woman such as myself.  A young twenty-something girl stopped me in the street, and said “That is a completely awesome jacket!  I LOVE it!”  Oh, man, call me sad, but that moment really made my day.  So sweet!  Which made me think; unprompted compliments, and especially when they are about something one has made oneself (not that she knew that) do give such a disproportionate lift to the complimentee, over and above the good intentions on the part of the compliment-er.  And the importance of paying that forward.  So, when I trotted down to the supermarket later I said something nice to an elderly lady about her hand-knitted cardigan.  Her bright happy smile made my day even more bright and happy too!
Zoe upped her pledge by stipulating that someone in her circle would also be wearing something made by her every day this month, as she sews a lot for others.  So, imagine my joy when Cassie emerged this morning wearing this calico jacket made by me (below).  I can’t promise that this sort of synergy is going to happen very often since I have absolutely zero say in what my family wears any more, but it is good fortune that someone in my family is wearing something made by me on this first day of me-made May as well.  It is a sign!

Details:
Dress; Vogue 1355, polyester chiffon, lined with lightweight cotton, details here
Cardigan; plastic-coated jersey knit stamped in a snakeskin print, my own design, details here
Sandals; Joanne Mercer for Micam, Hobbs shoes
Nail varnish; self-mixed , ruby-red with gold

Cassie’s jacket; my wearable muslin of Vogue 8333 sewn with all the hand-finishing details, calico, details here (which reminds me, I really should get onto my real version of this pattern…!)

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On matters of the feet…

23/04/2012 9:24 am \ 18 Comments \

I went out shopping with my good friend J on the weekend, and … well, a picture is worth a thousand words…. no?

In which case two pictures must be worth two thousand words…

Tres awesome, yes?  Now I am really looking forward to winter!
In the meantime; I am currently digging weird and ugly colours for the toenails.  Oh, did somebody say what’s new?!

I got this fantastic murky olive shade by mixing three colours; gold, mint green and black.  I think it is perfect for autumn!

That reminds me of a funny little anecdote from my teenage years; a friend was talking about how C, (a boy in our class at school) had “the most awful colour eyes, like a murky horrible greeny brown colour, like a swamp, a really really yukky colour…” she stopped suddenly, leaning in closer to me, then “Hey, your eyes are exactly the same colour!”  
😀
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Random stooff…

08/04/2012 8:48 am \ 13 Comments \

1:  I saw this idea for seedlings on Better Homes and Gardens and thought  awwww, how cyooote!  So had a go myself….  these hold sweet peas (yup, planted on St Patricks Day, thus earning myself a gold star for being “traditional”) and parsley.  After this weekend, the bottoms will get lopped off to give the roots somewhere to escape, and they are going in the garden.  But in the meantime I think they have made quite a nice Easter-y table display, yes?
The two whole eggs were my failed attempt at natural egg dyeing.  The mustard-yellow is a result of being boiled up with turmeric, and that rather grotesque, emo, splotchy, Addams-family-grey one on the right is dyed with blueberries.  I lost heart after this one and didn’t bother trying out the spinach or the beetroot or the red cabbage; this what you can expect when the only eggs available are brown eggs.  I searched high and low for white eggs, even going to the drastic measure of peeking inside the boxes of caged-hen eggs  (eeek, caged??  quelle horreur!)  but no dice.  It seems there are simply no white eggs commercially available any more in the whole of Perth.
So…  the half shells were painted with acrylic paints.
Random stooff 2:
My husband likes to cook, and I graciously let him, whenever he wants to  ðŸ˜‰  He is a very good cook too.  Way better than I.  Way more enthusiasm.  Enthusiasm is good.
Fired up with the urge to create after a Heston Blumenthal programme on the telly, he decided to have a go at the famous lemon tart.  Not just an ordinary ol’ lemon tart, but one cooked the scientific way.  The one that goes purely by temps and times.
So, here is Heston’s version….

And please admire my husband’s version, cooked to exactly the same recipe….

and btw, I am happy to report that it is absolutely delicious!!
So; has anyone else ever tried this or any other of those scientific recipes of Heston Blumenthal?  how did you go?

Random stooff 3:
The perfect nail varnish for Easter?  BYS White with One

And finally, Rs 4; I’ve signed up for Zoe‘s me-Made May…

I, Carolyn, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’12. I endeavour to wear all me made clothing each day for the duration of May 2012′


 although taking part in the challenge this time will hold an added degree of difficulty for me, the specifics of which I will not divulge right now but will become blatantly apparent as time unfolds.  I may not blog each day, like I have done previously for these months, and I may not be able to wear a unique outfit each day although I shall try.  However I can promise some spectacular scenery  ðŸ˜‰  We shall see how we go….
Later dudes!

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Cat’s eyes

26/10/2011 8:37 am \ 13 Comments \

(a mixture of BYS Mint Condition and Bright Light)
As soon as the weather warms up enough to bare the ol’ tootsies I like to get some funky nail varnish on to my toenails.  The weirder and wilder the better.

This week I wanted something toxic.  Something urban and nuclear-waste.  Something neon and horrifically bad taste.  So I was sitting outside and painting this on when I was joined by a friendly and furry lovely in the mood for companionship.  She came purring over and flopped down beside me and as she blinked lazily at me it struck me that the crazy shade of my nail varnish exactly matched the golden-green luminosity of her eyes, how they appeared bathed in the reflected glow of warm sunlight off the bright new grass…  at once the colour became less toxic to my eyes and suddenly one that was rather lovely, natural and beautiful.  

… is there no such thing as an “un-natural” shade?

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Seafoam linen shirt, with smile-y faces

30/08/2011 3:08 am \ 18 Comments \

A new linen shirt for Craig…
Burda 7767, again.  I didn’t even fold up or put away the pattern after making my “army” shirt, just laid out the fabric and cut out this one straight away… efficient, or what?!  My middle name, hehe…
Do you like the smile-y face pocket flaps?  Yes, this was sorta planned…  I don’t think Craig has cottoned on that he is sporting two smile-y faces on his chest yet, he might refuse to wear the shirt if he thinks something is too fashion-y about it…  But I like little “touches” and this one amuses me.
The lower edges of the pockets have a corresponding curve like the flaps, and the cuff edges are curved to match, and also have double buttonholes and buttons.  Those, and the fact that the lower hem has been extended and curved, are the only variations to the pattern here.
I felt a little guilty about this whole project, because the linen was part of the small stash comprising four lengths of linen that we bought with the very intent of me making shirts out of it for Craig about two years ago… and I did use three of these lengths just for that purpose.  But this rather divinely shaded seafoam-green length sat there and sat there and I couldn’t bring myself to get going on the promised shirt.  It looked so desirable and so right for … well, for me.  I was deviously planning and re-planning about a zillion things NOT of the menswear variety, that I could make using this linen; things would fit very nicely into my wardrobe thank you very much, and I even commenced a bit of a campaign about how this colour was actually a bit feminine, wasn’t it, hmmm? and how Craig now had looooads of linen shirts to choose from and might prefer something else, and how the linen would be reeeeeally much better suited to something else, like say… something for me.  And my sweet husband is so good natured he unselfishly gave up his linen shirt rights just to make me happy…  And I did feel happy for about one minute.  Then I felt mean.  So I set to and made him the promised shirt.  And now I don’t feel mean.  And d’ya know the good news, there is actually a largish chunk of leftovers, maybe enough for something to fit me after all.  And I have a clear conscience.
Maybe there is a moral there, something about good feelings and peace of mind.  Attainable to those who don’t wilfully and selfishly steal their loved ones fabric.  Yah, something real deep and meaningful and navel-gazing like that.  But I’m not sure the goodwill will extend to me not appropriating the shirt every once in a while.  After all, look how well it goes with my first self-pedicure of the season?  I think this shirt deserves to be worn with my nail polish, don’t you?

Details:
Shirt; Burda 7767 with minor modifications, seafoam-green linen

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Customised nails

10/04/2011 9:14 am \ 9 Comments \

What to do, what to do…
I saw this extremely yummy shade of nail varnish in the latest Vogue magazine and felt it was just the thing!  Really wanted to have it…  Tres beautiful, no?

But the blurb described it as a seasonal limited edition Chanel shade (Nouvelle Vague) that has quickly sold out.  Not going to let a little thing like that stop me from wearing this delectable shade on my toes, now.  For a start, the name “Chanel” on the bottle is already going to mean a ridiculous price tag.  Sorry, but I don’t pay more than a few dollars for a bottle of nail varnish… and what’s more it’s so super easy to mix and match your own cheap and colourful nail varnishes to get the colour you want.  It is!  Have you ever tried it?
Sometimes (occasionally) I buy a colour simply because I know it will be a goodie for mixing with others to get new colours.  Such as white.  Not always, I often then get side-tracked and lazy and just wear even the more unusual colours straight as they come out of the bottle, prompting questions such as “why the turquoise nails??” and having to come up with an explanation that doesn’t involve a fancy-dress party…  Fortunately I think Perth is becoming more switched on to exciting new nail colours such as the ones I like.  Whatever, I really wanted this particular shade of heavenly muted duck egg blue for this week… 
So I got a little bit of light blue (Artmatic Lit’l Boy Blue, I’ve had this particular one for about fifteen years) and mixed in just one drop of light yellow (BYS Bright Light, a newie) and got the perfect shade.

This is so easy!  The only thing to look out for when mixing your own is that it dries pretty quick, so use it as soon as it is mixed.  
Voila.  The perfect duck-egg blue, and even better, I didn’t have to pay $50 odd for the designer label…

I have a friend who has a firm saying, “there’s only one thing worse than chipped nail polish on your toes, and that’s no nail polish on your toes” and I couldn’t agree more…

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