Mani Monday: Saran Wrap

Have you seen this kind of nail yet? You put your base coat down (2 coats of black) then add a top coat of whatever color (this strange beetle green) and while its when you pat your nail with scrunched up saran wrap. It's kind of cool, I must say, and super easy to do, though I did pat a couple nails on my right hand too soon and it took off a bit of the black as well.. Not really noticeable though.

Mani Monday: Sponge Gradient

So I decided to finally try the sponge gradient for nails, where you rip off a little piece of a makeup sponge, paint your polish on it and then dab it on your nail. I must say its virtually fool-proof, I thought it would take a few tries to get the hang of it but each nail came out perfectly. 2 layers of silver base coat, plus 2 coats of gold sponged on.. Though, since subtle is not my forté, I decided to add a little more bling with silver glitter on the silver part, and gold glitter the same shape and sizes on the gold part. Sally beauty makes my favourite glitter, multi sized hex glitters, and I buy it everytime I see a new color. So far I've got 3 :).

I still find it a little too subtle for my nails but I really wanted to try out the gold polish and I didn't want to end up wearing black polish twice in a row. Next time though, go bold or go home!

Candy Corn Cookies

I'm always on the lookout for new things to put in cookies, partially because I now work in a candy store 3 days a week, and partially because whenever I buy chocolate chips they all get eaten before I get the chance to make cookies.. This time around I decided I wanted to use candy corn, so I bought some and came home to search the web assuming someone out there already did it.

What I found were pumpkin candy cookies, where the wrapped the dough around a candy pumpkin and then pushed another into the top when they were cooked. Now I didn't use their recipe, but I did use the same general idea with a generic cookie recipe. They turned out great and suddenly they're all gone..

I may or may not have placed too many on the tray at once..

Sorry for the extremely instagram'ed photos, I only quickly snapped a picture with my phone and I had to tack on the filters to make the pictures legible.

A Curious Collective

Great news! Tamed Raven is going to be at the Curious Craft Fair (and swap!) Oct 14th. If you're in the Ottawa area, come on down and see what's going on :).

I'm going to have all my new stuff, goodies for Halloween (and maybe Christmas..) as well as a section of discounted jewelry that I want to destash. There'll be some seriously good deals not to mention everyone else at the fair that will have some great stuff I'm sure!

Gotta Start Somewhere

Back when I was in junior/high school and was really just starting to sew clothing, one of my favourite things to do was draw up these 'dolls' in paint (and eventually a bit of photoshop). You could get bases (aka: the body) from various places online and draw on makeup, hair, clothes, etc. Eventually I started them for my fashion croquis. I thought it was great fun, and they're funny to look back on to see what I was interested in.

Slytherin for life!

Tutorial: Cross-hatched Nails

I think this mani is so fun! It was surprisingly easy to do, if you have a stamping kit and a little patience. Best part is you can do this with any stamp and get all sorts of different looks :).

How to:
Add a base coat if you so choose (I left mine blank)
Choose your colors! I used lilac, sky blue, soft red, navy blue and mint colored polishes, all creams.
Using your stamping kit (mine is Konad's m57) I added spots all over my nails one color at a time.
Clean up any polish that gets on your nails, add a top coat and you're done!

It's also a great way to use the stamps because they're not big enough to cover my whole nail.

Plase ignore all my cuts and scrapes :P

I also finally made myself another banner for my blog, and I quite like it. What do you think??

Edit: I ended up repainting them because my old topcoat sucks and the whole thing peeled right off, so this time I did it over black. I like this one way more.

Grand Theft Bus

I don't go out to bars very often. Once when my brother was in town for a drink (literally just one), I got the 'Cape Breton Punch' and it was just as awesome as I had hoped it was. I don't remember all the ingredients or which bar it was as they are lining the streets in the market but.. Anyway. We (the Mr and I) went to Mavericks last year to see the creepshow, and went again the other day to see Grand Theft Bus, a wonderful band from the maritimes. It was a nice bit of that east coast feel that I don't get enough here in Ottawa, and I have a feeling at least half the people there were from somewhere out that way. Flicker State opened for them, a band from Montreal I do believe..

Grand Theft Bus

Rum and cokes, dancing, loud bass, more dancing, and me saying 'by' and 'buddy' a lot, just cause I could.

Flicker State

Now if only some more east coast bands would come out this way, instead of going from Toronto to Montreal and skipping us altogether. (I'm looking at you, Slowcoaster).

The photos courtesy of the Mr, I took a whole 2 pictures myself during the last song on my phone.. I need a good camera that works at night! 

I actually am planning on getting an SLR of some form or another (one that I would be able to share lenses with) but it's not going to be a typical camera with typical uses. There's a company online that will alter your camera for you and peel of the IR filter on the lens. It would allow me to do infra red photography that I've always been a fan of, but it would never take a normal picture after having this done. Probably not the best for product shots and point and shoot styled pictures. 

The Sky Is The Limit

I am really starting to love all the galaxy DIY projects that are going on right now. It's nice to see such an underestimated thing of beauty (this whole wide galaxy of ours!) being appreciated. Here's my favourite galaxy tutorials to share with you!

Tutorial 

Bleach tshirt

Please if you have the source for this.. All I can find is dead links and tumblr posts

These are gorgeous! I think I should start making envelopes out of everything..