Meeting again Pt 2 (MORE IMAGES)

Hello again. It seems as though my mind is unable to work on the contest entry I mentioned previously until I get the rest of this posted, so here I am. No worries. Technically speaking, I only just heard of the contest and the entry is due the 15th, which essentially gives me one day to attempt an entry. Since I only just heard about it, I'm not stressing about it. I have an idea for it, (essentially it's an art contest) but it's a style I've never done before, so if I can't get it to work, oh well. I just want to try. Why not.


So, instead of having some sort of order and time frame for these pictures, they're essentially random pics I just wanted to share.

The first six though, are my nails. lol.

First, we have my TARDIS nails. I attempted them for the first time for C2E2 in March, and loved them so much I did them again for Chicago Comic Con. I used masking tape to ensure straight lines, and painted the yellow with a layer of glow in the dark acrylic paint before sealing it all with clear polish, so the windows glowed. lol.

The first are 80's. I found a tutorial on Youtube for them. Two of the nails I have to show are tutorial nails, two were done with pics for references, and two were done off the top of my head. (The tardis ones were off the top of my head) These were 80's because sometime last year, there was an 80's night at the club my friends and I used to go to, and seeing as how just a few months ago we'd gotten together to do an 80's photo shoot, we figured it would be the perfect time to recreate our looks and actually go out. I have a pic of me and a friend from that night too, it's somewhere below. :)

The next ones are red sneakers. I'd seen a picture of some sneaker nails on a friend's facebook, only the sneakers were all different colors. I liked the idea, but preferred to have only one color sneaker. Loved these nails. :)

These were my nails come fall. They're also based on a photo, but they were not done by me. My guy actually stumbled across the photo, and begged me to do them. But I informed him that they'd be incredibly tricky to do left handed. So I painted my nails black, and he did the white. A lovely job too. From the same guy who refused to draw the tiny black squares on my TARDIS nails just a month before because he was afraid he'd mess them up. lol. I really enjoyed those cute skeletons. If we ever decide to do them again, mayhaps I'll attempt to go over them with glow paint so they glow in the dark.

This one was another Youtube tutorial. I was watching some of my favorite Youtubers rather randomly and came across one who did this tutorial and HAD to do them for me. I even went out to get the peach and mint polish because I wanted them to look as close to the tutorial as possible. lol. I did these for winter.

The last ones of the year were done Christmas Eve. Off the top of my head. I hadn't a clue what I wanted to do, then just decided on christmas lights. Some of them glowed. It was cute.

Haven't done my nails yet this year, but I imagine they'll be pretty plain for a while.

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Next is something I actually did late 2011, but never blogged about it. I'm a fan of the Youtuber Toby Turner. And earlier that year I had made him a clay loch ness monster, but hadn't sent it yet. So I set a goal to send Nessie in December. But didn't want to send her alone. I enjoy watching his Minecraft Let's Play videos most, so I made him a clay version of his Minecraft character. The diamond sword is "enchanted". Meaning it glows in the dark. I even painted on some pixelated looking heelies on the bottom of his sneakers. lol.

He loved it. This is a picture I stole from his twitter post. He opened it over a month after I sent it, but I'm sure glad he liked it. :)



Next up, this doll...

That picture really sucks, but her hair was really matted, and everything - hair, clothes, skin - were all incredibly dirty. My mom enjoys wandering down in to the basement, grabbing random somethings, and giving them to their original owners, expecting us to be overjoyed at the discovery. I was not so when given this treasure. Firstly, she was pretty ugly from the dirt. I could tell I'd played with her a lot, but couldn't actually remember playing with her. And her makeup, it was all painted on and looked incredibly unnatural... though you really can't tell from the photo. I hardly wanted to touch her. And when my mom was telling me of the adorable way I used to hold her, she told me I could give it to my someday-daughter... at which point I cringed. Why would I give this ugly thing to my daughter? But I took pity on the doll.

 I washed her clothes in mild detergents, then again twice more using different soaps, and all but a couple of the stains went away.

I removed most of the dirt from her skin with rubbing alcohol, and the things that wouldn't come off with the alcohol, (like some pen marks on one of her legs) I got off with acetone nail polish remover. I also took her blush and lipstick off that way.

I also washed and conditioned her hair, carefully brushing the curls back to normal. Then when she was nice and clean, I tried painting on a better color, but ended up using chalk pastels to give her a more natural blush and lip. I also added blushing to her elbows, hand, fingers, knees, feet, and toes.

She looks much nicer now. Yes, I could see passing her on now. lol.

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There's my guy, on a bridge in Millennium Park in Chicago. 

There I am at 80's night at the club.

Last summer's calla lillies. It looks like the white callas are producing less while the yellow ones are producing more. Still love them though. :)

This is obviously an old photo. I was four. It was my brother's birthday.  I love how he's got a nice cake, and he's holding balloons, one of which is a really cool Alf balloon, and he still looks so sad. lol.

This is a pic of my friend and a fire over the summer. I like the way it looks. lol. 

When I was little, I loved Benji. So a little while back, I decided to watch Benji the Hunted. All the feelings the movie brings out are still there, and though most of the movie has no words, I'd apparently watched it so much I  memorized  the score, and would know when something good or bad was going to happen.

Sometime in September, I felt really creative. Wanted to do a bunch of stuff. Hardly got around to any of it, but those white framed, green bulletin boards with daisies on them is one project I almost finished. They're now up on the wall, but I had wanted to add a bow to the big one. I'll get around to it eventually. Ha.

Weekend before Halloween I felt like dressing up, so I tried for  a pinup girl look. I had dyed my hair dark red just a couple weeks earlier. I had fun with that.

I also threw on my guy's shirt to take a photo, since he was back at his home in Detroit. :)





Back to feeling creative, here's a few things I did manage to do.

A pin cushion ring.

A sewing kit in a jar

A bookmark that I, of course, drew up myself.

The four sewing kits I made.

In addition to those, I also just have a few things that are all sorts of unfinished. For instance, I have a facebook page just for my etsy creations. I chose not to advertise that page yet anywhere, mainly because I hardly have anything in my etsy shop right now. So the page has not one like. Lol. I'll get to it this year.


Only four more pictures to share...

This little guy was commissioned by my sister-in-law for her godson's baptism/first birthday. She had originally wanted a fondant bear for the cake, but the price for the bear she found was expensive for something not easily keep-able. So she gave me the pic as a reference, and I made a clay version, only mine has a Bears jersey on. As a bonus, I also made some balloons. And the balloon base has magnets in it so they can put it on the fridge and bend up the balloons if they'd like. I enjoyed making him for the most part....

Early on in the foil-and-wire-skeleton phase, I stabbed myself with 20 gauge wire. Pretty deep, pretty dark red blood. Made for a lot of throbbing. Then the dark blue that was purchased for this project was incredibly old, and no amount of the hours of kneading was making it salvageable. I eventually made it work by dousing it in baby oil, sticking it in a couple of zip-lock bags, and bashing it with a hammer for over an hour. The next day, my palms and fingers were tender to the point of pain. I never realized how often my hands interact with things until that day. Just placing them palms down on a counter hurt to the point of near tears. I had to wait a few days for the pain to go completely before I could continue. But I got the guy done. lol.

Just a quick pic of Thanksgiving dinner. Which was early so we could go to my sis's parents' house for a later dinner.

So on December 1st, a contest on a Doctor Who facebook fan page was announced. The contest had only one requirement. Make something Doctor Who Christmas themed, in celebration of the then upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special. First prize is a 10th doctor replica coat, second prize is an 11th doctor replica bow tie. So, even though I knew I had those baked goods boxes to make, I spent the first couple weeks in December working on an entry. Here's what I came up with.

Most of the ornaments were made with an aluminum foil base, paper mache, and paint. I wanted to sand each one down because they're all quite bumpy, but my sand paper was too crappy. I had to live with the bumps. The tardis ornaments are just scrapbook paper, and there's a small bottle with a paper mache severed hand in it. (just below the light up tardis on top) I colored the glass of the jar with glue and food coloring, and was planning to add glow in the dark paint, but didn't have time. I will though. The light up tardis was made by painting glass panes, (from 4x6 photo frames) and gluing them together. Then I stuffed it with christmas lights and used cardboard for the base and the top. I didn't have time to knit a scarf, so I painted a strip of fabric. Actually, the only bits of the fabric that's painted is what you see. I actually cut a "scarf" several feet long, but got tired of painting it, so I worked with what I did do and hid the unpainted fabric behind the tree. lol.

I also painted the design on the plate with glass paint. The cookies are made of salt dough, and painted so they'll never go bad and all have a tiny hole in them so I can also hang them as ornaments eventually if I want. The base of the table is just a Heineken beer box covered in tardis blue tissue paper with yellow construction paper windows. You can see in the background on the wall is the tardis sign. I got that at Chicago Comic Con, then brought it with me when I saw John Barrowman, who agreed to sign it if I waited around until after the event, which I did. Then I used a 50 cent frame from American Science and Surplus, and some foam core board to make the frame. Heh..

The contest was supposed to work by having the top ten most liked pictures getting judged to win. So I worked hard to get as many likes as I could, almost 100 I think... the liking part of the contest was supposed to end Christmas Eve, but it got extended to January 7th, and last I heard, ( this past Friday) they said they're "waiting on one more piece of information before we move forward." So who knows what's going to happen. All I know is the longer it's taking, the less hope I have in winning something. Sigh...




Lastly... here's a picture from the week I was sick. I was craving chocolate and sweets that night, so I made myself a cup of the hot cocoa mix I made for the baked goods boxes, then topped it with some whipped cream I whipped up just then, and added a toasted homemade marshmallow. It. Was. Delicious. I just wish I hadn't been sick when I made it, since I'm pretty sure it would have been much tastier if I could smell too. lol

And that's it. All caught up with photos. Ha.

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Right now, I have four contests I want to enter. Three are essentially art contests that I'm questioning myself for entering, and one is a writing contest in There (virtual world) that I always enter. One is due the 15th, as previously mentioned, one is due the 20th, one is the 19th of February, and the last is the 28th of February. So I gotta get going on all that. I have ideas for all of them, and have stuff written down via brainstorming, just haven't actually gotten around to actually doing. That being said, how'd it get to be 4:30am already? Geeze.

Ah, one thing I forgot to mention... my computer broke late September. One day after I'd logged back in to the Enchanted Doll forum I loved so much in hopes I'd be able to frequent more often. Awesome. My guy tried his best, but couldn't get it working again. I still have the hard drive, but everything else is dead. So now I can only use my guy's computer if he's not using it. That's what I'm on now. He's in North Carolina for a couple of weeks for a class. So yeah, there's that. Ta.