Spooky Basket: The 'Get Well' Gift That Gave In Abundance.

My mother had sent me some money and well wishes during this time of austerity and health concerns-- she felt I had been cooping and sulking all this time, and wanted to give me an excuse to get out.
She was completely right, I had been doing just that.

She left a message in the gram "Happy shopping, I love u!".

I couldn't help but feel like a child again-- in a good way-- being loved by your momma, and feeling giddy at having cash in my pocket purely for spending on little frivolities.

Her intense generosity is a reminder of how much I miss her company, because with all the things I bought with this money, I would be testing or sewing it with her; she would let me do her makeup while we watched our dramas and chick flicks, and she would sit and chat with me while together we would sew something up. They are always times I really cherish; thanks to this blog, I can keep showing her what I've been up to and what I purchased with her gift.

Usually I go into shops not really knowing for sure what I am going to purchase, but with a very vague idea of what I want to try out. This time, I let myself strategically plot the coming months with the projects, and purchased accordingly.

I've been coveting the dresses from Hell Bunny... specifically these dresses:

Source: Unknown

Source: Atomic Cherry

But I can't seem to find where to purchase the first, and further more... they seem simple enough to add my own twist to; A.K.A recreating them myself.

Since making this apron for what feels like forever-and-a-half ago, I felt like I really needed an actual dress that was similar to it... I still have a few yardage left over of the day of the dead fabric. This Hell Bunny dress was just the inspiration I needed to pool my motivation into buying the notions needed to make it happen-- minus the pom pom trim... I'm not sure if that'll make it to the final dress, heh.

This came into the lap of having the desire to try out more patterns, and having a few on my wishlist that I really wanted to experiment with. Patterns are a nice way to bide my time, because I don't have all the tools I need to draft the more complex patterns, at present; they lie somewhere in the cavernous abyss I call the boxes I packed back in Canada.... and I've been too incredibly lazy lately to draft them anywho.

Entrez Halloween fabric and patterns.

They're all New Look patterns... what can I say, I love a decent sewing challenge, despite my laziness-- and New Look offers just that.

The two upper fabrics weren't purchased with the money my mother gave me, and are probably not going to be turned into dresses because of the nature of the type of material; I had purchased these very late in August, and just hadn't blogged about them yet.

The spider damask is very thick, and has an almost flocked silvery pattern-- I find it suitable only for a vest or maybe some other accessories. The pumpkin and candy fabric has glitter in the weave, also making it rather sturdy-- I have a very cute corset in mind for this fabric.

Now the lower two... these will be dresses, along with the day of the dead fabric.

The eyeball fabric will be view A from pattern 6457, the spiders will be made into view D from pattern 6143, and the day of the dead into view C of pattern 6208 (all circled in the fancy frame)

Eyeball

Spider

Skulls

After having purchased this mess of notions, fabrics, and patterns, I actually had lots of money left over (you can thank preparation and planning for that!). After having visited Walmart and Joann's, off I went into the malls of madness, not far from where the two stores were located...

I took a visit to Hot Topic hoping to find the Black Heart skull shaped nail polishes, after seeing the post Karoliina published on her blog. Indeed, they were there... and much much more skull shaped cosmetics that I regret not cleaning them out of. The rest of the cosmetics were found at Walgreens, Target, Walmart and Dollar General. I'll make a proper post of all these in the future, once my trials are done.

While in target, I happened upon the shoe section... nothing much of note... that is, until I hit the children's section. Behold!

And they were on sale for about $8... which makes it that much sweeter. Size 5 is the highest they went; sometimes it really pays to have such tiny feet.

Sadly, when I got home, the fresh scent of virgin shoes lured my cat once again... and off went one of the rhinestone buttons.

You'd think I'd learn my lesson from the first time, right? ... wrong. Luckily, I was going to change the buttons anyway-- I just haven't decided if I am to use bat or skull buttons... hmmm.

I love how they very nearly match the color of my favorite nail polishes (including the new), and my new baked eyeshadow from Hard Candy in Super Nova.

I sense an outfit brewing.... Thanks, Momma!

P.S. That reminds me... I still need to work on this, which by majority vote turned out to be the shorts. I have so much to do now! How exciting!

Tales of Trial and Terror: Dark and Dramatic Make up-- Take 1

People who know me, know I'll try anything once--I love trying new things. Even if that means I make a wreck of whatever I am learning. My quest in the pursuit of my idea of perfect aesthetic and material treasures are not without consequence, but it is through these terrors and miraculous discoveries about what works and what doesn't, that I find I learn the most important rule in life: learning the meaning of 'humble'. These are my humble beginnings...

As I've mentioned countless times in the previous posts, I am pretty new to make up-- my recent haul was probably the only time I've ever spent so much on cosmetic items in one trip.
So I've been timid with how I do it up until today; pining over picture after picture of beautifully and creatively done make up as seen by the likes of Madam Noire's blog or Lady Bathezda's blog, to name a couple. I finally decided I'd try my hand at it.

I wanted a dark and dramatic look, but I had no idea where to start. Down to the basics it was... so I figured, who's more dark and dramatic than the ever iconic Siouxsie Sioux?

The inspiration: Source

 I realize now in retrospect that I could, and still can, be easily eating my words because it's not a look where a beginner should begin, so I should emphasize right now that the resulting look is loosely based off of Siouxie Sioux's illustrious looks.

Anyway.

I normally have my brows on the thicker side, but today I took my tweezers and started plucking. The brand of tweezers in case you're wondering are Sally Hansen, and I don't recommend them.
Since I'm not new to plucking my brows, I didn't find it all that difficult to know my brow limit and the shape I desired. When I started plucking my brows back in high school I used a brow brush to brush my brows upward, take a pencil liner and mark out the shape I wanted and plucked out whatever was below the line. After a while you just know. I really underestimated how a change of brow intensity changes your face dramatically, and gives the illusion of a cleaner palette-- something I think that many of us newbies really overlook, as well.

It's amazing what a little investment of your time can yield; granted if I invested money, perhaps the results would've been truer. I was working with a dollarstore shadow palette (no joke) and a paint brush to apply all of this.

The first 'wash' I did I chose a faint lilac, which with my skintone turned into a translucent silver. The second color was a darker shade of purple that was showing up on my skin as a brandy color. The final touch was a black that turned into a pale charcoal. Lip color is wet and wild red.

As I write this, I realized I forgot the dramatic blush. Maybe next time...
It's not a look I'll be quickly adopting for my everyday, or even my evening look, and not for any other reason than I am too new to make up so I haven't found my niche-- and I love the experience!

Do you dare to do dark and dramatic yourself?

Spooky Basket: My Weekend Beauty Haul

This weekend I spent the last 3 days down in Phoenix to help a friend move, and to just generally get out.

My plan was to hit up the fetish night at the Rogue Bar in Scottsdale on Friday, but plans changed and we spent the evening out dinning at P.F. Chang's and late night of bowling where I made a personal high score of 120 while sporting a hobble skirt, haha!

Who says you can't bowl in a tight skirt?

Anyway, the day before that I made it a priority to buy some of the products I've been wanting to make a switch to or try out, and here is the bulk of that illustrious haul (I'll be reviewing the Fructis along with the items that aren't shown, at a later time):

 I made an expensive and small purchase at Sephora; the benefit products and foundation brush. The rest was drugstore bought.
The High Beam complexion enhancer is just a repurchase-- I use it quite often as it is profoundly useful and awesome.

I've been wanting to make a switch from sponges to a brush, since I had it told that the brush distributes the foundation cremes evenly and is less wasteful of it than the sponge. I really wanted to invest in a good brush, and I hope that I ended up making a decent choice; I went with a Sephora foundation brush, and it was rather pricey but not as pricey as the other ones. It had average ratings, but from what I read of the complaints were that it didn't handle thick coverage very well.
I do not like heavy applications of foundations because I tend to have very mild/weak complexion inconsistencies... so light application sounded like more of a positive to me than a negative.

Along with my foundation brush, I really wanted a face primer; while at Sephora I was able to try Urban Decay's-- one that received many raves from all forums where I frequent.

 Sadly, I was extremely unhappy with test. It was far too thick for me, and I could not imagine having that on my face all day. I was given benefits face primer POREfessional to try, and I instantly fell in love with how it felt! So smooth, creamy and light.

It has a very distinct perfumed scent, and color. That could possibly be a negative for someone.

 I was afraid that the color might conflict with the color of my original foundation, as it is medium-- but it blended super easy.

It isn't that much more expensive than Urban Decay's face primer; I think it was only $2 more at $28 for a 0.75 oz bottle. It might even be the same price-- I forget. I didn't want to spend that money on just the primer not knowing if it'll work out for me in the long run, so I bought the How To Look The Best At Everything medium foundation kit, which is a little sampler of their foundation products for the same price.

I love the idea of this. I wish more companies would do this. A neat little thing that I failed to photograph, is that behind the fold out tips and tricks of this box, is that the box also has a mirror-- a large one!
Benefit also has different kits, for lips and eyes. Real cute kits that let you try out their products without spending all that money on the single products. I've haven't been privy to trying their foundation products in the past, and now that I was given that chance it's hard to imagine going to the same 'ol stuff I used before.

The products I bought at the drugstore are these:

Wet & Wild 99 cent red lipstick
Maybelline Great Lash in Blackest Black
Almay Intense i-color liquid liner in Black Pearl.

To be honest, I didn't expect a whole lot from the 99 cent lip color; but I've been hearing word also that Wet & Wild aren't what they used to be in the past. Wet & Wild was a brand I used to buy as a child, like many other skeptics out there. I was happily surprised by the vibrancy of the color I chose to buy-- and this was their cheapest lip color line; not the $3 one everyone has been reviewing. It's hard to tell if it's just my lips that are dry or it is the lipstick... the only time (today) I tried it my lips were already very crumbly and awkwardly dry even with chapstick.

I've been on the prowl for a replacement liquid liner that was on par with Annabelle for a little bit now. I really wanted Almay to be it, because the bottle and brush are identical to that of Annabelle-- however Black Pearl has far too much silver in it for me to love it. It's nice and all, but I won't be buying this color again, and if it wasn't always sold out where I went, perhaps their plain black might be what I am looking for.  I went and tried Rimmel's liquid liner, too, but the brush turned me off almost immediately. I am just using it till it runs out along with this Almay liner.

For a while I've been such a fan of Sexy Curves by Rimmel, but nearly everyone I have spoken to has told me that Great Lashes by Maybelline is the best product they have ever tried.  I really wanted to love this product, also, but felt that it was just below Sexy Curves. Great price comparison, though. I'll probably be buying it over Sexy Curves for that reason, albeit sub par results.

I wore these products minus the lipstick when I went out, even using the tips and tricks fold out. I was very happy with the results by the end of the evening-- nothing had smudged melted or faded. I didn't take pictures of that night or even the weekend, but for blog sake I took pictures doing the whole thing all over again, and including the lipstick.

Added good buy!

At a store called Alco in my town they started stocking some Halloween stuff. Most of it was pretty tacky, and generally cheap and awful... but then I saw these... they came in green, purple, orange and black!
They had other styles of refillable cups with just images; which I hope to buy before too long. But these 3D skull cups are too awesome for words! It's BPA free, but unfortunately not dishwasher or microwave safe.

I might have to buy another one to make it part of my Halloween giveaway
Just suggest which color you'd like to see the one being given should be, and depending on how many responses I get will determine if it will become so.  *wink wink*

Monthly Homework assignment: Things I can't live without

A meme started by The Dancing Maenad in which we list inanimate things we simply cannot live without.

This is quite difficult for me to keep short since my sanity requires a lot, sadly... I wouldn't call myself A.D.H.D. but it's been suggested by some doctors I've consulted that I try medication to soothe my easily frazzled nerves. I am very reluctant in taking mood changing medications-- and so my quest for peace of mind leads me to the things I cannot live without...

1. Music

My mp3 has seen better days.

 Music is as important to the mind as water is to our bodies. So naturally, nearly everyone who makes up their list has it on there. Music helps me in my most horrid of anxiety lapses, and I constantly need it if I am venturing out anywhere without someone or meeting new people (I hum music if I couldn't pop in my mp3 in a situation).
It has certainly been a fundamental part of feeling normal for me, and is number one on my list.

Busy minds stay out of trouble

2. My crafting supply

Another way I keep anxiety at bay is if I simply preoccupy my mind away from the troubling source. I carry at least one of many small, easily packable objects and projects. In the picture I've included: a pair of knitting needles & ball of yarn, a crochet hook, an embroidery loop, a pair pliers, french knitter tube, tatting shuttle, sewing needle, my notebook and sketch book. (not shown: my gaming handhelds, travel sewing machine, travel sewing kit and beads for beading). But really I cannot imagine being without my craft room in its entirety.

3. Moisturizers

 I am consistently battling with this portion of my personality; always on the edge of panic.  I cannot function peacefully if I am not properly moisturized, body, hands, lip and eyes. Add to the fact that it must smell nice to me, or I will still be slightly antsy.

And finally...

4. My make-up bag and all its contents

This is the last item because in all honesty I can live without it, but it's still important enough that it's one of the top things I must pack.

So there you have it.
The things I cannot live without.