A project for two afternoons: makeup chest!

 Today I found Kassandra very happy, opening a gift that someone had given her.

"Hello! What is that you are opening?"

"Hello dear!  Oh, I am overjoyed!  The principal dancer of a ballet company with which I work from time to time has given this to me."

"Oh, how cute!  Is it a makeup chest?"

"Yes!  Oh, Erika is such a dear!  I love her so much.  I have seen her progress from a novice dancer to a great ballerina.  She deserves all the success in the world."

"I am sure she does.  And I hope you enjoy your makeup box!"

"I am ready to fill it up!"

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fantasy apart, I saw a similar box in Facebook, and very much wanted to make my own.   I am in a phase now that I love what I call the "dancer pink" color, so I wanted the box to place it in the ballet studio.  I started with an ordinary box made of plain, untreated wood, and painted it pink:

 

Then I decided to cover the inside with a textured paper.  I was going to use a tan suede paper, but my husband said that looked too dark, and suggested something in ivory.  So I used the same fabric paper that I used in the natural history cabinet:

 

Trying on the patterns

Bottom side...

... and lid

Since it was a makeup chest, I wanted to include a mirror.  At first I thought of using a spare mirror I had in 1:144 scale, but it was very small, and I didn't like it.  So instead, I cut a piece of an acrylic mirror (the same type I used to hang in the ballet studio):

Dry fit to check the size

Wonderful!

 

I did not want to paint the bottom, so instead I covered it with a black suede paper, so it wouln't slide on the surfaces:

 

Then, embellishments!  So naturally, gold brass corners and a functional hinge (I love it!):

It looks perfect!

Next step, to craft some tiny makeup!  It was easier than I thought, with some help from YouTube videos made by talented crafters:

 

The lashes box comes from Zenas Miniatures; the two nail polishes I made following this video; the eye shadow pallete I got from here, and simply glued it to a piece of black Eva foam.  The gold nail file I made with gold textured cardboard, and the mascara bottle is just a piece of black paper glued around a toothpick that was painted with gold paint.  I covered the paper with a piece of clear adhesive tape.

It looks lovely in the ballet studio!

Searching the perfect white

It's been some weeks that I wanted to do a sailor/marina-inspired manicure.  I attempted one in two occasions, and in both I ended up frustrated because the white I used did not cover well my nails, despite my using 2 coats of it.

The white I used is Margaret Astor Perfect Stay Gel Shine (White Snow).  Avoid it like the plague!  The worst thing is I bought it this season, so the bottle is almost full, and I do not think I will use it anymore.

Today I bought an Essie nail polish (my first Essie purchase), called Blanc.  I just returned home and my curiosity took the best of me: I tried it on my pinkie finger: one coat, no base; I just wanted to check the coverage. And it is perfect!  One stroke and my nail was perfectly white.

Hopefully the next sailor manicure attempt will be better.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Nail design of the week

This week I had planning on doing a new Konad stamping design, but I have been watching a lot of nail videos featuring French manicures, so I got envious and did a simple French manicure on my nails:

Left hand - the nail on my middle finger broke (ouch!)

Right hand

I am very happy how it turned out.  I think it looks way, way better than my previous Franch manicure.  I was tempted to do a lace stamping on them, just as elleandish did here (very similar to my own!), but I finally decided against it - maybe some other time.

These are the tools I used:

Unglax nail hardener as base coat 

French manicure French Ivory (#433) nail polish by Rimmel *
Nail Tip Whitener by Rimmel
Quick Dry Top Gloss by Margaret Astor

* I just realized that the number of the polish on Amazon is different than my own.  Maybe the numbers change from country to country catalogues?  I don't know...

I used the "rolling motion" technique - moving my finger while keeping the brush steady.  It worked very well for me.  I could not touch up any mistakes, because the nail tip whitener is quite viscous, and the touch ups were very visible (I had to redo one of my thumbs because of that).  Maybe it would be good as a nail polish for stamping?  I am not going to find out though, I will keep it for my French tips.

Here is the French manicure tutorial that helped me with the rolling motion technique:

Let's see how next week's design goes!

A new hobby: Nail Art!

It is impossible to not peruse YouTube nail art videos and not get amazed at the nail design you can find there.  How creative are some people!

I began researching how to do nail art without having to be an artist with a mini brush (which I am definitely not!), and found out about nail stamping.  My interest for mermaids got me to this video, which I absolutely loved:

So obviously the first thing I did was to search for that stamping plate at the Mash Nails website.  When I found it and saw it was available I searched for tutorials on nail stamping (I highly recommend this one), and after I learnt a thing or two I placed my orders both at Mash and Konad.

Being unable to wait for them to arrive, I decided to try some simple nail design to keep me busy.  I visited a drugstore and bought a new set of nail files and 6 nail polishes from the new Margaret Astor collection, Fashion Studio.  I had at home some nail rhinestones - a long time ago I visited a local dollar store and they had some miniature glass bottles filled with them.  I bought the bottles to use in my miniature making and forgot about the rhinestones.  I never thought I would give them some use, and it was lucky I did not throw them out!

So, I chose one of the blue shades (#256, Electric Ocean).  I love this particular shade.  It reminds me of the skin color of Mistique, from the X-Men movies. You need two coats of this one.  Then I took the blue rhinestones and placed them on the side of my nails; 3 of them, in order big, small, big.  Then I applied the top coat.  How do you like the result?

Left hand

Right hand

If you notice, the pinky of the left hand looks a bit crowded, so in the right hand I put the rhinestones small, big, small, to give the nail a better look.  I like how they turned out.  I was so happy I forgot to clean my cuticles after finishing, but the natural light was fading and I wanted to take the pics.  Excuse the mess!

After having finished, it ocurred to me that maybe red rhinestones would have been better for contrast (as Mistique's hair is red), but I had in mind the mermaid-y look when I was working.  

I can't wait for the orders to arrive and start practicing the stamping!