Kassandra's big renovation part 3 - Shop

The work is progressing!  Another room of the house is done.  This time, it was The Magic Shoppe turn.  The easiest of the rooms to do:  just three straight walls.  It only took me a morning to do everything.

As always, I started by stripping clean the walls.  Well, "clean" is probably not a good word, considering the stains...

For the shop, I used another of Ana's wallpapers.  This one looks straight out of a Tim Burton movie - I love stripes!  As always, I took measurements and modified the design to fit them.  I was lucky enough that the printed sheet covers almost from floor to ceiling.  However, I had to add a bit of a cornice at the top, as I was lacking just 1 cm for it to fit perfectly.  

The design is gorgeous, and you can barely see the union between the two sheets.

Sans the cornice

With the cornice

I had to be extra careful while glueing the side walls; otherwise the design would not be aligned properly.

Left wall all done

Finished!

Despite my efforts I could not get the right wall to cover completely the corner, but I am not worried because the shop shelves will cover the mistake and it will not be visible.  The shop now looks much better than before, even though the decorative panels are not very noticeable - only to customers that sit to have a seánce with Kassandra...

As you can see, there are still plenty of stuff to do with the walls.  I have not yet decided which pictures I am going to hang again, or where, same with the wall shelves, so I will leave that for when I am finished with all the rooms in the house.

The next room will be challenging:  the parlor is conected to the hall with a flight of stairs that has lots of steps!  It is going to take some time and a lot of trial and error.  We'll see how that goes...

Nail design of the week

So, as I mentioned, I wanted to try a sailor-inspired manicure tutorial before Summer was over.  I saw this great manicure at Radi D's blogspot:

Picture from Radi D's blogspot

I wanted to try something similar, but I omitted the anchor and life saver stickers, and made my own version of it:

These are the tools I used:

Unglax nail hardener as base coat

Essie Blanc nail polish
Blue nail art tape
Twizzers
Scissors
Seche Vite top coat

Naio coconut cuticle oil for the cuticles when everything is finished and dry

I do like this design very much, but I had some troubles with the tape.  Although I made sure the tape was well sticked to my nails, I ended up with the ends lifting, even after applying the top coat.  I am guessing part of it is my fault because I touched the stripes too much, but also I noticed that the rubbing/friction of my nails against my fingers may have been contributed to the lifting.

I hope I can do soon another manicure featuring nail art tape.  Maybe a design that does not involve the tape going to the sides, to avoid this problem...

My, my, time flies!

It seems it was yesterday that I was beginning the lessons at high school! Today I have completed the first test, and we will be having finals by December. So much to do still!

But, for some fun stuff, I just wanted to point out this shop: Restyle. The lovely Lady of the Manners from Gothic Charm School draw my attention to them after they put up a give away contest for their line of purses. Oh, one of those purses had to be mine! Since I did not wait to win (or probably lose) the contest, I went ahead and bought one.

Since I did not have yet any stripy anything, I matched it up with a shirt - it is indeed a shirt, not a jacket.

I paid by PayPal, so no troubles there; except that the charge that PayPal charges sellers for their service they pass on to the customer (me, in this case) but since I had not bought from them before, I deemed it worth it just so there would be no hassles with credit cards and such. And it was just $2 anyway.

So, I chose the 4-day shipping option, and the purchase arrived today (in the time frame promised, but I am in Europe just like them). The order came in an envelope, both items inside plastic bags; there was nothing to be protected, so no issues with that. I am very happy with the purse. I just wanted a big purse to go to school so I did not have to use a backpack, which I don't like one bit. I love it! It's exactly as shown, and for my purposes big enough - I am used to small purses.

The shirt is of synthetic material, and does not have a tag with instructions for cleaning. I am guessing it would need cold wash and very soft ironing. It is not good by itself for winter, though - too thin. But I am sure it will be awesome with a black velvet jacket.

For the little money everything costs, I am happy with the articles. If you are on a budget there are lots of things you can buy without breaking the bank. Just do not expect an exceptional quality.