Throwback Thursday - Ootini part 2 of (now 3) - the mask

Constructing the eyes of a Jawa costume really deserves its own post so I've decided to split the mask post in two.

Sadly I did not have time to take pictures during the construction process, but I've reconstructed what I could using pictures of the completed items.

photo credit: Bill Nolan

The mask base: 
Starting with a plain plastic craft mask I cut the nostrils into one hole and cut the mouth out of the mask entirely. Structurally this is pretty much how I wore it the first day.

I had a lot of issues with my breath and sweat condensing on the inside of the mask and the pull of the entire mask was pretty much suspended on the bridge of my nose giving me a wicked sinus headache and raw bruised feeling across my nose by the end of the first night.

This was compounded by the fact that the mask fit the length of my face fine... as long as my mouth was closed. Any time I opened my mouth my chin hit the inner chin of the mask pulling it down tighter on my nose and I had to push it back up into place regularly.

For the second day I cut the upper lip out entirely and removed as much of the chin of the mask as I could. To add some padding for my nose and keep the mask off my face I sliced up several disposable squishy foam earplugs into approx. 1/4 inch thick pieces and glued them in a pattern I hoped would comfortably distribute the weight.
This worked really well, and in fact every single time I wear a mask for something I kick myself at some point in the evening for not doing this.
The staining on the forehead pads is blue hairdye.

What would I do different?
I think I cut a little more of the plastic out of this mask every single time I wear it.

Given my druthers I would completely rework the base structure of the mask leaving as little material touching my face as possible. Ideally I would have something suspended well off of my face like glasses with enough structure to attach the eye lights at the cheekbone level, the drape to cover the lower face, and some sort of superlight framework for the forehead area to attach the covering cloth.

Airspace and cheek area stability are the key elements. My current pie in the sky design would be an open-worked metal eye mask frame with a simple forehead cage.

The covering and attachments:

The black covering for the mask is a stretchy black velvet material which I attached with a hot glue gun. The upper part of the face down to the underside of the cheekbones was glued down to conform to the shape of the face. There are two draped pieces covering the mask, one from the cheekbones and one from the chin, which helped conceal the shape of my face and any part of my neck that might have been exposed by the hood. I think doing it draped from the bridge of the nose as I did probably made it a lot easier to breathe and meant that I could cut away a lot of the mask when I realized the problems of the first day.

Closeup of the eye covering and light and elastic attachment points

The mask eye holes were backed with a rubbery shelf liner material and glued on with white PVA glue. I was worried the glue would melt from my sweat but it has held up for several years now. In all but the most direct and brightly lit shots the eye camouflage worked shockingly well and often people looking directly into my face had to ask where I was looking out of. I learned to ignore the mesh pattern very quickly and had fantastic field of vision, probably the best I've ever had in a costume with a full face mask (the hood does disrupt that somewhat).

Holes for the eye lights and elastic strap to hold the mask on were drilled using a pin vice and drill (which went through everything extremely easily) and the attachments were wired down with anodized craft wire. Any small patches of white around any fabric edges were touched up using black acrylic paint, which I also used to cut some of the shine of the hot glue wherever it was visible.

What would I do different?
In a re-do I would probably switch to a glue with less shine and more working time, and would definitely use a more breathable material. I am not prone to overheating but this costume is VERY warm.
If using a mask I think I would attach the eye camouflage last instead of first to make it easier to cut the eye holes out of the fabric face covering. A better mask material would probably be silk noil as it has the right matte finish to absorb the light, it is light, airy, and drapes well, and it is shockingly cheap.

Monday Monday regerts

Live! Coming at you from my new computer desk! 

It may be cheap S-Mart pressboard trash but still worth it to have the hutch and a keyboard tray. It's actually an L desk as well but I have to cut down the L piece to fit the space so that's going to have to wait a bit. The cats are all quite fond of this new and exciting way to be between me and whatever I'm trying to read,

Heaven and Earth Designs - Mini Shades of Red

I'm seriously considering scrapping this project to start again with different fabric. This is navy 22 count hardanger cloth and it is just NOT working out for me.

I find the holes hard to see both due to the color and weave (which is not tight exactly but it is dense), and my stitching feels unbearably sloppy. I've been fighting myself to pick this piece back up every time I want to stitch for weeks and I just don't find the stitching pleasant enough to keep going for another who knows how many months. I thought stitching on 22 count with two strands would be nicer than 28 count with one strand but I no longer think so. I was passing a lot of my reluctance off on the stand I've been using but I no longer think that's the main problem, though it is a continuing annoyance.

Ahhhhhh well, lessons learned: I will likely avoid dark fabrics on large works, and no more two strand stitching on full coverage pieces.

I finally got around to cleaning up my mani on Sunday. One of the pitfalls of a nude mani is its easy to ignore chipping so it outstays its welcome. I wanted something green (because it's been a while) and fairly simple that could stand up to potential staining from my haircolor. I've worn Alien Queen from IncidentalTwin as an accent before but somehow never as the star and as with every single time I've worn one of her polishes I was super dubious on first coat and totally psyched by the third. They are sheer but they build beautifully.
Accent nail is Ulta Popping Bottle. 

Since the move in July my nailpolish has been sprawled across more than three cardboard boxes. My swatch sticks were woefully out of date and I had several new bottles that had not been cataloged in Nail Polish Book - a phone app I use to organize my stash (there are only so many bottles of relatively spendy dark teal polish one person needs to buy in one month). I finally took the time this weekend to catalog everything and get my swatches up to date and now I'm looking for a better storage solution than sorting into overly small dollar store bins by used (red) vs untried (blue).

I realized as I was pitting this together that I never posted my #yearofstitch piece last week so I will do so on my Instagram @the_itsybitsy in a few. Its been done for weeks, just not posted.

Just because it was funny, and a good reminder to avoid unitaskers!

Monday Monday - those May Flowers better be spectacular edition

It's been a freezing rainy mess of a week. 

Forsythia flowers I expected, frost flowers not so much.

The trees are still budding and the grass is starting to perk up so I'm staying hopeful for Spring. My unsprouted basil planter however... that I've written off as a late frost loss.

I no longer accept the concept of a basil free life so I started fresh seeds in a trash-hacked plastic bottle seed nursery this weekend and I'm taking advantage of the spare light from my wee Aerogarden. I did about 1/3 classic sweet Genovese and 2/3 a deep purple colored Genovese style basil variety called Amethyst Improved. I'm hoping to see those sprout in the next week or so.

I got my hairs did this week and I've finally gone back dark, though since I'm growing my cut out I still have enough lightened hair that I was able to go this amazing nearly indigo pen-ink blue.

As far as stitching goes I did a few #yearofstitch pieces, this week's post is up on my main Instagram @the_itsybitsy

Oh! Speaking of Instagram, if you like Instagram and you like cats I now have a feed specifically for mine! I always wanted to post more of them but felt like I didn't want to take over my feed. Now that you can do multiple feeds with one log-in I took the plunge.

Follow Renfield the Black cat, Quincey the ginger fluff and Mina the cow cat at @Catfaxabbey

I will only be following pet feeds from there but if you have a more general feed drop me a line on The_ItsyBitsy

I had a new computer desk debacle this week so instead of a working desk I have a pile of (mostly intact) pieces in the corner of the office waiting on replacement parts.

Sorry about the weird formatting on this post - the components for my desktop are scattered across the office floor at the moment and apparently blogging on an iPhone really just doesn't cut it.

To distract myself from all that annoyance I wanted a fussy embroidery piece, but I'm still fighting with the new stand a bit too much to comfortable stitch on my big HAED piece. I picked up my Blackwork Journey piece instead and finished the first block. The stitching is so fine it's hard to get a pic of the whole thing that also shows the designs well, I think I may do a slideshow of the individual blocks at the end.

After that I picked up a gift piece I've been working on for a few months now but I'm not showing that off yet so progress pics may be scarce for a bit.

Monday Monday - almost missed posting on time due to DST!

I generally deal with DST by trashing my sleep schedule so hard that weekend that I barely tell anything is different on Monday. Works like a charm.

I got most of this written out earlier, got distracted by things, and suddenly realized it was almost midnight, oopsie!

Not much motion on the big stitching projects but I did finally start the Badass Crosstitch #yearofstitch and post the first week on Wednesday.

I have the second done as well but am not sure when I want to start posting them. I'm thinking maybe I'll post them Friday to split up the week a little bit.

The biggest thing that I did this week was finally rearrange my apartment. We moved in early July but the space never settled into a good functional flow and so many things never really seemed to find a proper place. We switched two of the rooms so that we now have the worlds tiniest great room and a separated office/craft/workout space.

Operation "be able to take a single picture in my home and not see a random cardboard storage box" is moving along nicely, but there's a lot left to do.

One of the projects I really want to tackle is a makeup and beauty product re-org. I literally have a box full of subscription boxes full of stuff that hasn't been sorted.

So of course I bought more beauty stuff on Thursday.

I stopped in at Ulta after my hair appointment to pick up the Tarte facial oil on the far right and see if I could get my brows done at the Benefit Brow bar (could and did!). I'd been stalking that particular NYX liquid Suede lip colour for a while so I grabbed that and another red. The third red was entirely accidental as I was comparing them to a color I knew I liked and simply forgot to put it down. Still haven't decided whether to keep or swap it. 

I really like a long sweeping liner brush so I'm enjoying going back to a true liquid liner but I would prefer it to be even more matte. I'm also looking forward to trying that silicone brush with a gel liner as I'm not a big fan of the usual suggested firm angle brush and I feel like I've lost the ability to do things I used to do daily on a moving train with liquid (I commuted to college and grad school).

I've gone back to dark blue hair as I grow out the white and it's like hanging out with an old friend. Note also my freshly waxed brow line! Even without filling them in (I always break out less if they don't fill them after) I haven't had brows that crisp since Halloween!

My nails were pretty trashed so I repainted them on a shade I hope will stand up to the blue hair dye. 

The more I use that gold flake polish the more I want to. Not to mention that I saw both a macro gold flake indie polish and a gold foil enhanced mani tutorial vid on instagram within the last day that I'm trying not to think too hard about. Following Sveta_Sanders is kind of a problem as it's Russian language so I can't even read her posts much less buy those polishes, and she post some AMAZING polishes.

My other main beauty related move this week is to drink lots and lots and lots of water. It's so trite but it really works and I hate that I forget that. 

I haven't used lip balm in days and I could probably apply a lip stain right now with no prep whatsoever. I was noticing my skin looking pretty grumpy lately (for example that pic collage above, eek) and this has immediately perked it right up.

A month of Monday Monday

Happy monthaversary!

Technically the first one was on the 8th so you could argue that next week would be the anniversary of the posts but as it's a retrospective wrap up sort of thing I'm going to call it good.

It would probably be a good idea to do my weekly blogging on a weekend day when I've gotten more sleep but then the series would be named Sabado Sabado Sabado! and that would be really misleading as this is not a Spanish language blog.

Wow, yeah, I really *did* sleep like crap last night.

I digress.

First things first:

Someone in a cross stitch group tipped me off that Jo-Ann Fabrics is having a MASSIVE online sale on cones of DMC floss and has a cheap shipping coupon, so you better believe I snatched up a cone of 310. The entire background of my current project is columns of unrelenting 310 (black) so I've been considering this for weeks. Not sure how long that's on so jump on it while you can.

I got a message last week from my stylist Fran Nordstrom at Waves Salon (here, have a Groupon deal!) that she had a color refresher thing for me so I picked it up and tried it this weekend. It came out of the tube a bit more purple than it shows on my hair but the end result was spot on for the powdery, denimy blue I really wanted this time around.

I don't think the first pic shows the yellowing I was starting to get as well as it could, but the refresher definitely made a difference in the overall tone without changing the color or staining anything (on my bathroom or my anatomy). It was easy, fast, and pleasant as hair dye experiences go. My only complaint about it is that it has a fairly heavy lily sort of scent which I find a bit much even after a day, but I'm specifically sensitive to that sort of thing so I suspect most wouldn't have a problem.

I have no idea of the general availability of this product but I would definitely give it another go.

This was my main project start this week and so far I am enjoying the HECK out of it. My mom had some medical stuff going on this past week so I stayed overnight last Monday at my parent's house and brought this project with to keep me busy while we waited for updates (long story short: my Mom is all good so far). I had a bit of a false start (that entire top row of stars had to be redone) but once I worked out a counting snafu and got used to working over two again I was golden. Per my post from mid last week I learned a new (to me) stitch and as a result will be starting that #yearofstitch project hopefully this week.

I've stopped on that piece for the time being to focus on getting a page finish in on Shades of Red, but will be setting up to start #yearofstitch and possibly prepping fabric for the upcoming Bowie project this week as I think I've decided on my fabric. Now that I've gotten away from the relentless black stitching of the background of Shades of Red it is of course confetti city and is sloooooooow going ,no middle ground there. 

OH!!! I FINALLY GOT MY FABRIC FOR THE MOST RIDICULOUS EPIC SEVERAL YEARS LONG PROJECT I COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE!! Look at that thing! I think I have sheet sets that take up less real estate. That is a 55x55 inch square piece of 25 count Lugana from Heaven and Earth Designs and for size reference I am myself all of 62 high x *mumble* wide inches.

The end result will be the design above - Four Seasons by Jacek Yerka as charted by Heaven and Earth Designs. The design is considered a supersize piece in max colors which will be about 40 inches square and contain 234 colors. The pattern is OVER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY PAGES and at current speed a single page takes me about a month.

I don't know, I might be crazy but I just sort of fell in love with it, lifelong commitment to a single cross stitch project be damned.

Monday Monday 2 Electric Boogaloo

Ch ch ch ch changes

Easily the most obvious change this week - the end of a nearly year long run of variations on silvery white undercuts. Blue is my go-to grow out colour but I've never done this silvery denim blue.

I started the silver process in April '15 (it took a few months to get to white - finally NAILED it in June) and this is easily the longest I've ever kept it up. The silver has been a lot of fun and I know I'm going to miss it, but it's expensive and hard to keep up. It may be time to change things up when you've started using Manic Panic as a Leave-In.

The undercuts, mohawks and between I've been wearing since the wedding have been a LOAD of fun but it's been a while since I did something softer and more feminine (that wasn't growing out length for my wedding hairdo) so once the lightened portions are cut out I think I'm going to go a bit longer, in front at least. I have a pretty tenacious crown swirl so I prefer to keep the back short.

Cut and color by Fran Nordstrom of Waves Salon in Sayville
(scroll down a bit and you might see a familiar face!)

I have a pretty big change in my current embroidery project as well.
I finished page two of Heaven and Earth Designs Portrait with a Spiderling and decided to change up projects so I started Mini Shades of Red in 2/1 on 22ct Navy blue fabric.

I'm about 600 stitches in as of bedtime last night and pricing out cones of DMC 310 as the ENTIRE background is solid black. The 22 count goes a lot faster so far than the 28 I'm working on Portrait but stitching 2/1 eats up thread and I find laying the stitches makes a big difference in stitch uniformity so I'm trying to consistently use a laying tool (some people like railroading but it doesnt seem to do much good on 22ct), which leads me to...

I really wish I was comfortable enough with this page to just order one The thing itself costs all of seven dollars but I cant even imagine how annoying the shipment would be.

I might actually make one of these when I get home today. There is a type of fingertip laying tool I never see on English language embroidery pages - only pages written in Cyrillic script (presumably Russian?) and I WANT ONE - that page has pics of a bunch of different home versions (and in many cases step by step pics). Here is another link of same.
I have a mass market one called a Trolley Needle but its WAY too clunky for my use.

Chopped my nails off (by necessity) and took of my nailpolish without refreshing it, so it's been interesting running around with bare nails for the first time in a few years.
My cuticles are A MESS so I may do some much needed hand care before my next polishing.

And if you go chasing rabbits...

Sorry I've been MIA lately, it's busy season at my job and I'm moving to a new apartment at the end of this month so I'm a TETCH overwhelmed lately. I have a BUNCH of backlogged pictures and posts I have about two thirds written out, but no time to get it all organized and pretty enough to post.

On the plus side in less than a month's time I'll be in a place with lots of natural light for pictures and the perfect opportunity to re-organize my stuff so that I can hopefully get more use out of all the neat things I've picked up (and subsequently lost in the various corners of my bathroom).

The big beauty news for me at the moment is that I finally went white!

I absolutely adore it and I'm planning to keep it up for as long as I possibly can.

clicky this picture for detail

It took about four lightenings (well, three and a half technically) a lot of toning experiments (which is where that half comes in), a cast iron scalp, and an exceedingly committed stylist to get here; but it's PERFECT.

I'm currently looking for a discussion board of some sort for people with dyed white hair because I want to make sure I can keep this in tip-top shape. If you have a link please drop it here.

Review: L'Oréal Mousse Absolue permanent haircolor in 300 - Pure Darkest Brown

About a year ago I decided I wanted dark hair for my wedding and started growing my hair out a bit to open up my style options. I'm used to my hair being extremely dark espresso brown with almost purpley undertones. Not the sexiest colour, but it set of my skin tone fairly well.

I've noticed my hair colour getting lighter and more mousy over the last several years, but now that I'm not growing it long I rarely keep my natural hair colour for more than a few months so I was never terribly fussed. Now that I'm keeping it dark the amount of change in my hair colour has become REALLY OBVIOUS. Suddenly it's kind of... blah with blah undertones?

May 20 2014 - my hair completely virgin with fairly minimal product
This is the day that convinced me it was well past time to tweak the colour

I thought most people get darker hair as they get older (aside from the grey thing) but perhaps I'm just weird like that? Oddly my Fiancee's hair has also gotten lighter as he ages. Though I am sure part of it is due to the hair on the crown of my head being darker than the hair on the edges (the different cuts show off different hair), part of it is very likely due to heat damage, and I even wonder if a bit of it is due to using a tea tree shampoo (lately I go back and forth between Giovanni and a Trader Joe's clone of the same).

I had a really hard time finding a non-permanent hair dye in a colour I liked so I finally bit the bullet and picked up a permanent colour in early July... at which point I promptly banged my head on a shelf hard enough to split my scalp (no stitches or anything, but still no fun), delaying the hair dying for a good week and a half while that healed.

While I do look great in all shades of black hair - from cherry, to soft neutral, to blue black - these shades can look a bit stark on me. They really amp the olive in my skin tone and make me look extra exotic and I always feel sort of "Gypsy-ish" with black hair. I wanted to keep things a bit softer so I opted for a neutral-to-cool toned dark brown - L'Oréal Mousse Absolue permanent haircolor in 300 - Pure Darkest Brown.

Colour aside I chose this brand primarily because it is reusable! With the (notable lack of) length and thickness of my hair, mixing a huge bottle of dye at once is a massive waste. I was really excited to find something I could literally rinse off and put back on the shelf until I was ready to use it again. The reviews weren't particularly awesome, but I'm not worried about covering grey and a bit of damage actually makes my hair more manageable.

There are A LOT of detailed descriptions of the packaging out there so I'll leave that bit to everyone else, except to say that I think it worked out really well for me and look to see more products like this in the future. It comes out in a mousse texture which was very easy to work with and didn't drip in the slightest. It was also a comfortable size for my hands and the dispensing button was easy to use through gloves and with long nails. The packaging was easy both to setup and to breakdown for cleaning and storage.

I've used it twice now and probably have enough left in the bottle for a third application, so I definitely got my money's worth. The colour is EXACTLY the "just this side of burned" roasted coffee bean colour I had wanted and my hair feels noticeably thicker. It seemed to fade a bit fast but I wasn't doing anything in particular to preserve the colour and also spent a lot of time in the sun this last month. I'd rather have something that faded fast then something that left a fakey regrowth line.

Day after dying - blow dried with only a Carol's Daughter heat protecting leave-in applied

Caveat: this is the weirdest smelling hair dye I've ever used.

I always wonder why hair dyes are so perfumey and now I know. This literally smelled like something that liquified in the bottom of a vegetable crisper. While I personally can tolerate that better than the massive perfume aisle stink bomb I'm used to with hair dye your mileage may vary. No one else has mentioned this in reviews so maybe I got a weird bottle?

The provided conditioner did a good job of neutralizing this dye smell without (again) the usual massive perfume aisle stink bomb effect. I think I would call the scent fairly similar to lilac but not at all overpowering.

Pros: 
cheap - about $11.00 at Target
multiple applications in one bottle with shorter hair or root touch-ups
multiple sets of (nicer than usual black nitrile) gloves provided
no annoying mad science mixing and shaking with your finger over that hole in the end of the bottle
no wasted mixing bottle packaging
I liked the resultant colour
easy to use mousse texture
faded naturally (no fakey line of regrowth)
no horrible flower smell (however: see cons)
thickened my hair up a bit
nice shine
plenty of provided conditioner
did not piss off my sensitive scalp

Cons:
Smells like hot garbage: literally
seemed to fade fast (with the caveat that I did NOTHING to prevent this)
slightly long developing time
I imagine the mousse texture would make it harder to pinpoint greys for root touch ups if you were doing it without assistance

Disclosure: I purchased this product and all other mentioned products with my own money and this review was not sought or compensated for by L'Oréal Paris or any other entity.