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.

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.