Monday Monday - the stuck in because it's apparently winter again edition

The new embroidery frame is a bit fighty, it likes to explode without much warning* so I didn't do work on it much. I have to work out some sort of stabilization beyond occasionally going over the whole thing with a rubber mallet. 

Most of my stitching this week was on #yearofstitch pieces which I generally do without a stand. I'm actually up to week ten though I've only posted through week four.

I didn't hate stitching this like I thought I would! Sadly I started it in two strand and found it a bit weedy, but I was kind of stuck with it by then so I soldiered on with the sides and switched to three strand for the middle section. 

Hooray for laying tools! You can do satin stitch without one, but I certainly wouldn't want to. Finishing off on the back was really annoying though.

I've done some on my HAED Shades of Red piece and it's starting to pick up speed but it still doesn't look like much yet. So much confetti stitching. I had been using a magnifier and light but I think I'm going to ditch the magnifier. It's a lot of hassle and my stitching just seems wonky in the parts where I used it.

There is a cross country stitching challenge at the HAED forum I follow I'm considering but I don't think I have any projects lined up which suit it very well and the prize images they offer aren't typically my thing. I feel like I should join for the sake of challenging myself but it really will cramp my style. There are a couple of months left to join (this is no small challenge) but I suspect I'll leave this one to others.

I did finally try my new Limited edition  Limecrime lip colour Beet It and though sadly I did not get a pic with it on my face I'm REALLY happy with the shade. It looks a bit mauve in the tube (see the small dot to the left) and I was almost pissed at having snagged yet another blah tone but it dries to a really nice intense shade right on that cranberry border between berry and red. I feel like it looked a touch more pink on my face but I also had a much more even application. Putting lipstick on your wrist is surprisingly awkward feeling.

I include the other Limecrime shades I own and a fairly true red from NYX in a similar formula (longwearing matte cream with a doefoot applicator) for comparison. So far all of these have proven to be pretty much bulletproof. Any lippy that will hold up to a dinner party and a mildly absurd amount of wine gets my thumbs up.

Utopia is the color I wore for my wedding!

*The embroidery stand actually exploded again as I got off the couch to set up the lip color pic.

What was supposed to be a simple clean up of my fatally chipped grey and gold polish turned into a subtle but (I think) cool French manicure. The base is Twinkle Twinkle by NailNation3000 and the tips are Love Me Fear Me by IncidentalTwin.

Sadly it doesn't photograph very well AT ALL as the camera really wants to pick up the yellow tone of the flakies instead of the opalescent goodness and I feel like this pic makes my nails look stained even though FOR ONCE they actually aren't.

I may use a pink tinted topcoat next time as these translucent manis seem to yellow out and get dingy really fast.

It's alive, it's alive!

I'm sorry, it's been pretty quiet around here as I continue to recover from the whirlwind of my wedding. 

I've been at an interesting point beauty-wise for the intervening couple of months which definitely deserves its own post, but for now I'll say I'm starting to feel like doing the pretty thing again.

It also occurred to me today that I really like talking about cheese, and I have this handy blog thing here that I neglect, so I should totally like... do something with that. I'm not an expert by any means but I am QUITE a fan and I have been trying some pretty fun stuff lately.

My actual fridge the day after Christmas.

TL:DR - You may occasionally see posts about cheese. 

Hopefully my random-person opinions on cheese (rather than the words of some fancy frommagier*) will pique your interest.  

(*I made that up).

So, on to the usual "the Itsy Bitsy" thing...

I actually did a BUNCH of beauty related retail therapy yesterday.

I've mentioned Fashion Project here before, they re-sell higher end donated clothing at problematically good prices with a significant (listed) portion of each sale benefiting the charity of the donator's choice. It's catch as catch can of course, but they have a fair amount of product on a BEAUTIFULLY navigable site so finding something good tends to be a bit TOO easy.

They have "Personal Invite Links" which give the original linker a $20 credit if a person ends up buying through that link.
I'm not saying you should definitely use my link, but it would be pretty cool if you did!

I ended up picking up a very frivolous pair of Brian Atwood "Consort" heels in pink yesterday which benefited Breast Intentions and a very functional Dooney and Bourke black pleated leather clutch which benefited Canine Assistants Inc. They pull the listing once the sale is made so I can't get to the pics to link them here, but I'll post pics once they arrive. I spent less than 30% of the list prices on the two items so I consider it good hunting rather than poor decision making.

I had a haircut after work (as always props to Fran at Cactus Salon in Holbrook) and I finally went for it and cut off the last of the hair I grew out for the wedding. I'm now back in my super short pixie happy place, though the sides are buzzed, as is the style of the time (if Instagram is to be believed anyway). I shied away from short sides for a while because it can be harsh, but I love what it does for my cheekbones so I'm playing with it.

From there I went to Ulta and got my eyebrows done at the Benefit Brow Bar at the Patchogue store. This is the fourth time I've gotten my brows done there and I've been quite happy every time.

My brows are pretty sparse so I usually have a terrible time getting someone to do them so that it comes out evenly. Sadly I'm terrible with names and I can't find the card I got, but I'm pretty sure the woman I've seen every time is named Tanya, and I like how decisive she is. I went for a higher arch than usual this time and I'm not sure if I want to stick with that, but it does look quite nice.

While I was there I also picked up some Freeman face masques as I have become rather enamored of cleansing my face with anything but soap.  I picked up the Charcoal & Black Sugar Facial Polishing Mask and the Pineapple Facial Enzyme Mask because both seemed pretty straightforward in the ingredients and low on the eye stabbing perfume.

On the nail front I got two discounted China Glaze Pop Top sets for $10 each.
Full size China Glaze for $2.50 a bottle? Yeeeeeaaaaaah, couldn't resist that. So I got those in "Glisten Up" (the four colours on the left) and "Feeling Sparkly"(the four right).

I feel a bit indecisive about what to do with my nails next but I've had naked nails for two days now so I'll probably get on that soon. I keep thinking about going for a professional pedicure and then... not. Mostly because I've spent so many afternoons at the vet lately, but that's a whole other story.

I still have approximately 1/4 of the pedicure from my wedding remaining! Sexy!

Holy cow! Talk about fast service!

I put my order through at Fashion Project at 11:44 am yesterday morning and it was in my hands by 10:30am today.

Boston to southern NY in less than 24 hours with no rush or expedited shipping charge.

Wow.

I haven't tried anything on yet but it all looks awesome. My only complaint is that it would have been nice if the 4" stilettos were wrapped separately from the light coloured dress, but in this case it did not seem to cause a problem.

A fantastic budget fashion find

I tripped over a REALLY PROMISING site today and it solved a small dilemma. I really needed to pick up a nice outfit for some pre-wedding functions but it's hard to feel good dropping any kind of real money on YET ANOTHER wedding related thing at this point. 

I noticed a pretty dress while poking around on my Pinterest and followed the link to the original posting page. What I found was Fashion Project.

click on the above image to reach the website via my Invite link

It initially reminded me of Tradesy in the layout and in that both have listings for pre-owned items, but I quickly realized that this site was both considerably better organized and charity oriented.

Fashionproject is basically a charity thrift shop website. They re-sell donated fashion items at fantastic prices and then donate 55% of the net of each sale to charity. The charity differs from item to item and is noted on the search page. The amount of the charity contribution is shown on the listing. There is free shipping on all donations and orders over $100 and there are even coupon codes available if you dig around online!

The pictures of the items are professional and well lit from multiple angles, and the sizes are searchable and listed in the title. There are listings for clothing, bags, shoes and accessories.

I picked up a couple of things I really needed anyway for way less than I expected to pay AND supported a couple of charities in the process. I paid in the early afternoon and had a tracking number by the end of business hours!

They have "Personal Invite Links" which give the original linker a $20 credit if a person ends up buying through that link. *

I'm not saying you should definitely use my link, but it would be pretty cool if you did!

The dress I got is by Pins and Needles for Urban Outfitters (without actually giving any money to Urban Outfitters, which I feel completely sweetens the deal) and the other item was a pair of satin and leather pumps by BCBGMaxazria for a total of $54 with shipping (after a 20% off code which I found via Retailmenot). I've since found an Ebay listing for the same dress new with tags going for as much as I spent for the entire purchase.

The donation from my shoes went to NEADS/Dogs for Deaf and Disabled Americans, and the one from the dress went to Suited for Change. Based on what they listed 33% of the gross went to the charities. The site is run out of Boston so many of the charities are Boston local charities.

After I posted the link in my personal Facebook one of my friends found a *gorgeous* Sue Wong dress for literally 1/5 of what that label tends to go for. I will definitely update with my impression once I receive the items and with pictures once I wear them.



*The owner of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The "Personal Invite Links" for this particular page is standard to all users. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely that of the blog owner.

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.

How to give a girl a heart attack in one very considerate step.

I purchased iteration one of my wedding dress in September, when I got the box I remembered noting how light the box was. Dress two arrived today and I felt like the box was much heavier so I checked the UPS notifications.

Dress version one - 2.8 lbs shipping weight.

Same dress in one size *smaller*, slight fabric change, purchased in February... 6 lbs?

I had the dress shipped to work and was going to wait until after to open the box but as the day went on I was starting to have visions of crossed shipments or the entire dress being in the wrong fabric.

Finally I caved (and by finally I mean it took less than an hour) and when I cracked it open I found... black heavy duty ripstop nylon with a 1 cm wide gold pinstripe???

The wedding is NOT Marching Band themed

Hello coronary!

Once my heart migrated back down into my chest cavity I looked UNDER the nylon and found my dress. *laughs* Apparently they had also sent me a VERY heavy duty garment bag! I hadn't gotten one with the first dress so this was a completely unexpected bonus.

I have since pulled the dress out, though I haven't yet tried it on and it appears to be up to spec, and by that I mean IT'S TOTALLY AMAZING.

Due to various reasons I had not yet started in on the garment bag I was making and I'm pretty glad of that, though I will probably still make something anyway as I would prefer there be a storage appropriate buffer between the nylon and the silk of the dress.

So exciting!!

My weekend wedding project

I got an email today informing me that my wedding dress is en-route and should be arriving Wednesday!

Adventure Time!

I have a tiny apartment with two cats that REALLY seem to like getting into my closet and batting at hangy things; so  the dress will be living at my parent's house.

I am not interested in an unplanned dramatic unveiling potentially involving the "design assistance" of my parent's three dogs; so the dress will ALSO be living in a garment bag.

pic via http://myexwifesweddingdress.com/

Enter: my weekend project.

I have a butt-tonne(1) of unbleached muslin(2), mad sewing skills, and and a nearly embarrassing number of sewing machines. There's no way I'm paying someone for a pre-made garment bag, not when I can almost unquestionably do better.

Unfortunately I can't find DIY directions to precisely what I want to make. It would have a tie or button front rather than a zipper(3) and a pocket for random extras. I'm also interested in instructions for adding side gussets but I'm not 100% on that, I'm still contemplating whether I even need those. Foster-Stephens, Inc seems to be the main online source I've found for nicer muslin garment bags and there are some excellent examples here.

This instruction set by TheDreamstress seems like a pretty good starting point though, and I do appreciate seeing details like French seams. Archival items should have fussy details!

This instruction set from Historical costumer Genoveva has a really nifty fold and carry feature.

For anyone interested in sewing I HIGHLY recommend picking up two specific books on couture sewing. The first, Couture Sewing Techniques by Claire B. Shaeffer, is the more accessible book - I have an earlier version. The second is Couture: The Art of Fine Sewing by Roberta C. Carr, it is denser and the images are EIGHTIES-TASTIC but it does go into more detail.

Don't let the word couture scare you, what it boils down to is by having these books you will have a handy step by step reference for the "best practice" way of doing a number of sewing tasks. Once you know the "right" way of doing something you can then make your own decisions of how fussy and involved you want to get. Its a heck of a lot easier to decide what fussy details to leave out than to discover after the fact and try to make up for the essential step you've already missed.

http://craftfail.com/2011/05/the-vivienne-westwood-miscalculation/

I find it kinda funny (I find it kinda sad) that I have all of these random fussy sewing skills that I never use for anything I actually wear. I have been starting to think of what kinds of alterations my current wardrobe could use, so it'll be good to get back in the sewing... saddle?


Notes:

(1) One of my favorite units of measure. My very favorite is similar but involves a very naughty word

(2) A loosely woven cotton fabric. Hooray for Joann' Fabric and Craft's 50% a single item coupons!

(3) I've caught the placket of my jacket in its own zipper FAR too many times to trust a zipper with a silk wedding dress. Also I really don't feel like paying more for a 72" zipper than I paid for enough fabric to make two of these bags.

The wedding dress I'm NOT wearing

It's getting on crunch time to buy my wedding dress.

Oh yeah, by the way I'm getting married in the fall! I don't think I've mentioned that yet, have I?

I'd say it's the majority of the reason I've even gotten into this whole style thing. I spent months researching the most flattering options for me and looking at thousands of images of pretty clothes and makeup for inspiration. Eventually I remembered that people see me other days too.

Anyway, I'm posting because I have spent the last several days stressing my gown.

I had some very clear ideas about what I was looking for, especially in terms of silhouette. My love of dancing, small frame, and size of the venue all pointed me toward a lighter, more fitted, non "bridal cake meringue" dress with a high drama factor, and I've stuck pretty firmly to that. I have a gown picked out, but there was an aspect of the fabric that didn't quite click so I'm special ordering it in a custom fabric.

I love it, it's gorgeous, because of the fabric changes it will be 100% unique to me, I can't find one picture of someone using it as a wedding dress, and it's designer silk with custom changes at a retail chain polyester price-point. Presumably that is because it's not generally sold in a "wedding dress" colour. No, I'm not telling you what designer or style, not yet anyway (EDIT: I will say however that there were apparently five different people wearing their designs at The Golden Globes and associated galas).

I'm totally buying it, but I think I needed another good day of running around in circles with my hands flailing over my head and an intense internet shopping comparison session before I could commit.

So now that that's out of the way, this post is about The Dress I'm NOT getting.

More after the jump: