A crafty intermission cont...

So I have come to a decision about what to do with my metres of French Knitting! I realised, recently, that what I really wanted was some type of jewellery hand to put all my bangles and rings on. I have somehow amassed quite a few of both, but because of my total disorganisation, I can never get to them and don't wear anything as often as I should.

Originally, I was going to crochet a glove, stuff it with...stuffing...and tada, a hand. But I realised, that instead of that, I could wind the French Knitting around a cylinder and make a wrist-like thing from that. So I got a cardboard tube (from the middle of the paper towels) and I cut slits in both ends, and then proceeded to expand the ends, to make them more wrist-like. The original plan was to have the wrist and into the bottom of a hand.

However, this was a lot more difficult than I first anticipated and it took me ages to get the cardboard to stick out in the way it was meant to. I then realised that I had nothing to put on top of the wrist, so how could I stuff it? What would I cover it with?

As for sewing the french knitting together - so annoying and time consuming. Unless you're incredibly lazy like me. I just sewed thread straight up and down through all the rings of the knitting, about an inch apart. Of course, it doesn't hold well together, but I'll figure that out later.

But back to covering it - I went back to my 'crochet a glove' plan. So I found some cotton to match the top of the wrist, and then I started crocheting a glove pattern I had, from just below the thumb. I'm not sure yet how it's going to look, but I am quite hopeful that it will work. And if not, I'll pull it out and start again.

A Crafty Intermission

Originally, this was meant to be a craft/ice cream/nail polish blog, and recently I have been very slack on both the craft and the ice cream. The ice cream is forgiveable as, until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't actually got out my ice cream maker, but ignoring my craft is not on.

I have been very crafty since I got back - I finished a pile of embroidery panels that my mum needed for a quilt she's working on. It's only taken me about 8 years to do it. Mainly, however, I have been French Knitting.

I bought a French Knitting Spool when I was in Edinburgh - it was shaped like a bug or something - but I never found out how to use it. When I got home, I was suffering pretty badly from the jetlag. I didn't have a computer I could use, so I would spend a lot of time sitting in front of the TV, and every afternoon, around 3, I would fall asleep. I would then continue to doze off all evening. The first week was especially bad, but it took a while to wear off. So to help me out, I decided I needed a craft. I had no crochet I was desperate to do, and I don't really need another knitted scarf, so I started French Knitting.

And after a couple of days - I finally figured out how to do it.

The problem with French Knitting, however, is that...well...it's a long, thin tube. A bit like...this...

This is actually so long that if I stand on my back veranda (which is reasonably high) and hold this over the edge, it drags on the ground. Unfortunately, in French Knitting terms, it's not really long enough to do anything with. I did discover, however, that it would make a great arm warmer/fingerless glove.

Unfortunately, I've run out of spare thread, so I can only have one. Have to think of something else to do with it really...

The Challenge (Wk 4)

It occurs to me that I will have to start varying the titles again, because I am going to lose track of how many weeks I am into this, and "The Challenge" could just get a bit boring, title-wise, before you know it. Though, honestly, I don't know of any greater challenge you could put me through than to give me immense variety of nail polish (especially after a year of 6 bottles) and only allow me to paint my nails a couple of colours at a time...

Though, like I said, I love the surprise and the fact I don't have to make a choice. I am a bit worried though, that I will just miss some nail polish as I have various hiding places.

This week was the first where I have really pulled out colours that don't really work together. It also seems to be the first week without any white, which is a minor miracle in itself. This week I got brown and orange...

 Honestly, I'm not sure if brown is quite the right word to describe this. It's brown with a tinge of pink when it hits the light. But I stand by the fact that that is orange.

 Just because I know this is blurry - the 'brown' is called Niagara Falls for OPI and the orange is Bet It All on OPI, rather appropriate for the week of the Melbourne Cup. Though, obviously, completely accidental.

 I put these on separate hands because the orange is bright and vibrant and something I would wear when I want to feel vibrant.

But the 'brown' on the other hand, is kinda classy. So something I would wear if I was going out, and wanted my nails to look nicer than usual. Or something I would wear in the colder months - autumn especially. Honestly, right now I feel like my hands are suffering from some type of split personality...

The Challenge Wks 2 & 3

So I didn't get a chance last week to update this blog - I don't necessarily think that posting pictures of plain colours on nails is the most exciting thing possible. But I wanted to keep a record of the colours that I've used and this is easily the best way to do it.

I'm enjoying this challenge - or at least, I am right now, I may get bored of painting my nails is one colour. The current alternating colour, or one hand per colour was something I remember from high school. Back when I only had a handful of nail polish (shock horror) and painting different colours on different nails was as interesting as I got.

But anyway, I am enjoying it because there's an element of surprise. Sometimes I start the week with a definite plan, but often I have no idea what colour I should paint them. I'm facing a similar problem with my toenails at the moment. But this current 'just putting my hand into the lot and picking some up' is great! Most of my nail polish (say...60%) is on a bookshelf. And I started at the back of the shelf, so I don't know what's back there. I just stick my hand in, pull out two bottles and go from there. The element of surprise is great.

 Last week, I stuck my hand in and brought out another bottle of white and a bottle of orange.

 Neither colour is ground breaking, and the white is a bit translucent which I don't really like.

 The orange could be brighter, or bolder, or something.

  I tried to break it up with some daisies on my ring finger, but I don't know what it did.











 This week - I pulled out yet another white! Or, to be more accurate, cream. I'm not even sure why I own so many bottles of white/cream. One I understand, and I do love the black/white look. But 3...so far? Overkill.

 The pink/red I pulled out though - one of my favourite colours, and one I had practically forgotten about. It's still nice and thin and spreadable with great coverage. And it's a wonderfully vibrant colour.

T

The Challenge (Wk 1)

So the challenge for the foreseeable future is to use ALL my nail polish. The best way, I think, to rediscover all the colours that I have at my disposal. Being away from them for a year has made me forget some of the colours that I have.

 The real challenge has been how to use all the colours - I could easily do 10 a week, but that doesn't feel like really getting to know them again. I considered doing one colour a week, but I suspect that will take me over a year, and I will get bored if I don't get to mix it up at all. I still haven't really decided yet, but I have decided I'm going to do them row by row. I might change my mind depending on how things are placed in relation to each other, but for now I decided to go with two colours.

There really wasn't much decision involved - I have a bookshelf of nail polish, so I put my hand in and pulled out these two colours. I used them together because I love using black and white together. But this isn't how I will always choose, as I am not sure that, for instance, orange and blue will really work together...

Mimicry...

So I've been a bit slack this week - I meant to post this last Tuesday, as I had a nail design that I LOVED! Honestly, words can not describe how much I loved my nails last week. They were bright, they were funky and they were really easy to do! I bought some nail apps a few months ago, when I was living in Edinburgh. My favourite design of the lot consisted of leopard print down one half of the nail, and a bright metallic pink down the other.

But when I attempted to apply it, it immediately fell off. I was very sad, and attempted to reconstruct the design - an easy feat here, where I lost count of my nail polish years ago, but basically impossible in Edinburgh where I only had 10 bottles of nail polish.

So last week, I decided to finally reconstruct it; in Brisbane I have all the necessary colours - a bright pink, a deep gold and a black OPI shatter.

For the occasion I used La-Paz-itively Hot, Bling Dynasty and Black Shatter. And this is what I got...

It was fairly easy to do - just paint pink down one side of the nail, and gold down the other. I always make sure I do the darker shade second, in order to cover up any mistakes by the lighter. Of course, this means you have to be really careful with the darker colour.  After two layers of each, I painted black shatter down the gold side, and let it dry. And you end up with this effect - unfortunately, it does not do it justice. As getting the lighting right was impossible.

 

Just so you can get a better idea of the colour...

This design, however, has led me to my next challenge - to use all my nail polish again. I was going through looking for a bright pink (and having a surprising amount of trouble finding one) and I kept finding colours I had forgotten about. So I decided to go through and use every colour - and not just on one nail either...but that will wait until the next instalment...

Home!

So after living in Scotland for a year, I am finally home and surrounded by my nail polish collection again! Not only that, I now have all my nail art stuff - the brushes, the stars, the diamantes, it's fantastic. Plus, I am back with my ice cream maker, so hopefully there will be some ice cream posts again at some point.

But this week's nail design...

I based this on something one of my friend's posted on my facebook wall - I have a few people now who find nail polish designs and then tell me about them, generally via facebook. This particular one was instant love on my part - all you do is paint a couple of bright colours on your nail, then put some nail art tape in an interesting design over the top, making sure it goes over all the colours, then you paint it with a black nail polish, and peel off the tape, to reveal the bright pattern underneath.

This appealed to me simply because when I was a young child (a very long time ago now), my favourite thing to do was to get some bright colours, colour a piece of paper, completely cover it with black crayon and then get a coin and draw patterns in it to reveal the bright colours. Loving the idea so much, I decided it was the perfect thing to do to celebrate my coming home.

I made a few minor changes - as I had never tried this before, I decided to use only one colour on each nail, instead of several. This also solved the problem of exactly what type of underlying pattern I should have - stripes? blotches? - it was too difficult. I also knew I would want to let my nails dry as much as possible before applying the tape, to avoid the tape removing the base colours of nail polish. In the end, I left it over night as it just didn't feel dry enough - and I knew that once I had all the coats of nail polish on, there was no way my nails would dry by the time I went to bed. I think, in the end, I had a good 6 layers of polish on my nails.

I wanted something bright, so I went with two of my favourite colours - a blue (Teal the Cows Come Home) and a red (You Rock-Apulco Red)

 I decided to go with a very simple design on this hand - something I do paint a lot on my nails, just a few stripes starting from a single point.

 Then I painted it with Baby it's Coal Outside (it's a sparkly black). Had to do 2 layers, as the blue was originally showing through.
Just peel off the tape and reveal - something kinda awesome.

 My main problem with this design was that it was fiddly. I had tape all over my hand and it was getting in the way of things. It also doesn't stick very well, which is why I don't use it for decoration. Generally, it got very messy.

 It was definitely worth it in the end. I probably would have (or should have) left the tape on longer, but I needed this hand to apply tape to my right, and the nail polish covered tape was leaving black all over my fingers.

 I couldn't do anything near as fiddly with this hand, so I just went for some very simple stuff.

In the end, I actually preferred this hand
 - the simplicity appealed to me.

 

 And this is the final product - when I had removed all the mess from around the edge, and painted them both with top coat. You are currently looking at 6 layers of nail polish. 

 Totally worth it though - and hopefully next week I can try one of the other awesome things my friends found for me.