Regal Headphones: Gothic Regency

So.  You may remember a post a while ago with a photograph of a box of Skullcandy Hesh headphones as well as a cryptic caption.  Yes?  Well, good.  I've completed the project I hinted at earlier and I'm finally comfortable with showing you guys what I made.

I started off with plain headphones of the Skullcandy Hesh variety.  I chose Skullcandy because they are GREAT brand that I trust and they aren't as expensive as Beats.  So, if I manage to seriously bork up my design, it's not like I'm out of two hundred dollars or anything.  I decided to go with the Hesh headphones because they are supposed to have better sound, a better microphone and they have more features that allow the headphones to sit cozily on your head.

The last pair of headphones I gothed up didn't have the lovely memory foam cushioned headband and the speaker cushions pressed against my head awkwardly sometimes.  The cord also presented a problem because it was permanently anchored into the headphones themselves.  That sort of design lead to the eventual death of that particular pair because the cord shorted out.  The Hesh headphones can have their cords replaced.  I managed to snag a pair on sale and avoid paying over $50 bucks for them.  SCORE!

Ok.  Here are my new lovelies.

I followed pretty much the same method as the other headphones, even included leather scraps and ribbon just like last time.  However, these headphones presented a unique problem when it cam time to clean up the residual glue and fly-aways from my sloppy E-6000 work.  Don't get on my case, my neuropathy makes my hands shake like crazy most times, so it's a miracle that I can type, let alone glue over 500 rhinestones, chain, and cabochons to a pair of headphones.

So, the fly-aways.  Because the Hesh headphones aren't made of slick, slippery plastic, but rather self-healing rubberized plastic, when I went in for clean up, my usual method of simply yanking the stray threads of glue off with tweezers meant that I peeled off a bit MORE than I intended.  I had to find a different kind of epoxy that would bond to silicone to help seal the bonds between my headphones and the rhinestones... and I'm still scared that I'll hit them against something at the wrong angle and all my hard work will go peeling off.  So far, that hasn't happened, but the E-6000/epoxy combination isn't as sturdy as I'm used to.


All in all, this was another successful decoden project.  Hopefully, it'll be another year or two before I have to make repairs to my design elements on these headphones. 

Guess what I'm going to be doing.

My old vamped up headphones have broken.  I'm tired of 10 dollaring myself to death by buying cheapo earbuds, so I got me some good Skullcandy Grind Headphones with the Mic in the headseat.  Yep. 

I'm about to goth these suckers up.  *eyebrow wiggle* 

Indie Makeup Review: Fierce Magenta

I like playing dress-up.  Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to be a dark fairy princess, scientist, velociraptor.  Now that I'm an adult with a small amount of disposable income, well, I'm not living that dream, but I'm coming darn close to it.  The dark fairy princess thing is hard to maintain, though.  Even harder than the whole velociraptor part.  You need gorgeous, high quality make-up in non-conventional colors.  Good quality makeup in colors like blue and purple are near impossible to find.  While there are way more options these days, it's still hard to locate affordable options. 

Sugarpill and MAC are made of love, but I can't pay that much for one lip gloss or one eyeshadow pot.  I need ALL the weird colors and my budget is pretty static.  So, I opted to look for some Indie options. 

There are benefits to buying Indie makeup products.  Like most small businesses, they are someone's labor of love, their name is directly attached to everything produced, and supporting them means you are directly supporting a community of 1-10 people.  Once you find a good brand, you can get quality colors, unique blends and effects, and often times highly nourishing products that focus on using non-toxic ingredients.  Indie makeups also tend to be made in small batches, are WAY more affordable, and have higher quality because the company is not a huge corporate entity that outsources half their labor to a third world country.  Culpability falls directly on the shoulders of the people who own it.  They take pride in their work.  Well, except for Lime Crime...but that's a story for another day. 

That brings me to the brand I'm reviewing.  I found Fierce Magenta on Etsy while looking for purple lipstick to wear in support of Domestic Violence Prevention Month.  They offer a range or products, including eye shadow, lip glosses, and lip sticks.  They also offer small sizes of each of their products so you can sample them without committing to a huge pot or stick of some color that you end up not appreciating later.  Best of all, their prices range from about $4-$10.

I got 5 mini lip products from Fierce Magenta in the colors, Diamond Cluster, Luna Violet, Copper Fusion, Deep Purple, and Glacia. 

From left to right: Diamond Cluster, Luna Violet, Copper Fusion, Deep Purple, Glacia

Most of the options I picked were lip gloss selections, while Glacia was a lipstick.  Here's a break down of what I discovered whilst trying these on and swatching them. 

1.  Fierce Magenta is NOT kidding when they describe their lip products as being nourishing and hydrating. 

2.  The glosses glided on silky smooth and had really good staying power.  I had to scrub my arm to get them off, so it shouldn't be a problem with long wear times.

3.  The colors were highly concentrated.  The opacity was out of sight.  The swatches you see above were from the tiniest amount I could spread on my arm in one swipe.  The glitter/iridescence wasn't muted.  It looked no different from what I saw in the tubes when I put it on my skin, which makes it a great option for darker skin tones.  Brown folks have issues with lipstick and gloss opacities because most of them are made with the idea that it will be going on a paler lip.  

4.  There was no gritty texture from the glitter. 

5.  Glacia was by far the most difficult to remove.  Even after scrubbing my arm till it reddened, I still had Glacia faintly clinging to me.  

6.  There is SOME separation if you wear it for a long time because of the nourishing butters they make the lipsticks out of.   However, it doesn't smudge much and the color of the glosses and lipstick can be renewed by pressing your lips together a few times.

7.  There isn't a ton of silicone in their products like VS' lip treatments, so it doesn't make my lips peel after I use it.

Give Fierce Magenta a looksy.  I swear it's more than worth it.  Hopefully, I'll be able to show off some makeup looks using these products soon. 

Pastel Goth: Creepy cute

I must have slept on this one, but I swear, I'm awake now.  Pastel goth is a thing. 

As a child of the 80's, I've always liked many elements of goth fashion.  As a girl raised on Disney princesses and Barbie dolls, I've always loved things that are pretty and feminine.  As an anime nerd, I've always liked the idea that the cutest, girliest character can be the heavy hitter, have unconventional interests, or specialize in being tough.  Never, have I seen these ideas married into a fashion or subcultural movement, though.

Well, that is until I heard about this pastel goth thing.  One of the primary things I've never quite liked about many branches of the goth subculture were how ...HARD everything appears.  I understand the philosophy behind it: recognizing, accepting, embracing, and beautifying the things that most fear because they are ultimately inevitable.... but I never could get with shaving half your head, bleaching your skin, and having so many facial modifications that your visage could be mistaken for a dragon or ogre.

Courtesy of Dailymail.uk

I get that many people who associate with the trend are also members of the church of body modification (it's a real denomination that takes the idea that your body is a temple of God and seeeks to decorate that temple with as many piercings, implants, and tattoos as possible), but there's a great deal about that sort of life that doesn't appeal to me.

Finding pastel goth, which marries creepy and cute, was like finding a pretty bead.  I can blend my love of cartoons and love of dark humor into fashion that amuses me.  Further, my current experiment with colors that aren't shades of black, white, tan, and gray OR jewel colors gives me more than enough opportunity to adopt this creepy cute style and try something like this! 

I found this on Google

I can try styles like Lovely Ify, Drew Disaster, and Offbeat Look's styles.

Courtesy of Google

Courtesy of Drew Disaster

As long as my clothes match.  Haha!

Decoden: More shots

I forgot I had these shots of my phone case.  Take a look-see at some more detailed shots of this beast.

Decoden: Part Three!

A while back, I posted some decoden phone cases that I made.  I've got another one to share.  I'll keep this brief. 

This is one I made for myself to replace the old one.  Sad to say this, but buying any old case on eBay can sometimes lead to malfunctions.  The one I bought the first time was about $12.  With all the time I spent decorating it, you'd hope that it would hold up.  It did not.  It's construction wasn't that great, so, though it's still pretty to look at, it can't really hold on to a phone. 

I got this new case for half the price of the old one and it is much better constructed.  The decorations themselves, I believe, reflect more of me than the old one.  It was more of a hodge podge.  This one is more in line with my "cautiously optimistic" and "proactively pessimistic" approaches to life.  I like to see the beauties, even in misfortune.  I hope this case never breaks.  Given how many times I've dropped it already and it's remained intact, It's safe to say that I will be able to spend a lot of time with it before it fails me. 

Arachne: A Study in Suggestion

In high school we briefly studied Japanese water color and woodblock printing. The art of suggestion, of abstract illustrations of things present in nature with simple brush strokes was key.  I found it difficult to do that sort of thing.  I usually add layers of little details bit by bit until it's ridiculous.  Still, I managed to get the idea of that particular unit.

Recently, I decided to see if I could apply simple themes and techniques with jewelry making.  That was how this particular necklace came about.  As many of you know, I like spiders, bugs, and cute little things represented in jewelry and embellishments.  With this piece I decided to try to suggest the idea of a spider instead of tossing some spider charms in there.  This was the result.  Tell me if you can see the Arachnid elements.

I used some of the same beadwork techniques I used for the red necklace in a previous post.  I made some modifications to the spacing and execution, though.  I wasn't going to use a pendant with quite the same impact as that design, so I had to make sure the elements and spacing of the elements fit with the more modern and sleek feel of this necklace.

I also made a pair of earrings to compliment the necklace.  They aren't nearly as ornate as the necklace.  However, they still suggest elements common to spiders.  As you can see, I used leverback earrings.  They're better for keeping the earrings in your ears.

So, here's my question:  Did you guys see the spider elements I mentioned?  Comment with what you thought was related to our 8-legged friends. 

Something For Me: Skelly Earrings

I almost never make things for myself.  Well.  My birthday just passed and I decided to change that.  These earrings are made of howlite skull beads, gunmetal chain, brass jumprings and cute little swarovski accents to give them more color.  Also, They are Mine. 

Look at those gap-toothed grins.  Adorable.

This is allllllll mine.  Ok.  I'll stop teasing you guys.

They look helpless.  Time to put them on.

Cadena: Classic and Simple

In Spanish, Cadena usually means simply, a chain.  It's also the name of a popular high fashion and sewing magazine.  Love that magazine, btw.  For me, cadena represents timeless and versatile style, form and function married together.  So chic!  That's the motif I was trying to portray with this necklace.

As you can see, it's a super simple, really straightforward and no frills sort of design.  It was made with quality components though. Onyx, hematite, and swarovski crystals.  It came together just as planned.  Lovely, simple and very elegant.

I even took the extra time to make a bracelet and earrings.

Assymetry

In our daily lives we're constantly reminded that symmetry is important.  Lack thereof is somehow jarring and draws the eye- and not always in a good way.  I decided to experiment with that concept a bit.  I don't know if any of you has seen this necklace before...

...but it was the first asymmetrical design I've ever made.  Since then, I've refrained from duplicating designs like this, primarily because my first attempt at asymmetry didn't sell well.  I had the necklace a full two years before someone purchased it.  Well.  Since I like asymmetrical designs, I've decided to make as many as I want.  Poopoo on the rest of you if you don't like it.  It pleases me.  Viola!

 

I made two of these.  One, less lustrous one I will be keeping for myself for..uh... advertising purposes.  The other is now available in my Etsy Store. 

Trying to be Manly

I don't make men's jewelry.  It tends to be quite boring.  You either have to stick to a simple, repeating pattern, work with huge, bulky elements that are expensive and difficult to come by, or submit to a completely monotone, unexciting design that would probably be better off not existing for all the attention it draws.  
It's hard to get men's jewelry right.  On one hand, you want to create something to adore, amplify and embellish.  On the other, our culture seems to believe that that sort of thing and men is mutually exclusive...unless they are drag queens.  There's almost no examples of men's jewelry that I can duplicate or expand from.  I had to find inspiration from something else.

I took a look at manly men's bags to get ideas.  What I saw was interesting.  Plain, dull colors (like I expected), boxy minimalist designs (also, like I expected), and something odd.  Quirky things, usually focusing on one major element.  There was the bag that looked like clipart...

It's real!  It just looks like that

It looked like something that it wasn't, such as an envelop, turtle shell, or that Simon game from the 90s.

Courtesy of Zazzle

Courtesy of Style Magazine

Or it was festooned with motifs from cartoons, games and comic books.  It made sense that these recurring themes in men's bags could be applied to jewelry.  I tried.  Let me know what you think?

I chose the skull design because I had plenty of them lying around and because it's a common inclusion in men's casual bags.  Somehow skulls + dark colors = manly, so that's what we went with.  Honestly, I feel that it's unisex, well besides the length of the bracelet.  It's a great deal longer than I usually make because men tend to have larger wrists.  I'm satisfied with how it turned out.  Why don't you guys give it a try.

More Jack

Another little Jack Skellington charm bracelet I made.  This is the first time I've done a design with just black and a neutral color.  In my charm bracelets, I've always combined black with a bright or rich color like red, green, or purple.  Sometimes blue.  You don't want the bracelet to look too dark, you know?  

Anyway, here are the photos. 

An Art Trade

I've always been suspicious of art trades.  They just seem like a good way to get ripped off, taken advantage of, and to sell out.  Call me cynical, but an early life full of fair-weather friends, bullies, and people willing to peddle their friendship for the day for your lunch cookie leeches the excitement out of 'trading' for art.

Some of you might think me hypocritical because you remember my involvement in a pay-it-forward project.  I assure, I am not.  Paying it forward expects NOTHING in return.  You can't be cheated if you weren't expecting anything back.  That model is more palatable to me than trading.

A trade requires you to receive something in return.  It opens the door for people to scam and extort (I've experienced the latter and I wasn't even involved in an art trade.).  An equivalent exchange is not guaranteed.  You MUST negotiate the trade.  Negotiations require you to be analytical, critical and in some cases, a little mean.  I don't like that sort of activity.  So for the longest, I avoided art trades.

Until recently.

A young artist contacted me through deviantart.  She wanted to trade for one of my Jack Skellington bracelets.  Previously, people who offered me trades were met with a, "Sorry, I don't do art trades." and proceeded to call me 'stingy' for not jumping at the opportunity to trade with them.  However, this artist was more polite and persistent than the others.  She offered 'anything from her gallery', 'the best thing she's ever made', and 'anything at all'.  It was earnest, so I decided to do a trade with her.

However, since she lives in the UK, shipping costs are high, and the Etsy-listed item she requested was expensive to make, I decided to, instead, make something special and a little more postage friendly just for her.  I will never, ever, ever make another one like it.  Here are the photos.

Disapppointed again

Well..  I tried again and ruined another set of filigree... I guess I'll have a red necklace too. 

Bleh.