Rainbow Unicorn!

Back in 2014, Mom asked HK and I to collaborate on something that she could put in the Silent Auction at St. B's.  HK and I brainstormed and in the process found a ton of adorable amigurumi.  One of them was the My Little Pony Rarity pattern by Rachel Hoe.  We ultimately decided to go with Snow White for our collaboration, but she jokingly said I could make her a pony anytime.  Since then we've somehow gotten onto a rainbow unicorn theme when it comes to birthday cards, etc.  It became very obvious to me that the only appropriate present for her birthday this year was a My Little Pony rainbow unicorn.  Here she is in all her rainbow glory:

I started crocheting her at jury duty and got a lot of weird looks, but I wanted to do something productive since I couldn't be at work.  In all, it took me about 2.5 weeks to complete her.  I refuse to use felt on my projects so all the details are crocheted/embroidered/or plastic.  I created my own (admittedly really odd) pattern for the eyes and documented it in my pattern notes here.  Purple may have been a bad choice for the iris color since it's nearly as dark as the black.  Next time I'd consider a lighter color like blue.  I also crocheted curls for the hair and tail and used this rainbow pattern by Helen Free for the cutie mark.  Even though there was a ton of sewing to put everything together which is annoying, she turned out amazingly!  I can't wait to give her to HK!  Yay for rainbow unicorns!

DIY Shellac Sundays

I used to do nail art quite frequently, but stopped when I got fed up with my designs chipping after just a few days.  My recent discovery of shellac inspired me to take up this hobby again, so I bought all the necessary items and set out on a diy adventure.  My first try was a french manicure, which I admit was pretty ambitious for never having worked with shellac and being super out of practice in nail painting in general.  There's no photographic evidence of this mani because it looked pretty awful, but I did learn a few things:  

• Thin layers are key.  Thick layers will pool around the edges of the nail making it thick and gross.
•  Remove any mess ups on the skin around your nails before you put your nails under the LED lamp.  If you don't, it'll be really difficult to remove afterwards.

Armed with this information, I arranged a Sunday mani party with some lady friends.  For my second attempt at shellac, I did a white base coat covered in a "normal" glitter polish from Avon.  It looked kind of neat from far away, but not very good up close.  It also drove me crazy that it wasn't smooth because of the chunky glitter.  Needless to say, it chipped a week in.  Never again will I mix normal polish with shellac... it's just a bad idea.

Today I hosted our second mani day and the results have definitely improved.  I recently bought some fine glitter, so I attempted a pink manicure with pink glitter and I think it came out pretty well.  My friend, SC, brought over some striping tape and put together the black and purple design.  We're both pretty obsessed with Simply Nailogical's channel on Youtube, so of course this video was her inspiration.  I am beyond impressed with how awesome her nails turned out.

Special mentions go out to RN for joining us and having crafty time (see her beaded earrings here) instead of doing nails and also to HK who was feeling under the weather... we missed you!

Next up on our adventures in nail art:  stamping with shellac!  I'll be digging out my Konad plates and testing them with a new stamper from Bundle Monster and shellac in place of the special polish.  My initial trial shows shellac is easier for me to work with than the special polish that the plates and stampers are meant to be used with (special polish on the left and shellac on the right in below picture).

I'm beyond excited to declare that there is much more nail art to come!

Low Carb Chicken Dip

This is my first post about keto since 2014.  I haven't given it up, but haven't been very strict about it since the wedding either.  We've been on and off multiple times due to birthdays and holidays.  Well, we started it back up on January 4th and are beginning to see a bit of progress.  In honor of this, I wanted to share an easy chicken dip recipe (complete with terrible cell phone pictures):

Read on for the recipe...

The Never Ending Flowerpot Project

This week's project has been sitting on my craft table in varying stages of "almost done" since April 2014.  It was originally going to be a Mother's Day gift for my Grandma, but I didn't complete it in time.  I've worked on it a bit here and there since then, but I decided it was time to finish it up this week.  It's made from this pattern by MyGurumi that I found on Ravelry.

I followed the pattern for the flowers, but somehow the orange one ended up with only six petals instead of eight.  I did my own thing for the terracotta pot and dirt which you can find in my project notes on Ravelry.  I put some leftover craft wire in the stems of the flowers before sewing them to the dirt to make them less floppy and more bendable.  Overall, I wish I would have just buckled down and finished this sooner since it turned out fairly cute.  It'll make a great addition to my desk at work.  Not only will it brighten my otherwise drab office, it's also a plant I can't kill.  Win, win.  Happy Saturday, folks!

Time for More Chainmaille!

It's a new year and that means new things for me to post about!  I haven't worked on any chainmaille projects in a really long time, but this week I was inspired to dig through everything collecting dust on my craft table and make these chainmaille earrings since Blue Buddha Boutique announced it's going out of business this spring.  I hate to see small businesses close their doors(or websites, etc), but this post by the owner explains everything so well that it makes me hopeful that this door closing will lead to a better one opening.  In the mean time, HK and I are getting one last big order ready to submit so we can continue to have fun chainmaille projects for at least a little while.

These are Illusion Loops earrings designed by Lindsay Lamkin and sold in a kit on Blue Buddha Boutique.  They were really easy to put together and look really nice on.  For anyone who hasn't tried out chainmaille, I would highly recommend any of the kits on the website.  Get them while you can!

And of course, happy 2016!