4/16/2015 0 Comments DIY hair cut: attempt 2I decided it was time for a trim up. Last time i cut my hair was in January, and it's April now, so I was ready for a change. I wanted to avoid the pitfalls made from my first attempt at cutting my hair. This meant being more consistent, and being honest about my limitations. I wanted to choose a tutorial that would be sincerely something j could do again, and something that felt natural to do. I found one where the instructions were basically as follows: -put hair in ponytail at the base of the neck -trim ponytail off -cut in against hair grain to conceal any blunt lines It's remarkably easy to have slight variations on this seemingly simple task. For instance, how high/low should the base of the ponytail be? Should I pull the hair the away from the scalp to create length? Should i come through and thin out some hair after the initial cut is made? I settled on slightly higher than the nape of my neck, and pulled away from the scalp a tiny bit. I came through and chopped the heck out of that sucker. I had to really force myself to unclench to keep from continuing the chop job. My hair had lumps all over from sleeping on it wet. I needed to chill and wash it before proceeding any further. I have this fluffy tuft from my glasses catching my hair (my old pair had a loose hinge) or my kids tugging my hair or both. It bothers me a great deal. So despite the warning from a bang cutting tutorial to avoid cutting bangs spontaneously or while hormonal, I did it anyway, and I did so FEARLESSLY! I grabbed an arched section at a medium thickness. I chose to not go with a V section because I part my hair on the side but don't want to commit to my part location. And I wasn't going for the super thick, down to your Zooeys type bangs. I actually followed a hair related Pinterest pin to a strangers Instagram, and she had super short bangs. My envy overcame me. I needed them. It's just what I needed to complete my "I'm hip, but not snobby" look. At my size and age and with my lifestyle, it's easy to zone into mom jean-soccer mom- type monotony. But I don't want to try hard. Partly because I don't want people to think of me as someone who tries hard, and because I'm lazy. (Not that I interact with people. Haha). So after I was done, I showered, and styled my hair curly. I can write up about how to style curly hair in more detail later, but the gist of it is this: -scrunch with a shirt to dry -use a diffuser to dry more -DO NOT BRUSH! Barely touch it except scrunching until it's a bit drier. -spritz with a curl enhancer, or use some hair oil to smooth out frizz, or both. So, to double heck how it turned out, I decided to straighten it. Mostly out of curiosity, but I wanted to check if there was something I should fix. I started by flipping it out, but then realized how early 2000's that looked and started flipping it in. But at that point my hair was like "WTF, man??!" And just stuck out straight like a scarecrow. It's a bit bushy in spots, and the bottom could probably be trimmed, but the layers look even enough. I'm not crazy about the sections near my ears, but there's a chance I went through and free styled some chops. I honestly can't recall. This has been a brutally honest experience, and I hope it helps someone someday, assuming people read this, which they don't. Maybe just my children will read it when I die, and it will be a message to them from beyond the grave. 👻 👻👻 👻👻🔮👻 👻👻 👻👻 👻👻 👻 👻👻 👻👻👻 👻👻 👻 👻 👻 ⬆️that's my interpretation of my kids summoning spirits using dark magic in hopes to communicate with their dear departed mother.
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4/15/2015 0 Comments The way to my heartYou know you're loved when you're brought a tall iced coffee for no reason. It was delicious and made me feel happy 😍💟 4/15/2015 0 Comments Lazy cat parentsI've been thinking about getting a cat food dish that has large quantities of cat food in it for a while now. But all that has done is morphed into this little flash of genius: Seriously lazy cat parenting. How will he connect people with love if his food is always out? Sometimes laziness brings out the best ingenuity. 4/15/2015 0 Comments MeatloafWhenever my 13 yr old has an interest in cooking, I try to take her up on it. She found a recipie for bacon meatloaf and she was excited to try it. Partly, because she was in the middle of making a sassy point about me not buying stuff I think, but she rarely actually asks for stuff. She just hints at it and then pouts when we don't do it. I don't know about you all, but I don't want to do things my child isn't enthusiastic about. So when I get a half hearted "I kinda wanna..." I acknowledge it and wait for more excitement. In any case, she did a good job, and I appreciate when she does stuff like this. Yay for helpful teens! 4/15/2015 0 Comments Tiny fezCut a strip of felt and a circle of felt. The circumference of the circle should be the same as the long edge of the strip. The rest should be clear if you know how to sew. I made a tassel out of gold embroidery floss. 4/15/2015 0 Comments ID bottle design failI love me some international delight creamer. I love creamer in general, but coffee mate has so much trans fat, and I just don't want to have to concern myself with the mass quantities of creamer I'm consuming. In addition, ID has a really rich flavor, it's smooth and delicious. But when I'm getting coffee in the morning, I'm rarely doing it with both hands free. I'm fussing with babies and getting breakfasts or lunches made. Maybe I'm just plain groggy. On top of not being awake all the way (pre-coffee part of the day), the kids are needy but it's too early for them to be mad. So I just grab my creamer from the fridge, with one hand, like any normal person should expect. My conundrum? The extra large bottle design is too wide to grab. I have to be careful and concentrate not to spill it. I'm not awake enough to fully absorb myself in making sure the creamer bottle doesn't fling itself from my hand. If I grab the more slender section, it's moist from the coolness of the fridge and slides slowly from my hand, and if I'm lucky it catches the lid as it cracks open. I have yet to drop it on the ground, but I still find it obnoxious. And since I'm on the subject... The sweet cream ID tastes like melted ice cream The butter pecan ID tastes like a butter pecan sandy Those are my go-to flavors. 4/15/2015 0 Comments DIY creamerI am a major creamer snob. I like my coffee sweet and creamy and pale. I prefer it in the range of brown paper bag. I don't like a fake sugar taste, and I try to avoid trans fat. I use a lot of creamer, especially since I've been drinking coffee every day. I've seen recipes on Pinterest for a while about making your own creamer. I've been curious to try it, but not too motivated. That is, until one day I was OUT OF CREAMER!!! The one I found at the time was: -equal parts sweetened condensed milk and milk, and flavoring to taste. I didn't have any flavoring on hand, since this was an emergency. I'm curious how it would have effected the end result. The result? It was decent. WAY better than plain milk. But it tasted like sweetened condensed milk. Which is a nice flavor, like tres leche cake or something. But it didn't trick me into thinking I had used to decadent nectar of my international delight. I probably wouldn't use it regularly, but I would be likely to grab a few cans of sweetened condensed milk when it's on sale. Then I can use it in a pinch, or make a dessert out of it. 4/15/2015 0 Comments DIY hair cut: attempt 1So, I started with a long ponytail of straightened hair. All the tutorials I had watched implied that I could place the ponytail where I wanted it, snip that off and my hair would be practically done. There was also an impression that I could use one hand as a guide and hold my hair out to the desired length, trim it up with the other hand, and go around my head that way. Here's what happened: -the scissors weren't even close to being able to cut the ponytail in one go, so I had to make 4 passes, leaving striated lines on the ponytail nub. Once I pulled the hair out, I ran my fingers thru the hair and could feel for unevenness and where I wanted the length to be. The when I took my free hand and tried to snip the hair, I couldn't even come close to telling where I needed to cut. In a mirror, everything is reverse, and it was hard to navigate. If I tried to just move my arm up and look in the mirror forwards, it was still complicated to tell how far my hands were apart. And when I came at the free bit of hair, I kept snipping my fingers since I couldn't tell where they were. Mostly it was just light pinches on dry skin, but i got one good cut. And when I had one bit of hair that was established as a guide, I couldn't see it at all against the longer hair. Once they touched it blended together. So I enlisted my husbands help. It's not as "DIY" as I'd hoped, since I wanted to be able to do it entirely independently, but I had become flustered and he was willing. That's not a good description for it. He didn't reluctantly agree, he voulenteered. He said he would love to help me and he felt honored I trusted him to do it. It was lovely. Plus, the hair cut was partly a cleansing. Shedding the past and starting fresh. And him being involved made it even more meaningful to me. So I pulled my hair out and held it still. He snipped it. He found it easier to snip when it was wet, so we spritzed it periodically. The wetter it got, the curlier it got. After a while it was hard to know if we blended it well. So once we got it to a good even cut and we felt it was likely done, I straightened it once more. We have it one more pass thru and made sure it was even and blended. It turned out nicely. It definitely wasn't the smoothest haircut. I could tell there were some weightier sections. It didn't air dry well on its own. But it was free and I had fun doing it. I appreciated the experience, but I learned a lot about my limitations. -I can't hold my arms up that long -I can't tell how far apart my hands are when they're holding things and behind my head -just because I can feel a section of hair is too long, doesn't mean I can retain that sensation for the length of time it takes to bring the scissors up for the correction. 4/13/2015 0 Comments LAB t-shirtThere's literally maybe 5 people who would even think about this shirt. But ta-da! here you go, 5 people! knock yourself out! GENERAL DISCLAIMER: Maybe someday, someone will come along and buy my shirt designs from me. Until then, any individuals who would like to class themselves up with my awesome styles may do so freely. All I ask is you share a picture of whatever you make. --- You know what? You go ahead and use this shirt if you want it. FREE FOR EVERYONE! I'm sure OLD NAVY will snap it right up.
4/13/2015 0 Comments hot t-shirtthree of three pipetting shirts. If you get this we should go on a couples vacation together. GENERAL DISCLAIMER: Maybe someday, someone will come along and buy my shirt designs from me. Until then, any individuals who would like to class themselves up with my awesome styles may do so freely. All I ask is you share a picture of whatever you make.
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