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You are here: Home / Archives for green

green

A Cosmetic Eureka Moment

May 18, 2011 By Julianne Leave a Comment

This is a double-ended Natural Collection eye pencil that I have had since my early-mid teens. I am now 24 (I cannot bear to throw make-up away unless it is seriously gross. If this upsets you, I’m sorry, and don’t ever watch Lisa Eldridge’s video about her vintage make-up collection. It made me feel vindicated). As you can tell from the amount left, it is not a very good product. It barely shows up on my eyelids. To be fair, my eyelids are brown. But then again, most people in the world have brown eyelids! I am hardly in a minority there, although I may be in a minority of people who are milk-bottle white everywhere else but their eyelids.

The darker green is almost entirely useless to me because not only does it not show up very well, what does show up doesn’t suit me. When I bought this thing I was still desperately trying to fit myself into one of the colour categories in teenage magazines/this Mary Quant book. They told me that because I had darker brown hair and brown eyes, I was olive (I know). I couldn’t be pale because pale people had blue eyes and blonde/light brown hair. So because I didn’t fit into either of these categories, I had no idea what colours would suit me. The light green is actually quite pretty and shimmery, if woefully unpigmented, but it doesn’t look good on top of light brown and is therefore really only suitable as a highlight.

Fast forward to 2011, and I’m scrolling through Google Reader when I see this look by Lily at Beauty’s Bad Habit. I immediately decide that I want to copy it, and because I have no eyeshadow like Sugarpill’s ‘Lumi’, I apply the paler end of the Natural Collection pencil all over my eyelids, and get out my Sleek Circus palette, which also features a woefully unpigmented green. But that pencil won’t let me gently pat on a little of the eyeshadow to create a light, shimmery, but more visible effect. Oh no. It grabs that stuff and holds onto it, and I get this:

Note: it only looks this scaly because my eyes, hot days, and anything more than Urban Decay Primer Potion as a base do not get on. Because I took the photo right next to a window it looks significantly paler than it did in real life. In reality it was much more chartreuse.

I’d already tried packing the Sleek Circus green on top of cream eyeshadow, to little avail, so I wasn’t expecting anything like this! I was checking out the gorgeous colour out in mirrors all day (a calmer reaction than running through the streets of Syracuse naked, I’ll admit) but it wasn’t what I was originally going for. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last particularly well in hot weather (it was a very warm day last week), so I’ll have to abandon this combo for a few months, but it’s good to finally know how to get the Sleek Circus green to look like it does in the pan! Even better, it appears to work with the darker green end of the pencil as well, so I may finally get some use out of that! And if I can find a way to make an eyeshadow work, I’m sure everybody else who was disappointed by this colour can too.

Moral of the story: swatch your combinations before you put them on your eyelids.

Maybe I’ll try sprinkling a bit of the green into some of Aromaleigh’s Sylph the next time I attempt that look, or perhaps I’ll use the light end of the Natural Collection pencil again, but then apply a even less pigmented green with one of my least effective brushes, just to be on the safe side…

Filed Under: Makeup and Skincare Tagged With: beauty, cosmetics, eyeshadow, green, make-up, Sleek

Last Minute Christmas Spirit

December 24, 2008 By Julianne Leave a Comment

Twas the night before Christmas
And I could no longer pretend
That it was still October
The year far from its end

If I’d been prepared I would be now in my bed
While visions of domestic bliss danced in my head
Mamma would be happy, and Papa so pleased
And the holidays would feel just like a breeze

I crept around trying not to make a clatter
I’d be embarrassed if anyone knew what was the matter
“I’m too old for this,” I’d cried, “The magic is gone”
But in my heart, I knew I was wrong

I dug out my old tree; removed red and gold
The bedraggled remains from tinsel of old
Tied ribbons to the branches, draped paper underneath
I had no time to DIY a wreath

I was so hurried, I had to be quick
The thought of missing out made me quite sick
I cut paper snowflakes as I caught up on TV
For a few hours Twitter did without me

Now dashing, now dancing, prancing to the rhythm
Of free Christmas-themed music, that was a given
But I needed inspiration for my Yuletide craft
As I found it online, I happily laughed

“How silly I was, to believe it couldn’t be done,
The season isn’t over, and now I have won
My quick and cheap decorations cheerfully adorn my room
I have cleared away all my pre-Xmas gloom!”

It could be Christmas morning. Or the night before. Afternoon of. Boxing Day. Do not despair, you can still get into the Christmas spirit before it is too late. I speak from personal experience here.

Put Some Music On

Do it, right now. I recommend The Best Christmas Album In The World…Ever! but if you can’t bring yourself to embrace the cheese and/or it’s too late to obtain a copy of said CD, independent music is here for you. Filthy Little Angels have just made their most recent Xmas-themed compilation available to download, check it out here. They have been releasing a Xmas-themed free album every year for a while and you can find all the others, plus more non-seasonal music on this page. If that’s not to your taste, look around, ask your friends, or don’t bother with theming it, just turn up something you like so that you can boogie around and get in a celebratory mood.

Get Costumed

Wearing red and green together usually makes one look like one is celebrating Xmas, no matter what the time of year. Embrace this fact, dress up, then check yo’ fine self out in mirrors as often as possible. If you don’t own red and green clothing, try silver or at least grey instead. Get out those fairy wings, or make them now. Draw holly, Christmas pudding or present boxes on your face with eyeliner. Glitter is an absolute must.

Decorate

This is so easy. First, keep your music on or find yourself some Christmas telly to watch. I recommend that socalist masterpiece Mrs. Santa Claus (she helps child labourers and joins the women’s suffrage movement! Brilliant!). Next get a pile of magazines. You don’t have a pile of magazines? Junk mail will do, ditto newspapers, old wrapping paper, any kind of paper, but try to recycle, and printed matter will look more interesting. Cut out lots of circles of varying sizes, and then make paper snowflakes from them. Don’t remember how to do it? Papersnowflakes.com has more information on them than you can shake a candy cane at. I blue-tacked mine on the corners of my bookshelf and on my mirrors, but try attaching them to banisters and sprinkling them over tables – they’d look especially nice over a plain tablecloth. You can make other shapes as well, and if you like paper chain tutorials are all over the internet, but I find the snowflakes more fun and more modern looking than traditional paper chains. Perhaps you could make a snowflake-chain!

If you have any tinsel, find something unexpected to wrap it around. Get out a tree if you’ve got one and decorate – failing that bring in a dry log and cover it with glitter and surround it with candles for a centre piece. You can even just tie bundles of twigs together with ribbon and hang them about. I have a mini plastic tree, which surprisingly requires some imagination to decorate – most decorations are too small. This year I tied on some blue ribbons that I saved from crackers last year, sprinkled on some bits of tinsel, wrapped a piece of lilac velvet around it, and topped it off with some butterfly hair clips I bought as a teenager. It makes the perfect fairytale tree.

A snowflake made from a ancient supermarket magazine (the chain no longer exists!) adorns my bookshelves. Tree wouldn’t photograph well…will try again tomorrow!

Find A Reason

A reason to appreciate the holiday. If you’re not religious, research the secular traditions of the season. Think of it as laughing in the face of the credit crunch, or as embracing your inner child. Or both at the same time. Maybe you can find joy in the fact that Xmas means a Doctor Who special, and/or in the excuse to eat parsnips – I certainly do. Only engage in this serious thinking after you have done the previous three things – it will be easier if you’ve already cheered yourself up. If you sit down to muse on the meaning of Christmas to you without already being a little bit excited, it’ll be harder to get enthusiastic. Fake it til you make it, baby!

My sister’s guitar gets into the spirit, and the card I made her sits beside it

Make Cards

Even if you don’t actually use these ’til next year, it’s still a fun activity. My sister and I made each other cards, here is mine. It’s inspired by a tutorial in the e-book Stunning and Simple Seasonal Salutations: 10 Holiday Cards in Ten Steps or Less, which you can download for free, thanks to the lovely peeps at Artella.

Featuring 10 beautiful handmade cards, complete with photos and descriptive “how-to” instructions, showcasing a variety of techniques such as rubber stamping, collage, and innovative paper and mixed media arts. Download your copy here!

Make Gifts

Okay, so it’s too late to make it to the shops, which leaves you with few options:
1. Gift certificates that can be e-mailed to the person
2. Make something

The first option you should be able to manage by yourself! A great collection of tutorials to help you craft Xmas gifts can be found at Sew, Mama, Sew! Here is the Handmade Holidays 2008 list.

But let’s take a moment to be realistic. What can you make that is cheap, relatively quick, and created from, erm, ingredients that you actually have in your home? That’s right. Food. Biscuits and cakes in particular. Check the contents of your cupboard, and return to the internet to get recipes.

If you have any spare notebooks, decorate them for emergency gifts, or offer your practical skills as presents, you can easily design and print or hand decorate vouchers for your own services. Bargain Queen Meg has more ideas.

Make Drinks

You in the mood yet? If so, great, top off the cheer with an appropriate tipple or two. If not, this should do the trick!

I love mulled wine. This is Delia’s version, which I’m sure works very well, but personally I like to be a bit more experimental. Basically simmer for at least 20 minutes (I do it for longer so that I can taste-check) a combination of the following things: red wine, cinnamon (stick or ground), mixed spice, nutmeg, cloves, apple juice, orange juice, lemon juice, bits of the fruit instead of/as well as the juice. You can put water in as well if you want it to go further, and sugar if you like it sweet. I like to taste it as I go and add extra bits of anything I feel doesn’t have a strong enough presence. You can top up the alcohol after it’s done with gin or fruit liqueur, or alternatively you can use cranberry juice instead of red wine for a alcohol-free version. Or use cranberry juice and then add other alcohol once it’s heated. But one of the greatest things about mulled wine is that you can use the most hideous 3 for £10 wine and simply add plenty of juice to water down the strong taste of cheap!

“The cards are made, and given away,
I think I deserve some mulled wine today”
Merrily I cried, after sampling this delight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Chrismukkah, Christmas, costumes, crafting, DIY, food, green, interior decorating, Last Minute Christmas Spirit, Merry Christmas from The Dark Side, parties, red, the dark side, Winterval, Xmas

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Hi! I'm Julianne and I have so many different passions I have to be relentlessly organised to keep track of them all! On this blog I document my current obsessions and share my tips for juggling multiple interests while maintaining your creative energy. I believe that advanced planning brings advanced peace of mind - so join me, and plan to succeed in everything you do! More...

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