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Monday Amusements 8

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Hello! Remember me? I hope you do so, and fondly, because this blog is coming back to life in a big way. I’ve got a lovely spreadsheet schedule sorted out, and one of the first steps I’m taking is to bring back my Monday Amusements posts. I’ll be posting Monday Amusements here every other week, starting today, and doing the same (but reading and writing themed) on this fleeting dream, which I started last week. Therefore you can expect my next Monday Amusements post here on the 27th May. Coincidently, this Monday Amusements post and my last Monday Amusements post on this fleeting dream have the same number, which I think is quite nice.

Just as I have on this fleeting dream, I am going to try to credit my sources when I didn’t just find a post or article myself via RSS feed, website e-mail newsletter, ‘surfing the web’ (as I believe the kids called it in 1998, I should know, I was one) or the publisher’s twitter. Previously, I’d just bookmark the piece and by the time I got around to putting my Monday Amusements post together, I’d have forgotten how I discovered it. From now on I will bookmark the relevant tweet or Facebook post instead, so that you can find and follow interesting people too!

One thing I’m going to stop is sorting the links into categories, as I did with the original posts. I’ll still group them into paragraphs where it is appropriate, but I found that my attempts to stick rigidly to one template for all the posts failed, because I go through different phases (or obsessions, if you will, haha). For example, while some weeks I’ll want to share loads of craft tutorials, other times I won’t have bookmarked any new ones, so having a ‘Craft’ section doesn’t work, and it’s the same for almost every other section I was using. Except for ‘cute’. I can always manage to find something adorable.

Any feedback on this would be much appreciated, so do leave a comment. I’d also love to know which links you find the most interesting, as that will help me decide what to include in future. Now, on with the links! 

The Beauty Milk has a feature that I really enjoy, and kind of wish I’d thought of first, called Try It Out Thursday. The most recent post in this series is about using tape to help create blunt-edged winged eyeliner looks. I am definitely going to try it out, although I’m quite happy with my eyeliner technique at the moment.  I usually blend my eyeshadow out and then draw my eyeliner on top, so the eyeshadow goes out past the wing, and I want to find out what it looks like when the wing marks the edge of my eye make-up. I’m not sure it’ll work because the natural brown colour of my eyelids extends past the edge of my preferred wing position, and I usually use eyeshadow to cover it up, but I could try covering it with concealer or powder afterwards instead.

On a similar note, if you’re attracted to coloured eyeliner but are not sure how to wear it, Anitacska at Pleasureflush has three different ideas. Three is the magic number this week, as Robyn shows us how wearing a different lipstick can alter the overall effect of a make-up look, at Stay Beautiful. And on the subject of ‘different’ lipstick (I’ve got to stop these corny segues), Leanne at Do Not Refreeze reviews Illamasqua ESP, a surprisingly wearable purple lipstick. As I wrote in the comments, with the Boost lipgloss it reminds me of Lush’s Passionate lipstick, a bright pink with a blue/purple duochrome effect, as well as the ancient Rimmel purple lipstick that I mentioned here.

As you may know from my tweets, I am currently obsessed with dyeing – more on this in an upcoming post.
I don’t have any shoes at the moment that are suitable, but I will definitely revisit the Dreams that Glitter tutorial on DIY Ombre Dip-Dye Shoes.

It’s finally starting to feel more like Spring here in the UK, after about six months of alternating rain, snow, and freezing cold weather, but I like to be prepared, and Owl Girl‘s post How to dress on windy days! is really useful.

My favourite area of study at university was cultural studies, so I love reading posts that explore the social and political implications of self-presentation, such as this post about beauty/fashion ‘rules’ and stigma, from The Beheld. I also enjoy fashion history, and I wanted to visit the ‘BIBA and Beyond’ exhibition at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, but never got around to it. It’s finished now, so I’ll have to settle for revisiting this review at Lipglossiping. I love that purple patterned dress with the bell sleeves and the lilac halter-tutu dress in the photo below it. I also enjoyed Victorian Aristo Tattoo Crew on the pamflet blog, and Stylist‘s 50 Style Icons of the 1920s – a decade I love reading about in books, as frequently mentioned on my other blog.

Finally, some cape eye candy from The Cherry Blossom Girl, and the traditional ‘cute’ inclusion, with a not-so-traditional animal: Snake as hair scrunchie.

Monday…errr…Tuesday Amusements 7

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I had so much original content planned for last week and this week, but then I got a cold. Colds, like all other illness, zap my creativity and make me kind of stupid. I have regaling my friends and family almost daily with stories about how I couldn’t find things I’d put down or confused words. It’s been taking me an especially long time to notice puns, in particular.

Whilst eating as much garlic as possible and drinking loads of hot water I have been spending a lot of time catching up on reading blogs. I got through quite a lot of my 1000+ post backlog in Google Reader. I also revisited the folder in which I bookmark links that I want to share, and selected some of the best for you today. Now let’s see if I’m well enough to make this more than just readable.

Getting Crafty

My hands have been too full with tissues for me to actually make anything; the Citron shawl I started in January has been on pause for a while. I’m going to be done with it soon, though it’s going to be a lot smaller than the pattern because I don’t have enough of the yarn I decided to use. I’ve enjoyed the pattern so I might make another when I get some more yarn.

I have been in the mood for crafting though. I don’t make enough. I have a few skeins of embroidery thread, boxes of beads, masses of ideas and tons of tutorials bookmarked but like everything else my hobbies have fallen by the wayside as I try to finish my novel. I’ve been longing for spring, I really want a proper summer this year, and this butterfly headband would get me in the mood. Personally I’d tone it down a little for everyday wear. I’m thinking one or two purple-and-black butterflies on a thin headband.

We get a large number of lampshades donated to the charity shop I volunteer at, but unfortunately very few of them are small enough to use like Gwen does to make this “dainty Victorian-ish hat“. Otherwise I’d be breaking out the purple paints and ribbon ASAP.

I can never find a safety pin when I want one, and I think the only ones we’ve got in my house are tiny and gold, so I’d have to make a special tip out to stock up before I made this Tom Binns-inspired safety pin necklace. I think you could apply the general idea to all sorts of other accessories, a big safety pin brooch would be especially cool. Plus you could thread beads on the safety pins! Oooh! I am definitely going to do this. If you want something a bit softer, this t-shirt necklace requires only the ability to use scissors and follow instructions.

Cute Creatures

Let’s take a break from all that hard work considering the crafty possibilities and enjoy Dee’s selection of 13 Unbelievably Adorable Animal Photos.

Useful Things Entertaining Things Etcetera

Oh, what’s that I hear? It’s the sign of my imagination yawning. Too tired to come up with a better title for this section.

If you’ve been reading this blog a while, you might remember my review of the exhibition Between the Covers: Women’s Magazines and their Readers at the Women’s Library. Their current main exhibition is called Ms Understood: Women’s Liberation in 1970’s Britain, and I haven’t had an opportunity to visit it yet, but after reading Katie’s review at Fat Quarter, I’ll make sure to go along before it closes on the 17th April.

Recently I have realised that my upper body strength has been vanishing steadily. I can’t lift food shopping bags high anymore. When I tried to do the initial test for the one hundred push ups training programme I couldn’t manage two. I used to be able to do ten or more! I think I’m going to have to do the whole thing, with “bench” push ups to try to get myself back to normal and hopefully better.

Finally, I suggest that in the spirit of Spring Cleaning and all that, you choose yourself a new desktop wallpaper for March from Smashing Magazine’s fabulous selection. There are so many I liked that I’ll probably end up changing them every few days.