Month: April 2020

Quarantimes Part 10

/ shellssells / 5 Comments

I finished a scarf!

img_3584

I made this out of Miss Marja’s handspun yarn. Originally I had set out to make a Winter Wine cowl, but as I kept knitting, I realized that I had enough handspun for a full scarf. So, I just kept knitting until I ran out of yarn, that was fine for me.

My list for this week sits thus:

  1. Don’t work during off hours.
  2. Bake bread (Like really, DO THIS!)
  3. Teach Miss Butterfly how to make yogurt.
  4. Hang decorative hooks for dog leashes.
  5. Get one piece of peel and stick wallpaper hung in the kitchen in order to make a decision about it.
  6. Start plying the singles that were spun before interior painting projects began.
  7. Adding to the list, fix a cloth mask to wear to work next week.

That’s it, that’s all I’ve got for today. Tomorrow and Saturday will both be project pan posts, as it’s the beginning of a new month. I admit, there won’t be a bunch of progress anywhere with those!

 

 

Quarantimes Part 9

/ shellssells / 4 Comments

This is my last full work from home week I believe. I doubt we’ll get a further stay home order, so we will go back to dividing my team in half and then rotating one week on and one week work from home.

Here’s the list I was working off of last week, let’s see what I managed to accomplish.

  1. Don’t work during off hours
  2. Make dog treats
  3. Bake bread
  4. Start prepping craft room for painting. Get started if possible.
    1. I actually fully finished painting the craft room, gave it a deep clean, and put it all back together. Pics of that below.
  5. Move fridge to paint behind, finishing the kitchen.
  6. Clean fridge.
  7. Bring spring clothing upstairs, move winter clothes to basement.

So, all in all, I did pretty well even though I did not get to the bread baking.

I don’t have a finished object to show off today, though I did finish a project. I will have that up shortly. But I do have a little photo of one wall of my craft room. It looked like this with boring white walls.

img_3572

It’s fine, but I felt like I could be improved. I wanted to inject warmth and color into this room. I wanted to use the picture on the wall and the florals on the daybed to choose my color, and so I ended up with a light adobe color, or perhaps a terra cotta? I don’t think I am great about describing color. But, it is definitely warmer now.

img_3579

On Sunday I had decided I was going to fully complete the painting of this room. I moved what furniture I could out into the hall, blocking the hallway except for just being able to squeeze by everything. I got two coats of paint on the wall during the day and then woke up early Monday morning in order to be able to remove tape and get furniture back into the room before I started working from home.

Except…as I began to remove the tape, I realized that the edges weren’t looking as rich in color as the rest of the walls. So, I stopped everything and did the thing I hate the most, which is work from the living room. During my lunch hour, I grabbed my painting clothes again and did all the edges. I took an early break so that the prerequisite 4 hours drying time would be complete by the time I stopped working for the day. After I was done working I pulled the tape, cleaned the floors up again, and moved all my furniture back in. That means that today I get to have my first work from home day in this lovely newly painted warm room.

Other things from this past week, we attended an online wedding! We were supposed to be traveling to a wedding last week. The bride and groom had already been engaged for more than a year, I remember them getting engaged prior to our wedding last year. When the virus hit, they ended up postponing the wedding until next year. But, then they decided they still wanted to get married on their original wedding date. They were able to get an officiant and have a zoom wedding. We all got dressed up to attend.

img_3553

Our hair is too long and needs a cut, all of us. But really, everyone is in the same boat. The wedding went very well, there were toasts and a best man speech and tears for the couple, and much celebration. The bride even made her own little wedding cake, as none could be delivered. It might not be how they expected to start their married life, but it will absolutely be memorable for them!

Now on to this week’s list.

  1. Don’t work during off hours.
  2. Bake bread (Like really, DO THIS!)
  3. Teach Miss Butterfly how to make yogurt.
  4. Hang decorative hooks for dog leashes.
  5. Get one piece of peel and stick wallpaper hung in the kitchen in order to make a decision about it.
  6. Start plying the singles that were spun before interior painting projects began.

That’s it for me this week. It’s already Tuesday and I haven’t started any of this, so the week’s list looks doable as it currently is.

How is everyone holding up? I know it’s a weird and hard time right now. For us, it depends on the day. Some days are beginning to feel kind of….normal? Though I think that’s because I’ve insisted on being quite busy. The improvement in weather around here has been extremely good, it was a lot harder on us all when the early spring weather looked more like winter.

 

 

Quarantimes Part 8

/ shellssells / 2 Comments

Here’s where I am in my list:

  1. Don’t work during off hours
  2. Make dog treats
  3. Bake bread
  4. Start prepping craft room for painting. Get started if possible.
  5. Move fridge to paint behind, finishing the kitchen.
  6. Clean fridge.
  7. Bring spring clothing upstairs, move winter clothes to basement

So far, it’s been kind of a massive fail this week. But, we don’t get too upset over failure during quarantimes. We are all just trying to get along as best we can.

Mr. Ink is on vacation currently and working on some projects around the house and yard. It’s funny, I hear complaints from coworkers in how their partners think that if they are working from home, they are not actually working, and feel that they get all access to chat and do things around the house. I do not have this problem. Mr. Ink is the exact opposite, extremely respectful of the work boundaries, makes me lunch and serves it so I can keep working, generally leaves me alone, and then discusses things he overhears during dinner time. It’s quite delightful!

I have largely taken a break from painting at this point, though I really do need to get back to it. I figured my hands and my mind needed a bit of a break. I’ve still got the fridge to move, and I do want to get to it, but I think I’ll save it for the weekend.

I did finish a project though!

img_3526

This is my own handspun, and I took it in the evening fading light. It’s a lot more brown and green than it appears here. Never mind, you get the picture! This one is longer than the previous one, and I really like it!

And now I leave you with a photo of one of my coworkers.

img_3523

Sometimes she hangs on to my arm as I work. She’s awfully cute!

Quarantimes Part 7

/ shellssells / 2 Comments

It is now Sunday and about time I took a look at what I had intended to accomplish to see how I stayed on track. Or didn’t. To be honest, I did not look back at the list I’d made at the beginning of the week, so I am sure there are things that I didn’t bother to get to. But I think there will be other things which I managed to get done over and above what I’d listed.

My list from the beginning of the week:

  1. Don’t work on off hours. (Mostly achieved, though there were times I did need to work in the evenings. It was unavoidable in those cases. There weren’t many of them.)
  2. Bake 2 loaves of banana bread to freeze and one loaf of regular bread. (I baked one banana bread loaf. The other loaf was off the table as Miss Butterfly ate the overripe bananas. I did not get a proper bread loaf done.)
  3. Go to the hardware store, get paint for interior.
  4. Start painting! (I took Tuesday off to get a solid head start on the project.)
  5. Make more dog treats.
  6. Find yarn and a pattern for a new knitting project.
  7. Finish spinning singles on current handspun project. Begin plying. (I finished the singles but did not ply, and there’s good reason for that which I will get to below.)

So, I purchased interior paint and supplies. I decided that I would get paint for 5 rooms all at once, as we are supposed to be limiting our store visits. I took Tuesday off and on Monday evening after work, Miss Butterfly and I began our large project. We painted all day on Tuesday. On Wednesday I painted during my lunch break and after work. Miss Butterfly painted in the afternoon by herself. At that point, she completely crapped out, and the painting has been all up to me ever since.

I finished the living room, all except for a section of wall behind Mr. Ink’s fish tank. He plans to rehome the fish, and then remove the tank. Once he has removed the tank, we will fully finish that room. The hallway has one coat of paint and needs a second coat, which I will finish tonight. The dining room is going to be finished tonight. The kitchen is close to being done, but the fridge needs to be moved.

Here’s a little story to go along with the dining room and kitchen painting. I ended up choosing a very cheery peachy color for the dining room and kitchen. In the end, it needed 3 coats to fully cover the blue that was the previous color. At once point, I came around a corner to a LAN line phone jack in the house. We’ve never had one, so I decided to remove it and then fill in the holes. When I removed the fitting completely, much to my surprise, the previous owners had chosen the same color at some point! Take a look!

img_3491

This ended up putting the painting in the kitchen on pause a bit, as I needed to patch this hole and another as well. So, I had to wait to get back to a hardware store to purchase some patching materials.

On Thursday evening we ended up getting about 8 inches of snow in quite a short amount of time. It was so pretty. It started in the afternoon while I was still working from home. I could see it coming down and accumulating from where I was sitting. The backyard just filled and filled with snow. But, it was one of those spring snows where it never really accumulated on the pavement and no shoveling was required. On Friday, it melted just as fast as it had accumulated, which I also got to watch with delight from my work from home spot.

Knowing this, I figured on Saturday the dog park would be very muddy and I’d rather like to stay out of it. We talked to a friend who allowed us to use his fenced back yard to bring the dogs to. We had a lovely time sitting in the sun and fresh air allowing the dogs to play in the back yard. I wish we had that opportunity in our own yard. On the other hand, Fury proved why that won’t be possible, as she tried to dig around the base of each mature tree to sniff whatever she could find!

I chose and knit a scarf. I figured the best thing would be a project with thick yarn. I found a ruffled pattern, paired it with yarn from Miss Marja, and soon had a cool little scarf.

img_3504-1

This project was so delightful that I cast on another one right away out of my own handspun yarn.

I ended up skipping the plying of my handspun this week because I realized that after such an intense push to get the interior of the house painted, I’d been struggling with sore hands, hands that were falling asleep at night. That’s fairly typical for me, but my goal is to take care of them, rather than make them worse.

So, now on to this week’s list.

  1. Don’t work during off hours
  2. Make dog treats
  3. Bake bread
  4. Start prepping craft room for painting. Get started if possible.
  5. Move fridge to paint behind, finishing the kitchen.
  6. Clean fridge.
  7. Bring spring clothing upstairs, move winter clothes to basement

That seems like a more than fair list. To be honest, I was supposed to have a good portion of this week off for a trip to Lake Tahoe, obviously that’s not happening. I canceled my work vacation time, but Mr. Ink did not. I might take a day or two off to make sure I get a little extra done. It wasn’t just the painting this last week and weekend, Mr. Ink has also been madly productive. If we can keep that up, it’ll be very nice! I still have hopes and dreams of getting so far into the interior painting project that I even *gasp* paint the bedroom!

 

 

Quarantimes Part 6

/ shellssells / 4 Comments

As a follow up from Saturday’s post, I had anticipated a deep cleaning of the bathroom. I am pleased to say, mostly because I needed to report back here, that did get done. In doing it, I ended up giving Mr. Ink a bunch more to do. First, the showerhead hasn’t been running particularly well. I asked him if it could be fixed. He tried. It could not. So, we need to get a new one. Then I asked him when the furnace filter had last been replaced. He told me “spring.” I said “It IS spring and I KNOW you didn’t just change it, do you mean LAST SPRING?!?!”  He said, “let’s go down stairs and take a look at it.” We did so, and turns out it probably has actually been a year. In going downstairs to investigate the furnace filter, I noticed some leaking water. That turned out to be a leaky faucet on the hot water heater.

Funny part was, I’d just asked Mr. Ink if he needed to go to the hardware store, and he’d told me that he did not. But as it turns out, he did need to go, he just didn’t know it yet.

That leads me to this week’s list.

  1. Don’t work on off hours.
  2. Bake 2 loaves of banana bread to freeze and one loaf of regular bread.
  3. Go to the hardware store, get paint for interior.
  4. Start painting! (I took Tuesday off to get a solid head start on the project.)
  5. Make more dog treats.
  6. Find yarn and a pattern for a new knitting project.
  7. Finish spinning singles on current handspun project. Begin plying.

I feel like this is a fairly sufficient list. Since we are painting 3-4 rooms plus the hall, I don’t think loading up the list with a bunch of other busy work makes much sense. Should be a good week!

And why do I need to find another project? Because I finished the largest Lintilla shawl I’ve ever made.

img_3454

I prolonged this project just as long as I possibly could. I just didn’t want to finish, it was such an enjoyable knit. And that’s why I chose it, I knew it would be! Plus, I didn’t feel like trying to figure out what to knit next, nor did I feel like trying to figure out how to knit whatever pattern I chose. I am hoping I can come up with something that is as enjoyable as this over the next week.

Final March Empties

/ shellssells / 2 Comments

March empties with a little bit of April too.

In my March beauty balance post I ended up with 27 items out of my collection over what came in to my collection. This month I’ve got another 10 empties, so that’s 37 out over what has entered this year.

img_3441

The Shea Moisture in shower body conditioner is a definite won’t repurchase item. It just doesn’t do much at all, and I didn’t like the scent either.

The Ordinary Azelaic acid suspension I already repurchased. I do like this product and it has become a regular skincare item.

The Cerave night cream I will also repurchase when I need another. I like it a lot and it is less expensive than many moisturizers.

The Bare Minerals primer I will not repurchase. It’s a basic silicone primer and that’s not really something I need in my life. In fact, I’ve got lots of others to use up.

The tin with a little pink left in it was a lush “naked” (meaning no packaging) shower conditioner and I absolutely ADORED this. I will repurchase. I kind of want to wait until shops open back up for a lush purchase, though that could be quite some time. I could order online, but I am trying to keep all purchases low right now.

Moroccan oil hair treatment, I loved this product! If I had longer hair, I’d likely use this often. It isn’t overly necessary with short hair, though keeping my hair in good shape right now is wise since I’ve no clue when it will get cut again!

Beside that I have a Replica fragrance sample in Jazz Club. Those replica fragrances are strong and wonderful, I loved this one!

I am removing a hank and henry liquid lipstick from my collection, it’s too heavy, thick, sticky, and matte for me to want to keep. I gave this to Miss Butterfly.

I finished up The Ordinary Matrixyl 10% which is another regular in my skin care routine, now repurchased.

And I finally finished a tatcha sheet mask that has been sitting in my collection for well over a year. I used it twice as there was plenty of “sauce” in it.

A bonus item I didn’t count as entering my collection last year is a curlsmith scalp treatment. I really liked this! It smelled very….organic? earthy? But nice! Made my hair feel good. Not sure what it did for my scalp. Won’t purchase. But I did like it.

And that’s it for now. I did place an order, only two skincare items, mostly because Miss Butterfly needed a few things, so I added those in as well. I will feature them in an upcoming beauty balance post, but they aren’t here yet, so I’ll likely wait until I also gather a number of new empties too. I doubt there will be anything else incoming in April, as I am trying to keep my low buy. The next time I expect to purchase would be for haircare, but even that has changed considerably now that I am staying home until further notice. I still do my hair! But in a much more gentle fashion using different products than before.

Quarantimes Part 5

/ shellssells / 2 Comments

In Part 4 I spoke of items I’d like to get accomplished during the week of working from home. I will certainly list and show progress on those, but before that, I will say that a major change occurred during the week.

I worked from home as was usual on Monday and Tuesday, as it was my work from home week. My staff was split in two, and the other team was on campus.

On Tuesday evening, we got the notice that the university was shutting down. This is despite the fact that there’s no state wide shut down. Our university decided that we needed to do more than we were, and so they sent the notice that only essential personnel are to report.

What did this mean for me? It meant that ALL my staff were now to work from home. It meant working Tuesday evening to communicate that, and communicate with my boss, and get some work done to get us squared away. We activated the calling tree I’d made in the previous weeks, and then I spent the remainder of the evening answering questions as they came up.

And now we are home for at least the upcoming two weeks if not longer.

Now to the list.

    1.  Don’t work during time off.
      That didn’t really work as we had an emergency situation. I stuck to it the first day but that was it.
    2. Wash windows outside.
      Totally got this done on my lunch break on day 1. I realized that this job only takes 15 minutes, and I need to remember that in the future.
    3. Deep clean bathroom.
      Nope, but I do hope to get it done this weekend.
    4. Rearrange living room furniture.
      Got this done with the help of Miss Butterfly. We also deep cleaned in the living room. This was something that took up a full lunch break, but it was nice to accomplish it!
    5. Begin deep cleaning bedroom.
      Big fat nope here as well, but I’ll get to why on this below.
    6. Get items I need to finish painting garage window frames.
      I did this!
    7. Bake bread.
      I did this too, but it wasn’t the bread I wanted to bake. I baked banana bread. I wanted proper bread. But I didn’t get to it. I did, however, make pancakes, french toast, and a dutch baby as well this week, so my powers of cooking breakfast were strong this week.
    8. Bake dog treats.
      Yep, this was on day one as well. I made them dehydrated sweet potatoes and they LOVED them! I am hoping to make this a weekly treat as long as the weather is cooler and Mr. Ink picks up sweet potatoes from the store.

img_3435

So, one of the reasons I didn’t get started on some of the things I had anticipated working on this week is because once I realized we’d be home for weeks instead of just one week, I adjusted my thinking. I told Miss Butterfly that if she WANTED to, we’d decide on some paint colors and get the interior painted. Or at least a lot of the interior. We did go to the hardware store to pick up the items I needed for the garage trim paint job, and while there we picked up a bunch of swatches and tape as well. Miss Butterfly was well entertained that day doing her history lessons and then deciding on color swatches.

She did a great job with color swatches, she eliminated quite a few swatches and narrowed things down for me. It was another day before I got to really take a good look at them, but since she’d narrowed things down, I was able to choose very quickly. We had originally been looking to pick for the living room, dining room, kitchen, and hallway. We ended up picking for my craft room as well, as one of the swatches just looked super nice.

We don’t have the paint yet. I know that this type of paint order could really take some time, and I haven’t had the time to devote to that. Miss Butterfly is going to her dad’s home this weekend, so I am not anticipating picking up paint until this upcoming week. She has, however, taped a good portion of the house too, and that’s super helpful since I don’t have to deal with it. It has kept her well occupied and I admit that I am hoping the painting process keeps her well occupied too.

img_3437

Here’s a bonus photo of my new “coworkers” hanging out in the craft room with me. They are getting VERY comfortable with this current situation!

I am still working on knitting and spinning, but I have this aversion to finishing anything because that means I’ll have to put in the effort of thinking what I should work on next. I don’t feel like it. So I just keep switching up the crafting work and hoping I never finish anything!

Partners in Cream Project Pan update #3

/ shellssells / 4 Comments

It’s April 10, and that means it is time for update 3 in my partners in cream project pan. Let’s start right off with the progress from last month:

img_3246I had finished the lipstick and one of the Becca primers and added in the face mist.

In March, I’d worked really hard to finish up the Bare Minerals primer, using my bare minerals foundation with it. I wore the foundation in my rolling project pan only a few times, working extra hard on the bare minerals primer since it was almost gone. I did finish! That was my only finish this month. Let’s move on to the photo and some decisions that need to be made.

img_3440

We got the news this week that we are now fully working from home for a bit, rather than one week in the office and one week working from home. I’ll go into that in more detail in a later post not related to makeup or project pan updates. But, I’ve decided to roll out the sleek cream contour palette at this time. I am still wearing makeup sometimes. I love doing it, I enjoy the creativity, and because it’s become so much a part of my morning routine, it makes me feel nice and awake. However, forcing cream contour into a routine when I am only staying at home just isn’t going to work for me. I’d rather save this for a time down the road when I am out and about again.

The bare minerals primer is gone, leaving the Becca primer, I made the tiniest bit of progress on that, and the face mist which is ALMOST gone. That means I need to roll a few things in.

I am starting with the replacement of my sleek cream contour palette. I am rolling in my It Cosmetics matte cc cream. It’s not my favorite formula in this line, I find I do prefer foundations with a little more glow. The added spf in this foundation will be great for when I walk the dogs on my lunch break, or sit outside on the patio in the afternoon (providing the weather warms) or when I go to the dog park right after work.

On the days I don’t want to wear that foundation, I might as well keep working on my powder foundation stash, so I am rolling in another primer that I think will work well with powder foundation. It’s the No Poreblem primer, and as you can see, I have had it in a previous project. This takes the place of the bare minerals primer.

The facial mist is so close to being done that I don’t want to wait a full month to start something new. I’ve decided to roll in another facial mist to take the place of the one I am close to being done with.

So that’s where we are with this 3rd project of mine. I feel good about one finish, and I am glad to not force myself to work through something I really don’t need, saving it for another time. I look forward to this project now, and seeing what happens through a month of working through home. (If it lasts a month. It will certainly last for the upcoming 2 weeks.)

 

 

Pan Those Eyeshadows Roulette

/ shellssells / 4 Comments

A couple years ago I decided to do a project where I’d randomly choose eyeshadows and wear them together, forcing myself to make creative looks and choices. I am not sure how long that project actually lasted, but it was creative. I think one of the major reasons I quit it was that I was often choosing colors that I really did not want to wear.

I knocked that off and just went back to wearing whatever shadows I wanted to wear and attempting to rotate through my entire collection regularly.

I have the hankering to again work on a roulette-style project. Much like those on youtube, I’ll be choosing shadows using a random number generator and attempting to use them until I hit pan on them. Once pan is hit, a new color will be rolled in through a random number generator.

One rule I plan to employ is that if I have gone 3 months with a color AND used it more than 30 times and still not hit pan on it, I can roll it out and choose a new color. I will be tracking my usage.

I went through all my shadows and numbered them, but I left out anything that I truly didn’t want to hit pan in. Super dark colors, particularly black, are off the table completely. Colors that I find extremely difficult to use in a palette because they are just crap shades I also did not include. No pressed glitters either. But I have left in dark shades, exciting shades, bold shades, etc. I didn’t want to make it too terribly easy on myself. The idea is to be creative.

Then I pulled 6 colors, here they are swatched:

img_3413

The bottom 4 all go pretty nicely together, as do the top 3. I only pulled two matte colors and they don’t really go together so I’ll likely be using other mattes as well.

So, what did I pick? From top to bottom:

The green shimmer (satin?) shade in my NYX happy birthday palette. It is unnamed.

A Sydney Grace matte called Token, this one is a single shadow.

A lovely duochrome color from Violet Voss Sugar Crystals palette called Sugar Crystals. It’ll make a fantastic inner corner highlight as well as a nice topper, I am so excited to play with it, but am a bit nervous as I am not sure I want to hit pan on it!

2 colors from my Colourpop Bye Bye Birdie palette, Nevermore and Heron Chic. I am rather excited about this, as I’ve not played with this palette much yet and it’s exciting to be able to concentrate on it.

From my Too Faced holiday palette, I chose Make a Wish.

Here’s a picture of the shadows in their palettes. I attempted to circle the colors in the project, that went poorly but you’ll get the idea. As yo ucan see, they are mostly unused, so it’s going to be a stretch to get these to show pan in the course of 3 months I suspect.

img_3418

I am really looking forward to this. I’ve got a berry-toned color selection and a warmer toned color selection. I am eager to get some good use out of all these colors and see where I can get with them. For the record, I am starting now and calling April a full month. I’ve also decided that just because I sometimes work from home doesn’t mean I have to fully quit wearing makeup. If I want to wear it and find the application of it relaxing, I can do it anyhow. In fact, perhaps it’s a great time to really experiment. I’ll just keep up with my vow to continue upping my skincare mask game as well.

I don’t think I am going to be too eager to post looks with this combo, but if I run across one I particularly like, I’ll make sure to grab a selfie.

Quarantimes Part 4

/ shellssells / 3 Comments

I did it again, wrote and scheduled too many posts so that now this post from the weekend is coming at you on a Tuesday.

We had a really low key weekend. I guess most people are having a low key weekend. But, I really made a point of it. We are increasing our hunkering down even though our state doesn’t have full lock down restrictions. We are limiting the number of household folks going to the dog park. One per dog is sufficient. Since Miss Butterfly doesn’t get out much these days, I sent her with Mr. Ink on Sunday. I missed seeing the dogs have a great time, but I did rather enjoy the house to myself, I made myself lunch and napped in the sun. It was lovely. I am sure I’ll get to see the dogs play during the course of the week.

One crafty project I did get to start is working with the easter egg dyed wool locks. I decided to go the “old fashioned” route and hand card them. This has proved to be a good decision for these locks.

img_3412

These rolags are soft and fluffy. I am only giving them two passes on the hand cards as I had flick carded them all prior to dyeing them and they are already in great shape. Basically, hand carding them just puts them in a form that I can use and keeps them nice and consistent looking.

I am fortunate to be able to work from home this upcoming week. We’ll see what happens this week, I am wondering if our state illness numbers go up dramatically, we will then see a statewide lockdown, keeping me at home more.

The one thing I noticed in the previous time period I worked from home (only 3 days) was that I had a tendency to work way MORE than I would if I were at work. Instead of my proper shift, I was signing on about 45 minutes ahead of schedule, working through my lunch break, and then staying signed on about an hour after my scheduled shift ended. I think it’s because I couldn’t quite figure out what to do during those time periods. I am fortunate that Mr. Ink comes home for lunch and generally makes me lunch as well. So, food prep in any manner wasn’t a thing I had to worry about. I am always up early and since I wasn’t commuting, I spent my commute time working.

I would like to change that up this week. And because of that, I am going to bring back something I used to do ages ago on this blog, accountability lists. Here’s what I want to accomplish this week.

  1.  Don’t work during time off.
  2. Wash windows outside.
  3. Deep clean bathroom.
  4. Rearrange living room furniture.
  5. Begin deep cleaning bedroom.
  6. Get items I need to finish painting garage window frames.
  7. Bake bread.
  8. Bake dog treats.

I think that’s about sufficient for a week of full time work as well. But, I think it’s fair to expect that I could rattle off a number of these things in those times I would previously be commuting or taking a break at work. I did not include anything at all about crafts, as I find that crafty stuff continues on no matter what in the background, and I don’t want to stress over any crafting at all right now.

I will do an update over the weekend or early next week indicating which items I was able to accomplish. Making a list feels really nice at the moment. Soothing even.

Ranking All My Eyeshadows Bottom Tier

/ shellssells / 1 Comment

This is the last palette ranking post, though I might dig out my stand alone single shadows and mention which tier I’d put them each in. But that’s a project for another day. Today I am just going to go through my bottom tier palettes.

img_3377

Heading right to left and top to bottom.

22. This is a nyx happy birthday palette and I am not entirely sure where it came from. I believe that Miss Marja might have given it to Miss Butterfly and Miss Butterfly gave it to me because heavily warm leaning colors on her don’t look fantastic. This palette is in the bottom tier because it is tricksy. I’d say about half of the shadows in that palette are good and useable and wearable. But then there are a couple that are trash. And, sometimes I forget which are which, so I end up feeling betrayed by the palette. It stays in my collection because the good shadows are wearable but I don’t reach for it due to the frustration factor.

23 and 24. My BH Cosmetics zodiac palettes. The mattes are fantastic but no matter what I do, the baked shimmers crease on my eyes. I’ve tried everything. The creasing is so dramatic. Not only do they crease, but when they do, it’s like the color has moved off my lid and into my lines leaving entire patches of color that no longer exist. I just can’t understand it! It’s too frustrating. Again, the mattes are absolutely gorgeous and work so well. But I just get so frustrated by the shimmers. This might be another I depot, keeping the mattes and tossing the shimmers. But for now, they are fine as is.

25. This little depotted shadow container is the colorful pieces of the morphe JH palette as well as a few others mixed in. I don’t think any of these are particularly great shadows despite being fun and colorful. I am not sure what to say about it except they live in my collection and I open them up from time to time to see what they are, then quickly put them away again.

26.  This is a little pacifica palette. The green I wanted to love but it looks exactly like a healing bruise on my face, so I don’t use it. The other shadows work fine. But since I have a lot of other warm and orange toned shadows, I rarely use it.

27. Too Faced Boudoir Eyes palette. When I originally got this I really liked it. But, the reality is that it gives me the same look over and over no matter which shadow in the palette I use. I may work toward using up the matte white as a setting powder for a primer and then move it out of my collection. I think if I want super cool tones, I am pretty happy to use the white peach palette instead.

And that’s it. I’ve amassed quite a collection over the past couple of years. Thankfully I am at the point where I feel like I’ve got all I need and am not super motivated to get any more. I do love most of what I have, and I do wear even these bottom tier palettes pretty often. I try to rotate my collection regularly so that everything gets use. And I’ve already moved out shadows that I actively dislike. I don’t bother to try to hit pan in anything that isn’t a setting shade because this makes me concentrate too much on one particular palette and I don’t like doing that. In the future I might mess around with the idea of an eyeshadow roulette project again, but with the current situation and makeup use in general being way down, I am going to let it be for now.

Ranking All My Eyeshadows Tier 4

/ shellssells / 2 Comments

We are on to tier 4 shadows now, just a very few left.

img_3376

Going right to left, top to bottom, we start with “palette” 18.

18.  These are 4 singles I paired together from a nyx advent calendar (2018). 2 shimmers and 2 mattes. They are actually pretty good little shadows and when I pick this quad up, I enjoy using it. They are drastically unexciting though.

19.  Below that are depotted morphe JH palette singles. They are mattes and they didn’t fit with the rest of my depotted shadows from that palette. They are kind of here in a holding pattern. Though I do pull this out when using stand alone single shadows in  my collection, as there are enough tones to do a full look when paired with a shimmer. The other tiny pan is a MUFE sample I received ages ago. Miss Butterfly likes it, and I wonder if I should just hand it over to her.

20. Too Faced White Peach. This palette has a very poor reputation and I can see why. However, it works just fine for me. I can get cool toned looks with it, and I also enjoy the peach colors. While I don’t pull it out often, it serves it’s purpose.

21. Maverick from Revlon. This was given to me by Miss Marja. It’s a surprisingly good little palette and when I use it, I get great warm toned looks. The major downfall of this palette is the pan size. They are so very narrow that I cannot use a makeup brush in there without accidentally picking up the shades next to the color I am going for. This can be infuriating.

And then I’ve got Too Faced chocolate bar and chocolate gold. I am not going to count these, as they are Miss Butterfly’s palettes. She just keeps them in my collection and lets me use them. I like them both well enough but the reason I don’t own them for myself is that I just don’t care too much about them. So, they sit in this tier 4 while also not being mine in the first place.

Only one tier left to go, my bottom rung palettes. I actually think that knowing which are bottom rung will be good, as I’ll be able to see what I can do to make those palettes as useful as possible, and then perhaps consider moving them out of my collection.

Quarantimes Part 3

/ shellssells / 1 Comment

This post is coming a little late, as our activities were done last weekend, but I had already written and scheduled so much other content, this was the first available day to get a post up. Ultimately that’s a far cry from what this blog had looked like recently, so I was delighted to just roll with it.

We decided that a fun activity to do would be dyeing eggs. Miss Butterfly picked up two kits while we were out, a tie-dye kit and a regular kit. The tie-dye kit was a lot of fun, we really enjoyed using it.

img_3389

This had the added benefit of giving me something to eat during the day, as I had to be physically at work this past week. There are no more vendors allowed on campus, and I don’t want to bring back or spread anything in the hospital cafeteria. So, I try to stay in our building, and prior to this had been surviving on cereal and oatmeal and fruit during the day. Oatmeal for lunch gets old pretty fast, and this addition to my work diet was extremely welcome!

img_3393

I used the remainder of the easter egg dyes to dye some plain grey wool from a fleece I processed ages ago. I am looking forward to hand carding these and then spinning them. It should be a fun little project! 2 years ago I worked hard at getting my dyed and undyed wool stash to a manageable level, moving stash into either ready to be spun status, or spun status. This bag has been hanging out waiting for something to happen to it, and I am thrilled I had the idea to dye this and move it into another part of my collection.

Plus, added bonus will be that once I find and drag out my hand cards, I should have more blog content, right?

 

 

Ranking All My Eyeshadows Tier 3

/ shellssells / Leave a comment

Here’s my third tier round up in this series:

img_3375

This’ll be short because I only placed 4 palettes in tier 3!

14.  This may not look like it, but it is a good portion of my depotted Morphe Jaclyn Hill palette. I’ve added a few other shadows to it, but that’s really the bulk of it with the brighter colors removed. I didn’t like them anyhow. You’ll see them in the bottom tier actually. I like this for warmed toned looks and I do use it pretty often. But, overall it feels like no matter what I do with this palette, I get a one note look. It’s all the same. Tons of colors and I feel like I am getting the same look over and over. So I end up doing the same look over and over, figuring if I were to hit pan on something, that would make this palette somewhat more exciting.
15.  Ace Beaute Grandiose palette. This is another palette I got in boxycharm. I use it rarely. The color story is a bit tough for me to figure out what to do with. When I use it, I like it. It can go neutral or very warm but leans warm. I am glad I own it but it’s kind of forgettable.
16.  Too Faced christmas palette. I think this one has third tier status just because I’ve had very little time to play with it. In reality, the shadows are really good. They perform very well and all the looks I do with it come out great. I got this half-price well after the christmas season, one of the matte shadows came smashed, and returning it wasn’t an option, there were no palettes to trade it in for. I tried to repress it, but it didn’t really work. Out of all the palettes I’ve focused on, this is the one palette that is most likely to have the opportunity to move up in tiers. But I’d have to actually use it for that to happen.
17. Urban Decay Born to Run palette. Mr. Ink and Miss Butterfly bought this palette for me, full price, for one of my birthdays. I’d wanted it so badly. I just craved this palette from the time it came out to the time I got it. Reality? It’s not that great a palette. And that makes me so sad. It has high sentimental value, and I should try to use it more, but I just haven’t been impressed at all, and that’s a complete bummer. It may only be in tier 3 for the sentimental value of it!

We’ve only two more tiers to go now, almost finished!

Ranking All My Eyeshadows Second Tier

/ shellssells / Leave a comment

How did these make second tier? I’ll attempt to explore that as I go.

img_3374

7. Too Faced Sweet Peach palette. I have very much enjoyed this palette. It leans way more neutral than I expect, but I do love a peachy color especially in spring as well. This is one of those palettes that there’s no clear answer to why it is second tier except that I often choose other palettes over this one.
8. Colourpop It’s My Pleasure palette. I love the purples in this one, and I also love how it performs. It makes beautiful looks and I am glad I own it. It’s easy to use. But in all honesty, when I want purple, I pull the coloured raine power palette more than I pull this one.
9. Tarte pro to go palette. This is a really fantastic little palette. It’s deceiving. When I use this palette the looks come out great. I am regularly amazed at how good I look when I wear this palette. However, for some reason, I rarely like the look as I am applying it. With this palette, the look needs time to settle in, but once it does, it surprises. That’s why it is second tier. I rarely leave the house thinking “I look great!” when I put this palette on. It’s partway through the day before I start thinking that. Because of this lack of immediate gratification, this palette gets second tier status.
10. Things are going to get a bit weird from here on out, as I have made a point to kind of create my own palettes. This one is mostly Sydney Grace, the bundle was called Taylor deep and light. I’ve got a few other single shadows thrown in to make it a full palette. Sydney Grace mattes are beautiful and easy to work with. The overall look of this palette is cool toned, even with those warmer red shades mixed in. I like this palette a lot, but I don’t reach for it often. It’s really great and yet slightly forgettable. Second Tier.
11. Another Sydney Grace bundle which was the dupes for the melt gemini palette. Pretty sure I added a few other single shadows and removed some too in order to come up with this yellow/green combo that I liked best. Love this palette, but mostly wear it in the summer. There’s something about a slightly tanned skintone and my yellow summer clothes that make this one a one season palette, which is why it gets second tier status.
12. Violet Voss Sugar Crystals. I got this recently and it’s lovely. Very interesting with the colors, the textures, and the duochromes. It isn’t hard to work with, but it takes some thinking and planning and it sure doesn’t come across as everyday wear. It’s beautiful, but second tier.
13. Colourpop Bye Bye Birdie palette. Another great colorpop palette, mostly leans neutral and I can get a lot of good looks from it. But, I do not love the pressed glitters in it. And it has two shades that are more like a supershock shadow. They are not a powder. They have betrayed me. Numerous times. By creasing terribly on my eyes. The lowest of the second tier palettes for sure.

In looking over this second tier, I can think right off the cuff that I’d like to incorporate the violet voss palette into more looks. There are loads of great inner corner highlight colors in there and I need to just set this one out for regular use. I also want to get more use out of my Sydney Grace Taylor Bundle collection and my Sweet Peach palette.

I do rotate my palettes regularly. It doesn’t matter at all what “status” they hold, I regularly pull them all out of a drawer, set them aside, and work through them once by one. At the end of this little series, I might decide to declutter a thing or two, but I tend to get decent use out of all of them even though I’ve got some clear favorites.

Protect Your Meatsuit project pan update 3

/ shellssells / 1 Comment

I’ve been enjoying my progress on the protect your meatsuit project pan. While much of what I placed in here ends up being longer term items, I have managed to go through a few things.

Here are the photos of where I started, update 1, and at the bottom, update 2. I didn’t get it in the photo, but I finished up both the Manna Kadar body exfoliant and the Shea Moisture in shower conditioner. Neither of them I liked particularly well, so I am glad to have them moved out of my collection.

Here’s what I have going on now:

img_3379

Another chunk of product used in my sol de janero shower gel. I still love this and am happy I am getting a lot of use out of it. I think my daughter may be getting in and using it as I often forget to remove it from the shower. But, I’ve decided to let that go. I can’t remember everything all the time. Seems to be about the same amount of use this time as last time.

With a few days of working from home came a commitment to using my face masks more. I decided that I had to mask every day during that time period. This did not show up as a ton of use on my two elemis face masks, but I am glad to be getting as far as I am. I will likely have more work from home days coming up, and I’ll keep after these during that time frame.

I didn’t bother to try to mark my dr. Brandt cleanser as it’s basically just spurting now, there’s nothing to mark. So, I’ll finish it this month, but I am adding in one of the oldest cleansers in my cleanser stash. The Kate Somerville exfoliating cleanser. I really like this one, and I’d hate to see it go off.

And finally, a new product to officially bring me back to 5 working products at all time in this project, I am rolling in this leave in conditioner from ouai. I experimented with it last week, figuring on the days I am staying home it’ll be perfect for my purposes. But, turns out it leaves a little bit of grit to my hair, which is something that’ll come in handy when I am doing my hair for work. So, progress might be made faster than I’d been anticipating.

I have really enjoyed separating my makeup and skincare project pans this year. While I do have another project that combines the two, I feel like these are my main projects and the separation feels great. It’s just easier for me to manage than last year’s huge full face project pan. While most of this project is a little slow moving, it is a heck of a lot more progress than I would have been making without the associated project.