The Herd is Growing

      I am still missing a package that I should have gotten back in the middle of December. I started a search through USPS over a week ago, and they have not said a thing to me. I think maybe the mailman is wearing my nail stuff (which, that is a joke, BTW). I am really glad that most of my packages arrive, though I have had more go missing in the last year than in the rest of the time we have lived here. Anyway, yesterday I got my Uptick in the mail. And this is a really cool horse! I am really looking forward to painting the rock wall, I am sure I can do a good job on that. So here is a buying tip for anyone who still wants and has not managed to snag an Uptick. When Morgen tells you the sale is coming up, set a calendar alert on your phone. It will remind you the sale is happening that day. Then set an alarm for 2 minutes before the stated sales time. When your alarm goes off, drop everything you are doing, log into paypal (this is an important step) and then go to the link that Morgen provides in the email. Just keep trying it until it works, add the horse to the cart and checkout. Easy. Some of these instructions come direction from Morgen (like, logging into paypal right before the scheduled sales time). If you don't have a smartphone or don't know how to use calendar alerts I can't help you. Other than to say write yourself a note and hope you remember. I also don't know when Morgen will have the next ready for sale. Anyway, Uptick is super cool in person and I am very glad I added him (her?) to my collection. Now I really need to get to painting! I have all of January to practice to get ready for painting Ballycor during NaMoPaiMo. I should get on it. 

      I have a good amount of prepped micros ready for painting and I should potentially considering working on one or two. Or five. I think I am past the worst of my winter blahs, though it's hard to tell, they can always come back. I do have dolls I need to work on, but since it's not show season, no one seems to be in a huge rush. Maybe I can work on dolls for a few hours after school and then work on painting while I am cooking supper. It's not a lot of time, but I don't have tons of time during the week. We'll see. I need to decide who to paint first, and what color to do. I really want to paint Tennytoo, but what color to do???

Painting Plans

     This post is not all about makeup. But I am 100% going to talk about makeup. Anyone who has been reading for a bit knows that I have been playing with makeup a lot more lately. It makes me happy and I love the artistry involved in doing makeup. So I have been practicing and trying out new products. Yesterday I got some more L'Oreal foundation and powder in the mail. This is the pro-glow formula and honestly, I don't really see much of a difference from the other formula. Maybe I just can't tell. 

     I do think that this color is a slightly better match to my skin tone than the other color I have. Though neither is a bad match. Here's my "serious" face. I actually really like this purple eyeshadow look (a mix of MAC and Urban Decay) and the nude lipstick (which is L'Oreal Infallible liquid lip in shade angora). My eyeshadow also coordinates well with my hair and my fleece!

      So other than painting my face, I do have plans to paint during NaMoPaiMo again this year. Here I am with my already-prepped Ballycor resin. I am aiming to paint her to a Palomino. Yes, that is the color I painted last year on Hugh, but it is the only time I painted that color and I do not own a traditional scale palomino horse. I have also never managed to paint a traditional scale horse that didn't look like crap. So I am hoping to take everything I learned on Hugh and make Ballycor a horse I will not be ashamed to bring in public. And then I will performance show the crap out of her!

     I do have a few prepped stablemates that are for sale. Alborozo is not perfection, if you hold him in just the right way you can see a speck of where his horn was. If I have time and good weather soon I might see if I can touch up that spot and finish up the other two I am working on. 

       Yesterday was full of a bunch of sorting and errands. I went through a bunch of old camping stuff Ethan and I haven't used in a lot of years. I got rid of things that were full of mold or had gotten far beyond any use. I found some stuff that was missing and Travis and I went and did some shopping. The day was a little bit productive. I kind of wish that it had been a bit more lazy. Maybe next weekend I can try for lazy...

Saturday Fun

     I really have been having a ton of fun with makeup these days. And I guess skincare in general. Even without any makeup my skin is looking pretty great. Moisturizer is so much nicer for your face than neglect. The effort is making my skin look so much better and is making me feel better overall. Plus I usually only have S.A.D issues for a couple of weeks when the seasons change. It's only been a few days since I started doing a full face of makeup, but I like what I have been using. Not pricey, but excellent quality, L'Oreal foundation and powder. Over e.l.f. primer and with e.l.f. concealer. I am really impressed with these super affordable "drug store brands". Yesterday also saw e.l.f. bronzing powder and highlighter. I'm a fan.

       I got together with Liesl yesterday and we had a really nice lunch at a Chinese/Japanese restaurant neither of us has ever been do. My "fortune" was really not a fortune, just a statement of fact. I am well aware that dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power. Which is why I try really hard to dwell on the positive. Even if I have to reach for it. For example, yesterday I could say it was crap weather and it was gross and awful. Which would not be a lie really. What I actually said was, 42 degrees is really warm for January in Massachusetts. It was raining and gloomy, but I was out in a fleece and I didn't die. Good times. 

    Before we parted ways I got a picture with Liesl, which I said I wouldn't put on the blog because she didn't like it. Then I joked that I would put a big smiley face sticker over her face and she said that was great and I could do that! So here I am with Liesl (maybe? Who can tell?). It was a good day. And she made the longer trip so I only have to go about a half hour away. Not bad at all. 

       Liesl brought me a Little Leggies who I now need to prep and decide what I want her to look like. Or make her get in line while I figure out what I want all the other minis to look like. I believe I own every version of Leggs that was ever created. Not all of them are currently in my possession, but someday they will be!

      When I got home it was to the lovely smell of turkey cooking. I had it all prepped before I left and Ethan got it started. As usual with turkey, it was amazing and we will have plenty of leftovers. I am OK with that. Maybe this time around I will make some turkey salad. Mmmm. 

     So yesterday I also did no doll work, but it was Saturday and I try not to work on the weekends. Depending on what today brings, and my level of motivation, I might work on a bit today. We'll see. Yesterday I officially signed up for NaMoPaiMo and I need to take my selfie with my unpainted horse and get her posted. I saw a bunch of those photos on the Facebook group yesterday, and it was scary because none of them looked prepped! They may have been prepped in white, but it was still scary! Prep your horses people! Painting starts February 1st!

Always Check Your Email

    I had no post planned for today. I had no new doll work, not much to talk about in general and the only picture I got from yesterday was this one, which is not super. but sort of funny I guess. And apparently even if I thought I was a hot mess in the makeup department, it was decent. I got a lot of compliments on it. I guess the color experimenting is going well. Though I am still hunting for a good teal shadow. This looked too blue on me I thought. And I live in fear of 80's blue eyeshadow. 

     I really only put this photo because it's sort of funny, and my blogs all need photos. I didn't think I had anything to talk about, but this morning, in my email, I saw that I had a new comment on my blog Doll Mojo. So I went to read it because I LOVE getting comments! Wow. I was glad I went and read the comment and I really hope I was the first one to read it, though there is no way of knowing. It was a very nice comment saying that the article was very informative and they would be pinning it in their must read articles section... which doesn't make a lot of sense because it was not an article, it was a post saying that I finished a doll, lol! Anyway, they included a permalink in their comment to their website. Their sex doll website. *sigh* NOT COOL! So I asked Google how to remove a comment and I made it go away. Honestly, I try to keep things family friendly on here. I don't need that kind of crap permalinked in my comments!
     So anyway, today is Saturday and I am very glad of it. I was exhausted yesterday afternoon and did no doll work at all. I managed (after a nap) to get a couple of dolls shipped and Travis and I went to Big Y. That was it. I was not unmotivated, I was just tired. Hopefully I can think of something to talk about soon that will not be too boring and can keep my daily posting streak alive. This year I am hoping to manage a post every day. So far, so good. 
     To wrap up with this PSA post for today, always check the comments on your blog (I get a notification in my email) and if you don't know something, or how to do something, Google is your friend. Also, NaMoPaiMo registration is now open! Come paint "with" a big group of people! Get your horses prepped! And remember, read all the rules FIRST!

Doll Mojo!

     I have my doll mojo back! Or at least I seem to. I was really suffering with the jockey doll. I don't know if it was the seasonal depression and I am in a better place with it now (I usually am highly unmotivated for about 2 weeks every time the seasons change) or if I left the order untouched in my book for too long and he then felt like he was looming over me. Either way, getting through the jockey was rough. Sure, they are not the easiest dolls ever, but they are not all that difficult either. 

     So I got home from school and I had fully planned to take an after school nap, but I decided I was all set and would just make some coffee instead. I still have some of the excellent Tiny Footprint dark roast I got as a gift. It's delicious and sounded just right. And it was. I put on episode #23 of Mares in Black, had a coffee and got to work on Danielle's Western doll. I had all the prep work done and it didn't take long to get the basics of the outfit on and start decorating. 

     We were going with sort of a Frozen theme and I added white and silver iridescent snowflakes and then swirls of Swarovski crystals. The doll also got Elsa's pale blond braid. 

        I still had a decent amount of time before supper so I took out the paint and got the hat painted and worked on painting her face. All you need to paint doll faces is teeny tiny brushes and really steady hands!

       Here she is all finished up! I know it seems like it happened all at once, but like I said, I had the prep work all done. I was incredibly pleased with my doll work today. It felt good to not only get right into working but to not struggle to get through the work. For weeks now I have felt like I was wearing a weighted coat while I tried to work. Yesterday was relatively easy. 

    I also had a good mail day. I got a whole bunch of Amazon gift cards for Christmas so I bought some of the eyeshadow I have been eyeballing from there. That showed up today, along with a new liquid eyeliner I want to try. I am not impressed with the MAC liquid eyeliner. It was MAC and I really wanted to be impressed, but I am not. I will go back to buying the Urban Decay liner. Unless the NYX one I got in is just amazing. For a fraction of what the Urban Decay liner costs I will switch to NYX if it's just as good. 
     Other than the makeup I also got my December micro from Maggie. I got the open mouth version of Armstrong and he's pretty cute. He's another I am not sure if I am madly in love with, but he's fun and different and can hang out on my dusty shelf for now while I think about it. 

     I also got this little guy in with Armstrong. No card and I had not heard anything about an extra, so I messaged Maggie to see if I got him by mistake. Nope! He's a bonus that Maggie just didn't make a card for. And he's super adorable. Makeup and tiny horses definitely makes for a good mail day. 

      It's now the beginning of January which REALLY means NaMoPaiMo is coming! Entries will open within the next few days. If you don't have your horses prepped, get on it! I should have a batch of Breyer unicorns, that are no longer unicorns, for sale if anyone needs a prepped body. I just need to do a bit more on a couple of them. But don't wait too long, if you have decent weather, get to prepping!

Celebrate Like You Mean It

     Around our house we celebrate New Year's day in a bigger than average way. I started out the day trying out some makeup colors I thought I would never in my life go near. None of my photos seem to show my makeup clearly, but I had a ton of fun with them! In case anyone is curious, it is several shades out of Urban Decay's Naked Reloaded palette; retro went in and slightly above the crease, burn was backed onto the outer edges of the lids, I feel like endgame darkened the crease a bit more and maybe angelfire highlighted the browbones, I have no idea anymore. But it was coppery/peachy sort of look, which is very new for me. And fun!

       I didn't catch much gift opening in photos. I was mostly just watching. Travis really liked this giant Ninja turtle Ethan got for him. 

I really loved this beautiful little box. Which looks kind of like a makeup box.

      But it's not! Ethan has been actively collecting knives again and I saw this one when he was looking. It's pink and has jewels on it and it called to me! I don't have a little knife to carry in my purse. Even my mom has a purse knife, you never know when you need one after all. Mom's is a Swiss Army knife that is potentially older than me, but this pink knife is definitely more me. 

Plus the blade says "Hello Lovely". I love this so much!

      I tried the new fathead dough mini calzones. These almond flour ones were definitely more flexible than the coconut flour one. I had a few issues with them, but they were actually so much easier to make. 

     We had a variety of things to eat. 

     There was also a delicious buffalo chicken dip. Elecktra and Peter came over and we had a good time. I don't want to go back to work...

    So back to school today. I am already ready for my after school nap. I have a feeling I will need it. Vacations are great and I really appreciate them, but it is definitely super rough going back. Just two days and then the weekend. I think I can handle it. I'm hoping to get a bit of doll work done later, but we will see if that happens. 

Happy New Year!

     Happy New Year! Today is the first day of 2020. How weird is that? I remember 20 years ago (yesterday) I was at a New Year's Eve party at my brother John's apartment. It was probably the biggest party I have ever been to. Somewhere I have a picture from that party. My hair is WAY better these days!

      Yesterday I did my year end review. It was an interesting year. And what did I finish up at the tail end of the decade? I finished the jockey, which for the past month was causing me a huge mental block. I don't know why, some dolls just do that. Every step of working on them is a super struggle and it seems to take forever to get them done. But I managed it. And it feels amazing!

    I was also back to hairing heads in the laundromat. Because, that is what I do. It was sort of too cold for it, they set the heat on 60 in there and I don't think it is ever actually 60 because the doors are always opening and the entire front wall is giant, drafty windows. So it's really chilly in there. I managed to hair a couple of heads anyway. 

       When I got home I thought about working some more on the western pleasure doll that I need to make, but I decided I needed to do some cleaning and sorting. Somehow my crap pile on the kitchen table has gotten out of control. Again. So I dug through it and put Travis's important papers in his important stuff binder, put shipping confirmation slips and receipts in my order book and actually did my year end numbers for my doll business. And I really do make more money making dolls than being a paraprofessional. It's funny, but not funny.

     In my sorting I found a bunch of things I needed to put away for prizes for my next live sale, which will be at the end of March. I found the galaxy looking dog collar that I got from Sara Bowman during her live sale. I went and dug out my hound to put it on. And now the hound, who sadly has no name, is hanging out on the shelf with Tiny Abby. 

        I did more cleaning and sorting and I started to work on food prep for today. We celebrate New Year's day in a big way. Lots of food, gifts, people coming over. It's a good time. Elecktra and Peter will be over later and I'm pretty excited. It sucks that I have to go back to work tomorrow, but I only have to work 2 days and then it will be the weekend. I might make it. Maybe. 

        One of the things I am making today is mini low carb calzones. I actually made this particular batch for the Christmas party at my parents' house last Sunday, but I want to try the fathead dough with almond flour and see if it is any more flexible than with the coconut flour so I can stuff more pepperoni into them. I have goals. Though these were really good, even though some of them were ugly. All of my normal eating (not low carb) family loved them. 

      I'm going to do a buffalo chicken dip in the crock pot and you need things to dip into a dip, so I made some almond flour crackers. I also dropped the container on the floor, it burst open and spilled about half of them out. Not cool, rolling them out is a lot of work. 

     I did also make some low carb tortilla chips. These are also really hard to roll out, but totally worth it. They are made from a slightly different fathead dough and are really good, really sturdy and I am looking forward to eating them. With and without dip. 

     Today is the first day of the new year, the first day of a new decade and the first blog of the new year. Last year I managed to post quite a lot. I am wondering if I can manage every day this year. Probably not, I know some of my posts probably got a bit boring. I need some new ideas and some guest posts! That would help. Maybe I can get Elecktra to finally finish that post she told me months ago that she would write. 

     Oh, it's January 1st. NaMoPaiMo is coming. Are your horses prepped?