Borderlands

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That thing I should have done two weeks ago

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Yes, I’m finally getting around to writing my post for the Liebster award that CaliforniaFlour graciously awarded me with. I’ve been putting it off and making excuses, but mostly I’ve been trying to make it perfect. As a wise person once said perfect is the enemy of good so I’m just going to go for it.

A bit about how the Liebster works first. There are variations on the rules which you can find here. But essential it is an award given to bloggers by bloggers. It’s pretty simple. You have to answer questions posed to you by the person who awarded you, you then award other bloggers of your choice (preferably people with a low subscriber count, depending on the rules you follow 200 or less) then you ask them questions in turn.

So First things first let me answer the questions posed to me by CaliforniaFlour.

  1. Do you live in your hometown/ would you ever move back?

    I’m a military brat so I’ve never really had a “home” town but I’ve been in my current city for a very long time and would consider it my home. I do love it here.

  2. What choices brought you into your current occupation (or life stand point if you don’t have an occupation)?

    I currently work in the cosmetics industry… a bit odd as I didn’t even wear much makeup five years ago but after seeing the things you could do with it I decided to try it as a hobby and then just fell into it as a career

  3. Where can you be entirely calm and at peace, away from the world? Your nook.

    My nook is curled up in bed with a book

  4. Will you share an idea that can help humanity leave a smaller footprint? (There I go again with Wall-E)

    Make old things new again. If I think I can find something at a thrift store instead of newly made then I would much rather buy it there. My desk, and my dining chairs are prime examples but I like to do that with a lot of my décor too. Also use tea towels instead of paper towels. That’s been standard practice in my parents’ home for as long as I can remember.

  5. What small thing makes you smile every time?

    My cat J

  6. What is your drink preference, be specific? Wine or Beer, if non alc. than your “go-to”.

    I’m not much of an alcohol person but in true (adoptive) southern fashion you can’t beat an ice cold, fresh made, lemonade.

  7. Do you advertise your blog through other social media sites such as Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook?

    I have a facebook for TinyBows https://www.facebook.com/Ittybittytinybows (you can totally like it if you want J ) I do have twitter and Instagram but have never gotten the hang of them and I’m on pinterest as Tiny Bows but it’s a lot of personal pins (just things I like and ideas for future projects and makeup looks) mixed in with pins from my blog

  8. How long does it typically take you to make a post, from idea-to-submit?

    It varies a great deal depending on the post. Sometimes I’ll write them a good bit ahead of time and just schedule them to post automatically but generally I’ll do my project on Monday or Tuesday write on Wednesday or Thursday then post on Friday or Saturday.

  9. What is your comfort food?

    I don’t really have a go to but I do love to make (and eat) my apparently famous chicken alfredo… and mac and cheese… and Dublin coddle(oooooh I know what’s for dinner tonight now)… and peanut butter cookies… darn, I see some food blogs coming up, of course CaliforniaFlour got me on that.

  10. Pajamas and delivery all weekend or hit all social spots?

    I’m a super home body, I basically live in my pajamas if I’m not working.

 

I’ve only been doing this blog thing for about six months so needless to say my subscriber count is low. In fact I had no idea anyone was reading my blog let alone reading it enough to award me with something. So this is pretty awesome… but the number of people I’m subscribed to is rather low as well since I’m so new, so the awarding people thing has been rather hard for me. I’ve only managed to scrounge together seven people with “low” (high by comparison to me) subscriber counts… Then I threw in a couple of others that I just adore… simply because I love their blogs and look forward to reading them every time they post anything, also because they are very active in the blogging community and very interactive with their subscribers and in their comment threads.

So here are my awardees

SweetSassyMolassie : Cross stitchery and Miscellaneous Curiosities (Cross Stitch, need I say more!)

Project Patrol: Always on the lookout (wonderful DIY home projects)

Half priced Hippie: Clean eating, Clean living (also there are random shenanigans)

DaytoDaywithM&A (Thrifty finds and yummy food and just day to day stuff)

HippiewithAHipProblem: Makeup, Motherhood and Medication (also sooo much M.A.C.)

LetsFaceTheMusic: Renovating an old house by a musical couple who want to spend the rest of their lives there (jealous of this house)

Aroon Melane: Fashion, Food and Beauty (and wonderful Outfit of the Days)

ByLauren Haley: Madness, Sparkle and Creative flare (The best blog about navigating the world as a young woman with an unseen illness)

FoundThisPaintedThat: Decorating solutions for the dollar challenged (one of the first blogs I subscribed to and still one of my favorites. She has actually already received a Liebster so I’ll just link you here)

Now on to my questions for my awarded bloggers, which despite having so much trouble finding blogs to award has actually been the hardest part. Do I ask the deep questions? Do I ask shallow question? So how about I just sit down and write and not worry about it… that sounds like a plan.

1 What made you decide to start a blog?

2 Who, or what is your biggest blogging influence?

3 How do you decide what to write about?

4. When did you start blogging/ how long have you been blogging?

Ok enough blogging questions

5 Where is the best place you have ever been, vacation, restaurant, museum, etc?

6. What is the best dish you have ever eaten?

7 What is your biggest fear?

8 What is your hidden talent?

9 What is your biggest accomplishment?

10 what is your favorite time waster? (be specific: mine is either cross stitching at the moment… or borderlands… borderlands is going to win at time wasting tonight)

I have to thank CaliforniaFlour for awarding me with this again. You should definitely go check out her blog, be prepared to get hungry. And please go check out all of the blogs I’ve awarded and for that matter who they award it’s a way to find new things to read and for blogs to find new subscribers. I’m hoping ill find some more blogs to follow with this post as well. I found some to follow with CaliforniaFlour’s post (unfortunately all of them had already been awarded lol). So please comment and like and maybe even subscribe if you like my content. It’s the only way I know that you are out there.

liebster5

 

 

 

 

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I want to be in a video game when I grow up

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So this year my boyfriend got in on the action.

A friend of ours sent him a makeup look for Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2 (if you don’t know who that is you don’t spend enough time on your computer).

Or I could just insert the video and be nice

He then got it in his mind that he wanted to be Handsome Jack for Halloween. Admittedly he does have the cartoonish eyebrows for him. If not the cartoonish jawline (thank god, I’d poke an eye out on that)

This got me pondering Handsome Jack’s brackets… and how the hell I was going to do those. Technically its one hinge (at the chin) and two latches (at the brows) so you could imagine the mask unlatching and hinging downward. If you haven’t played the Pre-Sequel, do yourself a favor and don’t google Handsome Jack as to avoid spoilers as to how he got that way. Then go play it.

In the tutorial I linked they use prosthetics made by a prop house. Unfortunately I’m not that fancy. I was going to use duct tape. And no I was NOT going to just stick duct tape to my boyfriend’s face (that is occasionally tempting). I was going to layer it and cut it into the required shape, and voila it’s already the necessary color. Alas I didn’t have any and am too lazy to buy any if I think I have an adequate substitute. Enter felt and silver paint.

Really old silver paint, just laying around the house. Like the consistency of pudding old. That’s how I do it.

I essentially soaked the felt in silver pain and let it dry overnight. I then cut it to approximate size, rolled up one end and hot glued it to create the hinge pin ends. After that I gave it one more coat of the silver paint. Once all that paint was dried I was worried about it retaining flexibility but it still contoured to the face and apparently wasn’t really uncomfortable. I just did a final cut down to size and shape and put in detail work with a black sharpie marker.

 

They are easily applied with liberal amounts of lash glue (or liquid latex).

Then It was on to the makeup. I don’t really have much to say about this process, except refer to the video, and still shots of the character, and don’t be afraid to alter the character to suit your (or the person you are working on’s face). My boyfiend has a smaller forehead and wider jawline than Jack so lines had to be altered a bit. That makes the character no less recognizable.

Also make sure you exfoliate and moisturize prior to application. I had never worked on a man’s face before and though it doesn’t really matter to me, a face is a face all of them have different lines you have to work with. I had forgotten how hard it is to blend product on dry skin, always having had oily skin myself and having worked on the skin of women who don’t have stubble and moisturize regularly.…. Let me put it this way things do not like to blend on dry skin so make sure all of your dead dry skin is gone before you try to do any kind of intensive makeup look like this. Sorry honey, I just got after you on the internets J

 

So this is just the preliminary attempt. Sorry for the slightly ridiculous lighting and the ever present cat. I used mostly powder products over a cream base in the preliminary attempt. Another mistake if you have dry skin. Oh and the streak of grey both in this and the final version was just achieved with some dry shampoo. I like Batiste brand, but whatever floats your boat.

The final run Halloween morning I used cream products and just set everything with powders of corresponding colors. It didn’t turn out too shabby. He still could have used some more shadows through the laugh lines and what not but… not half bad. Who knows maybe i’ll be Tiny Tina next year.