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Mother of Dragons

I made dragon eggs!!! Ok technically they are supposed to be pine cones but they definitely look like what I imagine dragon eggs look like. 

  
Start with some squares of paper 

  
Or alternately short lengths of ribbon (I used sticky back ribbon for extra ease) 

  
Fold your ribbon or paper so you have a peak and pin them onto your styrofoam ball 

  
Start with four “scales” all pointing towards one another, overlapping them in the center

  
Then cover your outside corners with four more

  
After that you can just start spiraling around with your “scales” being sure to overlap and cover your pins

  
It can be tedious

  
But so worth it

The if you want them as orniments simply find a means to hang them

  
For my first one (the ribbon dragon) I found one of the old drawer pulls from my infamous desk 

  
I (ok my dad cause I was a scardey cat) drilled all the way through, I used some guilding wax on it and strung some twine through.

  
 Then I just hot glued the repurposed handle to the top of the ball  to create a hangar  

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Clothes Pin-terest 

As you saw in my last blog I’ve been scouring Pinterest for DIY Christmas ornament ideas so Mr. Smith and I can have some memories for our first Christmas as husband and wife (maybe even in our first house if everything goes to plan) 

I came across a few involving clothes pins the other day that looked pretty easy so I thought I would give them a go.

  
Start by taking apart some (by some I mean 8) wooden clothes pins.

    
Then glue the flat sides together like so

  
I followed that up by staining them  along with a lot of other Christmas ornament supplies by using diluted paint. That’s completely optional though

  
This is also completely optional. I wrapped the edges of the pins with washi tape. 

  
Next lay out your pins in a star/snowflake pattern. It’s easiest to first do four at 90* angles from each other and four in between those

  
  
Then find a bauble to glue to the middle on each side.

   
I chose to use a small fabric flower topped by a wooden snowflake

   
Just string some twine or ribbon through one of the small holes in the pins or glue one on and you’re all set

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Like Tiny Snowflakes 

Mr. Smith and I are getting ready to buy a house and we get to move our hodge podge of stuff into it. Unfortunately that hodge podge does not include any Christmas decorations. 

  
So we are going to make some of our own this year. Here is a quick one I did over the weekend.

  
I started with one of these laser cut wooden snow flakes. Similar to my laser cut frames I painted a while ago and just as cheap.

  
Then I actually used washi tape to decorate something instead of as makeshift painters tape like I usually do. 

  
After covering the whole thing I just used an exacto knife to cut out the holes. 

  
So when I said quick that was a relative statement.

  
 It was something interesting to do while Mr. Smith played Fallout 4 in the background though. 

  
When it was all done I used some of the guilding wax that made an appearance last week to jazz it up a bit. 

  
Repeat on the other side, seal with clear acrylic, tie a ribbon to hang and you’re all set. 

  

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All That Glitters 

Another quick one. 

After last week’s failed attempt at a little guilding I had to have another go at it. 

  
This time I got the necessary supplies

  
And the ugliest vase known to man.

  
It actually used to hold those little reed diffuser things. I once again utilized some washi tape as painters tape… I should break down and get the real thing as the washi tape method could get expensive.

  
A little bit of how’s-about-I-just-follow-the-directions-on-the-box  and…. Not so ugly anymore

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Failures

I always set out with good intentions but sometimes it just doesn’t work out quite as planned. Such is the case this week. 

  
I saw the cutest little jar on modcloth or uncommon goods or something and got wildly inspired

Being the person I am I was like “I can do that”

  
I busted out my trustee nail polish, always good in a pinch as seen on some previous decor projects. Here or here or (oh my gosh! I don’t actually wear nail polish, but dang I use it a lot) here too 

  
 and our (if you’ve seen new girl you know the actual name of this) “change” jar

  
Some washi tape to plot out stripes (I haven’t been doing anything much more creative with it lately except maybe last week

  
An eraser to stamp some dots

  
The final results are…. Nope, just nope

Luckily I have acetone

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A Minute

Soooo it’s been a minute, again. Life has been busy, but really great. So there is that. 
I took a few minutes today to make a little something we’ve been missing.  

   
I just had to fold a piece of paper in half then in half again.

  
 Then cut a square off the folded corner. Eventually I’ll have a bookmark so I can stop using random pieces of junk mail for bookmarks.

  
Cut a slit halfway up one of the folds in order to wrap it around to the other side.

 
Use a ruler to mark the corner off and cut the extra tail off one side. 

 
Glue the flaps together on each side. I put magnets in each side but they aren’t strong enough to make a difference.

   
You can decorate however you like. I just used some washi tape.  

   

And tah dah I have a book mark. 

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M.I.A.

Once again it’s been a while since a post. It’s been a crazy month for Mr. Smith and me. Luckily that crazyness has involved visits from family and (for me) fun makeup and lots of work with it.

  

Oh, on that note  thank you to everyone who has pinned and passed on my white rabbit look on Pinterest. Yes you can follow TinyBows on Pinterest and it would be greatly appreciated.

Visit TinyBows’s profile on Pinterest here. //assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js

The white rabbit has gone a wee bit viral, at least by the standards of little old me. You can also find me on Facebook if you’re interested.

Anyway I apologize for being a little lax in projects. Or at least documenting projects

I went wreath crazy last week, but failed to take any pictures of the process. Just the results.

   
    
 I’ve also done at least three Halloween makeup looks since the white rabbit, one of which involved making a headpiece… I also failed to take pictures for that.

  
I’m being a pretty terrible blogger and it bugs me, so im going to attempt to do better in the coming months. Though the holidays are a terrible time for resolutions. At least in the new year I’m going  to rock this.

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Simplicity

Keeping it short and simple this week. I stained a little letter using a fun and easy technique.

  
For this project I used a little monogram from target but if you have a good scroll or jig saw you can make your own shapes. 

  
I drew out what design I wanted in chalk first but then decided just to wing it

  
Using a small brush I painted the design on using plain old wood glue, nothing special just elmers.

  
Let the glue dry thoroughly

Then apply a thin coat of a dark stain (or at least darker than the natural wood tone) and quickly buff off any excess

  
Voila your pattern is left natural. 

It’s a quick and easy way to add detail to a project and it’s pretty versatile as well. If you’re not comfortable free handing a pattern you can always mask off a geometric pattern like stripes or chevrons.

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Late for a date

Okay, not late. In fact, very early. Halloween is over a month away but I couldn’t help trying out a costume. I was actually inspired by the clock I demolished then repurposed way back in this blog post here. 

I’ve always loved Alice in Wonderland but I’ve never been able to pull off Alice herself (ok maybe when I was like, 6 with glorious long blond hair) 

  
So enter the white rabbit

I started with a base of high coverage foundation

     

 Then went in with white cream to highlight or bring certain features forward. Making my nose and upper lip appear more protuberant. I started out using a cream face paint then just decided NYX shadow base in Milk would work better, it did. 

I then did some cream shadows to get a more herbavore face going. A stark shadow low under the cheek bone and under the jaw line and down the nose and a little bit of shadow to upturn the lips. I kept all of these shadows grey to stay with in the monochromatic look. 

  

  
Then I set everything and intensified it with powders, turns out I don’t have a stark white powder but a slightly pearlescent eyeshadow worked relatively well and added a little more dimension

On to a few details I used a black eyeliner to do the philtrum (that little cleft under the nose) and black and grey to do the eye brows. 

  

  
I gave the brows a very flat and tapered (almost permanently worried) look

And I used a baby pink lipstick set with shadow for the nose.

  
For the eyes I did a really simple smokey look just running black liner through the water and tight line and smudging it through the lash line and along the crease. I wanted to keep it messy and easy. To give it some color I used the same pink shadow (or blush) I used on my nose to blend around the crease of the eye. Liberal amounts of mascara or false lashes and the eyes were done 

I also applied liberal amounts of blush which you can see in the eyeshadow picture.  I took it from the apples of the cheeks up to the temple area. To make sure I didn’t lose the highlight effect I did touch up with the pearlescent white as a cheekbone highlight. 

  
Now the fun details. I just took a small detail brush and using the same pink as before began to draw a clock face around one of my eyes. Enter the crisis where I can’t figure out if I did the clock face backwards thanks to how my spacial reasoning sucks then you add mirrors to that. 

  
Once I was satisfied with the placement I started to intensify it with darker colors making it look as though it were a shadow or brand on the face. First grey then a little black. 

  
Pop on some ears pin up the hair.

  
And put on your bunny smile.

I don’t have all my accessories yet. There will be a giant bow tie and of course my clock lantern. But I’m pretty happy with how it turned out for a first attempt. 

  

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Experimentation

After the little paintings I did a few weeks ago I thought I might experiment some more with painting on canvas. I should preface this with the fact that it was an all around bad idea

  
The problem is I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to painting canvas. I can paint on faces,  you will get to see more of that next week but paint and canvas baffles me. 

  
I’m not sure what brushes blend well, as was the case with this first experiment. I’m pretty sure the brush I used was too stiff, so I got some strange brush strokes going on. 

  
I’m not really sure what order to put colors down in, this was  also a problem with this painting.   Hint; don’t try to put the blue of your sky over the yellow of your sunset or you end up with a strange green sky.

So the whole thing has been a process of learning through experimentation. 

But you guys are allowed to see my failures as well as my successes. 

  
I also experimented a bit with watered down acrylics the technique was cool even though I really had no control over anything

  It’s not terrible, I just don’t really like how the little cartoony mermaid subject looks… I should have known I’m just not good at figures. I’ve still got four canvases to play with so if anyone has any tips or blogs they recommend they would be greatly appreciated.