Sunday, May 12, 2013

Heirloom Nativity, TUSAL, China Glaze Sweet Hook, and SmartWool Socks.

Hows that for a title, eh?

It's been really busy at work and as a result I only stitched on the Heirloom Nativity this week. Some snow, some tree, and some more snow, oh and part of a donkey.  I'm going to enjoy seeing this last scene come to life.


It was time for a Totally Useless Stitch-a-long update the other day.  It's hard to tell that there are a few new threads in the jar.  I always hope for more threads than there ever are.  Too much time at work and at the gym.


Spring has finally arrived and I'm happy to see that the flowers I planted last year have survived.  I was worried about the peonies as the dog knocked the stems down last fall and the plant looked dead as could be when winter started.  But they've sprung back to life.  Yay!


The near plant gets a bit more sun than the far plant so it's grown bigger.  I'm thinking of buying another plant to put inbetween these two to fill in the space a little bit. It also looks like I need to do a bit of weeding and plant some low color flowers.  I think next weekend will be gardening weekend instead of Memorial Day weekend.  Memorial Day weekend I'm house and dog sitting for my brother.

The creeping phlox has survived as well and is blooming all nice and pink.  I didn't know it would bloom this color when I bought it last year.  I need to get some more of these to plant in the other rock walls.


And lastly, the dwarf lilacs have survived and are starting to bloom.  Yay!  We had a real cold snap this past winter and I was afraid that some bits of the bush got frozen and died.  Happily that didn't happen.


I'm guessing another week or so and it will be in full bloom.  It looks like I need to do some more weeding in this bed and plant some more color around to try and keep the weeds out.

I played around with my camera this week and managed to take a decent picture of the mani I wore for the majority of the week.  This one didn't have much of a plan to it but I really liked the way it turned out.


I started with the typical base coat and then did two layers of China Glaze Sweet Hook on the majority of my fingers.  This is a nice creme type color and one layer was pretty much opaque.  I did two for good measure.  On top of that I did one layer of Maybelline Magenta Mirage, a shatter/crackle effect polish.  It's a nice metallic finish with lots of shine.  For the accent finger I did two coats of China Glaze Unrefined which is a texture polish.  It is lightly nubby and matt in finish.  I put a couple of coats of a top coat on the other fingers, but left Unrefined uncoated.  I really loved the color combination, the light lilac of Sweet Hook, the sweet pink of Unrefined, and the metal magenta from the crackle coat. This mani lasted four days before the tip wear was starting to show.

 I like wearing little ballet flats but need to wear some little sockies with them to keep my feet happy.  I've been wearing little nylon footies which have been pretty good.  But I've been wishing for something that was a little bit hardier.  A few weekends ago I stumbled across some footies made of wool at Scheels.  My sister loves this brand and convinced me to buy a pair.  I did, and I loved them!  So then I had to go hunt down some more because one pair just wasn't enough!


These are great! Soft, cushy, and definitely better than the little nylon footies.  They are made by SmartWool and are the Secret Sleuth line.  They also come in black, grey, and beige (which is the color of the first pair I bought to test).  I highly reccommend these if you need something a bit hardier than the nylon footie to wear with your flats and other casual shoes.

Well, it's about time to watch some Top Gear, do my nails for next week, and then sit and stitch on something.

Hugs and stitches,
Kay

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