Fountain Pen Day!

(I do know I'm 4 days late. Shhhhh!)

My rotation for Fountain Pen Day 2013 (left to right):
Platinum Preppy fine/03,
 Noodler's Nib Creaper flex in Carniolan Honey,
 Lamy Safari Apple Green 2012 LE fine,
 FPR Dilli flex pen,
 Noodler's Ahab flex in Hudson Bay Fathom's Blue,
 Platinum Preppy 05/medium purple,
 Serwex 162 fine,
 Noodler's Clear Nib Creaper.

I'm probably cheating here because I hadn't cracked the purple Preppy cartridge yet, but I plan to soon, so I left it in. I have a rainbow going and I now need some red/pink and maybe a little black  to complete it.

It's not really fair to tell you what inks are here because you can't see them but they are:
Blue Platinum cartridge
Private Reserve 'Avacado'
Noodler's 'Heart of Darkness'
Noodler's 'Black Swan in Australian Roses'
Diamine Oxblood
Purple Platinum cartridge
De Atramentis 'Plum'
Noodler's Antietam

*All products here were purchased by me for my own use and review. 

when things don't always work out as they should. (plus an ink review?)

I had this brilliant idea to do fountain pen ink reviews.

I have gotten super into fountain pens and ink is kind of like nail polish in that ten people using the same ink (or polish) will have ten different experiences and opinions. I end up reading tons of reviews that often cover the same or similar products, albeit inks, pens or paper.

So, since I've bought a ton of samples lately (and a ton of pens) I decided to start writing out some reviews. Everything was going smoothly so far.

Then I scanned them.



Firstly, my scanner refuses to can the entire page. Not sure why. Obviously, I don't use it very often. There isn't even anything about this in the manual! (Next time I'm going to try scanning it still on the pad and see if having three dimensions helps. Also considering drawing borders.)

Secondly, this color is not even close to the actual color.

Then I googled: https://www.google.com/search?q=noodler's+black+swan+in+australian+roses&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=5iNwUtTzNuGBiwKr04DgCA&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=643

It seems to show up this way in everyone's photos and scans, so I don't feel as bad.

In reality, it is a much more red purple. Almost a burgundy. It isn't as red as Black Swan in English Roses, but is still more red than it shows above. It's a nice color. It's not my favorite, as I've yet to find a purple that has really wowed me.

The pen, the Fountain Pen Revolution Dilli flex pen is fantastic! I adore it and it is currently my favorite. It's highly versatile and can write from a very fine line to a fat, flex-y puddle. The pen and ink combination here was ideal, because BSAR shades so well. I anticipate picking up at least one more.

I'm a bit discouraged and re-thinking this ink review thing. I'm going to try scanning a few more and see what happens. Please, any feedback is welcome.

*All products here were purchased by me for my own use and review. 


ETA: I decided to not include swabs because I think swabs can be kind of misleading about how a color writes. How it looks in a big ol' blobs is not really relevant for me because I am only writing and not doing art. Plus, everyone posts as swab so I really don't need to. Right?

DIDNEYLAN! (or How I Can Go On Vacation And Still Be Succulent Crazy)

I went to Disneyland. It happens.

Yes, I am a childless (childfree!) grown-ass woman.

Yes, I took pictures with Mickey and Minnie and Goofy and Pluto and Donald. (And Daisy!)



One of the things that I appreciate most about Disneyland is that everything is so detailed and well-done. Everything fits into its theme to a T!

Imagine how delighted I was to look around while I was in Frontierland and discover SUCCULENTS! Everywhere!



There were a ton of strawberry pots like this with a huge variety of plants. There were also plants in wall hangers and quite a few in the ground as well. (I also saw quite a few in California Adventure in the Cars Land and Bugs Land sections.) I really wanted to take cuttings because how cool would it be to have a plant that came from a plant growing at Disneyland? I'm too big a square for that. I kept thinking, "If everyone did it, there'd be none left to enjoy."

I always enjoy when two of my interests come together!

Is it an addiction if you can't stop buying plants?

I wrote in June about succulents and haven't looked back. I've gone a leeeetle bit crazy. I mean, as crazy as one can get buying plants.




This is just one such purchase. I love echeverias and rosette-like succulents in general. I was super excited to find the Perle Von Nurnberg (back left) because I'd been admiring it in photos for quite a while. I'm currently debating whether to plant it outside or not. I also love weird plants of all kinds, like the Baby Toes (back middle), Split Rock (front left) and lithops (front right). My Baby Toes plant is pretty beat up, so you can't really see how creepy they are. The Split Rock got a purple buddy this week, and I'll have a really neat picture of the apothecary jar they were planted in.

What I'm the most excited about are the lithops!



I love these, because they are some of the weirdest and most boring plants on the face of the planet. If you aren't paying attention, you might not even notice that they are plants! Surprisingly, they have a really pretty, daisy-like flower. Of course, they bloom in spring so I will be waiting quite a while for that. Before that, mine will be getting new leaves, which I am also looking forward to.

I'm planning to repot these (about two weeks after their initial planting) to do something like this, in a really beautiful vintage vase:

(image found on pinterest. original source is http://www.solxsol.com/p/11725/)

Expect more succulent pictures and chatter! I repotted a bunch today but didn't take photos.

recent makings

Here are a few things that went into the mail recently! Tartans included (from left to right) are Nova Scota, Cameron of Erracht, Cameron, Rose, and MacKenzie. Plus we've got the Next Stop Everywhere and the Lady Elizabeth pendants plus Evanora's Emerald Amulet.

I really LOVE LOVE LOVE the new black settings, and I'm looking to add Loopy black so that everything will come in black.

Things have really started to pick up now that Fall is around the corner and I can't be more excited to be making things and sharing what I'm making!

C'est le weekend!

Here are some photos of what I've been doing lately.

I went on a very awesome vacation where I did a lot of spinning.





Finished this while I was there! I plied it the night Tim Lincecum threw his no-hitter. It's lucky yarn!


This was tonight's Tour de Fleece spinning, with my little helper.

My succulents are doing well. So is my pitcher plant.



I found out I can water him with air conditioning condensate which is great! We have a LOT of that this time of year. It's a lot cheaper than distilled water bought by the gallon.

We found a really weird succulent while wine tasting at Ceago Winery in Nice, CA:

I found out later it's a cereus forebesii monstrose. I really wanted to take a cutting, but didn't know how! The winery is gorgeous! There is a beautiful garden and there are lavender fields. Check out their photo gallery if you need some more pretty things to look at.

I've been doing some pretty fun jewelry stuff, too. (Of course. I always am!) Here's a little backstage peek:


One of my pendants is going to Comic Con this weekend! I hope the recipient sends me photos.

three cheers for the red, white, and blue!

This is Sally Hansen base coat, RCM Midnight Affair, Sally Hansen top coat, one thick coat of L.A. Girl Brilliant Blue, Hit Polish Nautical Nonsense, topped off with one coat of Jordana Quick Shine top coat.

I was very excited to find a couple of these LA Girl 3D Effects polishes at Rite Aid a week or so ago and this blue was absolutely ideal for Fourth of July.

I found Hit Polish on etsy a couple weeks ago and they were having a great sale! I picked up a couple, including Nautical Nonsense. It's got various red, white, blue, and gold glitters in hex and squares with a few shards thrown in. Some of the gold bits are holo, which makes it even better!

Happy July 4th to my American friends!

*All products here were purchased by me for my own wear and review. 

Succulents and such

My two new babies! A kalanchoe (Paddle Plant/Flapjack Plant) on the right and and echeveria (Hens and Chicks) on the right. I love succulents because they are very low-maintenance but can be really striking and unusual.



I have a bunch of cuttings and small plants going right now as well.
 

I'm going crazy with them! Now I'm on the search for containers and terrarium supplies.

Tour de Fleece day 1

Tour de Fleece day 1, a photo by TartanHearts on Flickr.

on the left/forground: Widdershin Woolworks BFL single, half of a 4oz braid to become two-ply
middle: first wheel-spun chain-ply/n-ply! WOO! Woolgatherings BFL, light fingering-ish weight
on spindle: same Woolgatherings but spindle-spun.

Orly Gel FX

If you do gel and think you even might like this, GO PICK SOME UP! Seriously. It's amazing.





This was three coats of Sally Hansen 'Red My Lips' with two coats of Orly 'Gel FX' and Gelish base and top coats. It was a little thick, because of all those coats but not too bad.





Basically, I want to wear Gel FX over every gel color out there. It is so fun! I think the photos pretty much speak for themselves with this one.

*All products here were purchased by me for my own wear and review. 

Tour de Fleece pre-game post #2

When I said, 'I think there is a wheel in my future", I didn't mean two days in the future. I meant something more in the range of two years. I was planning to save my pennies for a while and that sort of thing.

Then this happened:



I posted about wanting a wheel and BAM! A friend of a friend had an Ashford Traditional for sale for a very good price. I snapped it up! I still can't believe it all happened so quickly.

I've been doing a bit of spinning, as often as I can. This was the end of my first day:



I am so glad I started on a spindle and was at least nominally familiar with the why and how. I still thought the yarn went over the big wheel part until last week. (hehehe!) Treadling was the hardest part, mostly because I'm not very coordinated. I'm burning through fiber compared with working on a spindle. I can't wait to start on the Polwarth from the last post and this stuff that just fell into my cart on etsy: (do you sense a theme from the other fiber?)

T-minus 6 days until TdF starts! 

so so excited!

These babies are live! After a year of working with Cleo of twee & honey, they are finally ready!
http://tartanhearts.storenvy.com/products/1724768-twee-honey-for-tartanhearts-summer-set-le
http://tweeandhoney.com/t-h-by-twee-honey/for-TartanHearts/summer-set.html


I love them all so much! I think the mint is my favorite. I'm a cream girl through-and-through, so that shouldn't be too surprising. The listings have all the relevant info, so check 'em out if you're interested. I'm excited to start getting these babies in the mail! We have some special packaging for these, of course.

Tour de Fleece pre-game and goals 2013

In addition to doing the nail polish and tartan things, I also do various yarny things. That's how this blog was started! I've seen blog posts and things on Ravelry about Tour de Fleece since it started in 2006- I especially remember it in the early years because I spent a lot of time reading fiber crafting blogs in those days. I didn't start spinning until this year (March) so this will be my first Tour de Fleece.

background: Tour de Fleece was begun in 2006. The goal is to do some sort of spinning project along with the Tour de France schedule. There are two rest days, just like the real Tour. Spinning? Get it? SPINNING?! Anyway, it has taken place every year since and this year is begins on June 29. There is a huge Ravelry group with a ton of teams and I'm on like four (so far). Different groups give out different prizes and such (I donated some to Team Slutboots, of course).

Since I'm such a new spinner, my plan is to spin every day. That's all. I have about 2/3 of 8 oz of Woolgatherings Mixed BFL top to go, although I am spinning it already. I've had it for months and haven't made a ton of progress. I'm spinning it on a horribly crappy 2 oz spindle and chain-plying it. No idea what it will knit up into or even what weight it will be. Fingering or DK, I *think* but I'm new.


I also have another top on its way to me:

It's 4 oz of Polwarth, which I've never spun. Basically, it's purdy and while I LOVE the grey, I'm getting a little ready for some color. 

Since the Tour race leader wears le Maillot Jaune, yellow is an unofficial color theme. I have some yellow manis and yellow jewelry lined up just for this occasion! I also picked this yarn before I knew about the Tour so I am glad that it had yellow.

Back to some more spinning! I think there is a wheel in my future.

new things in the shop!

- a England Saint George. I'm not sure there are words to describe how fucking amazing this polish is. It's amazing on the nail and it's just as good as jewelry. (listing here, if you're interested) I have a few more pieces I'll be adding in the coming days.
- I've got some patriotic things in the shop for 4th of July. AMERICA!
-MOST EXCITING:
I'm doing a collaboration with my internet superpal Cleo of twee and honey! We're going to have *limited edition* polishes with matching jewelry! Photos and details and all that jazz coming soon! It'll all be here when it is ready: http://tweeandhoney.com/for-TartanHearts/

Beat the Heat!

I needed to beat the heat today; it was 109 in Sacramento.



SensatioNail "Beat the Heat", with accent nail of "Sun Kissed", three coats of each. Nailtiques 2+ as base coat, Sally Hansen gel base and top coat, one coat of each.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I LOVE yellow. And my sister's favorite color is orange. So when I wandered into Walgreens and saw the new SensatioNail Island Fever collection, I picked these two up immediately. Without hesitation.

The application was great! "Beat the Heat" could probably be a two-coater. As a hater of VNL, I did three coats of each. The orange is definitely a jelly and although the VNL doesn't show up well here, it was very much there. The colors are a little less neon than they are in the photos, more like straight yellow crayon yellow and orange. My camera really hated them. You can see that it's a little brighter than the box color, though.

The wear ... lacked. I had issues with bubbling, some after the fact. On one finger, the bubble peeled off and revealed several layers of polish which made me wonder if it hadn't cured correctly. I tried again, doubling the cure time, and it still happened. It only happened with "Beat the Heat" and is visible on my index, middle finger, and thumb in the photos. I have used SensatioNail polish without the base layer ("gel primer") before and never had this problem. I'm hopeful that this was a bad batch. A lemon even!

Verdict: the colors are worth it for me. There isn't a comparable/dupe yellow gel that I'm aware of.

*All products here were purchased by me for my own wear and review. 

Bridesmaid nails!

Professionally done. The blue is a Nina Ultra Pro (old style) but I can't find the name. The glitter is China Glaze 'Lorelei's Tiara".

I was lucky enough to be a bridesmaid in what was possibly the only non-tacky wedding with red, white, and blue as the colors. I also got to do the jewelry! More on that in a future post. These were my amazing nails. I found the idea on pinterest, of course, although it didn't have a source. (And it only took hours of searching "4th of July nails" and "Red, white, and blue nails" to find something that wasn't totally over the top.) I was originally intending to do this myself, with RCM "Midnight Affair' as the base and employing some nail art stripers. (I have glitter red!) All the bridesmaids got our nails done together so a professional got to do them instead. They lasted really well- this picture was taken on day 6. They survived the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, the wedding hangover, and two cross-country flights. My current gel hasn't done that well! The rest of the bridesmaids went with plain ol' French tips and such. I knew I made the right choice when a couple of guests came up to see what I'd done with my nails because they knew they would be "different". Well, they were!

Here are all the bridesmaid and the bride:

Aren't we adorable? Especially the jewelry and the nails. 

A couple of things I've been working on lately.

A variety of pieces that went out a bit ago. Some super fun ones here! #tartanhearts #tartan #highlanddance #scottish #celtic #jewelry #etsy #storenvy #plaid #handmade #nailpolish #nailpolishjewelry #lynnderella #mercurial, a photo by TartanHearts on Flickr.

Since I haven't updated otherwise, here are a few things I've been doing. A little bit of everything! I always like sending tartan and nail polish to the same home.

Sneak peek of what's coming up!

This is NOT Orly ' Shade Shifter' in action but I was so excited about it that I had to take a picture. My awesome Hex Nail Jewelry charm is pictured; I figured that went really well with Ramones-inspired polish. . More details about this mani coming very soon!

ETA: Sneak PEEK! PEEK, damn it. Not a sneak peak. No stealthy mountains here.

*All products here were purchased by me for my own wear and review. 

St. Patrick's Day nails 2013

*All products here were purchased by me for my own wear and review. 
This is: CND Stickey base coat, Gelish base coat, two coats of RCM 'Dress for Success', two coats of China Glaze 'Running in Circles', one coat of Poshe top coat, stamped with BM-221, and one coat of Poshe top coat. Accent nail has one coat of Ninja Polish 'Shamrock Floam' over the CG with a bit of twee & honey 'Viscera' and a coat of Poshe top coat.

Happy (belated) St. Patrick's Day! It is a HUGE day for my because I work in (and my family owns) an Irish pub. I see more family on SPD than on Christmas. No exaggeration. Naturally, I need awesome nails.

When "Running in Circles" came out, I remember lots of people saying, "This is the green version of Riveting! It's beautiful!" Somehow this stuck out in my mind and I still love my Giants playoffs mani, so I did a green version based on that. I fell in love with Ninja Polish 'Shillelagh' and 'Shamrock Floam' as soon as I saw them, and had to incorporate 'Shamrock Floam'. ('Shillelagh' deserves its own manicure on a day that I won't be stuck in a very dark pub. And pictures of me WITH a real shillelagh because I do have one.) I bought a TON of SPD polish and was only able to wear a bit of it. I do love green polish so I don't see this as a problem because I have no problem wearing it on any given day.

The interesting thing about this mani is that I completely forgot the Gelish top coat step. And didn't have very good results. RCM isn't the most durable to gels (on me) so that really didn't help. It started to crumble on a couple of my fingers and lead to me taking this off after only wearing it for a couple of days. Also, it looks like tipwear here but it was shrinkage! Poshe! :( Going back to my beloved (and much cheaper) Jordana top coat immediately.

Here's a picture of me with my super cute shamrock shirt found at Target. (tiny hat also from Target!)


I am also wearing Sephora + Pantone emerald green fake eyelashes, but didn't take a close-up to show them off.

My "work" outfit for the day, since I was dancing, was this:


I was very excited to wear my new Jig outfit! Not only is it hella cute (especially compared to my last Jig outfit, seen in the middle there) it is a lot lighter and cooler to wear than a kilt or an Aboyne outfit. And it's one zipper and an apron tie versus five different items of clothing. I'm excited to do some more competing this year, even with the "no polish" dress code. I'll be posting some nude toned manicures for sure! :)

Pretty & Polished 'Irish Brawn'

This is CND Stickey bas coat, Gelish base coat, two coats of Gelish 'Black Shadow', Gelish top coat, one coat of Pretty & Polished 'Irish Brawn' and Jordana Quick Shine top coat.

I am a total SUCKER for any bright glitter in a dark base. I own quite a few polishes like this, in various shapes and colors. If someone put out a line with a polish like this in every color of the rainbow, I would buy them.

That said, I like 'Irish Brawn' performed. It was not too thick or thin and the glitter didn't get lost in the base, as often happens in polishes like this. The glitter application was very random, which I like. My thumbs ended up with a LOT of glitter. The effect on my ring finger made it almost look French tip, which was unintentionally awesome! If I worked someplace other than a dark-ass bar, this would have been my St. Patrick's Day day-of mani. Instead, I opted for something a little brighter which I will post soon!

*All products here were purchased by me for my own wear and review. 

a-England 'Dragon'

This is CND Stickey base coat, Gelish base coat, two coats of Gelish 'Runway For Your Money', Gelish top coat, two coats of a-England 'Dragon' and Jordana Quick Shine top coat.

I've just recently acquired a-England polishes and I am kicking myself for waiting so long. The holo isn't as holo-y as it could be but somehow that doesn't seem to matter with how gorgeous these are (usually it does). They're very pigmented and apply beautifully. I highly encourage you to pick up some a-Englands if you don't already have any!

'Dragon' is a yellow-toned medium green that is probably a bit lighter than pictured here. It has a copper duochrome and a scattered holographic effect. It was perfect to wear at the beginning of March when I wanted to get into the St. Patrick's Day spirit without being SHAMROCKS AND RAINBOWS for three weeks.

*All products reviewed here were purchased by me for wear and review.