The Frilly Panda

A facebook friend mentioned she was looking for the perfect grey lipstick and I had some free time so I delved into the world of blog swatches to find one. I came across one called "Gravely" that looked just right so I went browsing the creators website - Morgana Cryptoria and holy crap am I glad I did. (I managed to catch them on a sale too woohoo) She a very nice range of lippies and I couldn't wait to try them out.

I got 4 to test run, two glosses and two gel lipsticks - both styles are very moisturizing, very pigmented with loads of dimension, and just wonderful.

I was one of the many people oggling the new High Beam and Intense shadow pigments line on Moi Minerals Facebook page from the moment they were sneak peek'd. I liked most of the colors but I instantly fell in love with Kiwi Ninja - it looked like the perfect shade of green and I knew I had to get at least a small bit of it to try. So when they finally loaded everything onto the site I browsed around all the colors in the line (not all of them were previewed on the facebook page) and made my picks. Not until later that night did I check back only to find that there were MORE colors added! So naturally I had to go through the new ones and make more picks - Holly (the owner) was awesome to let me have a coupon code to eliminate shipping on the second one and put everything together as one order for me :) So I waited for my lovely little package to come in the mail and it finally came last week. I tried playing with the colors for a few days and found that some of them were a lot "dustier" than others. What I mean by that is some of them are very fine pigments that are ultra smooth and easy to apply, blend, and mix; while others are heavier, a bit chunky, harder to apply, and mix. These latter are the more sparkly of the two mind you so that may have something to do with it. They aren't impossible to apply, just a little trickier. I did find that 98% of the ones I got mixed very well wet and went on really well with a primer. Most I find didn't really stick when used on just dry skin or just over a colored base, I found that the base had to be sticky - so a primer or lotion worked best. Again that was just for me - it may be different for you, I don't know. Overall I really like these colors and I will definitely be wearing a lot of the colors on a regular basis.

 And now some lip gloss :)



I would say to definitely try some of this line but go with your personal preferrence on application. Again, I found some to be harder to apply than others but I am persistant and will most likely perfect it in a while. If I find a super easy way then I will let you all know :).

Moi Minerals
Website: http://www.moiminerals.com/

Images borrowed from the Moi Minerals site - yay for promotion!
Other swatches are my own :)

I feel that it is about time that I tell everyone that I am the new seamstress for the Kabuki Guns Burlesque troupe - Canada version. (the leader has another troupe by the same name in Malta as well). My sister and I used to dance with the leader a number of years back and it was by a happy chance and one of those friend of a friend of a friend contacts that I got a comment on my facebook page about them needing a new seamstress. Now we all know my love of corsetry, even more love of making them, and even more more love for wearing them so I jumped at the opportunity. Now since I danced with and saw Miss Bunny last I have gotten married, had a son, and generally changed my life a lot so she had no idea who I was until she came by to get her measurements taken. Man was she suprised to see it was me and we had a good reminisce about stuff and the shows we had done previously.

I have worked with them on one numbers corsets so far and I must say that I will never again try to make so many corsets in such a short amount of time. Not everything got done to my standard (even though they would still work for the show) so I am taking them back and finishing them properly next week - at which time there will be pictures of them posted here and on my facebook page. I was very upset that I couldn't do as good a job as I wanted to on this particular piece but time got the better of me as it does with people from time to time. So thusly two weeks completion time from the day I take measurements for any piece is now my mantra. That does have wiggle room for multiple pieces of the same style etc etc but generally that will be my rule of thumb.

I am very excited to work with the troupe more and hope to get some really interesting pieces going (and finishing the striped ones to my actual standard cause they're gonna be awesome-sauce!)

I've finally finished swatching all my BFTE!! It only took forever but I've got it done now. In here you will find a few neutrals and purples that were hiding on me. The softer colors on the left were really hard to catch so I've included a few shots of the whole thing. I apologize for the flash harassment of the photos - it has been overcast lately and I can't get good color shots outside.

Subcooling - very light ocean blue with white gold shift
Sweet & Spicy - coral based pink with loads of irridescent shimmer
Kiss and Tell - my new neutral. It's almost a perfect match to my skin tone but shimmery
Hopeless Romantic - dusty mauve with warm undertones and loads of shimmer
Unicorn - deep eggplant purple with green sparkle and light shimmer - this one was darker than I assumed it would be
Holiday Magic - true eggplant purple with warm undertone and green sparkle - truly a magical color (see what I did there? teehee)
Laura - really warm pinky aubergine purple with low shimmer

I quite like these ones, I used all but Subcooling and Laura in a look today which I'll post at the bottom here. I'm really exciting to play with Subcooling again - I have a bunch of BFTE's blues and teals with gold sparkles in them and I absolutely love them. I think I may do a look and try to incorporate all of the ones I have. (off the top of my head I believe thats Subcooling, Winter Blues, Winter Wonderland... I'll check and see later)

BFTE: http://www.bftecosmetics.com/

Beauty From The Earth released a series of limited edition blogger sets in mid January and I was lucky enough to get one of them. They originally had four different sets available: Pinks and browns, Brights, Mattes, and Metallics. I had a hard time choosing as I love my bright colors - they're what I normally get drawn to, but I have been recently getting into the metallics. I went through my collection and realised that I was seriously lacking in neutrals so I opted to go with the Pinks and Browns collection. Each collection was shipped with random colors in each category so no two sets would have exactly the same pieces which was really nice. Each set came with three full size jars and three sample colors.

Mine came with the following:
Full size:
Amour - A peachy based matte pink
Rockstar - Mid toned earthy brown with notes of green, and coppery sparkle
Afterthought - Lovely duotone color that shifts from shimmery earthy silver/brown to have a nice violet tone. This is a limited edition color.

Samples:
Bubbly - Duotone neutral shade that goes from light champagne to have a nice pink tone
Stunning - Beautiful loaded deep fushia, low grade shimmer
Canyon - Oyster neutral with holoshimmer

I also got the Color Of The Week: TGIF - pink based red with holoshimmer

I have tried this collection in a few looks and I have to say that they are very well done. (We already knew that I love BFTE though). The colors are very vibrant, mostly true to their website desctiptions (they vary on different skintones), and they go on very nicely. They are not gritty at all, in fact they are some of the smoothest applying I have tried. They cover very well - nicely opaque - but you can sheer them up if you want. I did find that the matte shades blend better than the shimmer/sparkle shades. Those tend to lose their shimmer/sparkle and lighten a great deal when blending so you have to blend them using an overlay method to make it really nice. Thats generally how I blend anyways so it doesn't bother me much but to the regular blender it could be tedious.

*Personal Note*
While everything is wonderful with this set I was personally a little dissapointed in my random color selections. I love Rockstar, Bubbly (I had a sample of this one already), Stunning, and Canyon. I have been humming and hawing over getting Afterthought for a while so I was very happy to see it was in my set but \i have found that I really have to be careful about what I match it with when I wear it as it is easilly set off funny by my skintone. I have olive based porcelain skin and it puts off colors funny sometimes. This is one of those colors. Also, while Amour is a beautiful color on it's own, I just can't wear it because of it's orange base. I thusly had to give this one to a friend but I am sure she will love it :).

It was my son's second birthday yesterday and every year I make him a quilt. I decided that since he got his big boy bed for his birthday last year from g-ma and g-pa that I would add a fitted sheet and pillowcase to the mix as well. So this year the theme was Batman. I found some awesome Batman fabrics and made up a wicked scramble quilt with a framed backing.