Makeup Tutorial: Superman-Inspired

“I am (I am) I am Superman! I can do anything!”
^I have the lyrics to REM’s song stuck in my head. Not to mention I’m in love with Superman. I mean, he’s handsome, sweet, never lies, and is noble to a fault. Mmmm...

Naturally, Superman-inspired makeup had to happen. Duh. (click on the pics to see them in fullscreen)

What I used: Lots of stuff, actually. I used three Wet’n’Wild palettes: “A Regular at the Factory”, “Knock on Wood” and” I Got Good Jeans”. I also used a single Hard Candy pink (it came in a multipack and doesn’t have a name), Wet’n’Wild navy eyeliner, and Greatlash’s “So Very Berry” mascara (although it’s a limited edition, it can be found on Amazon).

Step 1: Cover your lid in the sky-blue from the RATF (“Regular at the Factory”—I’ll be using weird abbreviations) palette.

Step 2: Starting from your outer corner, sweep the navy from the IGGJ palette to the center of your lid. The shadow should be drakest at the corner and gradually lighter towards the middle—this creates a quasi-gradient.

Step 3: Apply the Hard Candy pink to your crease.

Step 4: Starting from the outer-corner-side of your crease, sweep the maroon from the KOW palette, creating a pink-to-maroon gradient, similar to what we did with the blues. I chose pink/maroon instead of red because 1. red eyeshadow is impossible to find and 2. full-on scarlet might be a bit too aggressive with the already vibrant blue.

Step 5: Sweep the bright yellow-gold from the IGGJ palette along the inner corner and a little bit under the eye.

Step 6: Brush the pale yellow from the RATF palette from your crease up to your browbone. This provides a nice highlight while still keeping to the color scheme. Yay!

Step 7: Apply navy liner to the top lash line.

Step 8: While you can use black mascara, I thought this berry mascara really tied this look together and added a totally boss touch. Apply to top and bottom lashes.

 SHAZAM! You look freaking fantastic. Super-duper. Wow-worthy. Now go out there and show the world that you ARE Superman and you CAN do anything!

House Staging Project!

We’re selling our house! While this may sound exciting, (which it is) spending my first two weeks home from college staging the house was the LAST thing I wanted to do after a hell of a finals week.

However, it turned out pretty nicely, and I’m feeling rather pleased (not to mention our realtor is totally pumped about my work—I feel honored!).
So what is staging, and why do it?

1. Staging is when you set up your house so it looks like it’s something out of Better Homes & Gardens (i.e. you make it look like people who are uber-stylish, psycho-neatfreaks who don’t own anything but a little furinture and some decorations live there—so basically fake people).

2. Pre-staging is hell because you have to move out/get rid of ALL YOUR CRAP. Books, clothes, toiletries, knicknacks:  anything that’s not minimal, tasteful decor and furniture that actually looks nice/matches has to go (i.e. half the stuff at the local Goodwill came from our house). Fortunately, we’re renting my grandmother’s condo so we’re moved in there and not living in the house.

3. Staging makes your house look extremely spacious (the furniture gives people a sense of scale, but having almost no stuff in the rooms makes them appear larger) and stylish, as well as move-in ready, which is extremely appealing to home shoppers. We repainted/touched up half the house to tie it together with a “beachy” theme, which is very popular right now (also, we live 20 minutes from the ocean. Fitting.)

We want to sell our house really fast, and although it’s only been on the market for four days we’ve already had three showings and have more scheduled. Hot damn! This is why we stage.
I have a handful of pics I stole from the listing to show what sorts of things I’ve done. I didn’t stage the bathrooms, and did minimal work in the master bedroom (time crunch) so I left those rooms out of this virtual tour. Anyway, allons-y!

Welcome to the house!

Here’s the kitchen. The wall color is “weathered glass” and I have a matching glass of seashells on the island (ha! island! beach!). Notice the perfectly-matching shell decoration above the stove. I got all the decorations for the house either at Goodwill, from my grandmother’s breezeway or from our house. Not. Too. Shabby.

Now we come to the living room. I found a mug that matched the kitchen walls to tie the color scheme into this room. Also, I painted that table in the corner white and put my grandmother’s candle-lit lighthouse and seashells on it to carry in the beach theme.

We didn’t have enough chairs to go all around the dining table (I put the other two in the eat-in area) so I put these guys at the ends of this massive table to show just how big this room is. I set the table (again, fake people live here).  Notice the beachgrass centerpiece and surrounding seashells. Also, my grandmother’s little three-picture hangy thing fit perfectly where we used to have a family picture frame. I love it when stuff works out like that.

 This is our addition, the “big room” (which is being marketed as the “family room”).  I moved the couch against the windows to create a clear pathway through the room and set up beanbag chairs with PS2 controllers and an open videogame case to make it seem as if the kids left their stuff just after playing a game. I got rid of many of our board games, so I artistically arranged the remaining games on the shelves so as to not look empty.  I also set up a game of clue, cards and pieces and checklists and all, as if two people had just gotten up in the middle of the game for a snack.

This is the office, in the daylight walkout basement. I borrowed my grandmother’s old computer monitor to stage this, and I placed some nice pens/office supplies on the shelves. I used sticky notes to cover up the beat up places on the desk.

Voila! The home gym. This used to be my basement bedroom, but it’s been repurposed. This room is so big, so I put the gyrm-thingy diagonal across the room so as not to leave a huge empty middle. I also kitty-cornered the step-up and the TV to go with the gym.

Last but not least, the bedrooms. This room was mine once upon a time, and, since it’s blue, I designated it the “boy’s room” (#gendernormsareannoying). I used a self portrait from 8th grade to cover up wall anchors and also put up a framed Ninja Turtles poster. I spent far longer than I’d like to admit on that Harry Potter puzzle, but left it unfinished because I wanted it to look like a kid is working on it.

Now the “girl’s room”. My little sister likes horses, so I went with a horse theme in here. The horse comforter, toy horse and horse book open on the bed tie it together nicely. None of the furniture in here matched, so I painted the dresser and nightstand white and did flower detailing on the knobs with pink nail polish. Btdubs the bed isn’t real—it’s three old mattresses stacked on top of each other. They’re going to Goodwill once the house sells.

In short, I chose a theme for the main floor that I knew was very doable (what with my grandmother having a lot of beachy stuff already and some of the walls already being a neutral color) and staged each room as if perfect fake people lived there.

New makeup tutorial coming tomorrow! Hint: it’s super cool. ;)

TBT: Furby (i.e. the mutant chicken from hell)

Let's just say the first time I got a mini Furby in my Happy Meal, I wasn't exactly happy:

I thought perhaps McDonald's had made a mistake, like the many times when I asked for a "boy toy" (let's be real-- Hot Wheels are waaaaay better than those sad excuses for Barbies) and they looked in the back seat of the car like "Is your son hiding in the trunk...? Because that's a girl."

I was more than a little befuddled-- this, er, thing that was sitting on my three-year-old lap looked like someone had stuck fish eyes on a hamster, glued a beak on the front and then slapped on bald cat ears as an afterthought. This was freakin' real-life Frankenstein's monster in a FLIPPING HAPPY MEAL. My three-year-old self thought something along the lines of WTH IS THIS?!

Needless to say, I got rid of it pretty quickly. Goodwill and gone.

However, Furby and I were destined to meet again.
In 2005 at Christmas, my grandparents got all the younger cousins something I had hoped I'd never see again. FREAKING FIENDISH FURBIES. My sister was one recipient. She petted it, and talked to it, and it sang "Twinkle Twinkle", gradually changing the lyrics from all Furbish to English as it "learned" from her. Learned. *shudder*

I'm planning your death, human.

After this little revival they seemed to be finally gone. But since I've seen them yet again on the shelves, meaning there must've been a third revival, I thought I'd do a bit of research. So here comes the weird.

Flaming gay or just on ectasy?

The first Furby was designed by two guys in 1998 who worked for Hasbro. It took them nine months to design the cretin, and they even had to enlist help from another professional toy designer. NINE MONTHS TO DESIGN A CREEPY MUTANT.

Why does this McDonald's Furby have (bananas? fries?) on its head?

In the Christmas season of 1998, Furbies were in such high demand tha stores coudln't keep them on the shelves. People resorted to buying the mutants from private sellers for anywhere from $100-around $300 (they retailed at $35). I don't understand this.

Twenty-seven million Furbies were sold in the first twelve months they were out. But after a few years, the activity died down. Until their revival in 2005. These Furbies, called Emoto-Furbies, were bigger, "cuter" (that's Wikipedia speaking, not me), and had better facial expression. However, they didn't react to loud noises (like older Furbies), and had more limited communication with Emoto-Furbies than the originals had with each other.

What's worse is the 2012 revival Furbies-- currently still being updated and manufactured-- have an app as well as the ability to have their personalities programmed based on how the owner interacts with it. You raise the Furby and teach it things, and how to act towards it determines its personality. It's practically a child. Eek!

Interesting fact: "According to the omniscient Wikipedia, "The originals are still popular with many hackers as they can be dissected and made to do interesting things. In particular, their advanced audio capabilities and various sensory interfaces make them popular with the circuit-bending community". Weird.

That's not the strangest thing people have done with Furbies. This was so crazy, I had to copy it directly from the page:
On January 13th 1999, it was reported the National Security Agency of the United States identified what was believed to be a spy that may have infiltrated its inner sanctums, describing it as "being less than a foot high, covered with red and orange fur, with watchful eyes and big ears". The description matched Tiger Electronics' Furby, which managed to beguile some of the NSA's employees that they brought it to work to ease stress. Shortly afterwards, the establishment banned Furbies from entering NSA's property due to concerns that they may be used to record and repeat classified information, advising those that see any on NSA property to "contact their Staff Security Officer for guidance." Roger Shiffman, the owner of Tiger Electronics, stated that "Furby has absolutely no ability to do any recording whatsoever," and would have gladly told the NSA this if he was asked from anyone from the spy agency. Additionally, Dave Hampton demonstrated that Furby's microphone can't record any sound at all, and can only hear a single monotonous beep if a loud sound is produced around Furby, and no words or waveforms can be made out at all. He too was never questioned by the NSA, and he could have answered both questions easily. The ban was eventually withdrawn."

In short, it may be possible to program Furbies to be spies. Or minions. For all we know, when we go to sleep at night our Furbies quietly chant "First the arms of unsuspecting children, then the world!" as they tap their feet with their limited mobility capacity. Or maybe it's not.

Makeup Tutorial: Daisy from "The Great Gatsby"

Why do this tutorial?

1. The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books of all time.
2. The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite movies of all time.
3. I'm an English major. #nerd
4. Daisy looks FABULOUS AND WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO LOOK LIKE HER

"I hope she'll be a fool-- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world. A beautiful little fool."

 

It took some experimenting, but after a while I think I perfected it. And I'm more than a little pleased (i.e. there is nothing better in my mind than to rock the makeup of a literary character. Again, #nerd).

In mah dorm.

So, for this tutorial I found this incredibly versatile palette by Wet'n'Wild. I ripped the label off, but I promise it's called "Silent Treatment." :>P
(Reminder: Click on the pics to see them in full-screen)

 

Step 1: Cover your lid in the neutral, pink-y color.

Step 2: Using the foam applicator, sweep the light grey along your crease, just up to your brow bone. (This is more subtle than the dark brown-grey they suggest for the crease).

Step 3: Using the other side of the foam applicator, apply VERY LIGHTLY a little bit of the dark grey-brown over the light grey you just applied. (This adds definition to the crease without darkening it too much).

Step 4: Using a brush or your (clean) finger, apply the light pink to your brown bone all the way up to your eyebrow, using it to blend the line of the darker shadow.

Step 5: With a well-sharpened pencil or a very fine liquid brush, apply a THIN line of eyeliner, upper lash line only. (This liner is meant only to subtley define-- Daisy's whole look is glamourous but subtle).

Step 6: Apply black lengthening mascara. I used MegaLength from Wet'n'Wild. (The lengthening mascara makes your eyelashes pop without making your eyes look too dark/makeup-y).

Et voila! You look like "a rose. An absolute rose".

New makeup tutorials every week all throughout the summer! It's good to be back. :>)