This post is a total departure from my usual but was fun, so I wanted to share.I love to learn something new every year. Or more often than that. Alright to be totally honest I love to learn new things basically whenever I can.My most recent 'experiment' was making nailpolish.Now the ultra strange thing about this is I rarely wear nailpolish. In fact this past year has been the only time I have ever gone for a manicure pedicure outside of my wedding day. I went through a nailpolish phase in high school and that was it. Today I prefer my nails to be free of any polish and to be able to 'breathe'. But there was just something super exciting to me about making my own that I had to try it!My boys were truly unimpressed. My 14 year old announced he would not tolerate me making lipstick, so if I had any ideas for that in the future (which I did! I think he was reading my mind!) to forget about it. When I asked him why he was so 'against' my fun he replied that I was making our house too 'girly'.I have 3 boys. I have and always will be outnumbered. I have a girl dog but seeing as she loves to roll in mud and swamp, that does not count. My house smells like goats. I'm on my own here and am not much of a girly-girl. I use my blow drier to heat seal shrink wrap on my lip balm tubes and usually dry my hair via the vents in my car on the way to work. I can get my makeup on and out the door in 10 minutes. Because confession is good for the soul ~ I usually sleep on wet hair to avoid the whole drier vent blow dry conundrum. I have tried to take more time to look 'better' but honestly I'd rather be doing other things. I blowdry my hair when I'm going to a wedding. That's it. Most of my friends are paired up now, so that essentially means bad hair for me for a while. O.k. I'm getting off topic and sharing way too much.Back to nail polish!
To ease into the new-ness of this I started by trying Frankening.What the heck is Frankening? Believe me, I asked the same thing, and this is what I found out.'Frankening' is the art of taking existing nailpolish and in essence mixing the colours to create a brand new 'one of a kind' colour.As you know, nail polish comes in a wide array of colours. I don't know about all of you but in the past I have been deeply disappointed when the shade in the bottle does not create that exact shade on my nails. Or it does and it just does not go with my skin tone. So I have a bunch of nailpolish rejects-that I never wear-but (thankfully) never threw out either. Frankening came about by a few young girls mainly wanting to be different and not wear the same shade as their friends. When choosing polishes to mix, cheaper is better. If your polish is too thick (likely from being too old) put a couple of drops of nail polish remover in the bottle and shake it up to thin it out a bit.
Indie Polish is the art of making your own nail polish from scratch. Involving a base and micas, colorants glitters etc.Yesterday I did both.I had ordered supplies a few weeks ago to make 'new' nail polishes and my plan was (if all went well), I would eventually add a line of nailpolish to Soap Planet.Everything went well. It went really well. But I realized in my 'mad scientist' glory, my joy comes in experimentation, in creating unique 'one-of-a-kind' blends. When purchasing a product, most people want the option to re-order what they love at a later date. I have no trouble doing that with my soap products but I realized I would not enjoy doing that with the nail polish...not the coloured polish anyways.I may make up clear top coat glitter and shape embeds to sell but as for the rest of it, I am going to be making up kits to sell so people can create their own polish. I already have all of the supplies! I will also be offering a workshop in the future where you can learn to Franken with your existing polishes as well as learn how to create brand new ones. If you are interested in that leave a note in the comments section. I hope to do this at the centre in the new space and possible beforehand. It can get messy though, and we are working with chemicals to a degree, so depending on demand I may just teach it out of my house.
Here is a polish I made yesterday. Blue base and glitter topping. My photos are not the best(I used my phone) The wonderful thing about the glitter toppings are they look amazing on any base coat. This glitter topping has blue, silver, and a bit of black glitter.
Turning My Lemons Into .....Lemon Cake!
Well it doesn't happen often but a few weeks ago I was down.Down & out with a very bad cold. It was actually less of a 'cold' and more of a ' I can't breathe' pneumonia situation. I couldn't work and I couldn't do a whole lot other than sleep. I would get winded just from doing stairs. It came out of nowhere and hit me pretty hard and was very humbling.I was using all of my healing tools, reiki-ing myself etc. trying to get back on track in a timely manner but soon realized I needed help. I sent out a reiki sos to my colleagues and friends. Following that session it was on the advice of a dear friend that I go to a doctor. I dragged myself there, was told my lungs were a mess, and I needed antibiotics.In my stubbornness if my friend had not threatened to drag me there I probably would have continued to do what I was doing to heal, and it would have probably worked.... Eventually.After one day of medicine I felt amazingly better. I felt like me again. I went back to doing things that needed to be done. Needless to say I overdid it, and was back in bed for two more days.For those who know me, know I don't stay in one spot very long unless I'm meditating. So to be down for 2 weeks was very frustrating. Once I surrendered to the fact I was going nowhere and reconciled that the clients I had to cancel would hopefully forgive me for cancelling, I got down to the business of getting better.Just so you know, Reiki practitioners Do get sick sometimes. We are not superhuman. ( I wish we were!) This situation I was in was a direct result of my previous month of 5am bootcamps, full days and late nights. I knew I was doing too much and pushing my luck and I 'should' really know better. But until I find a way to clone myself sometimes I have to do a lot of things for a lot of people and I never like to let anyone down.So I was not happy about being unwell-that is the sour 'Lemon' part of this post.However once I shifted my 'attitude' from 'victim of circumstance' and adopted an attitude of 'openness' to my situation an AMAZING thing happened.I got creative.Not a little creative.Super creative.
And as the energy of creativity flowed through by body, I began to feel much better and began to heal faster.I started by making chain mail bracelets while in bed. No joke. In bed with metal rings and pliers. Honestly (my husband was not impressed).Once I felt my true brain had returned I began organizing computer files, creating newsletters. And then the dangerous part for a 'creative and utterly bored mind', I went online and went shopping. I had been dreaming of soap creations all week so ordered the supplies to make these 'imagined' creations knowing full well the supplies would most certainly arrive when I would be too busy to make anything.That didn't stop me though. I was Inspired! : )I embraced my lemons and in honour of them I turned them into Lemon cake!Literally. Lemon Cupcake Bath Bombs to be exact-as pictured below. And they smell like lemon cake as well.
FYI If you think these are as amazing as I do, please know that I will be bringing all of the New Soap Planet Products to the Aura Photo Days at the centre next Friday & Saturday.So ultimately did I learn my lesson? The hard way. I rested a bit. I did, truly. But I can't stop being who I am either. And I believe when someone is going through an illness either short term or long term it can be just as mentally draining as well as physically challenging. What better frequency to get the mind active again than to be in that frequency of joy, creativity, and excitement. Shifting the body out of it's pain & suffering into a new frequency of health and wellness.So next time life is handing you lemons, or you feel stuck, try getting a little or a lot creative.It also helps if you can begin to see the gift in every experience, doing so makes it worthwhile in some way. : )So have fun re-creating and transforming your 'lemons'.