Natural Easter Egg Dye

Are you sick of letting chemicals get too close to your food and does it upset you when you read in the media that a substance once deemed safe is now a health risk? Here's a simple way to spruce up your Easter eggs while making sure you don't contaminate your food supply with dye. You might think this is an impractical idea because it's so much more inexpensive to buy coloring kit for $2 at the store and the egg shell doesn't technically touch the egg whites inside. Unfortunately, in my experience, when you're cracking your eggs open to eat them, the color will bleed inside to the egg and end up in your food, not to mention that you will be carrying it on your hands while you're eating.

Healthy vegetables and spices, which can reduce your chances of cancer and heart disease as well as a myriad of other health problems, can make gorgeous natural Easter egg dyes. For each color you want to use, simmer 2 quarts of water and 1/4 cup of white vinegar with the dye ingredient for at least half of an hour. This is a much more time consuming process but the longer you let the ingredient summer, the more intense of a hue you will achieve. Drain the liquid when you deem the color to your liking and allow to cool to room temperature before using.

Red: 1 cup red onion skins (saved from 2-3 onions), 1/2 cup strawberries

Deep blue: 1 head of cabbage
Purple: 2.5 cups blueberries
Magenta: 1 large beet (diced)
Orange: 4 tablespoons ground paprika, 1/2 cup carrot ends
Yellow: 4 tablespoons ground turmeric, 2 lemon skins
Brown: 2 tea bags or 1/2 cup coffee
Light Green: 2 cups of spinach


When you're finished making your color, place each one into a jar or bowl (preferably one that you don't mind getting stained, don't use your fine china for this process) and dip your hard-boiled eggs into each color, letting it sit for at least 10 minutes for a lighter hue. To achieve a more saturated hue of the color, make sure that you let the egg sit inside the dye for longer.

These eggs aren't going to be as bright as unnatural chemically dyed eggs but the trade off for the time it took for you to achieve natural dye and slightly less vibrant color is health. That is definitely a trade off I'm willing to make!

Tuna Can Heart Bowl

This project is so beyond adorable that I cannot get over it. I saw this photo and I thought "wow that's a beautifully artistic bowl, I wonder how it was created" and then I delved deeper into the mystery to find out the shocking truth that it's merely a tuna can!!!

The steps to make this beauty are as follows:
1) Open and empty out a can of tuna, fruit or anything else that is approximately the same size
2) Clean the can out thoroughly
3) Bend the can with your fingers in the shape of a heart (make sure not to cut your fingers and smooth out any edges with sand paper)
4) Spray paint the can with a color of your choice, in this example white was used


Voila! You have a beautiful keepsake box for you to put your little trinkets and baubles!

DIY T-Shirt Reconstruction

Do you get sick of your T-shirts? Do you have some laying around that are years and years old but you've never worn them because the neck hits too high on your collarbone and bothers you? Do you just really dislike a shirt because it is ill-fitting and unflattering on you? Well, I have tons of those shirts that I can't throw out because they have some sort of memory attached to them or they're not bad per se but I just don't wear them. I came up with the perfect solution: modifying old t-shirts to look like brand new, stylish tops.

I have, at the bare minimum, been altering sleeves and necklines on t-shirts lately and it completely reconfigures the fit. You can opt for cap sleeves, instead of regular sleeves, maybe even transform your tee into a tank or cut-off shirt, and the neckline can be changed from that basic circle shape into a V-neck or low-neckline so you can wear your t-shirt off one or both shoulders. If you find they accentuate your tummy area in unpleasant ways then you can snip the bottom hem of the t-shirt, you can round it out so that it gives the t-shirt a more feminine (as opposed to unisex) base. You can also make cool designs by cutting slits into your t-shirt and then braiding them together (it's even simpler than braiding, all you have to do is loop one segment over the next).

All you need to do this is either a fabric scissors or just a regular scissors (you'll need a little more patience to cut straight lines), you can score where you want to cut for precision, but I don't even bother with that. It's so simple, just make sure you cut the same distance from both sides of the t-shirt so it doesn't end up looking uneven or asymmetrical (unless you're looking for an asymmetrical look, it is your own unique fashion after all).

Once you get more advanced with your snipping and braiding, you can transform your shirts into some amazing fashion-forward pieces:

Acid Wash Nail Manicure

As always, I've been scouring the web looking for cool and interesting nail manicure ideas to show my avid readers and I came across this on Pinterest: the acid wash manicure. It's a really cool effect, the one below is denim-themed and can be done very easily. This isn't a complicated technique like some of the others I have posted about, this is something you don't have to be too fussy with to get it to look right.

All you need to complete this look is a base nail polish color (in this case royal blue) and the color you want to be on top of the 'acid wash' look (in this case white) as well as cotton buds or q-tips and acetone/nail polish remover. The first step is to paint 2-3 coats of your base color and wait to make sure that they are dry and smooth, this requires some patience as some nail polishes do not dry as often as others. Then, after you choose a contrasting color to make the 'acid wash' effect come to life, you should apply just one layer of the top color. After letting it dry thoroughly, soak a cotton bud/q-tip in acetone (but make sure it's not dripping wet, just saturated). If your cotton bud is not saturated enough, it will just smudge and blend the two contrasting colors together, which may make for an interesting effect, but will not allow you to achieve the acid wash manicure. Swipe the cotton bud over your nails, not pressing it down but gently dragging it over so that it removes only parts of the top layer of nail polish (of the contrasting color, white in this example) and leaves your blue intact - this is one of the reasons why you want to apply at least 2 coats of your base color. Finally, as with any manicure, if you want staying power you should place a layer of topcoat to seal your design and smooth out any bumps.

You can achieve really varied looks depending on which colors you choose, remember that when you apply your topcoat, you will stop the acetone from eating through that layer. For example, in the manicure below, you can achieve this design by doing the base in a yellow and then making sure to seal it with a topcoat so that it will not wipe away when you swipe with the cotton bud. Then you want to add a layer of orange polish and a layer of gray nail polish, not sealing these down with topcoat. You can use your acetone to remove parts of the top two layers of polish. As always, seal and protect your design with a final layer of topcoat when you have finished your faux acid washing.

Various colors of nail polish manicures using the acid wash technique

Have fun with this look and happy experimenting! Please post photos of your nails on the blog if you achieve this look!

- Alex

Get the Katniss Everdeen Eyelashes!

Lead makeup artist on the set of The Hunger Games, Ve Neill, used Paperself individual lashes for Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence) for the 'Girl on Fire' look during the closing ceremony of the movie. Effie Trinket (played by an unrecognizable Elizabeth Banks) also wears a variety of interesting and fascinating Paperself full-set of eyelashes. For the Katniss Everdeen look, makeup was fairly subtle, except for when she was being paraded around The Capital and her face was contoured and accentuated by a golden bronzer to make her look sun-kissed.

Effie Trinket had very complex makeup where her face was entirely made pale with powder and dusted with pink eyeshadow. Her lips were concealed around the corners and pink was used in a heart-shape to accentuate her pout. Her eyeshadow was a smattering of various colors, in the picture above it is fuschia applied generously and her brows are concealed and lightened. She has some black eyeliner on top of her eyes and then these Paperself eyelashes are applied (they can be found at Sephora or Amazon below). Even her waterline was lined with pink eyeshadow to continue the look.

You can get your very own pair of these eyelashes online by clicking on these banners at:

Check out my entry into the Springtime Cocktail Ring Contest at Crowd Jewel

Hey everyone,

I'd like to ask a huge favor that you vote for the 'Spring Cocktail Ring' Contest on the crowdjewel website here: http://www.crowdjewel.com/entry/66/

My ring is featured and I would really like to win the contest so that I can get a free consultation in which a specialist will tell me how to improve my website to gain more views! I'm so excited about the prize and I love creating jewelry, this piece was really inspired by spring so please vote =) Thanks!

Shocking Natural Cate Blanchett in Intelligent Life

Cate Blanchett did the unthinkable in the realm of Hollywood style and glamour; she went completely natural on the cover of The Economist's "The Intelligent Life" magazine (the lifestyle and culture publication). Her face all hers, her image was not retouched in post-production or overly made up. The editor of the magazine, Tim de Lisle explained the decision to represent her in this manner on his blog, saying:

When other magazines photograph actresses, they routinely and up running heavily Photoshopped images, with every last wrinkle expunged. Their skin is rendered so improbably smooth that, with the biggest stars,  you wonder why the photographer didn't just do a shoot with their waxwork...

Cate Blanchett, by contrast, appears on our cover in her working clothes, with the odd line on her face and faint bags under her eyes. She looks like what she is - a woman of 42, spending her days in an office, her evenings on stage and the rest of her time looking after three young children. 

It's ridiculous that this has become news today because this is what every celebrity should show the world: their natural beauty. Cate Blanchett is a stunning woman, with or without makeup, and she is so versatile and talented that it really shouldn't even matter how beautiful she is. She resembles an actual person and it is refreshing that magazines are starting to get back to what it is that makes us attracted to celebrities in the first place: their humanity. I'm a huge fan of her work and her courage should be rewarded by other celebrities following this trend in kind. It is absolutely frightening and sick that we show plasticized faces on the covers of billboards, ads and on TV and then wonder why our children develop complexes because of the way they look.

What is most incredible to learn from Mr. Lisle's blog entry is that Cate Blanchett turned her back on Hollywood to run her own theatre company. In more ways than just appearance, she has escaped the clutches of the vapid consumerism that drives Hollywood where stars have be come mannequins who stand for nothing other than to promote jewelry, clothing and perfumes.

What do you think of the "Intelligent Life" magazine cover?