Hair: Dread Update 1 Month in

So it's been about a month now since Antho started dreading his hair on a bit of a whim. I mean, we'd been talking about it and he'd definitely been planning on it and doing a lot of research, but we'd initially planned to start them in July... it is what it is, though, and I'm glad he went ahead and got the process underway! While I had initially planned on trying to get a photo each and every single day so we could do a timelapse, that hasn't really panned out as it's just not something we've been able to manage at the end of the day, every single day. Some days are longer and weirder than others, and it just kind of fell by the wayside with everything else we've got going on... We've definitely been getting update photos along the way, though!

Antho created his dreads through a combination of backcombing and crocheting. The backcombing helped to create the initial sections, while the crochet hook is used (on a daily basis) to go in and tighten up each section and bring in any hairs that may be trying to escape. The goal is to create a tight, dense knot of hair in the center of the dread. There have been some adjustments made, as sections have been separated or combined over the weeks since their initial inception. The hair has also shortened and tightened up a lot! It's noticeably neater these days. It's still a work in progress as it can take dreads up to a full year to fully mature and reach their final form, and hair has this habit of perpetually growing so there's always going to be new baby hairs to wrangle. So far so good, though! Antho has been adding little bits and bobs he finds around his parking lot or out and about on his adventures to various locks as he goes along, so that's been interesting. One thing to note is that if you're making dreads and put something on them, it will likely cause a bump or impression on the hair, so if you're worried about that you may want to avoid bedazzling your tendrils. Antho is a bit like a crow in that he'll pick up random shiny things that catch his eye, so he finds lots of bits and bobs, occasionally beads, which may or may not wind up in his hair.  Do your own thing, though, sugar bear. No one here's trying to tell you how to live your life. 

Overall we're pretty happy with them. I definitely need to get hands-on and help him out with his back sections, which are hard for him to reach and could use a bit of attention. Antho pretty much always has a crochet hook with him, so he's got something that keeps his hands busy and helps him focus, which is great with his ADHD. He's super proud of them and has gotten a lot more compliments from strangers since dreading his hair than he ever did when his hair was simply long and flowing- though people did enjoy his double braids, which resembled Willie Nelson's hairstyle of choice. 

I'd say he's pretty happy with them. 

Thanks for stopping by!

💘

XOXO,

NAU

My experience with Lime Crime Unicorn Hair in Leeloo

Another Lime Crime post! 

I'm rather smitten with them, to be honest. So far I've had pretty good luck with all the different products I've tried from them, and I've made a point of it to seek out different formulas and try things I might not otherwise to get a better idea as a whole. I was impressed enough with their velvetines formula and found myself oogling their shade selection of Unicorn Hair dyes long enough that some of them went on sale and I finally jumped! I was really pleased with the results of Leeloo in my hair. I'd been using various dyes from Sallys Beauty Supply to get an orange-pink shade but figured I'd give the Unicorn Hair a shot and since my hair already had warm tones in it they should play well together. The worst thing a fashion hair dye like this will typically do is stain your hair a color you don't necessarily want or simply not take at all, but I knew going into it that reddish-orange should play nice and if it didn't take I'd chalk it up as a lesson learned and whine a bit. I purchased Charcoal (and more velvetines, because love) at the same time as a backup or experiment shade, and I'll have a post on that soon, too. 

As much as I love Manic Panic and have used a wide selection of their hair dye over the years (like the time I went pink in 2015, then turned that faded pink to turquoise, and that faded to a seafoam shade, and I tried electric lizard for glowing green hair, or that brief but beautiful time I had lavender hair) I've had some duds, so even established brands can sometimes have an off formula. Leeloo, in my experience, worked great! Definitely no dud here! The color was super bright and intense, reminiscent of blood orange. I left it in my hair for about an hour and forty minutes before rinsing until it ran mostly clear. It definitely took a lot of scrubbing and there was so much color run off in the shower! That happens with tie-dye, though, so I wasn't terribly concerned. I took cold showers for the first couple weeks and stretched out the time between showers when possible with dry shampoo. It stayed pretty vivid for the better part of a month, and faded to some pretty shades of peachy-orange-blonde along the way. It didn't stain my towels or pillow cases, which is nice.

When the dye was soaking, we carved (and I painted) pumpkins!

About 10-12 days later after a couple washings.

About 15 days later and another couple washes.

After that point I started using warmer water and washing like regular as I grew more eager to test out charcoal! Overall I was very happy with the performance of Leeloo and still have roughly 1/3rd to 1/2 the container left and may dabble with it again soon as the weather starts to melt into spring again.

💙💚💜💛💖

Overall I was super happy with how this hair dye performed! It was extremely bright and vivid the first couple of weeks and faded into a gorgeous peachy-pinky-orange blonde that I really enjoyed. 5 out of 5 happy hearts.

Hope you enjoyed this post!

XOXO,

NAU

Project: Spring Tie-dye 2016-03-18

Happy Spring, guys!

How is your month going?

We've recently moved and during the process a lot of our tie-dye stuff got buried...but we've managed to dig it out of the abyss of the garage and made a fun new batch of goodies to share with everyone!

If you haven't noticed before, Antho and I are pretty fond of tie-dying. It's an excellent creative project that we can work on together and it's so much fun to unwrap and unveil the finished products! There are so many fabric textures, colour combinations, folds and techniques that we're constantly evolving and trying new things as we go.

We've also been doing research into ordering products wholesale and sourcing fun new styles. 

I really enjoyed how this long sleeved ribbed cotton shirt turned out!  

It's almost long enough for me and I'm 5'10"! I prefer having my tummy covered with longer shirts but it could totally be rocked as a belly-baring shirt for the braver ladies out there. We've been using more or less the same dyes since the very beginning, but we're really excited about a recent order for some high-end dyes that should be arriving soon. Our shop has also been getting more business lately, but we're still far from the top performing tie-dye shop on Etsy and I want to change that. I've sunk some time into watching free lectures and reading blogs from top performers and gleaned some useful tips that have already quadrupled our sales! We've even sold a shirt to Luxembourg & one to Spain since I added international shipping to our shop!

Goals, people.

I got them!

Check out the rest of our colourful new creations after the jump!

Now announcing: We carry children's sizes on Etsy!

That's right, kiddos! We've expanded our shop and have begun making and carrying children's sized tie-dye! From onesies to youth large and with plenty more on the way! 

Here are some of the designs we already have up in the shop.

We think they're pretty groovy for a little goober, but decide for yourself!

Project: Tie-dye 2016/02/13

Antho and I have been doing a lot of tie-dye recently. These have all been posted in our Etsy shop so if you see any you like be sure to check it out! We're both quite pleased with how we've been progressing through experimentation and practice. ^_^ Hope you like!

Winter Tie-dye 2016-02-05

It's been awhile but now that it's starting to warm up again Antho and I made some tie-dye the other day. I'm quite pleased with the results! I'll be posting them on Etsy in the next few days.

Happy February's & brand new babies

Hey guys, been a minute!

Needless to say, January got away from me. 

Between working on a book cover, volunteering with Critical Care Comics, adopting two new rats then losing our beloved fat rat Pendleton, working on trying to resolve the situation with my grandmother, car troubles and the rest I didn't find much time to work on the blog. For that I apologise.

Las Vegas: Brennan's B-day Tie-dye project finale 2015-09-25

He really likes tie-dye, what can I say? :)

Once the shirts were soaked overnight, we rinsed them off thoroughly and dried them. 

I took these photos the very next afternoon! They faded a bit, but that's to be expected as the shirts are going to look a lot darker when still wet anyway. 

My black and orange shirt.

Las Vegas: Brennan's B-day tie-dye shindig 2015-09-2

Antho and I tend to have a colorful cast of friends, so it's always a lot of fun to pool our social resources for collaborative events, and as it so happened, our friend Brennan happened to have a birthday coming up! He's a big fan of tie-dye so when he wanted to spend some time with us on his birthday it was a natural choice! There were four of us altogether with Brennan, Dalton, Antho and I and 6 shirts between us. I also had an old boring towel that I contributed. :) Dalton only wanted to do one shirt as it was his first go at tie-dye, his was the pink and black bull's eye! Isn't it pretty? He did a great job! Brennan also opted to only dye one shirt this time around, too. The boys brought Star Wars Monopoly (YES it's real and it's really fun!) so when the shirts were all tied off and well-saturated we retreated indoors to let them cure overnight. They came out great! 

More photos below!

Project: Custom Painted Mermaid Guitar

How does one take a guitar from

this

   

to this? 

Well, that's what I'm going to share with you today! This is an absolutely fantastic project that my from CeeDro set me to task on, and I'm immensely grateful that he did! It's been a wonderful learning process and a whole lot of fun. I've always been really curious about customizing instruments and immensely flattered whenever anyone mentions their interest in such a project. This was one commission I took with great enthusiasm!

To learn more, read below!

Hair Update: Electric Lizard green

Antho and I have amassed something of a collection of hair dyes over these past few months!

As you may have noticed in my August updates post, I changed my hair…again…during the month of August. I took my faded Voodoo Blue to a shocking Electric lizard green!

I also decided to try trimming in bangs, which I'm pretty pleased with!

Before:

After:

What do you think?

It was really well received! 

One of my friends referred to me as woodland elf, which I'm totally ok with. ^_^

Would you ever dye your hair green?

Project: Spring Dye round 2

We're often doing some sort of colorful project or event, so naturally we love creating tie-dye!

Here's some photos of a batch we did earlier this year.

These puppies will be up in our Storenvy and Etsy soon. :)

If you like what you see, please help support our small business so we can keep bringing you colorful new creations!

2015- The Just Because Sale

Guys, I'm super excited to be sharing this with you!

A few months ago Antho & I launched our fledgling Storenvy shop for our 710Visuals project. We love all things colorful and have been experimenting with various media, including clothing and live liquid light art performances. We've been doing shows all around Vegas, including one coming up at Photo Bang Bang for First Friday!

Our Storenvy is one of the places we've chosen to share our creations, but this is the first time we've gotten involved in a site wide event like this. Between Friday the 5th and Monday the 8th we'll have 20 items up for 20% off…that's half of our store!!

Some of the shirts that will be on sale:

Hope to see you there! 

xoxo Nau

Hair: May 29th, 2015 Blonde experiment

    So, it's happened. I made a pretty drastic change and finally took the plunge and lightened my hair. It's the first time I've ever been this fair haired so it's quite a change of pace.

Project: Spring Ice dyes

     So, Antho and I recently tried out ice dyeing for the first time. We've been experimenting with tie-dying fabrics and creating various designs since last summer (which, if you're curious, you can find over on our Storenvy shop) but this was our first experiment with ice dye and I made sure to document the process.

    And seriously, look at this gorgeous shirt Antho made! Isn't it fun?

Hair, May 2015: Pink ombre fun

I currently have pink hair.

And I'm okay with this.