Las Vegas: McCarran International Airport

When traveling to, or through, Las Vegas, by air, one must typically travel through McCarran International Airport as a result. Whether you're visiting the city of sin for a long getaway with your pals or simply passing through on a brief layover as you make your way somewhere else, there's a particular aspect to McCarran you'd have a difficult time missing: the ubiquitous presence of slot machines and their changing, jangling little chimes meant to entice. These brightly-lit, loudly clanging little machines make their existence known throughout most manner of business in the city of Vegas, from neighborhood grocery stores, convenience stores and gas stations, to even the airport, all looking to benefit from that eagerly handed out money. While for now there aren't any table games, that I saw, I wouldn't be surprised if they were added at some point in the future, in the name of progress and innovation, of course. Of course, they'll probably just install a new generation of slot machines instead, so they won't have to train new dealers or contend with more staff squeezing through an already often overburdened security team. 

Believe it or not, there was a point in time where I was offered a job working at one of the little retail kiosks inside of the airport, but I opted to remain at a different location within the same company so I could avoid that whole hassle of going through security day in and day out. I don't know about you, but I've yet to meet anyone who considers going through airport security to be the highlight of their travel time. If you're that person, though, be sure to drop a comment and let me know!

Personally, I never play slots or wager money. Having grown up in Las Vegas, I've watched other people try their hand against lady luck, and while I've dabbled in poker with my friends at parties, I can't justify it. I work hard for my cash and would rather put it towards something I can see or use, and the casinos weren't built on winners, after all. To each their own, however! If you go to Vegas and decide to gamble $2 or $200,000, that's on you, your bank account, and your priorities, baby. Viva Las Vegas and all that. Don't let me tell you how to live your life, I'm just a girl on the internet.

Beauty: Purple hair 2018

By this stage in the game, it should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that I'm a big fan of changing up my hair. I've had accidentally green hair thanks to Lime Crime's Charcoal dye, neon orange-red with Lime Crime's Leeloo dye, outright buzzed my hair off when I got sick of the bleach blonde, had purple-pink pigtails, tried Manic Panic's Electric Lizard Green (with bangs!), rocked faded turquoise and minty-green strands, channeled multiple Sailor Moon characters with both pastel pink and bright turquoise, gone bright blonde, and even rocked the ombre thing way back when, so changing my hair is a common occurrence. These days, I've been trying to avoid bleaching all the way up to my scalp because it's just not a fun or enjoyable situation. Have you ever bleached your roots? It's tingly stinging weirdness that feels very much like the chemical burn it is, so if I don't have to go to my scalp to rock the colors I love, I won't. Also, I'm lazy, guys. Do you know how much work it is to try to maintain platinum blonde when your natural hair color is a dark brown? Hair grows, a lot, and you've got to stay on top of your touch-ups or you're going to have a very visible situation in no time. 

So, lately, I've been making the best of my bleached ends and faded ombre to throw darker colors over top. I've been alternating between different shades of purples and pinks, whether it's Lime Crime's Pony or Special Effects Wildflower, they all play well together after a little fading. There's less upkeep, too, as these shades seem to stick around more on my hair than the pastel tones, though there's also the much better quality of water in Washington compared to Vegas to consider here. Antho helped, which, naturally, stained his hands a bit.  

I've really enjoyed rocking the purple shades! While I know that purple will no longer be the color of the year going into 2019 (it's coral), it's still a favorite of mine. I'll keep rocking it when it feels right!

Thanks for popping in!

💘

XOXO,

NAU

Art: Acrylic Pour paintings, round three

And we're back at it with the pour painting!

Man, I love doing this stuff! I've been so obsessed with it for ages and never realized just how easy it really was to do. A lot of the videos and tutorials I had read on creating the acrylic pour texture needed required expensive supplies you either order online or pick up from an art supply store and neither of those options was especially appealing or felt readily accessible to me. A small bottle of official acrylic pour medium starts at about $8, and is probably only good for a handful of paintings... now, don't get me wrong, the medium exists for a reason and it's made to interact positively with the paints and dry with a particular texture, so it's absolutely worth buying if you're extremely serious about your paintings. If you buy a large bottle (say a gallon or so) you get a better price by weight, but it's still far from what I'd call "cheap". And that's ok- it's a professional tool for professional painters, and though as an artist I could lament the cost of art supplies until the sun finally burns itself out, I understand the need for quality tools- and that quality often comes at a cost. 

But let's be real, guys. I'm an artist, and while I'm not outright starving (eating eggs on toast right now, actually, one of my favorite budget breakfasts), I'm not exactly loaded, either. I've gotta work within the confines of my quite constrictive budget. Since we're just now starting to experiment with this technique, it didn't seem practical to drop $50 on a gallon of paint-diluter when we also have to buy the paints and canvases with no guarantee on how well we'll like the results. It can be intimidating diving into new things. Believe you me, I get that. 

So for these, we opted for the dirty pour method. Instead of buying expensive pouring medium we opted for a gallon of simple old glue, which was about $10-11 at our local Wal-mart. Of course, since it's not a medium necessarily intended for these purposes the results may be a little off from what would be achieved using the much more expensive medium. We've been happy with our results, however, and to be fair we've been experimenting with using different silicone products in the process, too, so any textural weirdness could be attributed as much to that as the glue. Personally, I'm happy with how they've all turned out. You can judge for yourself after looking at the photos below~

Art: Spray paint dip painting first try

Liquid art is undeniably psychedelic, and that's one of the big appeals of it to us. Antho originally dove into light art after witnessing the judicious use of water and oil with dye on an overhead projector at an underground show here in Vegas and being amazed at the trippy visuals they were able to achieve with such a simple set up. That was ages ago and unfortunately, the mixer that was used to create our high tech visuals has gone MIA; likely having gotten lost somewhere between moving homes and shuffling things between storage units and abodes... surely it will pop up at some point again, but it's definitely put a damper on our projection art these days. We haven't been doing shows at all, though Antho has expressed an interest and sadness about it, usually circling back to the absent mixer with a sigh. 

I understand his sadness; it's a roughly $600 piece of equipment and it was an important investment for him to make and now it's...where? That's not an easy chunk of money for us to part with, so it's not something we could just pick up again tomorrow... so this important personal thing is just out there, in the abyss somewhere, and that's a shit feeling. Having moved countries a few times now and moved all around Vegas, I've had a lot of my personal belongings go missing or get lost along the way and though it's been cathartic for me to let go of some, there are definitely those items I remember and wonder about with a bit of disappointment. They're probably out there, too, in the abyss somewhere... to be found at some later time and date perhaps... but for now, we can make new art and experiment with other means of expressing ourselves. 

We tried acrylic pour painting recently and liked it so much we did it again shortly after, but we have several cans of spray paint floating around going unused so we thought we'd try something different after a few more hours spent on Youtube. For this endeavor, we simply filled a plastic tub with regular tap water then applied spraypaint to the surface. The paint would float and we could add more colors for a varied appearance... it was a lot of fun and interesting to see how different our paintings came out despite using the same mediums yet again. One thing we discovered right away is that the paint would harden up pretty quickly, so if we waited too long it would congeal on the surface. This meant that any additional design changes had to be done before the paint hardened, but that wasn't that big of a challenge, just a point of caution more than anything. 

More photos below!

Art: Tie-dye photoshoot in Valley of Fire

Happy day-after-Valentine's day, guys!

Sorry, single friends, if our cheese is a little disgusting to you right now. I understand, I really do, but it's also a cheesy romantic time of year and we're a couple of sappy bastards so I couldn't help myself but to at least have some nod to romance here. And, not to sound too vain, but I think we look kind of cute in these photos. 

Here's something else to look at so as to ease your urge to vomit.  Our campsite out here at Arch Rock campground in Valley of Fire state park was quite photogenic and we found what was the perfect spot for us. The lighting was good for much of the morning and we were visited by an array of cute creatures over the hours. 

While we had spent the night previous relaxing and enjoying each other's company and a fire-cooked meal away from the city, once the sun rose and I had an adequate amount of caffeine and spontaneous cuteness in my system it was time for us to get to work. Luckily for us, the work involved here is modelling some of our finished tie-dye creations among the beautiful landscape. While in the past we've opted to keep our photoshoots on the simpler side so as not to draw too much focus away from the shirts, we realised that this approach is also a bit boring and doesn't convey much about our personalities or the kind of vibe we want our clothes to have. Since we're going to go camping anyway, why not bring along some of our stuff and snag some shots when the lighting is good? We were still able to enjoy most of our morning and the photoshoot didn't take so long as to keep us occupied longer than we would have been comfortable with. We were back in the city and the comfort of our own home by mid-afternoon, and that's even with the stop we made along the way... there will be a separate post on that, though, as it was too hair-raising for me to want to include among the outtakes from the photoshoot. The ones that we used for the listings are all up and visible on our Etsy shop, along with the items being modelled themselves!  

Lips by Lime Crime.

More photos below!

Art: Early Ice dye for 2018

Rainbows here, rainbows there, rainbows everywhere! We love making tie-dye and do it as often as we possibly can. It's always fascinating seeing what kind of mad science color combinations we can create! We typically work with ice-dyes, sprinkling dye over the ice so that it hydrates through and deposits pigment as the ice melts, which creates a more space-like watercolour effect. Even using only one or two colors we've been really surprised by the depth of the results! We do experiment, though, and no matter how many times we dye no two shirts (or skirts, shorts, dresses, hoodies, crop tops, etc...) are ever the same.  It's been a lot of fun throughout the journey, and we've been doing tie-dye for fun now since some time in 2015 or maybe even 2014. I can't even pinpoint the exact date, it just happened that we were driving along and Antho suggested doing tie-dye on a whim and we found that we actually, really, thoroughly, deeply, passionately enjoyed doing tie-dye. Of all the things.  It makes sense, I suppose- I've always enjoyed painting, digital and traditional illustration, and most things artsy-fartsy... there was an awkward phase around 4th grade where I found out there were these brightly coloured three-dimensional paints you could use on clothes and went about drawing all sorts of goofy lizards and things onto every clothes item I could...Colour and aesthetics have appealed to me for awhile, and Antho has always been fashion/image conscious, crafty and hands-on so tie-dye has just been kind of a natural fit for us both. We're always learning and growing as we go, though, it's just part of the process. Nothing is perfect in the beginning, and there's an adage that it takes roughly 10,000 hours to become truly skilled at any given craft, whether it's playing a guitar, tie-dye, or aeronautical navigation, so we relentlessly we strive forward in our efforts to create cloth and colour alchemy. The more we try, the more we practice, the better we get after all. This also means more shirts (or skirts, shorts, hoodies, crop tops, tank-tops, etc) we can share with everyone!  We hope to be as inclusive as possible with our size options and though our funds are limited we try to invest in items that will work for all of our fans regardless what size they wear.  We want everyone to be able to taste, or wear, the rainbow in their favourite spectrum. Everyone deserves to feel fabulous!

More photos below!

Art: Winter ice-dye round two

More ice-dye! What can I say, I love almost everything about this process and it's so much fun! We tend to have a variety of blank t-shirts floating around at any given time so all we really ever need to pick up is the ice so we're prone to spontaneous dye sessions when the mood strikes. This is ideal for us as inspiration can occur at the most random of times and I like to strike while the iron is hot- or, in this case, while the ice is still cold.  This being the desert the ice tends to change states pretty quick during the warmer months, though currently we have a little more wiggle room which is nice. In the process we've been accumulating quite a back catalogue of freshly made shirts that have yet to get properly photographed and listed on our Etsy shop, so for now they're in a bit of a limbo. This has been a little frustrating for me as I'm definitely the hardline type-A in this relationship and feel a need to stay perpetually productive. I always carry two different agendas and a plentitude of pens in various inks and viscosities to work in tangent with the complex color-coded system of tabs I use for my agendas denoting tasks accomplished or goals and events I'm looking forward to or striving towards... I make spreadsheets for fun. One of my biggest goals for 2018 is to dramatically increase our shop inventory and I've felt pressured to get cracking on it before this month slips away into the next. On top of that we've been cycling through various illnesses in various parts of our bodies (chest, stomach, sinus, blah) for most of this year so far... so, really, I suppose there's a very good reason we've been in a bit of a stagnant pause on listing items. I'm grateful that we're still being productive and at least creating, but I've got high-in-the-sky dreams for what I want to accomplish this year and I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself... perhaps 2018 is the year I should breathe deep and try to be a little gentler on myself. These things will get done, and soon, but they'll get accomplished even more gladly when I'm not stressing myself or Antho out about having not already done it. We've still been scouting locations and making new inventory, after all, so it's not like we've simply sat idly by... though, in a sense, that's a lot of what ice dye is- waiting... but I digress.  

Here's some pretty pictures of the process!

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!

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