One year later... (and no more morphinebeauty)

Almost a year since I posted my last post, I believe? I'm so happy to see that people are still reading my beauty DIY's, thank you! I hope you like them.

I don't have much to say really, just feeling guilty I haven't posted in a while.
The only thing I can update you on at the moment is I'm dropping my "Morphine Beauty" tag. It's just too childish, after all I'm 23 now ;) that and I've been accused of using drugs lol.
Instead I'm reclaiming my "Crytozoology and Vanilla Tea" blog title from my very first blog I created.

I'll try to update in due time, until then I have been forced into my second Tumblr blog, which is really just going to satisfy my fandom needs. If you're interested I'll link below, enjoy!

Mel xx

www.cryptozoologyandvanillatea.tumblr.com/

Oatmeal and Honey Foot Mask.

Source: Google Images

With the warmer weather brings bare feet and with constant bare feet, there comes dry or cracked feet. Here is a simple recipe I found online for your tootsies this summer.

Oatmeal and honey foot mask.

   - Two cups of ground oats
   - One cup of all purpose flour

   - Half cup of honey
   - Half cup of olive oil

Soak your feet in warm water with bi-carb soda, as this makes exfoliating a lot easier but you don't have to. If you don't have anything to exfoliate with, whip up a simple oatmeal scrub (tbs sugar, tbs ground oats and two tbs olive oil. Double if desired, this makes a fantastic body scrub also).

Once exfoliated, then smear the foot mask over your feet and leave for 20-30 minutes. I personally found this recipe not sticky enough and ended up putting it in a bag, then squishing my feet into it. After 30 minutes, jump into the shower and rinse off, remember to apply a foot cream afterwards.

Honestly I didn't enjoy how messy this foot mask is, so I've made up my own which I've yet to try out. I wasn't overly pleased with the results, but it did it's job. If my own footmask works out nicely, I'll post it on here at a later date!

xx



Easy Microwave Fudge Recipe

Super easy and tastes delicious!

What you'll need:

        - Microwaveable bowl

        - Baking paper

        - Cake tin (you can use anything really, it's going in

          the fridge)

        - One cup of brown sugar

        - One can of condensed milk
        - 100g butter, cubed.
        - 200g white chocolate melts

        - Sprinkles (optional)

This is super easy to make, start with emptying the can of condensed milk into the bowl and microwave on high for one minute. Add the cup of sugar in, stir and put in for another minute. Next add the butter, stir through and put back in the microwave this time for four minutes on high. When it's done it should look like it's bubbling. Add the white chocolate melts and stir through until everything has blended together. 

Lining the cake tin with baking paper, scrape the mixture into the tin. The mixture sets fairly quickly so your adding sprinkles do it now, set aside for ten / fifteen minutes to cool then put in the fridge for a couple of hours. When those hours are up simply pull out of cake tin, gently pull away the baking paper and cut with a knife. Put back in the fridge to let set a little bit more, after an hour it should be set enough.


Da-da! You've now made homemade fudge!


xx

First Batch Of CP Soap

Difficultly: Medium

As promised I'm posting up a blog on my first batch of CP (cold processed) soap. I actually made said soap about a fortnight ago, I just haven't been able to get my hands on the laptop for a while. This blog will include pictures and my reviews/thoughts on CP soap.

I decided against MP (melt and pour) soap as it is well known as "lazy man's soap" where the soap base is already made for you, you just need to melt it down, add colour and fragrance and pour it into pretty little moulds. The problem with that is that I want to learn what exactly goes into soap, So I opted for a starter kit from Aussie Soap Supplies. This is what I brought from them;

All of this plus shipping came to about $90, which is pretty pricey considering you can buy the ingredients separately for cheaper. But in saying that you don't get the 12 page info-sheet on how to make soap, which was interesting to read in itself. I brought the soap mould separately from the kit, buying a stainless steel thermometer and some silicone moulds from the soap may have been a cheaper option.  

This is everything I had to buy in order to make soap, minus olive oil and an old blanket I used to insulation. All of this most likely cost me around $60 all up, so far the grand total equaling to around $150, luckily I was going halves with mum! Now at this point, I was feeling very "is this really worth it?" but nether the less I went ahead and made it. 

Just before adding the caustic soda.

This was probably the "hardest" part.

All oils (including solid oils!) separate and ready to mix.

Heating oils.

Halfway through blending everything together.

I believe this would be called "medium trace"

In the mould, ready to set.

I enjoyed making CP soap, however it was a lot easier than I expected and a lot pricier! I've still got enough ingredients to make another batch (as you can see, one batch equals 12 large squares of soap, which I cut six in half) and have already looked into purchasing more for another batch, which is a lot cheaper than buying the kit plus all the other things.
I ended up scraping out the bowl and used the little amount of soap after letting it set for a few days, it was pretty moisturizing and smelt really nice.

If you're new to making soap or just want to dip your toes in, I would suggest purchasing an MP kit or make some fun glycerine soaps!

On average the soaps cost $2.50 to make (just ingredients), which I'm pretty happy about considering the quality of ingredients.  Considering Lush (who inspired me to making my own soaps) just use MP soap bases, add a few oils and sell their soaps for $6/$7 a bar, which melts very quickly in the shower. This is probably due to the curing period, CP soaps need to cure for six weeks before use where MP soaps can be used within 48 hours of curing. The harder the soap, the longer it takes to melt down.

In future I will be making my own soaps.

Mel x

My Parents Garden

Getting a little obsessed with taking photos.

I'm loving the quality of my new phone so much all the photos on this post are from it. Anyway, when I was over my parents the other day I took advantage of the beautiful weather and took some photos. Nothing to say, just posting photos! X

My new HTC One X

HTC One X
Rating: 9/10

Considering my last phone I signed up with was a BlackBerry Curve in late 2010, I'm more than happy with my new smartphone. To be completely honest with you my son broke my BlackBerry a year into my contract and I just never got around to getting it fixed. So I made do with a $20 Nokia with could only make calls and send texts, the screen broke early this year so my One X is pretty 'new age technology' to me ;)

I first went in wanting an iPhone 5 or a Samsung Galaxy S III, but one look at the iPhone I wasn't really impressed. The woman in store talked me into getting a One X, saying she had just come back from holidays and used this phone for EVERYTHING. She gave me a Samsung Galaxy S III and a HTC One X to play with for a bit to help make my decision, I ended up ditching the high-techy gadgets for better quality images and crystal clear music. After taking it home and spending the last twenty-four hours playing around/customizing it I can say I'm pretty impressed with my first HTC phone.

The camera quality is beautiful and when you hold down the snap button continuous shooting comes into play at one shot per second, perfect to capture a bird taking flight, a fast moving car or my little monster and his rather erratic movements. Other things I've come to like is how clear the One X plays music and the super fast internet connection! I think this will soon be replacing my iPod AND my laptop (oh yeah, I said it!). In fact I was more than willing to blog on the One X and would have if the Blogger App was better, so I stole my partners laptop instead.

The only thing I don't like about the phone is that the camera lens can get quite "murky" in the sense that the slightest smudge on the lens equals any light to blur and stretch during capture, ruining the image. I'm also not a huge fan of the white plastic backing, it feels cheap and very breakable. Not something that many would complain about, just a little quirk I found. All in all I'm very happy with my new phone, hopefully it will have a longer life than my old BlackBerry.

X

The Stray Cat

No title picture this time, if I wanted to I'd be posting photos of a dirty, skinny little Siamese cat sleeping belly-up in my front yard today. But alas, I haven't won his trust yet.

I noticed him a couple of months ago constantly sunning himself (assuming it's a he) in our front yard, I put it down as new neighbors and let him enjoy the sunlight. But over the last two months I've been keeping an eye on him and he's just been wasting away. I've been a little hesitant to feed him as he might be one of my neighbors cats, the last thing I want to do is to practically steal someones pet! But at this point, it's I start feeding the poor thing or it might die.

Three nights ago we just got home from the shops and seeing him in our yard I instantly took the opportunity and tore off a heap of cooked chicken for him. He wouldn't come near me (usually runs away when I get about ten steps near it) so I just put it on the ground and walked off. I came back outside 5 minutes later to find the chicken gone so I put some more down, he must have gone through at least a quarter of the chicken.

Since then I've brought a box of dry cat food and keep it topped up for him, along with a water dish. I've also been in contact with a wonderful women named Stef from Lucky Little Paws Rescue and Adoption (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lucky-Little-Paws-Rescue-and-Adoption/119586878156744) who suggested getting a trap and trapping him. I'm not sure if I could do that and he seems to be more than happy to eat the food I'm putting out for him! He doesn't run away from me now until I get maybe five steps away then he'll just slink under a car and just watch me. I actually can't wait until it trusts me so I can brush his fur, it's so mattered!

I'm seriously hoping this will turn out for the best. 

Happy Garden Snaps

Close up of a Sunviopapu flower I took a photo of this morning.

I'm loving spring so far, all my flowers are blooming so beautifully and my strawberries and peppers are fruiting. My tomato plant is yet to fruit, mum brought it for me last week and even though it was dying, I successfully revived it. I should invest in some Marigold's, as they are perfect companion plants for tomatoes as pest deterrent's.

I finally got my camera working today, so I went out almost immediately to take some photos. Here are a few happy snaps, I've also been playing around with my editing skills (no, not just the boarders) so enjoy! ^__^

I now own 9 strawberry plants, 5-6 different types. Obsessive? Not really, their for my upside down plant hanger I brought a while ago. I figured I'd get at least one of each type I could get my hands on to figure out what I like, what fruits longest, whats the hardiest and what's the weakest. I'll be planting them soon, I just ran out of potting mix!

Mel xx

My many talents..

With a Mooshroom here, a Mooshroom there..

E-I-E-I-O!

It took me a couple of hours to find these babies and A LOT longer to lug them home, they made my laptop lag hardcore to the point the game crashed at least twice. But was it worth it? Yes, their adorable and inspired me to make some Mooshroom magnets up for myself. I'll post some photo's up when I get around to making them.


Setting Minecraft aside as the nicer weather is approaching I've been working on other hobbies to get up and running. One of them being gardening, nothing to extreme of course just getting some strawberries and some tomatoes up and running to begin with. I'd eventually like to grow veggies but I'd prefer to put a little more research into it first. I'm also in the midst of starting up my own herb section! I'll also be graphing some french lavender from my mum's lavender bushes.


I'm also ordering my first cold-process soap kit today! I decided on buying a kit because I'm a complete novice and even though I gave it a lot of research I just could not find a good recipe to stick with, I'll have a follow up blog on my first soap batch.

Til then!
xx

H'Suan Wen Hua! (Dupe)

Difficulty: Easie peasie 

The title may have been a little, teeny tiny exaggeration. This is not an exact dupe of Lush's "H'Suan Wen Hua", however it has a few of the main ingredients. But don't close the page yet, this is a pretty nifty hair smoothie I've put together!

The idea came to me after I had eaten a bad 'gassed' banana (shops freeze-gas bananas to preserve them) and it just didn't taste right. I put it down to my taste-buds being out of action because I was sick, a couple of hours later I had the worst stomach pains. The next morning I was pretty annoyed, there were a bunch of bananas that I brought just the day before and we couldn't even eat them. I had two choices, return them to the shops to swap for others which would have also been gassed or throw them away. Being brought up not to waste food and I wasn't game on digesting anymore, I looked for another usage. Before this happened I was reading the ingredients of H'Suan Wen Hua (since they claim their stuff is handmade, so it would be pretty easy to dupe, yes?) and hey look at that, it has bananas in it. 

After a little bit of researching on other edible products that are good for your hair, I came up with this:

1 banana
1 avocado
1 egg
3 tablespoons of olive oil (You may also want to use jojoba oil if you can get your hands on it.)
1 tablespoon of yogurt
1 tablespoon of honey
Handful of oats (optional, however they do make hair super shiny!)


My main objective to this recipe was to make a hair mask (calling it a smoothie, since it sounds like you could just drink it!) was to make it from things that are in your fridge/pantry. I cheated a little and brought an avocado and some oats. Thankfully I brought a blender earlier this year, because for this recipe you'll need one or a fantastic skill and blending by hand. 

The method is really simple, just blend all ingredients together until smooth. My first attempt I tried without the blender out of laziness but it didn't come together the way I liked, using a blender is 100% easier. I blended the oats separately and used them as a thickener once I finished, however you can just add them in with everything when blending just make sure they are pre-blended into powder before adding to the mixture. 

And that's it! This recipe made me 400g before adding the oats, remember to keep it chilled in the fridge and try to use it within the month. To use, all you need to do is add to clean hair, wrap it up in cling-wrap or a shower cap and leave in for at least an hour (I left mine in longer, got carried away in Minecraft). I also wrapped my hair in a towel, which helped the cling-wrap keep the heat in - and the smell since I'm not a huge fan on banana's! The only issue I found was when I was rinsing my hair was some of the grounded up oats were sticking to my hair (might have been because I added them separately), I have a brush in my shower and they brushed out nicely. Shampoo twice to make sure it's all out, condition your hair and blow dry when damp.

Enjoy! ;)


If you're wondering what happened to the rest of the bananas, I froze them for future use. Considering about blending a huge amount of this recipe up, putting it in small containers and freezing it to use at my on leisure. If it get's watery when defrosting I'll just add more oats!

Oats, oats, oats!!
x

Mother's Day

NASA takes some pretty photos.

For my first Mothers Day, I received a fantail pigeon.
This year I received an early present, a telescope!

...However, I am yet to receive flowers.

Having said that, I am now the proud owner of a telescope. I've been wanting one for a while, so when my partner saw it on sale, he quickly snapped it up without hesitation. It's a novice telescope, which is fantastic for me as I don't know too much about stars, but I have the interest. I can always get a bigger one / more expensive one if the interest stays.
I'm getting my mother a framed picture of my son and myself. She's been at me for a while to get one, so it fits nicely into Mothers Day, if she's lucky I'll get her a little something else as well. I'm still a little resentful after last years Mothers Day when I brought her a heap of luxuries and she didn't like any of it.

Urban Geekery is slowly becoming more popular, it's being mentioned a lot more and people are really getting into the things I make. Which is fantastic, I didn't even expect it to be popular, it was just meant to be a hobby! My other 'business', which I am yet to announce, is coming closer to existence. I'm going to put a lot of practice and play into action before making a big noise about it. I want everything to be perfect when I start it up, so there is going to be a lot of behind the scenes action going on.


Matt agreed that I can take over the spare room, I've already organised how I want everything and hopefully within the fortnight we're going to be moving everything around. I think he's agreed because our small little dinning table is starting to be consumed with all my bits and bobs. I'm also going to be rearranging the lounge room again, this will be the second time since a year ago when we moved in. In saying that, I'm eyeing off a $200 rug.. Wishful thinking!

Till next time, my geeklets.
x

anxiety attacks.. meet insomnia.

Well, on the plus, we have internet again.
Which is quite awesome really, very helpful since I am trying to put my business together.
Everything is sorted out, I'm just waiting for the money side of things to commence.

So, why the obnoxious title today?
Well in quick paragraph, Cody is sick and having a terrible time sleeping.
I'm looking after him, and in doing so I am lacking an incredible amount of sleep. Before this however, I was starting to suffer with anxiety attacks. I would get into bed, really for sleepy time when I would have this horrible and sickening sensation something was just going to grab me. I usually would just shake it off and force myself to sleep. But it was just getting worse every night, to the point where I would almost be brought to tears - not from fear, from frustration. So now that Cody is sick, I'm having, on average 4 maybe 5 hours of broken sleep. I'm totally screwed. Because of my new found nocturnal routine, I'm finding it harder and harder to fall asleep. I just lay there, trying to keep my mind blank and hopefully drift off. This usually takes about an hour, hour and a half. Then suddenly BAM the moment I actually fall asleep Cody seems to wake up needing cuddles so he can go back to sleep. So here I am, over tired and eagerly typing away on here.

Brain > Body!


Till next time, my loyal subjects.
Mel xx

testing out new camera

I love this new camera, a lot.

Hey all, haven't really posted anything in a while. Truth is, I'm super busy trying to start my own mineral makeup business ^____^
It's not all rainbows and lollipops, don't even get me started on how much this is going to cost. Its hard but I've done a lot of research, talked to a lot of people and the most important thing - stayed realistic and kept to my limits. I've only got 12 or so more thing's to do on my 'to do' list before I start and share my clearly awesome handmade business that I have done all by myself, to all of you :D
     - In saying that, I'm honestly surprised my partner Mathew hasn't gagged me and dumped me in a river with all the blabbering I've been doing.

In other news, Cody is teething again. This is his tenth tooth, he's handling it pretty good considering the last time he was teething he drove me crazy and I wanted to ship him off to his grandparents for a good week or so. Besides not eating much, being whiny and down right annoying at times, he's being good.. fingers crossed.

Matt's tax came in the other day, so we decided we'd invest in a decent camera. It's a Finepix S, I believe. Here's a couple of photo's I've just taken mucking around with some eyeshadows, trying different angles and seeing how much detail I can get. Nothing to impressive, but you might like them. 

close up with flash, didn't really capture the glitter.

There's a tone more photo's my partner and I have taken, but more so of animals/insects and the all so reliable happy snaps. :3
Anyway, this is just a short catch-up blog. A lot to say but not enough time to put it all down! 

Stay tuned :'D

xx

DIY Lip Scrub

Summer is finally rearing it's searing-heated face! And if your anything like me, it's going to take toll on your lips. So I'm sharing this quick and easy DIY lip scrub to, well, scrub your nasty dry/cracked lips away.

It started the other day when I reached into the dark depths of my bathroom cupboards in search of my lip scrub only to find out that due to the fact it is food product, it's long expired. Since I've been recently chewing my lips apart due to stress (and I'm also blaming you, weather!) my lips are pretty dry and cracked. After using this little moisturizing beauty, I'm hands down swearing by it! It's been about thirty minutes since I used it and my lips still feel great, even without following up with a lip balm.

How do you get these super awesome feeling lips? Easy, all you need is three easy ingredients. Just follow this step by step (you really cant go wrong with making this).

DIY LIP SCRUB

- Get yourself some olive oil, agave nectar & pure cane sugar. In this case I used sunflower oil, honey and normal white sugar. Get a small mixing bowl and a teaspoon. I used a small plastic shot glass and one baby spoon.

- It's really simple, you just add one tsp spoon of oil and honey and two tsp spoon's of sugar (three tsp's if you wish, but two is fine). Mix it all together and done! Ended up using a chop-stick to stir it up since my boyfriend went away with said baby spoon - long story.

- Rub a decent amount onto your lips for a few minutes then rinse off. Dry lips and apply lip balm/gloss of your choice if you really want to (keeps your lips softer for longer after scrubbing).

- Ta-da! Your lips should instantly feel smoother and softer than before (also ready for kissing ^____^ ) you'll also notice that you have a lot of left over scrub, that's fine though, shove it in the fridge. Just remember that it has an expiry date! I probably wouldn't keep it for too long.

So that's it for this simple as lip scrub! I recommend it if you're short on cash or just need a quick lip fix up. I'll be posting more of these DIY's if you guy's seem interested :]

Ciao xx  

name and shame.

Firstly, I have decided to create a blogspot, decided to break away from my old webs.com blog as I created it when I was 19. So far I'm not so overly enthused with blogspot/blogger, but alas, my heart shall swell and learn to love - maybe. I also have no idea what my first blog was going to be, so forgive me is this is a little broken up.

_______________________________________________________________________

I have decided to 'name and shame' a few business I have deemed 'dirty', 'rip off's' or in some cases, just plain illegal.

1. Glittersniffer Cosmetics

Wow, okay, where do I begin? You only have to type up glittersniffer in Google to have blog after blog of people spreading the word about this business and the infamous woman who runs it, Lela Warren. She is a liar, a thief, a manipulator and most of all - a spineless bitch who threatens ex-clients whom to which she owes money.

I personally have not purchased anything from this woman, thankfully I read the signs (her promising things on her facebook fan page, telling you to email her then not replying - and in most cases, claiming she "never received the email" which has been proven that she was lying*).
*she has never said to me that she lost an email. I just figured her customer service was lax and let the "free samples" offer go when she didn't reply to my email.

I once felt sorry for her, as other women did with her "woe is me, people are harassing me because I made a tiny mistake" stories. I then realized that hundreds of women had either not received what they ordered, some had spent $200+ on her makeup. Where as others were having reactions, having to go to hospital even, because her eye shadows had non-eye approved ingredients to which she knew about.

I'm not going to go into great detail, otherwise I could be here all night. If you wish to read more, please go here - http://glittersniffercomplaints.blogspot.com - all I can say is good luck if you choose to purchase from glittersniffer!



2. Brad from Brickworks (local small business)

Although some of the items he sells are alright, he usually over-prices items that he gets dirt cheap. A Yu-Gi-Oh card (named Honest) which you can buy from eBay for less than $20 including shipping, he will try and sell to helpless people (usually young kids/teens) for $150. A played Charizard card for $75 when once again you can pick it up a lot cheaper and in better condition from eBay/the internet.
And one of my favorites, he sells fake Pokemon cards. I have at least 20 fakes which I have purchased from him, yes, they were cheap to purchase - the point I'm stressing is that myself and others spend money on these cards, expecting them to be legit Pokemon trading cards to add to our collection's or decks only to find out they aren't worth crap or cannot be played!
That bastard.


3. The Zombie Boutique.

I actually like this woman's business, I feel bad for "slagging" on her, but this has to be said.

This online business has 7000+ fans on Facebook and is usually very active, lots of streaming of new 'creations' she has made. As of last night, I have found she resells and over prices some of her items.

Just to name a few -

"Black <3 Beauty Ring" gun metal setting, big and small pearl, diamond and a mesh rose. It's really cute, so I brought one a few weeks back. She is currently selling this for $12 - you can find it on eBay (in silver) for under $3 including shipping.

"Kitty Ears Ring" current selling price is $14, it can be found on eBay for $1 free shipping.

"Fox Face/Tail Wrap Around Ring" current price $16, once again can be found on eBay for $1 free shipping.
There are other items on her page which she is terribly over pricing.

Besides over pricing her "hand made" items, she tried to rip me off $3 on a necklace I queried about and got my order wrong, which thankfully was correct before she sent out an invoice.

On the plus, her actual 'handmade' items (I'm assuming they are) are really cute, original and fairly well priced. She will hold items for you and in general seems a really nice woman.

________________________________________________________________________

Well that's the end of my little 'name and shame' rant. Just remember guys, always check reviews when purchasing something your not 100% certain with, watch out of fakes & check eBay for the same 'handcrafted with love' items!
xx