Gaia Henna

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I know the coolest people.

My adorable friend Candice is seriously cool.

She is a belly dancer and she does henna art. She's got three kids and a husband, yet she still manages to teach belly dancing, perform, and paint beautiful designs on people! She makes it look easy! (Of course, we all know it's not!)

Part of my Summertime tradition is to visit the Ogden Farmers Market as often as I can and I always stop by and see Candice in her henna tent. If I have the funds I get some henna done for myself. I like to just let Candice do her thing and she's always done something gorgeous.

Candice put up a call on Facebook for volunteers to get free henna if they let her do bridal hands, wrap it properly, and document the first few days for her. She's trying to build up her portfolio and of course I jumped at the chance!

I went over to her house back at the beginning of October and she spent hours painting my hands. When she was done my arms looked like this:

It's traditional in Bridal Henna to hide the groom's name somewhere in the design, you can see that Candice did "Eric" right where my wedding ring goes! 

 To make the design last as long as possible Candice made a concoction of warm lemon juice and sugar, applied it to my arms and hands, then put paper towels down, and wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap.

I felt like a mummy!

I kept the plastic on all night and the next morning I got to peel all the dried henna paste off to reveal the staining underneath. That part is a lot of fun!

The day I peeled it off it was a little light, but by the next day it had darkened beautifully.

I after that it slowly faded over the next few weeks. I got so many compliments! Everybody thought it was very pretty and really interesting. I'm not one to shy away from conversations with strangers, and having beautifully decorated arms was definitely an ice breaker!

Over Spring Break I took Betty over to see Candice and we both got a little henna. Candice wanted to show us how much darker the henna is on parts of the body with thicker skin, so she did the back of our right hands and the palms of our lefts.

On my right she did a design based on an Art Nouveau enameled brooch.

My left was more traditional.

Betty's right: 

On her left she asked for something "Steampunk" and Candice rose to the occasion! How cool is this?!

Candice's company is called Gaia Henna. She's available all the time, not just at the Farmers Market. You can hire her for parties, bridal showers, or just to have something pretty done. (She does amazing work on pregnant bellies that look great in pregnancy photo shoots!)

For more information you can find Gaia Henna on Facebook and Instagram. Candice is also trying to raise money to get her business off the ground, if you feel like supporting her you can donate here.

Sunflowers

I got a hole in my dish washing gloves and so my nails have been mangled.

Since I have nothing else to show you, I give you pictures I took of some sunflowers.

I was driving home from dropping my kids off at school and the light was so perfect and the sky was so pretty. I just couldn't resist. I pulled over and took some pictures with my phone. I'm sure I looked like a crazy person, crouched on the side of the road wearing sweat pants and a hoodie, but the pictures are worth it.

This one is sized to be the desktop on my Chromebook. 

This is the sky looking East. The other pictures are facing West. 

All of these pictures were taken at about 8:30 this morning in West Weber, Utah. I used my phone, a Samsung Galaxy s5. I only say this because some people really care about those kind of details.

Eerie Ogden

Have I mentioned that I live in the coolest town!?

I live in THE COOLEST TOWN!! 

Picture via Eerie Ogden Tribune Facebook

A writer friend of mine, Randi, has started a quarterly newspaper for kids called the Eerie Ogden Tribune.

This isn't your ordinary newspaper for kids, Oh No! This is a paper filled with stories about mermaids, ghosts, witches and other supernatural creatures.

The best part is that all the settings are local!! That's right, the stories are set here in Ogden and the surrounding areas of Northern Utah!!

HOW COOL IS THAT!!??!!

Now, this paper is totally grassroots and needs help. Please, please, please go to their Kickstarter and give a little if you can! Any help is appreciated!!

Pictures via Eerie Ogden Facebook

Here is an adorable Word from Barnabas Wolfbeard! (For some reason I couldn't put the video on here. Just go to the link. It's totally cute!)

You can also find out more information on their Facebook page. While you're there be sure to enter one of the many contests going on! I won this awesome mug! They just gave away some werewolf ears! Seriously, this is so cool!!

Northern Utah Fashion Expo

Saturday I had the opportunity to volunteer at a local event here in my amazing town.

A friend of mine, Stephanie, joined up with some other amazing people and put together the very first Northern Utah Fashion Expo. It was a showcase for local fashion and accessory designers, complete with live music and three fashion shows.

I was asked to be the person who welcomed people to the event and handed out swag bags to the first 100 people who came. It was a job I'm made for. I got to chat with a bunch of people, and met lots of new faces. I had a blast!!

I only spent two and a half hours there, the expo went from noon to 8:00 pm. I only stayed for the first part, then came home and crashed. I'm such a lightweight!

Sunday I had a terrible shock. I went to Pinterest, like I do eight or nine times a day... Only this time my home page looked like I'd just signed up! None of the boards I usually follow were there and there was a prompt to start setting things up! I went to "My Boards and Pins" and all my "Followers" and "Following"s were gone! I was freaking out!! I restarted my computer, tried logging out and logging back in, nothing helped!! I shot an email off to the help department and then tried to think about other things.

Thankfully, when I got up this morning I had an email from Pinterest. They suggested clearing my browser and cookies. I did it and like a miracle, it worked! WHEW!!

I would have been upset to lose all my followers, I get a real self-esteem boost every time I get a new one, but I was really upset about losing all the boards I follow. There is no way I would be able to remember all 800 of them! I follow some really great boards and would be devastated to never see them again.

Even that I could live with as long as my pins and boards are still there. It's a bonus to me that people follow me, the most important thing is that I use Pinterest. I use it to organize my recipes, crafts, sewing patterns, shopping lists, so much! I have basically stopped using browser bookmarks. I'm a visual person, so Pinterest is exactly what I need. If I lost my pins I would be completely lost!!

(For the sake of honesty I will say that I do have one board that I curate only for my followers, Long Hair Style Ideas. I started it when I still had long hair and considered not posting to it any more, but I have a bunch of followers so when I find something cute I just go ahead and pin it.)  

31 Days of Halloween

An amazing local artist that I am acquainted with started a fun project called 31 Days of Halloween. He's given us a list for the whole month and every day is a new idea to create art around.

October 1st is Haunted House. Here's my version.

Pen and ink, wax crayon, and watercolor on paper. (I colored the whole sky blue, but obviously I didn't push hard enough on the crayon.)

"Pool Honeys!"

Yesterday we make my nephew's dream come true and took the kids to "The Sandlot Pool".

In reality, we went to Lorin Farr Pool which is right in my neighborhood. It is the pool they used during the filming of the movie, but it's changed a little since then.

There used to be a couple of giant slides called Rampage. You went down them on a raft and they had rollers. It was dangerous. I heard horror stories.

Now they've put in three twisty water slides. Much safer, and lots of fun. The three youngest couldn't go down the slides, but they had a blast anyway.

This was one of those times when I'm glad I don't have more kids. Keeping my eye on all three of my kids was stressful.

I did have lots of fun, I went down the slides and soaked in the water.

My kids and I got burnt. Toasted. I swear I smothered us in sunscreen! We're just soooo freakin' pale!  Well, not any more.... Now we're pink!

We had tons of fun though, so I guess we earned the burn!

Video courtesy 71WinterWolf on YouTube.