What I have been up to and will be up to

So I have been decently inactive on here recently. I thought I would just kind of update you all on what I have been up to.

So first off, I am getting married!
Yes I know you all probably knew I would at some point, but I have actually been planning the wedding. We are getting married Oct 13th of this year. (Mind you I just started planning for this in July... Yea its been one hell of a crazy ride for the planning part but its worth it. Funny enough my AMAZING victorian-esk fairy tale wedding gown was easier to find than the shoes were, funny that.
After some bumps we finally found a venue thats perfect within our budget. Ended up we got the more expensive ballroom for the event room price by a fluke haha. I am not complaining.
Found Caseys outfit pretty easily. (No, not a tux, or a suit.. much better than that ^^)
I have had the most wonderful bridesmaids/and friends ever who are really helping me with all of this.
Still lots to do before the wedding itself but we have a lot done already. The major stuff at least. Did I mention I really like my ring? Which to me is very fairytale like (at least thats what I think of when I see it)


I will probably post up wedding pics sometime after the wedding and I get them from the photographer.


I have also been going to lots of scrap booking/stamping classes. One of the craft stores around here offers a few free classes a couple times a month and I have been loving going to them. I can't believe how much I have learned in such a short period of time. Because of this I am going to make my own wedding invitations instead of just buying generic ones. Its going to be a fall themed wedding of course ^_^ favorite time of year!
I have won a bunch of cool prizes from going to the classes too. Last time they gave out TONS of scrapbooking paper and then a scrap happy water bottle with a chill core. I made a wizard of oz plaque, a honeymoon card, some stamped candles.. its awesome how many things we get to make (all supplies are free for the projects too!)
I won’t post a picture of the honeymoon card so my love does not try to sneak a peak at it, but here are pictures of some of the paper I have gotten, as well as the candle projects we did.

 


I got a ton of 6x6 chipboard that I am going to use to make smaller blank books. I currently am working on a chart/correspondence book that is going to have pages and pages of info in the elements, times, places, etc for magical uses. I have been looking up altered books for page inspiration. There are some really amazing altered books out there.

I have also been working on slowly making my own tarot/oracle deck. I have painted one card so far that has to do with an underworld/otherworld necropolis. I think making my own deck will have more meaning and make it easier to understand than using my faery deck I currently have.
This card is not quite finished but almost.


Also in the process of making a chart/correspondence book.
This is the day of the week page and the earth element page.
 
I am going to be doing every page as intricate and creative as these three. I have many more pages to go but it will look awesome in the end.

I have been working on a couple of clothing articles now that I know how to use my sewing machine. I haven't finished them yet, kind of stuck on how I want to finish them but I think stepping away from it and letting the ideas flow for a bit will help me come to a decision.
At some point I need to make my own dress form/bust. I know how to do it, just need the materials/time/space to do it. It would help me a lot in making clothing for myself.
Here are some of the ones I am working on.
   
Started the corseting on the shirt. Matching skirt in the works. Beginnings of a top. I love the green clover fabric I had for this.  It will be corseted in the front later.

This brown orange shirt I found online.
Is the inspiration for the gray shirt I am making.
I mis-measured the tapered point (due to not having any sort of pattern whatsoever)
So I will need to add another panel there, but it will work. I just need to figure out how to cut the fabric for the hood the way I want it and then sew it on the back. It is going to be really cute when it is done.

I used a shirt of mine that was form fitting to kind of use as a pattern for the upper shape of the shirt… though that was interesting to try to manage haha. Still, was better than nothing I guess. I used the same shirt to make the pattern for the clover top too.
I just wanted to make some cute fall clothes. I will probably make more/finish these later.

The vampire photoshoot I am supposed to be in has been postponed again. This time its set much further back then the time before, so I won't have pictures of that until next year. It will still happen though.
I have another photographer interested in doing some shoots with me and we are discussing possible ideas for future shoots.

I have been watching my brothers friend for the past several days... lots of people in one house.. let me tell ya..

I am also debating on having a small Halloween Samhain party in October if I can swing it after the wedding with planning and such.. Not to mention possibly a bridal shower potentially before the wedding. Lots to do..

I will be making Samhain kits for those who pre-order them from my shop. I figured with everything going on it would be much easier to do it this way then to make up a bunch and have no idea how many people want them. I have a posting about the kits here. Keep in mind I currently only ship to people in the USA just because for right now it is easier.
http://lotusmoonapothecary.blogspot.com/2011/09/samhain-kits.html
Anyways, I think that covers most of what I have been up to..? lol it's good enough at least.

Sick but still productive

I caught a cold this weekend which is not a lot of fun but has not stopped me from getting some things done that I have been needing to work on.

I have been getting a bit more writing done in my book.
Got about 7pgs written the other day.
Not quite as much as I usually do when I am sick, but it is a start.
I am hoping to write more soon.
I have around or just over 250pgs written now which isn’t too bad.


I have also the past two or three days been working on a rough draft of a painting I will be doing.
It is so interesting to see how each piece I add to it makes the whole thing evolve into something more or different from what it was when I started.
I would post pictures of it but I cannot yet considering I have been requested not to understandably by the person who commissioned me to paint it.
Mostly so that a specific someone will not see it before it is finished.
I haven’t started it on canvas yet being that I wanted to make sure that the colors would not clash once on the piece since there are a few which I cannot name.
Wanted to make sure I got the brush stroke pattern that my client and I liked for a few portions,
And basically so I could see how it would all be laid out and not in pencil.
I don’t mind doing the bit of extra work and think it will be worth it in the end to do it this way rather than find out something just isn’t clicking that would be hard to fix later.
That way when it comes time for canvas, I can know where everything goes and how it is supposed to look that would make everyone happiest.
I never want to paint something that someone is only moderately happy with,
Especially if it is something they have come to me to paint for them.
It is their vision, their idea.
I am just putting it to canvas as best as I can see it
to give them a physical representation of that vision.


I finally got what I think will be just about all I will be able to edit from the photos we took from the Dec 2010 photo shoot I did with one of my friends.
Her camera was malfunctioning so it would say it was getting clear shots, show clear shots, but in reality it was really blurry…
Most of them I could not fix at all, which is really sad, but oh well.
I did get some of them fixed up and edited.
(my editing skills are horrid haha but I made do… A few of them I had help with :)
I had a lot of fun on that shoot and going through and editing a good handful of those pictures tonight makes me think about the next shoot and what we will have planned.
Hopefully with a better working camera next time.
I might be able to fix up a couple more of the pictures, but so far I think I have about 14 out of I think it was 103 shots we took.
Which really is not that many shots for a typical photo shoot but we were kind of on a slight time cap and it was a spur of the moment thing.
If we had taken more, it would have just been more to throw out most likely so its not a big deal that we didn’t get many. Just wish more of them would have come out clear.
It was more for the adventure and a good time than it was for the shoot this time.
I only had about 30 minutes to get ready and leave from being in PJs to fully made up.
Don’t know how I did that one when you count in that I had to also piece together my dress as well….
Katie (photographer and my model for part of the night as well) was quite happy with the shots that did come out.
That made me happy since I really liked a few of them and hoped she would too.


During my relaxing I watched some shows/movies.
Ghostbusters (always a good choice)
Gingersnaps (love)
Iron Man 2
(first time I had seen it, thought it was hilarious. Especially the coconut line)
New Vampire Diaries (one of my favorite series)
New Nikita (really starting to like this show more and more)


Not too recently but a month or so ago I saw the Grindhouse movies.
Death Proof
&
Planet Terror
(Loved them both)


I have been slacking on my Apothecary work but there isn’t a whole lot I can do in my shop right now until I can pick up more supplies at some point to make more products.
I always feel antsy when I go long periods of time between making things.
I am a crafter and an alchemist.
I need to keep busy in some way or another…
I know I am writing and painting, but its not always enough for me to only be doing a couple of things. I need many things to keep my attention and from being antsy.
Which I have been feeling recently when it comes to my shop stuff.
I want to make more tree of life pendants and possibly some herbal massage oil soon if I am able to.
Just not sure what kinds yet.
I hate it when I feel like my shop is kind of dead at the moment.
Its not super dead but it could be doing a bit better than it is, I just haven’t been able to do much work wise on it recently to get the word out there about it since it is still newly open to the public.
Its a slow growing process that has been giving me a lot of good feedback on my products thus far which is great but I would like to bring in more repeat clients, new clients, and sales, just need to do a little better marketing which takes time and effort.
Once I am feeling a bit better I might look that over again.
Being that I make my own products and run the business by myself solely;
it can be hard to do everything at once.
Sometimes things take longer because of this but I expect that and have no problem with it.
I am patient, most of the time ^_~

I still have a BOS that I have yet to finish and post up…
Mostly due to the fact that I am not sure what to do with it.
I almost don’t want to do anything to it at all since I like how it looks now but maybe it does still need something in the center of the oval?
I really don’t know.
I have been mulling it over for awhile now and have not come to a conclusion as to what I think it should look like once it is finished. I still love where it is going but the only thing I could think of that I would want in the middle of it I do not think I could do. I am thinking of other ideas so that the book will not be laying around my house forever and I can get it listed in my shop soon.

This is currently what the book looks like.
It has a detachable wand on the front left side of the cover near the spine as you can see in the picture. The wand which is maple, book, and book marker, were hand made.
All the flowers and vine like stems were gathered by me and are real.

Anyways, this is long enough and I think I shall go make myself a cup of tea.
Echinacea elder tea is helping with my cold.
I was happy to find I still had half a box in my cupboard.
I really like the stuff and drink it even when I am not sick.
^_^

Things on my mind and whats been going on over the weekend

I am pleased to find that my late night writing sessions have been paying off.
I realized last night that I have 15 new pages written (future chapters not immediate ones) 

I wrote 8 of those last night/early this morning & the rest not long before last night.  

I honestly only thought I had 3-5 pages since I had been writing it on OneNote & it looked like soo much less than it actually was until I transferred it to MS Word & actually saw the page count. Go me!
I hope to keep this up even though it keeps me up later than I should be, which is late even for me.
Writing is more important than sleep, right? haha.

It seems that my muse likes the wee hours of the morning for me to do my best writing currently.
I am happy I am getting more done even if it is not on the chapters I should be on.
The book will come together how it comes together in the end.
I am having a lot of fun developing my new characters, though some are coming along easier than others.
I need a bit more character inspiration for a couple of them
to help develop how they react to different scenarios.
I believe I have finally come up with a last name for Iris (my main character) her last name had been a blank in all the old chapters since I could not come up with anything that fit.I am finding I am quite happy with her last name being Snow, obviously inspired by the 9 inches of snow we got here not long ago (which I wish had stuck but now we have thick fog) So as it stands now  her name is Iris Snow.

The next scene I am writing is a good one, or will hopefully be a good one.
I really do hate it when sleep will not be put on a back burner for as long as my muse would like it to be and I have to pass out right as I am about to type the good stuff.
Once I get going with my writing it gets kind of hard to stop sometimes.
Other times it is a big push to get through even a page or two, but I have to keep going or else I stay stuck for a long period of time. I am cheating by writing other chapters while I am stuck on a small scene in the current chapters. It is ok for me to do that because I am still writing and not letting the story get stagnant so to speak.
I have sent the first 216 chapters of my book (I have more than that now, but that's what I sent out that I was happy with showing) to a few close friends of mine to read over and get opinions from.
So far I am getting good feedback and have a good flow and progression to my writing,
which is good to hear.
I have a lot of friends who are either good with English or are writers themselves,
like one of my friends is who is reading it,
so I try to get feedback from knowledgeable people rather than just ambiguous likes or dislikes. 

I should note I do not mind negative feedback so long as it is constructive and not destructive.

I would post up small sections of my book for everyone to be able to read 

(I will not post the whole thing up for everyone because I may publish the book at some point in the future) 

but I honestly wouldn't know what parts to post up...
I am not good at chopping my book up into interesting tid bit parts since I see the book as basically a whole. Maybe I will talk to one of my friends after they have finished what I have sent them and see what parts they would post up for tid bits of reading here and there
so people can get a better idea of what it is I am up to all the time.

Another thing I have not been able to get off my mind recently is the udder,
can't say need so I will say want, to dye my hair blue again. 

The last time I had it blue it was this kind of blue underneath and dark green on top,
though you cant really see the green in my picture so it looks all blue. 

I would love to either do it all blue this time, or mostly the darker colbolt looking blue with some parts that are a lighter shade of blue or turquoise. To give it depth.
I don't usually like doing only one color in my hair.
I had also considered doing my hair blue and black with it done in the peek a boo style like this image I found is, but black does not like to stay in my hair long I find.
Though blue LOVES my hair and will stick for a long while.
I would also love to have matching synthetic dreads put in my hair like hers is done at some point.

The Macrame yarn hair falls I am making take forever for me to make.
I just don't have the time to put into them that I should..
Not to mention I suck at making my own synthetic hair dreads.
Tried once, failed miserably.

This is the color I want, but I want more blue and less black, if not all blue.

This is me in the below picture, when I had green and blue hair.

Sadly I did not take many pictures when I had my hair this color. Which sucks because this is my favorite color I have had in my hair out of all the colors I have had, which is many.
The picture sucks and so does the lighting
(super bright outside and no blinds) and was a spur of the moment thing.
Yes i had bangs at that point, I no longer have them now.
This photo was taken a few years ago too I should note. I cut my hair pretty short awhile after that and it has grown back since. Not as long as it was then (which was to my navel or hips depending on when it was) but long enough for me to like it again.

Only reason I haven't dyed my hair yet is A. I don't currently have the funds to go get it done professionally and I don't talk to the person who used to do my hair for free for practice since she was in cosmo school and wanted to mess around with fun colors; and B. I was waiting for it to grow out, which it is grown out enough now but that also brings me back to point A.
So unless I find another way to do it my hair is staying its current blonde color which it is naturally.

One of the many reasons I have been thinking about dying my hair is because I had a photo shoot idea planned out in my head a bit recently. Which originally involved flat backed blue and green rhinestones for the mermaid scales on my upper body. I got a better more cost efficient idea today of using glitter glue in the blue and green to draw the scales on my body so to speak. I have been getting antsy since I have not done an erotic art photo shoot in quite sometime and I wanted to do one with a better quality camera. Which I believe I have a photographer friend who would love to help me with taking the photos.
In the past most of the erotic art photos I have taken were done with a horrid camera if not a web camera so it lacked the clarity I wish a particular set could have had.
Not to mention some of which I had to take myself which restricted pose options.
I would like to make it clear, I am not taking pornographic photos, I am not fully naked, and no I do not do requests. It is a form of art for me in how I can inventively cover myself and not be slutty about it.

Some people I find just do not understand this concept.

Anyways, I will not be doing the out of water (meaning no tail but still scales) mermaid shoot until I am able to somehow dye my hair since that is a big part of it. Having some seaweed colored sheer or textured fabric to use in the shoot would also be a wonderful addition.

I will say, the shoot I did recently (which wasn't in the woods as planned but still a ton of fun) will be awhile before pictures are posted. There is a lot of editing that needs to be done. When working in the dark it is sometimes hard to tell exactly how clear the pictures will turn out no matter how clear they appear on the camera. Some turned out really well, some really fuzzy and need to be worked with as do most pictures.
I know some of you are impatient and want to see them but you will have to wait for now.
No, I am not doing the editing myself, someone else is.
I am horrid when it comes to editing photos.Never learned much about how to do it, though I have had many offers to be taught how to, just haven't had the time to do so.
It wasn't an extremely long shoot and was rather unplanned all things considered so it will not be the quality it could have been had we had exactly what we wanted, so I will be happy if even a few pictures come out well since we did not take that many as far as photo shoots go.
Of course being treated to hot chocolate after being out in the cold was a wonderful treat!

Yay for hot chocolaty goodness!


Had to push some things around on short notice this weekend since I had a friend fly out to see me ^_^ it was well worth it though. I will catch up on the other stuff later on, no big deal.
We have been having a ton of fun since he got here. He took me out to eat a few times, one of which was to the Sakura Steak House which has my current favorite sushi rolls on their menu (The spider roll)  Watched a ton of movies late nights. We found that even though in the last movie Indiana Jones got raped, it was still funny to watch. We walked around all over down town and went to the Flying M for coffee. Haven't been there in ages, used to go every Wed I could back in the day
since that was the local hang out for most of my old friends.
He lives in Canada but was in the US for some photo shoots, and had a couple of days between shoots so he decided to come here to see me before going to San Fran for his next shoot.
I had a ton of fun getting to play around with his hair and makeup
...going through some of the makeup he brought with him.... >_<
Not to mention all the drunk dancing haha! good times.
I swear I was not the cause of this.
>.>
<.<


Anyways, I need to get back to things so I will end this now, though I am sure there is much more I could type about. Just felt like taking a break for a moment to type out whats been happening,
whats on my mind, and update all of you.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!

~Lotus