Look What I Can Do! Bismuth Crystals, ya'll...

Check out my fan-tas-tic Bismuth hopper crystals...^-^

Ain't they beautiful?!

Too bad they didn't oxidize correctly...{{ like so }}...

Sorta miffed about that actually...
Going to investigate further. Heard it could be due to possible tin contamination...?
I think I'll try again next week regardless.

In other news, you may now address me as Her Ladyship, the Supreme Master Alchemist of Loveliness with Middling Knack of Manipulating Weak Metals.

>>>=<<<

{{p.s. If anyone with smelting knowledge has *miracle of miracles!* stumbled upon this page and has some oxidizing wisdom/know-how they could part with, please do so in the comment section below. I would be forever grateful!}}

I Spy With My Little Eye...

...Something from Etsy that I'd like to buy. <3

<> Hello my little friends <>

So I have some confessing to do.

I have this hobby...

No, scratch that.

I have this obsession. 

It started some years ago, around the time I realized the full extent of my infatuation with The Past...

Officially {that is, according to my Etsy transaction records} it all began with this:

Yes, this was the snapshot that started it all.

I can't say for sure what about this picture started me on the road of vintage photography collecting.

Could be the romantic sentiment, or the overall aesthetic.

Maybe it was because I recognized a kindred spirit within the unnamed girl.

Realizing subconsciously that the way she holds her arm at her side {like a slightly retarded but no less adorable T-rex} was the same manner in which my own occasional awkwardness would manifest itself.

Regardless, what was done was done and now I find myself quite happy to be digging in baskets of of old photos in the most obscure antique booths and flea markets, claiming the unnamed and unwanted as my own.
Hoping, perhaps, to learn their secrets.

>=<

The fruits of my latest endeavor are as follows:
(Please do not view .gif if you have a heart condition or are prone to seizures. It's a little intense, ya'll.)

Like I said, it's an obsession now, and not one I would even venture to call "healthy".
But this illness of carefully sorting through mounds of glossy images of black & white and faded sepia in search of that ever elusive peek of beauty, of "something more than us-ness", is one I'm quite willing to suffer through.

>=<

   Oh and yes.
Yes, you did just see the Pope.

>=<

More of an "Altered Art" kinda gal...

I love old stuff.
If you've spent more than five minutes reading my posts, you might have picked up on that.
But something else I love (and my mother makes fun of me for) is taking old stuff and rejuvenating it in a sense.
Making it new, improving it.

However I'm not the type that buys 50+ year old stuff, chops it up, glues it back together, then points dramatically and declares it to be "progressive".
Mine is more of a subtle approach.
Case in point:
The sixth most awesome thing I've ever made in my life. Behold...

Before...

(courtesy of WittyVintage via Etsy)

After!

(courtesy of my imagination)

I'm kind of in love with the thing actually.
Oh the joy and ease and satisfaction of altered art...<3