Kewtorial : Delish Ring Display

 In this kewtorial I'll show you how to make a fabulous display for your rings. I got this idea cuz I kept taking my rings off & putting them on the larger paintbrushes drying in cups all around my sink. Eventually one of my useless waffle cone cups filled with Hello Kitty pens wandered to the sink & I kinda thoughtlessly stuck my smoothie straw from breakfast into it and °*°P0P°*° I got this idear & tweeted it to myself right away so I wouldn't forget.

~♥-♥~

All you need is: 

*One Fun Cup*
I got these cups that look like waffle cones yeears ago and they were totes cheap. If you put ice cream in them (and I did) the plastic just breaks, so they've been pretty useless up til now. The only places I go regularly are craft stores like Hobby Lobby & Michaels & Target and Wal Mart; I'm sure you can find some. If not, then there's tons o cute cups fur super cheap jus perf for deco-ing.
~♥~
 

*Straws*
At K Mart I found these large ones that look like the ones that come with bubble tea. You can also re-use bubble tea straws if you happen to drink it..or Unforked has clear striped ones, but I'm purty shore ours is the only unforked anywhere.

~♥~
 

*Frosting*
I gave this Whipple stuff a try. I had to tape my own cake tip onto it since I only got a refill. Get a whiff of whipple and your eyes will water! It smells so toxic;D I'm sure all the foreign language on the frosting bag is warning you not to eat it. I have no idea what it is, but it smells toxic as fugg! ^-* trust me-you won't want to eat it. It works well enough-dries fully & is firm in 2 days. I have no deco skills and I let a bunch of whipple dry in my tip, then chipped it out so I could use this for this project days after I first opened it. Plus doin anything like this my hands shake a lot, so keep that in mind....whipple whill look better in the hands of almost anyone else. If you don't have whipple there's plenty of info out there for making deco frosting, so ask google.

~♥~

*Hot Glue*
This hot glue mat is my best frind~!~not sure where I got it, but all the cooled glue comes right off and I can just toss the gun down and place the stuff I need glued without havin to worry about setting it upright (which is maybe not such a chore to normal peeples, but is to me)

~♥~
Decide how you want your display to look. Since this is a display you'll want to position your straws next to each other toward the back of your cup. My cup deffy has a front, cuz the cone shape overlaps and it's way lower at that point. If they're makin like a triangle shape when you draw imaginary lines bettwixt them when viewed from above then your display won't really have a display side and non-display side and is more likely to stick out obnoxiously from your shelf. If  you like it that way, then fine: you've been warned.

Here you can see how I've glued my straws with the left one in the very bottom and the other 2 kind of moved up a lil & fanned out from that first one. I applied hot glue to each straw then set it where I wanted it in my cup one at a time. As you can see the straws are touching in the bottom of the cup & well spaced at the top.

~♥~

The straws are kinda thin, so don't poke the hot glue onto them...just squeeze out a nice dollop onto the straw and press into place on your cup. I positioned my hot glue at about the halfway mark of my cup.

 

 ~♥~

Add some cute beads or little toys for xxkewtxx factor of your display. It *is* optional, but this way even when you're wearing most of your rings you'll still have a totes adorbz display piece. I threw this one togevs in 10 minutes with stuff I had handy, but I've got more cups & will better execute my kewt-a-DIY-in' in da future.

~♥~
The last thing I did was frost the rim of my cup. I don't even mind that it looks messy; I think it looks more like real whipped topping on a cold ice creamy treat`kinda melty & swirled around.

~♥~

Let the the whipple frosting dry for a couple of days, then stack your rings on the straws*&*enjoy*!*

~♥~*Thriftday the 16th*~♥~

If anybody asked me why I go thrifting or what it is I hope to find by shopping at second hand stores I'd have A LOT of reply....

Today I found every. single. thing. that I ever intend to find, EVER!

 These are glamazing dolls(Frankie's shoe heels are scissors!) & they have poems too!
~♥~

I have a bigger, less plush Cheer Bear, so I left her for another sweety to find.
 ~♥~

 My mommy made me a Minnie Mouse costume when I was four.
~♥~

 They're Rivals(i put em togevs)
~♥~

 I love vintage spandex

~♥~

  he immediately said, "you're getting that!"
~♥~

 I have the profile of a Monster High doll =p

~♥~

 If Lexi hadn't told me they existed I'd never of thot to take that bear to the window, then into the dark ^-^
~♥~

 Candy color shoes, G1 Soda Sippin MLP, Moondreamer, Darkwing Duck SET, beddy bye cat dolls, pink guns
~♥~

 Kitten purse, pink TY pony, Ice Cream Truck purse, cupcake squinkie machine, anatomical horse
~♥~

 Perfuckt floral 90's dress, wide white belt,Barbie purse w/frill trim, 2zips & vinyl pocket & heart cutout
~♥~

 Lav/Wht Stripey, pink metallic pressed details, lt pnk metallic, holo silver, holo silver hearts belts
~♥~

                                              ~*I been had thrifthaul*~


There's more than what's in these pictures(getting cleaned), but I'm pretty sure this is enuff to blow your mind.

It certainly blows *my* mind. I mean, I expect the world to piece itself together all around me, but today was beyond anything I've experienced. In a few hours I had found so much & had such a fun time it seemed like 10 hours had gone by. We got home at 2:30.

I wish I could end this day with a smaching slumburr party, but all my girlyfrins live far from me. So y'all pretend we made cotton candy, got smashed on marshmallow & whipped cream vodka, had a (cheepo)cream soda fight in the backyard, and then made schtuffs all the while talking over a marathon of the best movies evah.

Okay, so leave comments*&*tell me what snack, what stuffed aminal or doll, and what fave movie you wanna bring to share/watch at our slumbur partay.

Snack: vegan GlutenFree s'mores pops (sugar *&&&* fire)
~Stuffed Animal: Penelope my purple dinosaur (cuz she a party dino)
~~Movie: Fern Gully

♡ミ Quickie Thrift Trip ♡ミ

I didn't sleep last night, so I was certainly up for an outing. We had planned to go out, so I picked my clothes out while I was not sleeping last night.

Sean was going to pick up a specific item at the thrift store and to get a few groceries while he was out.It's nice to get out of the house and spend time with my boifrind.

~candid getting ready picture*~

At 9AM it's already like 80 degrees out. I am super ready for fall *and* Halloween. If I felt better I'd have a Halloween in July party for shore!

~*on the way~♥~super sleepy fairy low key today*~

Sean has work and we have to get groceries after shopping, so it was just an in and out right quik kinda shopping experience. I had a great time and got huge huggles from my fave lady even tho it's not Thursday. Guess she works Tuesday too ^_^ I'd never been on a Tuesday before, I don't think. So fun*!*

~*home again~home again*~

Ya don't have to get a ton of stuff when you go thrifting. If there's even one fabulous find then you'll know how good a creator you are. I didn't have any one thing I was intended to find today. If anything I wanted Weezie to be workin *&* she totes was. Wanna see what icing I am worthy of on my day cake?!?

~*simply spektacular seafoam green body suit accented with shiny lace*~

After grocery shopping and bein out in the heat I was so sleepy. I came home and lay down with my kitties. At 5 ish I woke up with a Bon Bon on my front. My dreams were great, too. I was looking at show accurate outfits for my Sailor Mars doll and I attended a movie screening that Eric Northman was at. He was in a Batman movie with Mr. Freeze...it was all really fantastical.

Ahead of me is a night of TV. Pretty Little Liars, Craft Wars, Bad Girls Club, and more. {yay} Follow me at getglue and marvel at the massive amount of television I watch. Aside from the stickers it's great, cuz I spend a lot of time veggin in bed to TV alone & getglue makes the experience much less lonely and losery feelin. I'm not always up to sharing my thoughts about the show I'm watching, but I feel well received when I do.

Login to getglue.com and get stickers~real life ones even if ya get lots of virtual ones...which [ahem] I uh do, yup.

Powdermonki Retro Toy Badges Review

I've been an admirer for awhile and after asking some random cute people around the internet all I heard was that the buttons (as we'd call them stateside) were good quality &; worth a purchase.

There are some really fabulous designs available for purchase, but I decided take her up on the offer to make custom buttons using images of my choosing. Well, nothing could have prepared me for the ability, kindness, communication, and end result of what turned out to be about a month long series of emails back and forth.

Do you know me? Hi, I'm Mindy and I love Popples like the vast majority of people love Care Bears. I didn't watch the cartoons as a kid and cannot think of ever in my child life seeing a commercial or ad for them, but you don't' have to try to sell me on Popples. I don't take interest in a whole lot of things, so I got what I wanted when I did ask. I'm not saying I had every Popple as a kid and looking back I realize that my Popples merchandise was, for the most part, practical items. I had the plates, bowls, cups, a tea set, mugs, puzzles, bathroom decor, the sleeping bag, stickers, colorforms, and of course a few plush. Not all that stuff was new: I've been garage sale-ing and thrifting my heart out since I could toddle down the sidewalk. I've managed to accumulate some really cool Popples stuff through my teen and adult years.

When I first contacted Sarah, the creator of the badges, I had only a memory of a Popples puzzle I had as a kid. This is exactly that first communication:
"Hello,  I love your pins &; hear that they're great quality. I was wondering what kind of image you'd need to make one. I absolutely love how Popples merch has popples plush staged &; photographed. I had a puzzle of Pretty Bit &; Potato Chip (i'm pretty sure) playing with a gumball machine that I'd love to have on a badge. Let me know if it's possible.

~*love and light*~

 Mindy"

Her reply was prompt. Actually the same day, but time gets away from me and it was days, maybe a week, before I saw it and replied. I was pretty much floored. Not only had she found that puzzle based on my description, but also sent along a mock up of it as a badge.


Oh my gosh, that's it! It's so much cuter than I recalled, with Pretty Bit sitting in the busted machine with the top on her head. She explained that this is a photo she found after having "a quick look on eBay" and that it's a tray puzzle and will have lines in it. The lines of this tray puzzle are all wavy like you see: that's not manipulation of the photo. I shared that it was more orangey than I remembered and Sarah said and set about looking for pictures on my own. While I was doing that I heard back from Sarah that she'd also put a glaze layer over the image &; that it was probably altering the color, so she'd omit that in the future.

I suddenly realized that she'd just pulled this image off the web and made a lovely badge with it, so I asked if she'd be able to make badges with any image I provided. I have an inordinate amount of pictures of things I used to have, like, or want on my hard drive. Her response was this:

"Hi Mindy, whilst it's true I can use any image you'd like to make a badge from, it's always best to use a larger, better quality image than a small one. So, what I'll do when you email me your images is make them ready for printing and email the sample images back for your approval (I won't add the mock badge glaze to them, so you can see the images better).

How does that sound?

I'm looking forward to this!"

I let her know I was gonna be searching thru my images and compiling a photo list to send her way!

What I discovered is that there are two releases of this gumball Popples puzzle and the color differs ever so slightly from the tray with a red band at the top from the one with the blue. I sent this image along with the explanation of what was goin on.

In going through my files I'd already come up with some photos I wanted to use. The following images are what I sent:

I have the pillow on the right, but getting to things is not easy for me. It's packed away safe, cuz I've kept in pristine condition for 20 years thru a lot a lot of life: it came with when I left my Mom's house.

(side note:she didn't make it for me, per se, but, my friend Lexi made me a fairy kei shirt with the middle pillow. The Popple holding the ice cream cone is my very first Popple & I don't have her. Pretty Bit is my fave Popple I acquired as an adult)
~☆~

The cutie badge top left I have, but it's vintage & branded on the back: not for using. I could not find a better picture or take a picture of that super shiny button, so I sent this.
~☆~

The middle plate was my special dessert and birthday plate. I don't have my plate but it was all scuffed up by the end of it's use from being, well, used.
~☆~

When I went looking for the tea set I realized it was a rare item indeed! The only photo I found was this one. This is so crazy, you guys! Ok, so the couch this set is sitting on is absolutely identical to the one I was sitting on when I opened my tea set when I was four. It's a small photo, but I'm just amazed to be looking at it.
~☆~

 This I made myself, using MS paint and even though it is a little dodgy I still had to show her. I worked HARD on this. See, as a kid I had that Popple I placed in the image in the forefront and she was very special to me. I sang almost constantly & put on dramatic stage performances in and out of my home. I wish I had her longer since I got very much into the punk scene as a teen.

You've got to understand that I cannot photoshop my way out of, into, or on top of a paper bag. Sarah was very understanding of this and after I sent those to her she gave me the information I needed to collect images that could be made into badges. She told me, "Ideally the bigger the image the better. Ideally no smaller than 600px square. I can't use the image you created in Paint, but I've re-created it using my own images. Punkity's image is now much clearer, but I don't have a bigger image of them both to use for the background"

I was NOT at all expecting this!

I think we'll all agree that this looks oh so much better. I don't have fuzzy feelings for the other Popple, so don't care that it's not clear and the gritty feel suits the scene. They are punks on stage and the audience is throwing tomatoes at them. I also wasn't able to salvage the tail in my paint version & now it's back & u can still see both the guitarists eyes.=^-^=fur joy

"I brightened up the puzzle image, so maybe the background changed colour a bit. How about this:

The one I emailed you before is on the left, and the less orangey one is on the right."

 The one on the right matches my memory better and when you see them side by side like this I feel like the untouched image is too bright and the shadows to deep. The touch up is perfection and I told her so.

After getting that info about most of the images being unusable I found images of those things I could in a more suitable size. I was determined to do the hunting myself & this is what I did every time I was able: sometimes all I'd do in a day is search for Popples or email Sarah. Not because I thought I'd get my head bitten off or anything. In fact, she said, "the best thing to do is for you to send me the images you want made into badges and if they aren't big enough for me to use I'll see what I have saved or can find on the internet and we can take it from there!" I'm just nice and considerate of the fact that other people have RL lives to live, I guess.

I really wanted a Cool Times Barbie button. The buttons she has already up for sale are really cool and there's a great variety, but as you may already gleaned from this blog I'm getting these badges made in order to be able to, in a way, have my most beloved toys with me once more. Truly this is better that finding a mint in box Barbie, though cuz as an adult I can take these with me everywhere and share what I love with the world. All the pictures I found of Cool Times, and there are many merch images and prototype photos floating out there, had her clothes wrong or her hair not in pigtails like mine was. I looked and looked but never found anything that, to me, looked like Cool Times Barbie. Since I was blown away by how well she'd recreated that punk scene for me I asked if she'd be able to another custom for me. This time, of Cool Times Barbie. I wondered if she'd be able to take put a picture I took of my own Cool Times' one remaining earring on a photo of a boxed barbie I found. No Barbie of mine got played with more than Cool Times, which is why she's ruined today. I still have her, which is actually sayin a lot, cuz I'm a pony girl~in my pony world: let's go play My Little Po-nies!

I sent these images:

Sarah got back to me and said she needed the images without the circles now that she knew what part of them I wanted on badges. I did that and also asked if she'd be able to use a picture of the actual Cool Times earring I still have, since the earrings can't be seen in the image I found...any image I found.

The screencaps I painstakingly caught from my own Jem avis are esp awesome. That's Kimber (in signature outfit) with Jem's pink hair. Catching lazy/crazy artists flubs on Jem is lots of fun. Sarah warned me the quality of Kimber wouldn't be great, but it's the best I could do. The Misfits looks fabulous cuz it's the whole screen. It's from the first time they meet Tech Rat.

The lengthy process wasn't due to powdermonki: it was my fault this was March 22 to mid April.

It took me even longer to make this blog, so I can't wait any longer to show you the results of all this fantastic collaboration.

















The first three are smaller ones she designed and made herself. 

blurry from my pic~crisp image in real life

That's my Cool Times earring*!* OMG~so happy
~☆~

It is lower quality..but then again I grew up with BETA, sooo I love it*!*

~☆~

The smaller crafted ones she made have metal back, but the regular retro ones have plastic backs.

Fun badges are a great way to personalize any outfit, purse, or hair bow. I wore my Furrever Friends badge in the button hole of a silk shirt & entered a a fairy kei contest.

~☆~

If you're questioning whether or not to order from Powdermonki, then I assure you, you will be SO happy you did. She adds new badge designs regularly & working with her is a dream come true. Be sure to check out all the categories for much retro fun. I doubt you'll be left wanting for much. There's Lady Lovely Locks, Fairy Tail Birds, Keypers, many Barbies & Care Bears, Wuzzles, Cupcakes, and Rainbow Brite..to name a few. You can even pick up your own Misfits split screen badge cuz my custom request is now a regular shop item.

Communication: Excellent

Quality: Excellent

Shipping Time: Excellent

Packaging: Excellent (with color invoice & all badges secured to the page it's bloody brilliant)

Over-all Satisfaction: Exceeded Expectation at every turn

Would I refer a friend or shop here again? *!*!*!YES*!*!*!*

Leave a comment to let me know which ones you plan on getting *or* share your own experience with Powdermonki.

Powdermonki Retro Toy Badges