My Most Expensive Book

I have bought my most expensive book ever! I love books, and I also love jewellery and glamorous stars from the fifties. So I have for very long wanted Elizabeth Taylor’s book ”My Love Affair with Jewelry”.
She had an incredible collection of jewellery, and was a great lover of diamonds. She was married to Richard Burton twice and he gave her, a.o., a huge diamond of 69.42 carats, which he bought for 1.1 million dollars! Oh boy, what a gift! Well, back to the book. It is large, well-written, beautiful – and EXPENSIVE! And it did not get cheaper after her death in March this year. I have wanted it for a couple of years, but thought 130 dollars was too expensive. When the lady died I thought 130 dollars was cheap, ahem. And getting caught in customs and having to pay additional 90 dollars in total for tax, VAT and customs fee didn’t make it cheaper. But now it’s mine and I will enjoy it many years ahead.

Monroe Mondays

Chevrolet Bel Air Nails

Son came up with this nail design! Yes, it’s true, and he also gave me the polishes from Depend. He gave me four different shades, all very nice and different colours, and then he said I should make Chevrolet Bel Air nails. I love vintage cars, as you might have found out, so I knew what he meant. I made a French manicure with the turquoise green all over the nail and the white on the tips. At my ring finger I put a green rhinestone, but it didn’t look green on the turquoise polish, but still it reminds me of the chrome on the car:

I have never been very fond of American cars. I think they are too big and the design is almost vulgar, but I can see why so many are fans of them. Here are some photos of the Bel Air so you can see the inspiration for the nails:

Monroe Mondays

Vintage Etsy Shopping

Do you know Etsy? It is a website where private persons sell their homemade and vintage things. There are homemade things in every category you can think of, I am much in love with this sleeve for my e-book reader:

Well, I have been shopping a bit lately, and fell in love with this lovely Summer purse from the fifties:
Nice and small and with a lovely lucite handle. It will be my favourite next Summer – if we get any Summer next year, ahem!

This little sewing kit was too lovely to let go:
So nice, and see how it folds and contains everything you need. It will stay in my suitcase.

I had to own this lovely little compact album:
I already look forward to finding photos for it.

And I found some “new” Autumn earrings:
The Autumn leaves are so lovely and the pumpkins are for once not too Halloweeny.

But I had to buy a single Halloween pin:
It is very lovely and does not look like anything else in my Halloween jool collection.

So if you want something different or need a nice little homemade gift you cannot just buy in an ordinary shop, then try Etsy. I have only met super friendly sellers

Monroe Mondays

New Nail Terms

I follow the ”Nail Nymphs’” (Danish) blog, and have done so almost from the beginning. They are the best, very inspirational and I often learn something new. A couple of years ago, or perhaps just one year ago, I didn’t know the following terms:

Franken
It is a homemade polish, you have mixed yourself. You can do it from scratch - start with a clear polish and add some colour or you can mix it from different polishes you have in stock. I’ve done so since my teenage years without knowing it had a name. If I buy a polish that does not look as expected on the nails, I always mix in something else, until it looks like I want it to. A dull polish which is not used, might get some addition and perhaps a little glitter, then the investment is not wasted. I suppose the name is inspired by Frankenstien, who was homemade too. ;)

Konad
Is stamping, which I have previously written about here. It is fantastic – quick and super-easy, and it looks fabulous. I’m addicted, it has become a new hobby and many at my work have to check my nails every Monday – it is quite binding.

Ombre
Is using one colour scheme for all five nails, but graduated from dark to light. You can see an example here. I think it is really nice and will try it some day with pink tones, since I have so many of them.

Skittles
Are different colours on all five nails, preferably bold tones. I will translate it to M&M’s, since I know them better (= colourful chocolates). I tried this with my colourful Color Club polishes, but it was not my taste.

I think it looks great on others, but I felt just a little bit too old when I tried it on my own nails, ahem. See an example here.

And there is also: Shellac (polish that lasts for two weeks), Minx (foil), crack polish (polish that … cracks), and labels to make patterns, see and example here. Labels will definitely soon find their way into my collection, sounds like a really good idea.

I have always thought that I was quite modern and had a great collection of different colours, but it is nice to know that there still is room for new trends.

Monroe Mondays

Son’s Tattoo

As all other youngsters son wanted a tattoo. His uncle, my brother, has been a tattooist, and as a little boy he has many times seen uncle “sew on” a tattoo (he used a needle). Back then he had those to transfer. He has always said that when he became a big boy uncle should sew one on him. As a little boy uncle often sketched a tattoo on him with his tattoo pen, it could last for days.

At the beginning of the Summer it was time. I did not say no, because I knew he would then have it made somewhere else and choose a silly motif he would regret the rest of his life. So I thought it was better talking about it and telling him to really should think about it. He did, and ended up with a design made of his initials: TGI. “I will always have my name.”, he said. He designed it himself, and I think it is really great:

Here are some photos from the day:

The motif is discussed.

The outlines are finished, son is proud.

The needle is in the skin.

It burned a bit, uncle is having fun.

Brother and I had several days before made him very nervous, you simply have to make fun of those bold teenagers. He was very surprised how little it did hurt, and brother said that son was one of the few men who did not whine at all.

So it was son’s first (and hopefully only) and brother’s last tattoo.