Restoring Jewelry Tip

I stopped making a lot of jewelry with the chain that you find in craft stores because base metal stuff tarnishes so quickly, and I thought there was no way of restoring it once it turned (since it wasn't a quality metal). I know there's a lot of others who thought this way too. I know many who have thrown stuff out because they didn't think it was worth trying to find out if it could be saved or not.
Turns out toothpaste (tried the blue gel kind that has baking soda in it) cleans it also (knew you could use it on fine metals). It seems to work on that cheap costume jewelry from Claire's, Icing, Forever 21, etc... too! Now I feel much more confident about making things again from the base metal stuff. Yayness!

Things thankfully have gotten better since my last update. I finally got my "new" car back a couple of weeks ago. However, it still has the main problem...it operates fine, it just has that dreaded "Service Engine Soon" light. In the meantime it should be ok. It's incredibly to have transportation again instead of having to rely on someone to take you to work or grocery shopping (and public transportation around here is greatly lacking). Enough about that.

Recently I discovered a book by Keri Smith (who created Wreck This Journal, which everyone seems to be into right now) called How To Be An Explorer Of The World. It certainly piqued my interest. On our most recent trip to a book store, Honey Bunny purchased it, yayness! We're going on a trip to West Virginia this upcoming weekend to celebrate our one year anniversary (wha hoo, go us!). This book is totes coming along for the journey!

I was inspired to bust out the markers and do some work in one of my journals.

I think instead of writing in the actual Explorer book, I'm going to bring along a couple of new Composition books so we both can partake in ~exploring~ in our individual ways. Plus I can't bring myself to write in the printed book, eak! At least not yet. I think it'd be fun for us to have our own books, especially using them each time we take a trip somewhere. Or heck, even just everyday life as the book is intended. Idk, I have all of these vivid daydreams on going on adventures in new places. The book is intended to help you see the beauty and uniqueness of even mundane things you do or come across every day of your life. I need to wake up those creative forces!

And to continue on this topic, I've been getting into art journaling lately. It seems like such an obvious habit but it never really occurred to me until I stumbled upon some videos on Youtube focusing on it and sharing ideas. The pathetic thing is that I used to do this back in junior high and high school but got out of the habit when I went off to college. Yeah, I fell like I lost a lot of creativity or had to put it on the back burner when I was going through college. I'm still struggling to unleash it. However, it's slowly coming back (yay!).

Recently I made my first franken polish (yayness!). I debated whether or not to make a video but just taking pictures was easier sooooo here's a pictorial summary of this little experiment.

Supplies & ingredients

Dry sparkles

First bit of liquidy goodness

*shakey shakey shakey*

One coat (it twinkled irl, srsly)

3 coats (o hai there VNL)

One coat over ~undiez~

Needs more glittah!!!

Final result (one coat over Tickled Pink):

I lurve it!