2nd Bleaching Adventure

Just like this time last year, I woke up one day and decided to go blonde. As I've said before, blonde is my natural hair color, but because of my dark eyebrows I tend to lean towards darker colors on myself. Since it it summertime though, I decided I would try for blonde again, and this time strove for success. 

Indeed I did succeed, yet not the color I strove for, but it's ok. I did research this time before jumping right in. I read articles online and watched many YouTube videos. My hair was dark purplish red with random black throughout it. (Please excuse the goofy look on my face, haha. I was at Lowe's.) Just in case anyone wants to know, the colors in my hair then were Ion Color Brilliance Permanent Creme Hair Color 1V Jet Black and I think 4RV Medium Burgundy Brown.

As I said, I watched many YouTube videos on how to bleach dark hair. These two are by far my faves:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nRhhRPI4p4

Please excuse her voice. Yes it is kinda distracting, but she is very helpful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3cXcCmi6wM

I didn't see this one till a few days ago, but she a had a lot of helpful tips other videos didn't have.

I really recommend watching these if you want to bleach dark hair.

So, my goal was to reach Ion's HL-V Hi Lift Cool Blonde, which I didn't get, at least all over. I started bleaching my hair on a Monday, and reached my current color by Wednesday. I don't recommend doing what I did, just because it is so damaging to your hair, and I knew this going into it, but I have very strong hair so I knew it would survive. I bleached my hair twice on Monday, and once again on Tuesday. My hair went from orange to a lighter orange, so I went to Sally's and asked for a toner, but the rep said I should bleach again and use purple shampoo. I went home and bleached the third time and it still wasn't as pale a yellow as I would have liked, but was close enough. That night I slept with my hair drenched in hydrating conditioners, which made a big difference.Wednesday morning I went and had my hair cut, and had lots of layers put in to get rid of the fried ends. They weren't splitting or anything; just really dry. After I got home I applied the Hi Lift. After the third bleaching I had a few random orange streaks, which turned pink since I added a bronze corrector to the Hi Lift mixture. It pretty much just stained my hair.

Here's a list of the products I've used and their original prices. They're all from either Sally's or WalMart:

• Ion Color Brilliance Powder Lightener 1lb Tub ($20): I have a lot of hair and this tub didn't last me all three bleaches. It's got 5 stars on the Sally's site, but I read reviews for another which would have worked better I think.
• L'Oreal Quick Blue High Performance Powder Lightener 1oz ($4.79): I told the rep I have really thick hair, so she gave me two of these. Two of these didn't get through all of my hair. But I feel like the lightening process went a lot smoother with this one, esp when heat was applied.
• Ardell Red Gold Corrector Plus .125oz ($.99): I added this to the color mixture (not the bleach) and this turned the mixture pink, and thus stained my hair. Would not recommend if coloring hair really light. On the bright side, my hair was not brassy.
• Ion Sensitive Scalp 30 Volume Creme Developer 32oz ($5.69): I used this for each bleaching and color
• Ion Color Brilliance Permanent Creme Hair Color HL-V Hi Lift Cool Blonde ($5.29): I love Ion hair colors. They are super easy to apply and I've never had disasters with the outcome. The colors are very pigmented and bright. I did not achieve this color, but I think it's because I didn't bleach light enough. I would recommend Ion color to everyone!
• Biotera Ultra Moisturizing Shampoo ($7.39): I never thought my hair could feel too moisturized, but this one does it. Idk what it is, but when I use this product I can't brush my hair when it's wet and it takes forever to dry. But once it's dry my hair feel amazing.
• Clairol Shimmer Lights Shampoo and Conditioner ($12.49 and $8.49): I loveeee these. I use this almost every time I wash my hair and my hair becomes more platinum with every use. It's amazing. Because it's a purple shampoo it cancels out the yellow tones in blonde hair. I've recommended it before and I would in the future.
• TRESsemme Nourishing Rituals Rejuvenating Mud Masque 8oz ($3.97): I use this every other time I wash my hair and leave in for about 5 minutes to help prevent any breakage.
• TRESsemme Nourishing Rituals Protein Renewal Creme 8oz ($3.97): Because bleaching hair strips your hair of its proteins, I bought this to replenish them. I like this product so far, and use it when I'm not using the masque.

This is what my hair looks like now (next to KettlePopped, who's not being cute or serious at all -_-;). I'm very happy with the color and I get compliments ALL THE TIME. When my roots grow out I plan on just using the Hi Lift color, since my natural color is a dark blonde, so I should be able to just use it by itself. That's what it's made for anyway.

I hope someone found this useful, but like I said I don't recommend bleaching three times in two days. If you do, make sure you don't bleach your roots but once, because that's what makes your hair fall out.

Have a good day! =]

A Nerd's Bday: Chapter 2 StarCraft

Now, if you don't know StarCraft very well, like myself and almost all non-Koreans (haha, jk) you may not know what you're looking at. This was the cake we made for Greg's older brother, TJ, who turned 20 this June. We were sitting at work together on break and he said he wanted a StarCraft cake. I asked KettlePopped for help on design on this one since I had no idea what to do, and since he plays SC with TJ online.
The cake is a 13"x9" chocolate cake layered with different colors of buttercream icing. I bought flavored rock candy for the blue crystals which represent minerals, which is like money in the game (i guess).

The little dudes go out and mine, bringing back to base their findings. The base and these little dudes, along with the tank were made from chocolate. KettlePopped told me to add space animals which could be anything. So I made a little walrus and black beaver (I was too lazy to make brown when I already had black), representing Greg and my brother. The story was to be TJ was the commander and was gonna hunt down our brothers. He thought it was funny.
First, when he arrived at our house KettlePopped set up a new cake board with candles "20" lit on it and said his cake was a cloaked banshee (game thing). TJ loled. Then I brought out the real cake. His mom was like "question mark", but TJ went off rambling what each thing was which was all that mattered. As long as he knew what it was, even though the rest of us were completely lost, she was happy.

Note: This cake took from June 10-11th.

A Monkey's Graduation

This May a lifelong family friend we've known for sixteen years graduated high school. His mom asked me if I would make him a cake for his graduation, and of course I couldn't say no. I knew that because our families have known each other for so long that I could have some fun with this cake. Greg, the graduate, asked for a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing. His mom asked for me to incorporate a monkey in somehow (her nickname for him is Monkey). So, I did some research of graduation cakes and fell in love with the book theme. I asked his mom what his three worst subjects were (Greg wasn't the greatest student and his worst subjects I felt would be more memorable than just any old class). The cap on top is of his school colors, green and gold with "2012" on it. The diploma is one of my favorite pieces. Wait, you didn't see a diploma? That thing that looks like a banana....yea! It was a brilliant idea KettlePopped and I came up with. To have a banana peeled open to reveal the diploma. I loved the idea, and still think it was quite clever. The monkey was KettlePopped's idea, to use the evil monkey from Family Guy. Greg and his family watch the show as well, so we knew they'd get a kick out of it. 

The cake, as I said before, was red velvet filled with my cream cheese icing and covered with a thin layer of my buttercream. They were covered in two layers of fondant, one for the pages and another for the covers. The spines of each book were decorated with white chocolate letters and bindings. The cap was a red velvet cupcake turned upside down and covered with chocolate. The tassel and "2012" numbers were also chocolate. The evil monkey was modeled out of modeling chocolate by KettlePopped. I made the diploma as well from modeling chocolate.

I was not able to actually attend Greg's graduation since I had to work, but I met them afterwards at Olive Garden and sat with his family until my family and KettlePopped arrived with the cake.

While at the restaurant I heard other tables around us talking about the cake and asking their kids if they wanted a cake like his. I gave some cake to the waiter, who was awesome and super polite during our entire meal.

This cake was fun to make and I hope Greg liked it (his mom loved it).

Happy Graduation Greg,

YOU DID IT!!!

Note: This cake took from May 24-26th.

A Nerd's Bday: Chapter 1 DragonAge

May 8th was my best friend, Becca's 21st birthday. Knowing she is a huge Dragon Age nerd, I decided to create the perfect cake for my friend. I did my research on the game: what each character wore, weapons they carried, and which dragon should rock as the centerpiece. I also researched Alistair's rose speech, and incorporated the rose into the cake, yellow because it's Becca's favorite color. Now because the dragon was the main event, we didn't spend much time on making the people: Oghren (dwarf) with his axe/hammer, an archer, Morrigan (mage) with her staff, and Alistair with his sword. I wanted the cake to be as realistic forest-y as I could possibly make it. So I layered three colors of icing then added foliage and stone. The dragon would be adorning the top, wrapped around the tier, staring the characters in the eyes, except for Alistair, who was at the bottom daydreaming about roses. The dwarf was climbing onto the second tier, trying to reach the action.   

Becca's cake was a chocolate cake, Devil's Food if I recall correctly. Once again I used my home-made buttercream icing to fill and ice the cake. The boulders adorning the bottom border of the cake were marbled fondant, as I did on my mom's cake. The people were made from white modeling chocolate. The dragon was created from a wire frame made by KettlePopped (that in itself took a few hours because he kept breaking it using his awesome man strength!!! *said in simonandmartina's epic booming voice*). The frame was then covered in cereal treats (home-made) with a layer of white modeling chocolate covering it. Then the fun part came. I colored the chocolate different shades of purple (I chose the high dragon in the game, honestly just because purple is my favorite color and it would pop off the greens of the icing). I rolled the chocolate very thin and cut very tiny bits from the log and rolled each piece individually into spheres....
This took hours. I had watched Fred 2 while doing this. After creating these hundreds of tiny chocolate balls, these became the dragon's scales, each individually placed on. This process in itself took from about 10a.m. to about 5p.m. Needless to say, I never want to do a dragon again (j/k! I totally would! =]). While I was working on this, KettlePopped worked on the head, spines, feet, and wings.

We took Becca's cake to O'Charley's where she thought she was meeting two friends for dinner. She had no idea there was a cake, and a surprise party (late decision) waiting for her. It went from three girls to nine friends and family (eleven if you count the awesome waitress and bartender, who loved the cake and said it tasted great). Becca walked in and was shocked; she loved her cake. Yet again, we made a cake no one wanted to cut into.

I have to admit, Becca's cake is my favorite cake we've made so far. I'm very proud of us.

Happy Birthday Becca, and I hope you loved your cake!

Note: This cake took from May 6-8th to make.