Poppy Z. Brite: Lost Souls

I haven’t read anything so cruel yet captivating in a long while. The book is one jaw-dropping maelstrom of blood, sex, addictive substances, violence, loneliness, madness and music.

It is not probably for the faint of heart but I can assure you there is nothing like it out there. Honestly, the author presents all those tabooish subjects with such ease that at the end you don’t mind the crazy vampire father sleeping with his own son. No, it’s somehow right in this world.

The vampires are a separate race; they procreate - creating a new generation which will claw its way out of their mother’s wombs; the oldest ones have retracting teeth and have strictly liquid diet and allergy to the sun, the younger having more benefits minus the cool fangs – they just file their teeth to look more like their forefathers; they can suck blood or just your essence etc. but the book is focused on a group of five blood drinkers – one lunatic Zillah with his two vagabond mates Twig and Molochai, one lonely weary Christian and Zillah’s newly found son Nothing.

We are taken on one hell of a trip to New Orleans and back home with two mortal musicians from the band called Lost Souls? - just because their music attracted a soon-to-be vampire who somehow attracted his long lost family and then all the hell broke loose.

The characters keep losing things – illusions, childhood, sanity, last link to humanity, lovers, lives – just name it. I could go on about how fascinating the novel is but I want you to go to your nearest bookshop and get a copy for yourself. Read it! I mean it – I have no idea how I spent twenty-five years of my life not knowing about this novel.

I think that to the bunch of classic vampires whom none of us will ever forget (Dracula, Carmilla, Lestat and Louis) one name will carve itself into the soft tissue of our mushy brains right next to them – Zillah the beautiful green-eyed monster.

No idea what I’m talking about? Never heard of him and don’t know why he should be in the vampire hall of fame? Just read it and you’ll understand! 

GENRE: crazy road trip whirlwind in your head

FANGS OUT: original
FANGS RETRACTING: ha, some characters wish they could slide ‘em in and out at will and not be bothered with razors
TOTAL SCORE:

Melted rainbow necklace holder

I've decided to make a hanger for my ever-growing collection of necklaces (damn you, cheap Ebay things from Asia!). At first I wanted to buy just a regular key holder or something like that (one long piece of wood with hooks in it) but then I decided to go the more difficult and artsy way.

And honestly, it would be a nice picture, too. Just use your imagination.

So, here's how I've done that:

 First, I obtained a base - you can use any type of wood, plastic etc. in any shape. It's up to you, really. What I have here is called OSB.

Then I bought a wooden frame - this particular one is used for framing floors, but who cares? It was the cheapest option and I didn't mind the thickness of it - my holder was gonna be huge so a thin picture frame wouldn't do anyway.

The next thing to do was to cut the frame. Beware of the pattern on the frame and cut it in a way it will fit once put together ;-)

Impatient people, people with dull saws or with no upper body strength will have to file the edges.

Try if your measuring was correct.

Now, next part is to glue the frame to its base. Since the glue takes a day to harden, you will need these to hold the frame to the base - no idea what these suckers are called.

Yeah, like that... There may be a chance of slight imperfections (or gigantic holes) where the two pieces of frame meet. In that case you have two options. Either let it be (like I did) or just fill the holes with some putty/paste or whatever they give you in the shop where they know what they are doing.

Now it's good time for dealing with your stress. Just hammer the nails in like there is no tomorrow ;-)

Matte black spray layer one drying...

Crayon test - how many will fit in?

Melting test (that should be done BEFORE you buy a gazillion packages of crayons) - a quick tip here - you need WAX based crayons.

Undress them - I know you want to!

Now here is a tricky part. Use a glue gun to pin the crayons to the base BUT put the glue only in the upper part of the crayon plus be precise - the glue melts the crayons so you don't want them to move aound much. (I had to break one white crayon because I decided to drill a hole through the base for easier hanging so naturally I didn't want the hook to be stopped by that crayon later when hanging it)

And now the melting begins. Be patient. I takes forever with a hair dryer. Also, you need to have the picure in some angle - letting the gravity to do its thing.

My idea of "I'm satisfied with how it turned out to be"

And now all you need to do is use it. And find out where you have gaps so that you can add more nails...

Nina Bangs: My Wicked Vampire

I came across this supernatural series quite a while ago. It used to be a trilogy but I’ve currently got my hands on number four in the series and that’s not the last one. Not all are about vampires, though (but Mr. Google says there is a spin-off series focused only on the vampires).

You are sucked into a world where gods and goddesses, cosmic troublemakers, plants which feed off sexual energy and other unheard-of creatures interfere with mortals’ lives. The mortals are usually guests of a theme castle run by a certain troublemaker who has a real wizard as her right hand and the shows and fantasies are performed by vampires, demons – just name it.

It is a very light read and the storyline doesn’t leave the centre couple. That’s probably the weak spot. Not too much story building – everything happens within the boundaries of the castle or somewhere very close to it and it all happens in a very short time. But some may find it an advantage – depends on what you seek.

I wanted to give it just three vampire kisses for its lack of the settings and other stuff mentioned above but then I realized that every book made me laugh because it introduced some kind of unusual character (thumbs up for the warrior cactus in this one) so four kisses it is then.

GENRE: funny romance

FANGS OUT: I like the settings and variety in characters
FANGS RETRACTING: too centered on the castle
TOTAL SCORE:

50 Shades of Red ... part 2

All right, I’ll jump right in. If you don’t know what’s going on, read about my hunt for the most gorgeous red lip color in the first part of the series.

For this part, I’ve prepared all my Avon lipsticks and one Urban Decay, because I had space for one lipstick on the paper, so I added the brand I only had one thing from – duh! I'm becoming a space-saving genius ;-)=

 

Notice the difference in the swatches - compared to the ELF lipsticks I did last time, these let more color on the paper -> so the pigmentation is way better than in the ELF lipsticks. But if they let so much color on the paper, will something stay on the lips? Are you hanging on the edge of your seats? :-)=

As you can see, I have a lot of Avon lipsticks – all from different lines or whatever that is – some of them quite pricey, some of them super cheap. All they have in common, however, is the pigmentation. It doesn’t matter if you buy the Color Trend line or one of those Extra Lasting ones – they will all give you the color you want in one layer.

Sure, the cheapest ones have the formula a little thinner than the more expensive ones, but I find them more then good for the price. I have a suspicion that Rich Ruby is just diluted Fiery Red. Which reminds me – Avon has a gazillion red shades but they are all very similar. You won’t notice the difference between some of them at the first glance – that’s exactly what prevents me from buying a lipstick from their most expensive line (Luxe), because I’m afraid I’d buy a shade I already have but in a “better” packaging. Better being the operative word here, because I hate gold packaging – instead of looking more luxurious, it does quite the opposite, it looks cheap. But I’ve just discovered I can buy mini samples of them so more Avon is going to appear here for sure.

What I like about all those Avon lipsticks is their duration. Honestly, they all (even the Color Trend Line) survived my meal and drink – I had to reapply the cheapest ones on small areas of my lips, but none of them was completely gone as it happens with lipsticks which will appear in the next episode ;-)= So if you want a good lipstick for a good price (around 5 dollars), invest in one of those (btw the Extra Lasting ones are really worth it - that's Fiery Red in my swatches).

The last one I added for paper saving purposes is Urban Decay’s Gravity. I saved money for a long time before I could afford this one (it was some kind of special edition with pretty steel packaging). And I couldn’t be more disappointed. Not only does the lipstick smell like it just escaped from the chemical lab, it also doesn’t last as much as one would think such an expensive lipstick would. Sure, it’s creamy, application is smooth but I dare you to take a sip from your glass or mug or whatever you drink from. Poof ... gone! Gotta reapply it. I mean one frickin’ drink will make it almost disappear! And that sucks because it is very dark, so it looks weird if you have half of your lips naked while you are sprinting toward the nearest mirror. This was a huge turndown for me.

Sherrilyn Kenyon: Kiss of the Night

Dark-Hunter series number four. I think. I’ve never seen messiest author’s official website. Can’t tell if this is the right or wrong number, if I’m reading it in the right order, just nothing.

What I know, however, is that the series is sometimes very entertaining. Ok, there are about gazillion characters, too many mythologies used and way too many things happening in the fractions of the supernatural world (I know, this ensures the never-ending-ness of the series but sometimes too much is just way too much...).

So, the vampires are poisonous to others, they loathe drinking blood, then the other ones drink souls, and so on and so on. I think the world it is set in is in the same mess the whole author’s website is in. And that’s my point. It’s messy and sometimes messy is good. But sometimes it’s not.

If you look for a romance which will always wind up in the happily ever after mode, than you may be sometimes disappointed – yup, I can imagine the faint-hearted actually crying at one point in this book. But if you like a twist every now and then, then you will for sure get your treat.

GENRE: action romance

FANGS OUT: entertaining
FANGS RETRACTING: mythology overload
TOTAL SCORE:

Kerrelyn Sparks: Sexiest Vampire Alive

Ok, here’s the thing. Kerrelyn Sparks writes the Love at Stake series and this is number eleven. Given the fact that I don’t usually start reading series in the middle (even though here it wouldn’t be a problem – each story can be read without knowing the whole world of vampires Sparks created because you get introduced to it in every book) you can deduce I’m a sucker for the series.

Yes, it’s a romance so those of you who are not fans of happy endings can pass this to someone who can actually enjoy it. But in case you want to give the genre a try, this is where you should start.

Over the years we got to know über-old-and-grumpy Scottish vampire warriors who make the situations in the 21^st century awkward for them and funny for us. Sparks added some shifters to spice things up (were-rabbits are damn hilarious if you think of it) and every once in a while she makes a quite negative-looking character tell his/her story and it changes your opinion (AKA how a movie star became a guano farmer).

This book was no exception for her love/humor/sacrifice/action mix. You got this playboy who was given the task of making the vampires’ secret go easy with the White House and had to fight his attraction to the President’s daughter. Because that would just blow things up, right?

GENRE: funny romance

FANGS OUT: oh the fun and gorgeous characters

FANGS RETRACTING: when it comes to this genre there aren’t many which can beat this so no retracting here

TOTAL SCORE:

Rubber Ducky Frenzy 3

You thought it was over the last time, didn't you? :-)= Well, nope. I've got more.