I had a friend recently request a robot design that looked more like a girl. I took the same design I use for my regular robot jewelry but gave her eyelashes and lots of pink! You can't really tell from the picture too much, but she has a purply-pink iridescent sheen all over to up the "girliness".

And with my twisted sense of cuteness I couldn't go without designing a new zombie robot, too. This little guy has a dark green heart, a red button, and a glow-in-the-dark button. I may just add a little glow-in-the-dark to the heart and the red button, too. I'm still deciding on which color eyes to use, so I've asked on my personal and business Facebook pages for feedback. I like both, so it's up to everyone else to decide which color eyes they would want. I think consensus is looking like the yellow and red.
I tried to make a glow-in-the-dark arm that looks like a bone (like the zombie drawing) but the bone kept looking a little too big. Sometimes it is hard to work with things that are so tiny, give me a break. :P I will try, try again and see if I can do it, but for now he's got some cute little nails for robot arms.

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Images may not be reproduced, copied, transmitted or manipulated without the written permission of Tisch.
Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration (digital, artist rendering or alike) is a violation of the United States and International Copyright laws. All images are copyrighted © 2009-2013 Rocksterize.

Zombies are scary! Unless they've got cute little googly eyes, then they're pretty cute if you ask me. For the past couple of weeks I've been working on new designs for my robot and zombie jewelry and think I've figured out the meaning of cuteness. I haven't got all my designs down yet because I think there is so much that can be done with this design. I've got 3 cute-as-a-button robots I made out of polymer clay. I'll be working on a girl robot, too -maybe I'll put a skirt on her - and a zombot.

I've also changed the look of this site and my Etsy shop (although there isn't much you can do to 'brand' your shop on Etsy, except to change the banner). My friend designed the cartoon robot drawing. It's fun to work with, and I hope to have it as my signature character.

I'm changing around the look of the labels on my eyeshadows, and I've also been crocheting funky hats to sell. My friend Julie already ordered a custom Stegosaurus hat and loved it. I got a button maker to make cute pinback buttons to sell, also.
 I don't know how I'm going to fit all of these different things in my Etsy shop! Maybe I'll have to somehow get a website with its own store and shopping cart together. THAT is a big goal of mine. But for now, I'll just shove all of my kooky creations into my Etsy shop and hope it works :)

It's really important to clean your makeup brushes. Why, you ask? You have that go-to brush that applies eyeshadow. You use it for everything..the lid, the crease, highlight. It doesn't seem to do you any wrong. You only wear the same 4 colors from that one eyeshadow quad, so what's the big deal?

Dirt. Oil. Bacteria. Color payoff. These all come into play when you don't wash your brushes. Think of the bristles as your hair, and product that you put onto your hair. After a while product and oil builds up and you have to clean it. It's the same concept with makeup brushes, only product and oil and germs build up because you are rubbing it on your face/eyes/lips/etc.


HOW TO DEEP CLEAN YOUR BRUSHES:

To clean my brushes I like to use a 2-in-1 Shampoo/Conditioner and a regular dish sponge. Be sure to use lukewarm to warm water, and keep the brush at a downward angle so as to not get water into the ferule.

I like to use Suave 2-in-1 Shampoo in the Watermelon scent. It cleans and conditions my brushes.

1. Get your sponge wet and squeeze a small amount of shampoo onto it.
2. Get your brush wet and start going in circles and back and forth across the sponge using gentle pressure, until it keeps foaming a lot and with no visible grime as you swipe.
[IMPORTANT: If the soap bubbles start to disappear then you need to rinse the sponge and brush, add more shampoo, and clean again. Your brush is not completely clean until the foam stays there]
3. When your brush is clean, rinse well under the water and squeeze. Repeat.
4. Push your brush back into shape and lay flat on a surface, preferably with the end hanging over a table to get air circulation through all sides.

A tip for more dense brushes, like foundation and face brushes:
Put a bit of soap on the corner of the sponge and use the corner to get down into the middle of the bristles, still using gentle pressure. I explain this much better in the video because I show you exactly how to do it.

I use this amount at a time for eyeshadow brushes. I usually can get about 4 brushes clean with this little bit, doing them one after the other.

You need a bit more for bigger face brushes. Depending on how dirty and dense a brush is, I will have to use this amount and repeat up to 4 times until the sponge stays foamy.

To wet deep into the bristles of my bigger brushes I cup my hand with some water and press the brush into the water, using gentle pressure.

Run the brush in circles and back and forth along the sponge. If it's a really dirty brush the foam will go away. If it's not very dirty the soap bubbles will stay foaming, which means it's completely clean.

This is what you want to see. No matter how many times I ran the brush across the sponge, the soap bubbles would stay. It took 2 times of washing this one to get this to happen.

Each time you're done cleaning, rinse out your brush and squeeze. You will be able to see all of the dirt and makeup you've just gotten rid of!

When you're done, put your brushes back into shape and lay them alongside a counter or table to dry. Depending on how big or dense the brush is, it could take anywhere from 4 hours to 24 hours for a brush to fully dry.

Us strange pet people like to show off our cute cuddly creatures sometimes...because they're so cute. If you've watched some of my YouTube videos in the past you might have seen my kitty cat, Sake. She's cuddly and fuzzy and looks like a big striped meatball. So I thought the only right thing to do to show off my little meatball buddy would be to take the massive collection of pictures and videos I've taken of her and do something with them...like put up a YouTube channel and Instagram for her to show off all her glory. The fame seems to be going to her head a little bit, but that's okay, because she's a cat.

• You can subscribe to her YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/helloSakeBomb
• She updates her pictures on Instagram frequently too, because she's a camera hog: @helloSakeBomb

I haven't done a makeup tutorial in a LONG time! Super fail :( I blame myself...totally, lol. But I'm back. And this time when I say I'm back I really mean it. It's coming up on a new year and there is a lot I want to accomplish next year. I finally got a nice lighting setup in my apartment that seems to work for my videos to get the lighting right. It only took me 4 years to get my lighting right. If you ask me, I've accomplished a big feat!..not feet.
I feel like I'm a little rusty in front of the camera, but with time I'll get back into doing makeup videos like I used to.

I used some e.l.f. eyeshadows and some of my own from Rocksterize. I have lots more in my Etsy shop so I'll most likely be using the whole spectrum eventually in tutorials. Here's a list of the products I used in the video. Thanks for watching and hope you enjoyed.

Face:
Revlon ColorStay foundation in Warm Golden
Maybelline FitMe concealer in 10 Light
Ben Nye Banana Powder
Coastal Scents 10 Blush Palette

Eyes:
NYX Jumbo Pencil in Milk
Rocksterize mineral eyeshadow in Foiled
Rocksterize mineral eyeshadow in Sweeter Than You
L'oreal Quad in Blackened Smokes (black color)
e.l.f. Warm Palette
Rocksterize mineral eyeshadow in Naked
NYX Trio (shimmer highlight color - no name)
Maybelline EyeStudio Gel Liner in Blackest Black
L'oreal Voluminous Carbon Black Mascara

Lips:
NARS Lip Gloss in Turkish Delight

Brushes Used: (some brushes I unfortunately do not know the exact name for)
Real Techniques Expert Face Brush
Real Techniques Shading Brush
coastal Scents crease brush
Royal & Langnickel Sm Flat Smudger C447
Crown Brush C135 Oval Shadow
NYX angled liner brush (not sure exact name)
e.l.f. Complexion Brush
Royal & Langnickel Contour Powder BE13

For those of you who follow me on Twitter (@Rocksterize) then you know how hard I've been working lately on my jewelry. I've made a few "Steampunk Industrial" style heart pendants in the past and decided to make more, but have them be a little more intricate, and take more time on each of them. My Etsy shop has been lacking jewelry for a while now, as I've been mainly focusing on the eyeshadows and pigments. It is a little difficult to try and make the jewelry and eyeshadows work in one store, but with Etsy it's all about making your pictures cohesive, in my opinion. So I'm making it work darnit!

Since the holidays are rolling around I figured the jewelry would make pretty nice gifts. I've been taking some new pictures of some of my inventory with a white background. For a while I was trying out different backgrounds, but I feel the white just makes them POP! So I think I will stick with it: Simple & classy. Now that Etsy has drop-down menu options that you can make for customers (thank you!) customers don't have to message me to tell me which gift box they'd like; They can just pick it and I see it when they order. Easy-peasy!

My Steampunk/Industrial heart pendants are coming along and I'm working really hard on sculpting them to make them look great. One of the things that I absolutely love about working with polymer clay is that these end results literally start from nothing but blocks of clay. I've been asked if I buy the pieces and put them together. No, I sculpt everything. A single piece may take a few hours at least. It's so worth it to me in the end. I've also been told that it would be quicker to make them if I used molds. NO! No, no, no! Ha. For me it devalues the pieces I'm making. I feel like I'm taking the "easy route" with my heart pendants if I were to do that. I like how each heart comes out to be a different shape and size. It's just more personal to me, I guess.

Here are the Steampunk Heart Pendants that I've made so far. "L'vant Garde" isn't something I would necessarily call "steampunk". I think it is a bit more Avant-garde, hence the name. But I'll include it here anyway :)

~ All of these are available for purchase in my Etsy shop until they are sold. Some of the ones shown won't be available if they've been sold ~

Eye Spy 006

Our Love Is On Fire 008

Drilling For A Heartbeat 009

Inner Workings 010

L'vant Garde 012

Never Apart 013

Blinded Love 005

Little Monster 014

I recently went to Seattle on a little trip with a friend. We went pretty much everywhere! The aquarium, the zoo, Space Needle, Pike Place, the pier, to see the Fremont Troll under the bridge, aaaand I think that was it. Mind you, we were there for only about a day and a half. I snapped some fun pictures for some viewing pleasure: