Book review: A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux (spoilers!)

The main problem with this book is not even the impossibility of time travel, the strange "bond" the hero and heroine seem to share (which has her experiencing a pain in her arm when his arm is cut), nor the concept that souls are reborn into different bodies and yet somehow still recognisable. No, the problem is with the heroine, whom no one could possibly identify with.

The idea of a misfit heroine would have been a great one -- which of us has not felt at some point in time that we don't really fit in? -- but the author exaggerated the heroine's differentness so greatly that instead of becoming a human being we could identify with, she became farcical.

Honey, what is wrong with you is that you are a dreamy idiot with little common sense. Robert treats you like sh*t yet you keep making excuses for him and insisting that you love him! And worse, plan a romantic holiday imagining that he is going to propose, continuing to believe that he's about to propose even though he does the extremely unromantic thing of telling you you're going to pay for half of the holiday, building castles in the air based on nothing more than a receipt from a jewellery store. "Oh, it must definitely be an engagement ring!" Oh my God, I rolled my eyes SO HARD. Everything she believed about her current relationship existed only in her head, and she couldn't see it.

In the afterword, Jude Deveraux said, "I wanted a heroine who was strong but believed herself to be weak, who was generous, the kind who'd help another human even if it caused her hardship, yet thought her generous spirit was a weakness." But Dougless (also I hate that name, I don't care how historically accurate it is) doesn't come across as strong at all. She comes across as a doormat and desperado. First of all, she's always the one making moves and throwing herself at Nicholas, and when she doesn't want to do something, all he has to do is kiss her fingers and she capitulates. Second, she cries and cries throughout the book. In fact, it's her tears which first draw Nicholas to her through time, because she's crying so hard that it disturbs his concentration and he decides to follow the sound of the weeping and ends up in her time!

I also found it difficult to stomach or understand Robert's behavior towards her, and then to have him do a 180-degree turn at the end? It was ridiculous. He behaved more like a child than his own child, Gloria. He was mean and calculative and unappreciative and his dumb explanation at the end didn't make any sense to me. So what if you were envious of her rich family? You knew when you met her that she doesn't have access to their millions, so what is this about "play at living on your teacher's salary"? It was dumb and petty and showed that he never really loved her, yet he has come back to propose? It made no sense. I felt that the author just wanted to tie everything up with a nice little bow and "redeem" Robert and Gloria because she'd made them so unlikeable in the beginning. Why does everyone have to end up being all sweetness and light? Just leave them as the spiteful and petty people they were, that's fine!

Three other things that made no sense: If Nicholas had insisted that he be buried with the piece of lace embroidered with Dougless' name, why wouldn't he have also insisted that he be buried with her miniature? How could his family not be aware of the significance of the lady in the miniature, and therefore keep it instead of allowing it to be sold, for it to turn up in an antique shop somewhere? Second, if all traces of the person's visit to that time vanished, how can one or two things remain? The miniature shouldn't even remain, as the painter ought to have no memory of even meeting Dougless or having her sit for him; likewise the lace ought not to have remained, for Honoria also wouldn't have remembered her, much less remembered her name. Third, James couldn't have inherited the Stafford estates because he was illegitimate!!

I had to read this book for a book discussion, but I hated the heroine so much that I did something I never do -- once I got an idea of what was going on, I would skip 500 locations (since I read it on Kindle, there are no page numbers), read a little to see what was going on and if I'd missed anything fundamental to the plot, then skip 500 locations again. I couldn't have gotten through it otherwise. It is supposed to be a classic tale, but I would give one out of five stars! It failed me as a romance because at no point during the story was I rooting for Nicholas and Dougless to have a happy ending together.

Finally beading again

After a whole year of not beading at all, I received a commission from a friend, asking me to make a jewellery set for his mum for Christmas. He asked me to use red because it's his mum's favourite colour. I spent ages searching for patterns because I needed to find something which was within my skill set (not too complicated) but it could not look too simple. Here's what I ended up with:

I fell in love with Stephanie's design from Bronzepony Beaded Jewelry. This is the Victorian Chic Redux Icicles Necklace on YouTube. It looked so elegant and stunning, and seemed fairly straightforward to do. The only thing was, I didn't want to use Swarovski bicones all the way around because they are expensive, so I looked around for an alternative.

I had seen someone else use what I privately call a "picot chain" (I have no idea what the actual name is) but I couldn't find a tutorial or pattern for it anywhere. Using this Youtube tutorial by Sonysree Creations, I made the first motif and then managed to figure out how to repeat it in order to get a neat, pretty chain:

In her video, Stephanie had used drops of the same colour and size for both the lower and higher hanging dangles, but in her earlier video of the Crazy for Pearls Necklace, which uses the same pattern, she had alternated pearl drops and crystal drops, which I thought looked more visually interesting and would prevent the necklace from looking overwhelmingly red. My next problem was getting hold of light siam 4mm bicones and drops. I decided to make the red an accent colour instead of the main colour, and to use 6mm bicones instead of drops. I found the 6mms in Glister in PJ New Town, but they did not have the corresponding 4mm ones, and in fact told me that they are discontinuing Swarovski and will no longer be bringing in new stock. The colour was sold out on Monsterkraft.com too. Fortunately, the lady at Glister was very kind and helpful, pointing me to I-Decor in Petaling Street (Jalan Sultan, to be exact) but their Swarovski section is only open on weekdays! They have loads of colours, it's like Swarovski heaven.

I bought the hematite 4mm unfaceted rounds from Beading DIY also in Petaling Street, the Miyuki 11/0 (metallic RR 451) from Glister, and -- again -- could not find corresponding Miyuki 15/0s so had to settle for 15/0 Chinese seed beads in gunmetal, from Monsterkraft. They actually look more silverish than gunmetalish to me, but they didn't look too out of place in my design colour scheme, thank goodness.

Because I decided to use opaque solid black 3mm bicones and drops alongside the light siam Swarovski, I decided it was okay not to use Swarovski for the black since being opaque, it was not likely to be all that sparkly anyway. I used Chinese glass crystal 12 x 8mm drops which I already had on hand, and Preciosa Czech 3mm bicones in jet which I got from Monsterkraft (still cheaper than Swarovski!!).

After making the necklace, I hunted high and low for a bracelet and earring design which could go with it, because to my knowledge Stephanie hasn't made any complementing pieces to fit with the necklace as a set. I saw a post by Linda Genaw on her blog Linda's Crafty Inspirations and decided that I could make that pattern work.

The bracelet and earrings pattern is called "Craving Crystal" by Deborah Roberti, and I followed the link in Linda's blog post to purchase the pattern from Deborah's website. But, to make the bracelet match the necklace more obviously and tie them together somehow, I added the necklace chain's picot motif in between each of Deborah's components, so that at least there was some motif which was common to each piece. I did the same with the earrings, adding the picot motif on top, instead of using a 6mm bead as Deborah's original pattern calls for; and instead of using the 6mm bead at the bottom, I used the same black drop I had put in the necklace, so that both the earrings would match the necklace.

In the earrings and bracelet, each motif has a 4mm round bead in the centre. At first I used the same 4mm round hematite beads which I had used in the necklace, too, but then there was no strong contrast between the 11/0 Miyukis and the hematite because both looked metallic grey, and in the earrings, the black drop sort of seemed to come from nowhere (since the main pattern had no black to echo it). So I switched out the 4mm hematite beads for round faceted Chinese glass crystals which I already had on hand, and it worked much better to tie everything together and make all the pieces look like a real set.

I'm really pleased with how the set turned out, and my friend said his mother loves it, which makes me doubly happy!

Experiment #12: Mirrored chameleon chrome powder

I was curious as to the effect that chrome / chameleon nail powder might have on the resin. This was before I saw Masherisha's video. At the time of watching her video, I'd already purchased some powders from a Shopee seller. I admit that I didn't know exactly what I was doing. I've only ever had basic pedicures done, so I had no idea about all these powders and it turns out there are several types(?). Cos I saw on YouTube nail art videos (I can't believe I'm watching NAIL ART VIDEOS!) that there are chameleon sequin paillette flakes which look white but turn your nail colour (usually a black base) to different shades, depending on which powder you use, and then I saw "chameleon nail powder pigment chrome glitter" which is actually coloured, and when rubbed onto nails (again a black base) turns the nail chrome and holo, i.e. highly shiny and reflecting several different colours, depending on which way your turn your fingers and view the nails under the light. I saw the Youtuber pat on the paillette flakes so that coverage on the nail was uneven and the black base showed through the glitter, giving the nail a sort of dappled effect as if bits of coloured foil had been applied onto the nail. That looked nicer than a full coverage, which still looked dappled and uneven but with less black showing through.

Anyway.

I thought I had bought a bunch of chrome powders, because the name of the product was "nail art gorgeous chameleon mirror powder manicure chrome pigment glitters". But when I opened one of the pots to try -- I chose green because green is my LEAST favourite colour, so it is perfect for experimentation; tak sayang nak guna! -- it turned out to be FLAKES:

And because it was FLAKES, it was HELLA MESSY. I didn't expect it to be messy. The so-called "powder" came with an applicator (looks like an eyeshadow applicator), and I thought it would be simple to dab it on the nail. But every time I dipped my applicator into the pot, the flakes would shift about and fly out due to the movement disturbing them, and glitter got absolutely EVERYWHERE. Fortunately, I had seen this tip from Crafterzdelights about using cellophane tape to remove glitter from silicone moulds, and it worked like a charm! I got the glitter off my table, my self, my silicone mould, and everything else that it managed to get on.

I wanted to know if the so-called "powder" would give a different effect on a different colour base, so I first poured a clear layer of resin into the moulds, and cured.

Then I rubbed the so-called chrome "powder" onto the hard surface of the cured (clear) resin.

I figured I'm just doing it backwards from how nail techs do it on nails. They put the colour on first, then the chrome powder, then seal the powder with a glossy top coat. I'm putting the clear coat first, then the chrome powder, the the colour.

To colour the resin, I gently shaved off some flakes from Daiso's soft pastels. I chose black cos chrome powder is always used with back; white, because I wanted to see what it would look like on a light base; red and blue, just to have variety; and there was supposed to be yellow but the yellow accidentally got a little mixed up with the blue, and turned green instead lol. I then poured the colours into the respective moulds.

I cured this for 5 minutes under my UV CFL 36W lamp, cos I was afraid the pigments might interfere with the curing process as they sometimes make it difficult for the UV light to penetrate and activate the photoinitiators which cause the resin to harden. Then I popped the resin out to see what it looked like. Here are the results:

I think I can see some subtle differences, especially with the red-base one, but overall nothing major. I'm now wondering if it would be different if I were to actually rub the colour onto the base colour instead of onto the clear layer. But that means I can't use a mould; I'd have to use a bezel and work from the bottom up, like I would if I were applying the chrome powder to an actual nail. And I kinda don't want to "waste" any of my bezels on a mere experiment. Hmmmm.

Experiment 11: Nail polish colours

My UV lamp arrived! Finally! It is a 36W CFL lamp, with four U-shaped 9W tubes. I finally decided to get CFL because I think it provides better (more thorough) light coverage than most of the LED lamps I've seen. Also, the LED lamps tend to be a dome shape, which works for nails, but is not so ideal for silicone moulds (which are mostly rectangular or squarish).

So I had to test my UV lamp to make sure it was working. I got it on Shopee, and the way Shopee works is that they don't release payment to the seller until your items arrive and you have inspected them and deemed them to be in good condition. If they're defective, or if some of the items were not sent out together with the rest of the order (this has happened to me THREE TIMES now!!!), you can file for a refund.

I'd bought some nail polishes earlier from Sasa. At three bottles for RM10, they were pretty cheap and perfect for an experiment, as I didn't need a whole huge bottle. Plus, they are so cute!!

So I cured a clear layer of resin in one of my silicone moulds. It took just two minutes! Ah, bliss! And then I applied nail polish over the top of the hardened resin. Since it was an experiment, I just randomly dabbed the colours on any old how, without caring about how it looked. I did have to go over and put at least three coats to get the colours more opaque, because nail polish tends to spread pretty thin (we also usually apply at least two coats on the nail). Then I poured another clear layer of resin over it, and cured for three minutes.

OHMYGOD IT TURNED OUT SO PRETTY!!!!!!!! <3

The shimmer of the nail polish really made the piece 'pop', and the rich colours came out beautifully against the clear layer of resin. The resin cured without any problems and even somehow managed to clean out my mould of the nail polish that I had accidentally 'kena' the sides with when I was painting the surface of the piece. I don't know how that happened, but I'm not complaining!
 
 
 
NOTE: I would not mix nail polish into the resin. I'm afraid that the resin might not cure when the chemical properties of both items come into contact with each other. Also, pigment is known to block the UV light from penetrating the resin and that would prevent the resin from hardening.