Zombiegasm: A tutorial

What's this, you say? Halloween is over?  You don't need Halloween to have Zombies!!!  Blarggghhhh!!! Braiiinnnssss!!!!!

On to business.

Assemble your products. NYX Shadow base in white, MSC Graveyard Garden from the Alice in Zombieland collection, The Zed Word, and You've Got Red on You (the last two from the Shaun of the Dead collection,) MSC Optimus Primer, UD Perversion liner, and IT Cosmetics mascara.

Assemble your brushes. Lash comb, Floofy blending brush, tapered crease brush, domed shadow brush, and angled shadow brush.

Start with a clean face! Since it's midnight, I used a baby wipe on my whole face (including lids,) to just wipe away any oil or goop from the day.

Now apply your Optimus Primer and NYX Shadow base, in that order.

Line your lower lash line with UD Perversion. You want a medium-thickness line.

Tap out a bit of The Zed Word and pick it up on your angled shadow brush.

Apply The Zed Word to your ducts, bringing it gently down to your lower lash line.  Please note, this color is a light champagne with a pink shift, so it's hard to photograph.

Next, take You've Got Red On You and pick it up with your tapered crease brush.  I rarely use this brush for my crease, instead preferring to use it to create mid-lid columns.

About those columns.  Mid lid with a good amount of coverage. Like, expect a little fall-out.

Now, using your domed shadow brush, pick up some Graveyard Garden. (LOL, I typed "Gravetard garden" twice.) Again, you want enough on your brush to create a deep coverage on your lid.

Apply with a slight curve on the outside of your lid.  Don't worry about it being messy.  That's what fingertips and blending are for. Oh, and I promise you, everyone who works with loose pigments has eyeballs that look like this before they begin to blend and clean up.  It's inevitable.

With your floofy brush, pick up a bit more of The Zed Word.  This time you're going to pick up quite a bit, since you're going to use it to blend out those columns, as well as a brow highlight.

Bring it up from your duct up to the brow, and then blend down.  After you've softened the top of those columns, you want to use a light windshield-wiper motion to blend You've Got Red On You into Graveyard Garden.  GG is a blurple anyway, but that spot between the two is going to turn out to be this beautiful deep purple.  Again, difficult to capture.

An attempt to catch The Zed Word.  It failed.

A better, if yellowish, look at the blending.

Finally! A good shot of that purple and The Zed Word!

Add your mascara...

Put your glasses on, and voila! You're set!

Caution: Imaginations at play!

So, Kinder Major has had a recurring case of Strep for the past month or so, which means there's been a lot of time spent hanging out and relaxing while we work through symptoms, antibiotics, and mandatory time out of school.

During this time, I've noticed a huge cognitive leap in her.  Her imagination has suddenly taken off!  Not that she didn't engage in imagination play before - she did.  It was definitely limited to tangible concepts, though.  Playing with dolls meant that they were locked into familial roles, blocks were objects she saw every day, and reading story books was less imagining what was going on with the characters in the pictures and more reciting what she remembered from when I read the story to her originally.

This past month I have seen her explore new territories like never before.  Dolls now have many different roles, from family groups to movie stars and explorers of space, sea and jungle alike.  Story books are read with elaborate tales surrounding the illustrations.  (We're working on reading and spelling.  For now, I listen as she makes up her own stories.)  Blocks and legos are used to make submarines, rocket ships, fairy houses and fantastical vehicles for monsters and pets.  Every day items are used to invent and build, often to my consternation when it involves rolls of toilet paper being unrolled, or booby traps of duct tape and paper clips.

She "writes" letters full of nonsense letters and numbers strung together, mixed in with the words she knows how to read and write. She makes cards for any and every occasion, she decorates and adorns with pleasure and an artistic freedom that every artist I know would be colored green with envy by.

Outside time is spent planting 100 foot bean stalks and mixing witch's brew out of leaves and mud.  She climbs trees and pretends they are her pirate ships and she is the captain.  When she's dirty and covered in the evidence of her play like chalk dust, she becomes a zombie or a mummy, intent on sucking out brains and tickling to death.  (Gotta love my horror baby.)

In addition to her imagination, she has an appreciation for concepts that most children at her age have yet to comprehend.  For Mother's Day, her teacher engaged the class in a project of appreciation to send home to the moms/caregivers.  Each child drew and colored a picture, and then the children sat with the teacher or one of the helpers and dictated why they love their mothers.  Kinder Major's teacher pulled me aside after school on Friday and thanked me.  My face must have been openly bemused, because she hurried to explain that Kinder Major was the only child in the class to list the reasons she loved me as something other than the things I've bought her or places I've taken her.  Instead, her reasons for loving me were the various things I've taught her and the fact that I love her "forever and ever as much as all the world."  I couldn't hide the tears that came to my eyes.

It's so awesome to me to watch her grow as a little person, to see her mind evolve with her body.  Yes, it's oftentimes bittersweet, but sweet is the key word.  She is a kind-hearted, happy child who knows that she is loved and has support in everything she wants to do.  As long as she continues to feel this way, I will be re-assured that I am doing right by her.

She's right.  I do love her, forever and ever and as much as the whole world.  She IS my world, and I'm so very lucky to be her mommy.