This Stuff is Great!

I've been having fun during Layla's nap practicing my harquus art. If you saw my post yesterday, I just got a product from Mehandi.com called Harquus platinum. It is a skin-safe paint that can be used to re-create the Harquus artwork that is done in North Africa. It also works well for creating body art similar to Somali henna designs. It is used with a paintbrush rather than a cone, but the results are amazing and it is pretty easy. The dye that Somali shops use is actually hair dye, and it can cause life-threatening allergic reactions in some cases.

Read more about PPD Black Henna injury here.

These pictures are from my 2nd time trying the product:

The designs were done over a previous henna design near the wrist and gold Temptu paint was used to accent the inside of shapes.


This paint can last up to around a week, but can also be removed with isopropyl alcohol or baby oil if you get tired of it.

I can't wait to try this on some Somali friends so I can see how it turns out on darker skin!

Pictures!

Not exactly a wordless Wednesday, but maybe we can call it tongue-tied Thursday.

A random collection of recent pics:

 

A henna flower

 

Look how dark this is!

Temptu harquus used to accent henna. Not the best design (1st try ever), but I love this stuff!
It is black, but 100% safe for your skin.
The henna design underneath has been on for about a week. 

Layla pretending to read Hebrew!

Getting creative to make a fort :-)

If at first you don't succeed. . .

So, I've been trying to learn to do henna for awhile now. My first attempts were hideous! No really, they were.I have provided no pictures to document the disastrous results.

Since then, I've practiced sporadically and I'm actually getting better.
Some of my first designs were not so great. Take a look here if you want to see what I'm talking about.

I recently ordered a Moroccan henna syringe and some better quality henna from FreeHandMehndi.  
The syringe is a little tricky to figure out at first, but I think I like it better than rolling cones. Its easy to clean and pretty easy to draw with once you get the hang of it. The only downside is that seems to accumulate pressure occasionally and the henna just keeps flowing out. I like it better than cones though, because I always seem to get leaks in my cone at the top.

So, here are the designs that I did this weekend:

I did these on Friday, then used some of the extra henna to shade parts of it on Saturday. Overall, I am pretty happy with the results. I wasn't able to leave the paste on all night, but this was the color I got after about 4 hrs. Oh, and if you're wondering how I hennaed the tops of both hands, I am somewhat ambidextrous.

Saturday night I got invited to a Somali wedding party for a girl in our ESL program. I got to dress some of the other teachers up in dirac and show them off to the Somali community. I was surprised by how many people I already know in the community here. There were also some girls who recognized me from the You Tube video and had me take pictures with them :-)

The only downside to the night was that I was stuck with Layla because my husband was working at 6am on Sunday. They didn't even serve the food until 12:30 a.m. and we took off immediately after.
I consider myself a night person, but I fail miserably by Somali standards!

Layla was causing me issues, but I was still able to get a few pics during the wedding. Here are me and some of the other teachers with a couple of our ESL student friends

More Henna

To those of you who are trying to improve your skill at something...don't despair!
Whether it is reading Arabic, or something more hands-on like applying henna, practice does help.
I have been looking at designs and watching videos of henna application. The floral designs are getting pretty easy for me. Once I get better at adding things to make designs dense, I may try some more intricate Indian designs. Believe me, when I first tried applying at henna, I sucked. I couldn't even draw a vine or a basic flower.

The middle one of my palm was about 18hr. after i removed the paste. The others were taken right after I applied it.

Henna

So I am not very good at drawing in general, but I love henna so much. I've been trying to get better at drawing basic shapes and lines, so here is some recent henna work I did on myself and Layla. One benefit of being kind of ambidexterious is that i can draw on both of my own hands! The last solid flower design on my left hand came out with the darkest color. I got the henna from a local shop that sells spices and produce. It seems to be pretty fresh and doesn't require extra sifting before you mix it.

Needless to say, Layla's didn't get very dark because it barely stayed on  long enough to even dry :-)

We're back!

It is so great to be back and have things somewhat back to normal. We're back from spending 10 days in our former home of Minnesota, and now we're going to be staying with my parents for about another 2 weeks. Layla is adjusting really well to having Daddy around again.

Actually, within only a few hours she was playing with him and would ask where he was if he left the room. Now she's usually willing to accept him instead of me if I'm doing something. It's so nice to have everyone back together again.

Now we're in the process of packing so that we can move to Portland in a only a few weeks.
It was great being back in Minnesota. I love it there in the spring and summer, I'm just not a fan of snow and cold in general. I grew up in IL and have lived in MN, so it will be nice to live somewhere outside the Midwest for once.

While we were in Minneapolis we got to eat Somali food, hit up our favorite Chinese joint, and took lots of walks around town. I also got a couple new skirts at the Somali Mall. The prices there are so great. I got some Henna done there and got invited to a wedding. I didn't end up going though because I decided that I would spend the them with Dave and Layla and sleep early instead.