New Stuff!

We've got some new stuff at Henna Muse! We've just added some one of a kind, hand-made gifts. Right now we have some earrings and pendants and some hand-painted boxes. This page changes often as we make great new stuff. (Yes WE make it, right here!!!)

I feel so bad!

I have totally abandoned this blog! Well, here's the thing. I'm in the process of completely rebuilding my web site and store. It will be done by somewhere between Thanksgiving and February. I know that's a wide window, but it depends a lot on whether I can scrape together enough flow to hire someone or if I have to do it myself.

ANYWAY, point being when that's all up and running this blog will become an important part of the new site and be much more active.

Tags: henna, mehndi, temporary tattoos, mica

Henna Muse has just added a line of vividly colored micas! Mica is the mineral colorant used in makeup. It is nonirritating and hypoallergenic. Mica can be used with medical adhesive to produce colorful mehndi designs that last up to a week!

This mehndi design was done by first applying medical adhesive with an applicator bottle and a precision stainless steel tip. The adhesive was allowed to dry until clear. Then an eye shadow brush was use to brush the mica over the adhesive. Moonlight swarovski crystals were also attached with medical adhesive..

You can use this same method for temporary tattoos that last a week! The smaller particle size gives these 'tattoos' even more longevity that those made in the same way with glitters.

These micas are FDA approved for use on the face, lips, nails and even around the eyes. This means that you can use them directly as eye shadow, to color homemade soaps, or added to your favorite lotion to give you a little shimmer all over. This product has limitless uses!

We have 13 colors of micas. Here's a few examples.

Click here to see the rest up close:  http://www.hennamuse.com/catalog4.html#mica

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It was a rather exciting bridal appointment. First of all, because of babysitter issues and the fact that my best assistant is still in the feeding-baby-every-45-minutes stage of motherhood, I had to do a bride, 7 bridesmaids, 2 moms, a sister and an auntie in 4 hours! I warned the poor girl in advance that I couldn't do my best work in this amount of time, but she was still happy to have me. To make things even more exciting a wicked storm blew through complete with a tornado! Don't worry, the tornado didn't get close, but we did lose power for a few worried minutes. Anyway, I did end up staying over an hour late despite my hopes of getting home at midnight for the sitter, and I suppose I did a decent job considering how fast I had to work. I ended up telling the last few bridesmaids not to pick patterns. Just show me a style you like because I can wing-it much faster than copying a pattern.

The bride:

...and the bridesmaids:

...and the Moms and 2 bridesmaids:

I had a lovely time. Everyone was very kind and appreciative and the aunties were unusually hands-off! Then I headed off to chase the storm home for two hours! I was home by 1 am, in bed by 2 and up again to get the munchkins to school by 6:30. I think I'm getting a little too old for that kind of crap!

Tags: Henna, mehndi, brides, bridal mehndi

On Friday I had the opportunity to do henna at an event to raise awareness about Darfur. It included a traveling enactment of a refugee camp put on by stopgenocidenow.org.

The event included many ways to help including petitions and the opportunity to sponsor a solar cooker for a family in Darfur. What's a solar cooker? Check it out:

Of course I did some henna. The students organizing the event encouraged people to get henna on the inside of their left forearm symbolizing the ID tattoos the Jews were forced to were there during the holocaust. The people I met had creative requests and I didn't have to resort to using a design book at all! Of course the better pieces I did were while I was busy so I don't have pictures, but here are a few:

I was really impressed with the students that I met At IPFW. I go to colleges quite a bit, and I have to say, for the most part, young college students are fairly self involved and haven't really learned to empathize and participate in the world beyond their own. The kids the met last week were thoughtful, interested in each other's life experiences, and just bursting with positive energy. They were creative, involved, and a pleasure to spend the day with!

Tags: Darfur, IPFW, stopgenocidenow.org, henna, mehndi, camp darfur

Handy new packaging for 2, 4, and 8 ounce sizes of paste! The tapered tip makes filling cones and smaller bottles easy and the red cap alows you to re-close the bottle to store leftovers. The tip can be cut open to any size so you can even use the bottle directly for large, bold applications.

Get it here!

Tags: henna paste, mehndi paste, henna, mehndi, squeeze bottle

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Tags: henna, mehndi, glitter tattoos, swarovski crystals, bridal henna, bridal mehndiTags: Poe

I did some more glitter work to post on the Henna Page for the monthly Artists' Challenge.

These fingertips are done with moonlight Swarovski crystals in 3, 3.5 and 4 mm size. I got the idea from the cover of a Poe album.

Here it is with blue and silver glitter added.

I also had an appointment with a woman who wanted to surprise her husband with bridal style mehndi.

The backs of the hands are my own design (-read as a quicky take on traditional Indian bridal) and the palms are from the design book Love Mehndi -which I totally LOVE. Its my favorite design book available so far.

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