so many posts, so little time!

back in december, when i went to my friend dena's tribal holiday bazaar at ottoman trading company, there was a lady there doing henna tattoos, and i decided to have one done. it came out like this, it still has the henna paste on my hand, so it looks kind of weird still. but while she was applying it to my hand, it smelled just wonderful. it smelled a bit like cardamom, a bit like camphor and eucayptus, and she puts a lemon sugar substance on it after is has dried a while, so you can smell that a bit also.

i got this cute bag with a ghwazee dancer the same day, and i got this book of mehndi designs to get inspiration from. i thought i might so some embroidery on muslin to look like the henna tattoos, on some bag or something. i thought it would look nice in sepia toned threads like the tattoos, or in gold thread it would look pretty cool, maybe even on a black evening dress, or evening bag?

then, my youngest daughter rachel got this henna kit, and it was in the fabulous basket of goodies that she put together for my christmas gift. i tried it out a couple of nights ago. my daughter angela wanted the scorpion, (she is a scorpio) so that was my very first attempt at henna tattooing! then, i did the other design on my own hand...much easier to do on someone else!

here are the results after the paste has come off...it leaves a nice brown design, and it lasts about two weeks, depending on how well you try to avoid scrubbing it off. (i was not all that careful with the first one and it lasted two weeks, so who knows how long if i had been more careful with it?) my design here did not come out very clearly, because it had a lot of tiny dots that flaked off before the henna was on there long enough to darken enough. and one last thing...i did not freehand these...there were stencils in the henna kit! you were really amazed at my drawing skills, no!?