(no subject)

Oil's going up and the dollar's going down, and airlines are jacking up prices like there's no tomorrow (which, given the rate at which aviation consumes finite resources, there basically isn't). This means that going to England is suddenly EXPENSIVE, my goodness. Almost a thousand dollars for the cheapest flights - more than twice what I paid a month ago. I'll go for the summer, but unless prices drop significantly after the summer, there's no way I'll be able to go back for Limmud in December. I'm quite sad about this; I suppose it's the price I pay for what I have. I wouldn't be the Soferet if I hadn't come to live in America.

Peacock box

Whilst buying toothpaste, I happened to spy this nail varnish - glorious peacock colour, bluey-greeny-gold. It was beautiful, and crying out to be bought, so I bought it, but unfortunately one has either to be fourteen years old or terribly glamorous to wear that sort of colour, and I am neither. But I've had a plain box sitting around for ages - inspired by Morningstar Hall, bought it to paint but didn't hitherto have any inspiration - and here we go.*

I'm using it as a tzedakah box (= "box for holding small change which eventually goes to charity"), hence the slots in the top. One slot would have been annoyingly asymmetrical.

And the peacock feathers...well, it needed something to decorate it other than three coats of nail varnish, and I only had one colour of acrylic paint. The black's tempera, the silver's gouache, but neither of them will go on over nail varnish. Then the whole lot has two coats of acrylic varnish.

* Two coats of black undercoat and three of nail varnish, if you want to try it. Less just looks blotchy.