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piermanwalter · 5 years ago

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I had a dream that I got myself a shapeshifting Nicki Minaj makeup set as a birthday present. I just got home from a long trip and impulse-purchased the makeup set at an airport duty-free shop. It was pitch black outside and felt very late at 9:30 like when you are a little kid and feel 9:30 is late. When your time is controlled by someone else, staying up late feels like a luxury. I’m not sure how old I was in my dream, since I travelled alone but still felt as though someone set a bedtime for me.

The makeup set was a mystery box from the newly released “Nicki Siren” collection, which was mostly mermaid and sea-themed clothes and accessories. It cost 900 dollars, but the crushing sadness of being stuck in an extended layover on my birthday and the Fear of Missing Out since it was the last Nicki Siren set in the store compelled me to buy it. It was the volume of a shoebox. Top-down, it was square and slightly taller than it was wide. I opened it in my bedroom. The cardboard box was white with dark blue gouache-like writing and the front of the box had Nicki’s face in the corner wearing a pearl and seashell studded tiara and a teal wig with a surprised expression. The overall mood was bright, fun, and unusually unsexy.

Inside the box was a teal plastic cube with gold accents. Inside the cube was custom light blue bubble wrap flecked with gold glitter. Under the bubble wrap was a 30-inch gold chain necklace with pearls at 3-inch intervals and two huge clamshells hanging off it. The clasp of the necklace had an 8-cm long flat silver pendant in the shape of a fan coral on it, studded on one side with tiny white crystals. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t a real chain and instead gold beads fit together like a chain strung onto braided teal leather. The information packet in the box under the cube said the beads were 20-ct gold-plated sterling silver, the clasp pendant was cubic zirconia and platinum-plated sterling silver, and the pearls were cultured.

Despite being quahog type clams, the clamshells had the color and texture of a teal turbo snail shell. This is biologically impossible and I assumed the shells were fake or some weird manufacturing technique was used. Luckily, the shells could be removed from the necklace. which made it much more wearable. I was worried about the shell toggles being right on the pearls, since pearls are fragile, but the pearls were extremely slippery and couldn’t be scratched. I spun the clamshells around the pearls until I got bored. The shells were hinged containers. The smaller clamshell I could close my hand around and had 13 loose non-slippery pearls in it, while the big clamshell was the volume of two double cheeseburgers, extremely heavy, made sloshing noises when shook, but couldn’t be opened.

The giant clamshell also had a big rectangular magenta sticker on it, which looked very good against the teal shell. Peeling the sticker off, there was product and copyright information printed directly onto the shell, which was ugly as hell and the opposite of normal giant stickers.

When I gave up on opening the giant clamshell, I noticed the necklace chain had grown a cigar-like steel tube around one of the pearls. The tube unrolled into a 3-inch-long hamsa charm with a cloisonne enamel design of white birds flying over fields and forests on it. I went downstairs to get a string and a chair. When I hung the hamsa on the ceiling fan in my bedroom, it started bending again and the birds had left the forest and were now flying over the sea. Although the design changed, I never saw the birds or the hamsa move.

After I got down from the ceiling fan, the pearls were sprouting like seeds, growing into cubic zirconia pavé coral like the one on the clasp. Unlike the hamsa I could see them grow and change in real time. As an experiment, I pinched one of the sprouts until it broke. The broken sprout withered until it disappeared and instead of faceted gems set in perfect prongs, the pearl started producing cloudy industrial accident crystals and twisted wires, before slorping it all back into itself and turning black.

I felt bad about that and grated a block of parmesan over the pearls to atone. I had to clean cheese out of the prongs afterwards but it felt like the right thing to do. I noticed the coral was “eating” the cheese calcium crystals and growing little pearls so I put them back into the cheese and by the time all the parmesan disappeared, they were twice as big as the original with a seed pearl at every place the coral branched. When the coral pendants stopped growing, the pearl “eggshells” crumbled into powder and flowed back into the little clamshell, which grew a mirror and became a highlight powder compact.

I looked back in the box and found a little redwood box taking up the remaining space. In the wood box were sheets of stickers made of dyed suede leather, more cubic zirconia, and metal foil. I put some on my phone case and decided to cover the product information on the giant shell with stickers because it looked so bad. This caused the big shell to open. In the shell was a bottle of “Cali Coast” Nicki Siren perfume, a mini lip palette, a mini eyeshadow palette, three tubes of mascara, a teal lipstick, a magenta lipstick, and a sea salt bath bomb. There was a dent in the shell the exact size of the stunted black pearl so I put it in and closed the case. When I opened it again, the black pearl turned into a pearl-handled powder brush.

I looked up the makeup set on the internet and there was a #NickiSirenChallenge on instagram where people bragged/commiserated about what they got. Always, the pendant on the clasp was some kind of immobile sea animal like an anemone or sea pen or sea star and there were always two teal turbo-patterned bivalve containers, like scallops or oysters, one big and one small. The necklace also varied from choker to floor-length, some with real chains, some beads set with larimar cabochons, some with solid gold chains, some with no metal and all natural pearls. Instead of stickers, some people got sample-size vials of different perfumes, keychains, silk scarves, or vouchers for free Nicki Siren clothes. One in 150 makeup sets had clasp pendants with real diamonds and solid platinum.

To open the big case, you must cover it in stickers, put a key on the keychain, wear the scarf, or redeem the vouchers, depending on what you got. The big case always contained normal makeup and the little case contained 5-30 pearls which turned into different things depending on how you treated them, usually more makeup if you broke them, jewels if you didn’t. It was discovered breaking pearls before they sprouted turned them into applicable products like face creams or nail polish remover. Breaking pearls after they sprouted turns them into tools like nail files or lash curlers. Naturally people cared more about the pearls than the makeup even though it’s technically a makeup set.

The little case could turn into anything with a hinge, usually corresponding to what the pearls turned into, like my compact and brush. Most people got jewellery boxes but some people got phone cases.

There was a small chance of getting a bonus animated lucky charm. Someone got a clear resin horseshoe with a functioning ecosystem of malachite seaweed and peanut-sized copper sea urchins in it. Someone else got a palm-sized glass nazar which changed eye patterns before fading to a solid blue disc, then a brass goldfish would jump out of the center of the disc (not literally, it was a flat sheet of brass embedded in the surface which was etched using perspective to make it look as though it were leaping out of the nazar) before falling down, creating ripples that looked like an eye again. Another person got a blue faience ceramic Egyptian fish amulet that changed poses like it was swimming and sometimes moves to different rooms by itself. There were only 20 lucky charms in the world.

In one video, a pole dancer did a routine to Nicki Minaj songs and opened the box on stage. She got vouchers for a cameo in a music video and an entire free outfit. When she pulled the necklace out of the box, the strands of pearls just kept coming and when she turned the box upside down, the stage was engulfed in pearls like a giant shimmering mop.

In another video, someone poured Veuve Cliquot champagne on their case pearls and they hatched into huge round life-size faceted topaz sea apples encircled with braided gold wire instead tube feet, sprays of diamond-tipped gold as feeding tentacles.

Someone was able to score a rare full size Nicki Siren SuperBase foundation tube and she made a video where she applied the foundation, then complained it didn’t match her skin tone. The foundation immediately darkened to match. Later she made another video proving SuperBase foundation was like holy water because it could be refilled with different foundation but still be the same no matter how diluted it gets. SuperBase was the only product that behaves like this.

Someone ran over a case pearl with a Ferrari and it exploded into an 80-piece skincare set.

I felt bad because aside from the hamsa, I got the second cheapest versions of everything. But as I scrolled through instagram, I became grateful that I didn’t incur Nicki’s wrath.

Someone bought ten Nicki Siren sets and when she opened one, the stickers were paper, the necklace chain was that weird golden alloy that turns your skin green, the clasp pendant was a lead picoroco barnacle with a giant chunk of plastic for its beak, the small cockle had two pearls in it which turned into another lead barnacle and a sea salt bath bomb, and the big cockle had 8 sea salt bath bombs in it. When she tried to open the other boxes, there were more boxes inside and the boxes grew as though they were being put into more layers of boxes. She resold a box to someone else and in it was one of the rare larimar necklaces and a plate-sized bronze disc with the face of Medusa molded on one side and a shifting mosaic of an ancient Greek harbor on the other side. Consumed by greed, she kept opening the boxes until they were the size of refrigerators. Nine boxes in her garage, she now parks outside. She makes increasingly desperate unboxing videos and with every update her comments are filled with “i can buy a box for $3k dm me i’m serious” and “Ma’am. Please give up.” and “pouring out my superbass foundation for u when u cant fit in ur house ne more LMAO”.

Someone smashed open her big shell instead of opening it properly and it was filled with moths which followed her around eating her clothes.

An influencer who infamously bugged Nicki into giving her a free set for promotion was crying next to a 10-foot-wide crater in her house because she broke all the sprouting pearls in her little mussel case and the pearls became so heavy they broke the table, broke through the second floor, broke through the first floor, broke through the foundation, and sank into the earth. Then the little mussel turned into a 2001 flip phone and Nicki called her through it and said she was a “fake-ass copy-ass jealous-ass bitch”. She still wore Nicki Siren eyeshadow in the video.

Someone lied about getting a lucky charm for clout and it turned out she strung sea-themed Pandora beads on a mass-produced dreamcatcher. After she redeemed her voucher for a silk dress, when her big freshwater oyster case opened, there were 8 sea salt bath bombs in it and also moths. The moths ate her new dress.

There was a news article about the finder of the resin sea urchin horseshoe being banned from casinos because it increased his luck in gambling but most importantly made his bets on horse races always win. Since the hamsa is a hand, I assumed it would make me unbeatable in card games.

There was also a news article about German material engineers trying to get as many Nicki Siren pearls as possible to study their previously unseen anti-friction properties.

Not to be one-upped, Megan Thee Stallion announced the “Hot Girl Eternity” line of hoodies, t-shirts, and booty shorts which will allow the wearer to be immune to fire, heat, and radiation (hoodies), conjure flames (t-shirts), and absorb power from things they burn to add to their own lifespan (shorts). Even though they have yet to be released, it’s already impossible to get Hot Girl Eternity hoodies because they have all been preordered by hazard area workers and x-ray technicians and also stans.

I think in my dream all rappers are powerful enchanters because that makes the most sense given everything that happened.

#weird dreams #personal #nicki minaj #jewellery #long post #instagram

21 notes · View notes

atelierpleiades · 4 years ago

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update -- a lot of trial and error! unfortunately had to throw them all out since none of them were salvageable (i.e. look at that last picture) but i learned a lot!!

use pastels, possibly gouache, don’t use acrylics unless you somehow prepped the iris with gesso or something because the resin is too smooth

this could just have been that the acrylics i’ve used are like 15+ years old lmao but pastels older than that worked just fine!

i did try ‘’’’’priming’’’’ the iris by using a layer of school glue (lmao) for the green, and i think it went pretty okay actually? i think the ideal texture would be like...msc...but good luck trying to msc a 6mm circle? though i suppose i could tape around the edges. hmm

foiled back stones will probably work just as fine, though i’m sure unfoiled has its perks depending on the look you’re going for

these are pointed back and difficult to balance, but i hate the look of the flatback rhinestones (i hate that flat part in the very middle?? and also most of the more affordable ones have not enough facets to save them from a grade school arts and crafts feel). ideal shapes to try next might be the swarovski rivoli style, or the 2088/2058/2038 flatbacks

i saw suggestions for using half pearls and am thinking of beads/gold ball bearings as well

invest in some more liner brushes (000 and smaller, i think) for rims, i have no idea how people make the iris lines????? i will simply have to Find Out i guess

small flat brushes (2 and below/3-4mm across) with short bristles are probably the most ideal for applying the pastels, and also possibly for lining the iris

be careful with the inclusions you use and try not to use anything bigger than 1-2mm (i tried adding a mica flake to the pink one and gold foiled parts of the blue + added a couple of glitter flakes but the mica kept unrolling, the gold foil was okay but the glitter was too reflective/not transparent and basically blocked out the whole pupil and it just looks like i tossed in whatever i could find and the eye has no focus!)

careful when you draw the iris outlines (see third picture lmao)

i found that a great shimmer pearl effect came from acrylic -> iridescent medium -> pastels, where the pastels let some of the pearl come through in a tasteful, muted kind of way!

AB powder and other pearl powders used for resin are also pretty good

next time i’m going to try using my sakura gold ink pen to try and add details

all in all it produced nothing but it did give me some good experience! so i’m glad i took the first step because it can only get better from here on

#resin #process #will be my new trial and error/other notes tag #craft

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