There was a hole in my glove.

Any other day it would have been leather dye. Or my bare fingers holding a silver ring while I buff and polish. Great guesses, though at the request of my husband I've finally started to wear gloves for all of the above.

I attempted to dye some pearls on Wednesday. Not only did my little experiment fail, my brand new gloves from Cody failed, too. The scary thing is that it took me over an hour to realize my pinky was this color.

This isn't the first time the appearance of my hands has been scary. Just last week a lady shook my hand at my day job and I about barfed at how weak, clammy and reluctant her hand shake was. I thought about it later, and she probably looked at my then leather dye-stained hands the entire time I prepared her paperwork. Doh!

So this is the before:

And this is the after:

Not quite as impressive as the pinky, eh? I did everything the instructions on the 'net suggested...even left them in the dye for an hour. I'll try to dye these black again, but I'll use a different process which involves heat. I'll post the photos from that experiment here, too.

Though they are beautiful, I figure I can get much more wear out of black pearls than the lavender. Hopefully the aunt who gifted them to me will feel the same way! (She gets a pair of earrings just for contributing to the experiment.)

It's only fitting that I give the winner award to my other aunt, Marchel. Don't I wish there were a perfect way to paint fingernails! Great idea!