05/03, 11:30pm: began mixing paste, using basic recipe of only henna powder, lemon juice, and a couple drops of eucalyptus oil.

• 1 Tbsp. MDH® brand henna powder combined with 2 Tbsp. RealLemon® brand lemon juice and mixed with small wire whisk.
• Allowed to stand for 2.5 hours, stirring occasionally. Dyed my hair purple during this time for no good reason, but that's another story. (:
• Paste was a little too loose, so added 1/2 tsp. Zaiqa Foods® brand henna powder. This made it too thick, so added 1/2 tsp. lemon juice. Good consistency now, so added 1/8 tsp. eucalyptus oil.
• Filtered paste through 2 layers of Everyday® Leggs® knee-high ladies' hosery (sheer toe).
• Allowed to stand for another 1.5 hours while I started this webpage, put a .5mm metal tip in a pre-made plastic cone, and got prepared in general for application.

05/04, 4:00am: began application. I am still getting clogging with my .5mm tip; maybe the nylon hosery is stretching too much during filtration when using this tip. Need to investigate other filtering materials. Anyway, the lines were much thicker than I desired because I couldn't get a good even, consistant flow.

05/04, 5:30am: finished application, took the "applied" photo. Covered design with unrolled cotton balls and covered that with a plastic glove (and plastic kitchen wrap for area on forearm.

05/04, 2:00pm: removed wrapping and henna and took the "removed-1" photo. Lighting wasn't very good for this photo, something else I need to work on.

05/05, 12:20am: took the "removed-2" photo, showing the darkening that has taken place over the past 10ish hours. Again lighting wasn't good for the photo.

The design got considerably darker and better looking over the next few days before beginning to fade. Many commented that it was my best work to date; of this I'm unsure. Unfortunately, various issues in "real life" (work, etc) prevented me from having time to take a photo showing the design at its peak. Ahh well. One interesting thing happened...while at a local arts and crafts festival, a girl of mid-eastern heritage spotted my hand and immediately recognized it as henna (such recognition is rare in my rural area). She asked where I had it done, and when I said I did it myself, she asked if I'd gotten a kit somewhere. She seemed duly impressed when I replied that I'd purchased powder from indian grocery stores, saying that's what she did as well. She obviously thought it was cool and complimented me on the design. It felt pretty good, I admit, to have one's work well-received and complimented by a person who's heritage includes the art form.

05/16: design on top of hand and arm barely visible; design on fingers ranges from still there to barely visible. A couple of areas which were on callouses on my forefinger are still dark brown.