Sephora has a good line of brushes, you should experiment in person on your hand to see which one you need ; I have one cut on an angle that I like to apply the shadow in the crease of the eye, I tap it well so it doesn't put too much shadow right away. I've also had good success with brushes I found at the drugstore, less expensive.

Don't give up, Dejavue! Where there's a will, there's a way. I've been doing a lot of Googling lately but I wish I could find an imformative little booklet or chart or something. One thing I'm learning for sure and that is to use a brush. I always tried to use those terrible little sponges, and when that got too frustrating, I started using my finger. Even with what little I know, I'm finding that the brushes make all the diff in the world. I'm like a pre-teen kid, eagerly experimenting each day with my shadow trios. Some days I show up at work looking almost decent And some days, well ahem... Anyway, if I find something really good, I'll be sure to share with you. âºSue

I do like your fixture selections too. If that is the bronze you were looking at, it is not as dark as what I was picturing. My island fixture was called bronze but looking at it, you would think it was black. If you look close enough you can find a few golden highlights. Yours has some of the warmth I was looking to wood to pick up without being harsh. There is still a softness that ties in with your silver and blue-grey. It will also tie in with your floors and island. It also looks like it would be great with that mosaic tile. I do think you can mix your metals if you pay careful attention the lines and style. I have stainless appliances, pewter hardware on my white cabinets and black on my cherry island. Since your island will be a very different finish, you can use a different pull on those cabinets and bring in a finish similar to your lighting. Look at pewter for your white cabinet pulls, or especially if you want them all to be the same. Pewter finishes and the things done with them tend to look older and softer while your nickel can go more modern and slick. With your color palette and seeing those fixtures, I think I'd like the older, slightly more rustic feel of the pewter. The kind of comfortable you get with a favorite pair of jeans. Know what I mean? I see what you were thinking with the tile, but it just doesn't work for me. I tend to like glossy finishes and white or lighter colors for a splash. I want them to reflect light rather than suck it up and let it die under my upper cabinets. I have seen a few dark splashes I like, but they tend to be rich color, the same as the counters and/or pretty contemporary from what I can remember. If you look at a white or light color ceramic or glass, you could use a liner in the other colors you are using or even a metallic liner so you have a bit of color and detail without doing a lot. That's similar to what I did. As for that pony wall, make it the height you want it or need it to be for function and visual balance in the room. Don't worry too much about the tile size. The tile setter can figure out how to fade a cut tile into the top or bottom row and give it all a finished look.

The bad news is that apparently this is a very common problem with this printer. Not sure if there's good news or not. The way it sounds from what I've found is that there's probably an issue with, most likely the color cartridge. Several resolved it by replacing the color cartridge, whether defective or a low tank, I'm not sure. Here's one excerpt I found: "I just got off the HP help line. After changing my black ink cartridge a test page was printing each time I turned the machine on. This is very costly, in both time and ink as the cartridges themselves for this machine hold very little ink. I tried to learn from HP tech how to turn off the test-print while keeping my color cartridge empty. It turns out that you cant do it. HP requires you to keep buying and using cartridges whether you need them or not.If you buy the color ink it will use it up in its testings. And if you dont buy the color cartridge it will use up your black ink by printing the test each time you turn on the printer. The printer was inexpensive sure, but I'm paying for it in wasted ink." But I did find this at the HP support center: "To ensure the highest-quality prints, the product performs an automatic alignment process when you setup the product for the first time, and when you replace the cartridges as part of normal maintenance. The product prints an alignment page during this alignment process. You must complete the full alignment process or the product continues to print an alignment page each time you turn the product on or off, or start a print job. HP used to be solid printers. (sigh) Not anymore. Do you have new cartridges? Also, are the ones in there HP brand or a generic? Here is a link that might be useful: An Alignment Page Prints Every Time that the All-in-One is Turned On or Off or a Print Job is Started