Splish splash.

In a move of shameless self-promotion, I wanted to show you guys my latest hobby: soap-making!

I love soap. I have always loved soap. And so one day (after I went to the Star Wars convention...a post for another day), I was trying to think of a hobby other than "wallow in self-pity," "read 120 pages of Tumblr at a time," "play with pug" or "read," and I was like, "Why have I never tried to MAKE soap?" There was no real logical answer, so I decided to give it a go.

Naturally, my Mom got all up in this because it's artistic, and she's like the Midas of the Arts. She can do it once, just barely touch it, and it turns to gold in her hands. 

So here are some pics of our soaps!

Apricot scrub soap.

Brown sugar/vanilla/honey almond soap.

This is actually the same soap as above, but made with a different base. All the other ingredients and scents are the same!

Japanese Lotus Blossom soap.

My "Ice Blue" soap. It smells like tea tree oil and peppermint and has sea salt (for scrubbing) to make it look icy!

Oatmeal scrub soap. Looks like a cookie, is not edible.

Himalayan Pink Salt soap. It's made with actual pink rock salt mined at the base of the Himalayas. And it's pretty to boot!

So anyway, I'm pretty proud. I have a blast doing it. I'm not as good as Mom is, but I'm learning. I am good at mixing the scents though, and that's really my favorite part. I love deciding how much of what oils are going into each batch and which smells balance each other out, and what aromatherapeutic effects each scent has. 

If you're curious, we're having a show on this Friday and Saturday at my neighbor's house. She and my Mom make greeting cards and with the hols coming, this is a great time to stock up! My neighbor's daughter makes stained glass (including custom pieces made out of photographs), and a friend of my Mom's sells hand-made jewelry from Guatemala. It's going to be quite the artsy-craftsy gathering, so if you're into that, please come out! And don't feel obligated to buy ANYTHING...we'd love to just chat! And we have little tiny soaps we're giving away as FREE samples (not as pretty, but they're made from candy molds, so that's cute, right?), so stop on by if you're bored or into that kind of thing. 

:) :) :)

Under the sea...

Hah, so, the other day I found something and I wanted to share because it's just so funny and terrible and indicative of who I am as a person.

I love sea animals. Sea mammals in particular--whales, dolphins, seals, walruses, narwhals, and manatees, to be specific.

Well when I was a wee lass, in first grade, our teacher taught us about manatees. As a class, we adopted a manatee from Blue Springs then took a field trip to go see him (just for kicks, his name was Howie, and he is still there. I now feel like I need to go visit him.). ANYWAY, as part of this whole lesson on sea cows, we had to sculpt one out of clay and make a diorama, like out of a shoe box or whatever.

My Mom heard that we had to do some kind of artistic project and immediately panicked, and rightly so. Because my artistic skills rival that of a four year old who was actually born with two left hands. So she bought play-doh and we practiced. And in her words, "The first one looked like a poop. So I said, 'No, Mary, try again.' So we smashed it and I showed you how to pinch out a flat tail and flippers." Do you want to see the end result?

That's a retorical question. The brilliance of blogging is that your readers are a captive audience. YOU HAVE TO SEE THE END RESULT!

LOL, omg, so I obviously thought that since I had practiced, I was the Michelangelo of Model Magic and made not one, but TWO manatees. I think this is what I was going for:

FAIL. 

Also, I'm so proud of this little morbid detail. We discussed in class how manatees were endangered because of motor boats hitting them and injuring them. So, naturally, I glommed onto that disgusting bit of imagery and added it to my sculpture. 

It's also missing a flipper and its tail has been glued back on, but that's just due to it being OLD not because of my 6 year old creativity.

Also, I just wanted to show you its horrifyingly skull-like face. Wtf, little self. 

And, this is the really insane part: I WON something for this! I got second place, I think, at the school's art fair. I'm not sure what that says about the school's art judging system, but it's probably not good. 

Anyway, that's where my love of manatees started. Because I know you were all BURNING with curiosity. ;)

"I'm an octopus-man."

I made a couple things and wanted to share. :)

I was at Ross a few weeks back and having seen the Aluma-Wallet infomercials while not sleeping, I saw one for $6 and decided, "what the heck," and got one.

Quick review: I like it, I recommend it, especially if you can get one for $6. Does it hold absolutely everything? No. I have a separate pouch for my cash (cute, right??), but it does hold a nice amount of cardage. I haven't tried the waterproof or "run it over with a truck" business, but it's decent. I like it because it fits in the tiny clutch I have to carry to work.

Honestly, I bought it with the sole intention of decoupaging it. :)))

It's almost impossible to find a decent wallet with a smooth, hard surface, so this was GOLD to my Mod-Podge obsessed mind.


I did the front in nauseating-girly-sparkly-pink-candyfluff-unicorn vomit. And I FINALLY put to use the Lisa Frank stickers I've had since I was 7 (those are LEGIT vintage, guys!). And then on the back, I utilized this KICKASS Star Wars sticker I got when Hot Topic went out of business. So overall, I really like it. :) I was actually thinking of making somewhat classier ones and giving them as Christmas presents. But that's pretty lame/cheap.


AND THEN, when I was at Michaels, I saw this super awesome octopus pendant. I've been wanting to buy one online for ages, but they're kind of expensive and I know the quality isn't great (unless I wanted to shell out for a sterling silver one, which run upwards of $35. And I do NOT want to pay $35 for an octopus.). So I found this one for $4 (bingo!), and while the quality isn't fantastic (I mean, let's get real: it was FOUR DOLLARS),I figured, "eh," and got it. Then I picked up some shell-looking beads and made it into a bracelet, since a) it had two loops where you could attach it, and b) I almost never wear necklaces to work just because I wear my lanyard, and let's not junk it all up shall we?



Anyway, I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Happy creativity time!

Ordinary people think merely of spending time. Great people think of using it.

Those of you who've been reading for a while or who know me relatively well know I have a thing with planners. I love them. I need them. I lost one once and sat around not knowing what to do with myself. I'm just one of those people who needs to write everything down and see what I need to do before me.
I dream one day of splurging on a Filofax and pimping it out to the max--with little sticky notes and folders and pouches. Omg, be still my beating heart!

Anyway, I wanted to post the new one I got! Unfortunately, I've gotten into the cycle of buying student planners, which means they start in August and run out in July, so I'm not sure when I'll ever manage to buy a calendar that starts in January like most people. I digress. I've been using Blue Sky planners for about 3-4 years now and I love them the most. Even when I try other ones (ahem-Dayrunner-ahem) I end up coming back to them, because I like the size (slim but with everything you need inside), the monthly/weekly layout and how there's enough room for me to write everything I need and then some.

I found this one at Staples, and it has a clear cover for inserting pics. PERFECT, because I'm one of those maniacal idiot girls who has to customize everything she owns. Well, not really. Just my planners. ANYWAY, pics (click to enlarge if you feel so inclined):

The cover. I keep a box of magazine clippings (this is a compulsive thing I do while I watch TV--clip stuff out of magazines. DO NOT JUDGE ME.) and like to collage them onto stuff. Namely my planners. Anyway, this one's a little frou-frou, but I love the Oscar Wilde quote.


The inside cover.



Detail! Awesome fortune cookie thing, quote by Thoreau, and Hogwarts sticker that came on a Valentine I got.


This was the first page. It just said a bunch of boring stuff like, "BlueSky Planner 2011-2012." Well, I know all that, so I put in a pic of the beach (Cocoa, to be exact) and utilized more fortune cookie sayings (another compulsion, I'm afraid).



I made a pocket on the back cover using the front of a greeting card that happened to match nicely. I keep my gym schedule, Operation Beautiful sticky notes, business cards and other random crap in there. Oh, and gratuitous inspirational quote from JK Rowling.



YAY! Please don't stop reading my blog because I am an apparent nutcase have certain organizational needs. Do you guys have planners or stuff? Am I the only one who does this?

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

I recently watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and wanted to share some screencaps I made during the process. This movie is rife with lulzy expressions.





^Man, I HATE when that happens.



^I feel like I'm this small in about 90% of chairs I sit in.



SO then I noticed that in this movie, VOLDEMORT HAS A NOSE. Which then reminded me of this graphic (which is sadly, not mine):


Lol, then I'm watching and I see this guy's painting in the background and I'm like HOLD IT.

And I was like, "I KNOW WHERE I'VE SEEN THIS GUY BEFORE."

He's hanging out at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Bethany and I had NO idea who he was, but we were just like, "LET'S GET A PICTURE LOL." And then lo and behold, he's IN THE MOVIE. It made me wonder if it's actually the same picture used in the film and if so, how many other portraits were originals?

Then I just took a few of scenes that were pretty.
I DEFINITELY want to celebrate Halloween at Hogwarts.


"I'm not going home. Not really."

For more better funny screencaps of the HP movies, I simply must recommend theboywhoderped.tumblr.com .

Water shows the hidden heart.

I was a little bored tonight and had a coupon to Michaels, so I whooped it up and got some stuff to make jewelry, which I like to do when I have time. It never really looks good enough to wear out in public, but whatever.

So I was on Etsy a couple days ago looking around for not blatantly obvious Harry Potter jewelry and was dismayed to find that decent Snitch necklaces ran about $25, so I decided to try my hand at making one myself. Results:


I made two designs. This is so not legit-looking, with the wires going all over the place, lol. It's about as legit as this:


I liked my second attempt better, but I think I'm just partial to the hand that's "catching" it:


My only problem is that it's HUGE. And it looks ridiculous on. I might try it on a longer chain and see if it looks okay. But really guys, it's not like I'm gonna ever wear these out, except for perhaps the midnight showing of Deathly Hallows Pt. 2.


^^Size.



So yeah, that's what I did this evening. Hey, at least it wasn't paper-writing. :)

General rambling life update post, complete with pics of the renovated house!

I feel like I haven't done a real blog entry in ages. I feel badly about that. I have a list of excuses a mile long (finals, computer!fail, alien abductions, etc.), but none of them really matter. It's still pretty crummy that I haven't been keeping up with this, because it's genuinely something I really enjoy.

So let's see what's new.

My finals this year aren't actually too terrible. None of them are cumulative *cue Hallelujah chorus*. And the subject matter is pretty easy too. What gets us English majors are the papers due at the end of the semester. The epic, double-digit page numbers, 9 peer-reviewed sources research papers. Of which I had one. And I spent about 42 hours straight writing mine. It was one of those, "go to bed at 12, wake up at 3 to finish it" things. Which I honestly haven't had yet in my college career, so I figured it was about time. And I ended up with 22 pages of scholastic nonsense. I just hope I get an A, or I will cry. Because I HATE losing sleep.

My grandma is coming in for the holidays this week. I'm pretty excited about that, just because it's like, an excuse to do all the schmaltzy Christmas stuff we probably wouldn't do otherwise. Like watching "Miracle on 34th Street" and going light-looking and all that.

Speaking of Christmas, my friend and fellow blogger, Anna, is doing a really nifty "25 Days of Christmas Music" thing. And, to shake it up, every 5 days she's changing the theme of the Christmas songs. It's really cool, so make sure you check it out!

I was thinking of doing a Christmas thing, but I did the Halloween thing instead. < /end excuse-making. >

My mom the other day is like, "Mary, can you make something Christmassy to put in the front yard?" I was like, "sure." So I go to where all the holiday stuff is and start looking around. And then I pull out the stuff I use to make decorations. The box is full of orange and black paper, bat cutouts, and cheesecloth for ghosties. I was like, "We're gonna have a problem here." It made me feel like this moment from "Nightmare" where Jack tries to make a paper snowflake:


Anyway, I have this book, A Christmas Miscellany, which has all these really awesome Victorian articles and recipes about Christmas. My personal favs are the lists of appropriate gifts for each member of your family. So look out for some of those!

Also, I want to show you some of my gift-wrapping. Wrapping presents is really the only part of the season that I don't find somewhat irksome. It's 100% enjoyable and I like to get really creative, so I want to share that with you, too!


So, you might remember how, on August 1st, our house flooded. We've only JUST moved everything back in. I thought I'd share pics (you can see the "before" pics here)!








Details! My uncle designed it for us (he does kitchen remodeling), and he put in all these neat little things, like corner shelves for my mom's cookbooks.

Detail of the backsplash behind the stove.



My mom collects honey pots and stuff, and my dad collects Chinese tea pots, and now they can display them!


So, I didn't want to re-do my bathroom because I LOVED how it was a Halloween bathroom. Made me SO happy. But, I am planning on moving out sometime in the next year or so, and apparently "skulls" is not a motif my mom wants left behind (who knew?). So she's like, "We need to compromise on the bathroom. What do you want?" I half jokingly said I'd like a Marie Antoinette bathroom. Well, this is what we came up with.





I really liked the blue/gray color combination, which luckily works out really well for my mom's favorite shade of soft pink (which I'm warming up to!). It's an unlikely color combo, but I think it works.






The shower curtain and other little details throughout are peppered with bees (another favorite thing of my mom's). She told me the bee is a symbol of the British monarchy, so I dealt with it (also, Sherlock Holmes kept bees. Omg, I just took my geekiness to that level). Now I really like them! It's kind of Victorian and just creepy enough to quell the fact that I have no more ravens and skeletons in there.





I hope you're all doing wonderfully, and expect some seasonal-type posts in the near future. As always, THANK YOU for reading!