Where have I been?

I keep disappearing around here. Life outside of the internet was simply getting a tad too hectic to keep up with along with a blog. I'm making an attempt to revive this to some extent though my posts will be limited to about once a week. I'm currently trying to really improve and push myself with my art so I've started a 1 Drawing A Day resolution for this year. Every day I must produce some kind of drawing, even if it's just a doodle. I'm hoping to go back and compare at the end of the year to see how much I improve.

I've been working on a series called "Elemental Punk" where I've personified the elements in a way I haven't seen really tried before. There's something very visceral about the punk genre and the people who enjoy it so I thought I'd try to show the elements with that sort of style mixed in. Below are some of the pieces I've done so far.

EARTH

EARTH (Male Version)

WATER

FIRE

So that's it. Air is in the works right now but it takes a lot of time to produce these so it may be another 2 weeks before she's ready. In the meantime, I've also become involved in Urban Threads' The Giving Bunny Project and I highly recommend it to others!! It's incredibly fun. You make little plush bunnies and then leave them in public spaces to be adopted by people! ^__^ Go here to join in. 

Turtles Are Love

Nothing huge here but I thought I'd share this with you all.

This is a cute quick design I made for my sister and step-mom. You see, my father loved turtles and after his passing, we've all sort of bonded over them. There was something so ridiculous about the adorableness of seeing this big, bald, military veteran on his motorcycle with two saddlebags filled with...turtles. He would find injured ones here and there, nurse them to health, and then lovingly transport them all the way down to North Carolina where he could set them free in areas they would be less likely to encounter people again. 


Once he'd passed away, we all latched onto that image because in so many ways it represented the caring, sweet man we all missed. Over this past Christmas, both my sister and step-mom asked if I'd make them a magnet to go on the dishwasher which had a dirty turtle and a clean one. This is my gift to them.

Feel free to print this out and use for your own home if you want. I just ask that it not be posted ANYWHERE else without my permission. If you'd like to print one yourself, you can find the large print ready version here. 

HOMG! I'm BACK!

Hey everyone.

Yeah, I know. I've been missing. So here's the quick and dirty: Life got hectic between a new job (YAY!), house hunting that went no where (BOO!), and all of my Random Acts stuff (YAY AGAIN!). My work away from this blog was very important, Random Acts helped raise over $200,000 to help the children of Jacmel, Haiti which you can read all about here. I admit though that I've missed this little blog and the very sweet people I've met here so far.

I haven't stopped crafting though I've not taken many photos of anything. I'll try to remedy that soon. In the mean time I have two other small blogs I'd like to share should anyone be interested in seeing what else I'm up to outside of crafting.

First is the Good News Network! 

This blog is all about good news around the world. I got really tired of turning on the tv and seeing nothing but sadness and destruction. The news agencies out there know that horrid news sells better than good news but I'm tired of the fear mongering so I went and made a blog to celebrate nothing but the good things. It's my personal little pillow of happiness for the travelers of the Internet so they can rest between all the forum trolls and snarky replies out there. I encourage anyone with stories of kindness or happy news to share it there! I'd love to post simple stories of nice things people do for each other so even if it's just a simple act of kindness, I'd love to hear about it!

The second blog is my personal workout blog. Yeah, I know, you're probably thinking "Ew. That's got to be boring" but I assure you, it's not countless photos of me in workout gear looking perfect with make-up and such. It's my personal running diary of my preparation for the Tough Mudder competition and I'm keeping it very real with my own brand of humor. That means you guys get to hear about it when I'm kicking butt AND when I break down and stuff my face with brownies. There's no perfection there. No pretense. Just honesty. It's my Personal Mirror and I'm holding it up to myself to see if I can break even my own expectations. 

 If you want to join me for this journey, I'll be posting recipes along the way too. 

I hope all of you have a wonderful day and I've missed you guys. 

It's good to be back.

AMOK!

For those who are looking for a tutorial, I'm afraid I don't have one today. Instead, I have some news about AMOK, the Annual Melee Of Kindness that myself and many other participated in this weekend! It was a massive success and I'm just floored by the incredible acts of kindness that were done.

My friends Jennie, Tina, and Jaime joined in on the fun. We decided to bring some extra cheer to people's lives by dressing up in costume and giving away fun stuff! The Dollar Store was rather surprised when we stormed in and bought 50 balloons, tons of candy, and bubbles.

Getting the balloons in the car was a lesson in logistics. 

Tina was sporting her AMOK shirt as we shoved the balloons into the two vehicles we brought.

Eventually we had to stuff some in the trunk. 

HAHA! We were finally ready to set forth.

Happiest headrest ever.

Tina was kind enough to act as our official balloon woman. She carried all 50 of them. Poor thing got very tangled a couple of times. 

We paused along the way to pick up six dozen roses as well in varying colors. 

With our haul in hand, and Bailey the dog to help out, we headed down to Little Five Points in Atlanta, GA.

People were VERY excited about the roses...some more than others. 

We gave out candy and met many wonderful people. These sweet girl scouts were selling cookies so of course we bought a box! 

The balloons and flowers went quickly! There were so many smiles and I saw one of the men we gave a rose to then turn right around and give it to a meter maid nearby. Seeing the cheer being spread was amazing. 

We like to think we even started a fashion trend! 

Satisfied with our handiwork, we ensured we left no trash behind and headed out for a well deserved rest. 

With a change of mustache color, of course!

Hope everyone out there in blogland had a wonderful weekend too and that someone made you smile as well. :) 

Simple Butterfly Earrings

Hello everyone!

Yes, yes, I'm alive. Please don't die of surprise or anything. My humble little blog is indeed in your feed again. I apologize for my absence but blogging, while something I really enjoy, isn't something I make money on so I do this for fun. I must answer to the needs of the rest of my life when they beckon and lemme tell ya that they've been screaming lately.

I won't bore you all with the details but suffice it to say that I'm keeping very busy with the work I'm doing for Random Acts (more on that in a moment) as well as my belly dancing! My very first public show is coming up soon and I'm super excited.

Before I bore you with any more talk of my personal life, let me share with you the project I whipped up in my meager free time!

These are my brand spanking new butterfly wing earrings. I don't know about you but I LOVE butterflies. They're such a great reminder of spring and what with me living down here in Georgia, spring is already well on it's way. I decided to whip up something simple to make me smile. This is the kind of thing you can make in an afternoon.

Just take printable shrink plastic (you can get the inkjet kind at Michael's and I always recommend using a 40-50% off coupon that they e-mail out!) and pop it into your printer. Now go out and find yourself some lovely photos of butterfly wings. I found science sites were good for this as they splay the wings out just right. Put your photos into an editing system like Photoshop or Paint. Line up all your wing images so you get maximum use from your shrink paper. You don't need the bodies of the butterflies, just the wings.

Then just print them out, use a hole punch to make holes in both ends (or where ever you like) and bake according to instructions. Once they come out of the oven, I like to flatten them while still hot by using a book. This next step is entirely up to you but I then dusted some pearl powder on my wings in the colors that matched the wings most. It gives them a nice shimmer. To finish, just spray with some kind of sealant. I use Krylon Triple Thick Crystal Clear Glaze. That helps make them a little more water resistant.

Then just attach your earring hooks to the top holes using a simple jumpring. I also attached some cute sparkly crystals at the bottoms too so they shimmer more. You can spice it up by gluing on rhinestones if you like, or you can leave them plain. I liked just a touch of shine to mine.

You can also make them into a necklace like I did here so I have a matching set. :) The center is a dangle with a seed pearl and more crystals. It looks really pretty when the light hits it.

So that's it. Simple, fast, and just cute enough to welcome in spring. :)

Now, if anyone is still reading this, then I assume you're interested in what's going on with Random Acts! If you're wondering right now "What the heck is this nutjob talking about?", then allow me to explain.

I work for a non-profit organization called Random Acts. We do random acts of kindness for people and try to get others to join in on the fun so that all over the world, people are doing nice things for each other. Well we're having an Annual Melee Of Kindness (We're running AMOK) this Sunday and we're inviting everyone around the world to join us. If you're interested in participating (and no, we aren't asking you to donate anything or even affiliate with us) then you can read up on it at our site.

As part of my own silly participation, my friends Jenni, Tina, Jaime, and I are going to wander about a public park giving away flowers, balloons and candy to everyone we meet.

Why, you ask?

Because it's silly. It's fun. It might brighten someone's day when they really need it. It might make the difference for someone who's never been given a flower before. Maybe we'll meet a bunch of people who are too grumpy for flowers or maybe we'll be mobbed by people wanting them. Either way, we're going to wander about till our flowers and such are gone. :)

Hope someone comes along to brighten your day too!

Linked up here:

    

House Wars: The Pain Returns

Guh. It's been a very busy week for me but I thought I'd update you all on where we stand with the house hunting. Last I'd mentioned, we'd put in an offer on a home that we really liked. We've spent much of the past few weeks fighting out the details of the contract, how much we'll pay, earnest money, ect. We finally settled on a price and all that jazz and the time for inspections had come. 

Suffice it to say, I was excited. We were so close! Soon we'd have the keys and move into our own place. I was beside myself. I was already picking out paint colors and where the couch would go. 

The inspector went out yesterday and did his walk through. No biggie, right? 

WRONG. 

He came back and informed us that whoever had done the additions onto this house had apparently not bothered with little things like permits and they'd built the addition onto the two main load bearing joists without enough support. 

Image from icanhascheezeburger.com

So yeah. That's about how I felt. It's never a good thing when the inspector looks at something and says "Ooo...you want a structural engineer in here to look at this. This is outside of my scope." *sigh* One of the joists was cracked, the other was bent. The inspector said within the next 10 years at most, we'd have a new sunroof in our master bedroom once that ceiling gave up and moved downstairs. Yeah, not something I want to wake up to. Or, worse, not to wake up FROM.  

Thus, we're back on the market again. We'll start this process all over and hopefully you'll all get even more entertainment out of what we stumble across. 

Till next time, thanks for reading!

Happy Little Rain Cloud

While poking around in Pintrest, I found this ADORABLE necklace:

Isn't it wonderful? I knew I wanted one but I didn't have the means to buy one and it's sold overseas so I decided to try my hand at reproducing it. Here's the result. 

I decided not to tier the drops like the original but I might change it up next time I make one. I LOVE how it looks and it was fairly easy to make. Here's what you need. 

1. Strong multipurpose glue. I used 7800 All purpose Adhesive. 

2. A necklace bar with three hanging loops. I got mine from Michael's. They were part of a pack for making three strand necklaces. 

3. Three silver bails.

4. Three blue drops. The original used faceted crystal but I couldn't find any so these were part of a multipack of blue beads. I think they still look lovely.

5. Fine chain. 

6. Needle and white thread. 

7. One cotton ball.

8. Six small jump rings and one large one. (Not pictured)

First, attach the bails to your three droplets. 

Next, cut your chain into three lengths. I went with two the same length and one longer one for the middle but you can tier them however you like. 

Next, use three small jumprings to attach your chains to your bar pendant.

Then, using the other three jumprings, attach your droplets to the ends of the chains. 

I'm so sorry for the blurriness of this photo but hopefully you get the idea here. Just take your cotton ball and unravel it or stretch it out. 

Now lay a thin line of your glue along the bar and press your cotton onto it. Repeat on the other side. Now this doesn't look much like a cloud at this point so lets add a little shaping to it. 

Take your needle and thread, knot one end, and then begin weaving in and out of the cotton, shaping the poof to your liking as you go. The end result should have a puffy shape like this:

And that's it! Now go forth and wear your lovely raincloud even on the sunniest of days! 

Linking up here: