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. 

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!

House Wars: The Realtor Strikes Back

Sundays have become a whirlwind for me with all this househunting going on. It seems to be the only day that we can go look so I have to squeeze in tours between various meetings for The Random Act. This Sunday was, hopefully, the last one I have to do that. 

We set out yesterday with a list of four more houses. We'd originally had 6 but one was bought before we could look at it and the other one just didn't answer the phone to schedule the walk around. Oh well. 

The day turned into a grand adventure in hidden surprises. The first place we went to? Very beautiful right from the start. Huge, sitting on a hill and overlooking a park. I was in love. Then I walked around the side of the house and saw this:

"It's just a broken window," I can hear you say. True and I thought that myself. Maybe some rambunctious kid threw a rock and, hey, accidents happen. Then I walked to the back of the house. 

Yeah, both of the bottom ones are busted out too, not to mention the builders didn't even bother to finish shingling the roof. Not a good sign. I didn't take photos of the inside. I think it was because I was in shock. We walked in and I was impressed at first by how large and lovely it was. Then I got to the kitchen. There is no kitchen. It's gone. Thieves are so prevalent in this area that they stole the cabinets.

No, I'm not making that up. The cabinets were gone. The appliances were gone. THE BATHROOM SINKS WERE GONE. I couldn't believe it. We went back and looked at the door again and found signs that it had been kicked in repeatedly and the current owners actually bolted metal plates onto it just to prevent that from happening again. Yeah, we moved on. 

Next on the list was another house in a bad neighborhood and every window had bars on them:

This never bodes well. The neighbor was a drug dealer or a hoarder, not sure which, but no one who owns 17 coolers all stacked on their back porch, 6 cars (only two of which appeared to run), large angry looking dogs, and tons of random trash strewn about their yard could possibly be up to any good. Or at the very least, I doubted they'd be thrilled when I showed up with cookies. >__> 

We went to the next home and found a place that was honestly on our list of potential houses. It was oddly laid out but the front was lovely enough and there was a nice sized back yard. The kitchen was just gorgeous as was the dining room but all the other rooms were lackluster. They were tiny and cramped, the bathrooms were itty bitty, and I don't really need the random half bath tucked into what used to be a closet in the middle of the hallway. Still, those things could be fixed. 

Then we got to the basement. Everything looked great right up till we opened one of the doors down there and found this. 

That's water....the door you see there...that doesn't lead outside. If it led outside I could at least tell myself that maybe it was just rain. Alas, no. This speaks to a much larger problem. 

It wasn't in just one place either. Most of the floor was like this. I swear I saw the Loch Ness Monster in there. We decided that between the water and the too small rooms, there was no reason to pay more for this place and then have to work even harder to make it livable when we had another option that was already great for us. 

The last house on the list was, well, perfect in so many ways. It was staged wonderfully. It was bright and homey. The only issue there was that it was too expensive and too small. For all that it was gorgeous, I just couldn't swing paying too much for something already decked out when I could pay much less for something I could decorate myself and make it look just how I wanted. 

All that said, we returned back to the home we'd fallen for last time and it still didn't fail to enchant. It's not too big, not too small, and has great potential for redesign without breaking the bank or US. 

This is the home we've decided on. Isn't the kitchen lovely?? I'm already planning out some things on this. I want to restain the cabinets, repaint, put up a tile backsplash, ect. 

This is the livingroom. It's right off the kitchen. I love the hardwood floors and there's plenty of light. 

Some of you might recognize this. That's right, it's the bathroom I'd fallen for. The jacuzzi tub and all! YAY! It's right off the master bedroom and is just too pretty. The master bedroom itself is lovely with lots of windows, sunlight, and hardwood floors. It even has a trey ceiling! 

The room on the left is the master bath and this is inside the master bedroom. This is even larger than it looks as I was only standing halfway into the bedroom. 

This is the backyard. It's AWESOME. That tree is a huge magnolia so it's going to be so pretty in the spring. I want to do terraced gardens in the back and we're going to replace the rickety chainlink fence with a white privacy fence. The one you see in the background is the neighbor's, not ours. Listen to me, I'm already talking like I own this. Heh. 

This is the back. I'm already dreaming up things to do. We're going to build out a carport to the left side. I want to tear up all that bland concrete (yay for jackhammers!) and put down patterned brick walkways instead. The whole house is going to get repainted into something a little less bland, I think. I want bright (not purple, mind you) and welcoming. :) 

Tonight we're putting in our initial offer. Wish me luck!

House Wars: A New Hope

As I reported earlier, the husbird and I are on the lookout for our very first home. All the unhappy stuff like financing is all done and out of the way and we're at the part where we wander aimlessly in a sea of potential homes trying to find one we like. Last time I mentioned that there were two homes we were looking at: the one my hubby really liked with the nice backyard and the one with the nice bathroom that I really liked.

Let me tell you, we learned so many lessons doing our first walkthroughs. First, never ever ever trust a photo. The beautiful back yard the husbird was so excited about? Yeah, it's at the bottom of a floodplain. When we got there, it was still saturated. Not a good sign for gardening when there's a huge run-off ditch running down the yard and the ground is still wet from a rain we had two days ago.

I wish I'd grabbed photos of how the place was laid out too but alas I was a little too busy being taken aback by the odd little nooks and poor use of space inside the home. Suffice it to say, we marked that off the list.

Then we went and looked at this one:

Cute enough, right? You'd think that. WE thought that. 

We were wrong.

This is but part of the horror. The bad wood paneling was everywhere. The bathrooms were tiny. Heck, the ROOMS were tiny. The basement had me convinced that we had stumbled into a horror movie and any minute I was going to fall victim to a man wielding an axe. 

Also, there was the smell. 

I'll just leave that part to your imagination.

Finally, we headed to the house that I was so excited about. My lovely large bathroom with the jaccuzzi tub. 

Remember this guy? 

Yeah, it was just as gorgeous as the photos. :) WOOO! It was such a relief to get to this one and find that it was even better than we first thought too! 

The master bedroom has this lovely trey ceiling, though that fan may have to get changed out, and there's good closet space. The bathroom is recently renovated, the carpets are all new, the kitchen is all refitted. 

Yeah, it needs some crafty love but that's part of the joy! I would have my own home to craft up, remake, and turn into the lovely and fabulous space I've always dreamed. 

Even the livingroom is lovely and it sits right in the front of the home with plenty of direct sunlight.

Oh, and that back yard we were so worried about? Yeah, it's MUCH bigger than the seller said it was and there's a huge magnolia tree right in the middle. <3 I'm already picturing us putting a hand painted picnic set out there. 

So, after only three homes, we're already liking this one enough to make a potential offer. I refuse to jump too fast, don't worry, so we're doing 6 more walk-throughs this Sunday and I'm going to hold off on being excited until AFTER the inspector comes to check the place out. No point in setting my heart on a house that later turns out to have the largest colony of termites outside of Africa. 

Still....EEEE!! So excited!!!

I'll bring my camera with me on the next set of tours this weekend and I'll update to let you all know what happens. Who knows? Maybe I'll find some place even better...or perhaps I'll find another home that smells suspiciously like a skunk had a bad love affair with a bag of mothballs. *cough* 

Make a Difference: The reason for my silence

Hey everyone!

Sorry I've been so out of pocket for a few days. I haven't had time to finish up the projects on my plate because of a very special bit of news that I'm now at liberty to share.

As you all know, I'm a member of the military. Helping people has always been something that has driven me and for a while now that has taken the form of protecting others. While on my last deployment though, I discovered an amazing company called Random Acts. These seemingly disparate people from all walks of life have come together with one common goal: 

To change how people see others and to change the world itself through random acts of kindness. 

I joined their ranks and have, since then, never regretted a moment of it. I've found myself spending less time with my head in my headphones and more time just talking to the people around me. I'm meeting people I never thought I would. I'm making a difference one person at a time just by doing something nice. The big thing here is that it doesn't take a monumental effort either. Random Acts brought it to my attention that just taking two minutes to tell someone I like their earrings can really change that person's whole day. That takes, what? Two seconds? For the person having a bad day, those two seconds could mean a world of difference.

Just recently, Random Acts began to restructure and they asked for some volunteers to help out. I put my name in and suddenly found myself as the Assistant Director of a world wide non-profit organization. All of our staff are volunteers and they are some of the most talented, driven, and amazing people I've ever had the honor of working with. 

So if I've gone quiet, that's why. I'm working heavily with this group to help make the world a better place. Don't worry, I'll still be updating here with lots of crafts and tutorials; after all, sharing a how-to with people is still an act of kindness is it not? ^__^ I just might not update as often as I'd like as I have to work to support these incredible people as they work to make a difference in the lives of perfect strangers. 

If you want to join us, we'd love to have you. We don't ask anything of you, there's no fees, no joining a mailing list, nothing of the sort. You just bring your heart and get ideas for acts of kindess you can do right where you live. We'd love to hear about them, we love to share them, we want you to have the chance to connect with others in your area that care so feel free to sign up at the forums if you like:

(^ Click me!!)

Wanna see what we do? 

This is an example. Yes. They're wearing fake mustaches. Why? Because silly is awesome. ^__^ 

Hope everyone out there in blogland is having a great day! I'll be back soon with an update on the house hunting adventure!

The Hunt Begins

Let me preface this post with one simple fact. I currently live in an apartment. 

It's a nice enough apartment but it has no yard and very little daylight.

Seriously. This place has a ton of windows...and they all face every direction but the ones where the sun is. 

Not to mention that I spend every day looking at blogs chock full of wonderful ideas that I can't do. I don't own the apartment! I can't do much with the paint on the walls. I have little space to put in some of the neat organization ideas I see. Did I mention my craft room has spiders? Big ones. HUGE black ones that like to set up nests behind my desk no matter how many times I spray them, clean, complain to the apartment manager that I'm going to be killed by them.

(Pretty much this size. Are they Black Widows? Maybe, they look like it but I don't get that close.)

It's honestly gotten so bad I'm kind of getting blase' about them being in there. I recently threw away my work desk while trying to re-organize my craft room only to find a whole nest of the huge black monsters living behind it. I was barefoot. This did not faze me in the least. I just killed them, sprayed so much insecticide that I'm sure I'll mutate later, and then carried on. Is this sad? Probably. It's also a HUGE sign I need to move.

With the real estate market being what it is, I have finally, and at long last, convinced the husbird that we need to buy a house now. What we pay in rent could instead be a mortgage payment and with both of us being veterans we already have an in on a good loan with ridiculously low rates. 

With all this excitement and running around looking for a new home, I wasn't having much time for blogging, thus my relative silence on here. SO, I decided to remedy that by blogging about my house hunt! WOO! I can't be the only person out there that's looking for a first time home so maybe some of my trial and adventures can help others. Or at least give someone a good laugh. 

The husbird and I have a few homes picked out to do a walk through on soon and this is the one I like most so far. Sadly there's isn't much parking and not much of a yard BUT...

Just LOOK at this master bath! So much potential here. Is that a jacuzzi tub you see? Why yes. Yes it is. 

A JACUZZI TUB.

Not that I'm excited about that at all or anything. *cough* 

This is the one the husbird loves. I admit, that front yard is nice.

He really likes it because of the back yard though. 

It sits on about a half acre so there's plenty of garden room. Pre-fenced is also nice because we want a dog. 

And I also admit, dual decks in the back is a nice touch...

But the bathroom is tiny and there's no jacuzzi tub. 

No, I'm not ashamed to admit I really want that jacuzzi tub. I also don't care for tripping over my toilet on the way in and out of the shower. >__< Still, I'm up for going to look at it at least. 

So what do you guys think? Any recommendations for a first time homebuyer?