Thursday, April 29, 2010

Oh little needle mouse

I have a secret.

I love hedgehogs. I mean LOVE THEM.

In celebration of our spiney little friends, lets take a look at some of the hedgehog themed items that I'm currently lusting after.

Gold hedgehog purse from TsuruBride

Hedgehog Print by Berkley Illustration

Hedgehog and Mushrooms knitting pattern by FluffAndFuzz

Hedgehog earrings by NBDesigns

Night Skating Embroidery pattern by Kloin

Hedgehog print by Colin White

Hedgehog Card by Whale and Bee

You can be sure that I will be purchasing some of these sweeties soon. They're all just too adorable!

<3

Pretty Pretty

There are some great giveaways going on right now, and I thought I would share some! These are the three that I'm currently most excited about :)

Painted Lady Fingers - Hard Candy Giveaway

Painted Lady Fingers is giving away a full set of the Hard Candy Just Nails line.

Look how pretty!
                                                          Image from Painted Lady Fingers site

Eliza - Make Up Junkie - 100 followers make up giveaway

Eliza is doing a great make up giveaway on her blog for two eyeshadow paletts from Divine and two shimmer loose powders from Barry M Dazzle, PLUS an amazing hand knit hat.

                                                     img from Eliza's site

The Dainty Squid - Four Mug giveaway

The dainty squid is giving away four ADORABLE mugs. Seriously. Adorable.
                                                   img from the dainty squid site

I wish you all the best of luck in all of your giveaway endeavors   :)

<3

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The death of a rat

Today suffered the loss of a Banksy.

This makes me sad.





RIP Sweet rat.

[img from Witness 1's flickr]

Monday, April 26, 2010

A spoon full of sugar

So I promised a list of things that I'm loving, and I'm really very excited! I've been really inspired lately, by all kinds of different things, and lots of lovely blogs and artists. I'm also very happy that its spring, and it's not super hot! The east coast has a habit (At least in the central parts) to jump right from winter to summer, and this year we've had a whole month of beautiful spring weather, full of high 60's and low 70's and thunderstorms and chilly nights. So much fun!

So now, here are some things I'm loving.

Five things I love right now:

1.) Gallery walls - What a great way to display a bunch of different frames and photos and art! They always look so nice and remind me of old crazy houses and victorian ghost stories. I love it when there are a bunch of different styles in both the frames and their contents. I've been gathering a bunch of stuff for a wall of my own, and I'm excited to get it put up!

                                                     Photo via houzz

2.) the work of Camilla D'Errico - I love all of Camilla's paintings. Her soft color pallettes mixed with bold colors, and her soft treatment of faces and animals, they're all so lovely! I also love the strange surreality of everything. She's definitely a big infulence in my art.


3.) Planning for spring and summer parties - (Particularly my birthday!) I've been loving all of the pretty pictures and posts I've been seeing about beautiful picnics and parties. I can't wait to start planning them myself! Our house is rather small, but it works nicely because we can use our fenced backyard and have lovely outdoor parties too!

                                             Photo via weheartit

4.) Crochet hats - particularly how to make them. I'm a knitter myself, but I saw this beautiful pattern from the talented Jessica Suzanne and had to try! (I also happen to have some great cranberry colored alpaca yarn just itching to be made into something)

                                                                 So pretty!

5.) Super inspiring and fun art spaces - There are as many studio spaces as there are artists and so many of them are just awesome! I think so many of them are so much fun, and I've gotten a ton of ideas for my own! (Now that I finally have one!)

                                                        Both Via Houzz

So yay! There's my list of things that I'm loving this week. I'm going to have to start putting one together more often!

<3

Monditis

I'm finding myself to be rather irritable today. I don't like being in moods like that. I'm generally a very upbeat person, and times that I get irritated or angry are just..well, irritating. So we're going to practice a little energy release here.

A long time ago I read somewhere (If it was on your blog or site please let me know! I can't remember the source) about making little worry cloths. Just taking all of your bad feelings and troubles and irritation and knitting it into a little scrap, and throwing it away. A great way to use up that ugly yarn you found, or that last bit from a project. Just knit your heart out, and toss it away! The key is that when you toss it, you actually let go. Put your bad energy into the knitting and then let it go. If you want to, put them into a little box, so you can remember the badness that you got rid of, but don't keep it with you, you want to get that stuff out of your life!

Since I'm not in a place right now where I can sit down and knit (And I don't have any materials) I'm going to do the same thing, but with a list. I'll keep it short.

My top five irritations:

1.) Downers - I can't stand being around people who are constantly negative. There are too many beautiful things in life to be angry or depressed all of the time. And people who turn that negativity on others? No sir. Just because you feel bad doesn't give you the right to make others feel that way.

2.)Rompers and Playsuits - Quite possibly the most redicious thing on my list, I am all about not liking this recent trend. There are so many beautiful shorts and dresses and skirts, leave playsuits to the toddlers and the 80's please.

                                                     (Image via weheartit)

3.) Multi-visits - When you have many things to tell me, please come to me, or call me, and tell me all of them. There is no need to make a phone call every five minutes for an hour. Make a list, and do it all at once please.

4.) Gross Behavior - I'm not going to say that I don't laugh at the occasional fart joke, and I can burp with the best of them, but I should not be able to hear you hacking up grossness from twenty feet away. And it should NOT go on all day. Go in the bathroom and blow your nose please. (Also, don't blow your nose 4 feet from my face. Sadly, I've had people do this to me.)

                                            (Image via weheartit)

5.) When my bangs do that awful wavy thing - like they are today.

Ok. That's it. I feel a lot better now actually. And I'm going to let them go, and come back later with a list of the top 5 things I'm loving right now!

What are things that irritate you, and how do you deal with them?

<3

Friday, April 23, 2010


This is my friday so far. A good cup of tea, my lovely matryoshka sachet from the wonderful Kat (from thestoryofkat.blogspot.com) and good music. Whenever I get really stressed to work I just bury my nose in my great smelling doll and turn up the music. Works every time!

<3

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

halfway there

This week has been very  long. More importantly, I have been very sleepy. I have a feeling that this might be linked to the small colony of hamsters that have taken up residence in my sinuses.

                          current view inside my sinuses

I've always had issues with allergies, but the last few years haven't been bad. This year, this is bad. But it's ok. I love spring, and so long as I have benedryl and my neti pot (I've had one for a few days now and I love it) I'll get through. 

I'm waiting currently for my painting class to start. (Two hours). I have this class and one more and then final reviews! Phew! I've got some catching up to do, but I'm making quick progress. 

I can't wait though, until I have some more free time. I will keep painting, but it wont be so scheduled, and I'll have time again to sew and knit and all that other fun stuff. I just got the prettiest deep red alpaca yarn. I'm deciding what to use it for. It may have to be a hat. I don't think I have enough hats. But then, can one really ever have enough hats? I also want to learn to embroider. Nothing elaborate, just little hearts and birds and the like. Something to jazz up a pants pocket or handkerchief.

Well, I'm off to home depot to find some wood suitable for painting on. I'm giving up the canvas. I wonder if they make a patch for that? 


Hope you all are having a wonderful Wednesday.

<3

Monday, April 19, 2010

Inspiration

Its funny, the things that you find to keep you going. There's a strange little application on facebook called Courage Wolf. You "ask" Courage Wolf, and he gives you life advice. Only it's usually rather ferocious advice. The first time that I clicked on it, mostly because I had no idea what it was and was curious, I received the following:

Life getting tough means God is afraid of your progress.

Something about this has stuck with me. It's really rather funny how much well, courage it gives me. I think we should always treasure little things like this. Never underestimate the power of small things. If they can give you the strength or the courage to get through something, or if they inspire you, then they are more valuable than anything.

I found this today, and I think it falls into the same category. I've always been rather picked on because I am "Overly emotional". I can cry at the drop of a hat, by anger is fast and hot, and I laugh at everything. There are always extremes, and I don't think I could live every day if it wasn't for that. The days when I'm "Moderate" and emotionally bland just kill me. Life is about extremes. And making it everything you possibly can.

I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE
by - Eve Ensler


I love being a girl.
I can feel what you're feeling
as you're feeling it inside
the feeling
before.
I am an emotional creature.
Things do not come to me
as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas.
They pulse through my organs and legs
and burn up my ears.
I know when your girlfriend's really pissed off
even though she appears to give you what
you want.
I know when a storm is coming.
I can feel the invisible stirrings in the air.
I can tell you he won't call back.
It's a vibe I share.


I am an emotional creature.
I love that I do not take things lightly.
Everything is intense to me.
The way I walk in the street.
The way my mother wakes me up.
The way I hear bad news.
The way it's unbearable when I lose.


I am an emotional creature.
I am connected to everything and everyone.
I was born like that.
Don't you dare say all negative that it's a
teenage thing
or it's only only because I'm a girl.
These feelings make me better.
They make me ready.
They make me present.
They make me strong.


I am an emotional creature.
There is a particular way of knowing.
It's like the older women somehow forgot.
I rejoice that it's still in my body.


I know when the coconut's about to fall.
I know that we've pushed the earth too far.
I know my father isn't coming back.
That no one's prepared for the fire.
I know that lipstick means
more than show.
I know that boys feel super-insecure
and so-called terrorists are made, not born.
I know that one kiss can take
away all my decision-making ability
and sometimes, you know, it should.


This is not extreme.
It's a girl thing.
What we would all be
if the big door inside us flew open.
Don't tell me not to cry.
To calm it down
Not to be so extreme
To be reasonable.
I am an emotional creature.
It's how the earth got made.
How the wind continues to pollinate.
You don't tell the Atlantic ocean
to behave.


I am an emotional creature.
Why would you want to shut me down
or turn me off?
I am your remaining memory.
I am connecting you to your source.
Nothing's been diluted.
Nothing's leaked out.
I can take you back.


I love that I can feel the inside
of the feelings in you,
even if it stops my life
even if it hurts too much
or takes me off track
even if it breaks my heart.
It makes me responsible.
I am an emotional
I am an emotional, devotional,
incandotional, creature.
And I love, hear me,
love love love
being a girl.


Take pride in your emotions! I hope that you have many of them today. And while I hope that they're all good, remember that you would never feel joy if you didn't feel pain.

<3

The State of the Girl Address

For starters, make sure that you check out Emmy's Boos and Rawrs! She's having a fun little giveaway for a beautiful Necklace from Purely Page's Etsy Shop! Details are here!  It's a really cute little blog AND shop, and I'm happy to pass along the word for both of them. (Plus it helps give me entries. Win Win!).

Life recently has been interesting. "Hard" or "Bad" aren't the right words. I wouldn't say necessarily though that "Good" was the right word either. I think "Challenging" is the right word.

I have been continuing the battle against school for credits. I have the most AMAZING adviser though, and she has been helping SO MUCH. I really cannot explain how grateful I have been for her. She's a life saver. So I'm hopeful that with that kind of support I will have it done soon. Also on the school front, my finals are coming up quickly. (Which is terrifying). I have 4 paintings either done or mostly done, and will have them all completed by Wednesday. Now I just need two more to meet my goal of 6. I'm really hoping that I can get to 7 though. My first review is on May 5th. So that's my (Really hard) deadline. I think I can do it though! I've been working a lot faster recently and I like the direction I'm going in.

I spent a good number of hours this weekend cleaning our spare room too. I suppose it was a little ambitious to clean out 3 years of accumulated dirt and clutter in a weekend. I made a really big dent though. I have been organizing all of my crafting stuff, and it's looking really nice. I got little clear plastic storage bins, about the size of a shoe box. I have six of them filled so far with everything from ribbon to fabric scraps to drawing supplies to tools and embellishments.  I'm sure that this will help me make better use of everything and stop buying things that I then forget I have. A friend of mine is having a big yard sale this weekend to help her raise money. She's running a marathon in June to raise funding for blood cancer and leukemia research. I'm really proud!  So I took this cleaning opportunity to round up a TON of stuff for the yard sale to help raise as much as possible.

Other than all that, there's not a ton happening. I'm putting off starting on my 10 page final paper for my literature class. I'm going today to buy a neti pot, I'm going to see if I can successfully wash my sinuses out without drowning (If I don't come back, it's been fun!) and hopefully that will help me sleep better. It's typically good to keep breathing while you sleep, so I hear. :) I'm still slowly working on customizing this here blog. I also need to take time to bleach out my chunk of red. I had REALLY BRIGHT red hair for a while, big chunks in the front and a chunk on the side. I slowly dyed out the front, to the same dark brown as the rest, but I kept the chunk. It's got MASSIVE roots, and it's a faded gross dirty salmon now. Mmm. Yum. :)  I need to make time to re-bleach that and add the color back in.

Here's my bright red.
                                                                                                Me and my BF Arnold.

Before I went to that I was blond for maybe two weeks. I am already VERY PALE, this made me look rather dead. It was a fun change though. The roots alone were enough for me to get rid of it. My hair grows in very dark, and after the first week I felt like I had bugs, I had all these teeny tiny little black roots. Gross.

There was also a period of time that I had dreadlocks. They were very fuzzy. I liked them


In that picture they are just baby dreadlocks, which is why they still look like normal hair at the end. In Germany on my honeymoon I decided to get rid of them. Three hours and a whole bottle of conditioner later, I had combed them out. Some times I wish that I had kept them though. I think when all my hair grows back I might go for it again. I would have them professionally done though. It KILLED my arm to put them all in, and they were thicker than I wanted.

I say that I have to wait for it to grow back because in July I decided to do this


Woo! No hair! I liked it a lot, but I also missed having hair. Mine has always been pretty long, and so whenever I get it cut short I like it but still kinda freak out. This was me when my husband and I first met.
I have no idea when this turned into a hair history report. Jeeze. Hope I didn't bore you too much!

Did your weekend go well? I hope so! Have any hair stories you want to share? :)

<3

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

I'm still alive

There are things happening, unfortunately, those things have left me completely exhausted this week. I have a lot I want to talk about, but I've been feeling really brain dead, and I know that any blog post would turn into a strange, rambling, unorganized thing, so I will put up a real one tomorrow. I promise to get out of this once a week habit soon.

Mostly it's been an issue of time. I've allowed myself to get just a little bit lazy with painting, and fell behind. And  on top of that I have a REALLY HARD deadline at work this week for our catalog production, which means that I've been working well over 8 hours a day since Monday. Top that with the tendonitis I have in my hands acting up, and you have one cranky girl.

I totally don't want this to be a bummer post. (Oh my god that sentence was so 1990's valley girl. Sigh) And to be honest, these are all things that are either my fault, or that I know to be unavoidable, so I'm not really stressed about it. You just do what you need to, right? I think sometimes it's nice to have a few days that really push you to your limits so you remember what you're capable of, and you appreciate the down time that much more.

I spent the weekend mowing the lawn, doing garden stuff, and patching the massive hole in the wall of our spare room from the plumbing fix. I have to paint the new patched area still, but other than that it's ready for a full overhaul. I've got my sewing table up there now (Thanks to my wonderful hubby!) and that opened up the kitchen so much. I didn't have anywhere else to put it, and it was so inconvenient to work around in there, our kitchen is tiny enough! AND it takes up less wall space than I thought it would, so I believe I'm going to get another bookshelf. Yay! I bought a ton of shoe box sized, clear storage bins this weekend. I'm going to empty out all of the tote bags and grocery bags and shipping boxes that I use to corral my art and crafting stuff, and organize all of it into those. I might even buy a label maker to label all of them! (Ok, fine. I'm too poor for that. Sharpie it is!)

I'm really excited. Well, in my head I'm excited. My body is just tired. And hungry. I'm going to go eat...

Hope you've been sleeping well!

<3

Oh! And don't forget to become a follower! I see a bunch of visits from people every day, but don't see you guys on my little followers list. Maybe I'll try to get a giveaway incentive together. That seems to be all the rage in the blogosphere right now   :)

Thursday, April 8, 2010

It's Thursday??

Where has the week gone!

It's been a pretty crazy one around here. Tuesday went by way too fast, but I had a nice lunch outside and took some pictures that I'll post. (Finally). Yesterday was rather bizarre for little Baltimore. We hit 93 degrees yesterday. 93. In Baltimore. In APRIL. Hell, it's not even the END of April. This is not Texas, weather. Please recalibrate yourself to Maryland.

Not only was it unbearably hot (I come from a very northern European heritage, I do not do well in hot), but there was a fire at one of the local water pumping stations. Which wiped out everything. Come 2pm, there was no water at work, at school, or a lot of houses. Luckily we avoided the last bit but just by a few blocks. The good news was that I got to go home from everything early, an opportunity that I promptly wasted by laying around on the couch watching re-runs of the Colbert Report.

Did I mention that I hate hot?

Anyway, Tuesday was slightly cooler, bearable enough to go outside at least. So I did for lunch, and actually pulled out the old camera. I have a tendency to sit in my car and listen to the radio when it's nice out. I love pulling to an empty corner of the parking lot, rolling down the windows, and splaying out as far as I can in my little Honda Fit. (I <3 my Fit).

Tuesday I decided to take that one step further and hang my legs out the window in an attempt to get some much needed sun.
Pardon the feet.
My bangs were feeling rather unruly in the breeze.

I also walked around and took some pictures of the trees, before they shed their pretty spring coats.


And of course, I couldn't resist popping on in my hair.


Today is supposed to be the same, in the high 80's at least, but it looks to break tonight and put us back into the beautiful spring 60's and 70's. I'm very excited.

I have some painting pictures to post too, but I'll get to that later on. And I won't wait three days this time, Promise!

<3

Monday, April 5, 2010

Monday Jitters

This weekend was a busy one. Sorry that I wasn't very active on here! I'll try to make up for it.

There's been a lot going on recently. I spent Friday at work and then had a very productive night. I went with a few girl friends to MICA's Panoptic Fashion Show. Maryland Institute College Of Art is an amazing local art college (One that I attended for a few years!) and produces some really amazing stuff. Their Fiber Arts department put on an amazing show, with 15 designers from the Fiber department. The works ranged from more traditional runway shows, to performance art pieces with boats and bears, to completely different showings of LED infused body suits and dresses fashioned after furniture and cupcakes. Really beautiful! We walked across the street afterwards for dinner at Joe Squared, a little local pizza shop with seriously yummy food (Pesto, basil and avocado pizza!! MMM!) and then I made my way home. I was home for about 10 minutes before making my way back to the city for drinks with another friend! It was a late night but a lot of fun.

Saturday was full of errand running which ended with the hubbs purchasing a Mac Book Pro. He's been talking about getting one for years, and when our one old computer died (We have like, 6, he's an IT guy and can't have too many!) it was a good reason for him to get one. I think it will be good for him to have something more inclined to web design since he does a lot of that for a living! (Hopefully more soon because he might get a new job. PLEASEEE??? We could use the raise!) Saturday night we went to an art show at the local store Atomic Pop. The show was all custom designed Munnys, and it was a lot of fun! There were some really great entries. We're hoping for our friend Jeremy's to win. (I missed the cut off for submissions by two days. Boo!)

Sunday was full of food and family. I went to take a bunch of pictures, only to find my camera full. It's a new goal to empty it completely and start taking more pictures! I'm so bad with that! It was really nice to see everyone and eat waaaay too much food. All week I was really excited to spend all day Sunday cleaning, cause I kept forgetting it was Easter. I wish that I had been able too, but it was a lot more fun to spend the day with family. Oh well! I'll just have to start making plans for this coming weekend. With having school two nights a week, it's hard to get anything done on weeknights. I also didn't do any homework this weekend (So bad!) so even though classes aren't until Wednesday and Thursday, I'll be spending tonight and tomorrow working on stuff for them.

My Wednesday is Painting III Which is the first advanced level painting I've had. I started at MICA as a General Fine Arts major, so I did a lot of low level painting, but nothing else. I've since transferred to my new college (Which will remain nameless for now, I've been having some real issues with credits and other things and I don't want to trash talk anyone) and they don't have a GFA Major. The closest that they had for me was Painting, and I'm actually loving it. I happen to be a very slow, meticulous painter though, so it's been challenging to me to put out a relatively large (6 paintings) body of work in a semester. I'm keeping up ok though! Pictures of them soon! (What's done at least)

Phew! That was rather long winded! Hope I didn't bore you too much. And I still have stuff to ramble about! That's a different post though. This is long enough!

<3