An Afternoon

Needed to make something today.  I'd thought about it last night, but I put it off.  Then finding myself with nothing to do in the afternoon... well okay, I had plenty to do, but nothing that couldn't be strategically "rescheduled" for later... ;)  Decided to pull everything out and mess around with art stuff I haven't touched in years.  You can definitely tell I don't remember any technique from when I was like 10 and learned this stuff, but oh well.  It was fun. :)

At the outset.... So many choices.

I think we have our decision... :)

I had an idea and I just followed it as it went along.  Just wanted to slap some color down, and then I decided I wanted something underneath the big sheet of newsprint like cording or something, a little like making a rubbing only not really.  Then I thought of Christmas lights... go figure...  Did the whole thing on top of a messy strand of Christmas lights.

I started with a lot of green and some patterns and directions started to take shape... seemed like grass to me, dunno.  I just kept going, pretty chaotic. :)

At the end... the cool thing about newsprint and lights is it can do this afterward:

I love this picture below:

And actually in between there I did something really rapid fire with the pastels but I didn't take pictures of it in process, my hands were ghastly... so skipping on to the watercolors...

And after a few hours, I was left with these:

Well, I had fun. :)

Snow Day!

Yet again, my first day of school is snowed out... This makes two of the locations where I take classes.  I have been out of school for over a month now.  Going stir crazy, that's for sure!  If I'd known I'd be stuck inside so much over these weeks, I'd have started some big project to work on, but the plan was to be back in classes two weeks ago!  Now I keep saying, "Oh, I'll just clean something or read something today, no point in starting anything big because class starts in three days."  Noooo beans.  Looks like I'll be moseying around another weekend, reading, guitarring, watching phys lectures online from MIT... which I actually prefer to my own phys class. :)

Last night I was again bored so I started fiddling around with some stuff and made a few things that are pretty much worthless but were fun to make anyway. :P  

First was a bobby pin with a daisy on it...  Will have to make a few more of these for the sisters. :)

 Next was a headband.  Now that I have shorter hair (which I love, I am NEVER going back to high-maintenance inches and inches and inches!) I'm wearing more headbands and scarves since there's not a whole lot else I can do with my hair...  Anyways, this took way longer than I expected haha, you never expect the circumference of your own head to be so...large... :P

 And then another headband, this time experimenting with crocheting with beads!  I've never done this before, but I've heard of it and I knew the general idea. What you do is thread the bead you want to use onto the string BEFOREHAND.  Then you make a slip knot and start working, pushing the beads out of the way until you want them.  At the right stitch, just slide the bead close to the hook and crochet it into the stitch.  Pretty darn easy. :)  

I am very much aware that I look evil in that picture... bwa. ha. ha. ha. ha.

I also did some experimenting with crocheting around a plastic ring.  I put a lot of gold beads into the thread before I started and just added one every ten stitches as I went around.  

At least the snow is pretty!  I'm still a fan of the snow, very muchly. :)

Much colder and wetter, I present my pictures from outside...  Got quite a dusting and it's frigid!  Sorry for such a long post, but it's mostly pictures and I haven't posted in awhile anyway... :)

Two Posts in One Day

Because I didn't wait long enough and just took some more pictures.  Apologies. :)

On another note, and I won't say much about this because it's really just dawning on me in it full glory... I was wrong about people.  And relationships with them.  They will hurt you at some point, whether they mean to or not, even if it's just the fact that you may lose them eventually.  That's not what gives people and relationships value OR what takes it away.  The point is that in the process you're learning and giving.  I thought I got that, I  knew it in my head, but it doesn't click until you find somebody that's more important than you are.  It stops becoming, "What can this friendship do for ME?  What can I learn that will make ME a better person?  What can this friendship help ME do/endure/acquire?"  You progress to a stage of, "I just want to be a better person so that I can EARN this friendship.  Like somehow I can deserve this amazing blessing in my life."  Then you find a point where you're not even in the picture anymore, it's about them.  The sooner I can take myself out of the picture, the better it is for them--complications go down, the focus can become outward instead of getting bogged down in the confusion going on in me.  I don't know if it's possible, but I want to be the kind of person they somehow see in me.  Believing in people is a really powerful weapon, so DO NOT underestimate it.  I may not ever really deserve what I've experienced, but I can sure as heck work my tail off trying to make their life better.  I'm getting off myself for once, or I'm trying to.  Forget me, I'm not the point here.  I want that to stick in my head and change the way I'm living.  There's no room for anxiety if you just don't really care what happens to you, it's about the other people.

Snow

I like.  Still going strong.  Feels really warm out.  Snow day at school.  It could be muuuuuuch worse. :)