Projects 19, 20, and 21: Silly stuff for work and fun stuff for Samhain!

Project 19: I made my work desk pretty with magnets. A while back a friend of mine sent me this awesome magnetized pony scene book with magnet ponies in it. I took the book to work intending to open it up and leave it on my desk with the ponies going about their business, but then I realized that I could have the magnets out all the time if I just stuck them on my desk. See now I can make scenes come to life on my drawers or on the other metal part of my desk near the monitor. 

What did I learn during this project? I learned that this generation of ponies is pretty darn cute even if it's not as cute as the original generation and the most recent generation. Also I learned that I'm in my own little corner of the office and no one sees anything I do and so if I'm going to decorate it will truly be for my eyes only so I might as well do something I like! And did I complete it? Yes - though I would venture to say it's a work in progress since right now all the ponies are waiting to be played with on the faces of my desk drawers.

Project 20: I wrote out Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky poem on my break schedule. I felt that the paper was way too plain to go up on my cubicle wall without some color on it and by color I mean a spiraling pink, purple, and blue handwritten poem. So I chose Jabberwocky. What did I learn? I learned that I had forgotten a few words of the poem. I memorized it back in high school when I was on the Speech and Debate team and did poetic interpretation. I used to do this poem and the Yarn of the Nancy Bell. I think there was more one in there, maybe The Raven by Poe. But yeah I liked macabre and nonsensical poems. Still do! And did I finish this project? You betcha!

Project 21: With mom and Hannah's help, I gathered up all the items to be included in the Elements Basket for the Samhain raffle table. The basket included: pillar candles, mirror candle stands, a set of candle holders, an earth candle, ocean potpourri, a small bottle of Shinto Shrine water, three packs of incense, a barbecue lighter, shell shaped bathtub fizzers, a bottle of sparkling water for drinking, and a wind-chime made of polished stones. 

This is a picture taken by the basket winner. You can see all
of the various pieces of the Elements basket as well as a  few
pieces of the altar kit basket that our High Priestess made.

What I learned is that baskets, while sometimes being stressful to make, are always fun! And I learned that putting that extra effort into something really pays off. All the baskets up for raffle were very beautiful and a lot of people really wanted to win the Elements Basket (mainly because that wind-chime was so stinking neat!) so that encouraged more people to buy tickets. We broke a record yesterday for the IEPG: we made over $100 in a single evening in donations via general donation and raffle ticket purchases. This is amazing. The IEPG doesn't need all that much money to keep running smoothly, but we do need some. The money goes to supplies for the guild as well as paying the rental insurance on our venue we use all year long for Esbats and Sabbats. And we survive on donations from members. Usually we make between $0 and $20 dollars at an event. So this was monumental. Did I complete the project: yes, with help from my mom and my Hannah.

Lots of Things! And a Couple of Projects...

Projects for today include: doctoring up several pieces of jewelry with nail polish to make sure they don't turn my skin green; hanging up some fall decor; gathering up all the pieces of the Elements Basket for Samhain (not that it's completed yet); putting together my outfits to wear for the week; getting a couple of things ready to go out in the mail; and packing my bag for the next couple of days. The first two count for creative October. I have a couple of crappy pictures to give you an idea of what those projects entailed but due to my internet being a complete jackass all day, I cannot get them off my email to show you.

Tomorrow begins my second official week as a customer service specialist in the circulation department for the Spokesman-Review. There are many things I still am unsure of, but for the most part I've got the hang of things. I feel like I'm going to do well at this job, but I predict it will not be one that I will want to do for an insanely long amount of time. My hope is to move up in the company a little bit eventually, or maybe move somewhere else in the building like... yeah... you know... writing. But in the meantime, I'm very happy to have what one would call, a 'real' job. And the people are freaking wonderful. The new job jitters are hardly a tremble now. And I'm finally over my period. Now if I can just kick this sickness, I'll be tip-top for work and play.

My Chakra Shark and Failed Attempts

Follow this link to see the artist's Tumblr.

I've been getting rather frustrated with the creative challenge. Yesterday I played around with newspaper trying to make newspaper flowers, or paper roses. It didn't work very well and I ended up giving the disappointing bud to Naricisa who played with it and lost it somewhere in the dining room. Then earlier tonight, after I finished with Shrinky Dinks, I went to paint some keys with nail polish and ended up hating how they looked. I'm still not sure exactly what kind of mischief I'm going to get into with those keys but they just keep vexing me! Anyway I gave up on that venture as well. So it's not for lack of time or trying that I haven't been keeping up and I guess that's what's super frustrating. If I was just sitting on my ass and watching TV making the conscious choice not to put energy into a project then I could own that. But I am working on these projects and while I know that failure is a better teacher than success it just sort of feels like wasted time. Time I should have spent sleeping, cleaning, doing laundry, resting from my illness, or talking to Hannah or friends. 

So I just have to keep telling myself that I'm not wasting my time, because if I let myself believe that then I'll start to go crazy! Instead, I'm going to keep on pushing through this month. I did manage to finish one more project tonight. I've been wanting to do this for a while. I call it the Sharkra (chakra-shark combo). I got the little stones from our High Priestess (IEPG) and intended to use them for just such a purpose as this. So question time: I made a Sharkra sign to hang up in my cubicle at work. What did learn? I learned that stamps never come out in a straight line for me even when a use a guide paper. I also learned that tacky glue is pretty awesome. And I learned that Sharkras is not already a thing. So there, world, I invented it! It's MINE! Hahahaha! And lastly, did I complete it? Yes. And as soon as the glue dries completely I think it will look pretty neat. And I'm excited to bring it to work as my first piece of myself to go up at my desk. I plan on bringing a ton of pictures of Hannah and the kitty and my friends, but that will have to wait until I have the money to get the all printed out. 

To create the shark, I used this free silhouette template.

Project 15: Shrinky Dinks!

Inspired by my friend Danielle's recent project of Shrinky-Dinks, I decided to have a little shrinking fun myself. I bought a cheap kit at the dollar store earlier today. When I opened it up I was surprised to find that you had to draw the designs onto the plastic. I seem to remember that back in the day, the plastic already had the outlines on it and all you had to do was color them. But, with the freedom to draw whatever I wanted I decided to include My Little Pony and a few Halloween images. 

I traced each design onto the clear shrinky-dink plastic and then colored them all using a wide variety of markers (the dollar store package only had two small markers with it). After I had traced and colored all of the images that I wanted to include on the plastic sheet, I cut them out carefully and placed them on aluminum foil on a cookie sheet.

Only takes about two minutes for these babies to cook. And when they come out they are reduced in size by about fifty percent. It's a fun and silly project. I had to add My Little Pony to mix because Danielle mentioned in her video blog that she remembers when she used to do My Little Pony Shrink-Its when she was a kid. So in the spirit of revisiting both our childhoods I traced a few choice MLP characters. I only had Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, and Pinkie Pie on hand otherwise I probably would have only done ponies.

If you look at the first picture of the designs laying on the college ruled notebook, you can see how the ponies take up about six rows before cooking and only take up about three rows after cooking. They are so tiny now! The ponies, skulls, and Halloween thingies all fit in my hand with room to spare. Not quite sure what I'm going to do with them all yet, but it might be fun to drill tiny holes and make an itty-bitty mobile out of them. So to sum up: I did Shrinky Dinks. What did I learn? Choosing my own designs was more fun than having the designs preset. I'm sure I learned something else, too, but I'm still too groggy in the head right now to come up with it. Did I complete the project? Yes. With the help of Narcisa. She loves to get up on the table whenever we do crafts. Today she helped me color by rubbing her face all over the end of the marker as I was trying to stay in the lines. She's a good kitty.

CD, Newsy Nails, Pics, and Sick

This is one of the stained glass images one the Sprague-side entrance to the Cowles Building.

Yesterday I did a creative project. I made my self a mixed CD to listen to during my 15-20 minute drive to the Park and Ride bus stop in Liberty Lake. I wanted to listen to things that would wake me up, pump me up, get me jazzed for the work day. So I put a variety of dubstep, metal, and rock on the first two-thirds of the mix and then finished it off with a few softer hits. Those are meant to be my 'coming down' at the end of the day songs.  Here's the playlist:

Skrillex - Kyoto
Korn - Get Up
In This Moment - Adrenalize
System of a Down - Question!
Metallica - The Unforgiven III
Korn - Narcissistic Cannibal
In This Moment - Blood
Serj Tankian (from System of a Down) - Empty Walls
System of a Down - Toxicity
Three Days Grace - Get Out Alive
Jack Off Jill - Strawberry Gashes
Korn - Forsaken
Metallica - The Unforgiven II
System of a Down - Lonely Day
Foxsky - Kirby Smash
Incubus - Love Hurts
Imagine Dragons - Demons (YouTube Artist Cover)
Fanmade Version - Come Little Children
Flobots - Handlebars

What project? A mixed CD. What did I learn? I learned that I actually really like Skrillex. Also I learned, or remembered rather, just how much I adore Metallica's Unforgiven trilogy. I was going to add the first Unforgiven to the mix and I'm not sure why I changed my mind in the end. I suppose I was hoping to get just a pinch more variety on there. I sort of wish I had switched out one of the SoaD songs for the first Unforgiven. I kind of miss that song. So I guess I learned that sometimes it pays to go with your first inclinations instead of trying to be practical. Not always, but sometimes. Also I learned that the drive to the Park and Ride is much more bearable with a little heavy bass in my ear. Lastly: Did I complete the project? Yes I did. A day late and a dollar short, but I did it just the same!

Antique (and still functioning!) mailbox in the Chronicle Hallway of the Cowles Building.

The next project is newspaper nails! I had decided to do newspaper nails before I saw this awesome entry and tutorial! But then after viewing it I was super excited to try. You paint your nails with a light color first, then dip your fingertips in isopropyl alchohol. Then press some newsprint to the wet nail and the words will stick. They end up as a mirror image, but they still look really neat! What I learned though is that you don't need to hold the newsprint to your nails very long. In fact you just dab the ink onto them for about two seconds or three seconds and the transfer will take. I also learned that they look really fucking cool! 

I like them a lot and will probably do them quite often. Even my shitty hand looks pretty dang good. The newsprint covers a great many errors and flaws. And even if you do screw up, it looks like ripped newspaper so it's still a win. Did I complete the project: yes. I'm still one project behind. That's just how it's going to be until this weekend. I'm really sick as it turns out. I think riding the bus has given not only a new perspective on transport but also a new gamete of germs in my system. And I'm fighting it! Damn, I'm fighting it! But this morning I puked and this evening I'm stuffed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. So I'm going to take some medicine and conk out. One more day and then the weekend. I can't wait for some extended rest.

Another printer stained glass. I love these guys.