millie[bot] designs

January Book Log

2012-02-01T12:33:00.002-05:00

1. AGood American by Alex George

Readin:9 days

Pages:381

2. Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together by BryanLee O’Malley

Readin: 1day

Pages:216

3. Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe by BryanLee O’Malley

Readin: 1day

Pages:184

4. Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour by Bryan LeeO’Malley

Readin:1 day

Pages:248

5. Feed by M.T. Anderson

Readin:4 days

Pages:299

6. Island of the Sequined Love Nun byChristopher Moore

Readin:8 days

Pages:325

7. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Vol. 3 byNaoko Takeuchi

Readin:1 day

Pages:248

8. The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde

Readin:5 days

Pages:382

9. The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbartby Jesse Bullington

Readin:5 days

Pages:425

10. Fallen Skies by Philippa Gregory

Readin:6 days

Pages:509

TotalBooks Completed: 10

TotalPages Read: 3,217

AveragePages Per Day: 104

AverageDays To Read A Book: 4.1

1 more book read than in January 2011.

366 less pages read.

12 less pages per day.

0.5 more days to read a book.

New Banner

2012-01-31T19:23:00.003-05:00

So I've changed my banner it's not much at the moment...but that's because I haven't quite figured out the direction I want to take everything in. I'm sort of basing it around my business card, and I'm not sure I've got that nailed down yet.

Eventually (hopefully rather soon) I'll start working on my website. I'm getting caught up in figuring out the layout. There are lots of different ways to set up a portfolio site, and I haven't quite figured out how I want mine...and then when I do...I need to make a banner for that too. One that's a lot better than this blog banner.

But at least I designed something! I need to get back into the swing of things.

A New Year

2012-01-04T21:31:00.002-05:00

So I stopped being lazy and uploaded pictures from my camera....

Here are my new favourite snacks to make! Chocolate covered cherry mice! They are super tasty and ADORABLE! I brought them to Tim's family's Christmas party and everyone loved them. I wish I'd thought of the idea myself, but of course I found the recipe online. They have pumpkin seeds for ears (I substituted those for almond slices because I don't enjoy nuts), Hershey's Kisses for heads, chocolate coated maraschino cherry bodies and frosting faces! I plan on making them for lots of major events (though they are a pain to transport, because they slide together and then their little faces get messed up). I also want to make white ones too.

I got a cork board from Anne for Christmas (which is actually the only thing I really asked for this year) and I am super excited. I pin all my design and writing ideas/inspirations on it, and it freed up some space on my magnetic board.

This is Artemis....being cute. ^_^ She is getting bigger!

The lovely wall clock that Mama made for us. It brightens up our drab kitchen! And it's blue, my favourite!

I bought a bookcase from work (normally $140 down to $25 thanks to my store going out of business and the display model discount), so we rearranged our living room a little bit to accommodate it. The two bookcases are now side by side, and we moved the small one over to our half wall. It's opened up the living room and given us more space. Also, I FINALLY bought frames for my Mucha posters, so they are hanging up too. Yay artwork!

Here are some goofy pictures from New Years. It was a small group of us, but we had a BLAST! (No, sadly I didn't edit these myself. My four years of college taught me very little about Photoshop. I used a Google Chrome app Pixlrmaticsomethingorother to fiddle with these. It's the same effects as some ipad app).

Last post of 2011

2011-12-31T19:27:00.001-05:00

I'll start off this last post with the books I've read in December, along with my year-long totals...

DECEMBER 2011

1. A DanceWith Dragons by George R. R. Martin

Read in:19 days

Pages:959

2. ScottPilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Read in:1 day

Pages: 162

3. The ThingAbout Cassandra by Neil Gaiman

Read in: 1day

Pages:12

4. ScottPilgrim Vs. The World by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Read in:2 days

Pages:200

5. TheSelected Stories of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick

Read in:9 days

Pages:473

6. PrettyGuardian Sailor Moon Vol. 1 by Naoko Takeuchi

Read in:2 days

Pages:240

7. TheScrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston (I highly recommend this!)

Read in:2 days

Pages:233

8. Enchantmentsby Kathryn Harrison

Read in:6 days

Pages:311

9. PrettyGuardian Sailor Moon Vol. 2 by Naoko Takeuchi

Read in:1 day

Pages: 244

10. ScottPilgrim & the Infinite Sadness by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Read in:1 day

Pages: 192

11. CodenameSailor V Vol. 1 by Naoko Takeuchi

Read in:1 day

Pages: 276

12. CodenameSailor V Vol. 2 by Naoko Takeuchi

Read in:1 day

Pages: 291

Total Books Completed: 12

Total Pages Read: 3,593

Average Pages Per Day: 116
Average Days To Read A Book: 3.8

I got a bit more reading done this month than normal, since it doesn't take long for me to fly through the mangas/comics. They add to my page count without taking up too many days! I'll be starting off 2012 with an advanced readers copy of The Good American by Alex George (courtesy of LibraryThing).

2011 YEAR END TOTALS

Total BooksRead: 105 (my goal was to read 100, so I just made it!)

Total PagesRead: 37,024

AverageBooks Per Month: 8.8

AveragePages Per Month: 3,085

AveragePages Per Day: 101

Most BooksRead In: March (16)

Most PagesRead In: March (6,077)

I'm very happy with how many books I've read this year! If I was better with Excel, I could probably have a cool spreadsheet done up (eventually I'll take a class on Excel) and maybe some fun pie charts. But for now, it's cool just to see the numbers. I've still got 287 books in my 'To Read' category on LibraryThing (and those are just books I currently own!), so hopefully I can do even more reading in the new year! (After all, it may well be our last year in existence! *eyeroll*)

I don't really have much to say about this year. I'm not motivated to do a big "year in review" type deal. Overall, it was a decent year though. I turned 23 (I am constantly forgetting my age x_x), I moved out of Mum's house and into an apartment with my wonderful boyfriend, I took some pictures of flowers that I'm rather proud of, I graduated college with a Bachelor's Degree (and I'm now continuing my education online to fill in all the gaps that my four years of classes failed to fill), I got our wonderful little kitty, Artemis, I bought a new car, I had a wonderful visit from Melissa for a week, and uh....I....bought a lot of books and another bookcase to put them on! :]

My hopes for this new year are the same as always....write more, work on my graphic--and now web--design, get a job in my field (no more retail!!!), eat right, and exercise.

For now, I'm going to start getting ready for tonight--Tim and I are going out with a few friends to a hibachi/steak house for some good food, Asian drinks, and hopefully some dancing if I'm lucky! (Hey, it counts as exercise, right???)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! HERE'S TO A GREAT YEAR!!!

Reflections Desktop

2011-12-08T20:55:00.001-05:00

Just another little desktop design. Maybe someday one of mine will be posted on SimpleDesktops...

I'm feeling too much pressure from the holidays. However, tomorrow I will be done with my shopping...and I've made a list of people to make cards for, and some ideas...so hopefully I can get on that soon.

It's just so easy to procrastinate! I'm not feeling very festive or jolly anyway. I'm kind of over Christmas. As much as I love getting (and giving!) presents, I hate that it has to be one stupid day of the year, and there's no time to really see all your friends and family and you have to buy, buy, buy all this new stuff or else society will think you're an ass. I just never seem to feel prepared. Especially this year. December really snuck up on me this year.

Maybe next year I will have a craftier Christmas. I have to start planning over the summer, to get some ideas flowing and then gather supplies...and give myself a little time for procrastination as well!

November Books

2011-12-04T00:04:00.001-05:00

1. TheReptile Room by Lemony Snicket

Read in:8 days

Pages:190

2. The WideWindow by Lemony Snicket

Read in: 1day

Pages:214

3. TheMiserable Mill by Lemony Snicket

Read in:3 days

Pages:194

4. All theFlowers in Shanghai by Duncan Jepson

Read in: 8days

Pages:302

5. When Redis Black by Qiu Xiaolong

Read in:10 days

Pages:301

6. Pride& Prejudice (graphic novel) by Nancy Butler

Read in: 1day

Pages:120

7. Diary ofa Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney

Read in:1 day

Pages:217

Total Books Completed: 7

Total Pages Read: 1,538

Average Pages Per Day: 51

Average Days To Read A Book: 4.6

Just finished a week-long stint of babysitting all the siblings while the parents were in Aruba (I'm so jealous it hurts), so I'm super exhausted. I haven't designed anything of note (or anything) for ages...but...I hope to make Christmas cards for people, so maybe those will be up here....

Boston Antiquarian Book Fair

2011-11-13T20:34:00.001-05:00

So Jonbot and I went to Boston's Antiquarian Book Fair to oogle expensive books and maps and such, because naturally there wasn't much there we could afford. It definitely made me wish I was one of those lucky people that just randomly found a box of old books and ads and stuff that was worth something. I wouldn't sell it though. I love all the old advertisements and the detailing in the books, especially the thicker papers and the special details that would be engraved on the hardcovers, etc. It made me a little sad that printed materials today aren't as interesting or beautiful (like regular books and every day advertisements).

Anyway. I did purchase a couple post cards and two old recpie pamphlets.

Old comic book related things are so strange and awkward. Wonder Woman throwing herself at this goofy clown really made me laugh. And of course, a little boy riding Superman...yeah...

I purchased two more, but I am sending them to friends, so I don't want them to be spoiled. ;D

Front & Back

The recipies inside are all printed on pink paper...maybe to be more appealing to women? And I'm not sure what year this is from. I didn't even bother to ask, because it's cool and old and that's all that matters to me.

The second picture is a lady from a paint advertisement. Who knew painting made you so sexy?

I LOVE the typography for the title. It's my goal to practice design work by tracing that. If I ever get around to it, I'll be sure to post it. Actually, this little booklet has a lot of good design practice. I really love it.

[*Not sure why Blogger randomly decides to un-rotate some of my pictures, but I don't know how to fix it. Highly annoying*]

Mammoth size...loving it! (Also don't know what year this is from either.)

And here is my cat (yes, again)...I think she makes a wonderful decoration, when lounging around our room.

October Books

2011-10-31T23:08:00.002-04:00

So, thanks to the freak, hellish snow storm that ruined Halloween, we lost power for a couple of days. But it's back now (though half of the town is still out), and I'm elated.
Here's the books I read this month...

OCTOBER 2011

1. Happily Ever After by various authors

Quotes: “Everything has a spirit that’s so much bigger and brighter than you think it could hold.”

“I saw her chewing gum, when I was thirteen, and I fell for her like a suicide from a bridge.” (This made me laugh in a morbid way. Very unique.)

Read in: 12 days

Pages: 473

2. The Help by Kathryn Stockett (I LOVED this book)

Quote: “If I’d played Mammy, I’d of told Scarlett to stick those green draperies up her white little pooper. Make her own damn man-catching dress.” ;DDD

Read in: 7 days

Pages: 530

3. One Day by David Nicholls (LOVED this as well…SUPER sad though.)

Quote: “Sometimes, when it’s going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery.” (This could apply to me…)

Read in: 5 days

Pages: 435

4. Heat Rises by Richard Castle

Read in: 4 days

Pages: 301

5. The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde (I really recommend this if you like mysteries and nursery rhymes/fairy tales)

Read in: 11 days

Pages: 383

6. A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 162

Total Books Completed: 6

Total Pages Read: 2,284

Average Pages Per Day: 74

Average Days To Read A Book: 6.8

Photos

2011-10-16T21:35:00.002-04:00

So our darling little kitty likes to climb anything and everything, and she has pretty amazing arm (leg?) strength. She likes to grab hold of the top of the window and pull herself up. It was tough to capture, but this gives you an idea. It's pretty amusing to watch.

Tim and Artie were napping a few nights ago (probably more than a week ago, actually) and the way she was stretched out at his feet was so cute. The picture of his toe curled over her paw makes me say "Awww!"

I stopped at this cool antique store that I drive by on the way to work, and I really loved the place! It used to be an old house or something, so they have it set up sort of in rooms...very well displayed. There are three floors as well. Tons of stuff I wanted to buy.

One thing being this really sad otter! So adorable! He'd make a great accent piece!

Also this typewriter was tempting (not that I have any desk space to put it on).

I did buy this awesome graduation certificate...for a corsetiere. Which, according to Merriam Webster is "one who makes, fits, or sells corsets, girdles, or brassieres." Awesome! I wonder what it was like to major in that?

Also I bought this old book. It was published in 1902, so that made it cool, but mostly I bought it because of the amazing cover.

I just thought it was funny how her body behind the shade was out of proportion, so it looks like she has a huge head on her little feet.

A recent project of mine....I'm trying to decorate on a budget...so I've been laminating leaves and putting them on our wall. I'm just doing that little bit so that it looks like they're sort of blowing around in the wind. Of course, it looks rather random, since our bedroom doesn't have a theme, or any other artwork. But the bedspread is like leaf/tree themed, and I have this great picture of a forest that I want to hang over the bed someday...soooo I guess that works. Anyway, I like the leaves, and that's what matters. I don't expect to be featured in Home & Garden or something.

Also, this project was inspired by a leaf that my dearest Sarah sent me, ages ago. It's the third leaf from the right, if you're wondering. ^_^ Thanks dollface!

Millie[bot] Designs

2011-10-10T22:16:00.002-04:00

So, as you can see, I've changed the background on my blog. I'm trying to design my own...to match my business card (however, it's not coming out like I want to, but hopefully if I can get some responses on my forum post, then I can figure that out).

This is what I've got so far.

The stripe continues onto the back, as if it were a ribbon folded over the top.

I'm still messing with the colors. I have to find ones that will print as neon, because I want the card to be really bright.

The next step will be to make a new header for my blog (to match this of course) and redesign my resume and cover letter to match the card. Then, once I'm done with all my web courses, I'll actually design my website (to match all this stuff), and then I can get that up and running. Because right now there's nothing on my website at all.

I've been writing a little more too. I've got three fairy tales bouncing around in my head. They are fighting for position, but for now I'm going to work most on that one about beauty and the beast that I posted ages ago.

EDIT:

I got my background fixed thanks to some fast help from the forum and a neat stripe generator website that helped me line up my stripes.

Birthday, A Faire, Frisbee Golf, Fashion, and a Kitty

2011-10-02T10:19:00.000-04:00

So Cassie is 12 now (almost a teenager, as she likes to remind anyone with ears) and she had her birthday party at Roll-On-America (can't believe that place is still open!), so I took some pictures...

The kids were in a "private room" (they ditched a ton of the old, awesome arcade games for this place) called the Aqua Lounge. The fish in thsi room were pretty crazy looking...

Mum and I sat out for the second round of Laser Tag, and I took some pictures of the cool lights that were flashing all over the place.

Cassie's cake. That frosting looks delicious, but at the same time, it makes my teeth hurt just thinking about all the sugar!

Kerri, myself, and Tim at King Richard's. This is really the only picture I had taken of us. I was glad Tim dressed up this year.

The dragonflies were, as usual, excellent subjects. As long as there's a nice patch of sun, they really let you get up in their faces for photos! They kinda freak me out, but at the same time are fascinating.

Every year (well, this is the second year) Dad hosts a Frisbee Golf Tournament at his place (he has an 18 hole course) and this year Tim and I attended. Tim entered the lists, while I just followed our group around taking pictures. We had a really good time! (Tim came in second to last.)

The sweatshirt I got. Pretty cool, eh? Everyone who played got a t-shirt, and then extra t-shirts and sweatshirts were available. The guy had a silk-screener right on his truck! It was pretty awesome to watch.

The first hole...Dad is SO intense when he's throwing. Tim has some nice form going on (though his first shot didn't go that great. He got the hang of it eventually and had some really great holes!)

I also found lots of interesting flowers and mushrooms around Dad's land that I'd never noticed before.

That was a good shot for Tim.

Ew, a slug! I almost didn't notice it at first, because, as you can see, it blends in fairly well. But then it started moving a little. I was grossed out, but totally had to take a picture.

Very intense frisbee hurling going on here. I don't know if you can see it (you might have to click to enlarge the picture), but Dad has a really intense face going on. ;D

I believe Dad came in third overall.

So many different kinds of mushrooms! Maybe someday I'll try to figure out what kinds they are, and if they're safe to eat.

Really intense shots of all the guys in our group. I really love these. ^_^

And more adorable little mushrooms!

I spent the day with Sue, and she bought me an adorable hat and boots! Then I bought myself a hat (the plaid one) while we were at Target. Now that I have this awesome haircut, I feel more comfortable in hats.

The boots were love at first sight! Thanks again Suzie!

Artemis had a really good time in the DSW bag...

And lastly, a haiku:

New hat and new boots,

Shopping, laughing, talking, but

no fun for dead frogs.

September Books

2011-10-01T11:09:00.000-04:00

1. Dreamsongs Volume II by George R.R. Martin

Read in: 6 days

Pages: 714

2. The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Quote: “Life is pain…anybody that says different is selling something.”

Read in: 3 days

Pages: 450

3. Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard

Read in: 5 days

Pages: 290

4. The Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 251

5. Burger Wuss by M.T. Anderson

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 192

6. Zel by Donna Jo Napoli

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 227

7. Johannes Cabal the Detective by Jonathan L. Howard

Read in: 10 days

Pages: 288

Total Books Completed: 7

Total Pages Read: 2,412

Average Pages Per Day: 79

Average Days To Read A Book: 4.1

Not quite as many books as I'd hoped. I thought I would finish my current book before the month was out, but that didn't happen. After I finish it though, I'm going to read The Help. I bought the book weeks ago, after seeing a million previews for the movie. I figured, like Water for Elephants, that the book would be really good. I probably won't make much of a priority to see the movie if I really enjoy the book. After that I might read One Day (another purchase made after seeing previews for the movie)...but my order is always switching up, so who knows.

Going to post photos later tonight.

Click! I made a website!

2011-09-26T22:18:00.002-04:00

So, I just completed my online web design class...and this is the result!

http://www.flora.net63.net/index.html

I could jazz up the home page (and create a better logo for the top), but I'm tired right now. Since I don't intend this to be my real website, I didn't go all crazy on it. But I'm really proud of what I've done so far, considering 6 weeks ago HTML looked like a jumble of letters to me.

I'm really excited to take another course, and start planning out my portfolio site, which I hope will be as awesome as I imagine it to be.

I'll update again this week with a couple other small things I've done.

August & September Pictures

2011-09-11T13:45:00.000-04:00

No real artwork or designs to post, but I do have some pictures to share.

My dear friend Kerri finally turned 21 (though we still have to go out), and she had a very creative, Alice in Wonderland themed party. Everyone was required to wear a hat, and costumes were encouraged. I had this crazy English tea party hat in my trunk from Tim's mom (I took it because I wanted the hat box), and I figured, if I'm going to wear it, I might as well dress up too! So I donned my junior prom dress (it still fits!) and had Mum do my makeup...

I thought it came out quite well! I received several compliments from Kerri's family for my outfit and hat.

Lovely adult drinks...old fashioned bottles filled with shots (and labeled with the classic 'Drink Me' tag)! Great idea. I got to keep my bottle too, which was for a honey & tar mixture. Hmmmm. Made me remember that Dad used to have a ton of old bottles, and I wonder if he still does. That'd definitely be a collection I'd like to adopt.

Kerri's FANTASTIC cake! It's like something you'd see on TV. There were three different flavours too (I forget what two were, but I know one was red velvet). I wouldn't have been able to cut it up myself, but Kerri joyfully hacked into it and handed out pieces. ^_^

The birthday girl herself...Alice of course!

My super awesome tea cup that I got to take home. There were a ton of great ones to pick from, and I was torn between this one, and a really beautiful one with yellow roses.

I also made some lavendar cookies for the occasion, but I won't post any pictures because you've seen them before. I did add some food coloring that time around, to try to make them more purple for the party, but I didn't add quite enough, so they ended up being a pale pink.

A little project I worked on for hanging up the necklaces that I wear most often. Eventually I want to get a large corkboard so I can hang basically all of my necklaces, but for now this works. I have more wall hooks that I can add, if I decided I want more necklaces out.

And here's a cool picture of the bathroom shade. Someone had their headlights on outside and it created the coolest shadow. I plan to re-create this in Illustrator.

I also went to Conway, NH with my family for the weekend...

Cassie wanted to try on my aviators.

Old school chocolate vending machine. Can you imagine getting a piece of candy for a penny???

I love the typography on the machine. Older designs are really inspirational.

Oooh, Fitchburg! I LOVE that font. Not sure why that other picture isn't rotated correctly. But anyway, I love old papers and stuff too.

Part of the Conway Scenic Railroad. I really liked the design. One of the few mountain views on the railroad. I was a little dissapointed with the 'scenic' part of the ride. But it was a cool old train.

I liked the sign. If you can't read it, it says, 'Horsefeathers. Sustenence, Merriment & Cheer'

A really cool metal venus fly trap type sculpture to put in your plants. And a little moth (whose picture also won't appear rotated correctly.)

The beautiful moutain view from our condo.

We went to StoryLand too...Harris was a little intimidated by Humpty, and I don't blame him!

The girls as Alice. :]

Harris on the tea cups and with the Big Bad Wolf (who is quite small!)

Yes, I found flowers to photograph there as well.

Rockin the log flume ride. (Click the second picture to see the full size version. Their expressions are great!)

Another raft ride. I didn't feel like getting wet that day. No surprise.

Diana's Baths, natural falls. I LOVED this place (though again, I didn't really go in, just got my feet wet. Water was FREEZING!) and I could have stayed and explored all day. It was about a half mile hike up to the falls, and they were just so beautiful. I took a ton of pictures. We explored quite a bit, though I would have kept hiking up (even though I was wearing platform sandals), but it was our last day there and we needed to get on the road. I'm not sure if I'll make it back to Conway anytime soon (especially after the hellish drive), but if I do, I will definitely be returning to the baths.

And here is a caterpillar for posterity. ;D

August Books

2011-09-01T20:22:00.000-04:00

1. The Resident Patient by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 15

2. The Greek Interpreter by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 19

3. The Naval Treaty by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 28

4. Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 138

5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 374

6. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 391

7. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Read in: 3 days

Pages: 390

8. Gold Unicorn by Tanith Lee

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 244

9. Red Unicorn by Tanith Lee

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 191

10. Fire-Tongue by Sax Rohmer

Read in: 3 days

Pages: 304

11. A Loyal Character Dancer by Qui Xiaolong

Quote: “To enjoy food and sex is human nature.”

Read in: 6 days

Pages: 351

12. The Thin Executioner by Darren Shan

Quote: “There is always more for men to learn. We grope towards understanding, revealing it a piece at a time. No one should ever shut off his mind to new ideas.”

Read in: 3 days

Pages: 483

13. Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures by Walter Moers

Quotes: “What business has a spider in a bedroom? As much as we have in this confounded wood.”

“Details are the secret of all true art.” (I especially love this quote.)

Read in: 9 days

Pages: 688

Total Books Completed: 13 (Yay! An improvement!)
Total Pages Read: 3,616
Average Pages Per Day: 117
Average Days To Read A Book: 2.7

The Hunger Games series was especially good. It was a really quick read and I loved the characters. It was definitely emotional at times and I was totally engrossed.

I'm taking a web design class right now...learning how to build a web page. I'm sure I'll have to take more classes, but the end goal is to make a professional porfolio web page for myself, as well as spruce up this blog with some more personal designs. Hopefully that will give me an edge when apply to jobs in the future, because for now I'm still stuck in retail. It's back to OfficeMax for me, full time, but still not what I was looking for. Oh well...my time will come eventually.

Still no noteworthy progress in writing or exercise. Eventually those will become regulars in my life!

Reminder about the walk for cancer as well. I can't believe it's already September! In just a few weeks my family will be walking the five miles together, and we appreciate any support! Hopefully by next year we'll have some team t-shirts as well. I worked up a little design for us, but we didn't get on the ball soon enough this year.

Here's the link to donate online!

http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/albert-wenning/13thannualumassmedicinecancerwalk?fge=ask

July Books

2011-07-31T10:44:00.003-04:00

JULY 2011

1. The Borgia Betrayal by Sara Poole (won from LibraryThing)

Read in: 8 days

Pages: 389

2. A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

Quotes: “He who hurries through life hurries to his grave.”

“The living should smile, for the dead cannot.”

Read in: 8 days

Pages: 969

3. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

Quote: “The greatest fools are oftentimes more clever than the men who laugh at them.”

Read in: 16 days (X_X)

Pages: 1128

4. The Unstrung Harp; or Mr. Earbrass Writes A Novel by Edward Gorey

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 64

5. A Feast For Crows by George R. R. Martin

Quote: “Words are like arrows, Arianne. Once loosed, you cannot call them back.”

Read in: 8 days (I was doing real well with this 8 days per book thing…until I struggled with Swords. There were a lot of days where I didn’t read at all)

Pages: 978

Total Books Completed: 5

Total Pages Read: 3,528

Average Pages Per Day: 114

Average Days To Read A Book: 8.2

Cookies & Other Random Pictures

2011-07-27T15:00:00.000-04:00

Sophie came over last week, and we baked some wonderful summertime cookies (from the great cookie book that Sue bought me). These are our pink lemonade, white chocolate chip cookies! They were very sweet and delicious. The recipie called for any flavor of drink mix, and since my sister is allergic to some dyes, we went with pink lemonade. I am definitely going to make these again, though next time I am going to just put some sugar on the tops of the cookies, instead of all over, and I might leave some without the colored sugar (because it makes them extra sweet). And maybe someday I'll try it with other drink mixes as well. But I really enjoyed the lemonade flavor.

Here are some random firework pictures from the 4th...we were in Boston.

And our adorable kitty Artemis.

Tim and I went to Tower Hill last week. We had a great time, even though it was about 100 degrees. We hid in the woods for the most part, and walked the trails.

It was so green and beautiful! It felt like something out of a movie. I could have stayed on this part of the trail forever. Very inspirational. Also, we were the only ones outside, so it was peaceful and quite.

Someday I'll make note of what these flowers are. I love them!

Walk for cancer

2011-07-16T12:05:00.002-04:00

http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/albert-wenning/13thannualumassmedicinecancerwalk?fge=ask

This is our 3rd or 4th year doing the walk as a family and we'd appreciate your support!

June Books

2011-07-03T12:28:00.000-04:00

JUNE 2011

1. Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe

Quotes: “Failure doesn’t mean anyone did anything bad. Sometimes people fail even when they do only good things. Or they do what they think is good. Only with hindsight can anyone understand the failures they experience.”

“And dreams, it would seem, do not fade easily.”

Read in: 17 days (Ouch! This book was pretty good, but just tough to get through. Also Melissa was visiting during that time, so I didn’t read much then.)

Pages: 816

2. The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin (won this from LibraryThing)

Read in: 5 days

Pages: 419

3. A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin (I’m re-reading the whole series so I can be prepared for Dance of Dragons)

Read in: 11 days

Pages: 807

4. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney #1 by Kenji Kuroda (I bought the comic on impulse because I love the games so much. It’s pretty good actually.)

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 189

Total Books Completed: 4

Total Pages Read: 2,231

Average Pages Per Day: 74

Average Days To Read A Book: 8.5

This is by far my worst month. I'm just not reading as much, even though I have a lot of free time. I really need to get myself in order. I read more pages than last month however, but it's still my least amount of books read, as well as my longest average to read a book. Ugh! Hopefully I can pick back up in July. I have SO MANY books to read!

Also I need to get back into graphic design. I have projects in mind (as always) but it's a matter of wanting to sit down and do them. And as usual I need to write as well.

I can't believe it's July already!!! Where is time going!? I need to make this into a productive summer...

Haikus

2011-06-17T13:24:00.000-04:00

Just some silly little haikus I've written lately. At least I'm writing something, right???

Took a walk today.

Hello, little doggie friend.

Good-bye barking dog.

Oh, acrid smoke fills

my lungs and yours over and

over. Please quit now.

I, cellar dweller,

hiding away from the sun.

MTV owns me.

Snip, snip. Short hair now.

Summer breezes against my

neck. How to style it?

Forever I fold.

Endless piles of clothes all day.

Will it ever end?

Starting a new book.

A flutter of excitement.

Adventure awaits.

The thrill of a new

tattoo; the buzz of the drill,

and a flash of pain.

Rainy day shoppers

I don’t understand you. At

home I hide from rain.

Inspiration

2011-06-12T00:03:00.000-04:00

My new tattoo...

Hopefully it will inspire me. I've been in a funk lately.

Though I have been writing silly little haikus lately, so I'll type them up one of these days and post them here.

Really I think that Target is sucking the life out of me, and I need a new job ASAP.

Tower Hill & Boston

2011-06-05T10:02:00.000-04:00

Took a trip to Tower Hill while Melissa was visiting. As usual there were tons of beautiful flowers.

The center of the orange flower is very odd looking. If you click it for the full size picture, you can see the details better. It almost looks like...frog eggs or something. Creeps me out a little.

I think the cactus picture is my favorite....

Though the picture of Mel is definitely a close second!

We also spent a day in Boston (and ended up walking 8 miles!) to check out some book stores and do some general shopping. We went to three book stores, and they were all pretty awesome. The first was Brattle Book Shop, which is my favorite. It's got an outdoor section, as well as three floors (though we didn't go to the third floor because it's the rare book room and you have to ask to be let up there and such). Then we went to both Commonwealth Books (they have two locations), one of which is considerably larger than the other.

We also stopped at this amazing little cafe called The Thinking Cup, on Tremont Street and had AMAZING sandwiches and desserts and I definitely want to go back there someday.

This was an illustration inside a book that I liked.

These doors were in the corner of Brattle's outside alley. There seemed to be a whole pile of painted ones. Not sure what they're for, but they're neat!

Dusty the cat! She(?) lives in the larger of the Commonwealth Books, and she's very soft and friendly. Probably I spent more time petting her than actually looking at books....I'm definitely going through cat withdrawals.

Storm clouds! About the time that we got back to Alewife and were ready to drive home, there were tornado warnings all around the area. We ended up being stuck in the parking garage for two hours (no joke!) because it was rush hour, so by the time we left we were driving home through the storm. The sky was really beautiful at times though.

May Books

2011-06-03T23:16:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately now that my internship is ended, I'm not spending nearly enough time reading. I've also found I'm more tired at night, and I can't really push through it like I used to and keep reading. Now I fall asleep after just a few pages :[ Hopefully this month I'll do better!

I'm falling behind on my daily picture postings too. I haven't even put them on my computer or edited them yet. Ugh. I do have a TON of pictures from my recent visit to Tower Hill with Melissa though. I will post those within the next couple of days.

MAY 2011

1. Windhaven by George R. R. Martin & Lisa Tuttle

Read in: 3 days

Pages: 400

2. Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

Read in: 3 days

Pages: 325

3. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore

Quotes: “You’re a single guy, Gabe. You need pizza every eighteen hours or you can’t function properly.”

“Surfers don their wetsuits against the chill of storm waves and white sharks adjust their diets to include shrink-wrapped dude-snacks on fiberglass crackers.” (Moore is hilarious!)

Read in: 6 days

Pages: 304

4. Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore

Quote: “Everything is a story. What is there but stories? Stories are the only truth.”

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 243

5. The Once & Future King by T.H. White

Quotes: “But what creature could be so low as to go about in bands, to murder others of its own blood?”

“The destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide.”

Read in: 8 days

Pages: 263 (of 639….this book was not what I expected. I couldn’t continue to read it anymore. I’ve decided to put it on hold and just log what pages of it I have read. I’ll try again in a few months.)

6. Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen

Read in: 6 days

Pages: 346

7. Midnight Pearls by Debbie Viguié

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 197

Total Books Completed: 7

Total Pages Read: 2,078

Average Pages Per Day: 67

Average Days To Read A Book: 4

A cake!

2011-05-20T15:40:00.000-04:00

I made a ~~very belated~~ birthday cake for my friend Jon! It was my first time baking a cake (and making the frosting!) from scratch. I have to say, it came out awesome! It was also my first time cooking in the apartment. Our oven seems to be pretty spot on, temperature wise, and though the counter space is limited, I'm good at cleaning up after myself, so it wasn't really an issue.

I used a yellow cake and sort of mocha frosting recipie that I found on Smitten Kitchen, and it was very easy to follow. There are definitely other cakes on there that I want to try, but some can be complicated, and others require more tools that I don't have yet. This one worked well with my current budget.

The decorating didn't come out quite as I'd planned. I started later in the day than I wanted, and so I JUST finished the decorations right as Jon showed up at our place.

I'll actually be making it again on Tuesday for Timmy's birthday, but I think this time I'm going to try the cupcake version. Easier to distribute that way as well! (Hopefully I can decorate them a little more artfully.)

Here are some random pictures:

April Photos

2011-05-08T14:58:00.002-04:00

I was a little behind in uploading all these, because of the move, but they're all up on my DevArt now.

New Apartment and Mother's Day

2011-05-07T22:03:00.000-04:00

Time for a photo update!

Here's what our place looked like as we were moving in...

And here's what it currently looks like (I'm still busy unpacking, but it's come a long way since Friday/Saturday!)

That thing under the blanket is our mirror. And that cool dresser is from Tim. Someday I'd like to stain it dark, but it works for now.

Tim's desk is in the living room.

The beastly bookshelf made the move! I was thrilled...that's my favorite piece of furniture EVER. We did have to sacrifice the top cubbies, but thankfully I can still run books across the top. Currently I'm still unpacking my books (Tim only had about 3 boxes worth while I have like 12 or something crazy), and it's quite the project. I'm trying to find a way to keep the same authors together, as well as not have piles of books in front of piles of books, like I did before. However, with Tim's 100 or so books being added to my almost 500, that may be impossible without more shelving (which we don't have room for).

I finally had a place for my magnetic poetry! We're already having fun with that.

So, I love the new place. It's a good building, pretty quite, and the neighborhood is nice too. I'm hoping in a few months to have things more organized, and come up with some creative ways to organize all my stuff (especially my desk stuff/stationery/art supplies), and also get some artwork hung up.

Now for Mother's Day...Mum took the girls and myself to Pickity Place (I haven't been in years), as a little celebration for her and for my birthday. The dinner was amazing, and I was able to take a few pictures of flowers too (my favorite!).

I think that's a grody spider crawling out of this flower. I didn't notice when I was taking the picture, because I definitely would have moved to a different plant. Now when I look at this picture it creeps me out, even though it came out pretty nice.

As usual, I think to myself that I will put these through Photoshop and try to use my limited skills (or maybe the help of a tutorial) and make them look a bit nicer, but I rarely get around to doing that, so we'll see.

Eventually, I want to get like a little flower encyclopedia so that when I post pictures, I can actually tell people what flowers I've photographed.

Happy Mother's Day! <3

April Book Stats

2011-05-04T14:59:00.002-04:00

I'm back! We finally have internet in the apartment. No pictures to show yet...everything is still a mess. Hopefully I'll have some soon. And later tonight (or at least sometime this week) I'll have my daily photos posted on my deviantart. Boy did I miss having regular internet access!

APRIL 2011

1. Abhorsen by Garth Nix

Quote: “…it is better to do something than nothing, even if the cost is great.”

Read in: 4 days

Pages: 518

2. Across the Wall by Garth Nix

Quotes: “But his heart is elsewhere, and it is no possible to achieve greatness without a whole heart.”

“…and now everybody expects change. Change, change, change, without thinking what it’ll cost in things that can’t be replaced.”

“…life has moments of laughter and comedy even amid darkness and despair.”

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 415

3. 1984 by George Orwell

Quote: “If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love.”

Read in: 4 days

Pages: 326

4. Spirited by Nancy Holder

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 255

5. The Night Dance by Suzanne Weyn

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 193

6. The Commoner by John B. Schwartz

Quotes: “One doesn’t stop wanting certain things simply because they’ve been taken away; one simply wants them more.”

“I have never known a goodbye that was as it should be.”

Read in: 4 days

Pages: 351

7. The Storyteller’s Daughter by Cameron Dokey

Quotes: “A story is alive, as you and I are.”

“But worse than failing is not to try at all. For then there can be no hope of success.”

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 218

8. Beauty Sleep by Cameron Dokey

Quote: “For true love always knows its own measure. And it is the measure of two hears, combined.”

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 186

9. The Harp of the Grey Rose by Charles de Lint

Read in: 4 days

Pages: 277

10. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

Read in: 3 days

Pages: 351

11. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Read in: 3 days

Pages: 218

12. The Princess and the Hound by Mette Ivie Harrison

Quote: “All living things have an obligation to live as best they can, no matter what pain comes to them.”

Read in: 4 days

Pages: 410

13. Kept by Y. Euny Hong

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 270

14. The Ash Spear by G.R. Grove (I actually started reading this ages ago, and forgot about it. So the page count is just how many pages I had left.)

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 136

Total Books Completed: 14

Total Pages Read: 4,124

Average Pages Per Day: 137

Average Days To Read A Book: 2.8

Moving!

2011-04-26T23:25:00.000-04:00

So, as everyone knows, packing is a pain in the ass. I decided to take some pictures of my progress. I suppose I should have taken a few shots of my room before, but it's pretty easy to picture--it was full of stuff! Pictures and books everywhere, some artwork, video game systems, etc.

So, I started by taking down some knick-knacks and pictures and clearing my bookcase.

Next step, pack more books! (500 books is a lot to pack!) I packed up most of my desk stuff too. And then piled boxes in front of my closet. Floor space is very limited now. I'm always hopping over boxes, or walking into them (especially in the middle of the night).

Today, I packed the last of my books! *sniffle* It's crazy. Thanks to the brilliant Sarah, I made a little list of every book that's in each box, so that I know what's what, for organizational purposes. If it turns out my monstro bookcase will fit in the new place, I'm going to alphabatize all my (and Timmy's) books! It will be AWESOME. Also I took down my fake flowers and vases and packed those away, as well as all video games except my Wii (I do yoga in the mornings with it).

Really all I have left now is clothes, some desk stuff, and a few bathroom things. No one really cares, but I'll take more pictures on moving day.

I will definitely take pictures of the new place though, I know everyone wants to see that!!!

Illustration Friday - "Journey"

2011-04-21T00:19:00.000-04:00

My entry for IF's "Journey"!

Epic kareoke moment.

Yeah, it's just a rough sketch at this point, but I wanted to post something anyway.

With getting ready for the move (and watching mass amounts of I Love Lucy) I haven't had much time for design. But I have CS5 now, so I'm hoping to make this into a digital illustration sometime (soon, hopefully) after the move.

Photos (so many!)

2011-04-19T00:02:00.000-04:00

Everything is crazy right now, and I'm trying to pack up everything that I'm not using right now. As I was packing away knick knacks, I decided to photograph my little friend the book wyrm. ;D

He's so handsome.

I also found my old Legos...the few surviving sets. After fire at dad's house, most of my sets got wrecked when he threw them all in a box to be washed. I never did wash any--I only saved a few sets that I could put back together. For a while they were on my bookshelf, but then I needed the space for books. I boxed them and put them in my closet, but now I need the box, and I know that I won't put my Legos out again, or even dust them off. I was sad to get rid of the old relics, but I took a few pictures (no, I didn't bother to dust them for that either).

The Indiana Jones-type adventurer and a wise old samurai.

A ninja warrior and my favorite Lego man of all--the motorcyle rider! When I was younger, he had a whole garage, and some old hot rods too. I don't know what happened to all that stuff, but he managed to survive the years.

King Tut perhaps? And Professor Lupin. He's pretty rad.

Snape, dressed as Neville's grandmother...random, I know. His face glows in the dark! Lupin again, up in his study. The staircase revolves away and turns into a wall.

This is the other part of Lupin's study. Neville is practicing his spells on a fake Snape...the little wall that Snape is on revolves and the other side to become a closet.

I went to Sarah's tonight, and on the way over, I saw this really cool little cemetary, with graves from the 1800s. There's probably only 25 graves or so--it was a neat little place. The sky was pretty grey today, so the lighting wasn't too great. Eventually I might edit some of these, try to make them look a little more dramatic.

I really loved the detail of this willow tree. Several of the headstones in this row had that same detail on top. I didn't notice if they were from the same family though >_<

Sarah's cat (well, one of many), Mittens. Adorable! There is a definite cat deficit in my life, and I hope to fix it someday.

Ordway Card

2011-04-14T14:43:00.002-04:00

My most recent project at Add-A-Sign (done for Rogers Printing of course), which I did last week. I designed the card, as well as the logo (though he decided he didn't want the chimney on the final version, I decided to post this one because I prefer it).

After The Beast

2011-04-12T22:13:00.000-04:00

Just a little something I've been working on lately. I got the idea probably last year. Took some notes, didn't work on it, of course, but it's been buzzing around my head the past couple months. So I took some more notes, and wrote a scene. I'm still not clear on the timeline, but...well here's what I've got. (Well, I have quite a bit more of this, but this is what I've written up and decided is a presentable enough draft for you few who read this blog.)

I clearly remember the night he finally chose to reveal his past to me, to tell me of his curse, of who he once was.

We were sitting by the library fireplace, he in his favorite wing-back chair, I on a cushion at his feet. In the beginning he would make me sit there, to look up at him as my master. Over time he ceased to order me to the cushion, but I continued to sit there out of habit, though I no longer felt like his pet.

“You know I was a prince,” he began when we were settled. “The rumors that still circulate in your town and this castle attest to that. My family name has long been lost to me though; I was stricken from the books by this curse, pushed away, forgotten. It seems I have become sort of a fairy tale, and not even my ancestors will come to see what is left of their property. No doubt there is some rotting, dusty tome that bears my name on record, but to those who know of my existence here—or believe it to be just a tale—I am known as The Beast. You grew up listening to the horror stories about me, did you not?”

I nodded.

“But once, long ago, longer than I really care to admit, I was a man with a name. I was a prince of the royal family. Yes, those who reside in the capital now are probably my great-great-grand nieces and nephews. Centuries ago, I was Prince Stefan, younger son, while my brother was heir to the throne.”

He turned towards the flames, a distant look in his eyes. He was quiet for a moment and it seemed he was trying to remember his story.

“This castle was built, and this land given to me, though I forget exactly when. Mostly it was to get me out of my father’s hair. He was training my brother to be king, and I was really only good for a political match. I was young, too young really, to be left on my own. But I was spoiled, and my mother made sure I got whatever I desired, so I was given this castle.” Absentmindedly he waved a paw towards the roof.

“I did as I pleased. As you know, your town is a quiet one, and it was such when I was young as well. I gave the people no cause to love me—I would not involve myself in town politics, nor would I visit, or hand out favors. What good was such a small place, devoid of culture and society?” He looked at me apologetically, as though I cared about the people who so easily abandoned me when my father gave me away to a monster. “I spent most of my time in the city, or throwing lavish parties here for all my young, arrogant friends. I was not taught to respect the people of this land. I was cruel to my servants and all who displeased me. I cared only about myself.

“Eventually the time came for me to be married. As brother to the would-be king, there were many lords willing to give me their daughter in exchange for the political benefits they would reap. My parents presented me with a group of suitable ladies, and told me I could have my pick.”

Hello library!

2011-04-06T14:23:00.000-04:00

So I've come to the Leominster library for a few hours today to do some writing. This counts as writing of course, but I meant to work on a story or two. I do plan to do that, but first I feel like I have a bunch of random thoughts knocking about in my head, and I just need to empty them somewhere.

I love the library. I love the atmosphere. It's so quiet! (Duh) Even when I am home alone, my house doesn't feel this quiet. There are always disctractions available...the tv, music, video games, anything that can be turned on in an instant to produce noise and fill my head with images and crazyness. But here...I can almost feel the quiet. The sounds here are soft, unobtrusive--a whisper here and there, from a study group maybe, a quiet cough, the hum of the fans or heater, the whisper of pages being turned, or the light clicking of a keyboard (I love the sound of keyboards. Particularly my little netbook here. It's fun.)

I've definitely neglected the new library too. I can hardly remember the old one. But I love the feel of this new one (though it's not quite as charming as the old section of the Bolton library, which I would like to visit more often), with the big open rooms and the high celings and large windows that let in lots of warm sunlight. I am curled up in an oversized chair, my shoes lying empty on the floor, my things piled on the table next to me. There are a few other people around, reading, listening to music, and one man is stretching in the sunlight like a cat. Of course, being filled with newer books, this library lacks the pleasantly dusty smell of old tomes, but it does have a strange sort of papery smell here. Someday maybe I'll own enough books to produce that effect--my own library has grown amazingly in the past few years, and as Sarah said, my books seem to be breeding.

Here, there are no distractions for me--excepting of course all the books I haven't read and would love to take home with me (permanently), but for now I can ignore those--and I get an almost medatative feeling. I came here to take my minderms (or maybe it was my finals?) last semester for my online classes. It was then I realized how littled I'd frequented this place over the years, and I decided that I would like to get here at least once a week. As with many of the goals I make for myself, that hasn't happened. But here I am now, and I'm going to try harder to make it here at least once a week. It's nice to be somewhere different. Somewhere I can clear my head and focus my thoughts (or perhaps not, I could easily let them drift), forget the stresses and stupidities that I have to deal with outside the building. There are no colorful video games waiting to distract me, no favorite movies to pop in, no little brother, too cute to ignore.

So I'm saying it here, where I have made all my goals for this year (and I am still struggling with them, but determined not to give up), that I am going to come here once a week to work on my writing. Hopefully I will continue to work on my writing outside of the library (I wrote for about an hour the other day actually), but at least I can make some time to come to a place I enjoy and work on something. I will just have to try very hard not to take out books every time I'm here. It's too easy to wander among the shelves and pick out handfuls of books I've been meaning to read.

Ah, my head feels much better now. More room in my brain to play. :]

Effay's Cupcakes

2011-04-01T14:28:00.000-04:00

This was the logo I created for a former classmate....my first freelance/paid project! It was a quick little project, but nice to do some work that I could get paid for.

Cupcakes are really hard to draw. Maybe if I had a tablet it would have been easier, but not by much.

March Book Madness!

2011-04-01T00:12:00.000-04:00

This month I did really great! I'm pleased with how much reading I've been doing. Of course, it doesn't put a dent in my pile, because I get new books all the time. But it's great to at least be reading a lot. I'm not working on any of my other goals however, (writing, exercise, art, being more positive about life) so something needs to change this next month. Let's see what I can do...

1. Chainfire by Terry Goodkind

Read in: 12 days

Pages: 748

2. Indigara by Tanith Lee

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 195

3. The Reigate Puzzle by Arthur Doyle

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 17

4. The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

Read in: 3 days

Pages: 381

5. Phantom by Terry Goodkind

Quote: “People who for whatever reason don’t want to see the truth can by acutely hostile to it and shrill in their denunciation of it. They frequently turn their venomous antagonism on whoever dates point out the truth.”

Read in: 4 days

Pages: 673

6. The Second Duchess by Elizabeth Loupas (won from LibraryThing’s monthly give-away) (Really loved this book! It’s based on the poem My Last Duchess, which I really love.)

Quote: “She probably doesn’t use the privy, either, but just wafts her merda up to heaven in clouds of perfume.´(This made me laugh a lot)

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 369

7. Mythology by Edith Hamilton (a little anthology of stories about the Greeks and Romans. I was trying to get my facts right after finishing the Percy Jackson series. It was a bit dry though, slow to get through.)

Quotes: “Love and the Soul…had sought and, after sore trials, found each other; and that union would never be broken.”

“Love, however, cannot be forbidden.”

“Remember too that you are young; life is all before you.”

“The mind knows only

What lies near the heart” (part of a poem)

Read in: 6 days

Pages: 336

8. The Crooked Man by Arthur Doyle

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 15

9. Confessor by Terry Goodkind (finally finished the Sword of Truth series! So epic and really great, though the ending wasn’t quite as good as I’d hoped)

Quote: “Your life is yours alone. Rise up and live it.”

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 603

10. Ecstasia by Francesca Lia Block

Quotes: “The happier you are, the less you need.”

“If I were a wish

I’d grant myself to you” (part of a song)

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 196

11. Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen (I like Pride & Prejudice a lot more)

Read in: 5 days

Pages: 562

12. Deeply, Gravely, Quite Anxiously Concerned by Peter Medeiros (I know the author!!!)

Read in: 2 days

Pages: 54

13. Mother West Wind’s Neighbors by Thornton W. Burgess

Quote: “Sammy Jay is mighty fine to look at, but fine clothes never yet made a gentleman.”

Read in: 1 day

Pages: 223

14. The Borgia Bride by Jeanne Kalogridis (this book was AWESOME. Can’t wait to read more of her stuff.)

Read in: 5 days

Pages: 509

15. Sabriel by Garth Nix

Quote: “Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?”

Read in: 3 days

Pages: 491

16. Lirael by Garth Nix

Quote: “it is the nature of Death to take, but the nature of Life to give.”

Read in: 3 days

Pages: 705

Total Books Completed: 16!!!

Total Pages Read: 6,077

Average Pages Per Day: 196

Average Days To Read A Book: 3.4

March...

2011-03-30T21:16:00.002-04:00

So I know March isn't technically finished yet, but here are the thumbnails for the pictures I took this month. Since they're all over on my devart, I really don't feel like reposting them here. You can check out the larger version there.

Internship is still slow, as well as the job hunt.

I am working on a logo for an old school mate though. My first freelance project! Nothing major, but it's nice to do something that I'll get paid a little for.

Cultivate

2011-03-24T14:23:00.000-04:00

My entry for this week's word on Illustration Friday - Cultivate

I was inspired by my tattoo.

I'm not 100% happy with the vine that I made, and I plan to rework it (hopefully sooner rather than later), but I wanted to get this up in time, so it's done for now.

Internship Works

2011-03-21T15:18:00.000-04:00

Folder and tiered inserts for Geosearch. This project is like my pride and joy of my internship (next to that display board) and I can't wait until it's actually printed. I gave Dave the finals today and he already has the folders printed. I'll definitely take a few pictures when it's done. But I had this whole project to myself, and I actually met with thsi customer to discuss changes. The pages inside will be stacked so that you see the headings for each one. The inside of the folder will have the globes on the pockets and a space to put a business card too.

Few logos I did for someone who is making a sign. They just wanted type, so that made it kind of easy. No word yet on if the customer likes any of my ideas. Tim also may have only shown him a few of mine and several of his own too.

Logos for a band. I wasn't quite sure what to do, because the customer seemed to want to keep a heavily British feel, so I did the cliche images like the underground sign and the flag. I do like the one with the flag in the splatter shape though. The rest of them I'm not really satisfied with. The flag has some potential I think, but without some input from the customer, I don't have much of an idea how to improve upon it.

More Desktops (this is fun!)

2011-03-15T15:55:00.000-04:00

So far none of my backgrounds have appeared on Simple Desktops yet, but I'm sure they get a zillion submissions and it does say that it may take awhile for them to put up something they've accpted. (And of course they just might not have accepted any of mine, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop submitting!)

I decided to keep making more because it's fun. ^__^ Back in high school I used to make backgrounds in Photoshop with all the cool brushes we downloaded.

Chibi Sailor Moon ^__^

Marvin the Martain!

A little toxic sign with my Skully.

Stick Stickly! Anyone remember him? He used to host Nickelodeon in the summer when I was younger.

Chibi Wolverine

Chibi Wolverine again

I don't have much to show on the internship front right now...I'm not really doing much. Oh, except one project I was doing for Dave is finished, so I'll post that tomorrow. And maybe some logos I did last week, though I don't really like them.

Not much on the writing front either, though I've decided I'm going to start going to the library a few times a week to get some writing done. My house just has too many distractions. It's easy to just walk away instead of trying to write. (P.s. feel free to comment on those sentences I posted!)

As for the rest of life, I've started apartment hunting now, so that's added more to think about, and I'm also trying to find a job/figure out what I acutally want to do for a career. Lots going on in my head!

Sentences!

2011-03-10T20:00:00.000-05:00

So I've been working on a little contest entry for Writer's Digest. Since I've been getting the magazine I've been reading their little prompt contests and thinking about entering one, and now I've finally decided to work on one!

Write an opening sentence to a story, no more than 25 words,

using the words ‘calamity’, ‘lucky’ and ‘charm’.

So that's what I've had to do. I'm finally tired of coming up with sentences, and I'm curious to know what y'all think. I've bolded the ones I like best. If you have any changes to suggest to some of the sentences, I'm open to those too. It's not much, but it's a start. Any little thing to get me writing. (I need to get back to the page and a half of a story that I started a few weeks back too.)

Don’t we all love those stories where the main character gets lucky and avoids the calamities that befall him with his wit and charm?

We love those stories where the lucky main character triumphs over calamity thanks to his charm and wit, but mine isn’t one of those tales.

Some girls get lucky—they get all the charm, looks, and wit—but me, I get the calamity and the heartbreak.

Some girls are born lucky—they get all the charm, looks, and wit—but me, I attract calamity and heartbreak.

She got lucky, he had charm, and I courted calamity—together we managed to save the world.

She got lucky, he had charm, and I courted calamity—somehow we managed to save the world.

I’m not lucky, I’ve got no charm or wit, I’m not particularly smart either—all that changed the day I met Calamity Jane.

Some women use their charm or looks to get ahead in life, and some get lucky, but I used calamity to earn my fortune.

I’m not lucky, I have no charm, and I can’t avoid calamity, but the day I became prom queen everything changed.

I’m not lucky, I have no charm, and I can’t avoid calamity—imagine my surprise when I found out I was a superhero.

My sister Kathy can’t exist without calamity—lucky for her she has enough charm to make up for it.

Calamity courted me like a suitor—lucky for me I had the charm to make up for it.

Calamity Jane—despite her name—could charm the skin off a snake; lucky I’m no snake.

Lucky for me I had the charm to make up for the calamity I caused the day I met Ellanore.

Random

2011-03-07T13:57:00.000-05:00

Some doodles that I did at work. I'm going to trace some of these eventually. Actually, the lollipop word art that I posted last time was from this little doodle.

A sample of how I function:

Yes, this is my actual to-do list. I have since created a new one that's less cluttered. But generally this is what the lists I make end up looking like. ;D

Also, this is how I edit stuff:

I was working on a cover letter. Just making a few changes... :ppp

February Books

2011-03-03T09:40:00.000-05:00

1.The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint

Quotes: "It’s weird how certain words are really just book words and hardly ever get used in regular conversations.”

“The world’s not much of a story if you don’t know who the characters are.”

“…whatever we create, whether it’s a work of art or a child, they go on to live their own lives, to make their own connections to all the things we can’t influence, or sometimes even warn them about. All we can do is stand back and watch and hope we did a good enough job with what we made.”

Read in: 4 days

Pages: 368

2.Naked Empire by Terry Goodkind

Read in: 6 days

Pages: 725

3.True Grit by Charles Portis

Read in: 4 days

Pages: 224

4.Minding Ben by Victoria Brown (won from LibraryThing’s monthly give-away)

Read in: 5 days

Pages: 334

5.Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

Read in: 5 days

Pages: 309

Total Books Completed: 5 :[

Total Pages Read: 1,960

Average Pages Per Day: 70

Average Days To Read A Book: 4.8

Unfortunately I didn't read nearly as many books as I'd hoped. Target has sucked up all my spare time, and since I'm so tired, when I do lay down to read before bed, I usually only get through a few pages before I start to fall asleep.

Vector Art & Internship Assignments

2011-03-02T21:21:00.001-05:00

A few desktops I made for the site Simple Desktops. I don't know for sure if the site will accept them, but it would be super cool if they did. That's a great site though. I plan on making more desktops soon too.

(Note: if you click on these pictures it will bring up the full size image and you can save it and use it as a desktop ^___^)

Soph's birthday is tomorrow so I made her a little card (and I got her a couple shirts and some leggings).

I went back through my stationery and I edited some and made a ton of 5x7 layouts. Hopefully some day I can have them printed! And of course all these designs can easily be translated to other paper sizes.

Some logos I worked on for a customer. The one in the top left is a re-creation of the logo that the customer came up with, but the rest are my ideas. I like the ones in the middle/right with the L and E morphed into one with the line separating them. Though I realize that the separation might not be obvious to some people and it may just look like an E. Not sure what the customer will want to go with.

Another business card I designed for a customer (that was printed ^_^). I didn't make the MACC logo though, Mike did that.

These are logos I re-created for a project for Geosearch (I'll post the whole project when it's done...it's a folder and some inserts all about their company). They didn't have good files to work with, just the low-res stuff from their website. So I remade these in Illustrator, and I have to say they came out good! They weren't exactly hard, but it's still something to practice.

Ta-da! This is a project I've been working on for several weeks now. It's a display board for all the different types of materials that signs can be mounted on. Tim had me design a layout based on the theme that the last intern designed (so the picture collage at the top wasn't really my idea). This took a while because Tim had to decide how many samples of some of the materials and if he wanted a description of them or not. Eventually he decided on descriptions and this is the layout I came out with. The other day it was printed and mounted and I attached all the materials with velcro. Now it hangs next to Tim's desk so he can show customers what he's talking about. I'm pretty proud...it's the first thing for Add-A-Sign that I've really made myself and now it's hanging in his business!

Remainder of February Macros

2011-03-02T21:06:00.000-05:00

February Macro Shots

2011-02-16T00:05:00.000-05:00

So Much Stuff!

2011-02-15T16:34:00.000-05:00

So it's been a while since I last updated and I have a few things from work to show, plus Valentines Stuff. Later I'll also update with the pictures that I've been taking this month and my personal logo that I've been working on.

A business card I designed for one of Dave's customers...they liked it just the way it was, no changes! I was pretty excited too, because they had a really busy looking logo and I didn't feel that it would look right on the card, so I left it out--but I thought maybe they would want the logo and the pictures on top of the information. I think this gives it a much cleaner look though and I'm glad they liked it. Dave gave me a couple of the cards (along with the ET Duval ones) to keep.

WorkTim is working on some sort of program that is going to donate to charities, though I don't really know any of the details. But it's called The Window of Hope Program (as you can see) and he had me draw up some logo ideas for it. Personally the bottom one is my favorite. I liked the simplicty of the H and the blue creating a window effect.

This is the logo Tim went with. I like this one too...it's simple and more direct, but I tend to be more of a fan of typographic logos.

Some Valentines I designed for my sisters.

I printed them out on cardstock and cut them out so that they're little pocket folders. Then I used foam tape to apply the little heart details so that they'd pop off the page some. I'm pretty happy with how the came out. I think if I ever get the time I'd like to try a smaller scale version, maybe like a 5x7. I think it would look nicer.

This is one that I actually designed for WorkTim to give to his daughter. I left the white box so he could write in what he wanted to say, but this works as a generic valentine for anyone.

This is the card that started it all! It's Timmy's. Once I had the design for this (WorkTim said I should work for Hallmark or something), you can see that I based my other designs off this one. I just really liked the layout I came up with. I could scale all four designs down and make them a bit more generic to be a little four pack of valentines pockets or even just digital files with spaces to type in.

WorkTim let me print the card at work, so it's like 11x17 sized and I attached a little envelope in the corner (super awesome little stationery that I bought at Target) and wrote my note to him in there.

These are the GORGEOUS flowers that Tim gave me! I love them so much! And they smell amazing. I wish my room could always smell like fresh flowers. I'm going to be very sad when these die. :[

This is just a little Valentines doodle that I made up to put on facebook because I just didn't have the time to make cards for everyone that I wanted.

And then I was just goofing around coming up with more little logos for my initials. I like the top right and the middle left the best. Any thoughts?

Final Macro Pictures for January

2011-01-31T21:25:00.000-05:00

Jan. 28th & 29th

Jan. 30th & 31st

Just a little collage of all the pictures (in no particular order)

I'm really enjoying this project! I can't wait for the nicer weather so that I can get back outside to take more pictures. But it's also interesting to find the little details of my every day life and make them noticed like this. It's amazing how interesting I've become in the small little things and patterns in my room.

Full Bookworm Update

2011-01-31T21:20:00.000-05:00

I believe I mentioned that starting this year I was going to keep a log of how many books I've read, along with the page count. Well I also decided to keep track of the start and finish dates for each book, as well as writing down any quotes I really liked. So for those of you who care (me), here is a hardcore list of what I read this month, how many pages, etc. ^______^ And I have reviewed some of these books, and those can be found through my LibraryThing profile. ;]

1. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (HE PREDICTED THE FUTURRRRRREEEE!)
Quotes: "In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger-choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book."
"The library is our brain. Without the library, you have no civilization."
These are both from the interview with him in the back. ^__^
Read in: 3 days **Not necessarily full days**
Pages: 190

2. Selene of Alexandria by Faith Justice (I won this in a giveaway off her blog)
Read in: 4 days
Pages: 335

3. Soul of the Fire by Terry Goodkind (one of Timmy's favourite series that I'm finially finishing up...I read the first four books like late '09-early '10 and now I'm back into it. There's like 14 books or some crazy shit. ;D)
Quote: "At that age they had no clue how much they didn't know."
Read in: 4 days
Pages: 788

4. Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin (apparently this is up there with The Color Purple as far as that type of classic...but I'm not sure I'd rank it as a classic. This book left me with no feelings either way...I didn't like or dislike it.)
Quote: "Men are like children when things go wrong."
Read in: 3 days
Pages: 345

5. The "Gloria Scott" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (short story)
Read in: 1 day
Pages: 17

6. The Musgraev Ritual by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (short story)
Read in: 1 day
Pages: 16

7. Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind
Quote: "Some people looked forward to age as an excuse to be a frump, as if all along their greatest ambition in life had been to be drab and unattractive." (This made me laugh)
Read in: 5 days
Pages: 785

8. Camille by Tess Oliver (this book was a HUGE letdown, especially since the main character shared my name. She was basically like Bella Swan, but living in the 19th century and "hunting" werewolves)
Read in: 4 days
Pages: 362

9. The Pillars of Creation by Terry Goodkind
Quotes: "The woman had a voice that could unwind a good rope."
"You can't love anyone or anything until you love your own existence, first. Love can only grow out of a respect for your own life. When you love yourself. your own existence, then you love someone who can enhance your existence, share it with you, and make it more pleasureable."
Read in: 8 days (this is where internship really started to slow me down and wear me out)
Pages: 725

[I have also started The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint, but since I don't think I'll finish it later tonight, it won't go into this month's statistics. I could be super ridiculous and add how many pages I've read so far, but it's only 9 and I'm sure I'll do a bit of reading later tonight. So I'm just going to go with completed books per month.]

Total Books Completed: 9
Total Pages Read: 3,583
Average Pages Per Day: 115.5
Average Days To Read A Book: 3.6

Yes, I'm a super dork. ^__^ Normally, I'm not a fan of math, but this kind is fun! Hopefully I can grow (or at least maintain) my numbers each month. I'd like to see if there's a large spike in the summer, etc. Probably I will continue to track this stuff for the rest of my life now. I only wish I'd started earlier!

Question! When you're going to purchase a book, do you read a review first? Like on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or LibraryThing (even if you don't use this site for a library, you'll find WAY more reviews here than on Amazon, etc. so you should check it out anyway!). And if you DO read reviews, what do you look for in them? I want to get better at writing reviews, but sometimes I just don't know what to say about what I thought, or what I'm saying isn't coming out in a way that I feel is helpful.

Pictures

2011-01-30T12:56:00.000-05:00

Just a little initial doodle I did at work when I had some free time. I love that font.

Jan. 18th & 19th

Jan. 20th & 21st

Jan. 22nd & 23rd

Jan. 24th & 25th

Jan. 26th & 27th

ET Duval Again

2011-01-29T23:06:00.001-05:00

Remember the other day when I posted this logo?

Well the customer showed the design to people he knows...and I guess the consensus was that the 'T' doesn't look like a 'T'. Dave and I don't agree, but our job is to create what the customer wants.

Instead they decided to combine elements from a few other logos...and came up with this...

I don't like the combination of the two different fonts, nor do I like the bottom of the 'T' being dragged out.

Which logo do you prefer?

Logos, Banners, and Floor Signs, oh my!

2011-01-27T23:45:00.000-05:00

Here are a few things I've worked on during my internship this far....

Roger's Printing had a customer who wanted a logo redesign so Dave passed it over to me. Basically all the guy wanted was the 'E' and 'T' to be connected/combined somehow. The bottom two are the ones that I liked the best.

The customer ended up choosing this logo, done in green and black. I made up the business card today (really all I did was put the logo in place of their old wording and retype everything else they had. It's pretty standard looking). I didn't get any more changes back from Dave, so either it's all set to print or the customer hasn't approved the most recent proof yet.

Add-A-Sign celebrates it's 20th anniversary this year, so Tim wants to make a banner. So far this is all I've come up with...it's based off a design theme that the previous intern came up with for the signage displays in the shop. I like it, but Tim would like me to present him with a few more ideas (mostly for practice). I really have no other ideas...informational signage like this is really something totally new to me, and I'm having a really hard time coming up with something that doesn't look too simple or doofy. Yes, doofy. Hopefully tomorrow I can think of some other designs. (P.S. this banner is like 10 feet long)

Tim also wants to add a floor sign outside the shop, to get customers' attention and let them know they do more types of signs than what most people generally think of. There is a floor sign in the bathroom, but most customers don't go in there. So far this is what I've come up with. It's nothing final yet, and I kinda forgot about it since there's no real rush. I think what's bothering me is the color of the word advertising. But aside from black, there isn't too much that stands out and looks good.

So far things have been sort of up and down. Sometimes I get handed little projects for the shop and other times I just spend 8 hours talking to the guys and watching them make stuff when I follow them out into the shop. Today I did get to cut some vinyl stickers though...nothing special, just using a ruler and an exacto knife. Hopefully things will pick up soon, because 8 hours seems like 32 where there's not much to do but sit around and be cold. I have a feeling this is going to be where I find out if design is really what I'm interested in doing full-time. I don't know...I'm tired and I don't feel like commenting anymore on the topic.

P.S. My Target orientation was postponed from yesterday to next Thursday.

I'm an intern now!

2011-01-19T20:18:00.001-05:00

So I started my internship today. It was a long day. It's been a while since I last had an 8 hour work day...and last time I did, I was paid. However, it wasn't very difficult today. It's a pretty laid back atmosphere, but it's clear that the guys (Tim-Owner, Mike-Head Designer, and Doug-...sign...maker...guy...) know what they're doing. It's SUPER FREEZING in the building though, so I need to wear more layers tomorrow.

Today I basically sat around a lot, listening to and joking with the guys. We shared some work stories. I did get to work on a logo design though, and hopefully I'll find out tomorrow if the customer likes any of the ideas I came up with. I also did something called "weeding vinyl," which is basically pulling away the excess vinyl around the letters that have been cut into it.

Project time!

Over break I found a neat little wooden drawer (well, I went out looking for it) to make a business card file, like one I'd seen online (except the one online was super expensive and made with sleek, modern glass and black file cards). I wanted somewhere neat to put my business card collection, and a little file seemed great. So I made my own tabs, and the other day I finally finished my project. The tabs aren't as perfect as I'd hoped they'd be, but that's because I'm too cheap to go buy a decent little paper cutter right now (like one of those little slide ones), so I cut everything by hand with scissors. I could have used an exacto and a ruler, but I was too lazy to do that. It's not a big deal though, and the tabs work fine for now. I can always make new ones in the future.

Ta-da! Some of the tabs need a little trimming on the sides...they juuuuust fit in the box. But I like it. It's quirky, and it will hold plenty of business cards.

Photos & Internship

2011-01-17T19:19:00.000-05:00

Here are the rest of my daily pictures so far...I've basically just been putting them up on my deviantart because it's tiring to upload them to two places, plus all the rest of my work that's worth seeing is up there too.

Jan. 7th & 8th

Jan. 9th & 10th

(looking at that sushi makes me want to eat spicy yellowtail [no crunch!] until I explode! *DROOL*)

Jan. 11th & 12th

Jan. 13 & 14th

Jan. 15th & 16th

Jan. 17th

So, internship.

I had a bit of a mishap, and though it's all fixed now, last Thursday I was really upset. Basically I got a call from the man who was going to be my boss and he told me that he was going through a really rough time with his business, and couldn't have me on as an intern anymore. He wasn't sure what was going on with his company, and didn't want to deal with the stress of trying to find me new work. The timing was really shitty though, because of course I was supposed to start in a week (this Wednesday, actually!) I was mad about the timing, but I'm glad that he told me what was going on. Even if he had still taken me on, I wouldn't have wanted to spend an indefinite amount of time making phone calls to try to get new business and then sitting around doing nothing. I'd like my internship to be as educational as possible, and from what he was saying, I don't think I'd have had a good time or really learned anything of value if he could have taken me on.

I emailed the director of internships at my school, and for once FSU came through and didn't let me down, like they usually do. He reccomended a local sign making company called Add-A-Sign that FSU has sent many interns to before. I got right on the phone Friday morning and called the manager, Tim, and he agreed to see me that day. I showed up (I'd been there once before) and he did a quick overview of my portfolio and then showed me around the shop and told me I had the job! I wasn't REALLY worried that I wouldn't get the job, since they take interns all the time, and it's free work. Turns out I sort of know the girl who interned before me (little bit of pressure because I have some fairly big shoes to fill) and it seemed like she had a great time.

I'm lazy and don't feel like typing much more, but you can look at their website (linked above) and check out all the cool stuff they make. I'll get to use a bunch of cool machines (some similar to what I used in high school, and WAY better than what I had at OfficeMax). So I start Wednesday morning at 9 and it will basically be a 9-5, Monday-Friday thing, though they're flexible and if I need a day off now and then, or to come in late, they're ok with that. It's a small business, and it looks like I'll be able to learn a lot and I'm really excited.

So what started out as a fiasco, turned into something that I feel really excited for and I think will work out for the best.

Also, I have an interview at Target on Thursday. I've overspent from my savings, and if I ever want to move out, I need to get that money back, so it's back to the retail grindstone. I'd hoped to avoid going back to retail, but hopefully it will only be for a few months this time.

We'll see what happens. Basically I have no clue what's going to happen over these next couple months (especially after vacation) and though that's a scary thought, it's also very exciting, and I'm keeping up my positive attitude for this year!

Photos

2011-01-06T21:57:00.000-05:00

January 3

January 4

January 5

January 6

These are just a couple of other pictures that I took and liked, but not ones that are part of my photo a day project.

Eventually I want to start playing around in Photoshop more and doing some editing. I always see a ton of great photos on devart with all these effects. I know I could do it too, it's just finding the time and the willpower to teach myself.

Attitude Salon...Again

2011-01-02T18:20:00.000-05:00

I FINALLY figured out how to save my graphics for the web so that they come out more clear, so while I was updating my files on devart, I made this little package to show off my designs all on one page.

Just thought I'd stick it here too.

DeviantArt Updates, Photo Challenge, & Digital doodles!

2011-01-02T17:58:00.000-05:00

So it's a brand-new year and I'm going to focus more on my creative side!
Today I spent some time updating my DeviantArt site with a lot of photography, and I also started a trendy new project, which is to basically take a picture every day. Some people do random photos, Sarah is doing a picture of herself each day, and I'm doing micro shots of...well...whatever I want!

January 1, 2011

January 2, 2011

So I'll be posting those pictures a few at a time.

I also made some digital versions of little sketches that I made last year and turned them into little IDs for my devart.

I think they came out pretty darn cute!

And I have red hair again! Yaaaay!

Food and Christmas Art

2010-12-31T13:23:00.000-05:00

So I made a pumpkin cheesecake before Christmas, and I must say that came out delicious! But boy do cheesecakes do a lot of sitting around >_>

We ate almost half the cake during the first serving. It didn't last very long!

I painted this sweet dino picture for Harris. My first time really painting on a canvas. Didn't come out quite perfect, or quite as a imagined, but I'm happy with it.

Card I made for Jonbot ^__^

Card/envelope I made for Melissa. Found the template for the envelope at http://www.melissaeslplin.com/

And here are a few pictures of the siblings from Christmas ^__^

The box is just as much fun as the dinos that came in it!

I'm a little jealous of that scarf (though I did get two great ones this Christmas).

And that's it for 2010! This year really flew by!

My New Years resolutions are basically the same as they always are, which are to keep at my art, design, and writing, and also work on getting in shape. This year I've also added "rebuild savings" and "stay positive" to my list. I'm trying to keep my goals realistic and hopefully lots of great stuff will happen this year! I know at least one thing: I'm graduating in May! FINALLY!

Happy New Year everyone!!!

Millie Makes Dinner (and a few Christmas themed things)

2010-12-21T12:30:00.000-05:00

So, since I quit OfficeMax, I was saying I was going to cook dinner one night a week. (I meant to, I swear!) But of course school got in the way, and then I just never felt like going to the store to get the ingredients. Well I finally went yesterday, because I'm also going to make a pumpkin cheesecake this week, so I figured I'd get my stuff for my dinner too.
I made an asparagus and chorizo dish that I found on Smitten Kitchen....and I must say, I liked it a lot. I left out the almonds, and didn't make my own croutons because I wasn't feeling that ambitious yet, and I used pink beans.

Granted these aren't gourmet-style photographs...

Boy do I love asparagus! Mum and I agreed that we would add more chorizo if we made this again though, because it seemed to dissapear quickly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wanted to add a teeny bit of Christmas decorations to my room...so I made a few paper snowflakes.

And this is the front of the Christmas card that I made for Papa. I was going for the handmade and crazy color look. Sort of like the famous Warhol picture of Marilyn.

I probably won't post again until after Christmas. I have a few more crafty things to do, and I can't post the pictures until I give them to the people they're going to.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Pictures! (So many!)

2010-12-14T21:00:00.000-05:00

One of my assignments for Goldstein's class was to keep a design journal...well I've always made little scrap books...so I took some pictures of my favorite pages...

I saw this little earth in a magazine and I loved the simplicity...and of course all the blue...so I drew some shapes around it...

Then I outlined them...

I'm thinking that I liked it better before I colored it in. Maybe I should have done all the blobs the dark blue of the outline...but oh well. It still looks neat.

This paper is awesome! It's this great, smooth vellum, and I wanted to write something behind it. Randomly I chose part of a letter from Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth...totally has nothing to do with like...weight or like...looking at yourself. Though I suppose it could be vaguely linked to self image and public perception. I totally wanted to write something meaningful behind it, but I was too lazy to search out the right passage. I do however, have the same paper with the same ad on it, but the guy is smaller. So I still have a chance to be meaningful!

I have so many pictures of lips it's insane. They just look so pretty in magazines...with all the lipstick and the glossy paper...

This picture of Alec is awesome.

Badass/angel

This is my first page...with a nice envelope decorated by Sarah!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harris came in to visit and wanted me to take a picture of us. ^_^

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This past Saturday I went to Suzie's and did an intense cookie baking session!

We made:

Lavender sugar cookies (my personal favorite and something I want to make again and again!)

Brown sugar cookies (also delicious...couldn't stop eating the dough) which were also rolled in brown sugar and regular sugar before baking.

Lemon clouds...they're lemon cookies with lemon glaze. SUPER LEMON POWER! These would be a good springtime cookie. Sue also has recipies for orange and lime cookies as well...so I'd like to make those this spring. Have a citrus cookie party.

Cinnamon swirls

Chocolate shells with homemade whipped cream and chocolate curls. Homemade whipped cream is the best. And the chocolate curls make these look so classy!

We also made jam thumbprints, but for some reason I have no pictures of those.

And Sue's cat Guinness for posterity!

Attitude Salon Updated

2010-12-14T17:46:00.000-05:00

A while back I was working on a logo design and stationery package for Etsy.com, but I ended up giving that up, because though I liked my key logo, I didn't like it enough to continue in that direction. Instead I switched to a salon that Mum goes to because their logo was horrible. It was like, a little guy reaching for the stars...which looked more along the lines of a corporate 'you can do it' type logo than a hair salon logo.
I guess I never ended up posting what I finished for that project, which is ok, because I've updated all the pieces, and like these much better....

The business card, front and back. The back is the only thing that I didn't change from the last version, because it was the only part that was strong enough to leave as it was. I kept the same logo that I made as well. Mostly my old designs had curved triangles on the corners of a lot of the pieces, and they weren't really working out that well...so I used a shape that looks more like flowing hair.

Letterhead

Front of the envelope

Back of the envelope. The curve would actually be the flap that you open.

I think my cd label is the weakest...part of that might come from the fact that we haven't really had to design a cd label before, nor have we had any kind of discussion on ways to design them or what information should be on them. I'm also not sure why a local salon would have a DVD to hand out...but whatever, it was part of the project.

So that's everything! I'm done designing for school!!! I have my Advanced final Friday morning (8 a.m. yuck!) and we're pretty much just presenting our final projects (I don't mind showing off my menu, I'm really proud of that). I had my Publication final today, and Goldstein really liked my brochure and really didn't point out any flaws. So I'm feeling good about this semester, and I'm really excited for my internship.

But first I'm excited for break! It will be nice to relax (well sort of...the holidays are always hectic) and hopefully I'll be able to work on more of my own projects, and do some writing as well!

Yamato [Japan]

2010-12-13T21:47:00.000-05:00

So I mentioned before that I would be redesinging the logo, busines card, & takeout menu for Yamato Japan (a hibachi & sushi bar in Leominster). I really wish I'd taken pictures of their menu and stuff because it was REALLY HORRIBLE. But Krasner asked for the menu and card so he could have a before and after of my design (I'll say right now that he LOVES what I did and expects it to be in my portfolio and I'm sure I'll get a 4.0 on it! ^_^). But I do enjoy their sushi, so eventually I'll go back and get a new menu and card, and when I do I'll be sure to post them. They used a million different colors and fonts and everything clashed and was horrible. Their main logo and font are bad enough as it was, so you can probably imagine by looking at those that they don't have good designer on hand.

I started off with the logo. Theirs is this really horrible image...I wanted to keep the temple idea, but make something that had cleaner lines. I took the two characters on the top right (which mean 'temple' in Japanese) and then merged them and edited them until I got what I was looking for. The process goes down the right side, and then to the left...I eventually chose the one in the middle of the bottom row. I did try more traditional temple shapes, but I didn't like those as much.

The front and back of the business card. Their card was black with white type, and then their horrible logo in a white circle (I kept that idea), and they also had yellow and red type, as well as dark blue lines (which of course looks horrible on black). So I used a more simple color pallatte, with a dark (seaweed) green, a neon (wasabi) green, a (rice) grey, and then (salmon) pink and (tuna) red. I think I have a nice theme going. ^_^

This is the takeout menu. You'll want to click on it to see it larger. I had to type out all their text, and that took the bulk of my time. I did a lot of this sort of stuff in high school though, and I enjoy playing the with size and spacing in the type to get all the words to fit. I changed their layouts only a little, and kept the same size of the takeout menu too, which is about 5x16. I like the little 4 inch panels...I thought it was a neat little compact menu.

This is definitely the project that I worked hardest on this semester (the Miyamoto brochure being a close second) and it's definitely my favorite piece. At first when we were told to pick our final projects, I was lost without direction. I wasn't sure how much work we were supposed to do, and normally I don't function well without instruction. But I had their crappy old menu by my computer as something that I wanted to redesign anyway...and I really enjoyed the chance to do this. It was nice to finish out the semester with a renewed sense of accomplishment and inspiration.

Finals [Countdown]

2010-12-13T19:15:00.000-05:00

So I'm almost done with the semester, and there's just a few more projects left to finish up! I'm so ready for a break...

This wasn't a final, I just made a few small changes based on suggestions from Mum and I have to say, I like this softer background much better. This is the only piece for Illustration that I'm proud of, though it's by no means a portfolio piece. The rest of them aren't portfolio worthy either. I'm not even going to post the final project I did there...which was a magazine spread for Nokota horses...the illustrations I did for it weren't very good and the layout is really bland. It's definitely not senior level work. I just got too burnt out to put much effort into it, and I didn't have any inspiration for it either.

For Publication we redesigned the membership brochure for the deCordova....this is the front panel

And the back (the dots carry over from the front when you view the two panels together...

These are the inside two panels. They open right down the middle, so there is half of the monkey picture on each side.

Then this is the inside. A lot of information, but I liked how I handled it.

The original brochure is really muted...they have an outdoor sculpture park so they used "earth tones", but really it was like a weird dark red, and a puke green. Those contrast horribly, and it left the whole brochure feeling really dull. They also had large panels of just pictures, which seemed like a placeholder to me. So I decided to brighten it up a lot and I'm fairly pleased with my design. Not sure if it's portfolio worthy or not though...

I'll have another few things to post later, when I feel like uploading some pictures from my camera.

[Sisterly] Affection

2010-12-09T00:12:00.000-05:00

Cute little note from Cass that I wanted to share.

Mini [Sketchbook]

2010-12-07T19:40:00.000-05:00

A while back I picked up a few little mini sketchbooks (with graph paper...yay!) to keep with me in my purse in the event that I didn't have a book and was looking for something to do. I just figured I'd post some scans of what I'd been putting in it. ^_^

This is the first page. I was just trying out new ways to put my name in it.

Experimenting with little logo sketches and then I did some writing, because I did actually forget to bring a book to read. I was sitting in my car before class and staring at the stone wall in front of me...

Lately I've been adding more quotes, and experimenting with different handwritten fonts. Eventually I'd like to design a font (adding this to my mile long list of things I'd like to create), though I really have no idea how one does that. I'll have to Google it. :]

Another quote and a goofy little illustration...it looked better in my head...and bigger too. Haha.

More awesome quotes. Maybe I'll work on these in Illustrator too, and see if I can't make them a little more interesting, or find (or draw) some pictures to accompany them.

[Brown's] Iron Bitters

2010-12-02T00:21:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to share this neat little ad I found in the Graphics Lab at school today. It was laying in a corner, and it's cool and old looking, so I took it. ^_^ I'm determined to start a cool old paper collection like I see so many other paper aficionados have. Since I've scanned this, I'll probably use it in my latest notebook design. I test printed my scanned papers at OfficeMax, and most of them came out really great, so this way I can use them in my designs without actually using up the paper!

I made some little envelopes today too. Some out of paper (to go in my notebook) and some out of magazine pages, which are really small, but pretty neat. They're nothing special though, so I don't know if I'll ever take pictures, however if you've got old magazine pages and you want to make little envelopes, there's a tutorial here on Cut Out and Keep. This is the next project I want to try, when I can find some paper I'm willing to use! I hope also to make some pins soon too.

Love Your [Body]

2010-11-30T01:42:00.000-05:00

I found a contest for a poster design for the 2011 Love Your Body Campaign and I actually managed to create an entry before the deadline! (I'm mailing it out tomorrow.) I found this contest like four months ago, but time FLIES and I forgot about it...so I made this the other day. Yes...non-school related work!!!

I thought about the idea of doing a silhouette of a woman or something womanly shaped...but that was done a lot in the past and seemed cliche. And I'm fond of bold type. Whatever....it was a chance to just do something I wanted. I like how it came out...simple...clear....

Forgot [About] These

2010-11-29T18:53:00.000-05:00

We did a stamp design for the 2012 Olympics...

This was the idea I ended up going with. I wanted to represent a more...random...sport. So I chose Equestrian Jumping (mostly because I love the word equestrian. I think it's quite beautiful!). I decided to take a more...artsy approach, so it's all texturized (with scan from my papers of of course! I think I'd be lost without all my papers. They're a fairly large part of my designs these days) and I'm pretty happy with it, considering I'm not very jazzed about the Olympics.

This one didn't make the cut, but I still like it. London's got the next Olympics, and for some reason their logo is this horrid neon pink thing that's really hard to read...so I wanted to play off that with some bright colors for my horses. I may still fool around with my little silhouette (someday) to see if I can't make an Escher-esque design with it.

That's all for now. I'm finishing up the semester so there's only three projects left! (Then hopefully I can start putting some personal projects and writing in here!) For Publication Design it's a brochure for the deCordova museum. For Illustration it's a magazine spread on the Nakota Horses (this time I actually have to draw horses...ugh). And for Advanced I'm redesigning Yamato Japan's logo, business card, and takeout menu (we chose our own project this time, and I'd actually been meaning to redesign their stuff just for fun and practice...so for once I actually am working on a personal project!)