BSTW 16

1. A wonderful post from Miss Gemma Correll about her love of coffee. Complete with her adorable illustrations.

2. This is freaking hilarious! It's a video of a grown man responding to someone with the actual conversation of a 2 year old. My description might have made it sound weird, but it's really funny.

3. Signfeld, an etsy store, has pretty prints with Seinfeld quotes. So funny :)

4. A student's final project combining illustration and beautiful photography. These are amazing images.

5. 15 year old me screamed when I saw these rings, they're engagement rings that each correspond to one of the Sailors from Sailor Moon. Eeek!

Offline BSTW:

1. My toilet and the ability to flush it as I please. If you're confused by this, please see this.

2. Having several great days in a row

3. My wonderful friends

Have a great weekend!

P.S. I won a blog giveaway from Madalynne and Delezhen! I can't wait to see the beautiful ring I won, I'm so pumped!

Crafty crafty

Chico and I had a very busy morning. I've been wanting to learn to sew for a long time. My mom is a master seamstress and, in the past, she hasn't been very willing or enthusiastic to teach me. Fortunately, that's changed lately. I've been meaning to get over to this awesome fabric store, Intown Quilters (they have the most amazing, cute fabrics), but it's a little far away. So, we headed over to another store with great Yelp reviews, but it was too overwhelming. I couldn't figure out where anything was and since I'm such a newbie, I was intimidated by the lycra and knits. I knew I just wanted cotton and I knew Intown Quilters has what I wanted. Chico and I got back in the car and headed over.

Oh my goodness, you guys. That place is amazing. There are so many wonderful and whimsical and me fabrics, it was hard to choose. I ended up with the flower pattern above (there is some gold in there too). Then, we drove towards home and to the yarn store in our neighborhood. Boyfriend's sister in law is pregnant and I want Little Boy to have a keepsake baby blanket. 

Now, I'm down to craft!

Hello, Charlottesville!

Last year, I found out about my dad's side of the family. I'd never met most of them. I went to a family reunion and learned a ton of stuff about my history. Awesome.

So, my amazing cousin, A, who introduced me to all of this (we met at a funeral and realized we have a ton of stuff in common and she brought me into the fold) organized a wonderful trip up to Charlottesville to visit some Virginia cousins.

After 8 hours of the most chill car ride I've ever been a part of, we reached our family's house. None of us (A, other cousin Al, nor me) have ever been to their house. We visited Mary, Clint, Kyle and M. The live much, much differently than A, Al and me.

By choice, they have no dishwasher and no dryer. They hang clothing on the line and wash all dishes in dish basins by hand. They have only one (ONE) toilet, which they flush only when it needs to be flushed (to save water). They are a little obsessive about recycling and putting things in the compost pile. It was great, if also not my thing. I've considered myself OCD about recycling in the past, but my Virginia family puts me to shame. Shame.

But, the point of the trip was to hang out with family. M and Kyle are amazing. M is like the little sister I've always wanted. She's amazing and thoughtful and beautiful and sweet. And Kyle is also great. I wished we lived closer to each other so we can visit more.

The weekend was a good experience, but I much admit I'm glad to be back to my very own toilet.

BSTW vol. 15

This week was an interesting one. I made some decisions about where I want to live (more on that later) and worked on some freelance work which forced me to learn some CSS (yay!). And now I'm off to visit family for the weekend. But, before I go, here's a Best Stuff This Week!

1. A lovely booklet that explores the different thoughts between designers and clients. While I haven't had many clients yet (a few), I can already relate a bit. I'm sure those of you who are design rockstars will really enjoy looking over this little treasure.

2. Cameron's paper Maltese. He made it for his mom for mothers' day. So sweet.

3. OMG, this cookie box from Thelma's Treats! (via the Dieline). It's a little oven, I love this so much!

4. Have you heard about this? Whimsey Box is like a Birch Box, but it's crafts! Isn't that great? Once I'm employed full time, I'm planning on subscribing.

5. Love this little fox print.

6. HUGE knitted art installations. You need to see all of the pieces, they're amazing. I'm back to knitting after taking a 4 month break and these pictures inspire me.

7. Miga de Pan. A knitter and embroiderer. Her work is insane (in a good way). So inspiring.

Have a lovely Memorial Day weekend!

Magic

On Thursday, I was having a hard time getting motivated. Feeling sorry for myself and stressed out. Even though I had some work to do, I couldn't make myself get off the couch. Randomly, my friend KT called to see if I was available to hang out.

She took me to the zoo. And it was wonderful. The Atlanta Zoo is small and not that amazing, but it makes me nostalgic for my childhood. Not to mention, I just love going to the zoo. Seeing the animals is so exciting. KT was just was excited as I was, which was soooooo nice. It's rare to find people as thrilled as me about most things (I'm an excitable person). We were running around, feeding giraffes, asking the zoo keepers and volunteers questions, it was great.

I'm so blessed to have amazing friends. It's what I've wanted my whole life, and now that I've learned to be a friend and be present in my own life as well as lives of those around me, I am surrounded a group of lovely lady friends and I just can't imagine my life getting any better than it is now (barring the occasional depressed day).

Work on saying I don't know

via

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time saying, "I don't know." I often get talked into circles because instead of saying I don't know, I work on coming up with an answer. And it's not just about not knowing the answers to questions such as, "Who was the Kind of England in 1500" (although I have gotten a little better saying I don't know to questions like this), it's more of the ones about decisions I'm making or what I'm doing. 

I'm very open to suggestions, most of the time. And I feel as if I have to solve or respond or account for the issue right on the spot. This just isn't how life works. I'm allowed to say, "You know, let me get back to you. I'm not sure." Perfectly acceptable. I want to solve all problems, know all things, have all answers and this just isn't realistic. So, I get frustrated and defensive (wonderful and endearing qualities).

Saying I don't know is a work in progress for me. 

My last quarter of school, I had a teacher I didn't particularly care for (his teaching style, as a person he is quite lovely). I felt that he was trying to confuse me and was less than thrilled to be in a class with him for the third quarter in a row. And I talked to him about this, because I really wanted to get something from his class. I like his assignments and his projects, but the way he asks questions confuses me. He told me sometimes the right answer is simply, "I don't know." And I'd never considered that before.  Then he agreed to try to be less confusing and I agreed to acknowledge I'm not sure what he's talking about. Since then, I've been working on this.

So, that's where I am.  

BSTW vol. 14

1. A knitted alien autopsy! How wonderful! aKNITomy's whole shop is full of knitted awesome.

2. I really enjoy this list of inspiration for entrepreneurs.

3. Illustrator Andreas Preis does some wonderful and amazing geometric animal illustrations. Her work is super inspiring.

4. I made this cute card of my friend Abbe for her birthday.

5. Original wooden clutch from etsy seller Tesler Mendelovitch. They're expensive, but so beautiful.

6. DIY's involving wallpaper from how about orange.

7. The cutest little kitten doing cute kitten things. These photos are really amazing. This guy says he's not a photographer, but he need to change careers pronto.

Bored

As I have mentioned several times lately, I graduated a couple of weeks ago. And for the first couple of weeks I was enjoying having the freedom to hang out and lay around and apply to things on my schedule. It was nice to have time to knit and cross stitch and paint without feeling guilty (because any time not spent doing school work over the past two years caused guilt, including sleep). I've been keeping really super busy. I've been LIVING. Seeing people, going to every event every friend is having, karaoke-ing. But, now, it's been two weeks and I'm winding down from this whirlwind of happiness and accomplishment.

Some boredom is starting to set in. Because my days are full of long hours with nothing scheduled. And this can be dangerous for my well being. Well, it was dangerous for my state of mind in the past. When I start to get bored, I lose the will to do things, talk to people and make food. Generally, I get depressed. And while I feel like I'm in a really healthy place mentally, I'm scared that I'm going to fall into those old behaviors if boredom sets in. 

I'm making myself get up pretty early (I'm more of a morning person, if I slept past 10, I'd hate myself), apply to jobs and research things for a few hours. I'm going to start refreshing my knowledge of CSS and HTML. I have a plan, I'm just worried. Maybe if I wasn't worried, that'd be a problem. I don't know. 

So, that is happening. Thanks for reading :)

You're a Butterhands

Last week some classmates and I had the opportunity to a packaging conference to show off out amazing creation from a packaging competition. We placed in the top 10, but unfortunately, we didn't win. Boo. But these amazing pictures happened:

And one of us being normal

We had a lovely time making our awesome butter and we think our idea is revolutionary. Unfortunately, the judges didn't agree. At least we got an amazing project out of it.

Below is our great stop motion video explaining it, set to Jonsi.