Category: Uncategorized

Good Design Day

Posted on Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , 1 Comment

il_570xN.494082389_ckhg
Vintage Mini-Cooper

To try and get back into the “Good Design Day” tradition (for which I am trying to come up with a more clever name…) I’m going to break from my usual self-depreciating habits and spotlight one of my own pieces!

This was an illustration I did for a contest for the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. It was a poster to highlight the MINI for the 2014 Grand Prix. Mine did not win the competition, but it was a finalist. I love the wallpaper effect and have been creating a series of these posters in my head with various objects – and even animals. So to motivate myself to finally get around to doing some more wallpaper style pieces like this, here’s my first!

You can buy a print here!

Lucky ’13.

Posted on Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , Leave a comment

I usually consider the number’s 11 and 7 to be lucky for me.

I don’t have any proof of that, or anything. Besides always making a wish at 11:11, I think I just like them as numbers. I’ve also never been superstitious of the number 13. It had never done anything to me, despite it being commonly considered an unlucky number to be avoided.

The number 11 let me down. In 2011, I had the most difficult life of my year. I couldn’t wait for that year to be over – it started December 31, 2010 when we held an unsuccesful New Years party at our house. It ended with me crawling into bed at 3 am and saying, “This better not be a sign of the year to come.” Nine days later, The Boy and I were in a terrible car accident. And the rest of the year followed, with more injuries, deaths, loss and heartache. It ended on December 31, 2011 when my niece ended up in the hospital with a concussion.

2012 came and went, with its own fair share of difficulties and bumps along the way.

I didn’t give much thought to 2013 when it began. It progressed fairly uneventful until September, when I graduated. And then October, when I got engaged. And then November, when I got a job. It hasn’t been a perfect year, there has been heartache. There always will be. But in the grander scheme of things, ’13 has been fairly lucky for me.

Here’s hoping 2014 continues this positive rise.

To continue the theme, I rang in the year lucky-white-cat style. (Makes sense, right? Black cats = bad luck, white cats = good?)

5646cb78728b11e39b100e842b47932b_8

50 Book Challenge

Posted on Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , 1 Comment

I did it!

With 4 hours and 15 minutes to spare, for the first time since I began it four years ago, I completed the 50 Books in a Year Challenge!

It may seem silly to some, but it feels great to accomplish this goal – I used to read 100+ books growing up, into my late teens, and then life just got in the way I began to read less and less. I started this book challenge a few years back as a way to challenge myself to read more. It not only works the brain but it works the imagination. I’ve fallen way behind in my writing, coming from a girl who used to not sleep because she was too busy writing all sorts of things. Reading stimulates writing and I desperately want to get back into both!

Also, I seemed to be gathering a ridiculous amount of books that I wasn’t actually reading..

So, 50 Books it was. The closest I came before now was 36 books last year. Somehow, I managed to read 50 this year… while also graduating. I’m not entirely sure how that happened, I think it has something to do with my incredible strong will to avoid tasks (a.k.a. homework). I’m also a tad bit impressed with myself that – upon reviewing the list – I realized that nearly 30 of these… were read after September, and the first 20-some were in the first 9 months of the year. Three cheers to being a graduate!

It feels like such a huge accomplishment for me personally that I wish I got something more than this little Goodreads badge and 4 hours until I start the challenge over again for next year.

goodreads

Here’s a complete listing of the books. My only regret being that I wish I had taken time to write reviews for them on this blog. You can see any of my reviews I have written (and my ratings) on my Goodreads:

January 1st, 2013 – December 31st, 2013:

1. House Rules – Jodi Picoult
2. Carnival of Souls – Melissa Marr
3. The Pox Party (The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, #1) – M. T. Anderson
4. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
5. The Sweet Girl – Annabel Lyon
6. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
7. Tell the Wolves I’m Home – Carol Rifka Brunt
8. Seraphina (Seraphina, #1) – Rachel Hartmann
9. Room – Emma Donoghue
10. The Giver (The Giver, #1) – Lois Lowry
11. Stickboy – Shane Koyczan
12. Me Before You – JoJo Moyes
13. Looking For Alaska – John Green
14. Chalice – Robin McKinley
15. Shanghai Girls – Lisa See
16. Sunshine – Robin McKinley
17. The Best Laid Plans – Terry Fallis
18. The Crown of Embers (Fire and Thorns, #2) – Rae Carson
19. The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman
20. Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1) – Laini Taylor
21. Ella Minnow Pea – Mark Dunn
22. Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #2) – Laini Taylor
23. Lips Touch: Three Times – Laini Taylor
24. A Stolen Life – Jaycee Dugard
25. The Kings and Queens of Roam – Daniel Wallace
26. Splitting the Difference: A Heart-Shaped Memoir – Tre Miller Rodriguez
27. The Bitter Kingdom (Fire and Thorns, #3) – Rae Carson
28. If I Stay (If I Stay, #1) – Gayle Forman
29. The Maze Runner (Maze Runner, #1) – James Dashner
30. Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
31. Tale of Sand – Jim Henson
32. The Scorch Trials (Maze Runner, #2) – James Dashner
33. Where She Went (If I Staym, #2) – Gayle Forman
34. The Death Cure (Maze Runner, #3) – James Dashner
35. The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow – Rita Leganski
36. Allegiant (Divergent, #3) – Veronica Roth
37. The Girl You Left Behind – JoJo Moyes
38. A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, #1) – Libba Bray
39. The Walking Dead, Vol. 10: What We Become – Robert Kirkman
40. Just One Day – Gayle Forman
41. Preludes & Nocturnes (Sandman, #1) – Neil Gaiman
42. The Doll’s Hosue (Sandman, #2) – Neil Gaiman
43. The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories (Vol. 1) – HitRecord & Joseph Gordon-Levitt
44. Dream Country (Sandman, #3) – Neil Gaiman
45. Fangirl – Rainbow Rowell
46. The Age of Miracles – Karen Thompson Walker
47. Eleanor & Park – Rainbow Rowell
48. Ghost World – Daniel Clowes
49. The Shadow Cats (Girl of Fire and Thorns, #0.5) – Rae Carson
50. Fable: Theresa – Peter David

The Man Behind The Poster

Posted on Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , Leave a comment

images

I just finished watching the documentary Drew: The Man Behind The Poster.

If you are an artist, or even just a movie lover, and you haven’t seen this yet – I highly recommend it. It’s available for streaming on [American] Netflix. I’ve always loved his artistic talent but now I think I may have a crush on the man himself. Just from one documentary, and all the testaments from people interviewed for the movie, you can tell he’s just the most humble, laid-back, talented genius there is.

And now all I want to do is step away from the computer and pick up a paint brush again. It’s been too long.

Raggedy man, good night.

Posted on Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

“We all change, when you think about it. We are all different people all through our lives
and that’s okay. That’s good. You’ve got to keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day. I swear.
I will always remember when the Doctor was me.”

– The Eleventh Doctor

tumblr_myhati8Vvt1sncvkco1_500

How to be a Mentally Strong Person.

Posted on Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , Leave a comment

As I sit here awake at 1:30 in the morning, unable to sleep despite having to wake up in 5 hours for work, I’m dwelling on a lot of things that have been going on in my life personally. Mostly family stuff.

I did what I’m sure any person awake at 1:30 in the morning and on the computer would do, and I checked into Facebook. A friend had posted an article on Forbes, titled, “Mentally Strong People: The 13 Things They Avoid”. I scrolled past it, not really interested in reading anything in depth, but then changed my mind and went back to it. I’m glad I did.

You can read the whole article here, but I wanted to share the keypoints:

13 Things Mentally Strong People Do Not Do:

  1. Waste time feeling sorry for themselves.
  2. Give away their power.
  3. Shy away from change.
  4. Waste energy on things they can’t control.
  5. Worry about pleasing others.
  6. Fear taking calculated risks.
  7. Dwell on the past.
  8. Make the same mistakes over and over.
  9. Resent other people’s success.
  10. Give up after failure.
  11. Fear alone time.
  12. Feel the world owes them anything.
  13. Expect immediate results.

I am not saying, by any means, that I am these things. The reason I’m sharing this is because I struggle with almost all of these things, but it gave me something to think about in the face of a lot of grief recently over events that are out of my control. Number 4 and 5 in particular. I may need to get these two tattooed on the inside of my wrists, so that I can be reminded of them every day and try to be a mentally stronger person.

Now if only I could be an emotionally stronger person.

 

Tiny Stories.

Posted on Posted in UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

Image

If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend the book The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories by hitRECord and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

If you haven’t heard of it before (which I hadn’t), it’s an open collaborative production company in which anyone can collaborate, via the website, in various forms of artistic mediums: stories, art, music, etc. The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories is a collaboration of – you guessed it – very tiny stories with accompanying illustrations. They’re from all different artists and writers and it makes for a very compelling and inspiring 10 minutes, as that is about the longest it will take you to read it. And that’s with taking time to examine the illustrations.

I’ve always been a fan of short-and-sweet inspiring art forms. OneSentence, PostSecret, A Softer World.

They challenge someone to choose their words carefully, to actually think about the weight of every word they are saying before they express themselves. Tiny Stories has the same sentiment. It’s not only short and sweet, it’s at times melancholy, sometimes humorous, often thought-provoking. Some of the tiny stories make you laugh. Some of them make you sad. But almost all of them make you re-read them, examining each and every word for the hidden meaning – or double meaning – or triple meaning – that you know is there.

All accompanied by tiny, pretty pictures.

Image

ImageAnd my personal favorite:

“If I read our story backwards,
it’s about how I un-broke
your heart, and then we were
happy until one day, you
forgot about me forever.”