Archive for December 2012

End Of December Overview

As I'm trying to get back into daily postings, I wanted to post some things I've been working on/interested in during the weeks I was absent from the internet.

First of all, have any of you signed up for the new Myspace? I was lucky enough to get an invite from one of my friends. The revamped social networking site is still in beta testing phase, so to be able to sign up you have to have an invite sent to you. (I have four invites left if anyone is interested.)
It's hard to say what the future will bring for the new Myspace. It definitely has gone back to its original roots - a world that mainly focuses on music, photography, film, and art. They have a huge music library, and they make it easy to listen, make playlists, and 'connect' to all things music and the other people. People have been saying that they're waiting for a new social networking site to come along because they're getting tired of Facebook and how much it has changed. Who knows if Myspace will satisfy their needs, only time will tell. But for now, I'm enjoying it, and so are many others.

Finals week was horrible this semester; it was probably a bad idea to sign up for Myspace in the midst of it all, but I needed a nice distraction. Besides, I got all my work done. Isn't that what matters?

The weekend I signed up for it, I was in the middle of this huge final project for my character development class. I was working with a partner, so the pressure not to let her down was overwhelming. We had to pick a story or song from this list our professor gave us. We chose A Boy Named Sue by Shel Silverstein/Johnny Cash. We really revamped the story, and made our own books with all of our work inside. This was the first book I made using this book binding method.

For my Illustrator computer class, we had to create a brochure with four panels. I created images of pretty well known 80's new wave musicians with fun hair, that is.
I focused on Dale Bozzio of Missing Persons, David Bowie, Robert Smith of The Cure, and Cyndi Lauper.

I tend to use only the pen tool for Illustrator projects, but I wanted to try something different. For this project, I mainly used the brush tool to get cool effects for their hair.

I'm kicking myself for not saving these files anywhere else outside my USB flash drive. It seems to be corrupted and it makes me so sad to lose all of my work. If I ever end up fixing the problem, I'll post up my final images instead of photographs of them. Boo.

I've also rediscovered a song that is the ultimate middle school throwback song for me. I was so obsessed with this song by Blindside when it came out.

DIY // Book Press

I have been so into book binding lately, I'm obsessed. I love looking up Youtube tutorials and picking up new methods; I recently came across this book press DIY tutorial that really opened my eyes as to how easy some methods are.

My brother asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I asked him to make me a book press. It's super cheap and easy, and I think was a wonderful gift.

I tested it out and it works fantastic.

I don't have photos of the process, but I will share the video that gave me the idea in the first place.
Enjoy!

Sea Lemon Youtube channel is amazing, I can't stop watching all the videos!

Secret Santa

Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season!
It's been a crazy month! Between finals, the semester ending, the world not ending, holidays, and the stomach virus, I've found it difficult to find time for a blog post. Now that the craziness has subsided, I should be getting back into regular postings.

This year I participated in two secret Santas with two different groups of friends.
The first exchange was with my classmates. The friend I had likes to take actual photos with film, so I bought her two small photo albums from Michaels and painted the print on top with some stencils I made.

I also bought her a pack of gel pens and gave her one of my homemade books for her to draw in.

That day, my secret Santa got me a really nice sketchbook with a magnetized flap.

With my second group of friends, I made a "travel" book for my friend and filled it with photos from a spontaneous trip we took together. I think this is the best book I've made to date and she loved it, so I'm really excited.
I took picture of the 'making of' along the way.



My secret Santa got me delicious food stuff from New Orleans, being that that's where she's from. She's visiting for a little while and participated in our gift exchange.


I can't wait 'till I fully recover from my stomach virus so I can eat that cake and make those French doughnuts!