This week I developed obsessions with some things since I've had quite a bit of free time on my hands.

This Revlon nail polish is officially my favorite topcoat. It looks real nice on the turquoise, and I imagine it'll look real good on any other color too. I've never really been into sparkly topcoats or any kind of 'confetti' coatings, but this one's a winner.

I was given a leopard pajama set that I can't get over, and I had to photograph it. I've never been one to wear leggings or anything skin tight (I'm about them jeans; I'm always wearing jeans), but these leggings are so comfortable - perfect loungewear, and I never want to take them off.

Wilfred has become a new favorite. I remember when it first came out years ago, but I never gave it a chance. Lately, I've been keeping up to date with Broad City, Girls, It's Always Sunny, and the new show Hindsight - my current tv show lineup. In between new episodes, I've been watching Wilfred and I'm absolutely loving it.

Um, new Blur? I have no words to express my excitement. It's become a known thing that Damon Albarn can't make up his mind. Damon has stated in the past that Blur would never reunite, and then they reunited, and then they recorded a new album, but they said they wouldn't release it, and they would never reunite again, and just the other day they announced a release date for the new album. Great news it's actually happening, and if he follows through with the new Gorillaz album, the next two years will be such an exciting time for music.

Third and final part! This one's my favorite. Wanted to leave it for last.

Since Portland, I've been interested in making a little terrarium (such a Portland thing to do). I felt it related to this project and so I was excited to finally have a chance to make one! I didn't have the best materials though, so I made do and just tried to make it work.

Found a jar, "moss", rocks, hemp, twigs, soil, flowers, and leaves. Aside from that, I made a little stuff heart with red fabric and stuffing.

Took me some time arrange and rearrange until I got it to a point I was happy with. Took materials out, added new ones; it's not easy making a pretty terrarium with items you have just lying around the house.

Photographing it was a little on the challenging side too. I found an area of my house that I felt fit perfect, and experimented with the lighting. Finally got it down to a point where I was satisfied and took photo after photo. I'm most happiest with this final image.

I can't wait till I find some time and perfect materials to make an actual real terrarium. I've seen real pretty ones, and if I was still living in Portland, I would have no problem taking a trip to a terrarium bar to buy the perfect materials to make my own.

Part two. Love is sacred!

Made a sacred heart. After googling images, I decided to keep it pretty simple.

I had an already made stuffed fuzzy heart that I've been trying to find something to do with. So I didn't need to make one.
I found brown string, wrapped it around three times and tied the ends together.
I used toothpicks for the barbed wire bit and painted it with burnt umber acrylic. I've concluded that PVA glue is the best glue ever. I glued the broken toothpicks with PVA.

For the flames, I used thin cardboard and drew out the flames. I painted with red and yellow acrylic. After it dried, I glued two long pins to the back with the majority of the pin off of the bottom of the flames. And after that dried, I stuck the pinned flames into the top of the heart and glued that in.

Sounds like quite a process, but it was actually easy and finished it up pretty fast.

I took so many photos of how I envisioned my final image to look like. My mom and my brother posed for me. I think this one is my favorite. Super simplistic. 'Tis perf.

I'd like to think I'm slowly getting my creative mojo back. I'm really grateful for these classes I'm taking because they're giving me a reason to be creative. (I'm telling you, if I wasn't enrolled, I would be sitting around all day watching tv shows on my computer trying to find the energy to unpack, all while job searching and feeling sorry for myself. Probably would feel the same as I did in Portland.)

Anyway, enough of the sad talk. For my basic graphic design class, with Valentine's day being a couple of days ago, our professor told us to take the shape of a heart and place it in some environment that represents love. It can be drawn, photographed, sculpted, etc. The basic idea has to be "Love is...". This was a three part project. My first part: Love is infinite.

I really wanted to find a way to use an embroidery hoop. Browsing the internet, I came across some embroidery art that inspired me to do a galaxy piece. I found cool embroidery art from this Etsy shop What. No Mints?

I realized they used french stitching but I wanted to use beads. I had recently organized my beads into new containers and I was excited to use them!

I started out by creating a heart with various sizes of beads. Then I just continued building around the heart to make it look galaxy like. I made some areas clustered and others spaced out (pun?). The tricky part was to just be able to make the heart stand out.

I always get confuzzled on how to handle the backing. I cut off the excess and decided to use PVA glue to glue down the excess to the inner hoop. I had my handy dandy clothespins to hold the fabric down as I glued.
(I also get a kick out of seeing the backs of embroidery pieces because it shows the process. It's just so jagged and raw as opposed to the front which is the clean finished product.)

So that's the finished product. Love is infinite.
And my love for galaxies is infinite.

I'll be posting my other two parts within the next two days!

This year was off to a rough start. To be truthful, I'm a little disappointed with how the past five months turned out. I was thrown empty promises which I think was the reason for my defeat, and I think it's getting me down even more these days than it did before. I've had a lot of time on my hands recently, so my mind has really been racing, wondering when things went wrong.
I do believe things happen for a reason though, and I believe that I don't think I was quite done with what I needed to do in my home state before leaving. I'm happy to be back, but things aren't quite back to normal. I'm unfortunately still in a rut, applying to jobs to no end. My night classes have been going smoothly though, and I've actually been enjoying school which I never saw coming.

Two weeks in and I'm still unpacking. My bedroom looks like an explosion, but I've definitely made progress (although I'm sure it's not too believable from the photo). Bought new storage containers to better organize all my fabric and art supplies.

I'm slowly getting back to normal, and I'm working on gaining back my creative mojo which has been absent for so many months. First things first, I need to clear up my things to create a positive, clutter free work space. And then I'm sure I'll be back in the crafty game, posting more, getting myself back to normal. I have a few things new I want to try this year, but I'm working on baby steps as of now.

In the meantime, can I comment on the biggest moment of the Grammys this year? I didn't watch it, but of course I've coming across videos, gifs, and articles concerning the Beck & Kanye moment. Beck deserved that award, being a veteran in the industry. He's a hell of a talented guy and has more "artistry" than most mainstream artists these days.
Kanye, go home, you're drunk.