After finally reviewing my final grades for the semester, I remember I posted a little bit about my monster box a while ago. It was in the beginning stage at the time, but now that's it's all done, I'll share it with the world!

It was a fun arts and crafts project that we rarely get in our illustration program. Can't really speak for the rest of my classmates, but getting an assignment like this was a relief and a fun break from what we're usually assigned.

The point of the box is to be used for a kind of self promotion while having something inside the box that can be used - all following a certain kind of theme or illustration you make.
Our particular assignment was to choose one of the five senses. I chose taste.

I created a little monster chasing around a guy. He's so hungry that he eats the dude.

Being that the box itself is the monster, the item inside is the monster's tongue. I sewed up the tongue made of stuffed red fabric and added a snap at the end where you can snap it to the inside of the mouth, which keeps the tongue in place. At the end of the tongue I made a little charm of the man.
It's wearable as a bracelet. A tongue bracelet.

The box is small, around 1.5 inches tall and 2.5 inches wide. I used pieces of the box to make the teeth, painted everything in acrylic, colored the illustrations with colored pencil and marker, made the tongue out of fabric, and the charm out of cardboard and acrylic.
I love working with mixed media.

And of course my song of the moment, Princess Chelsea! This song is a good humming song. I'm humming it at the moment.

Holy computer problems, Batman. I can't seem to catch a break here. My desktop is angry at me and doesn't want to work. Luckily I have my handy dandy laptop to save the day.
But I won't let that bring me down.

I'm excited about the things I bought recently. About a week or two ago, my friend and I went on an unplanned adventure into the city. The day turned into a thrift-shopping-whole-lotta-walking day.

We went into this cute little shop that had so much good stuff, but this shirt called my name. It's most definitely a Maria shirt. I couldn't resist; I had to buy it.
It's a little too large for my taste, so I plan on taking it in just a bit to make myself happy and comfortable.

In another shop we discovered, I found these earrings. They're perfect and can be worn for any occasion because of their simplicity. They actually match really well with the new shirt I just bought too!

Last but not least, I've added more nail polish to my collection. I'm lovin' these colors, especially the hazy grey.

And to end the post, here's my song of the moment. Catherine Wheel will always have a place in my heart, no matter what.

My first post of the new year!
I didn't mean to neglect the blog, but my internet has been down for about a week and just got it back today. I didn't let it bring me down, so I took advantage and stayed productive! Saw friends, went shopping, cleaned, and sewed. I feel pretty accomplished.

Anyway, now that I'm back it's time to get down to business. It's Thursday!
Another Danny Elfman drawing. This was a quick sketch for a shirt idea I had. Colored it in and pasted it in my book. Scribbles make up the rest of the page.
Page 02, in my 001. Under The Milky Way art journal.

The past two weeks I've decided to make time to watch television shows that were on my "list of things to watch". I'm all caught up with American Horror Story [I'm hooked] and Portlandia [I'm hooked on that too]. Being that they're both fresh shows, it wasn't hard to watch their first seasons in full. Life has been more entertaining now that those shows have entered my life. I'll definitely be keeping up with Portlandia this season. I accidentally caught the first episode of the new season on Friday! I take that as a sign; it's meant to be.

This is the intro of the pilot, which sums up everything of the show. It is hilarious and the song is SO damn catchy.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, to those who celebrate. To those who don't, I hope you're enjoying the holiday season. I've been so overwhelmed with the holiday this year, it didn't hit me that in a few days, it'll be a new year! This holiday season really snuck up on us, huh.

I also realized that I haven't posted in a while. My creativity juices have been flowing and I've been taking advantage. Been doing things. I'm proud of myself. I'm involved in a few different projects at the moment, but that's how I do. Page 04, in my 001. Under The Milky Way art journal.

Here is the book I made years ago which features all the pages that I've shown so far. Accordion styled book with 6 pages/12 sides. Made the book from cardboard, and old shirt (LOVE the pattern, which is why I decided to fill this book in first), and recycled paper.

On Thursday, I took a wonderful day off from everything and had a relaxing artsy day.

My brother's girlfriend Serina was over, so we had an arts and crafts day (we watched the Eureka marathon on Syfy and Elf). I taught her how to sew; we decorated our oversized sweatshirts. They both came out so good. I plan on buying more sweatshirts and decorating them. I think she plans on doing that too.

Here's mine:

Here's Serina's:

I'm so excited for all the things I have planned for winter break. Three more days of classes and I'm done. So close.

And can I say, I am SO excited for new Silversun Pickups music. I know it'll be a while 'til they release anything, but knowing that they're recording right now makes me so happy. I just heard their b-sides EP they released in November, and I'm in love. It's only an audio, not an actual video, but listen to it. It's amazing. They're amazing.

I've been forgetting to post. Been overwhelmed with school still, but good news is that I'm almost done! Tuesday and Wednesday classes are officially done. Now it's just Monday and Thursday I need to tackle.

As classes are coming to an end, I've been slowly cleaning up my mess in my room and everywhere else I've taken over. Looking at all the things I've made over the years, I became nostalgic. I went through this wrist-cuff making phase in middle school. I could never find any wristbands in stores that fit my wrist, so I made my own.

I always made them out of leather belts or elastic waistbands from old clothing. I studded them, beaded them, and sewn them up. For the studding, I did them by hand; I found a method that worked for me. I usually bought studs from Michaels or A.C. Moore. They may be a little crappy, but they did the job and they look pretty snazzy.

I really should wear these more often. They still fit and they're not falling apart. I don't see why not.

On a side note, I love everything about this song and video. All hail Siouxsie Sioux and her greatness!

Things have been a bit hectic the past couple of days. Finishing final projects, or at least trying to. For some reason it's been a bit hard for me to just sit and paint. I guess my mind has been racing a bit, and I'm really anxious for the semester to end.

I'm currently taking a five minute breather to let a movie finish loading before I continue to paint. Need some kind of entertainment as I work on a project I really don't want to work in. But during this five minute breather, I decided to compile a list of goals I'd like to accomplish during winter break.

01. Finish projects. Over the years, I've always started projects and never finished them. Yep, I'm one of those people. I get ideas and I start them before I forget, but the pile always grows and never shrinks. I always plan this every break from school, but this time I'm really determined.

02. Set up an Etsy account. There are so many things I'd like to sell, and some unfinished projects I'd like to finish and sell. Obviously, I have to sell myself a bit first before selling my products. I need to network and spread the word to make people interested. That should be a whole other goal, but I'll keep that one with the "Etsy" goal.

03. Read. I need to read. I have so many untouched books that I buy but don't read. A year ago I started this routine where after waking up in the morning, I'd lay in bed and try to read at least one chapter, and I did well. Carried this into the semester, but once it started getting overwhelming, I needed all the sleep I could get which cut into the reading time. So I gave up on it. But I plan on starting it up again.

04. Organize. My room has gotten so messy, it's out of control. I need to bring it back to the way it was before the semester started. If possible, I'd like to make it even cleaner. I want to get rid of things I don't need, donate clothes and shoes I don't wear, and not to collect things I don't use. I've made quite a dent over the year throwing out lots of things, but I want to make more of a difference in here. It's so cluttered.

05. Keep up with social networking sites. I'm not one to use them often, but the accounts I do have I'd like to use a little more, which in a way would relate to number 2. Social networking sites are there to help you in that sense, so I'd like to take advantage a little more. This also includes the few other sites I've had for years. I'd like for them to get more traffic, but that's really up to me and how I "spread the word".

06. Socialize. While I have all these things I plan on doing, I need to keep up with friends and such. I've listed things that are for me to handle on my own, at home. I sometimes tend to forget about friends and hibernate during winter, and I'd like to have a decent social like this break. So many things to do and so many people to see. I want to keep busy.

Six, a nice even number and a good amount of goals. They're for the most part pretty vague, as I didn't get into much detail. But they're things that I know I can handle but need to actually keep up with.
This ended up being longer than a five minute breather.

Had this song on repeat this whole week.