Happy New Year!

I've been meaning to sign on and do a bunch of new year related posts. I still plan on getting around to them, but for now I wanted to post about this idea I'd like to share. Actually found it as I was browsing Tumblr.

THE JAR OF 2013
This would have been best to start it on the first day of January, but I figured eleven days into the new year isn't bad.
This jar is to help you keep track of all good moments as they happen.
Write your happy moments on pieces of paper and put them in the jar. (It's all about preference, but I am keeping track by writing the date on each piece of paper.) It'll be a collection of blissful experiences that you will reread on the last day of the year.
I wouldn't call this a resolution exactly, but it could be motivation to start experiencing more positive and happy points in time than negative. I surely feel motivated to create more feel good junctures.

I think this is a great way to pay attention to happy moments, even if they're miniscule. Start keeping track of anything that puts a smile on your face.
I wanted to pass this on to all of you. It's not too late to start!

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.

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!

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!

I've been meaning to post this for a while now. Today as I was ready to start my post, my internet goes out. Of course that would happen. Won't be fixed 'til Sunday. I'm temporarily mooching off a friend's wireless service.

Back in October I saw The Raveonettes at Webster Hall. As always, they put on a great show, and I love them more and more as the days pass.

Here are some shots from the show I took. Didn't take many, and most of these are blurry, but it doesn't bother me one bit. Great show and great memories.

Here's their recent video for Curse The Night. Such an eerie video.

I put together a new playlist on 8tracks that I'm loving. Whenever winter rolls around, I always find myself listening to shoegaze all day e'erday. I gathered my top shoegaze songs.

Gaze 'Til Dawn from marimars on 8tracks Radio.

Sometimes when I listen to my playlist, it plays on shuffle (I don't know if there's an option to fix that), but here's the original order of songs in the playlist:
. Black Tambourine - We Can't Be Friends
. My Bloody Valentine - Soon
. Catherine Wheel - Balloon
. Adorable - Glorious
. Thee Heavenly Music Association - Angelic Disorder
. The Verve - Star Sail
. Swervedriver - You Find It Everywhere
. Slowdive - When The Sun Hits
. Ride - Kaleidoscope
. The Raveonettes - She Owns The Streets
. Young Prisms - I Don't Get Much
. Medicine - Something Goes Wrong
. Pale Saints - Language Of Flowers
. Lilys - The Hermit Crab
. Chapterhouse - Pearl
. Shop Assistants - You Trip Me Up
. Sparklehorse - Piano Fire
. Gliss - Morning Light
. Tamaryn - Love Fade

Enjoy! I surely will, over and over again.

Can't believe how fast Thanksgiving came and gone.

There's so much that I'm thankful for that the list would go on and on and on. I'm not very good at expressing emotions sometimes, especially to my loved ones, but family and friends will always be at the top of my list. Without their encouragement and support, I don't know who and where I'd be right now. And for that, I will always be grateful.

With that being said, I spent the day of Thanksgiving with both family and friends.
I made cinnamon pie, which is a perfect Autumn kind of pie (I posted the delicious recipe HERE around this time last year). The fam can't get enough of it.

The afternoon was strictly family, and the night time brought my friends together. We relaxed at one house, which was a perfect ending to a wonderful day. My friend lent me her Perks Of Being A Wallflower book since I've never read it.

Black Friday brought a friendly dessert gathering at Friendly's. I ate the waffle sundae with all things delicious.

Black Friday also involved some online shopping. Forget cyber Monday, Black Friday had great internet deals. Bought this pair of Jeffrey Campbell sneakers from Solestruck and this sweater from Modcloth.

It's officially time for Christmas planning!