Happy May! It surely is a happy May indeed.
School is coming to an end, the summer is rolling around, I have a full time job waiting for me, and I feel a lot of creative energy and feel inspired. I can't complain right now.

Our student exhibition opened on Tuesday. A lot of great work from different majors. Being a part of it this year and seeing the behind the scenes, there's quite a bit I can complain about with the disorganization and whatnot, but being that everything is done and over with, why bother lingering on it.

I got one piece in. It was my Galileo piece. It looks so nice and crisp in a frame hanging on a wall in a gallery. I have to admit, it's a nice feeling. It makes me want to be a part of gallery exhibitions in the future. I don't think I would turn that down.

My final day of classes forever is Thursday coming. I'm really feeling all the emotions. I don't want to think about it yet.
But I can't wait for the freedom. Real soon!

Two things: this is my 200th post! ++ I'm surprised with myself that I haven't gotten around to posting Portland pictures, but I am surely waiting for a good opportunity filled with free time this weekend coming to do so. Don't worry.

01. Lime Crime My Beautiful Rocket Opaque Lipstick & Hollygram Carousel Gloss - I'm not one to be all about buying makeup, but I love wearing fun colors every so often. A few months ago I managed to snag blue lipstick from Inglot, and even though I don't wear it often, it's a purchase I don't regret. I like fun lipstick!
02. Blueprints For Building Better Girls - I randomly came across this book browsing through Amazon. Sounds like my kind of read. I have so many books to tackle as it is, but this is surely on my list to get around to!
03. YES Tiger shoes - I LOVE LOVE LOVE these shoes. The bold color and the geometric print. I need. And now you know.
04. VANS ASPCA Sneakers - I like VANS and I like cats. Basically sums up why I feel it's necessary to own a pair of these shoes. BAM.
05. Dan Funderburgh Tshirt - I have been enjoying patterns and art by Dan Funderburgh lately. His bold designs are something that inspire me to be simple. I came across this tshirt he designed, and I am loving the color combination mixed in with his pattern.

I'm so relieved that it's hump day. I'm anxious for the weekend to roll around because I have so much to do. My semester is over in less than three weeks! EEK!

Before heading to Portland, I finished up this canvas piece in which I sort of based off The Runaways "Cherry Bomb" song.
I really find that I like working in markers sometimes because it helps me learn to be more graphic and bold. And I like that about this piece. I appreciate the chance to experiment.

Just like all of my other finished canvas pieces, I put this up for sale in my Storenvy shop. If you're a fan of The Runaways, I think this would be a nice little piece to own. Just sayin' :)

Speaking of Storenvy, I changed my layout up a bit. I got rid of the header, made a nice little icon for the top left of the page, and threw together a little pattern for the background. I feel like it makes the store look a little cleaner and not so cluttered, although it really isn't too much of a change. But I do like change!

I realized I posted earlier this month about a photo album I made last year, but I wanted to share this new book I made. It's very different from the other photo album.
I learned how to make this book in the bookbinding class I'm taking this semester. We had a midterm assignment to make a book and fill it with content. When it was assigned, I immediately thought to fill it up with photos that I planned on taking during my Portland trip. I bought disposable cameras and got them developed.

I didn't want to make the book too large so I settled on 10 spreads/20 pages. I planned on inserting 20 photos, so I measured the pages to fit a little larger than standard printed photo proportion. After measuring and scoring the pages, I measured out the cover, which this book was made to wrap around a few times. I couldn't find a decorative piece of paper long enough, so I used my washi tape to connect the piece. This sort of binding has the pages sewn to the cover. So I used clip to keep the pages together while sewing.
It's a super easy book to make.

I ended up buying more washi tape while I was in Portland, so I picked twenty good photos from the batch I got developed, and taped in two opposing corners.

When I got back home, I sliced the pages behind the corners not taped and slipped in the loose corners to fully constrain them and to get the feel of a photo album.

Besides the two disposable cameras I got developed, I have 3 more disposables, 2 110 film rolls, and a half filled disposable camera and 110 roll. I brought my Lomo Diana Mini with me but had such problems getting the wheel to advance the film, so I gave up and bought disposable cameras.
My plan within the next few weeks is to get everything developed and make more photo albums like this. I really love how this book came out!

Just got back from vacation yesterday and cannot feel happier than I do right now. Well, I'm bummed I'm back home having to get back into routine, but I had such a great time in Portland that I just feel so happy. I'm hoping the next time I go out there will be my official move. We'll just have to play that all by ear as I still have one more month till I graduate! So much excitement.

Anyway, I was excited about Record Store Day this year because I got my first record player for Christmas. I've been buying records left and right lately.

I was pumped to participate this year, especially since it fell during my week in Portland. And Portland is known for their local support and vintage shops. Unfortunately our schedule didn't call for shopping that day and I missed out, but it's no big deal. Our daily trips throughout the city and to the coast was worth missing out on RSD this year.

In the meantime I wanted to share records I bought this year that are perfect for springtime background music.
In clockwise order - Ex Hex, La Luz, She's So Rad, & Keep Shelly In Athens.

But while in Portland, I did manage to pick up one record by The Pretenders in which I was excited about.

I've been on a heavy record buying binge. It's the greatest thing walking into a thrift store and discovering a great find as well as supporting more local bands by buying their records. I've been all about it lately and can't wait to discover more in the spring & summer.

I'll get to editing photos from my trip so I can share them in upcoming posts!

I have exciting plans tomorrow, and I've been preparing for my trip this whole week. I'll be on en route to Portland tomorrow for the week and I can't be more excited!

01. My midterm project for my bookbinding class is to make a book filled with content. So I found this trip to be the perfect opportunity to take photos and print them for my midterm book. I have it all set up waiting to go!
02. In between time packing and doing last minute homework assignments, I played around with a screen printing project that I will be posting about at a future date!
03. I'm so excited to be using my Lomo film cameras; I went and bought film for it a few days ago. I bought quite a number of rolls for this trip.
04. During some last minute shopping, I bought this new bag and wallet today at Target. I really wanted a new bag to use for my trip especially, and I can't be more excited to have them!

I've been doing such a bad job at packing. It's always the part I dread most.
But I'm really excited to visit the city again so soon. I'll be traveling with a few friends while staying at an Airbnb space. We looked up the weather and see it'll be raining most of the trip, but we won't let that get us down. We have fun stuff planned. I really can't wait!

This is a little project I've been meaning to finish when I started it back around...sometime last year. My brother has saved mostly all of his bottle tops. He planned on using them for his own projects, but never seemed to do so. So I took a few with the intention of making fun little magnets.

I painted a few to play around. The only frustrating bit is that you need quite a number of coats of acrylic paint. After many coats, and a few months later, I sketched a few little designs on the tops.

I collected my paints and painted the little designs.

Some of the paint came on a little streaky and lumpy, and I was scared of chipping - so I thought the tops needed a good coating. I used my Krylon clear spray to take care of that.

A few days ago I took a trip to Michaels and bought magnets and E600 glue, which I heard is a good super glue. I needed good super glue.
Before gluing the magnets on, I didn't want the magnets to be level with the edges of the tops, so I glued down a small strip of cardboard to elevate the magnets.

I let the bottle tops sit around for a few hours to let the glue set before playing around with them.
They're so precious and bright. It was a success for sure, I plan on making so much more knowing how it works out in the end. I have so many ideas!
Start saving bottle tops and give it a go!