A couple of months ago, I questioned... well I questioned a lot of things. Things have been all over the place for me, and I'm still figuring out the next step I should take.

For one, I started a new blog. I've been thinking about it for a while. I've had this blog for over three years now, and I've learned so much, but I've been wanting to take blogging one step further. For a while I felt like this blog has gotten a little stale, and I couldn't seem to work up the confidence to post about different things because I wanted my content to be consistent. After I moved across the country, the blog seemed to take a dive, even though I tried so hard to keep up with it, it just wasn't working. I just wasn't in the right state of mind.

Anyway, fast forward - I wanted to start diving into things I couldn't bring myself to do on this blog. I don't consider myself a writer or photographer, but I want to explore those areas more. I want to play around with self portraits, and even revisit old projects I've shared on here and have a second go at them. I want to use gifs and maybe even make some videos in the future. And I want my friends to guest post as well. I didn't want to start using all those on here out of the blue. I needed a fresh start, and I feel like I can use my voice on there more, which makes it kinda freeing to not hold back. I don't have a plan for either blogs, but it's becoming my main place to post. I do plan on keeping this blog and just post a lot less, but I'll keep it around for personal projects I don't want to share on the new blog.

I'm also kind of excited to have a .com and try out Wordpress to switch things up a bit.
So if you're interested, the new blog is over at oddballera.com. It's fun and different and I'm excited to see where it goes.

Aside from that, I've been busy with classes, job searching, revamping all my portfolios and planning for a strong possibility of going out of the country for a few months depending on how that job search plays out.

Surprisingly, I'm still also trying to find the time and motivation to finish unpacking. I don't have that much left, it's just the issue of organization.
This year has been flying by and I haven't quite been able to take control of my days to be fully productive, but now with an extra hour of daylight, and warmer weather creeping in, I'm going to try my best to stay positive and keep productive.

Guess we'll see what happens!

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.

One day late with this summary post.
It's been a pretty slow two weeks. Finishing up packing. Still working on selling my furniture. Taking advantage of my last week, going out and about, and relaxing.

01. Since I've sent out 80% of my stuff, I haven't had much to do besides browse the interweb. I remembered I had bought a Tibetan coloring book a while back, and I haven't sent out my colored pencils. So I had some coloring fun!
02. The other day I went out and about with neighbors and came across this cool shop with a terrarium bar. How cool is that? A whole drawer unit with drawers full of materials to make your own terrarium. Moss, sand, rocks, etc. If I wasn't moving, I totally would have gone to town. I plan on making one when I get back to New York. Gonna go on a search for terrarium bars in New York.
03. The same day, I bought a souvenir! A ring made of real gold and turquoise. I love it.
04. I have store credit at a local consignment shop, so I decided to take a look around to see if there was anything small to buy. Came across small crafty items to add to my crafty collection. Small clothespins, a pack of beads, a pack of buttons, and a package of sewing thread.

It seems a little surreal to me how I'll be moving back home permanently. I've been coming across a lot of articles lately about how 2015 is the year a lot of people are saying goodbye to New York because the cost of living is just ridonk. Examples: 01 + 02 + 03.

I just find it funny that I've been wanting to leave for the longest time, and now that I'm heading back home, I'm finding all these articles about how people are throwing in the towel and are leaving the city. Life is funny like that.
Anyway, the countdown is on. One week till I hop on that plane!