Crafting Update! What I've Made This Summer...

Since I officially closed down my Etsy shop, I've been a roll making tons of new stuff for our grand reopening.

Here's some photos of what's in... hehe... STORE! (Okay, that was awful.)

After a lot of research into polymer clay techniques, I decided I definitely needed a clay machine. I found a reasonably priced off-brand one on eBay, and it works like a charm! 

After my first venture into the world of clay canes and clay machines, I made myself a cane that looked a lot like bacon. Thanks to the clay machine, I was able to make some great pendants and button-like post earrings!

Anyone who played World of Warcraft knows that home is where the hearthstone is... These hearthstones were shaped, textured, carved, and then accented with blue glow-paint from Glow-On. After they were glazed, they were made into pins and earrings!

Jon went for a bike ride one morning while we were in Delaware, and brought back a gorgeous dead dragonfly he found! I decided to buy a shadowbox and paint a background to mount it on.

More adventures with the clay machine! I made a tiger-stripe cane and used my new cutters to make shaped pendants. The pendants on the right were from my first clay machine experiment... They're supposed to look like they're made out of real stone.

Continued fun with both the clay machine, and my new blade! By making a small millefiori cane and cutting it up into tiny thin pieces, I was able to make the wings for butterfly post earrings. I then took scrap pieces, flattened them with the machine, and used the cutters to make some some more pendants and post earrings. 

School has started up again, and since I'm looking for a veterinary internship, I'm taking it easy this semester. The only class I'm taking is Sculpture I, and we're already getting started on something big! We're going to be making a giant "Yellow Submarine" installation in our college's east atrium... but the catch is that the WHOLE THING must be made out of only newspaper, and duct tape! Today I made a Portuguese Man o' War, and it may have attacked me... :P

I'll be keeping you all updated on the continuing progress that I make in building up my shop inventory before the big reopening day!

What Happened To Me?

Here's what happened in a nutshell... with PUPPIES.

Things are finally moving along, and grinding to a halt at the same time

First off...
I FINALLY got around to redoing the blog colors. Our new theme is going to be mint and plum, and we officially have a logo!

That's the good news.

The bad news is, life is really not treating me too well.

My anxiety is still very much a problem, and unfortunately something has been really wrong with my hormones lately.
I'll spare you the details, but basically I'm anemic again.
Last week I started my first summer class, and I was struggling to stay conscious. I actually had to dig my fingernails into my arm just so I wouldn't fall asleep or pass out. The pain helped keep me awake, but on Thursday I was feeling so awful that I had to just give up and go home. I ended up missing the lab for that day, which sucks because the labs are such an integral part of any science class.
(I'm taking General Biology I, fun fun fun.)

So unfortunately, for the time being I haven't done much at all.
I still have two papers to make up for a class I took an Incomplete in, which is looming over me like a massive cloud of failure and hopelessness.

Honestly, if I had it my way, I would crawl into bed and just disappear.
But enough complaining and angst.

I purchased hellointerloper.com last week, so expect a central hub soon where you can choose to visit my blog, YouTube page, Instagram, Twitter, Shop, or whatever.
I also am going to be moving my shop to StoreEnvy instead of Etsy, because Etsy's fees are downright ridiculous for me to pay at this point.

Stay tuned...

And on a happier note...

Here's some photos of my ceramics.

Productivity Week: Day 3 - Allergies and Sleep

I got up early at 8:15am today to get ready for my 10am class, Art Appreciation.

Let me tell you... that class is the WORST.

I love art. I love making things, being creative, and seeing other people's work. This class, however, is the most annoying bombardment of useless information possible. Basically the whole class is looking at styles and techniques of art, which wouldn't be half bad if we didn't have to hear all of three times over... Once in the reading, once in the homework, and finally all over again in the lecture. The third time through, you kind of want to throw something at the teacher just to get her to shut up.

Today we were looking at how churches were designed. I've already had a feeling that my teacher is Jesusy just from some of the language she's used in past classes, but today really took the cake.

Seriously, WHY do I have to know about all these different parts of churches? And you're going to talk about churches for AN HOUR?

Yeah, no thanks.

So yeah, I was pretty much nodding off in class as it was, but then I slowly started to feel my breathing becoming heavier and my eyes itching...

...ALLERGIES, NO!

This seems to happen every damn year. I miss summer so much during the winter, and completely forget about that little stretch of time called SPRING.

Allergies, sleepiness, AND sitting through an hour-long lecture about flying buttresses? 

Once again, no thanks.

After class I checked to see if the kiln was open (which it wasn't) so I pretty much decided that between allergies and not having anything to glaze, I'd just go home.

I took some Benadryl, passed out until 6pm, and then started PRODUCTIVITY!

Today I...

• Made a 35 minute Blood Brothers video, updating information from my previous vid and answering some viewer questions
• Put together a quick twitch.tv streaming set-up (sadly I had to scrap some of it because I made some wrong measurements)
• Streamed about an hour and a half of World of Warcraft while practicing non-stop blabbing (because you have to talk to be an interesting streamer... It's a LOT harder than it sounds)

So... I really didn't get much done today at all.

I blame allergies.

Tomorrow will be an AWESOME day however, and I say this because THE KILN OPENS!!! Nonstop glazing for 3 hours, YYYEAAAHHH!

...Don't look at me like that, it's damn fun!

Anyway, that's it for now.... Now SLEEP TIME.

Productivity Week: Day 2 - Ceramics and Derp

Leave it to me to let my stress spin out of control.

Last night I went to bed at 1:30am, only to toss and turn until 3:30am. I was cold, stressed, and hungry, so I did what any sensible person would do...

I made myself a waffle.

Aaand then I proceeded to do something a sensible person WOULDN'T do, such as searching the web for apartments, colleges, and job requirements.

Needless to say, I didn't get back to sleep until 5am, but not until I had a sparring of words with my dad before he left for work. He basically told me that I'm aiming too low in my career choice and that I'll never be able to live off of the wage it pays.

(I've decided I want to be a vet technician after the realization that if I don't do something involving animals, I'll be shooting myself in the foot because I won't be following my passion. But that's a DIFFERENT story.)

Imagine not being able to sleep because of stress, and then being told you're pretty much going to be baggage to your boyfriend because of your low yearly wages. 

THANKS DAD.

Well, enough of me bitching and griping about the future and all the stress that comes with moving towards it.

IT'S TIME TO TALK PRODUCTIVITY.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my busy days, so I don't really have much time or strength to do things outside of class itself. Because of this, I tried to get as much done in Ceramics class as humanly possible. Unfortunately my teacher, Joe, didn't fire up the kiln since last Thursday, so I didn't get to glaze anything new. Ah well, he started it up today, and I'll have 10 new things to glaze on Thursday!

Here is what I did today:

• Made two pinch pots
• Made two more poison mushrooms (one "replacement" in case the other comes out wrong, and a mini mushroom)
• Made an oddly shaped vase, kind of like a triangular cylinder thing with a stretched top and weird texture (it's hard to explain, blah)
• Started my slab project, which I'll talk about more in another post... It's going to be something special!

After Ceramics, I had to read for my next class, Individuals in Society. The book is called Disposable People, and it's probably one of the most depressing books I've ever read.

Basically put, it's a book exposing modern day slavery by giving examples, retelling the experiences of the author on his mission to gather information to write the book, and explaining all the different motivating factors behind each country's system of slavery. 

I haven't even finished the book half way, and I already find it nauseating.

Apparently in the hilly northern regions of Thailand, families sell their daughters into prostitution so they can afford a color TV.

This, of course, is not seen as immoral to their families, because of religious and cultural attitudes towards women there. According to their form of Buddhism, if you are born a woman, you have sinned badly in your past life. Not only that, but you have to repay your parents for birthing you. In some cases, this means being sent to be a sexual slave in the city.

Terrifying stuff.

Anyway, I struggled through the book for an hour and a half, and then went to class.

I somehow managed to get a solid A on my essay, which I literally wrote the day before it was due, and the day of. 

(I know I'm a slacker, but hey, I got a damn A.)

At 7pm I finally arrived at home, had some dinner, and officially shut my brain off. I watched mindless television for about three hours rather than do anything useful. (Seinfeld, Hell's Kitchen, and Unusual Suspects, if you really need to know.)

Maybe not the best end to a day that's supposed to be part of a "Productivity Week," but taking into account that I'm sleep deprived and stressed out of my mind, I don't think it's half bad.

Anyway, it's time to go do my Art Appreciation homework before I pass out.

Let's hope the kiln opens tomorrow!

I LOVE CERAMICS CLASS

Can I be any more blunt?
Ceramics class has become a downright obsession for me. I literally can't get enough of it.
Twice a week, for three hours, I get to play around with clay as much as I want. Of course, we do have big assignments, but we're also required to make what my teacher likes to call, "free-forms"... aka anything your little heart desires.
I've found the free-forms to be the most fun, especially because you can knock out up to three of them in one go.
And GLAZING! That's my favorite part.
It's not the actual process of glazing that I love most, but that moment when the teacher cracks open the kiln. I swear, it's like being a kid on Christmas day. Glaze is so unpredictable that you honestly have no idea how your piece will have turned out. That's what is most exciting to me, the surprise at the end!
Is it pathetic that I'm actually saddened by the approach of the semester's end? Probably.
I, however, am going to enjoy this luxury of creating stuff from clay for a grade while I still can. I sure as hell won't have this opportunity again anytime soon.

Crazy Days of Autumn

Life has been crazy lately... thus leaving me little time to update this blog, unfortunately. :[

With Jon in China for the semester, things have been rough. This is the longest we've been apart, and it definitely shows. I'm sure my parents are ready to strangle me, because I can't help but say "Damn, I miss Jon!" out loud at least 5 times a day. The 12-hour time difference doesn't help either. We try to keep in touch through email and Skype, but it's tough because his evenings clash with my classes, as well as my evenings with his. Needless to say, we can't wait for winter break!

I've been taking Biology and Public Speaking this semester at my local community college, and as easy as it may sound... it's not. My Bio teacher is a former teacher of embryological development at another college, and definitely knows her stuff. The class is twice a week, includes a lab, and runs from 11:30am - 2:20am with a 15 minute break in the middle. We have a lab quiz every week, an exam about every three weeks, and two lab practicals (basically my midterm and final, which includes questions about stations with microscopes and models). It's pretty hardcore, but I've managed to keep an A average. Public Speaking has been pretty crazy as well, seeing that public speaking in general is an unpleasant task... I have to say though, running a YouTube channel has actually made me better at it. I'm also sitting on an A average in that class, but heck... If I can't keep an A when I'm only taking two classes at a community college, then I must be doing something very wrong!

In addition to being heartsick and having my head buried in Biology notes, I've been taking on quite a few projects.

1.) My YouTube channel! If you haven't noticed yet, I've been making a boatload of Rage of Bahamut videos for the past couple months. Incredibly, people like them and I've actually managed to waste 1500 hours of peoples' lives. I've never been so proud to do something so horrible! But that aside, it has netted me $40 from ads, and as an unemployed college student living with her parents, any money is good money. I've been trying to upload a new video weekly, which can be kind of tiring because I no longer enjoy RoB as much as I used to. Ah well, it's cash in my pocket.

2.) SHRIMP. TONS OF THEM. Okay, not REAL shrimp, but clay shrimp! I've been in talks for months about doing an order for someone with a restaurant in Costa Rica, and finally we worked all the details out about two weeks ago. I was working like a madwoman to fulfill the order, because I had a deadline to meet: Oct, 20. This wouldn't be that tough, but it was because this wasn't a dozen shrimp... two dozen shrimp... This was an order for 100 CLAY SHRIMP, not only of different sizes, but different ring positions for hanging. I had to hand-sculpt 100 shrimp, put ring pins in 50 of them, head pins in 50 of them, bake them, cut and ring the head pins, and then glaze all of them before packing them away and shipping them off.

25 of the stylized shrimp, glazed and ready to be packed.

Needless to say, it was the most difficult, yet rewarding experience in my crafting career thus far! I have to admit, I did bite off a bit more than I could chew... but after sacrificing all of my free time, some sleep, and a little bit of my sanity, I was able to finish and get them to their destination on time.

3.) My room. Oh my gawd, my room is a disaster. You see, I haven't even been sleeping in my room for months... I sleep on the couch in the basement. Yes, I officially live in my parents' basement... embarrassing to a point, but I don't really feel ashamed of it. Losing 6 years of my life to depression really put me behind schedule in just about everything, which includes cleaning up my room. It's a mess of binders, notebooks, papers, books, and everything else I've amassed since middle school. I've started cleaning it up starting with my bookcase, and after two shelves I'm terrified at the task before me... I already have filled a giant plastic tub with all of my books, half a box with stuff I want to sell, and a box of things I want to keep. There is just so much stuff to sift through, but I keep thinking about the goal of this cleanup: essentially packing up everything for my future life, having a room that only has the things I need now in it, and making some cash. I've already found a vintage 1981 Garfield candle, some jewelry, and discontinued toys among the clutter, along with junk that I can sell at a tag sale for a buck or two.

Not to mention I still need to get onto working on Jon's and my scrapbook of our years together at UNH, get my driver's permit, and various other things....
I swear, sometimes it seems like there's not enough time in the world.

So that's basically my current autumn insanity. I can hardly wait for winter break, where I can just relax!