New Coffee Mug- Huzzah!

I finally made myself something at work. This over sized coffee mug had a small crack in it. I painted it a nice neutral color and then added some nautical inspired tattoo designs. The ship design is from a book at the library, "Traditional American tattoo design". The whale design is from sewcharitable on flickr. It was supposed to be an embroidery design but now it is a mug pattern! I am calling it my 'Master and Commander' mug. Now if you excuse me I have a date with Russell Crowe and a giant cup of hot chocolate.

 The mug handle says "Hold Fast"

(Homemade) Indian Food Night!

 We each made a dish to share. We did pretty good, though I think I still prefer just getting takeout from Indian Garden!

These were particularly good though. Spiced chai cupcakes with chai buttercream. Yes please!

Happy Oscar Nomination Day!

 

One of the best days of the year. Basically a comprehensive viewing list for me to watch everything that I didn't get watched yet. I will tell you though with the new '10 Best Picture Nominees' it is getting a little exhausting. I have only seen four so far! Must catch up! And I am sorry, but no amount of good press could make me want to watch a movie about Facebook. I love it and I am on it constantly but I don't want to watch a whole movie about it. No. Thank you.

So let's start with the ol' Best Picture noms:

Best Motion Picture of the Year

Nominees:

127 Hours (2010): Christian Colson, Danny Boyle, John Smithson

Black Swan (2010): Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver, Scott Franklin

The Fighter (2010): David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman, Mark Wahlberg

Inception (2010): Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas

The Kids Are All Right (2010): Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, Celine Rattray

The King's Speech (2010): Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Gareth Unwin

The Social Network (2010): Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca, Ceán Chaffin

Toy Story 3 (2010): Darla K. Anderson

True Grit (2010): Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Scott Rudin

Winter's Bone (2010): Anne Rosellini, Alix Madigan

See, I think this year is going to be perhaps less than exciting because there are a lot of good nominees in each category.

So far I have seen:
Black Swan
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
True Grit

I am personally pretty excited about the True Grit nom. After being snubbed at the Golden Globes it is about time that they got some recognition. I am going to try to see the rest of the films before I put in my final two cents on who I think will win/who I think deserves to win. Yep, I will even sit down and watch 'The Social Network'.

Keep checking in until February 27th for more Oscar talk and (hopefully) some fun movie crafts/treats that you can make to enhance your Oscar party. (Not throwing an Oscar party? You should. Either that or get yourself invited to one!)

Check out all the nominations at imdb. Thoughts?

I heart giveaways!

AFS is continuing her month long series of giveaways! Check out her blog to enter. Right now there is one open that feeds my love for all things stationary.

Finding my inner Warrior

I have caved in to the peer pressure. I have signed up for 'Warrior Dash' a 3.2 mile race, complete with 11 obstacles. Crazy? Yes. Fun? I guess we will find out.

It all started last week when I met my friends after work for a drink. Sabrina informed that her, Chris, and Aimee were already signed up and I should too. Running? for 3.2 MILES? No thanks. But then I kept thinking about it and by the time I got home that night I had signed in online and signed up. At first I didn't want to sign up because I thought it was going to be intensely competitive, but as it turns out you are encouraged to wear costumes (there is a costume contest), your registration comes with not only a t-shirt but a fuzzy warrior-helmet, and at the end of the race you celebrate with a beer. Ok. These are the kind of people I can see myself hanging out with. And lets face it, they had me at 'costume-contest'. So now I am in 'training mode'. I am going to the Y with more vigor and actually making myself run.

This will not be an easy task. I can't even run 3.2 miles at this point. I am already planning training schedules and daydreaming about the practice trail runs I will be able to do outside once it is spring. I have until July 23rd to get ready. This may seem like a really small race but it is giving me the motivation I need to get out and do something. Maybe after this I will try a triathlon. Now if I can just figure out how I will train for jumping fire and crawling under barbed wire...what have I gotten myself into?

Black Swan

Have you seen the movie yet? Well you should because it is awesome. Spoiler alert: It is also bat-shit crazy. But I like that kind of movie so... Anyways wanna see what I have been working on in honor of this film? Sure you do:

 Yep! Black Swan dolls! Let the nerd fest begin. Actually I was super into doll  making a little over a year ago and then I just stopped suddenly. Well now I am back to it and I am enjoying the process. All the materials for the dolls were things that I had in my house.

 The White Swan or 'good Nina' is light, ethereal, lovely, innocent. Perfection.

 

But underneath all that loveliness and talent lurks something darker. 

 Black Swan! Aka 'bad Nina'. Sure is it crazy to actually turn into a black swan when you are just a ballerina? Perhaps. But oh it was fun to watch it go down.

 Two peas in a pod.

I am thinking about perhaps doing other female leads from my favorite movies. Hmm.

Blog Giveaway on Artsy Fartsy Shopaholic

Hey all! AFS also known as Artsy Fartsy Shopaholic is hosting a series of giveaways in honor of her 5th year anniversary and she asked me to be a part of it! Head on over to her blog to enter to win my "Rain Cloud" necklace from the etsy shop! She did a very sweet write up and you can also enter to win other very cool stuff.

Arizona Love

Arizona Desert Saguaro Cactus
Originally uploaded by cosmic_kid99

My thoughts are with the families touched by the tragedy in Tucson this week. I don't yet know how to express in words all I feel about this sad event. In times like these it is incredibly easy for me to think the worst of humankind. So many horrible things happen everyday that it is hard to wrap your mind around it all.

Though I fall into this bleak outlook all to easily I was pulled out of my dark thoughts by some of the best people in the world, my friends. Two of my friends are now living just north of Tucson, AZ and a large group of us have been planning on visiting them this Februrary. I was worried that I would not be able to afford this trip as I had just quit a job that was awful and replaced it with a more pleasant, though less lucrative, part time job. As the group of us got together to finalize plans my friend pulled out a handmade card stuffed with cash. All of them had chipped in whatever they had and gave it to me as an early birthday present (my birthday will be during the trip). Words cannot express how sweet this was of them. They were just hoping to offset some of my worry about the trip but what they did was so much more, they restored my faith in people. I am misting up right now just thinking about it.

I hope you and yours are well.

The Tudors

The Tudors 3 - Henry, Jonathan & James
Originally uploaded by R*||3rC*@$t3r

I finally finished "The Tudors". It has been the only show EVER that I bought before seeing it. Every year since season 1 came out on DVD it has been my tradition to buy it and then thoroughly enjoy it. This year was bittersweet as it was the last season. OMG. I love it so much and now that it is gone there is a great emptiness in my life. I cried twice during the series finale. Is that sad? Maybe. But I loves me some Tudors and now it is gone. At least I have it all on dvd and can return again and again to season one and the sexy-fun times that were had before things got all serious and history filled. Ah. And by the way, I call dibs on Charles Brandon. Just saying.

New Years Greetings!

 

Champagne, glitter, sequins, gumdrops, bubbles, confetti, balloons! 

I hope everyone had a safe and Happy New Year! I used to be one of those people that hated on New Years. I don't know why people do that though. I am on my way to being a more positive person so I was ready for this New Years. Mostly I love it because no one gets up in my face for drinking pink champagne and I get to wear the most gloriously sparkly, beaded, sequined, obnoxious outfit I could get my hands on. One girl at a bar passed me and say "You are the sparkliest girl I have ever seen!" and I thanked her and declared to all of my other friends that "I like her. She is nice". Good story I know but seriously it made me really happy. Actually it just made me happy being able to hang out with my friends. 

This past year has been REALLY good to me. Yeah there were some shit days but everyone has those...so I am going to focus on the positives that stand out in my mind. 

Highlights of 2010

-Seeing A Night in the Box for my birthday

-IRELAND

-Getting my second tattoo (I want more!)

-Epic zoo trips

-Murder By Death concert!

-Many good times in Eau Claire

- Sarah getting married!

-Sabrina getting married!

-St. John's Block party (esp. Solid Gold and Roma di Luna)
-Zombie Pub Crawl

-First time to state fair

-New job

-baking parties

-tv parties

In 2011 I would like:

-to learn to play harmonica

-to wear more dresses 

-to learn to sew (better) and make my own dresses!

-to read more books. I would like to read a biography/autobiography of every president of the United States. This will probably not get done this year but I am going to start!

-make, bake, and be crafty

-I am also going to keep track of every movie I watch this year, just curious to see how much time my little film critic brain works.

I would like to continue to:

-Make lots of memories and take lots of pictures

-Be open to new experiences and opportunities

-Be positive and encourage that in others

-Learn

-Spend good quality time with those who make me happy : )

What do you have on your resolution list?