moving up and out...

I moved to a new space! Find me over HERE.

I lied!!! Still crafting!!!

So I lied. You know it's been 3 months since I graduated and I've been super lazy since then--it's hard for me to get back into study mode. :X I'm going to have to step it up if I'm going to finish nursing school.

Any way, I was browsing at a ton of decoden crafts on Pinterest and on Instagram. I really want to decoden a iphone case, but some of the pieces can get pretty pricey. A very slow light bulb went off in my head; DUH, I can make most of these kawaii decoden pieces!

Derp.

So yeah, all I did this weekend was watch Netflix, Crunchyroll, YouTube and just made little deco pieces. ^^

I'm not sure on the theme yet, but it looks like a sweet food and... reading theme? Okay, the little book was a last minute creation, I'm not sure I'm going to add it to my case or not.. Still cute tho!

Weekend Craft

I'm actually surprised that I'm not bored with playing with clay yet. Maybe once I get really good I'll get bored.. soo that would be.. uhm never? LOL.

I have a bunch of scrap clay from when I messed up on some charms. I used some of it to make a donut just to test out my frosting. From what I see online, most people use TLS, liquid clay and just put pieces of the color of clay you want to use for the color and mix it up. Or they use chalk pastels to make the color. I did the first method and it came out okay. Well, I don't have TLS, but I have the something similar, liquid clay adhesive...hmm, that's probably why the frosting didn't come out as good.

I had to do something fun with the picture. What else are my figurines for if not to pose them for photos?

I made this pot and sprouting plant charm for Dillon's sister. I still need to glaze it, but I'm happy how it turned out. ^__^ I really should invest in some nicer brushes so that I can do better detailing work. But unfortunately till our money situation gets better I'll have to keep using the tools I have not. I use a ball pin tool to paint the face on.

can't figure out how to rotate!

If you'll notice, my hands are really dry. I haven't had a chance to look this up yet, but I think the polymer clay is completely drying out my hands, especially my finger tips. I noticed last night (well.. 3am, I'm a night owl) that my finger tips were cracked and almost bleeding. :\ I had to so some TLC with some coco Vaseline and some shea butter.

 I feel so lame, I don't know the names of Totoro's little friends. I tried to do a quick search, but nothing really came up. I'll have to add an annotation to this later.

Any way, I've seen a few tutorials on how to make Totoro charms, I wanted to use some of my scrap clay and I had a perfect blue for the little.. uhm.. mini-me Totoro (gah, I will find out his name). He didn't come out very well, but for my first try, I think he looks pretty good. The white belly is completely off and the paint work is horrid, but.. I think he's still cute. I'll attempt it again next week; just molding the body took me an hour. I was getting frustrated over my nails and I think the clay was too soft (my hands were super hot today) and plus I'm very impatient---I blame all of those reasons for how he came out.

Oh, the little guy in the background is my strawberry jelly toast. I'll post a better picture after I'm done glazing him.

Well, that is all that I did as far as crafting for this weekend. I probably won't be making anymore for a few weeks because I need to study for my MA certification test....which I haven't scheduled yet... *cough* I'm so bad...

Well...

Nobody entered my contest! I feel so lame! Lol.

Who doesn't love free giveaways??

Oh well, I'll try again later.

I've been busy making polymer clay stuff I think I'm getting better at molding things. I do need to cut my nails because I end up jabbing it and it takes a while to smooth out mess ups.

Right now I'm working on a Rudy chibi from my Lil Z-bot & Friends.




I still need to paint the face on, but I'm kind of scared of messing it up. I should have made the features out of clay too. :/

I have quite a few charms made already, and I'm thinking about putting them up on my Etsy store---but idk how to do that. Lol. I'm a hot crafty mess.

Any way, more updates later.

Charm CONTEST GIVEAWAY woot woot!!

I made these after watching a YouTube tutorial. SERIOUSLY, YOU CAN LEARN ANYTHING ON YT. I'm actually really proud of these two charms! I'm SO happy that I want to give one to you. ^^

Two lucky peeps are going to get one of these little 'shrooms. I messed up on the paint job a little.. but they are still cute. :P

How to win:

[1]

Follow me on one of the following:

Instagram: xoxotoki

Twitter: @xoxotoki

My Warcraft Twitter: @urFaveWoWss

OR

be one of my FB friends

[2]

Make a comment on this blog post answering this question:

What is your hobby..or hobbies?

I'll post the winners next Monday, January 20, 2014.

Gimme Money

I need it, anyone have any they can spare?

I know I shouldn't do this, but I keep thinking about all the times I spent money on stupid shit or that time I was making 60k/yr and I spent it on clothes. Oh and $100+ dinners every weekend.

Now I'm wondering what type of Ramen I should eat. Chicken or Miso flavor. It's a toss up.

I can honestly say, the last time I was this broke was when I was in high school. :P

((phh.. yeah.. last year.. I was in HS last year... that's my story and I'm sticking to it.))

Even though I'm having money issues, there are things that I'm grateful for. Like, my animals. Even though their food cost more than mine. And my boyfriend....even though he should be a CFO or CEO or COO of his company right now. (LOVE YOU BABE)

I have a roof over my head and I have a job. Those are good things.

It would be nice to have money so that I can spread the love to my sister and mom. :S I need to finish the two novels I'm writing and get back to making digital art. Find something that will get me gah-zillion unique visitors to my websites.

I refuse to post naked pictures. One, Dillon would be mad. And two, you'd probably throw up in your mouth. :P

I'll just cyber beg. Why? Because it's -11 degrees outside and I'm not standing on the street to beg. :P

BAM snow. BAM ditch! What I learned today...

I believe they are calling this winter snow storm Hercules. Definitely an appropriate name; it came out of nowhere and kicked our city's ass.

I probably should keep up with the news; especially in the winter so I'm not surprised when I open my door in the morning. Yesterday there wasn't snow on the ground..  and I was thinking about raking up the last bit of leaves. And then BAM, snow up to my shins this morning.

I think this took everyone by surprised because the roads were not plowed or salted. And I think that thick, fluffy snow is the worse to drive in.... add my no tread tires and a cocky, Asian female driver and BAM! into a ditch we go.

Yo, i'm in a ditch

It took almost 4hrs for the tow truck guy to get to me. And there's a couple of things I learned sitting, freezing my butt off in my little car:

1. Don't be a cocky driver. You know you are going to be late any way, just drive 5 mi/hr if you have to. This is not Cali, Julia, hello.
2. Always make sure that you have at least a half tank of gas, if not full tank of gas in the winter months. I had less than a quarter of a tank, and after 4 hours my tank was at empty. I did make sure to turn off my car after I got it warmed up and then back on when I started to NOT feel my legs.
3. Wearing a dress and leggings are probably not the best attire when you are broken down during a blizzard. I'm glad that I remembered to bring my snowboarding jacket and I had an extra wool sweater in the car, but that was almost not enough.
4. Which brings me to this: have a emergency road side, I'm-stuck-in-my-car-in-16-degree (windchill of negative 16)-blizzard-storm. 
1. blanket
2. snacks
3. water
4. extra battery charger for phone
5. USB charger for phone
6. Bandaids... flares.. the usually emergency stuff.
7. Toilet paper. I REALLY had to pee. And if I had to wait another 4 hours, you best believe I would have popped a squat behind the pine trees..
5. About my phone. I have learned that making once 15sec video for Instagram drains about 10% of my phone's battery. Which was totally bad because I didn't have a USB charger in my car. One of the many (about 20 or so people stopped to offer some assistance) kind gentlemen that stopped asked me what I needed. Coffee, get warmed up in his car (that was a little creepy), a ride...I told him what I really needed was a USB charger. 20 minutes later he came back with one (apparently his wife's) and he gave it to me. BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO ME. I want to thank him. THANK YOU GUY IN THE RED TRUCK WITH COLTS STICKER.

After I got home--getting towed out of a snow bank is very scary and VERY exciting--I crawled into my bed and it took me about 2 hours to warm back up. And I don't know if it was the cold, the adrenaline from several near death (several people almost spun out where I did and could have landed on me) or from barely moving for 4 hours...but I vomited my guts out.

Thank God tomorrow is Friday. I will attempt to drive to work, but this time I'll give myself more time and drive a little more cautiously.

Oh, and I'm avoiding that street with huge ditch tomorrow.