Picky For Words

I’ve come a long way… art wise

pickyforwords — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:49:53 +0000

I was looking through my art for some reason and I decided I wanted to do something to show how my art skills have improved through the years. The only thing was, I don’t usually draw the same thing more than once, except for self portraits. In every art class I’ve been in, they have asked me to draw a self portrait. It was probably my least favorite thing to do, ever. So here are some that I could find. I hope you can notice the change. :p

2000-2001

Okay, don’t laugh, I was 6 or 7 when I did this. When the teacher tells you to “fill the whole page” but “only draw your head and shoulders” what are you supposed to do?

2002-2003

This was at my school. You can tell what my teacher taught us about nose shapes and how the nose is connected to the eyes. I was probably 9 and in 3rd grade.

2006

I did this at home. I went through a phase where I didn’t think I needed a neck and shoulders and all my heads where to the side. I was about 12.

2009

Also at home. This is when I learned how to draw lips… but still hadn’t gotten the nose down yet. I was 15, okay?

2010

And finally, we have my most recent self portrait. This is when I figured out I could put something in front of my face so I wouldn’t actually have to draw my face. Took me 16 years to figure that out.

Well I hope you enjoyed. Maybe I will have a redraw post where I have redrawn something I drew when I was younger. But I don’t know since I don’t really like drawing the same thing twice. We’ll see.

Paper Art

pickyforwords — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:12:25 +0000

What do you do with leftovers from an art piece? You make more art with it. My mother and I had some cut outs from a bible left over from another piece of art my mother did:

Art by Stephanie Vaughan. See her work HERE. (click for full views)

I saved all the sheets that were cut out of the middle and we finally found something to do with them. We cut them in half long ways and taped the two ends together, then pinched the circles to make a petal shape and stapled them together to create a design.

Hanging it on the wall took a little work. Placing the nails and trying not to make the whole thing fall was a pain. But I think it turned out nice.

A Little Piece Of The Past

pickyforwords — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:15:23 +0000

I have these old books of poems that used to belong to my grandfather (but he probably got them from his sister). I have made some of them into art and other are just sitting around. I rarely read them, but today I was just looking through one I had sitting on my dresser. I flipped through some pages, not really reading, and it popped open, as books do, to a spot that had been bookmarked with a newspaper clipping. It wasn’t the page that was bookmarked that interested me, but the clipping, which was browned with age and had stained the two pages it was sandwiched between. The clipping was a love poem.

The poem read:

No One Else Can Take Your Place

I MISS you, darling, but I must
Be patient every day
And keep my courage up as long
As you must be away
It is not easy for me while
I walk in loneliness
Because I love you, and you are
My every happiness
I see you in the sun and moon
And all the stars that shine
And in my heart that loves you so
I know that you are mine
But there is never any thought
Or dream to take the place
Of your endearing self in my
Affectionate embrace
Nothing and no one else on earth
Could mean so much to me
As you are all I want in life
And you will always be

It may not come as a surprise to some of you that I cried at this… This leaves so many questions for me. Why did she pick this poem? Why did she put it in the book? Did she write it? Was it just one of her favorites? So many things I will never know! But it is particularly neat when I find little artifacts such as these that I can wonder about.

Say NO to naps and say YES to yoga

pickyforwords — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 23:15:20 +0000

Everyone always talks about losing a couple pounds in the new year. Why does everyone want to be “healthier” this year? Shouldn’t they be healthy from last year’s new year’s resolution? Or the one before that, or the one before that? That’s all people really say they are going to do in the new year. “I’m gonna lose 20 pounds!” “I want to eat healthier!” Well I just want to have a good year. I want a year full of happy moments and learning experiences. I want to be able to look back at 2012 and say, “That was a really great year.” But of course, I want a little health thrown in there too.

I already eat pretty healthy. A lot of my friends make fun of me cause I like vegetables… but it really is a good thing to be healthy. It makes you feel good and you actually want to get out of that amazingly comfortable bed in the morning. If I eat a bunch of crap then I feel really gross and muddy inside. I usually end up eating a salad or something to wash my insides out. So I’m learning to not give in whenever I get a craving for a greasy burger, some fries, and a chocolate shake.

So my healthy habits I want to start this year are simple. I want to be able to get out of my bed in the morning, eat a hardy breakfast, go to school and actually learn things, come home and do some yoga (even if it is only on the wii fit), eat a healthy lunch, do some productive things until dinner (which will also be healthy, and then go to sleep somewhat early at night so I can wake up refreshed in the morning. No naps!! That always screws me up and then I can’t sleep at night.

If I create a schedule like this for myself, I am almost certain it will improve my time management skills and I will get more things done during the week. Not to mention I will feel really great every day. This all sounds awesome, now let’s see if I actually do it.

A New Year’s Resolution

pickyforwords — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:40:38 +0000

Small update: I deleted my short story blog. I never used it and nothing every happened with it so I thought it was time to let it go. It was taking up room in my mind and on my dashboard. I know that no one cares and most of you don’t even know what it was, but I thought I would let you know.

Now onto the post.

You know when they tell you not to fix something that isn’t broken, well I can adhere to this. Don’t fix something that isn’t broken! I don’t know how many times I have tried altering this banana nut bread recipe, but every time something goes wrong. The first time I made it, it turned out perfect. Then the second time I thought I would change the amount of flour, but it was so moist that it fell apart when I tried to take it out. Then I thought I would be all healthy and try soy flour, but that gave it a really weird taste on top of the middle just not cooking. When I turned it over to get it out of the pan the middle fell out like a tissue box… SO next time, I swear, I’m going to do everything exactly like my recipe (that I made myself. You would think I would follow my own recipe).

I think this goes for everything else in life too. Cars, school, essays, people. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to fix an essay that was fine to begin with, which just made more work for myself. And with people, if there is nothing wrong with you then you really shouldn’t change yourself. That goes for other people too. If think someone is perfect the way they are, don’t ask them to change to be “better.” I know that the word “perfect” is kind of taboo, but it really shouldn’t be. We as humans only have a limited vocabulary, so we came up with this word to describe something that is so good, so much to our liking that it can not get any better. So of course there is such thing as perfect, that’s why we came up with that word, so we could use it. I think people just put too much emphases on it, like the word “love.” But that’s a whole other article.

So that’s my little advice of the year. If you like it, don’t change it.

A paper Christams

pickyforwords — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:35:50 +0000

My mother and I found an interesting way to turn old books into art. I’m just going to call it book folding. I don’t know what it’s really called. It’s actually pretty simple. You just take a thin papered book, like a bible or a book of poems, and first take the cover off, leaving the binding in tact. Then you just start folding the pages any way you want. We folded ours into a triangle by taking one corner and folding it into the center of the binding and then taking the other corner and doing the same. It will sort of overlap the first fold, but that’s okay. You do that for every page until it looks like this:

You can also fold the point in to look like this. The possibilities are endless.

These can make really neat gifts for people who like books or just neat things to put in their house.

When life gives you paper, make all of your holiday gifts out of it.

pickyforwords — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:27:20 +0000

My little sister’s classroom was having a holiday party before Christmas break. Naturally, this means all the moms have to come up with some cute gift idea (bags/containers for candy) to pass out to all the kids in the class. Of course you have to stick with the holiday theme, but not everyone is that crafty on short notice. My mom came to me and asked me to come up with some cute thing to put some candy in, but my mind was still soaked in origami, so I made up these little origami cups. Very easy.

We used green, red and white paper and my sister used some other colorful paper. (I didn’t get to take a picture of them in time so these were the only ones left over) Then my mom decorated them with some other pretty paper we had lying around and glitter. Every kid loves glitter, but now it’s all over the house. To finish it off we punched a hole in each side and used some Jute to make little handles.

What are some things you make for your kid’s school at the last minute?

An advent calendar for the crafty at heart

pickyforwords — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:55:55 +0000

Hey everyone! It’s advent calendar season! Now, I know that some parents out there aren’t crazy about their kids eating too much chocolate. Some of you still have Halloween candy tucked away! Well I have an alternative for those parents who are anti-chocolate or just looking for something new (now that it’s December 5th…). If you’re like me and have a bunch of scrapbook paper laying around that you are never going to use, you are going to love this project.

My family has a wooden reusable advent calendar with little doors for each day. Because of our busy, busy lives, we forgot to get candy (or something) to put in the doors!! Luckily, I am on an origami binge and that is all I think about and I just love trying to make it as small as possible, so I came up with the idea of putting a different origami animal (or whatever) in each day! I will love the challenge and I’m sure my sister will like this unique surprise. At least it will make for a good story on the first day back to school after the holidays.

Or you could always put an origami diagram in each day and have your kids make them themselves. I like to think I have all the time in the world so I went ahead and did them myself. Plus, my sister gets frustrated with origami and just gives up.

So have fun folding and try not to get a paper cut!!

A little bit of India for everyone.

pickyforwords — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 01:32:55 +0000

I have the dying urge to go to India one day. I love the atmosphere, the culture, the people and the beautiful scenery. One day I hope to travel there and experience all of its wonders, but for now, I have my own little piece of India. I know these awesome people who share their passion of life and love through music with a little bit of Folk, Rock and Eastern influences.

Listen to some of their music HERE.

They are going to be touring India starting Nov 29, 11 through Feb 7, 12 and they need all the support they can get. Here is the Tour Kickoff Show that I had the pleasure of seeing. The energy was really amazing, which made for an outstanding show.

Tyagaraja’s India Tour Kickoff show Recap for Indiegogo Page from Tyagaraja on Vimeo.

I think they are really going to make a great impact on their India tour and I can’t wait to see all their travels. In the mean time, I’m going to try to support them as much as possible. If you have an appreciation for music, life and spiritual awakening, then please help support them as well. Go to the Tyagaraja Tours India 2011 campaign page and read all about it!

Fairy Costume Turnout

pickyforwords — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:40:54 +0000

I said I would post pictures of what my costume looked like together, sorry it seems kind of late, but at least I’m posting them at all. I usually say I’m going to post something later and then never do. So just pretend you are reading this on Halloween.

For those of you who missed it, the tutorial for this costume is here.

That robot next to me is my wonderful boyfriend. His costume was made of 100% reused material!! I am so proud of him for tapping into his creative side and putting this awesome costume together. It was a huge success (especially with the kids).