A Very Sophie Christmas

Playing: FALL-Cider Sky
Reading: The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee (Not that one...)

My parents ditched me last weekend to go to to a Christmas party, so I had no where to go and Sophie, being the amazing friend that she is, took me out for a day of fun and creativity. She took me to this yoga studio to make Christmas ornaments, which I kind of slaughtered, but no worries, I'm going to try again! I've always wanted to do a themed Christmas tree, so if I were doing one, my theme for this year would be stars and the sky.

Afterwards, we walked around this little ditch area in my town and explored, while dancing to the Cure and the Police. We like to dance a lot and this is one of my favorite photos of Sophie; she looks so happy and like she actually enjoys spending time with me. After we explored for awhile, we decided to catch a showing of Looper, which was so intense, at the dollar theatre. The only complaint I have with Looper is that the makeup artists changed Joseph Gordon Levitt's face too much. Did I tell you about how I went to go see Lincoln for APUSH extra credit and my teacher, Mr. Harrington, sat right next to me? He chucked popcorn at me and now in all his classes, he does Audrey fangirling over Joseph Gordon Levitt impersonations that are painfully accurate. (I LOVE HIS CLASS THOUGH.) After watching Looper, Sophie took me to dinner because she's a nice person like that and then let me bum around her place until my parents came back home. Thanks, Sopher Gopher, I owe you one.

Later on (not with Sophie), I went to Target to buy some Christmas lights and I'm super excited to say that the Target and Neiman Marcus collaboration hasn't sold out, since it's too expensive for Target shoppers and too cheap for Neiman Marcus' audience. I grabbed a Marc Jacobs scarf, which is so perfect and it's conservative enough that I think men can wear it too. During the post-Christmas sales, I'm going back for the Tom Browne blazer! The Christmas cards were just so cute and for Christmas this year, I'm giving heart felt cards. My group of friends is doing a secret Santa and I just wanted to show you how cute the items I bought for Jackie are. (Just don't show her! She doesn't know yet!) The cupcake bath bomb is so cute and realistic looking, while the hand scrub and lip gloss just smell insanely good.

I actually got some requests, which I'm shocked about, to do a separate blog of extra photos from my life such as cute things, my food, and just more photos of well, me. WELL, today's your lucky day, I created a tumblr for all of you (but mostly me) that stores all my extra fun photos that didn't make it on my main blog. So if you like photos of Vivian and me dancing sporadically in Disneyland, attracting a crowd of bystanders, then The World is just for you. Really, knowing you guys want to see more of me makes me feel so loved.

PS I apologize for being a cruddy blogger. Not much of interest has been going on in my life.

Sawdust Festival

Playing: Tonight Tonight-Hot Chelle Rae
Reading: Vogue September 2011
This summer I went to Sawdust Festival for the first time after I got back from Istanbul. Sawdust Festival takes place in Laguna Beach along with many other art shows like Pageant of the Masters. This is my second summer attending at least one of the festivals going on, but I was kind of disappointed...

Made in Heaven by Missy sells little fairy key chains and ornaments. The set up was interesting and I liked the lights and crystals draped across the ceiling inside. It looked like what would happen, if you gave your daughter a tree house. Or if Tavi was given a tree house...And I mean that in a good way.

They had some really creepy stuff there too like this painter's roof. It was crowded with old toys and random memorabilia. I wonder how much the people at these booths can make in one summer. I really didn't see people buying any paintings. The people who sold jewelry sold some, but now a whole lot.

These paintings by Bonn were a lot of fun. They reminded me of the Mexican paintings, only with brighter colors. They had several paintings of fat cats that I thought would look great in my room, but I can never get myself to spend a lot of money on paintings.

Lupe's Floral had the best ceramic things there. I loved all the mushrooms and how bright everything was! They had frog pots too for your mushrooms? This reminded me of my friend, Sophie, who used to be interested in mushrooms. It'd be cool to have a garden full of these.

Jones had these amazing pots that you use to separate eggs. Not only humorous, but useful too! At first, I thought it was all a joke, but then I read the description and I was shocked in the best of ways! I think that these pots would make great gifts for your close friends. Weird? Completely so.

They have an area, where you can sit and listen to whatever band they have there. The area is quite lovely and they have a waterfall going, which I found very unexpected. I suggest eating there because all the stalls looked very interesting and it's all very cheap too. I think the main reason I didn't enjoy this festival as much is because it's aimed at an audience that's old enough to be my parents and/or my grandparents. Also, it's not so much of an art festival, but more like a craft fair. If you're into crafts and are in the area, this is a pretty good way to spend your afternoon. The admission is fairly cheap and it's interesting enough. However, I don't feel like it's a must see.

Quick Update

Playing: Miss You-The Feeling
Reading: Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck
I've been busy lately trying to finish up all my summer assignments for school. I'm almost done with all of my summer assignments except for a few questions on Chemistry, which I'm going to ask my dad about and some maps for History, which Clare and I are planning on doing together. I have a study group this afternoon to help us double check answers, ask for help, and get boba! I'm trying to cram so much into the last few days of summer that I'm starting to get stressed. Not to mention, my laptop is having a hard time charging and stuff.

I went to Little Tokyo, Chinatown, and Olverra Street in Los Angeles in one day! It was extremely hot, so my family and I were like slugs, when it came to how fast we went. While in Chinatown, my family bought some dried plums and the people there were very nice and gave us a bag full of Guava candies for free. Then in Little Tokyo, I went to Q-Pop Shop hoping to buy a pair of fingerless gloves I saw there a few weeks ago. They no longer had them, so I grabbed a Mighty Harajuku pin.

In Little Tokyo, they have all these wishes tied to trees. Some are really sweet, while others are funny. One person wished for "super powers or world peace would be a decent alternative." I liked reading all of them and I was tempted to buy a piece of paper for my wish. If you go to Little Tokyo now, they have all these wish trees everywhere!

Towards the beginning of summer, I went to Amina's birthday party and Erica was there! I met Erica through Rebecca and I loved her shoes. They're floral Doc Martens. I was tempted to hunt down a pair for myself.

Someone my dad knows makes all these animals out of vegetables in her free time as a hobby. She made a duck for me because I really adore ducks. She made it out of squash and carrots, so I was pretty amazed. It always surprises me what people can make with simple things.

I was walking around Old Town Tustin awhile ago and I ran into this house. I love it, especially the stars in the window. I would love to buy this one day, when I'm a billionaire. It would be lovely to move into a Victorian style house...

I've had this song stuck in my head for the past few days because of P o o p e r. I first watched Kyary on P o o p e r's blog and I think Kyary is adorable. I love all the weird faces she makes. (To see them, click here.) I can't help, but like her. The Japanese still come up with the most interesting and cute singers. I saw her on the cover of a magazine yesterday and I almost bought it...Noticed how many times I was tempted to buy something in this post? I've also been exercising self restraint this summer. I need to be extra harsh, when I go clothes shopping.

Let's Make Reindeers!

Mood: Tired
Playing: Sing-My Chemical Romance
Yesterday was a really terrible day, so I had to make sure today was extra good, which I sort of failed at. Yesterday, I figured out my grade in Biology dropped, did badly on my French oral because I kept on asking her to repeat a question, and I made my first huge mistake in lacrosse. Tryouts are coming soon for lacrosse, so I've been extra worried about looking good in front of the coach, While doing a drill, I fell for the first time. Everyone else has tripped and fallen before on the team, but it's still embarrassing because I scraped myself up pretty bad. I also got my flu shot yesterday, so my arm is super sore! Sorry for the long-ish rant!
Today I did something good, since I did some charity work! For my church, I helped decorate candy canes to send to an orphanage in Mexico. I hope the kids like them. I showed up a few minutes late, but I'm happy to say that many of my friends were there!

We started off with plain cherry flavored candy canes. Unfortunately, we didn't get to eat any, but I understand, it's for the children!

I would then take a medium size pipe cleaner that Chelcee cut and twist it around the top to start the antlers.

Then I would take two small pipe cleaners that Chelcee also cut and twist it around to make the antlers look more full.

I would then pass it on to Clare, so she could glue on eyes and a little red nose, since I don't like working with glue...

These were our finished products with around 10 people working for around 30 minutes. I think we did a pretty good job!

PJ, a new guy I just became friends with, started to get creative and made one with three eyes. We had a hard time explaining that to the person supervising us...

PJ's mustached reindeer tried to hit on Clare's reindeer, even though it tried to run away. As you can see, we were acting like geeks!

Of course, I had to go and make one with a mustache bigger than PJ's reindeer's mustache! Haha, our supervisor found the mustaches "cute."

When we thought we were done, we learned we had to tie on notes that said, "Jesus loves you." I wrote that out and then I learned we had to do it in Spanish, so Daniela helped out with that! Not all of those notes are mine. No way is my handwriting that perfect!

Chelcee had this interesting lemon kumquat juice. I've tried kumquat juice, but never lemon kumquat juice. Interesting, huh?

They had hot chocolate and whipped cream, but then they ran out of hot chocolate. I ended up taking a cup of whipped cream and several people were thoroughly grossed out by it. Whatever, I'll work it off during lacrosse practice! At the end, we had to fill in a form about what we learned and we were all sitting there wondering what to write. Eventually we just shared answers because none of us knew what to write. Overall, it was a lot more fun that I thought it would be and it helped me get to know PJ and Sara better and helped me grow closer to Chelcee, Clare, and Daniela.

Do you ever do charity work with your church?

I'll try to do a real tutorial on how to make these, if you want...This was more a summary of what I did.

Craft Fair Products

Mod: Excited
Playing: A Song for Brit-A Rocket to the Moon
Lately, I've been enjoying A Rocket to the Moon a lot more than I used to. I also haven't been listening to as much Nickasaur as I did a few months ago, so I'm getting back into the habit of listening to him because his music makes me smile.
Why am I excited you may ask? I'm going to be doing the craft fair today and tomorrow! I hope I can make some money off of this because San-X stuff is not cheap and they came out with something I really, really want! I decided I wanted to do a post showing you what I'm selling and hopefully, you'll like it. Originally, I had all these grand plans for today's post such as, another Megumi post, a rainy day photos post, a change in me post, or my birthday post! Instead, you (my lovely followers) got stuck with this, a post about my products!

Here's a small sample of my key chains that I made. I made both onigiri with "^-^" faces and strawberries.

Here are my super cute and super useful watermelon pouches. I made one for myself during summer and I use it to carry all sorts of things. I decided to sell them at the craft fair because they're just so useful!

I made some cake plushies too. The red ones are my red velvet cakes and the pink one is a strawberry cake. My dad sewed the strawberries on and he did the whipped cream part for me.

Here are my lovely flan plushies and a lollipop plushie. My friend, Lauren, already said that she wanted a short flan from me!

Here are some tarts I made. They're really cute and I think they make great decoration. Many of my friends have said that they like the blueberry and strawberry ones. Then Hilary said on Facebook, "No love for cranberries? D:"

Sorry that this photo is so cruddy. I took it last night, so we're working with the lighting in my house, which as I have stated before, stinks horribly. These were some extra tarts I made. We have a strawberry one with cream and a chocolate caramel one. The chocolate squares actually have little hearts embroidered on them!

Last, but most definitely the best, are my Frank the Onigiri plushies. I just love these ones so much, but I have this suspicion that I won't sell these ones for some reason...Hopefully, at this craft fair, I'll sell tons and tons, though. The only reason why I think I might not sell much is because maybe the people there just don't understand food plushies with faces. Maybe it's too Asian? The sad part about this craft fair is I'm missing art class, which is so much fun because the people in it are all so crazy and fun! I did a makeup art class yesterday and the people in it weren't half as interesting, but Frank, from my class, was there, so we talked a bit. By the way, I did not name the Onigiri plushies after Frank, my friend. In fact, I had never met him before, when I named the Onigiri plushies.

Do you like it when people use emoticons in their blog posts? Such as  ^-^, :), XD, T^T, etc? Do you find it cute or unprofessional?

Kumihimo Tutorial

Mood: Depressed
Playing: The Only One-Hello Astronaut
I'm happy that I have 33 followers, but I'm depressed that school is starting in two days. This is something I learned at the Fair and I just wanted to share it with you. It's super simple and something you can do, while watching TV.

Take an old box and draw an octagon. Draw a line on each side of the octagon. Then draw a circle in the middle.

Cut out the circle and octagon. Then cut the lines on each side of the octagon. You should have something like this.

Cut seven pieces of yarn or embroidery thread of equal length. I cut the yarn to be four feet because I wanted it to be long enough to be a belt. Tie the ends of the yarn on one side.

Stick the yarn in each slot and there should be one empty one, if you do it correctly. Here's what it looks like.

Count 3 slots right to the empty slot and take the yarn from that slot and put it into the empty slot. Just like in the photo above. Hopefully, the arrow helps.

Repeat the step above. Kind of like in the picture above. You just repeat this again and again.

On the top, it should look like something like this. You don't have to use the same colors. I only used different colors to help make it easier to see.

On the bottom half it should look like this. Run your hands through the yarn, hanging from the bottom, to keep it from getting too tangled.

When you barely have any yarn left, like in the picture above, take it off the loom and tie up the end. Cut the yarn on the end, so it's one equal length.

When you're done, it should look like this. I hope you liked this tutorial. If you have any questions, just ask, and I'll try my best to help. It's really easy, but this tutorial is kind of confusing.

Thing I made

Ok, so I made a huge version of this key chain that my friend, Rebecca, gave me for my birthday. I spent around 2-3 days sitting around in the house because I was getting my wisdom teeth removed, so I had plenty of time to make this critter. I'm giving him to my brother as a going away present. I'm not sure what exactly it is. So if you know what it is, can you tell me? Also, which picture do you think would be good to upload to DeviantArt? Which one would show off all of it's details the best?

Also, do you like my new layout? Or do you prefer my old one? I'm trying to get rid of the "Link Here" things that link nowhere.

Hobbies~

1. Embroidery-I am currently working on a pillow case. It has a cupcake, Domo, turtle, mushroom, ladybug, and the lyrics to Swim  on it so far.
2. Knitting-I love to knit scarves and blankets. This year for Breanne and Sophie's gift, I knitted them scarves. For Sophie's birthday I knitted her bows. I also like knitting small blankets and clothing for my stuffed animals. Yes, I am that juvenile. Let's see, the first scarf I ever made was given to Madeline for a just because gift in 2nd or 3rd grade.
3. Reading-Whether it's magazines, comics, or novels, I am almost always reading. I usually read one book for school, one book for enjoyment, a comic book, and a magazine all within a week or two. I tend to read a tiny bit of each and then when I get bored with one I move onto another one and then I go back to it sooner or late. I am currently reading Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Van Alan Legacy, Pandora Hearts, Time, and Vogue. Quite a difference in genres from book to book isn't it?
4. Drawing-I like sketching pictures of people. They're cruddy most of the time, but I always get a compliment from people calling them "cute" or something along those lines. I also enjoy drawing frogs, tofu pillows, and pretty much anything cute. I also like making drawings that consist of symbols and lyrics. Most of the time these word/symbol drawings are dedications to Andrew's music.
5. Painting-I am currently working on a recreation of a Monet painting. It is one of his lily paintings. I could not find a picture of it online though. It is one of his lily paintings, where the water is a pastel pink/purple mixed in with muddy greens.
6. Going to Stores-I like going to vintage clothing stores, vintage furniture stores, and foreign food stores.
I love eating foreign I love eating foreign candy and chips. The furniture store is incredibly fun. You never know what you'll find. The pictures in this post are of things I found at the furniture store. One time I found a chandelier that had frogs playing violins on it.