Birthday Round-up

This year I mostly got money for my birthday, which is not a normal occurrence! I thought it would be fun to round-up the different things I spent it on to show you some of the stuff I am loving right now.


Besdata Smart Cover, in purple - I watch a lot of Netflix on my iPad while I'm cleaning around the house, and I was tired of having to awkwardly prop the iPad up. So far I'm really liking this $10 bargain cover, and the purple color is lovely (I won't be getting it mixed up with everyone else's!). The back piece also keeps the cover from falling off, which my husband's Apple cover does constantly. My only complaint is that the cover does not magnetically snap to the back of the iPad, but it hasn't really been a problem either.

iPod Nano, 3rd generation, in silver, 4G - I've been wanting an MP3 player for working out or walking around the neighborhood, but it didn't need to be top of the line. I shopped around on eBay & was able to find a 3rd generation iPod for about $30. I've spent the last week going through old CDs & adding them to iTunes, and finally got everything loaded on the iPod last night! I have about 450 songs and it looks like 4G will hold about 600 (not quite the 1,000 advertised).



Pentatonix, "That's Christmas to Me" - Speaking of music, I've been a little obsessed with this 5 person acapella group ever since they won The Sing-off in 2011. I've loved seeing their successes over the years ~ sold out concerts, #12 You-tube channel, and they were even in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade this year! Their Chirstmas album this year is great, but I *really* love last year's "PTXmas".


PTX, Vol. III - All three of their albums are on my Christmas list this year, and I had just enough money left to grab the 3rd volume for $5. Amazon has a cool feature that even let me listen to the album immediately after ordering the CD!



Suburbia - Justin's birthday is 3 days after mine, and we both chipped in some money for a board game. Ever since discovering Catan a few years ago, we have our family & friends high addicted to board games!  If you've only played games like Monopoly or Trivial Pusuit, you are missing out!


Little Big Planet - Now that we finally have a Playstation, ther are so many games to choose from! I'm starting out wirh some oldies like this and Katamari. What are your favs?




Lip balm stain - Lipstick has never looked right on me, but I found out that I can wear lip balm stains. And even when they wear off, they leave a nice tint on your lips for hours! I previously had two Revlon shades, "Honey" (mauve) and "Crush" (deep berry), which run about $5-6 on big-time sale. This time I tried Wet 'N Wild "Rico Mauve", and Jordana "Candied Coral" and "Rockin' Rouge" (red). These only cost $3 each at Walgreens, and I think I like them even more!


Born Pretty Store nail stamping plates - I've ordered studs from this super cheap site before & heard they make some good quality plates too. I picked up 02, 17, and 19 at $1.50 each. Shipping is free, but they do take several weeks to arrive.



And finally, clip on bangs! Girls, you have got to get in on this one. I felt like my haircut could use some bangs, but with little kids I knew I wouldn't be able to deal with the upkeep & they would just be pinned out of the way constantly. Search around Amazon & eBay and for $5 you can get removable bangs in your color, trim them however you want, and even style them with low heat. They even passed my skeptical husband's test once I'd styled mine!

Video Games for Artists & Crafters!

I was really impressed with two video games that I played recently that are geared towards the arts & crafts crowd....

"Drawn to Life" is a game for the DS which lets the player draw using the stylus & touch screen. But this is not one of those virtual art 'games' that lets you mimic the textures of different paints & pens & papers, it is a normal platform game with a twist ~ you create a lot of the content! You draw your character, your weapons, the platforms that you jump on, the item that gives you power-ups, and a lot of other details that are used throughout the game.

Now, I should mention first that I actually played through the sequel to this game (Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter) and not the original, which I thought I was purchasing at the time. The sequel came out last year while the original is a few years older and I don't know how much the two might differ.

I had a blast coming up with crazy things throughout the game, like using a taco that shot beans for my gun, running around with a giant purple pool noodle for a sword, or jumping across pink bars of soap to cross a waterfall. At first I loved creating the items but found the gameplay a little boring, but as the game progresses your character gains the ability to morph into two other creatures ~ a blob that can squeeze through tight spaces & a spider-like creature that can climb walls & shoot webbing. By the end it was exciting to have to switch between the three to find hidden treasures or even just trying to race through a level to stay alive. If you like to draw even a little I think you would have a great time with this game & I can't wait to go back & play through the original.


Now for the sewers & yarn enthusiasts, I bring you "Kirby's Epic Yarn"! While you won't get to using your crafting skills in this game you will definitely enjoy the fact that all of the characters and backgrounds are drawn to look as if they were created out of yarn & fabrics. The fabric aspect is played with throughout the game as Kirby unravels, unstitches, and unzips various objects... and everything is just so darn cute! And it is a great game for different levels of gamers ~ easy if you just want to get through the levels, or more challenging if you try to get silver or gold on every level (I still haven't finished the game!). Or if you are not into gaming at all, you can always buy a copy for your husband or child & just sit back & enjoy the graphics. ;)

Happy Halloween!

Dropping by quickly to wish everyone a Happy Halloween!

Zelda - Genmu no Sunadokei

Lately I've been playing through Zelda: Phantom Hourglass in Japanese (Genmu no Sunadokei). It's such fun!! I definitely don't recognize every word, but I understand enough to know what the characters are talking about without looking things up in a dictionary. (Having played through the English version years ago helps, I'm sure!)

Knowing the kanji has been the biggest help, as you can usually guess the meaning of the word from the meaning of the kanji alone. This game has been recommended again & again online because the pronunciation pops up when you touch a kanji with your stylus ~ a feature I'm sure was added to help Japanese children who do not yet know all of their kanji, but very helpful for foreign learners as well.

I shouldn't say that I've put down the dictionary entirely while reading along, though. I'm not used to reading such small and stylized kanji, and you often loose a lot of the details in the compression. I frequently use the pop-up pronunciations in order to look up the word to figure out what kanji they are actually using. It's been great practice for reading small type, a refresher on kanji that is not currently in my vocabulary list, and a fun way to learn some new words along the way! It's such a tragedy that the newest DS games are starting to put in a region lock so that I won't be able to play them without buying a Japanese DS.

Mail Call!

I've been getting all sorts of goodies in the mail lately!

First, I picked out a free magazine subscription from the Coke website. I wanted something with recipes and chose Bon Appetit. I waited a bit... and then three issues arrived all at once! I've only found a few recipes that I'm interested in trying, but that's the case with any cookbook or magazine, isn't it?



Then I received this Cute Yummy Time book from a blog give-away on While She Naps! I'm always so surprised to win these things. I always seem to win when I actually wanted to leave a comment more than I wanted to enter. But it is a very cute book, and I'll be sure to use some of the ideas in the future.



"While She Naps" is one of the first crafting blogs I started reading outside of Live Journal, and I've been keeping up with it for a few years now. Abby is so sweet and also included a few postcards with images of her beautiful bird sculptures and a cute drawing on the envelope.



I also got a copy of Harry Potter in Japanese (eBay), which I have been drooling over for a while now. I had been translating my way through Death Note (an awesome series, if you haven't read it), and I actually got to the point where I could understand what was going on pretty well without having to look anything up because words are repeated *so* frequently in them. But, I wanted a 'real' book...



I definitely wouldn't mind an actual Japanese book, but I believe this was a good choice to start with. It's a story I've read before, but long ago enough that I don't remember all of the details, and it is a book I own in English. Also, I won't have to worry about confusing the Japanese names with each other, or with other words ("Why can't I find this in the dictionary?!?"). And let's face it, it's just fun to own as well!



Another recent arrive, which I don't have a photo of, was the MySims Agents game. I loved MySims and MySims Kingdom, which are almost like lego versions of the normal Sims games, minus all of that daily-life-chore stuff. I was so excited to see a new game coming out, and this time with a crime-solving, puzzle twist. It was an enjoyable game, but very, *very* short (15 hrs for a $50 game?!?), so I've already sold that one and put the money towards screen printing ink.

And I've already got a growing list of DS and Wii games for my birthday/Christmas list. One more month! Any fun games I need to know about? What are you playing? Or have you gotten something fun through the mail too?

Puzzles, puzzles

Can you believe is it already September? I think the temperature dropped 10 degrees as soon as the calendar page flipped. In Georgia there is summer and winter, but very little in between.

Yesterday I pulled out one of the smaller screens and attempted to burn my owl pattern onto one. Justin suggested the idea, so that I could at least start printing a little again while I'm trying to get the large screens to work. And I admit, I was eager to see a screen turn out again, to reassure myself that I am capable of burning the image.

So, of course, the small screen turned out miserably too! The good news is that this means that the large screens are probably not to blame. The bad news? The problem could be anything, and I have no clue what to fix. Something wrong with the emulsion, soap, lighting, timing, transparencies? The list goes on and on. As far as I know, I'm doing everything the same as before, and the screens turned out perfectly then. I'm beyond sick of the not-knowing, the the exhaustion of cleaning out huge screens, and am going to start seriously looking around for someone to burn the screens for me.

Most frustrating craft ever!

Luckily, I think we are past the slump in orders, the last month has been dead. And yesterday I was thrilled to get my hands on a copy of the new Professor Layton game (new to the US at least). If you have fun answering all of those little puzzles they use on IQ tests, you'll love this game. (Cough, cough, Sarada)