Self-Indulgent January

Beauty gurus popularized the monthly favorites series online and I wanted to include my twist on the same concept. It's called 'monthly self-indulgences' because all the things I write about are pretty silly and superficial, or at the very least no help in getting my schoolwork done. Here we go!

*Life Hacks*

Sunbeam Therapedic Heated Mattress Pad
I guess I would call this my winter boyfriend. It's similar to an electronic blanket except that you tuck it under your bedding rather than on top. I plug it in and it has a little remote with dials to preheat and increase levels. I got it for my 17th birthday and it's lovely to curl up under the covers with the bed all toasty and ready to go.

Trader Joes 
Goat Cheese
My friend Hannah and I discovered that crepes with goat cheese are unbelievably delicious. We went straight home after midterms and cooked some up with cut-up strawberries. Maybe it was the timing, maybe it was that Trader Joe's never fails us, but it was seriously scrumptious. Now an essential exam tradition.


*Beauty Choices*

'Strawberry and Cream' Ultra Nourishing Hand Cream
My mother bought it for me from cakebeauty's Be Delectable line. I had become consumed with finding the perfect strawberry lotion after discovering Angel Foam by Natural Benefits. The company is based in Mexico so this was the cheaper alternative. I like it a lot though, the scent stays on my skin for a long time.

Chi Air 1" Flat Iron
I invested in a quality brand straightener because the thickness of my hair kind of makes it necessary. The Chi straightener is popular and well known for a reason. It heats up almost faster than I'm ready for and straightens strands on the first pull. Highly recommend.

*Recent Readings*

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
Over winter break my dad and I took turns reading this book aloud and it is truly sweet. A short read, the writing turns mathematics into a poetry I had never appreciated. The novel is about a housekeeper who comes to work for a mathematician who's memory lasts only 80 minutes. It's a story about love for math, for teaching, and for companionship.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
My third Vonnegut book, this one did not disappoint. Always weird, always dark, and always funny. I underlined countless hilarious quotes. This story explores a fake theology called Bokoninism, along with other bizarre characters. Like all Vonnegut works in its strange fictional way it speaks a lot of truth.

*Internet Obsessions*

CutiePieMarzia 
I love Marzia's videos. She is adorable and always thinking of new ideas and creative projects. Her travel videos are great to watch and she seems like a really genuine person. It's hard to find 'real people' on YouTube anymore but Marzia always comes off sincere. I'm also impressed by her courage to make videos with a language gap. Obviously her english has improved greatly but when she first began filming speaking English wasn't quite as natural to her.

SaphiraFashion
Saphira is my age but she's a legitimate role model to me. As I mentioned with Marzia, she is a YouTuber who comes off genuinely and I like that a lot. Saphira is full of opinions and not afraid to share them. She regularly speaks about controversial topics. This is something I find rare in online content because people are often too nervous to get criticized for even the smallest non-mainstream opinion. Saphira has a great attitude and an awesome sense of self and that's also uncommon for people our age.


*Art Explorations*

The World's Smallest Postal Service Deluxe Kit
I did a review of this on the blog but I thought it should be included here. I won't go into too much detail but I love Lea Redmond's work and the people I've shown this kit to adore it. It's a really fun activity to sit with people and write small letters. They literally never fail to make people smile.

Memorex CDs and Sleeves
This particular section of the monthly favorites will have blog posts explaining further so once again, a blog post explains more. Memorex sells CDs and sleeves. I bought 50 CDs and CD sleeves for a mixtape party for my birthday. They were a decent price and functioned well.

*none of the images here are my own

Calendar Carton 
Here is the cover for the january entries in my calendar carton. It features Carrie Mulligan, eggs, rabbits, cameras, and a Childish Gambino quote.

"Don't be mad cuz I'm doing me better than you doing you"

Review: WSPS Tiny Mail DIY Kit

I'm not sure I've ever written on this blog about how much I adore Lea Redmond. She is one of my all time favorite artist inspirations. She creates and sells lovely curios on her website, Leafcutter Designs. What appeals to me so much about her work is its simplicity and sweetness. Her art is intended to make people smile and appreciate the little things. For instance, she sold small containers of cocktail umbrellas with instructions to hand them out to people on rainy days. It's both clever and silly and absolutely adorable. It's the kind of art that I hope to make.

Lea Redmond, among her many projects, is the genius behind the World's Smallest Postal Service (WSPS). Ordering a letter from her costs less than 10 dollars and is totally worth it. The WSPS prints a tiny version of your letter and sends it, with a magnifying glass to a friend. Today's review is about the DIY tiny mail activity kit. A couple years back I ordered what I guess could be called the beta version of this kit. I loved it so much that I went ahead and spent the extra money on the deluxe version of Lea's new full-size kit. It cost me 50 dollars. Quite pricey, I'll be honest, but I don't mind supporting artists I love. As you can see, I sort of combined in the leftovers from the first version.

The deluxe kit contains: boxes to make tiny packages, wrapping supplies, ink pads and stamps with postal phrases, tiny stamps and postal stamps, tiny envelopes, tiny paper (some lined), a magnifying glass, an extremely thin pen, large clear envelopes to send the small letters in the real mail, and a little paper mailbox. The contents in more detail is available on the website.

The kit also includes little sticker 'wax seal' stamps to close the envelopes but I never find that the envelopes stay shut. Having actual wax adds an extra special touch so I bough some and made a tiny seal stamp out of fimo clay. It looks like this and the envelopes do stay closed:

I can also use some of the contents for projects besides tiny mail. I created small hand bound books to mimic Lea's tiny packages. The stamps are useful to me for things like that. In the end, spending the money was very much worth my while and I get to make friends smile with tiny letters all the time.

Calendar Carton

This new year I am keeping a different kind of calendar. I have wanted to do it since I first saw the beautiful one on DesignSponge. There are more details on the website but essentially you cut index cards in half and use a date stamp to mark each day of the year on the individual cards. In the tutorial they used postcards to divide the months but my dividers are blank. I will be creating the designs for each month divider and posting them on the blog. What I love about this concept is that you can grab the cards with the dates you need whenever you are going away. This makes it portable. It's shape also allows you to glue in fun things or write interesting notes. Its a really cute concept.

Projects for 2015

I have a very busy schedule for creating art pieces. This has to due with 1) my AP art class and submitting to college board and 2) creating a portfolio to apply to art school. That said, I have my own personal artistic pursuits. Besides blogging once a week (2014 was a weak year for this blog), here is a basic outline of the projects I'd like to see come to fruition for myself in 2015:

1)  Hello Planet Earth - Etsy Store

I'm revamping my Etsy store to, like, actually sell products. Its called 'Hello Planet Earth' and it will feature hand bound journals, book jewelry, and prints. Later this year I hope to launch some other products including the HPE mini paper studio series.

2) February Watercolor Studies

During the month of February I'd like to become comfortable with watercolor. I bought myself a lovely watercolor set and small watercolor paper notebook that I'd like to fill. It will feature my favorite objects I've collected over the years and hopefully culminate in enough decent paintings to create a calendar or some other print set.

3) May Design Explorations

Continuing the month project concept, I have this odd cliff-shaped doodle that I want to explore further. Using food, yarn, typography, plants, etc. I will attempt to create this shape every single day until I have a set of images expressing this abstract design through different mediums.

Painting A Day Adventures

Here are some photos from class time working on our very first oil paintings. Inspired by the painting-a-day movement, we had to create 3 small 6x6 in paintings based on one to two object still-lifes.

   

Creative US History Projects

In my US II class I've had the opportunity for a few creative projects. These are always a lot of fun for me. Most traditional teachers tend to avoid the artsy projects but those are what I enjoy best. Here are a couple from the past few weeks. The first project is a social media account for a historical figure. I chose to create an instagram account for financial mogul J.P. Morgan. I found an amazing insta template that someone had posted on adobe and was able to make it in photoshop in a matter of minutes. The second project is for Teddy Roosevelt's birthday. I made a brownie pan, covered it in fudge, and arranged butterscotch, milk, and white chocolate chips on top to look like his head.

CIT Summer at Buck's Rock

This summer I worked at Buck's Rock creative and performing arts camp. My great grandfather was apprenticed to a book binder in Latvia, and I was apprenticing in a bindery in rural Connecticut. Pretty fun coincidence. I made a cargo collective to showcase the projects I made on my own time. [Update: all these pieces now appear under the section 'Summer 2014']

It was a really great, productive summer. I made a lot of projects that I'm proud of. I learned a lot of new stitches (as evident in the sampler set). From adapted coptic to button hole I taught kids at least a dozen different techniques. I also almost hurt myself in the wood shop but ended up with some decent comfort around power tools. In the printmaking studio I made lino cuts, etchings, and silkscreens so I think I covered the basics. It was a lot of fun. 

I met some new and fantastic people such as the Printing and Silkscreen CITs, Sophia and Emily. And got closer with some old favorites like Basia who took the photos of my summer work, and Ashley, also a PASS CIT. Clearly I spent a lot of time in that shop. Everyone was incredibly talented and fun to collaborate with. I think a did 5 different exchanges which is ridiculous. It was a lovely time even with all the bugs and heat and art kid drama.