DIY: Berry Lovely Necklace

A while ago, I was at the craft store looking for nothing and everything, and I happened upon some pastel beads that resembled berries, and so I decided to make a berry lovely necklace...

What my week looked like (sort of)

This is at least what my week looked like through instagram.
There usually aren't as many dead birds and snails in my average week.

Follow me on instagram...I'm cnic

Oysters from a coworker.

Flowers for Administrative Professionals Day (is that offensive...I mean, I never know)

Garden snail friends.

Dead bee in my laundry room.

Breakfast with my B.

MORE GARDEN SNAILS!

Succulents at the local bark/garden store

Tumwater Falls.

Genevieve waiting for me to come home.

Dead bird.

Peanut.

Spokane, here I come!

I'm heading out to Spokane today to spend the weekend with Christine. We're going to have a blast (obviously).

Our agenda so far includes: pancakes, yarn store, possible taxidermy museum, maybe Idaho, breakfast somewhere, margaritas, embroidery floss in a park, frozen yogurt from Didier's, estate sales/thrift stores, and the bead/mineral store. There will definitely be some Roseanne watching, too.

Basically it's going to be really amazing, and I cannot wait.

Here's a look back to the last couple of times I was in Spokane.

Games in bars (this bar has since closed--but that won't stop us).

Dry Fly Distillery.

Lots of Matilda.

Spokane Falls.

Mini golf.

Brief Musical Interlude: Elastica

I don't know if it was the fact that I got about four hours of direct sunlight this weekend and spent it wearing these sunglasses. (And then continued to wear them to work, even though I was fairly certain it was a bit ridiculous.)

Or the chance discovery of my Elastica cd in the truck on Tuesday, 

elastica

Or remembering that I luh-luh-loved Hackers as a teenager. Johnny Lee Miller as Crash Override? Duh. 

JLM

Regardless of what sparked the nostalgia, I experienced a total nineties, ironic t-shirt clad, primary colored computer diskettes, chipped blue nail polish, motocross jacket-wearing, girls with boy's haircuts, rings for days, Dr. Martens stomping, messenger bagging your giant laptop, cyber-punk makeup, Discman listening, rollerblading (or as Jesse would correct me, "inline skating", because Rollerblade is actually a brand, not a verb), teenager remix feeling.

Much appreciated, Universe. 

This Elastica video will serve as my love letter to 1995. God, could Justine Frischmann be any cooler?

Dollar-dollar skills, ya'll.

I had a last minute house/cat-sitting gig this weekend, which means I ended up with a bunch of idle time. I spent that time re-watching a few episodes of The Walking Dead--I'm trying to decide if I hate it...I still don't have a clue--reading Catching Fire (which, of course, I love), and thinking someone was going to murder me. Pretty standard fare for all my house-sitting adventures...

snail friends

This weekend was absolutely glorious--the first really nice weekend the PNW has seen this year. I spent the last 2 weekends in class, but after that was through, I did a bunch of yard work with Mom. We came across these two lovebirds as we were planting radishes and lettuce. I shall call them Edna and Timothy (pssst, the dark shell is Edna). 

They shall be my garden pets. 

We became fast friends.

Then I politely dropped them off back home.

See you around, Timothy and Edna!

Oh and PS, I also saw a dead bird on campus this weekend. I took a picture of it when no one was around. A couple of minutes later this girl rode by on her bicycle. She saw the bird and looked really sad. Then she picked up the dead bird (with her hands BIRD FLU, HELLO!!!), and she put the bird in her backpack.

Weirdo.

Brief Musical Interlude: WAINWRIGHT.

The US release date is 1 May. We're the last on the list... But Rufus is definitely worth the wait.

For details on his new album and to preview some songs, go here. And here's the brand new video for the new album's title song, featuring the lovely Helena Bonham Carter.

UPDATE!! Catherine informs me that you can preview the new album in its entirety on NPR.

There's also a terrific little article. Happy Rufus-ing!

instaweek

PROOF!

stone structure 

trains across Trent

Wendy by Jennifer Li

night at the Museum

instagram christinesuzanne

or

followgram me

noble neon

I realize neon is a big thing again. Whatever. I'm thrilled because now I can find neon stuff, like wallets and whatnot, everywhere. And maybe in two months, I won't be so thrilled. But for now, I'm soaking it up. Well, not literally. 

Actually, strike that. Reverse it. 

Since neon is a noble gas (and on the periodic table of elements!!!), it is present in the air in trace amounts, which means that all of us are sort of soaking up neon. OH, SCIENCE SLAM! But in truth, neon's allure has nothing to do with the fact that it's an element. For me, neon is all about these fannypacks Monika and I had as kids. Yes. You read that right. Monika's pack was hot pink and white and mine was neon green and black. Oh yeah, we were some badass pre-teens with those babies slung around our hips. I think I took mine to Disneyland with my Girl Scout troop. And Monika's, being white, turned all gray and grimy after like two weeks. Regardless and nonetheless, I have been going over some very fond memories of those fannypacks recently. Yup, my nostalgia is rooted in alllllllllllllll neon. 

The inspiration for this project (other than my pining for the fannypacks of days gone by) is the neon friendship ring above. Catherine gave this to me, purchased with her staggering ticket winnings from Wonderland in North Spokane. She's a Ticket Beast, believe me. I think she'll appreciate that moniker. Who wouldn't?

Rounding up the usual suspects: a selection of paints, paintbrush, scissors, cotton clothesline, and matches 

Wrap the clothesline around your finger to determine ring size or around your wrist if you want to go bracelet.

Leave a tiny bit of wiggle room because you'll lose a bit when you seal the ends together.
(With those matches. Yes, there is fire in this tutorial.)

Instead of making paint puddles on my magazine work surface, I used the paint caps. Keep it clean, I say.

I like to hold the clothesline thusly. I definitely do not mind getting paint on my fingers.

Give your clothesline a good coat of paint. Over, under, and all around. 

I went for stripes and blocks of color, and I decided leaving the natural cotton rope was also nice. 

Let the paint dry. I didn't really time it--a couple hours should be adequate. Once dry, form the rope into a circular shape. The paint will make it stiff, so you might have to bend it a bit to loosen things up. 

Now you'll burn both the ends. Eeek! Only adults for this step.

As soon as the end heats up, the synthetic interior of the clothesline will get all melty. 

That's your cue to smoosh the two ends together. They'll stick like glue.

Brush off the ashy bits and...Voila! Aww look, it's a brand new ring!

Now, I did wonder about burning the ends of the clothesline, like if there might be a less smokey way to go. But I tried a couple glues and found the results messy, and corralling the wild and wooly ends of the clothesline, as it started to unravel, was pretty difficult with glue alone. The matches are a nice option because they melt all those flyaway bits together and really do form a tight bond. I've been wearing my rings for a week now and haven't had any issues with things coming undone or the soot factor, so I'm sticking with fire. Duh, of course I am. I would, however, like to give them a coat of Modge Podge, so they don't get all soggy when I wash my hands...also so the natural cotton parts don't end up looking like Monika's white fannypack. You know, all gray and sad, yet well-loved. Always well-loved.

But that, my dears, is for another day. Right now, I'm just going to enjoy this neon nostalgia. 

P.S. Do not even look at my nail polish. I took these pictures on Monday, and believe me, without any touch-ups, the nail polish situation has only gotten worse. Honestly, I don't know how I think I can get away with wearing half-scrubbed-away nail polish to work. What am I, fourteen? Actually, if we consider the evidence, the neon evidence... Tsk. Tsk. So slovenly.

One was pink and the other gold.

I decided I was done with these gold "hecho in mexico" frames I'd purchased at estate sales over the years. They needed something new and fresh done to them, so I thought....spray paint. I have 2 different frames like this, but one is a little bit more ornate. They both worked out well. I also printed new pictures from last fall's vacation to Iceland/Copenhagen/Stockholm.

 The before shots.

One was pink, the other a blue/gray. 

 Best to do this part outside.

 Spray the shit out of the frame.

This is the first frame I did. After it was all dry (about 30 minutes), I brought it inside.

You'll notice that this frame has a natural border on the inside. This is made up of some weird canvas material. I thought it was the perfect place to put an accent color. I dug out my acrylic paints, and decided to mix white and orange and paint the border a light orange. Fact: It took a long time to paint the orange stripe and it was tedious!

I'll be honest, at first, I didn't love it, but it really has grown on me.
It adds a bright pop to the room and definitely updates the frame.

The colors seem to compliment the nice scene of one of the many harbor streets we saw in Copenhagen.