The New Madhouse from the one with the Mad Skills

For those who some how wound up in this part of the bloggersphere and for some undefinable reason decided to keep tabs on my posts, you may notice the new layout.

All the props go to Ms. Tin, web designer extraordinaire. Hey, it may seem simple to you but it means a lot to me.

So this is a shout out to you Ate Tin. Many, many thanks for making mg blog look good and purple and wonderland-y.

Check out her blogs, too and witness her mad skills.

• Her personal blog
• Artsyfangirl
• Odds-and-ends

Happy Christmas

Music for the Movie of My Life

This is something I thought would be fun to do. For the past year I've been hanging around a social site and I've been inspired by so many things for it. I thought this was quite funny so I decided to do it, too - on the site and here in my blog as well.

So here's what you have to do: put your music player on shuffle and every song that comes up will be the soundtrack to the movie of you life.

OPENING CREDITS	My Boy Builds Coffins  Florence + The Machine Lungs
WAKING UP	Misery Business  (Unplugged Version) Paramore MTV Unplugged
FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL	Tore My Heart Oona and David Tweedie Shhhhout EP
FALLING IN LOVE	Candyman Christina Aguilera Back to Basics
FIGHT SONG	Hot Blooded Foreigner Hot Blooded and Other Hits
BREAKING UP	Hollaback Girl Gwen Stefani Love Angel Music Baby
LIFE'S OKAY	This Love Maroon 5 Songs About Jane

The songs sort of make sense to me. The way I would write the script of my life movie, purely based on the song choices, would go like this: 

My movie starts out miserable, having broken up with someone recently. We can relate the songs Misery Business (which is basically a song about a boyfriend-stealing skank) and Tore My Heart (I think the title says it all). 

Then as the story progresses I fall in love again but Candyman would not be the first song I'd pick as the song I'd fall in love too. Perhaps my love interest is in fact a candy man who works in a candy store. I don't know, really. I just wouldn't pick that song. It's not even in my top 20.

I'm not even going to explain how Hot Blooded can be a fight song. At the most, all I can think of is angry sex. My mind is kind of in the gutter right now.

Of course, there is the inevitable break up. But I'm cool. I am a strong, independent woman. I am a BAMF. I don't need someone to complete me. Insert Hollaback Girl in scene.

This Love is actually appropriate for Life's Okay scene of my movie. I'm taking a stand in this last part of the movie and choosing not to give in and go back to a relationship gone south, after all this love has taken it's toll on me. 

This whole post has been an exercise of my creative mind, though my life is not like this "movie" in any way. I was merely letting the songs write the script for me, if that makes any sense. If I did write a movie about my life, it wouldn't go like what the songs dictated. 

I encourage everyone to try this little thing, even just the part with the songs. You don't have to write how your life movie will go but if you want to, go right ahead. Write an actually script if you want. Just let the creativity shine through. :]

In which I discover I am pretty handsy

I have discovered that I enjoy being crafty with my hands. Something about working and creating something hand-made makes me feel all accomplished-like and oddly peaceful.

Before, creativity with my hands was limited to pen, paper, and the stories or poems I dream up but now I have branched out to other creative, albeit more tedious, but nonetheless fun work. 

I plan on doing more artsy, crafty projects and I see the need to have an Artsy Kit for my tools and materials. It's important to have tool kit of some sorts for these kinds of things. Keeps everything all organized and you tend to not end up like a chicken with its head cut off while running around looking for stuff you need.

Here are two projects I am currently working on:

One is what's called Yarn Letters which I found on this lovely site, jenloveskev.com.

It may look simple enough but it does involve a lot of work and time depending on the words you want to form. Since I'm doing something Christmas themed, I decided to do "Happy Christmas." 

Yup. 14 letters. I've only just formed the "Happy" section and it took me a day just to form the letters out of cardboard and lots of tape.

If click through the link where I got this litter project, you'll see all the materials needed as well as instructions, so go check it out. Like I said, it's simple but it just takes time, so be patient while working on it and you're sure to love the end result.

I've also started on my Purple Desk Project in which I repaint my desk with my favorite color. I'm doing all the works - sanding, painting on primer, the actual painting. But it seems the weather isn't inclined to let me continue with the project. Cold weather isn't exactly your friend when your doing a paint job. The ideal color I want for the desk is more along the shades of plum and turns out I actually have to have this color mixed because there is no available ready color from any of the paint brands we have here. To give you an idea of what Plum looks like here are some sample images from art-paints.com and your reliable Google search engine:

With work as a web writer, I don't get much time to do my projects until the weekend but hopefully I'll be able to get half-way through the Yarn Letters this weekend and once the weather lets up I'll be able to start putting primer on my desk drawers.

Lastly, I encourage all of you out there (if anybody ever reads this blog) to pursue creative endeavours. It keeps you stress-free which keeps you happy, and when you're happy, I think you live longer.

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing,

taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, 

and having fun."

- Mary Lou Cook