Cute Picture Frame on a College Budget

I found this bad boy at a yard sale. I've been looking for these decorative frames for a while now but they're all just so darn expensive. 

This one was a stand-up frame but it was easy enough to take the back off. 

When I spray paint things I personally prefer to use Krylon. 
I've always found it to be the best quality. 

This might seem kinda obvious in text, but you'd be surprised how many people don't think of this while using spray paint:
GET INDOOR PAINT. Spray paint does come in "outdoor" and the chemicals are different because one has to withstand the weather (read: the chemicals are more intense).

I left the frame outside to dry for about 30 minutes. Then I let it sit on the table for another 45 just to be safe. 

I had to spray a second coat on because the plastic didn't hold the paint well. If I hadn't been lazy, I would have sanded the surface to rough it up a bit so the paint would hold better.


Anyway. 
Here it is, all pretty in my room.

DIY: Stele from The Mortal Instruments

So I just finished reading the first five books of The Mortal Instruments series (WHY did I not know book 6 wasn't out yet?) (WHY is book 6 not out yet??) I will be reviewing them on here presently, but first I was asked to make a DIY of the Stele that I made for Halloween birthday party reasons. So here it is: for your own Halloween reasons, perhaps.

WHAT YOU NEED:

Pencil (or something else that will be used for support)

Polymer clay

crystal 

STEP 1: 

Wrap the pencil in Polymer clay. I used an old pencil because it was shorter. You want to keep your pencil about the size of your palm so that when everything is together it's not too long. Because it was old and short, it was also sharpened. I broke off the tip and tried to get it as flat as possible. The pencil tip was having none of that. I eventually wrapped extra around the tip and rolled it out on the table, removing extra clay as I went, to make it all even and straight. 

STEP 2: 

Wrap clay around the end of the crystal using the same method as the pencil tip. My crystal was narrower at the bottom so I had to fill that in and roll it too. Make sure the clay on the end of your crystal is the same width as your pencil/handle. 

STEP 3: 

Bake them in the oven. I pre-heated my oven to 250 degrees and left the handle and crystal in for

15 minutes because they were only about a centimeter or 2 thick. 

STEP 4: 

This is the hard part. You use some industrial glue to glue the crystal and the handle together. And then you WAIT. For 24 hours. It's really, really hard to wait that long. Trust me. But if you don't wait 24 hours (even if it looks dry) the handle will break off. I learned that the hard way. WAIT. 

STEP 5: 

Now that you've got your Stele together (and it's dry) it's time for decorations. Each Stele is as unique as the person that owns it. They also reflect the personality of the owner. For example, Jace's Stele was clear, silver, triangular, and fairly simple. Isabelle's was red and had an antiqued silver snake wrapped around it. I can't remember what Clary's Stele looked like but for some reason I'm thinking it had some purple in it.

Mine is Opalite and silver with swirls and little jewels. 

Have fun and be creative with this process!

STEP 6: 

Now that you've got your decorations on the Stele (hopefully covering up the crevice, otherwise just take more clay and roll it out VERY thinly and cover the crevice, smoothing it down before applying your design) it's time to bake it for the last time. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees again and leave your Stele in for

20 minutes. My decorations were about a quarter inch thick so they needed 20 minutes vs the 15 from the first time. 

It is perfectly safe to heat the clay again once it's already been heated. Just make sure your oven doesn't get to 300. As long as it's between 210 and 270 then you are fine. At 300 degrees the heat reacts badly with the clay, resulting in toxic fumes. So that's kind of an important thing to know. 

WARNING: 

As you can see here, my clay cracked during heating. Here is a good article to read to avoid cracking. If it DOES crack, well, there's not much you can do to fix it. What I did was take tiny pieces of clay, rolled them until they were so thin I could barely see them, smash it into the cracks (smoothed it out) and then heated it for one minute. ONE MINUTE and no more. It seems to have worked. 

VOILA

The finished product.

Enjoy!


UPDATE 10.29.13:
Oh, look. Another Stele.
Just call me an Iron Sister.

Book Review: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, book 4 & 5 by Rick Riordan

 

Wow, that's an insanely long title.
BASICALLY, I'm doing them both together because I read them back to back.
Like, I literally didn't get any sleep, I just kept reading forever.

This is going to be the most unprofessional book review ever, but I've never really been all that pro to begin with.

So here's what I think:

THESE BOOKS ARE SO AMAZING AND YOU HAVE TO GO READ THEM ALL RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I DEMAND YOU DO AND I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN IF YOU DONT AND RICK RIORDAN NEEDS TO WRITE MORE IN THIS SERIES RATHER THAN FOCUS ON SOME OTHER RANDOM KIDS BECAUSE I LOVE PERCY AND GROVER AND ANNABETH SO MUCH

I love this series so much I forgot how to use punctuation.
See?
Now don't you want to go read them?
Yeah, you do.

5/5 for both.

Book Review: The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan

When the goddess Artemis goes missing, she is believed to have been kidnapped.

Now it's up to Percy and his friends to find out what happened. Who is powerful enough to kidnap a goddess? They must find Artemis before the winter solstice, when her influence on the Olympian Council could swing an important vote on the war with the titans. Not only that, but first Percy will have to solve the mystery of a rare monster that Artemis was hunting when she disappeared -- a monster rumored to be so powerful it could destroy Olympus forever.

So I read The Titan's Curse last night. I mean, literally. I read the book last night. The whole book. Last night.
Yeah. It was intense.

And hilarious. Is it possible for this series to just get progressively funnier? Because I think they do.
I laughed every other line just about. I can't wait for the next book. I have high expectations for that one.
I expect to be laughing after every line, Rick Riordan.

I say that like it's a threat. Like these books have ever let me down before.


WHO: The main character is still Percy Jackson, it would probably be weird having a series called Percy Jackson if the main character were someone else. But this time, *SPOILER ALERT* Thalia is back. Annabeth is there too, but doesn't play much of a role except she's way more awesome in this book. Grover, as usual, is along for the quest. We've also been introduced to some new characters, Bianca and Nico Di Angelo. I have to say, I was right about their Greek parentage for about half the book. The other character we follow through The Titan's Curse is Zoe. She's pretty fantastic too. And then of course you've got your original cast, but they don't play such a big role.


WHAT: So the goddess Artemis goes missing, and it's up to her hunters and some of the kids from camp Half-Blood to find her. So Zoe, Grover, Bianca, and Thalia go on this quest to find her. Percy's got his own agenda. He leaves camp to save Annabeth, whom he's OBVIOUSLY developing quite the crush on. By some weird circumstances, (AKA: he wanted in so he broke the rules to make it happen,) he gets to join the quest. So they all travel across the U.S. kicking butt and taking names. They eventually find the Titan that Kronos has sent on some mission to do something. I'm generalizing here so I don't ruin anything for you. Basically everyone is saved, stuff happens, people die. It's epic.


WHEN: I'm not 100% certain of the time stamp on this thing, but it's sometime rather recently and it's in December. Cause there's snow and it's like, a week from Christmas. Cool how I deduced that, right?


WHERE: They end up in a ton of places in this book. Long Island, Washington D.C., some random place in Arizona, San Francisco, the mountain of despair, Olympus... that's just to name a few. And now my personal favorite - Cloudcroft, New Mexico. I basically went nuts when I read that. I used to live in Alamogordo, see? (also mentioned in the book). Alamogordo is at the base of the mountain they were on in Cloudcroft. I've been there several times and knew exactly where they were at all times. I geeked out.

P.S. the grocery store really does sell rubber rats, I almost bought one once. Also, it doesn't actually cost several hundred dollars for a taxi from Alamo. Maybe if it was on the far side of town, but it's only 45 ish minutes away. So, yeah. Book fixer for you.


WHY: The whole point of this quest was to save the goddess Artemis. Percy had his own personal motivation and was mainly only going to save Annabeth. Grover went to help Artemis because appanretly he's in love with her? I didn't get that either, Greek mythology, eh. He also went to find Pan.


HOW: They get around. Subways, cars, trains, pegasi... you know. Your usual modes of transportation.


5/5 for this book.

Next up:
What Happened to Goodbye
by Sarah Dessen

Book Review: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

After a summer spent trying to prevent a catastrophic war among the Greek gods, Percy Jackson is finding his seventh-grade school year unnervingly quiet. His biggest problem is dealing with his new friend, Tyson, a six-foot-three, mentally challenged homeless kid who follows Percy everywhere, making it hard for Percy to have any normal friends. But things don't stay quiet for long. 

Percy soon discovers there is trouble at Camp Half-Blood: the magical borders that protect Half-Blood Hill have been poisoned by a mysterious enemy, and the only safe haven for demigods is on the verge of being overrun by mythological monsters. To save the camp, Percy needs the help of his best friend, Grover, who has been taken prisoner on an island somewhere in the Sea of Monsters, the dangerous waters Greek heroes have sailed for millennia. Only today, the Sea of Monsters goes by a new name: The Bermuda Triangle. 

Together with his friends, Percy must retrieve the Golden Fleece from the Island of the Cyclopes or Camp Half-Blood will be destroyed. But first, Percy will learn a stunning new secret about his family, one that makes him question whether being claimed as Poseidon's son is an honor or simply a cruel joke.

Sea of Monsters. What can I say? This book reminded me so very much of The Iliad and the Odyssey that it's not even funny.
But actually it was funny. It was hilarious. I mean, I enjoyed the Iliad and the Odyssey, but I didn't laugh. Someone needs to tell Homer that this new version of his story is better cause it's funny.

Anyone who's read Percy Jackson and the Lighting Thief should just go ahead and continue the series. It's great -- Just keeps getting better with each book. 

So I can't really tell you much about this book without going all "spoiler alert" on you. But I recommend it highly. I've also heard there's a movie coming out? 

Which I don't really see how that's possible since they screwed up the first movie plot so much they can't really introduce the second without completely re-writing it. 

Enough rant. I gave this book 4/5 on goodreads.com.

read it! now.
thanks.


Next up:
The Titan's Curse
by Rick Riordan 

Book Review: Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life by Wendy Mass

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I've actually owned this book since 7th grade and just now got around to reading it. I won't tell you how many years it's been since then because I don't want you to think I'm old, but let's just say that was a long time ago.

So in this book, (which was a middle grade book, not a YA) Jeremy Fink gets a box. It's from his father, who died about 5 years before the box was sent.
Inside the box is another box. This box is unique and can only be opened by four different keys. Unfortunately, the keys were lost.

Jeremy and his friend, Lizzy, go on some crazy adventure around New York City (because normal parents let their kids roam the streets of NYC all the time) and eventually get to meet some really cool people. 

They help an elderly gentleman return old items from his grandfather's pawn shop to the children who pawned them off 30-50 years ago. Being a total history geek, I found myself loving the fact that they learned the story behind the antiques they were asked to return.

Over the course of time, they learn a bunch of people's take on the meaning of life. 

Through rather strange and highly improbable events, Jeremy and Lizzy finally find the keys and open the box. They learn the meaning of life according to Jeremy's dad.

All in all this was a good story. There were a few times I rolled my eyes going "no kid says that." But for the most part, I loved it. There were even a few times I nearly cried. But let's keep that a secret, shall we?

I also learned that this book is being made into a movie. I hope this is true because if it is, I'm definitely going to watch it.

For a middle grade, it was great. I give it 3/5.

Next up:
The Sea of Monsters
by Rick Riordan

Book Review: Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

So the main character, Auden, is an anti-social insomniac. Can someone say, "this book was written about Deena?"

Long story short, she goes to the beach for a summer of fun and ends up friends with a fellow insomniac named Eli.

He's hot, haunted, and needs a haircut. She starts hanging out with him, but not before she finds out he's the brother of the guy she hooked up with on her first night in town. -whoops. Somebody made a boo boo.

But anyways, Auden finally finds out why he's so distant. 

SPOILER ALERT, they spend all their nights together and eventually fall for each other. Go figure. 

As much as I loved the story, Sarah's writing style drives me nuts. She went into overdrive on details that weren't important to the story and didn't go into enough details on things that I felt made a significant impact on the plot. 

Also, what's with the random flashbacks in the middle of a paragraph? Drove me up the wall.

I found myself hating Auden's parents. Not sure if I was supposed to or not, but I did nonetheless. Loved Eli, which I'm 99.99% sure I was supposed to. I also found myself relating to Auden. 

Pet peeves in writing aside, the story was gripping. I read the whole book in less than 24 hours. That doesn't happen unless it's Harry Potter or the power is out.

I give this book 4/5. Would have been better had it not been for excessive details that left me saying "I don't care" or not enough details that left me going "what in the HECK just happened?"

Recommended, for sure. 

Next up:
Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life
by Wendy Mass 

Book Review: Fireproof by Eric Wilson

So I just finished reading Fireproof, novelization by Eric Wilson.

In case you aren’t sure what novelization means it’s actually a screenplay that was turned into a book. Fireproof was a movie that came out in 2008. The screenplay was written by Alex and Stephen Kendrick then later turned into a book by Eric Wilson.

But enough about that, you want to hear about the book. I think.

Experience tells me that reading a book after watching a movie will just let me down severely. Not so in this case. The book followed the movie word for word. While that might sound terrible, let me explain what I loved about that:

For one, it was nice to have a book and movie finally be on the same page. Two, actually reading it lets you see and experience the character’s feelings and thoughts, vs. just assuming you know what they are.

The movie was wonderful and I’d recommend it to anyone, but the book had more depth to it and I recommend reading it before viewing. You just connect with the characters more that way. You feel what they feel, you think what they think, and you get your own little glimpse inside their mind.

Summary in the words of Deena: Firefighter Caleb Holt and his wife, Catherine, are basically having a falling-out of epic proportions. They aren’t in love anymore, (or so they think) and they just want a divorce. Catherine seems like a witch, but really she’s just in pain, and even though 90% of the book feels like she’s pointlessly ripping out Caleb’s heart, she’s got her reasons. Her feelings aren’t really portrayed very well (in my opinion) and I feel much more sympathy for Caleb, who’s pouring out his heart in italics. (I’m also a sucker for Firefighter stories, so maybe I’m biased. Sue me.)

WHO: As far as the characters go I’d have to say I’m team Caleb. (<- Twilight joke. Sorry.) I’ll try my best to say this without any spoilers, but I just didn’t feel Catherine’s (his wife’s) pain. I felt like she was a cold, frigid beast most of the book. Only when it got into the last 20% of the book did I understand where she was coming from with her hostility. Even after I understood her she seemed like a brat. But at the end she *SPOILER ALERT* finally breaks down her walls that have been keeping her from trusting and loving her husband and she seems like a really pleasant person. I might even be friends with her if she were real.

WHAT: Caleb and Catherine learn a lot in this book, mainly about love , trust and sacrifice. Most importantly is a message of Higher Divinity. (Yes, I mean God.) Through most of the book Caleb and Catherine are not Christians by any stretch of the imagination, but near the end they find that God isn’t necessarily a crutch, more like a necessity.

WHEN: The book’s time frame was set between 1998 and 2008. There was even a little bit of flashback to the 80’s when Catherine was a little girl and just too darn cute for her own good.

WHERE: Albany, Georgia. This was actually a nice touch. I loved that the characters had southern roots. Maybe I’m just visiting the wrong shelves at the library, but I haven’t read very many (if any) books that were set in the Deep South. The scenery was described so breathtakingly that it’s all I can do not to pack up my bags and haul butt to Georgia.

WHY: Well, like most books that aren’t useless, this one has a purpose. A moral, if you will. The moral of this book is that marriage isn’t something to snub your nose at. It’s meant for life and it’s worth fighting for. A cute little fireman related quote from the book put it incredibly well, “You never leave your partner, especially in a fire.”

HOW: Well... to be honest I’m not sure how to answer this one or how it’s even relevant. The dude picked up a pen and went at it. Or maybe he used Microsoft Word. Either way, he did good.

This book comes highly, HIGHLY recommended.
No seriously. Read it now.



Next up:
Lock and Key
by Sarah Dessen

DIY Coffee Mug

I hate coffee, so mine is actually going to be utilized for hot chocolate.
But I found this cute DIY project on pinterest and decided to go for it.

Here's what you're going to need:
ceramic mug: 25 cents at local thrift store
sharpie marker: free cause I borrowed it

STEP ONE:
acquire supplies.

STEP TWO:
write your message on the front of the mug.
It actually looks like it says "beautifill" because I messed up the U. But that's okay, because whatever.

STEP THREE:
bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

I actually haven't the slightest idea why you need to do this step. I'm assuming so that it won't smear when you wash it. And you have to wash it by hand... because sharpie is not 100% permanent except when you don't want it to be.

STEP FOUR:
cool it down and enjoy.