Care Package #1: Pokemon Themed Anniversary

I finally got my first care package together to send out! I wanted to send it out about a week ago because I wanted it to get to where it needed to be for our anniversary, which is April 13th. I don’t know if it’s going to make it or not, but I got it done so I’m sending it out tomorrow! A full month should be enough time.

The first thing I included were two cards. The first one with the text on the front had a lot of writing on the inside which was very nice and sentimental, and I went at it with a pen and sort of annotated it to make him laugh and fit us a little better. The second is a heart with a missing puzzle piece and the inside of the card has the missing piece and says “you complete me,” but most importantly LOOK HOW CUTE the envelope is!



The very bottom of the box has the things he actually asked me to send him, some tee shirts and a box of Q-tips. Very exciting, I know, but since didn’t ask for anything else, it would have been a disaster if I had forgotten the only things that were requested, so I had to make sure they were in there.

He is not a big candy fan at all, with the exception of Snickers bars, so I got a huge bag of fun sized bars and filled the box with them. I just kind of tucked them between the shirts and hid them under other things. I kind of like the idea of them just falling out as he keeps pulling things out, so they're like a constant surprise that keep landing all over the place.


Then I filled it in with the other snacks I know he loves. Peanut butter crackers and wasabi peas are a big favorite, and you can never go wrong with beef jerky, but the Sriacha peas were the crowning glory of my shopping trip. He loves the wasabi peas and loves Sriacha, so I can’t imagine he wouldn’t also LOVE them combined.


Finally, I also stuck in a flash drive that has a bunch of movies that have come out recently, and that I know he hasn’t seen yet. We were very sad that we weren’t able to see the LEGO movie together, so that’s on there, with about 10 others.


The box itself I’m so very proud of. Obviously we’re both Pokemon freaks, so I drew a couple of different types of pokeballs, and then on the bottom flap wrote out “I choose you!” I think it looks really cute and I’m hoping he’ll like it.
So that’s what I’ve been working on lately. I am planning to send about 5 total, so we’ll see how that goes.

Stay crafty!
Jenn

[Review] Me Since You; Laura Weiss

[Review] Don't Even Think About It; Sarah Mlynowski

Turn a Tee into a Throw Pillow!

Hey guys! So I have another tee project for you guys today. This one was actually a request I got a few weeks ago, on how to turn a tee into a pillow. Well, I had been holding off on it because I didn’t have a shirt to use and I hadn’t had a chance to get to a thrift store to find one, but then I got a shirt in the mail from Taco Bell? I don’t remember ordering it, but maybe I did. Either way, thanks, Taco Bell!

Besides the shirt, I used a sewing machine, a 16”x16” pillow form and some velcro. You can hand sew or use gluing options here, and you can also substitute snaps for the velcro or just choose to have it not open at the back if you don’t mind not being able to wash it.

[Review] How I Got Skinny, Famous and Fell Madly in Love; Ken Baker

[Review] Harry Potter: Page to Screen; Bob McCabe

[Review] Skin and Bones; Sherry Shahan

[Review] Better Off Friends; Elizabeth Eulberg

[Review] The Avery Shaw Experiment; Kelly Oram

[Review] Cress; Marissa Meyer

How to Make a Pokeball Perler Bead Necklace

Hey guys! Today I want to show you how to do a project that is great for any nerdy crafters. I’m going to show you how to use perler beads to make an 8-bit necklace! This translates really well into most video games and cartoon characters because they convert so nicely into 8-bit, if they aren’t already.
For this project, I’m going to be making a Pokeball necklace, but these simple steps will give you what you need to do any perler beading and there are a TON of patterns online if you don’t think you can come up with your own.

[Review] To Kill A Mockingbird; Harper Lee

DIY Magazine Storage & Organization

Hey guys! I’ve got a new organization DIY for you this week.

This is a great upcycled or recycled project from a cereal box. I used a family size box of Lucky Charms because I’m a high functioning adult who eats a nutritious breakfast on a daily basis, but you can use whatever you’ve got around.

[Review] Who Done It; Jon Scieszka

[Review] Hollow City; Ransom Riggs

[Review] Backwards Compatible; Sarah Daltry & Pete Clark

[Review] The F- It List; Julie Halpern

How To Make a T-Shirt Quilt

Hey guys! Do you have a huge stack of t-shirts that you don’t wear? We all do- shirts we got for free from various places, band tees, fandom tees, shirts you’ve outgrown but are too nostalgic to get rid of- they’re everywhere. Well, here’s something to do with them: turn them into a quilt!

Most Anticipated Books of 2014

Hey guys! So as you have probably seen, I've been trying to get better at writing reviews on the books I've been reading, and I've been reading a good bit. I'm presently ahead of my reading goal, although barely three weeks into January, that isn't saying much.

While I've been loving the books I've been reading so far, there are a couple of books that I'm so excited to read and can't wait for this year. There are a few trilogies that I've been holding out on that I think are wrapping up this year, so I can finally start on those, but there are a few more I just cant wait for.

In honor of 2014, here are my four most anticipated books, in order of publications:

[Review] The Impossible Knife of Memory; Laurie Halse Anderson

[Review] Slaughterhouse Five; Kurt Vonnegut

[Review] Fan Art; Sarah Tregay

[Review] Panic; Lauren Oliver

Dressing Up Bobby pins

Hello! For those of you who know me or who watch my videos, you already know that I really love wearing bows and things like that in my hair, and I often pin the front of my hair back, and then cover the pins with a bow.

Well, lately, I’ve been finding that I’ve been lazy. I can’t be bothered to dig through my bows to find one that matches, or I honestly just forget. But, I still like wearing my hair pinned back, so I decided maybe I should just fancy up some of the hundreds of bobby pins that inevitably end up filling my dresser and bathroom.

[Review] Choker; Elizabeth Woods

[Review] Ready Player One; Ernest Cline

2013 Reading Goal Wrap Up & The Best of 2013.

hello friends :) I'm very proud to be able to say that I completed the 2013 book challenge that I set for myself. I had set out to read 120 books in 2013, and I managed to read more than that. I finished off last year with 123 books, an all time record for myself. If you're interested in the books that I read as part of this goal, you can see them either here on my goodreads (let's be friends!) or here as a google doc.

Because I read so many books this year, I decided that I wanted to share my top books of 2013. These aren't all books published in 2013, just ones that I read in 2013. Also, there are two series that, for all intents and purposes, I'm calling singular books. These are in the order which I read them, and all were rated 5/5 stars.

1. The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson
2. A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass
3. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
4. Love & Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo
5. The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
6. The Birthright Trilogy (All of These Things I've Done) by Gabrielle Zevin
7. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
8. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
9. The Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth
10. Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
11. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Any of those that are links will take you to the book's individual review, and you can see me chat a bit about those books in a video, here.

As far as next year, I plan to read 100 books! I also hope to review many more of them than I did in 2013. I'd love to review all 100, but I don't know if I can commit to that. I'm going to try though!

I'm also getting stricter with my starring method, so here's how I look at it:
☆ - I did not like this book
☆☆ - This book was not very good.
☆☆☆ - This book was okay/alright/pretty decent
☆☆☆☆ - This book was solidly GOOD.
☆☆☆☆☆ - I LOVED this book.

Let me know what your favorite books of 2013 were!

PS. I hope to do better with book reviews this year. Whoops. 

positivity & goal achieving diy projects

Happy 2014! I know that whether or not people make new years resolutions is kind of a controversial topic; some people love them, some people hate them. Of course we don't need to wait until the calendar changes to make good and positive changes into our lives, but on the other hand, we all know that thing we do where we're scrolling through tumblr and we're like "okay, at 2:00 I'll start my homework," and then when it's 2:07 we have to wait until 2:30, so it kind of makes sense that we'd also want to start our life changes on a nice round date.

As for me, I don't usually make big resolutions at the new year, but I do tend to set goals for myself to achieve throughout the year. I talked about it in a video here, but these are my goals:

1. Read 100 books
2. Drink more water
3. Take more pictures & learn how to actually use my DSLR
4. Continue to work towards managing my anxiety.

In order to achieve those goals, I have two DIY projects that I did to help direct my motivation & set myself up for positivity.

The first is a Vision Board. Like you can see in the video, my vision board is basically a collage of people I find to be inspirational, quotes and pictures that cheer me up and images of goals I want to achieve. Mine features Demi Lovato, Tina Fey & Amy Pohler, as well as quotes reminding me to chill out, keep calm and to live without regrets. It also has some pictures reminding me I want to read & take pictures so that I don't forget about that. I plan to keep my vision board above my desk, so that I can see it and stay motivated throughout the year.

The second is a Good Things Jar. This is an empty salsa jar that I decorated and plan to fill with slips of paper with "good things" on them as they happen. My goal is that, at the end of the year- or when I have a day where it seems like absolutely nothing is good- I can pull my good things jar out and read through them. I think that this will be a cool tradition to look back on at the end of the year.

Both of these projects will hopefully keep me on the path of positivity this year, which is my biggest goal for 2014. Do you make resolutions or goals at the beginning of the year? What are they?