wants ransom.

How fun to come back from a short break to FIVE new comments from new readers :) I am really enjoying public blogging!

I have about five more days of my Winter Break before I go back to reality. Despite having some minor arthritis flare ups over this break, I have really enjoyed myself. My family is precious and fun to be around and we have been inseparable the entire time.

My car went kaput the day before I was supposed to come home, so my family drove up to get me. The timing couldn't have been more perfect because on the 20th the Museum I work at was having their Christmas "party" and my family got to see my museum and watch my tours. They stood through four or five of them before they got tired and went home! It was really fun and my dad snapped photos the entire time which was really distracting but worth it to have "action" photos!







My brother wrapped that present and quizzed us on which present under the tree was the most beautiful. It was the wrong answer if you chose any present other than this one :)

Due to my overdraft fees, I am ridiculously poor and had to supplement my thrifted presents with homemade presents this year. I decided to make scarves but I do not knit. So I weaved them and knotted the woven squares together. They turned out looking really old world/homespun which is exactly what I was going for. My family seemed really pleased as well. I made the grey one for my dad and the white one for my brother William but they traded. Oh well.




Once we had unwrapped everything we played with the tripod and self timer to make a "thank you" card/email for our family members still in Austin. This one was my idea and would have been cuter had I had my eyes open.


And finally. Prudence has been staying with my roommate, Jenifer over the break. She sent me this picture via camera phone the other day with the caption "i has ur cat. wants ransom". It looks like my wish of becoming one of those creepy cat owners has come true for it appears that Pru cat is wearing a red SWEATER! Man I really miss that little cat :(

the plague

i am convinced that i have the plague this past week and a half. i have a terrible fear of doctors since i have to go to them so often for all my mystery illnesses so i was avoiding it. but now my teeth ache, my back aches, my headaches, and i shared my breakfast with the front walk of my apartment complex. so i must see the doctor tomorrow. no excuses this time.

prudence has been keeping me company. however i'm afraid i was too sick to pay much attention to her. i haven't been a very good mommy this week. my roommate informed me that pru had pooped under the sofa and i got so mad at her only to find out that she had somehow blocked her own litter box and was probably desperate for the bathroom!! her box is in a cabinet so i changed the litter and opened all the doors and called it a day. ever since, she has come and thanked me with kisses once an hour. so cute. i've been too tired and too sick this weekend so i called in sick to all my shifts and laid in bed with some gold fish and the entire series of upstairs downstairs. this show is just like seeing old friends. i get so attached to all my favorite characters and i cry when they die or are written off the show. it seems the further into the series, the more people they start killing off. i have one more dvd to watch but i can't bring myself to do it so i'm watching from the middle again. i know what happens in that last episode and it's silly but i don't think i'm emotionally ready for it.

i've tried to work on my etsy store but i'm too sick to actually list new items. i tried having a sale but haven't had a single purchase in over a week. i've practically quit my job at this point so i really need to see the sales pour in soon. i hear that next week is the beginning of holiday shopping. i guess that sounds right, but i wasn't even aware of what time of year it was. hopefully people want to give vintage things away as gifts this year. my collection is too big and overtaking my living room and my pockets are too empty and i should probably give my landlord some money after my display this morning.

here's a picture/ad i made to advertise/spam some communities on livejournal. however i haven't gotten around to it. too busy not finishing important papers that are due in thirty minutes.



i found a new feature on my camera and was messing around with it but found it funny how sick i looked in the pictures. i was trying to smile and be pretty but all my black plague showed up in every photos. i grabbed prudence and she made up for my ugly mug.









and this last one is just too funny. because i wasn't trying to look this way. i'm just sick!

prudence

I just found these photos on my computer of my kitten prudence. I have been trying to take photos of her each month so that I can track her growth but it appears that I stopped after four months? I'll do some more digging. Hopefully I documented month five and six because she's almost seven months old now! And everyday she is getting better and sweeter and more docile. She is sleeping on my arm right now in fact and it's making it hard to type without waking her but she never used to cuddle me involuntarily so I'm enjoying it so much lately. She sits still when you walk up to her and lets you pick her up without struggling or biting or clawing.

I never thought I'd be a cat person. I went through a really hard break up and was thinking a pet would make me feel better and now that I was no longer dating someone deathly allergic to cats, I thought it would be ok. A week later a coworker called me and told me she had rescued a runt that had been rejected by its litter and would I like to have her. I took that as a sign and got in my car immediately to go pick her up...stopping at the store for kitten milk and an eye dropper first. And oh man, was she hideous!! HAHAHAH. She was so dirty and flea ridden and had conjunctivitis and the funniest pointy tail and she had gotten into an ant bed and had little scabs and a bit of her ear bitten off. But she wasn't shy, that's for certain!

As soon as I gave her a couple of flea baths, I discovered that she was actually the MOST precious cat I'd ever seen . She had perfect circles on both of her sides and spots on her tummy and stripes on her legs. And this little tiny pig snout and she was always playing this hissing game with me where she'd try and sneak up at me and make this "fick" sound. As she grows her markings are less obvious and she doesn't "fick" at me anymore but she does sing to me in the morning and clean my face from time to time.

She really has had a long road getting to the point she is at today though. She is JUST learning that no means no and to not open every single cabinet in the kitchen and to not bite. Sometimes she does this almost bite and then backs off at the last minute. It's really cute. And she has just recently learned to sit/lay/be still. I can hold her almost as long as I want and she doesn't constantly try to attack our other cat.

The reason she is named Prudence is after the Beatles song Dear Prudence. My roommate claims that during the first week we had her, while I was at work, she was listening to the Beatles in her room with both of the cats in there with her and once that song came on her itunes, Prudence jumped on her bed and laid down and slept and was STILL for the first time. One of my favorite characters ever is Lady Prudence Fairfax from the British tv series Upstairs Downstairs and I had already decided to give her a British name, so I thought the name was perfect. And honestly I can't imagine a more suitable name for her.

I honestly can't imagine my life without her now. She greets me at the door when I get home from work or school. She sleeps in the bed with me. She kisses me to show her affection and appreciation. And she is honestly hours of entertainment and company. I think my life would be completely and utterly depressing without her.

Which is why my blog/twitter, etc is named after her. I'd have named my etsy after her but I hadn't gotten her yet.

OH MAN. This post is definitely TL;DR. HAHA. so here are pictures for getting through all of this. I'm so used to livejournal where you can cut out all the non-interesting text.

More Buttons!!

So I just bought these from WistfulSupplies and I honestly cannot wait to get them in the mail!

As I previously mentioned, I received hundreds of vintage buttons the other day and already listed a few lots in my etsy, but I kept a few for myself! One of my favorite things to do with vintage buttons is to make rings out of them! Vintage buttons look so perfect as rings. You know you always want to touch pretty and unique buttons when you see them on garments, so what better way than to make them an ornament for your hand. And I have a lot of fun sorting them and arranging them and admiring them as I decide on the best way to pair them :) Buttons really are addicting and I don't have much time or patience for painting anymore so I think this will be a great creative release!

But now I'm thinking maybe I should have gotten the gold ones :( Maybe next time.



Here are some rings I've made in the past. Some have already sold, but the rest can be found in my etsy shop!

my make shift light box

I've been doing a ton of research to figure out how I can better my shop/pictures/prices/and promotions. I keep coming across people talking about how you need to have better pictures and I realize that mine are not the best. The truth is that I don't have money for a better camera. It's not really much of a camera. I paid $20 for it years ago and it eats batteries within sixty photos taken. Today I ran across someone's make shift light box and it gave me the idea to make one like this one.

I didn't want my stuff to look like they are floating like most professional light boxes make your pictures look. I wanted my items to be better lit and to appear to be in an environment. I also wanted it to look semi-artistic and not just like I took them in a studio. So I grabbed a big box that my mom had sent my birthday packages in and go to work. I cut out the bottom excess flaps and taped the top flaps together so that it was open on only one side. Then I took an exacto knife and cut a large square out of the side. Sort of like a television. I took some tape I had that is supposed to be used for making mattes for paintings and taped all the places where the light showed through. Then I got out some ancient gesso that I've had for years and watered it down and painted the entire interior almost like a white wash. The gesso didn't cover very well, probably due to old age so I then took some white acrylic paint I have and painted over it again. I used one of those sponge brushes. I moved a few months back and still haven't found where I packed all my brushes.

I then grabbed a frame off my 'creepy' wall shown in a previous post and painted that too and then dabbed it with paper towels until it looked "shabby chic". I'm not the biggest fan of "shabby chic" but I do think it looks good in this situation. I used a hair dryer to get it dry because I couldn't wait to use it. And here are the results!!





As you can see, the lighting in my apartment is terrible. I don't get home until after it's dark most days so I never get to use "natural sunlight" plus we live in a really old apartment that doesn't have any overhead lights.

I'm not sure how I'm going to light this thing. I tried using a hanging lamp but it still leaves shadows. I'm going to need those clip type lamps but I'm not sure I can afford them yet. For now, it's obvious that the pictures are far superior to my original pictures so for now it will have to do.

I'm pretty proud of it. tell me what you think :) I've also been experimenting with cropping my photos into exact squares. Apparently it helps your photos look like what you want them to look like once etsy crops them. It works like fifty percent of the time I've noticed. eh.

Some before and afters :)


more pictures/for sale here


more pictures/for sale here


more pictures/for sale here


more pictures/for sale here


more pictures/for sale here

cats love boats.

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It's beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence won't you come out to play

pictures of my living/dining room.

i took pictures of my living/dining room last night.
my whole apartment is cluttered but these two spaces are the least cluttered.
we have piles of books that we are using for research. we have so many pairs of shoes and dresses and skirts and such that we are organizing and listing online and hoping will sell soon so that we can have our closets and living room back. i'm too tired to say anything witty or interesting. here are pictures of my downstairs.