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Yes yes, I've gotten a tumblr. Anyone else here have one? We can follow each other. :)

http://spektorish.tumblr.com

Merry Christmas!

Everyone, enjoy your holidays, whatever they may be! Much love.

It's over!

The semester is finally over. I am thankful I survived. Painting went great, I got a B in metals, and actually made an A in "Teaching Students w/ Disabilities" class. Hooray!

Speaking of metals, I was very happy that at the last minute, I was able to make a sterling silver engagement ring for my fiance. I got him a cheap one from Walmart a long time ago (c'mon, we're poor college kids) but it didn't fit well so he eventually stopped wearing it. This is still pretty snug, but it's definitely more special since I made it. :D It's 18g, and took a long time to sand and polish, but I am proud of it.

(His middle finger is still swollen from tendon surgery.)

But anyway, the house is emptied from packing and moving. I can't wait to finish up here, relax at home for the holidays, and then make my way to good ole Finland for what surely will be a great study abroad experience! I've prepared a blog for it here so feel free to follow my adventures to come. ^_^

Metals.

In metals class right now, we're having to make a forged necklace. Mine is a nature-themed one, being a long branch that holds leaves. One big leaf will have a cabochon stone bezel. I liked this little sample leaf I made, so it's now a pendant. :)

Hand-forged copper. Folded and hammered, then liver of sulphur patina was added.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I sure did. We had a typical British dinner, though: roast beef, yorkshire pudding, roasted potatoes, peas, carrots, all covered in brown gravy. Yum!

Super long haitus!

I apologize!! Wow. Time really gets away from oneself, doesn't it? I've been so very much entrenched by my first semester of junior year. I'm currently in Painting 3, Intro to Metals, Watercolors, and a special education class. Half of these classes are going well, and half are not. It has been a little disheartening, but I'm certainly not giving up, and have gotten some good support from my loved ones to just accept doing my best - even if others don't.

I've been inspired to come back to this from my artist friend, Merrilee (I posted a while back about her lovely landscapes). I hope to bring this back to life! It might not be restored to its former glory, with Etsy posts running rampant, but it's still here for anyone to see. :)

I'll probably post paintings, other works, possibly rants when needed; and hopefully branch off to a mini-blog about my study abroad trip to Finland. That's right - I'm going to Finland in the Spring!! I am getting excited.

So. Hello again, everyone. What have I missed? ;)

SkinMD winner, and things.

I'm disappointed by the turnout of my giveaway, but I guess it's to be expected from my absence. It might be this way for a while, until the summer. Then I'll only need to worry about a job; blogging will be more frequent and hopefully making art, too.

Anyway, the winner of the SkinMD lotion was Sarah, or #3, as selected by Random.org. Congrats, Sarah! I hope she enjoys her free bottle of lotion: it really works! ;)

Lately I've been under a lot of pressure, and personal issues have come up. I find myself in a bad place frequently. This spring break was a nice breather, helping my family paint walls and seeing an old friend again. However, it's back to the real world, so please bear with me as I miss posting or aren't able to leave you guys lovely comments! I promise this is not the end of my internet presence.

I hope you are all doing well, and, if you Etsy, that you're finding success! Much love.

Skin MD Review and Giveaway!

A while ago, I was contacted by a representative of Skin MD Natural Lotion to review their product, and hold a giveaway for one lucky reader to win their own bottle. It is 4 oz. and valued at $18! So, feel free to read the review to get an idea of how this shielding lotion works, and follow the entry guidelines for your chance to win. :)

I don't have a lot of skin problems, but I do enjoy a good lotion that's non-sticky, non-greasy, and does what it's supposed to: moisturize! After washing my hands, they get dry, and lately I've noticed my arms get dry and itchy after showers. The representative couldn't have picked a better time to approach me with this product.

I don't mind lotions with odors. I enjoy Victoria Secret and Bath & Body Works with their lovely scented lotions. However, some days I don't really need it when I spritz on some body spray. Skin MD is natural, fragance- and colorant-free, paraben-free, hypoallergenic, and dermatology tested (not on animals, though!). The lotion was nice for keeping my arms from itching, and didn't feel greasy, but I wanted to test this supposed hypoallergenic trait. One of my friends is very allergic to odorous lotions. However, after trying a sample pack, she was very pleased and didn't break out one bit.

Another test I did was on my fiance. His job requires him to wear nice, collar shirts, but the fabric constantly rubbed against his hips and caused dry, rough spots to appear. After just five days of consistently using Skin MD lotion, the rough spots went away and his skin felt smoother than ever: a bonus for us both. ;)

You can visit their website to learn information, and order your own bottle here. There is also a bottle with SPF 15 added to it.

OR! you can win it here! One lucky reader will receive their own free bottle of this lovely, moisturizing product. Just follow these instructions. PLEASE leave separate comments for each entry, and don't forget to leave contact information.

MANDATORY: Visit the website, then come back here and comment as to how this product would help your skin. This is one entry.

EXTRA ENTRIES:
1) Follow this blog! 1 entry
2) Follow me on Twitter: @spektorish. 1 entry
3) For another entry, tweet about this giveaway. Just be sure to link back to @spektorish.
4) Blog about this giveaway. Short is sweet. 2 entries.
5) Take my button and put it on your blog. 2 entries.

This giveaway will be open until 12pm CST on March 15th. By that time, comments will close, and I will pick a winner via Random.org. Good luck!

Ah, stay with me!

I'm slowly losing followers! Don't give up on me yet, friends!

I've been super, super busy with school and other things. I've volunteered with a local animal organization, I made it into an exhibition, won a scholarship, packed with painting projects and drawing collaborations... all before Spring Break.

But I am still here! ;) Spring Break is coming, which gives me time to manage projects, blog, and relax a little (hopefully).

Posts of importance will arrive soon!!

Wordless Wednesday.

...again. Yet, I still have class today. :(

My apologies!

I know, I know: where have I been!?

Trust me, there are good reasons for my lack of posting. School has really been grinding down on me; Drawing 3 especially. Also trying to get together info for the art tour trip, and filling out scholarship applications. I even have to prepare two works to be featured in the Student Exhibit later this month. (Yay!)

Very soon I promise I'll post up a giveaway for wonderful lotion that truly has healing powers. Stay tuned for that!

In the meantime, if you have the chance, I'd appreciate any viewers to visit ArtRaw's online art competition. I've entered and voting is currently open. Please take the time (if you can!) to visit my three entries and rate them. I'm not asking you just go and vote 5 stars, I encourage honesty... but someone already voted 1 star on all three, which is a bummer, so I ask for a little mercy. ;( If you truly believe my work to be so low, please leave a comment with constructive criticism for my improvement.

You can visit my entries here: http://ifontis.com/index.php?option=com_simgallery&func=viewalbum&aid=78

Thank you for your all of your patience! ;)

Krasey Beauty Giveaway!

Last day to enter: $1,000 worth of beauty product prizes, including an airbrush foundation system! Here are some brands featured in this amazing giveaway:



It's just incredible! Your chances are pretty good, and it ends tonight, so get going and enter yourself! Good luck!

Also, I'll be holding a giveaway myself soon. You've probably seen it being reviewed around the blogosphere: SkinMD lotion.

Pillows & Cupcakes.

Hey everyone! Well, this weekend certainly was eventful. Friday classes were canceled -- however, I don't have Friday classes, haha! Oh well. Congrats to my fellow undergrads who did for their day off in forever at our school.

I played in the snow, as seen in the post before this. Patrick got some time off from work and rehearsal, so more snuggle time! :)

I certainly did not procrastinate my Drawing 3 homework... ahem. Cough. While not procrastinating that, I worked on my t-shirt pillow: I sewed the sleeves and top hole, and have stuffed it halfway. There wasn't any real alteration I could do otherwise to wear it, so this seemed appropriate. I might even sell it when I'm done. (Can I do that??)

Also, I'm so very proud to announce that I satisfied my itch to bake goodies today. I looked up a semi-simple recipe for orange cupcakes. When I looked in the fridge, I found the OJ was almost empty and 6 days expired. Ew. So instead, I used lemonade with a mix of limeade as a substitute. For icing, I did a simple limeade-sugar glaze, since I don't have anything for proper frosting. Sprinkled on top was green sugar from Christmas cookies I've had for a while.

I took them to the theater of Patrick's play while they were fresh, and everyone loved them! I was so happy at the success that I braved the snow and ice to give the players treats. It made the baker housewife in me glow. Hooray!

Hopefully this week of school won't be too hard on me. I have an ongoing series for Drawing 3 to do, self portrait in painting (yuck yuck yuck), Art History test possibly, and a periodical review for my educational class. Wish me luck, and I wish you the same for your endeavors! :)

The Winter Storm.

It may be frightful, but it is also beautiful. I felt somewhat like a child again. I couldn't help but play around after checking the mail. Here are pictures I took.

Felt a little inspired by Andy Goldsworthy...




However, good things must come to an end. I'm sure by Monday this will all be gone, and it'll be back to work.

Friday Featurette.

It sure has been a while! But, it's about time to do a featurette. Let's focus on generally overlooked crafters: those who make lovely toys, and big fluffy lovable plushies.

Today's featurette is going to Danielleorama. Her stuff is just plain cute, I have to say.

Foxy, $45

Pansy, $28

This next one is my personal favorite. It's reminiscent of Bitey and the bigfoot character from Brackenwood, but in a lovely candy, child-friendly way.

Jaunte Poilu, $36

Please take a look at her shop, you're sure to leave (via X'ing the tab) with a smile on your face. She also has a blog at http://danielleorama.blogspot.com.

I'm one of those people in TN who will bear witness to this ice storm coming, so if you don't hear from me anytime soon, it'll be because of power outages. I'm not scared but... not happy about it, either. :\

I'm going to South Korea!

For Art Education majors, we're required to take up to 4 Art History classes: Art History I, Art History II, and two upper division courses (History of Craft I/II, 20th Century Art, Mesopotamian, etc.). Luckily, one upper division "class" is called Art Tour, which is basically a trip to another country to study its artistic culture.

This year, a resident artist for our Metals course, who originally comes from South Korea, offered an Art Tour class to his native country. It's an 11-day trip to South Korea during May, after school is done. It used to be during spring break, but both students and professor were too exhausted coming from the tour straight back into classes. The Art History professor is going to Italy, but I've been to Europe before; I lived there! I've never been to Asia, though!

We had our first meeting last night, and I am so pumped! We'll be traveling through Seoul, GyeongJu, DaeGu, and even staying overnight in a temple! How exciting is that? He showed us pictures of what you do there, what you wear, and eating etiquette. The country is so beautiful, and their art is even more beautiful. My university will reimburse the airfare through a travel scholarship (which pretty much every full-time student in good standing gets), so the trip itself is cheap! And I get 3 credit hours for it. Instead of a big paper, we simply write a little paper on a cultural aspect of South Korea, and keep a notebook/journal of our trip.

I'll definitely enjoy this immensely. Despite the trauma of France, I'm ready to travel again. This time it won't be all business, and we'll have guides. And money. This will be a great opportunity for blog posts, too. ;)

Has anyone here been to South Korea? If so, what did you love most? What delicacies are worth trying? Please, let me know!

New Arrivals!

I'm so happy, I got two parcels in the mail today!

After a long wait, I finally got my harem pants from thaimodish. They're lovely! So wide and comfortable, and stylish! I tried to take the best pictures I could, so forgive their lack of quality. (It took forever just to find the camera, haha.)

I just need to wait for warmer weather, because these don't look good with uggs or anything. Sandals only. And right now, it's snowing.

I also couldn't resist Rachel's deal over at talk2thetrees, so I got one of her adorable crochet headbands. It is custom, with a choice of two colors. I just love it.


School is already starting to sink into my head and pick at my brain. Drawing 3 is very independent, and our first assignment is open concept. Aah! I'm still stuck on what surface to use for my concept and critiques start next week. Oh boy. Here it comes.... at least I have my pants. :3

My first No-Sew project.

Remember my post about the Generation T book? Well, I finally took one of my old shirts and put it to good use.

Now, the other day I bought some needles and thread. I'm planning on doing some very easy sewing revamps, like simply cutting a shirt sleeveless and twisting the tops, and also a scarf-shirt. Might even attempt the tunic. But for now, the no sew seems good to me.

I decided to try the Pillow Talk project first. It's meant to be made from an L/XL shirt, but I don't have many of that size; I have a lot of Smalls from when I was in high school. Even if I became super skinny they wouldn't look right on me, so it's time that I upgrade them. I took an old graphic tee (if you shop at Kohl's, it might look familiar) and halfed the sizing directions to compensate for the non-L shirt. The cuts were a bit wonky, but ultimately this was the result:



A cute little pillow with a sassy design! I really like it. It took some time to do all of those knots, but with the Dog Whisperer on, time flew by. I may have to throw some stitches in some places to prevent the fluff from leaking, but it turned out great.

I would very much recommend getting Generation T. Either book would be fine, I just got the cheapest from Amazon at the time. It is fun, very thorough, and very much worth the price considering the money you'd save buying some new clothes/blankets/etc. when you've got old shirts lying around the house!

Feel free to comment with your revamp stories. :)

The 2010 Handmade Olympics!

Over at the amazing rikrakstudio blog, you'll find an event that is a first, in my eyes, for the Etsy blogging world. The 2010 Handmade Olympics! There are over $2000 in prizes!



There are 8, count them, 8 different events, so if one of your items doesn't fit a category, you can try another. The point of this event is to "nominate" one of your items that best falls into any of the categories (you can enter all of them!), as well as nominate another person's item from their shop that really speaks to you of that event. Prizes are involved for the top 3 of EACH event, so imagine winning more than one! There is even a random drawing prize for each comments section. Here are the 8 categories:

{ event 1 } :: our favourite handmade goodie with an innovative design
{ event 2 } :: our favourite handmade goodie for kids
{ event 3 } :: our favourite handmade eco friendly goodie
{ event 4 } :: our favourite handmade item that inspires lovelieness + wellness (in our homes, for ourselves, etc.)
{ event 5 } :: our favourite handmade personality/group forwarding kindness thru handmaking
{ event 6 } :: our favourite thrifty-forward, sustainable-minded blog, shop or site.
{ event 7 } :: our favourite FUN-FILLED handmade OR vintage goodie
{ event 8 } :: our favourite handmaking-focus blog

Please visit and give it a look over, it could change your Etsy shop! I myself have entered one and hope to enter more. I nominated my tea bag prints for event 4, or "items that inspire loveliness and wellness (in our homes, for ourselves, etc.)". So maybe when voting time comes around..? ;)

Happy nominating!

Back in the game.

So, the first week of school has come and gone. To start off Painting II, we did an alla prima of a still life specifically for each of us. I wasn't too happy with mine, but then again, it's hard for a perfectionist like me to feel great about uncompleted paintings, which alla primas essentially are. I forgot to take a snapshot, sorry! (Not that anyone is too interested, hehe.)

Art History class is pure lecture, and frankly, boring to a right-brained individual like myself. I need to be stimulated. At least in my other education class, the teacher is peppy and non-monotone. Oh well, I shall get by.

I've just received a bottle of SkinMD lotion and am very excited to review it! After doing so I'll post a review, which will contain a giveaway for a full-sized bottle, so stay tuned for that. :)

Speaking of giveaways, please check out this lovely lady's blog: A Blonde Walks Into a Blog... She is giving away an IPOD NANO!! Can you believe that? Wow! Don't miss it!

It ends on Febuary 1st, so get those entries in! I wish I had a cool gadget to give away to you lovely readers, but I don't, so that's why I posted this.

World Market.

For those of you who love imported goods, or are looking for some, try to locate a World Market nearest you. They have such wonderful things from accessories, furniture, housewares, and most importantly FOOD. My mother, being a British person, loves this place for its imported British goods. In the past she had to order overseas and paid a lot just for shipping, but World Market saves all that time and money. A great deal, especially their chocolates. Oh boy...

If you're American and have never tried British chocolate, I highly suggest you do. If you've had Cadbury or Milka, it's close to that. But a little more delicious. I'm not a huge fan of Whoppers here in America, and that's mostly due to my love of Maltesers. These yummy choco-pops are balls of honeycomb wrapped in creamy milk chocolate. One of my favorites ever. And they usually have sales, where a bar of Aero chocolate is only $0.75, and a big box of holiday Maltesers got marked down a whopping 90%!

Another thing I love is their accessories. After-holiday sales really end up being the best part of this store. The earrings online are pretty pricey, but in store they're relatively inexpensive and almost borderline exotic. Here is a pair of lovely earrings, a vibrant purple "dreamcatcher" design encased by metal spirals, and guess how much I paid for them? $2.99!! Incredible, huh? Even the original price of $5.99 is a great deal for pretty jewelry like this. Someone in my art class asked about them, and a friend of mine asked if they were from Etsy, haha!

So if you have a store near you, or can handle/really love online shopping, then check out World Market. Really. Right now. :)

Please forgive my slow posting. Now that school is back on track, it'll be hard to keep it daily or every other day, but I shall do my best!

The Lovely Bones.

Well, I can only think of one word to sum this movie up: beautiful.

Beware, though, die-hard book fans. For those of you who cringe at such changes made to adaptations like Harry Potter, Dan Brown novels, Twilight, and so on, you will probably not enjoy the parts of The Lovely Bones book that were not put into the film.

Luckily, I'm not one of these people. Sometimes I don't understand why the changes occur, or why things are left out, but I can still enjoy the movie. Plus, I don't want to "see" word-for-word a book; I like some alterations: same meal, different flavors. Also, Peter Jackson and the cast explained the reasons for leaving out some of the harsh violence and the love affair, and I think it's reasonable. The main message of loss and hope are still prevalent in this gorgeous film.

The flow is coherent and consistent. The music fits so well, and I'm glad "Alice" reappeared during the in-between scenes. Saoirse Ronan's performance is stunning, and the raves about her are not unfounded. This movie really pulls at every string one's heart has. The one scene where a little girl hugs Susie as she looks up and cries made me lurch forward with emotion and tears came out without me wanting them to. The sorrow and pain is strong, but makes the hope and reforming of a family that much sweeter.

I only experienced a problem when the ending credits rolled. You see, I live in Tennessee, and... I'll say no further on that, to avoid offense. But this guy behind me blabbed, "This f***ing sucked." It makes me question whether people comprehend what a trailer is. But regardless, if you're not into films like that of My Sister's Keeper, or artistic dramas in general, this film might not be for you.

With that, I give this a solid 5 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended.

Wednesday Wishlist.

(Because internet window shopping is just as fun, and I'm honestly blank right now about a blog post.)

Fancy Swirls Dark gray leather diary, $32

Faux Boot Legwarmers in black, $49.50

Deco Dragonfly Mug, $25

Shakespeare's Sister, $395

Fawnia Oak Leaf with Aquamarine Glass Beads, $16.80

The Stalker 10x8 black cat print, $27.00

Full Agenda Dress by ModCloth, $47.99

London Fog by Piperlime, $119

What are your Wednesday wishlist items?

Orglamix Giveaway Winner!

Wow, I have to say I'm so impressed with the turnout of my latest giveaway! I'd like to thank Cheri for the opportunity to try her fabulous makeup, and her generosity in holding so many giveaways so others can discover her cosmetic treasures.

I put in the numbers and Random.org spat out..........

184!!
Or Lisa of xMaterialGirlsx.blogspot.com! Congrats!

Lisa has a few blogs, one of them consisting of cosmetic news, coupons, and other giveaways going on specifically for beauty products. Please take a look, you might find giveaways for new makeup you've been after!



I'll be contacting the winner shortly for info. If you didn't win, please don't be discouraged, I'll be holding another giveaway as soon as possible. Thank you for everything!