All Work and All Play

Makes me a well-balanced person, I guess.  I've been doing a lot of work lately, staying extra at work and then working on my own shop stuff when I get home.  But it's fun work.  I'm making flower crowns for my shop!  So before they're crowns, they're a pretty bouquet in my room.

fake flowers in a vase that I thrifted today for $1!, plus a sneak peek of my art wall

And I got my new game the other day, so that's awesome.  (It's one of the ones that needed funding help, Pandora: Purge of Pride)  The weather was finally nice enough to go hacky sack in the park yesterday, so I did that for almost an hour.  Then I accidentally made new friends who live in my house and one of them made a big dinner for all of us, that I could actually eat :)  (Let's call him The Chef)  It was really tasty.  There was chicken, broccoli with cheese sauce, and potatoes.  And The Chef also commisioned a necklace from me, which is super cool.  Then I hacky sacked with the other friend, who did alright despite not hacky sacking since 8th grade.  (We'll call him The Rollerblader, because he roller blades.)  And then I went to bed, because that was a whole lot of human interaction and it made me sleepy.

And in other notable events, I discovered the wonder that is Desura, and specifically Desura's free games, and downloaded a bunch of them.  So far I have only played (and completed) The Kite.   That game will make you feel feelings.  It is intense.  Seriously.

And I've also discovered that I don't hate documentaries; I just hate boring documentaries.  Now I am that person who says, "Oh, I actually just watched a really interesting documentary about that" during conversations.  Here are some documentaries that I have watched and enjoyed on Netflix recently (with handy dandy links and my ratings, out of 5 stars):

• Happy 3 stars
• Nerdcore Rising (I'm actually watching it right now, so no rating yet, but I love it so far)
• Indie Game: The Movie 5 stars
• Afterlife 4 stars
• The Human Experience 5 stars
• Bomb It 5 stars
• Dive! 4 stars
• Buskers 3 stars
• The Antics Roadshow 3 stars

I also watched two documentaries that are no longer on Netflix, but I still highly recommend them: What the #$*! Do We Know!? and What are Dreams?: Nova.  I give them both 5 stars.

Making Work Fun

I love running my Etsy shop.  But I have always loved actually making the jewelry, but not photographing it.  That's why I always end up with an overwhelming pile of unphotographed jewelry.  And because it is so overwhelming, I usually just make more jewelry until it is even more overwhelming.  Yesterday I decided that I would find a way to make shooting product photos fun, and therefore something to look forward to rather than dread.  I decided that the best way to do this was to be as creative as possible.  I tore apart my room to find everything that could possibly work as a photo prop.  Then I figured out how to arrange things to go with each piece of jewelry.  It was really fun.  I took 127 photos.  Also when I say I tore apart my room, I really mean it.

I also just had to take some photos without jewelry in them because I was struck by artistic inspiration.  So here they are.

This one is an abstract dreamcatcher made out of found stones and shells and store-bought feathers.

I haven't edited the jewelry photos yet.  My camera does this fun thing where the exposure setting makes the photo look super dark on the camera but everything looks underexposed on my laptop.  I have been setting the exposure higher and higher every time but I haven't found the sweet spot yet.

Where to Go Near Seattle: Evergreen State Fair

On Sunday, G took me to the Evergreen State Fair.  It was about an hour away.  It was the perfect day for it, 70 degree temperatures and slightly overcast so I didn't get a sunburn.  We looked at so many cute animals, including bunnies and chickens.  There were these one chickens who looked like they had little feather afros.  Some of them even had their eyes covered by their feather afros.  We also played a carnival game.  We both lost.  It was my first time ever playing a carnival game.  It turns out that they're a lot harder than they look : )  Then we had Philly cheesesteaks and shared an elephant ear with cinnamon sugar.  I didn't take very many pictures, but here are the ones I did take.

This was the most adorable little ball of feathers I have ever seen.

No matter what I did, I couldn't get it to look at the camera.

These two baby bunnies were sleeping with their faces together and it was soooo cute!

Unfortunately my camera refused to focus on the bunnies.
I need to figure out how to change the focus settings.

Vacation: Wedding

The whole point of the vacation was to go to G's best friend's 20s themed wedding so here are the wedding pictures. Unfortunately the only pictures of G and I in our 20s clothes are still on G's mom's camera.  The wedding was so much fun.  It was on a really hot day in a shady park right next to the beach.  After the ceremony we all walked down the beach to the reception hall.  There was one girl on the beach who had been sunbathing topless and was very surprised and embarassed when we all walked past.  She sat there with her arms crossed over her chest, turning redder and redder with embarassment.  It was kind of hilarious.  Then there was good food and dancing.  I got a lot of really good pictures of the ceremony but since the happy couple is currently honeymooning in Hawaii and I can't get their permission, I'm only posting pictures where you can't see their faces.

Vacation: Party Crashing

The water was really low when we were in Port Townsend so we were able to walk all the way out on this rocky strip.  (I'm sure there's a name for this type of formation but can't think of what it is.)  There were a bunch of seagulls chilling on the rock across from us, so naturally I waded across and crashed their bird party.  No birds were harmed in the shooting of these photos. Also I got a terrible sunburn that day.  Some people would call that karma.

These birds have no idea what's about to happen.

Consider this bird party crashed.

See those faces? These are what you call angry birds.

My painful sunburned feet