Project Cover the Walls

Hello blog world! To the left is an icon of John Green. I thought it was coincidentally appropriate that he'd be the next icon. This post is late, by like, a week. But eh, oh well. lol.





Yay! I rock! "noxy rocks" is something I've always said, so I giggled when I saw this slogan show up. lol. -- that's an old signature I used to use on a forum years ago. lol.

That's a picture of my front yard. Notice the lovely circular mowing pattern. This was the first time I've ever mowed the lawn. lol. I had no frickin CLUE what I was doing. I asked for advice from my dad and he said he usually starts at the circle. He failed to mention that he STOPS mowing in a circle and goes to a simple back and forth pattern. I think I'd prefer doing that next time. It sounds less complicated. lol. But it looked cool. Dad thought so too. lol.


That's my brother, holding up the phonebook he just ripped in half. It took him a while to understand HOW to do it, but once he caught on, it only took a couple seconds. He was so proud of himself, and immediately went looking for more phonebooks to try it on. lol.

And here's my brother watching NCIS. Teehee. Um... nope, no reason for me to show you this picture. Just felt like sharing. :)

So, I spent a couple of weeks on a project. I'm a bit tired of all the white space on my walls, so I figured I'd make my own mini posters. I might have mentioned this in a previous post. The thing is, I made a dozen or so, and it doesn't cover much. *sigh*


But hey, I thought I'd share them. Hehe. If you watch me on dA, you've seen most of them already. Sadly I didn't have a scanner available to me, so I had to take pictures with a camera. Which means the quality of the pictures won't look as nice as they do in real life.

This one is called Always. I love Harry Potter. I'm not a crazed, fanatic, rabid fangirl, but I am a fan. And I wanted to represent HP on my walls. If you have not read the book, I don't want to spoil it, so I'll try to be vague. Snape is a favorite character of mine. Always has been. Most HP fans would not feel the same way. The reason I do is simple. I did not read the first books when they first came out. I read the first 5 Harry Potter books shortly before its corresponding movie came out. I read the first book the day before the first movie, because I wanted to go and see it with two of my friends - who were big Harry Potter fans and were watching it opening night. Which means, I'd already seen commercials. I'd already seen who was playing the main characters, and of all of them, I recognized one actor first - Alan Rickman - Snape. I love Alan Rickman. He's awesome. So, naturally, I didn't want him to be the bad guy. lol. Even in book six, as I cried my eyes out, I was still telling myself "NO! He's a good guy dammit. He's a good guy!!" This scene is pulled out of book seven. And the title is a quote from later on in the same book. I actually based this pic on one I saw on deviantArt. Mine's crappier, but I still love it.


This one I named Anglerfish, because the name of the song is "A Song About Anglerfish." I love this song. The stars in the "night" and the little glowy ball on the anglerfish both glow in the dark. A lot of the posters I made are vlogbrother related.


Only two are Harry Potter related. I wasn't sure what kind of posters to make. I knew I wanted at least one more HP one though. And so I came up with an advertisement poster for Bertie Botts. I looked up the designs for the RL jellybeans online, and chose the one I liked best. I altered it slightly. I changed the jellybeans to look more like the ones in the actual package. I also learned something - don't use watercolor markers over acrylic paint if you plan on painting over the marker. Apparently, the marker bleeds in to the paint you put over it.... forever. FOREVER. I put dozens of layers over the marker, and if you look closely, you can still see parts of the red that are purple and parts of the yellow that are green. That's one good thing about the crappy quality of the photo - you can't tell it here. And I suppose you have to look closely to see it in RL. All the same, it annoys me.


This one is Dancing. It's not based on anything. I just wanted to draw a picture of a girl dancing in the dark. I had originally intended to paint this one, but decided to keep it a pencil drawing instead. I colored her dress red a little with a red colored pencil.


Dandelions Fly Through Blue Air. Another Hank Green song. DFTBA means Don't Forget to be Awesome. It's sorta the vlogbrothers' and their followers' (nerdfighters) motto. But often folks who've never encountered nerdfighters before have no idea what DFTBA means. So a few nerdfighters helped write lyrics - other possible meanings for "DFTBA". My favorite was this one. There are so many great ones though. Next round of "Project Cover the Walls" might include more. lol.



Doug. I love disney movies. And Disney Pixar movies can do no wrong. Up was probably the Disney movie I cried the most during, (we're talking disney movies here) because I'm over emotional and can cry at the drop of a hat, (if it's a really nice hat and the owner never sees it again) and there's a few sad parts in that one. But I still love it. And Doug is definitely my favorite character. I have Up playing on my tv right now. lol. :) I drew Doug and decided to just use colored pencils for him because I wanted to take a break from paint.


Drowning. Another piece that's not based on anything. I just wanted to make a picture with a girl drowning. Actually, at first, she was just falling. But it evolved in to drowning. I've always been fascinated by water, and drowning in particular. Mainly because I had a near-drowned experience when I was younger. This one isn't on my dA account. It was... too personal for me to display I think. And I hate the quality of it. It's all wrinkly because I diluted all the paints I used with water before painting, and since I painted the entire page, the paper got wrinkly. *shrug*


Giselle. Heee. Enchanted is another favorite Disney movie of mine. The pose and scenery is based off of about 6 minutes in to the movie. In the movie Giselle is actually climbing a tree to escape an ogre, not stopping to pose and smile. But hey, I didn't want to paint the ogre. lol.
I'm not a fan of her face, I think I could have done better. But it's hard to erase mistakes in paint. You can still tell it's her if you've seen the movie though, so all is well.


Fail Whale. For those unfamilar with the fail whale, it shows up on Twitter when there's a problem with the site. I hate that whale. And I don't think those birds should be trying to... what, rescue him? Kidnap him? How is the whale failing exactly? Whatever. I depicted the whale falling to his death because the strings the birds were holding him with broke. Now, would the whale actually die after being dropped from not so high a height right back in to the water? I dunno, but hey, a girl can dream.


Keep on Dancin'. Another vlogbrothers reference. This was actually the last poster I made, and it was one I did without planning. Before I started the Project, I made a list of all the things I wanted to include. This one was not on the list, because this particular video came out after the Project started. The vlogbrothers gave each other rules to abide by when doing their videos. When they break a rule, they face a punishment. "Famous" past punishments include John having to wax his beard and eat a blenderized happy meal. This current video was a punishment. He needed to make a fitness for nerds video. In the video, he's wearing aqua leggings, argyle socks, purple women's gym shorts, and a cutoff girl's sweatshirt that says "Keep on Dancin'" on it. Hehe.

Just a Face. This... is just a face. I saw the face in a magazine and wanted to draw it. Then I colored in her lips and eyes a bit with colored pencil. I like the result.


Paris. I didn't do this one during the project. I did this one for the French the Llama project. I decided to put it up on my wall.


Another one that's not on the dA account. That's just because it's not really a painting of anything special. I mean, I love the Philip deFranco Show, but I couldn't find a logo or anything that I liked, except for this one. Someday I'll get that shirt. lol. I wrinkled it on purpose, because when I painted the paper gray, it was while I was waiting for another painting to dry. I sketched out the letters in pencil, and then I put it aside. When I finished the other painting, I went looking for the gray paper, and couldn't find it! I got frustrated. I sat down on my bed to think... and sat on the paper. It came out relatively unharmed, except for one corner that had folded over. I didn't like that it folded, but I didn't want to paint another sheet of paper gray, and I didn't want to have to draw on the letters... so I crinkled it. Yeah... yeah... I could have just trimmed the fold off, but it was too close to the letter. Meh.

You can also see some peeps in this picture. I made 8 peeps. That's another inside joke from the vlogbrothers. Earlier on, I think it may have been a punishment where it started, Hank had to eat as many peeps as he could in a certain amount of time. Or was it John? Either way, they both end up doing it, and both end up eating right around the same amount. lol. So yeah, I needed peeps. There's 2 pink, 2 yellow, 2 purple, and 2 blue. And they're all bird peeps, because I like them better than the others - visually speaking. Peeps are nasty. lol.


Quote. Not on my dA, just because it's only a quote. It was in a video where John Green is ranting about plastic surgery I think. lol.


Remy. Another colored pencil drawing. I should have painted this one, because you can barely see Remy in the pic in RL. I think Ratatouille is actually my second favorite movie. My favorite movie changes from time to time, because great movies come out all the time. My current favorite movie is the A-Team. It's possible the A-Team might fall back to number two eventually and Ratatouille or another movie might creep up to the top of the list, but eh, for now, that's the standing. lol.


Stitch. I LOVE Lilo and Stitch. I remembered that while I was painting Toothless, because Toothless looks SO much like Stitch sometimes. So I popped in the movie and watched it, trying to find a nice screenie in my head to paint. This one is from the end. When the movie finished, I rewound and paused for the reference. This was one of the last paintings I was doing - actually it's the one I was doing during the Philip deFranco one. I did NOT feel like painting the red background around Stitch. And I couldn't just paint the entire sheet red and then sketch Stitch, because I already sketched him. So I ended up painting Stitch, painting another sheet all red, Then I used an exacto knife to cut Stitch out and glue him to his red background. lol.


Toothless. He was the first poster I did. I had sketched him out on a scratch piece of paper, but liked it so much I decided to paint him. I diluted the black paint to paint him. He was supposed to be a lot lighter. The whole painting was supposed to be lighter. But, like I said, it was a scratch piece of paper I drew him on to. On the back, I had scribbled crayon. And then, out of curiosity, I microwaved it, to see if it would have any effect on the wax crayon. It didn't look like it, but apparently it had an effect on the paper beneath the scribble. The color didn't bleed through, but the wax did. So when I painted Toothless, the area with the scribble on the other side showed up on THIS side as unpainted. An AWESOME thing to know, and I might apply it to a poster in the future, but I did NOT want that here. So I tried applying less water to the black paint and making him darker. Then again. In the end, I had to cut out a piece of paper big enough to cover the scribble and glue it over, then paint that to match. You can barely tell in the picture above, it's right under his chin and goes down almost to the middle of his neck. And you can't notice the patch in real life unless you're really close to it. The stars and his eyes glow in the dark. lol.


That's the last of the paintings. Funny that the last painting would be the first one I actually painted. I had them in somewhat alphabetical order though, so eh.

It's not the last of the things I made for the wall though....

I made this. You may recognize it from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Or if you read my blog from the beginning, here. I made the simple graphic on my puter a few years ago for my Gryffindor Student costume. Then I threw my friend's picture in the middle and printed it out on coffee-stained, 8 1/2" x 14" paper. I loved the graphic, and wanted to use it again. I also happened to STILL have some of the coffee stained paper, so yeah. I removed my friend from the picture, and made the "empty box" bigger.

Then I cut out a piece of poster board that was the same size as the paper, then cut out the middle, where I put a mirror in. Then I cut out the empty square on the paper and glued it to the poster board/mirror. I dunno if any of that made sense, but yeah. Basically, it's now a mirror. lol. I put the empty square back up, so I could take a picture of it and NOT have a picture with me holding the camera.


I made slight alterations though. I would be a witch, not a wizard. But when I tried to change the graphic on the puter BEFORE I printed it out, I decided I reeeally liked the way "wizard" looked better. So instead I printed it out as it was, and then printed out "WITCH", "WOMAN", and "wo" on another sheet of paper, and taped them up accordingly. Heee.


I also wrote out "DFTBA" and cut them out to stick on the wall.


I am NOT a tidy person. And I personally feel that if I come off clean when painting, it was an unsuccessful piece. lol. This was just one day's work.


And THEN, I decided to try making a conjoined stuffed animal. That's based on another inside joke for the vlogbrothers. John Green has mentioned many times that he has "more books about conjoined twins than there ARE conjoined twins in the world" or something like that.
Tada, my conjoined stuffed cow. I have a tendency to buy more than one of something, when I often don't even need the one. I think I have four of these cows. And the first one I got was a gift, meaning I went out (on three different occasions) and bought the other cows, AFTER I already had one. Why? I. Have. No. Flipping. Idea. So I took two of them and performed surgery. hehe haha.


This is part of my wall where some of the paintings sit. The light switch has a cow sticker, an ED sticker, and four temporary tattoos of the Simpsons on it, but that's been there since forever. (Except the ED sticker, that's fairly new) Right above the light switch is a "sticker" of the Sons of Admirals. "Sticker" meaning I didn't want to make a big graphic of them, so I painted a small one and laminated it. Same with the Wheezy Waiter, (to the right of the SoA sticker) and the ALL CAPS one. (To the right of the pink feathers at the bottom) In between Wheezy and ALL CAPS is the World Suck Index - another vlogbrothers nod. And then to the right of ALL CAPS is a quote form the book Will Grayson Will Grayson by David Levithan and John Green:

i am like
a dead begonia
hanging upside down
because
like a dead begonia
i don't give a fuck

ROFL. That poem is hilarious. The A-Team thinger is actually from the Murdock action figure packaging. I finally opened one. lol.


That's where my Dandelions poster is. And Colette and Jean Luc and Murdock. lol. Also a pink peep is on the puter monitor too. hehe.


This is where most of the other posters are. The paper along the Matrix poster says "Who the eff is Hank?" - another vlogbrothers joke. Apparently some folks were "joining in" to the vlogbrothers during John days, and so when he'd say "Good morning Hank!" They'd have no idea who he was talking to. So it became a question that John liked to answer in completely obscure ways.


And there's a zoomed out pic of the wall that got most of the posters.


And there we have it. Yay. I think eventually I'll have a Project to Cover the Walls 2. But not for a while. Now, it's past my bedtime. I must go to sleep. lol.

Linnaea Niele

Linny! This is my icon I used for the ED Forum. I've decided to change it though, so yep, now it will be here.






So an update on my finger, it's healed. Finally. But I've put the clay practice on hold for now, since I started another project I want to finish first.

And an update on me possibly joining a vlog collab channel... the due date for auditions is September 10th. I am... still unsure of whether or not I will audition. I have what I will say all written out, should I decide to... but I'm still not sure. Eh. I'll give myself a deadline of September 1st. I'll decide then if I want to do it, and then well, do it.

A few days ago, I was having a conversation with my mom. I disagreed with something she said, and she snapped at me. She called me a bitch for attacking her, and proceeded for twenty minutes to scream at me. What did I say? "I'll have to look that up and double check, because it seems too good to be true." When she started talking about Boost Mobile's international rates.
...
My mom has a way of butchering what you say and turning herself in to the victim. The best way to carry on a conversation with her is to keep quiet and let her do the talking. Sometimes, I forget that. The whole ordeal upset me greatly. I just wanted to crawl back in to bed and cry. But instead, I turned to one of my BJD's. Linny.

I felt bad, because there she was, sitting in her Barbie outfit. I was so incredibly tired of that outfit. I wanted her back in her blue leotard with pretty pink tutu... but I lost the leotard. No idea where it is. Here's the last picture I took of her in the barbie outfit:

It wasn't actually a picture of her. It was a picture of the entire desk. I just cut the desk out. So yep. There she is, in a bright green crocheted hat, her purple hair, a lovely scarf from annina, and her Barbie outfit that didn't really fit her too well. She had one other wig, but I hated it. It was too poofy. I honestly love her purple wig with bright green hat look,

but it was time for a change. And on this particularly sad day, the time came.

I started by crocheting. I'm still a beginner with it. In all honesty, I'm not a big fan of crocheting, so I never really planned on expanding my expertise. The last time I crocheted was to make two ED scarves for Marina, and before that it was that green hat. But I thought it would be a good way to distract me, so I went about making a shawl type dealy for her. It turned out alright, maybe a little wider than I had wanted, but eh. It works. Then I tried to make a hat. Fail. So I pulled it apart and tried again. FAIL. One more time. FAIL! How on earth was I having so much frickin trouble making a tiny hat, when that was the ONE thing I COULD make aside from a tiny ED sized scarf?! So I pulled it apart and tried again, failed again, except this time I just kept on going. It... turned in to a tiny sock. lol. So I made another tiny sock. Yay. Socks for Linny.

I then went in to my stash of fabrics to find some colors I wanted her to wear. I found a sash I stole from a reception hall. It was one of those sashes that they tie in to little bows around all the chairs for a wedding. They had gathered all the sashes except for one, and then the folks disappeared. So before I left, I took it. I chose this fabric as the under dress. And I went about hand sewing. It didn't turn out too bad.

Tada.


There's just a simple tie up thing in the back to fasten it shut. It doesn't look too pretty from back there though, so I didn't take any pictures of it.


While working on the dress, I also worked on a new, embroidery thread wig. Her purple wig was not going to match the light cream crocheted socks and shawl, champagne colored under dress, and dusty pink over dress. (the same material as Colette's skirt and accessories) Since I was giving her all new clothes, why not a new wig? Now, let me get one thing straight. I do not know how to make a wig. But I do know how to fake it. And faking it works best with embroidery thread. lol. I chose to give her a black wig this time, which I didn't like at first, but now I'm beginning to love. I think I was just so used to her in her purple hair. lol.


I had different plans for the outer dress. But those plans fell through. I'm just fine with what came out instead.

I didn't like this length though. It was just a smidgen too long, especially since she's to wear socks.

So I readjusted the length. I like this length better, but I might make it shorter eventually. *shrug*




And here she is with her shawl:
Adorable. I'm happy with the look. But... I still wanted her to have a hat!!!


There she is with her socks. Anyhoo, a hat. I decided to try again, even though I was so sick of crocheting the "hat" over and over again only to produce socks. So I try again. And it's beginning to look right... for a while... but at some point in time, I switched techniques... and forgot how I started it in the first place. I figured it was okay, because it looked like it could stretch... then a while in, I switched techniques again. Then... when I realized what I'd done, I stopped. Enough. NO HAT FOR LINNY!!! Instead of unraveling though, I tied it off and kept the failure. It wasn't big enough to fit over her head. I sighed and flipped it inside out.... and realized it took a shape. Of a top hat. ROFL. A tiny top hat! How cute!!


So there she is, her whole outfit.





Oooooh yeah... so totally meant to make a top hat. It's "fastened" on by tiny wires bent in half - bobby pin style.



I'm very happy with the outfit I managed to make, even though most of it happened by accident. Tee hee haha.

Llama Llama Duck.

Okay... technically this post is about llamas. And toothbrushlets. So I used a duck icon to make up for it. Ha.









Yep. Llamas. I have mentioned once or twice that I am a vlogbrothers fan. Back in May, I tried to participate in Hank Green's birthday video, but my pictures were not included. I showed them to you, in my moonlit walks and gardening post. The theme was "Hank plants".

Well, this August was John Green's birthday. There were two projects to participate in. One, was the first half of his birthday video. Hank recorded himself for two minutes or so, talking. Then he got thousands of people to take frame by frame pictures of themselves doing the same poses he did. The result was actually quite weird, and kind of really cool. I took three of such pictures. And this time I was included! YAY! The thing is, with thousands of people taking pictures that add up to only two minutes of video... you don't see me very well. In fact, I could only find two of my pictures. I'm not sure if the third picture just wasn't included, or I just can't find it. lol. But I could find the other two pictures, because I had the bright idea to wear a hat those two times.







If you're curious to see the end result, here we go. I can be seen for a fraction of a second at 1:40 and 1:42. I'm wearing a cowprint cowboy hat. Hee.


There was a second project for this video too, for those who wanted to participate in both projects, or who couldn't participate in the first one because they didn't have a webcam. The theme to the second half of the video is "French the Llama". Once upon a time, John Green was unaware that "ftl" meant "for the lose". The result was French the Llama. lol. And so I wanted to participate in this section as well!


First, I decided to make a French Llama. But then... "French the Llama" sounds more like french kissing a llama. So I'd make two french llamas, and then have them kissing. Perfect! I was going to make two clay llamas, but then I wanted to make them move. Like, bend their necks. So, I changed my mind. I used wire to make a skeleton, and needle felted some stuffing to the wire.



And then I covered the taller one with some lovely gray wool I got from my ED Friend mayple. And then he needed eyes and a tongue, and a beret. Then I gave him a white shirt that I then drew stripes on with a black marker. And a red scarf. I named him Jean Luc.

For the female, I wanted her to be a blonde. But I didn't have blonde wool. I had blonde yarn though... so I unraveled the yarn, and tried to smooth it out as best as possible. Then I gave her a skirt, with a matching scarf and flower. I also found one of my old rings that's missing a stone, so I gave it to her as a bracelet. I named her Colette.


Tada!! My llamas.

He has a tongue, she doesn't. I thought he looked adorable with one, but I liked her without. The "flower" in her hair is the same fabric as her scarf, just glued on to a thumbtack. So it can actually come out of her hair. And her scarf is just tied on, so that can be removed too. The skirt was sorta sewn on her, so I don't think it's removable, and none of Jean Luc's outfit can be removed.


So yeah, finished the llamas. Yay. Then, to emphasize the fact that they're french llamas, I painted a quick scene of the Eiffel Tower:

Eee hee hee

And there they are with their names to identify them.



And there they are, french kissing in France.


Awwww. Yep. So yeah, I made a very short, like, 10 second video of them kissing and whatnot, it can be found in the video above at around 4:36. Hehe. I'm very happy to see it there.


But that's not all!! The email that informed us of the theme and whatnot said we'd get "extra points" for llama cakes. Now, the extra points are imaginary, but since I tried to participate in the last birthday project and was unsuccessful, I wanted to try and participate in this one as much as possible. So yep. I went and made a llama cake.

Progress! I've never carved a cake before. This was an interesting experience.


Finished llama. Halfway through my frosting it, the neck started tipping over. I guess it makes sense, since I'd only used a straw to keep it all together inside. A... bendy straw, which probably started bending... wow, I'm a genius. So I stuck some toothpicks in it, to try and keep it up. Which worked for a second. I then needed to stick a bamboo stick in it. Which worked for a second longer than the toothpick. Finally, I snapped a bamboo stick and propped it up under the chin. That held, but I didn't know for how long it would. So I very quickly finished the llama. From this angle, it just looks like the llama is hugging a stick. lol. I added text to the picture before submitting it.



The beret used red frosting that was actually really runny. It's my fault, it's not premade frosting, I made it myself, and made it too runny. lol. So the beret looks terrible. Almost like the poor llama's brain is just sorta sticking out of his head. I added the extra dot on top to hopefully make it look more like a beret and less like bloody brain. ROFL. This picture can be seen in the above video at around 3:56.


When I was finished taking the pictures, I sat there, wondering what to do with the extra runny red frosting....


I poked a hole in his tummy and oozed some red in to it. Ha. I killed it! And it was so much fun, I added more.


ROFL...


Added new text too. Hee hee. The best part? The stick that's holding up the head? Even though it's not even straight standing, is still holding up the head. Ha! Success. When my brother saw it, he asked if "that was supposed to be his brain sticking out of his head". It made me giggle. Yes. Sure. Why not.


So yay! Two of the three of my pictures in the first half showed up in the vid, AND my french llamas and llama cake made it. I'm VERY happy about it. I participated. :D


Finally, toothbrushlets. You may be asking, what are toothbrushlets? They're toothbrush bracelets. One of the folks I watch on Youtube made them. And I immediately wanted to make them too!!




I went to the dollar store and picked up some toothbrushes. I started with the purple one, because of all of them, I wanted a pink one the most and purple the least.


Boiling water = steam. Steam is a pain to cameras. lol.


There we go, toothbrush boiling.


The way it's done in the video makes it sound like it comes out all wiggly and you can bend it for forever until you drop it in ice water... but my toothbrushes must have been different. They cooled almost immediately after being removed from the pot - even after boiling it for half an hour. So I had to bend the toothbrush while it was still in the boiling water. Which, was tricky, because I had to use tongs. I finished the purple toothbrush and pulled the bristles out and was like YAY! But then I realized I made the bracelet too small.

So while I stuck the toothbrush back in, I went about removing the bristles from the other toothbrushes. I wanted to see if it was easier removing the bristles before or after I boiled them. I removed the blue bristles real easy like. So, excited, I started removing the pink ones... and broke it. :( It was a sad moment for me. The one I wanted most was broken in seconds. Dammit. So I threw the blue one in the pot with the yellow and green one. I then started bending the purple one to try and fix it... and broke it. Dammit. Another one bites the dust. I must not have waited long enough to bend it or something.

The other three survived.


And there they are. They're cute. They don't close all the way, they have a gap so that I don't have to try getting them over my hand. I think I'd like to try again, maybe with a different brand or something. And hopefully get a pink one this time. Grrr.


So yep. There ya have it. Hee. Jean Luc and Colette now sit on top of my monster monitor, along with one of my Murdock action figures - which I finally removed from the package. :)