Tag Archives: Random

Sep24

Crafting Fun and Visiting Family in Low Country

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Crafting Fun and Visiting Family in Low Country

Last month I had a feeling that I would be getting a job soon and thought I better plan a trip to see my sister in Georgia. My intuition was right and I did get a job! But that is for another post, this one is about all the cool stuff I did on my trip.

First I will mention that for this trip I did not drive, I took the train! It was a little more than half the cost of driving and took about the same amount of time. This was my first train ride and I really enjoyed it. I would have enjoyed it better if my iPod was working though.

One of the main things my sister and I wanted to do while I was visiting was craft. Hooray for crafting! The first day I was there we went thrifting and gathered supplies for our crafting adventure. The first thing we did, although not really a craft, but still a DIY, was dye our hair. Normally not a big deal, but I did multi-colored ombre tips! Here are the before and after.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day we took a break from crafting and drove up to Charleston to visit our Aunt and cousins. We checked out The Roost, where our cousin works, had breakfast at The Early Bird Diner, and took my nephew for a golf cart ride around the Isle of Palms, which he loved! It’s so great to have family in Charleston and Savannah!

Once back at my sister’s, we commenced with the crafting. That night we made bleach pen shirts and painted our nails using the water marbling technique.  The bleach pen shirts turned out pretty good for a first try. We did learn that it’s better to use a bleach pen that is not newly opened because it’s not as thick and the bleach spreads out. While our shirts were washing, we worked on our nails. If you haven’t heard of water marbling, it’s a technique where you put drops of nail polish into a cup of water to make a marble design, then dip your finger in and the polish adheres to the nails. Easy right?! Not really. We watched a couple videos and learned that some people prefer to use tape around their nails while others use lotion to avoid getting too much polish stuck on their finger. We decide we would each try one method and see which one was better. The verdict: we both had a ton of polish to remove from around our nails. I was told after that we should have used Vaseline, so I think I will try that next time.  Although it did not turn out as nice as all the pictures I’ve seen online, I still liked the technique and will definitely try again.

My last day we went to the Savannah Mall and later made a couple necklaces, although I don’t have pictures of them. I had so much fun with sister, even though we only did about half of the crafting we wanted to do. I guess it’s just more to do on my next visit!

 

Sep3

New Tires and New Volunteering

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New Tires and New Volunteering

Another week over and still no job prospects. I did however get to buy new tires! I’d been putting off new tires for a while, but after one blew out I took it as a sign to stop procrastinating. Now buying new tires may not be a big deal for you, but it’s a huge deal for me. First I had to save up money for several weeks to even afford them. Then I had to refrain from breaking down and crying at the tire shop when I swiped my debit card for $320. All I could think about while I sat in the waiting area was how many things I could buy with $320. I’ve pretty much mastered the art of being broke, but sometimes it really gets to me. And this was one of those times.

I also decided to add a new volunteering opportunity to my already jam packed schedule of free labor. In addition to being an event manager and marketing committee chair for One Brick and volunteering several days a week at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, I am now going to volunteer at the Student Museum in Sanford. I took my 2 hour tour of the museum this week and I hope to get started this coming week!

Aug4

Newsworthy Nails

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Newsworthy Nails

To celebrate the one year anniversary of getting laid off from my job, I decided to paint my nails. Exciting! I really don’t paint my nails too often because its chips so quickly and I’m too lazy to be repainting every few days. But my sister mentioned that she had tried, and liked the new nail polish strips that are all the rage so I thought I’d give it a try. I found them at Wal-Mart, but for $8.50 I had to pass. I have to be frugal these days.

When I got home I looked at my selection of nail polish and after throwing away the dried up ones I was left with only clear. Then I remembered a blog post I read where a girl used newspaper to put letters on her nails using a silly puddy effect. You basically do this by painting your nails, sticking strips of newpaper into rubbing alcohol and then pressing them onto your nails for thirty seconds to transfer the print. Because I only had clear nail polish the words didn’t show up very well, but all in all it worked. Give it a try if you have white or baby blue or pink polish. And let me know how it turns out!

Jul29

Getting Crafty

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Getting Crafty

I’ve always loved the idea of crafting. When I was young I wanted to be an artist, but I couldn’t draw, color or paint to save my life. A couple of years ago I tried scrapbooking and cake decorating. I sucked at those too. But I do enjoy making things and having people be impressed by them. So vain! I’ve had a few successes with food; such as my chick cupcakes, meringue ghost for Halloween and bacon roses. But I really want to make things that aren’t eaten within minuets of seeing them.

Since I’ve been unemployed I’ve been looking for crafting ideas on the cheap. I like the concept of upcycling, especially books. So to get a better handle on crafting with paper I decided to first get a simple book on origami to work on my folding technique. In the mean time I have tried a couple different projects. The first was a take of some origami stars with little sayings on them that I saw on craftgawker.  The next was a scarf made from an old t-shirt. The instructions called for several yards of jersey fabric so my scarf turned out much smaller. I had a few good reasons for using an old shirt however. One, because of the whole upcycling concept, two, because I spilled bleach on it and three, because it was the shirt I was wearing the first time I met my boyfriend and I wanted to keep it. Cute, I know.

I have a million ideas for other crafts I want to do, it’s just a matter of finding the time. Being unemployed doesn’t give me as much free time as you would think. I spend a lot of time on the computer looking for jobs and networking. It’s almost like having a full-time job. Another thing that I’ve noticed while being unemployed is that it’s much harder to keep a schedule. If you work everyday at the same time, it’s easy to have a routine and plan things around that schedule. When you have no job and volunteer at all different times, it makes life a little crazy. I hope to have some more posts with awesome crafts that I’ve done soon. Please share with me what you’ve been working on!

Jul16

Selling Stuff Online Sucks

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Selling Stuff Online Sucks

By this I do not mean that it is hard to sell things online.  With sites like eBay, Amazon and Craigslist, it’s actually quite easy. Being so broke that I need to sell my personal belongings is what sucks.

Recently my nearly three-year old BlackBerry broke. I took this opportunity to switch cell phone companies to get a better monthly rate. (Shout out to Boost Mobile for unlimited everything for $50/month!) After going over my minutes on my last plan for the umpteenth time, I had to find a new carrier. This meant I owed T-Mobile a ton of money plus had to pay for a new phone and first months bill at Boost. So I did what any broke, unemployed person would do. I began looking for things to sell online. My first choice was the old cell phone. I sold an old BlackBerry Pearl for $25 on eBay and I’m still waiting on my check from sellmyoldcellphone.com for the broken BlackBerry. This was not nearly enough for a new phone however. My only other option was to sell my bike. This is the sucky part; I did not want to sell my bike. I love my bike! I thought about how often I used my bike and how often I used my phone. The choice was clear.

I cleaned up the bike, took some pictures and posted it on Craigslist. Much to my surprise I had 15 responses in 2 hours! I had someone say they wanted it that night, which was fine except I didn’t have all the accessories I had advertised with me. He said that was fine and he would meet me for them another day. He gave me the cash and said he’d call to pick up the rest after work the next day. Now here is the other sucky part about selling things online; people who respond to online ads can be creepy jerks! When I met with the man the first time his wife was with him and I had my boyfriend with me. Now the second time we were both alone and he had the nerve to hit on me! Apparently we had a lot in common since we both like to ride. I guess he forgot about the whole wife/boyfriend thing. Gross!

I now have a new phone and am quite happy with it. As far as selling stuff online, I don’t have much left. In my time of unemployment I’ve sold 2 bikes, 3 phones, my guitar (I won’t even go into how much that one hurt) and countless other items that I would have liked to have kept. I do realize that these are material items and yes I can buy a new bike. It’s the fact that I have to sell these things just to get by. It takes all the fun out of it.

Aug10

My First Day Of Unemployment

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My First Day Of Unemployment

Last Friday was my last day at work after finding out that my position had been eliminated. That night I went home and applied for unemployment. Over the weekend I tried not to think too much about no longer having a job.

Then came Monday. A friend suggested I continue to get up early, shower and get dressed as to not get out of the routine. While this is an excellent idea, I really wanted to treat this week more like a vacation.

I got up at 10:00 am, had some coffee and a bowl of cereal and tried to muster up some motivation to work on my resume and look for a new job. The first thing I did was update my LinkedIn profile. Nothing major, just updated my job title and requested some recommendations from former coworkers. By the end of the day, three people had already recommended me! I searched some job boards, wandered over to Facebook and Pitchfork and after a couple of hours decided I had had enough of staring at the computer. My sister came over with my nephew and I spent some time with them and before I knew it, it was 4:30 pm! Where did the afternoon go?

I then met a friend at Cady Way Trail for roller blading and we also went swimming. But it wasn’t all play. After swimming we went over some resume samples so I could make a fancy new one.

I ended my day watching lame TV and going to bed very late. Not a bad day. It’s now Tuesday and once again I got up after 10:00 am. Now back to the job hunt!

Jan26

OMG, I’m blogging

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OMG, I’m blogging

First entry for my new blog! Formalities…

This is actually my second attempt at a blog. I started my first blog in July 2007 and for a year I wrote about my adventures as an unemployed college graduate. Boy was that fun!

This time around I’m going to blog about much more interesting things, such as myself. I know what you are thinking but I really am very interesting, at least that’s what I’ve been told. All joking aside, this blog will simply be views and thoughts of a young woman in Central Florida trying to find her place in this crazy world. Hope you enjoy it!