Giraffes on Parade

The only thing I've ever been good at is being a kid...

2010-12-14T00:48:00.002-05:00

And it doesn't pay well.

I am still unemployed and with my mother-in-law showing more and more interest in my daily activities I decided to once again search the vast sea of nameless boring jobs. Assistant administrator to the collections counselor- or in other words- "A bunch of stuff nobody cares about or wants to do. But you need 5 years experience doing it to get the job."
I have trouble understanding this employment jargon. I'm not a lawyer, I haven't been in the work place for 10+ years. I feel like I should have been taught most of this stuff in college, or maybe I missed the class of Bureaucratic crap that you need in order to find a job.
And yet I still come back to this road block of not wanting to grow up. I have always acted like a kid. Love to explore and play and wonder.
Maybe its this city that's so intimidating. Out of all cities in the U.S. I feel like New York is the one that tries the hardest to tear that part away from itself. Even the children here act like mini-adults.

So to find something I can do. Baker? Teacher? Designer? Retail? HR? Customer Service? Social Work? Writer? Nurse? My M.I.L. (mother in law) can't understand how me and my husband can be 25+, still living at home, and still working crappy jobs/not working. I'm not sure what to tell her. I've done what I was supposed to do. I finished High School as the first in my family. I went to college, as the first in my family. I finished college, I got married. Then its the end of my goals- besides having babies. But its like I can't find this next step.

HOW do I find a job I am good at/can endure/get a living wage from? Even with the terrible economy. I am willing to work the crap jobs. To do Target, Walmart, Best buy, etc. But THEY won't even hire me. I am a terrible sales person, but I love helping people.
Not exactly sure where this rant is going. I just sound like a spoiled child, crying when things get hard or don't go my way. I feel like my whole life I was told to experiment, to dream, to think around the box- and now I'm told its irrelevant. To dismiss it all.

I just don't know anymore.

Been out for a while but got lots of stuff done.

2010-12-03T17:18:00.002-05:00

So lots of things have been happening! I opened my first etsy shop, I am soon to be an aunt (again), my sister had emergency brain surgery, and I'm $3,000 more in debt! What a year. >_<
But lets talk about crafts. This is the moggle I crochet and put up in my shop! It was bought up almost immediately! I charged $15 for the moggle and $5 for shipping. But shipping actually cost me $10 (never using ups again) and It took me like... a week to make. Maybe I should charge more? I just feel bad cause it is so small and I am not so great at small detail work. The wings really stumped me but I figured it out by using felt. I like the way you can see them stitched on. He asked for it on a keychain to give to his wife. Which I thought was a cute idea. Put it on those cell phone charm chains (its still kinda big for a cell phone charm) so that it could be used for anything. Maybe I should make them as christmas ornaments?

Fusebeads!

2010-07-13T00:55:00.003-04:00

I had a 40% off coupon for Micheals, the craft store, so I bought a big bucket of fusebeads! Or as some people call them- pearler beads. I used to make these with the kids at my old job. They loved them, but didn't quite have the patience for it. I'm amazed at how well old video game pixels convert to crafts. I took some cross stitch patterns and made these.

They are from an old sega game called "Wonderboy in Monster World". We loved that game as a kid, so it was only a matter of time before i made them in art form! I think my favorite is the mushroom guy

Silent Hill Papercraft!

2010-03-16T00:58:00.005-04:00

I finally made a Silent Hill papercraft. Yay! Seeing as how Silent Hill is my favorite game series, this was long overdue. This pattern was actually the first papercraft I had found. I wanted to make it, but wasn't sure how to start. Now that I am better with my craft I built it, it wasn't hard. I love it! Its a little scene from Silent Hill 2. That's James with a pipe, and a nurse with a pipe. The room behind her is 302. The bottom says:

"A tubbypaws blocky 3d paper happy fun model tribute to the foggy fog game, the second one, the one with the pillow..."

I thought it was so hilarious that I glued the description to the bottom. Wanna make your own? Click the picture and It'll take you to her site. She also has a portal diorama, Grand Theft Auto, and even the release of the iPad.

On another note, today I recieved my package from my swap partner for the craftster World of Warcraft swap. She made lots of neat stuff and I love it all. But I haven't heard back from her on mine. It makes me feel like I didn't put much into it, but my papercrafts take me at least 2 days of constant work for 1 project (big ones). I think it was enough time spent, but I dunno. Her stuff was so great. Maybe I just am nervous since its my first swap. I can't wait to see what she thinks.

Also I read in game informer that females aged 25 and older now make up the largest segment of PC-gamers. At 46.2%. That means more women are playing PC games than men for this age range. I wonder if they are including Harvest Moon- er I mean... farm ville. If they are that is a huge percentage. But I was thinking, between the sims, world of warcraft, puzzle pirates, and farm ville, what other worthy PC games are out there? These are easy to pick up, especially by house wives who want to waste 5 minutes waiting for dinner to cook or laundry to get done. As a female gamer it makes me happy. Once they start getting into the time wasters they'll want more and start playing more involving games. It's been my dream to join an all female raiding guild. With these statistics it looks like I'm getting closer to it.

Chocobo Papercraft!

2010-03-15T04:05:00.006-04:00

Hello everyone! *crickets* Ok, ok settle down *wolf howl*, No need to get overly excited....

I am back to update my blog, the one that seems to be hidden away and forgotten. Maybe I don't do enough fun things? I don't know.
I've decided to use this as a forum to post my papercrafts I have completed, not just the ones I have found- which is a lot.
This early Monday morning is a Chocobo from Final Fantasy VII. This Pattern was created by Sane Person. Above I posted pictures of my finished product, and I can say this was certainly frustrating. Most papercrafts include some sort of instruction, like the flaps are numbered, or generally colored to show what goes where. Not with this pattern. I am not saying that I am ungrateful for the free patterns creators upload, but he could have done a .pdo file at least.
I ended up gluing the body on upside down and the neck backwards somehow. This was a good lesson for me to learn my physical dimensions.

- Unrelated: I was told in college that boys have a better understanding of how mechanics work because they have a better geographical mind. Think of gears and how they interact, work. How shapes fit (like this papercraft). The explination? Because they rough house play more than girls. Because they roll around in the dirt, chase each other, and are just more physical- they can better understand how parts interact and take up space. (found that very interesting.)

I'm not saying this papercraft is impossible. It definitely is a worthy challenge, and if you can get the feet right (I could not) he is wonderful to display. Mine is tilted backwards because his feet can't hold his body straight. Well good luck with it!

Silent Hill Shadowbox

2010-01-30T05:45:00.003-05:00

So I've started putting together some things for a Silent Hill Shadowbox. I love the video game series. Its so deep and has such atmosphere, its hard not to get totally sucked into it. The 2nd one was my favorite, although I've probably played the 3rd one the most. The 4th was a disappointment, and the 5th just didn't have enough puzzles and was too actiony for me. Too Americanized. I loved that eeriness you get from knowing that you ARE alone in a town that totally hates you (in the words of Yahtzee game reviewer)

I love the beauty of the rust covered world, the sound of scraping metal, the darkness and the isolation of it all. I went to an art show a while back because mc chris was performing and they, as an exhibit, had a small warship that had sank in the Hudson river. They resurfaced it and cleaned it out, showing it for all to see. Walking through that rusted shell I felt like I was actually there IN Silent Hill.

The weekend before my wedding my mother came up to New york city and wanted to see Ellis Island. I didn't know much about it.

It was beautiful! Apparently after they stopped using it sometime in the early 1900s it was completely abandoned. Then in the 1980's a photographer came to the island and took pictures of the abandoned buildings. So much history, so much pain, and so much isolation, torture, went into those buildings. As you walked through the empty halls, hearing your footsteps sound off down the long and empty hallways you could feel the emotion in the walls. These people were completely isolated from everything they knew.

"Generally those immigrants who were approved spent from two to five hours at Ellis Island. However more than three thousand would-be immigrants died on Ellis Island while being held in the hospital facilities."- Ellis Island, wikipedia

Its all quite sad. But again- you could FEEL it in the air. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Same with the warship.

Some photos I had taken to use for my box. I am in love with them and use them for great inspiration. I wish I could, but most places don't allow this, to just walk through the old abandoned buildings- like the contagious diseases hospital on Ellis Island (which was closed) or even the abandoned Norwich insane Asylum.

Legos Finished!

2010-01-28T00:05:00.004-05:00

I finally finished my husbands lego statues! I haven't taken pictures of the process but here is the end result.

There was a huge bin in the basement full of legos. I spent about 2 weeks going through the whole thing and pulling out the type of blocks and colors I could use, sorting them into smaller bins. Then I found some pixelated images that I wanted to build. I found that the easiest ones to build are from Nintendo era with mostly solid colors (see the trouble I had with the white mage?).
I printed off the pictures that I wanted to build and drew a grid over them. Following that grid I began to build. The potion took about 20 minutes, the Red Mage took me about 35 minutes and the white mage took about an hour.

My husband was very happy with them and I am too! Now I just have to find a way to seal them so they won't break over time.

I have a crafting problem...

2010-01-23T03:26:00.005-05:00

I have hundreds of links saved, and probably around 50 paper craft patterns saved- but I never get around to making anything! I'm not one to make my own crafts. I like to find things other people have done and then try it out. But recently I've hit a dry spell. It's so very hard to find inspiration to do them.
My dream job, as I'm sure most mid-twenty Americans, is to be paid for doing what I love. And what is that?

I don't know....

I like playing wow. I like telling stories about my family, I like writing, I love babies!, I like toys. I'm very childish at heart, but it seems that this world is not meant for the dreamers. I can't see myself sending faxes my whole life, or trying to sell this many credit cards when I know people don't need them. But where can I find a place where I just... create? Start my own business? I'm terrible with books and numbers and sales. I would probably end up giving most of my product away because they loved it so much! But also, I create no product wonderful enough to be sold. I'm not creative enough to make my own products, art, crafts, clothing, etc. I'm just kind of... above novice level. I dabble in everything but once I start to get good I lose interest. What's a girl to do?

Mr. Pinchy, Hearthstone cookies

2010-01-17T17:49:00.003-05:00

Horray! I fished up Mr. Pinchy! While doing my cooking daily in Terrokar Forest I decided to do some fishing. I had tried for Mr. Pinchy quite a few times before, but wasn't very committed to it. So I was surprised to actually get it! On my third wish I received the pet and the achievement! ^_^

On another note I am learning how to make lego sculptures. My husband loves classic rpgs, especially the pixels. I found this tute on Kotaku. My mother in law has a HUGE chest of legos in the basement, so I figured why not! It'll be totally free and awesome gift for my hubby! I'll put up pictures of the process when its all over.

Also- I totally want to make these cookies. They look delicious. World of Warcraft Hearth Stone cookies.

Coffee Filter Roses

2010-01-13T23:55:00.004-05:00

Here's a project recently updated on the always amazing www.craftster.org. SarahJSaturday uploaded a nice tute (tutorial) on how to make these roses out of coffee filters! I love the idea and they look so realistic. Whilst explaining this project to family they asked, "Why not go to the dollar store and buy a silk flower? Its probably cheaper?". Somehow I found it hard to explain that... I love things more when they are hand made. Why would I pay a dollar for a cheap flower made by a 4 year old Asian child, when I can MAKE my own! They are fabulous discussion pieces. "Oh these flowers are nice. Where did you get them." "oh well I MADE THEM MYSELF!" mwuahahaha!

I don't know who would even say that. I don't have guests here much in my tiny attic apartment. =P But I wish good luck to you who want to try it!
Also would like to point out that craftster is an amazing site for those, like me, always looking for the next project.

Everything has a begining...

2010-01-12T02:47:00.003-05:00

I never thought I would actually do it, seeing as how my life isn't that interesting to being with, but I kind of accidently started a blog. I've had several sites in the past, but none really went into myself- and I doubt this one will as well. I like to keep my personal business off of the internet.-
However! I am one to find neat things and share with everybody. I'm also trying to learn something new everyday. So far it has been working. I'm just going to use this as a medium to explain my current projects, where I got them, and how I made them. I'm working on lots of things atm and have many saved that I will need to load. I don't feel like going into it now so I can make individual posts later.

Thanks for reading. I'm new so please be nice.