Quotes: The Sequel

So I met this guy. His name is Ben, and he's pretty awesome. He also knows some pretty awesome quotes, which has inspired me to create

QUOTES:

THE SEQUEL

Ben's Quotes

and other quotes I found

coming soon to theaters near you

Let the quotes begin!

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'The generation that is not changed by the world will be the generation that changes the world.'

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'He is not a fool who loses what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.'

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'One of the devil's favorite lies is 'you can not.' One of Gods favorite truths is 'I can.'

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'There's room for all of God's creation on this earth...right next to my mashed potatoes.'

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'She was feeling the pressure of the world outside and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be assured that she was doing the right thing after all'

~The Great Gatsby

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'and today was brilliant,

glossy and blue,

like swimmingpool shadows

and pictures of you.'

~Typewritten life

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'How soothing 

to know

that the wind

will never be taken

out of

my sails.

You are the wind.

You are the sails.'

~Tyler Knott Gregson

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'You have my heart.

But you also have my breath caught in my lungs. Each bone in my spine, each bone in my body. Every muscle aches and surges with you. You have so much more than my heart. You have everything it keeps alive.'

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So beautiful. 

Sliding Knot DIY

Steps 1-6

	For the purposes of this exercise, the Pink cord is the left-hand (LH) cord of your pendant, and the Off-white cord is the right-hand (RH) cord of your pendant. Take the end of the LH cord and wrap it around the RH cord, looping it back to the left as pictured.  Slide the end of the RH cord over to lie alongside the main section of the pink LH cord.
	Wrap the end of the pink LH cord around the two cords, looping it towards the left and at least 2-3 times.
	Now poke the end of the LH pink cord underneath those loops and back out the right-hand end.  Pull tight. Voila!  You have your first sliding knot!
	If necessary, pull some more of the RH ( off-white) cord thru to the left, so you have enough to make another sliding knot. Wrap the end of the RH cord around the LH cord, as shown.
	Wrap that end around the two cords, wrapping towards the right at least 2-3 times.

As before, poke the end of the RH cord back towards the left and under the loops.  Pull tight, and you're done!  Trim ends if desired.

Outdoor Twister and other Birthday Madness

So Saturday was my 18th birthday. Around here (and probably everywhere) teens celebrate by going to the casino, buying a lottery ticket, smoking, drinking,...whatever. I guess its sort of a right of passage. It sounds kinda cool, I mean who wouldn't want to throw their money into a giant hole while giving themselves cancer?

OH WAIT NOT ME

I have priorities and goals that would definitely not benefit from any above mentioned stupidities. So, I spent my birthday doing things I love, which include bonfires, last minute beach parties, and DIY Twister :). It was one of the best birthdays I have ever had!
Here are some of the pictures :)

Adding the paint :)

The madness begins...look how clean everyone is!

All the guys are synchronized 

competitions getting slim

The gang...no longer clean 

the paint after :)

Like what you see? Here's a quick DIY! 

You need:

• 40 heavy paper plates (I used 40 because I had 10 people playing)
• green, blue, yellow, and red paint (the big bottles from Walmart work great)
• 40 long nails 
• hammer
• twister spinner 

Out on the lawn, nail down the paper plates. You need 4 rows (for the 4 colors) and however many columns to suite the number of people playing. The nail in the center of the plate was not a big deal for my group of older teens. Pour the paint in the plates (use it all!). Play Twister :) 

I also had a large canvas out next to it so the players could print their hands (or feet) on the board once they were finished :). 

In addition to the games, I also had a bonfire. All my guy friends are pyros.

That was all Friday night. Saturday, my actual birthday, my friend Lauren and I went to see our friends' band play in a local Christian rock fest.

Waiting on Winter 

The Following (Oh how I love Brady's Spiderman mask :D )

The best part of it all was definitely the last minute beach party. There's just something about reconnecting with an old, missed friend that just beats everything else. Plus, I never have been a 'fly by the seat of my pants' kind of person...I'm very calculated and plan almost everything, so when that friend suggested a random beach bonfire, I was pumped! There were supposed to be a whole group of people there, but it ended up just being me, my friend, and his brother (oh and a bunch of fireworks haha). It was fantastic :)

DIY Colored Bobby Pins

DIY Mason Jar Tinting :)

So guess what?

Saturday's my birthday!!! YEAH!!! 18 18 18 18 :)) 


Because of this, I have been doing a lot of party planning and decided to have a bonfire with a group of friends. It's starting to get darker earlier now (but not too early :) ) and I want to do some outdoor games when it's dark. The solution?

Tinted mason jars lights!

Here's how to do it:

You will need:

• mason jars
• Mod Podge (DON'T USE PUZZLE GLUE! That's what I did...it was very difficult, but I still got it to work. Save yourself the trouble and get Gloss Mod Podge.)
• A sponge brush
• Food coloring
• OH YEAH and a cookie sheet
• OH YEAH and tin foil
• OH YEAH and a paper plate 

Step 1:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

Step 2:

Put a puddle of mod podge on the paper plate, and put 3 or 4 drops of food coloring in it. Stir it well. 

(hehe, mine looks like an egg!)

Step 3:

Using the sponge brush, coat the INSIDE of the jar with the mod podge/color mixture. Do one or two coats, just so it looks yellowish, like these:

Ignore the really colored rims...these are my previous 'fail jars'...my trial and error jars that I decided I could save. 

Step 4:

Cover the cookie sheet with tinfoil and put the jars on it. Bake in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes. 

There you go! Beautiful tinted mason jars! Leave them as they are or put little candles in them like I will. There's a ton of different crafts to do with these colorful guys!

'I believe..'

Oh how I love Bob Ross. He is fantastic and so darn....Bob Ross-y. My boyfriend showed me this video and told me it reminded him of me....

HAHAHAHAHAH

He's a keeper. Anyway, this is golden. 

'I believe every day is a good day when you paint.'

'Just caress it'

'I believe it will bring a lot of good thoughts to your heart'

'Let's build a happy cloud...there are no limits here'

'Make love to your canvass. Fluff it.' 

'We don't make mistakes, we make happy accidents.'

'TOTAL POWER.'

Oh my goodness, I am going to die laughing. 

Quotes Board DIY

I am totally bored with my room. It's been the same since I was a Freshman. I'm a Senior. My bulletin board still says 'Cornerstone 2010.' It's 2012....the END of 2012.

THIS IS A PROBLEM. 

To cure my space restlessness, I will probably be posting a lot of DIYs (YAY) and organization ideas. So let's start with that awful bulletin board! 

As I said before, I love quotes and have stumbled upon (literally) many fantastic quotes I don't want to forget and would love to display around my space. The problem is I'm not allowed to make new holes in my walls to hang things. The solution? QUOTES BOARD! 

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 You will need:

• Chalkboard paint
• scissors (I remembered them this time!!) 
• small pins
• magazines 
• green paper
• a pencil (which I forgot to include :( ) 
• printed quotes :)
• glue stick

Step 1:

 Paint a large rectangle on your bulletin board. This will take a few coats because the cork likes to soak it in. I already had mine done from a previous project. Wait for it to dry.

Step 2:

 Flip through your magazine and cut out pages that have articles on them. Cut out branches from those pages and begin to tack them onto your board. There is really no way to mess this up, even if your not a fantastic artist. Just draw a thick tube that narrows to a point, then add one or two smaller points onto the first tube.
Continue cutting and pinning branches until your board looks like this:

 Use chalk to label the board. Suggestions:
Quotes
Beautiful Words
Words
A wise man once said...
Shut up and Listen!

Step 3:

Now it's time for the leaves. These are a little tricky to freehand (like I did) if drawing isn't your thing. There are plenty of websites out there that have leaf patters you could print and use. Here's a good one: http://0.tqn.com/d/scrapbooking/1/0/R/e/fallleafpattern.jpg
I used around 17 leaves. Make sure you make them big enough to fit your quotes on! Cut them out.

Step 4:

Before you put the quotes on the leaves, pin them where you want them to go on the tree. This will prevent you from putting your quotes all the same direction on the leaves, which makes for a pretty boring looking tree. Vertical leaves will work for shorter quotes, and horizontal leaves for longer ones.

Step 5:

Take one leaf off the tree at a time and make sure you take notice of which way it was facing. Now begin cutting out your quotes in small strips. You'll have to break them up to get them to fit on the leaves, but I see this as a challenge. I try to cut them between words and in places that will make it sound more poetic. Try cutting between different word groups and see how the words flow in your mind when you read it. For example, the quote on this leaf says 'Sometimes God calms the storm, sometimes God calms the sailor, but sometimes He makes us swim.' ~NOTW. I cut it up into groups like this:

'Sometimes God calms the storm,

Sometimes God calms the sailor,

But sometimes He makes us swim.'

~NOTW

Step 5:

Keep cutting and pinning quotes until you use all the leaves. Ta da! Now your Quotes Board is finished! You could even add pictures to some of the leaves or detail to the bottom of the board. Get creative and make it your own! 

Here are some of my leaves and examples of cutting and grouping words

Happy Crafting!

Happy Messy Monday!

This BlimeyCow video was one of the first I watched. I love it!

'DC Talk didn't go to Heaven when it died.' 

'Uhhhh...is it a CHRISTIAN lunch??' 

'Please don't tell my mommy....' 

'"If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I'll bet they'd live a lot differently."
"How so?"
"Well, when you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day."
~Calvin and Hobbes

#justsayin

I love quotes.
Some of the stuff that people say is beyond worth repeating. One of my friends has this crazy ability to stumble across the most wonderful quotes ever. I'll share my favorites with you :)

"I could do without a tan on my left hand where my fourth finger meets my knuckle."      ~Ed Sheeran

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"Sometimes God calms the storm.

Sometimes God calms the sailor.

But sometimes He makes us swim."

~NOTW

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"She stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her away, she adjusted her sails."  ~Elizabeth Edwards

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"They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered."                       ~F. Scott Fitzgerald 

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 "What doesn't kill us makes us something." ~Unknown

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"In defense of marrying young: I do not claim that marriage is for everyone or that family is for everyone. So please don't claim that young marriage should be for no one."

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"The storms will come and the winds will rise and the gusts will threaten to pull you from your roots. Let the winds come. Let them rage and know that you will not break in the breeze, you will bend. Bend. Always bend because you are made of more strength than you know, because you are better than breaking."   ~TylerKnott

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 Creativity takes no excuses.

If its important enough, you'll make time for it.

If you don't know where to start, start anywhere.

If you feel stuck, ask someone to help you out.

If you're tired, take a timed break.

If you don't know how to do it, do what you can.

If you believe that you can do it, you will.

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"Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy." ~How He Loves

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"I just want to be alone with someone else there"  ~Unknown

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  "I got lost in him, and it was the kind of lost that is exactly like being found."          ~Claire LaZebnik

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"And I knew exactly what to do. But in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do." ~Michael Scott

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SHOES.

This past weekend, I went to visit my friends Erica and Chelsea across state. We had a fantastic and crazy time, but the highlight was definitely painting some cheap canvas shoes. We all got a pair and went to work while watching my favorite show, The Office. They are really a perfect representation of my own personal style and likes. I just finished mine tonight, and they look AWESOME.

Pikachu and the Hunger Games

Some of my favorite Super Heroes and a cute heart design :)

The Aristocats <3, and an Andy Warhol quote: 'Art is what you can get away with'

Pacman and the Avatar: the last Airbender symbols for Air and Water

I LOVE these shoes! I just waterproofed them and I can't wait to wear them tandem biking with my friend Kyle :D.

If you would like a custom pair, email me your shoe size and 12 themes or designs (6 for each shoe). They are $12 a pair :). 

sbardwell94@yahoo.com :)

Messy Monday!

Happy Monday!

For today's Messy Monday video, we're going to take a look at Jordan's list of 7 things that won't be cool in twenty years. Brilliant :)

'Cats are love on four legs' ~Unknown

My cat died today.
He was around 8 years old. He was the fattest Siamese cat ever. I love him so much.
People have asked me what the big deal is, I literally have a ton of other cats on the farm. Snickers was not just another cat. Snickers was special.
Snickers, who rode around on my shoulder. My first kitchen cat. The cat that people would exclaim about how much he seemed to love me. He loved music. Snickers would sit on my big CD player while I was in the kitchen and listen to my music. He hated the song 'Under the Sea' and would open my CD player whenever it came on so it would stop. He was an excellent mouser. Snickers was the best cat I've ever had.

Snickers <3

So this post is to all the cat people who appreciate how lovely cats are. In the words of The Speculator, 'Cats are to be loved because they are cats and for no other reason.'

Enjoy, cat people :)

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats" ~Albert Schweitzer

 “If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.” - Mark Twain

"The cat does not want all the world to love her, only those she has chosen to love."
-Helen Thomson

“Women & cats will do as they please, men & dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”

 ~ Robert A. Heinlein

<3

Pool Hockey (and other cool pool games!)

Today was my first official day as Katie's full time babysitter. It was a blast! Katie is just like me (only a little more energetic haha) and and loves to be outside and craft. We made bracelets all day with my floss and her yarn. I also got quite an education on all important 9-year-old things, including the dangers of city smog, what's in smog, her personal theories on why the US got involved in the Korean War, where cats scent glands are...oh and how important it is to dress like your American Girl doll so she feels like part of the family. But between all that, we squeezed in time to hit the pool so she could teach me a game she loves to play: pool hockey.

Turns out, pool hockey has nothing to do with actual hockey (to my relief) and is quite fun. All you need is a pool, some pool toys (such as pool noodles and kick boards), and a beach ball. 

         

(Sorry guys, no actual pictures of us playing....cameras and pools don't mix too well)

The object of the game is to get all the opposite team members out! 

Here's how you play:

Separate into two teams and give everyone a noodle (like a hockey stick). Designate opposite corners of the pool to be the two teams goals, and one person from each team to be the goalie (or not...this is totally optional, I prefer to play sans-goalie). Place the ball in the middle of the pool, and on the word 'go', everyone tries to get the beach ball and score in the other teams goal using only the noodles- no hands allowed! Whoever gets to five points first wins! 

You may be thinking, 'wait...what about the kick boards??'  Well, here's Katie and I's one-on-one super way to play (only use one kick board):

In our version, you're the goalie, the goal, and every other team member! You each start with a noodle, with the ball in the middle. On 'go', you use the noodles to try and maneuver the ball so that it touches the other player. If you make the ball touch the other person, you get your 'hockey stick' upgraded to a kick board.  This obviously makes it much harder for the noodle person to win! If the noodle person makes the ball touch the kick board person, you switch 'sticks.' (So the person who hits the other person with the beach ball always gets a 'stick' upgrade.) The first person to make the ball hit their opponent twice in a row wins! (The winner must always have the kick board).

Here are some other easy group pool games:

~Colors: 

Have one person stand at one end of the pool to be the Guesser, while the others stand at the opposite end with their eyes closed. Everyone thinks of a color, and the Guesser guesses a color. Once someone's color has been called, they can try to swim their way across the pool to the Guesser. Whoever touches the Guesser first wins and gets to be the new Guesser.  But wait! There's a catch! Once one person's color has been guessed and they start swimming, everyone can start racing towards the Guesser too! That's where the challenge is...the person who's color was chosen has to swim as quietly as they can to not alert the others. 

~Movies

This one is set up just like Colors. The Movie Master (the lone person) thinks of a movie and the group at the opposite end asks questions to try to figure out what movie it is. When someone thinks they know it, they swim up to the Movie Master and reveal their guess. If it's right, they become the new Movie Master. If it's wrong, their out!

~Copy Cat 

This game requires a diving board and is better suited for older kids or teens. One person is chosen to be the Diver, and everybody else are the Copy Cats. The Diver gets to jump or dive off the board any way they like, and the Copy Cats have to copy it for the Diver (or judges if there are moms around the pool). Whoever can't copy the dive is out, and the Diver selects a new dive. The last one standing with the Diver wins! 

~Splash Contest

Cannon ball! This game is and oldie, but a goodie (yeah, I can't believe I just typed that haha). It's pretty simple: whoever makes the biggest splash wins! 

Enjoy your pool time :)