JFK

Here's another short post; I just had to share this awesome find with you. These are plastic John F. Kennedy busts that also happen to be pencil sharpeners. Wow, right? I found these at SCRAP on Saturday, they had a bunch so I grabbed lots. I'm keeping a couple, but the rest I'm going to be listing on Etsy, so if you've always wanted a pencil sharpener in the shape of a dead president's head, you know where to go.

mel

ps - I did a little internet research this morning and found out that these babies were made in 1965. Cool, they're vintage!

Too Much Excitement!

yes yes yes! i am getting dark brown book tape! I am so psyched.

Markers

I think I mentioned before that I was using my prismacolor markers to make my spirograph notebooks, and that it was ruining the tips on the markers. I was bummed because prismacolor markers are a bit expensive, and so I was looking for some other way to achieve the same results. My first thought was just to get a few sets of Crayola markers and call it a day, but then I was thinking about the importance of the ink being waterproof. The covers of the notebooks are made of bristol board, which certainly is not waterproof (though it does stand up to water rather valiantly), but still I would want the design to remain unchanged it someone were to, say, get a drop of water on their notebook. So waterproof markers are a must. But which waterproof markers? The first answer is Sharpie.

We have here Sharpie retractable fine tip markers, which have the sort of tip I'm looking for, but a rather limited range of colors, and they still run about 2 bucks each.

Here's a classic, sharpie fine point. This may be the one, but I am a little concerned that tip is a bit to big for the spirograph. But these are only 99 cents if you buy them individually, and they come in about 30 colors. And you can get a set of 29 for $27.99. Sounds pretty tempting right now.

I've never heard of Artline, but their Twin Nib Markers come in a set of the above 8 colors for $7.99 The colors are a little blah though.

Ah, Pentel, the marker of my youth. When I was in elementary school you were so cool if you had a set of these in their yellow carrying case. I wanted them so bad! I've bought them a couple time as an adult, and they did not disappoint. Their nibs are about the perfect size for this project, they come in tons of colors and a 36 marker set is only $18.99. The drawback? Not waterproof, y'all.

And so we come back to prismacolor. Well, after my exhaustive research (ha ha) I think I'm going to try out some sharpies (since I've got some at home already), and test how the pentechs hold up to being dripped on. But I very well may stick to prismacolors...they're on sale right now anyway!
mel

I'm Chuck Bass

Okay, I know this is totally unrelated to, well, anything really, but tell me: is it wrong that I am like 1000% in love with this outfit?If it's wrong, I don't want to be right.
mel

I Heart You, Porkins

Sigh. Ok, geeking out alert! I don't know why, but I am having some nostalgic Star Wars withdrawals. I guess watching Star Wars used to be a pretty common occurrence for me; my roommate and I both loved it, she had it on DVD and I had it on VHS. You know what though? My roommate moved to Sacramento and took her DVDs with her, and we got rid of our VCR and all our (my) VHS tapes when we moved. For the first time in probably 10 years or more, I do not own the original Star Wars trilogy! I can't just watch it whenever I want, which is pretty sad. Something must be done, or my once formidable store of Star Wars trivia will dwindle out of existence. I'll have to check out netflix and see if Star Wars is one of those movies you can watch on their website. Probably not I guess.

Anyway, enough of that geekery! Sorry for that. So, oh my gosh you guys, we have so much catching up to do! Obviously, I failed at NaBloPoMo, but that's ok, because while I was doing it I had so much fun. I have total faith that next year I will succeed! I'll be training all year. The awesomeness of the Jens Lekman show was enough to make up for my failure. It was sooooo good. I am so glad that I was able to go, and that I got my tickets early because it totally sold out! I recommend to all of you, if you get a chance, go see his show! He sounds awesome live, the energy is so high, and you can tell that he loves music, and the joy is infectious. I don't want to go on too long, especially since I don't have any pictures to share, but I will post this link to a song from his new album, and I hope you'll all click and listen to it. Click Here Y'all.

In more "music" "news", I am seeing two more shows next month! Both are at The Great American Music Hall, which is a super awesome venue that is only a few blocks from my house! First is Jonathan Richman (love love love) and second is Stephen Malkmus. I am a little leery about the SM show. Pavement is my all time favorite band, and I have been known to embarrassingly, drunkenly call Stephen Malkmus a genius, and I love the first SM solo album to DEATH....but I kind of hated the last two albums. So...it's kind of a shaky proposition. I hope it doesn't suck. And Steve is going to go with me! Even though he never goes to shows! I'm going to be keeping my fingers crossed. I know Jonathan Richman will be awesome, I saw him once before, actually twice, and I'm sure this show will be even better because it's not at some douchey bar in the Mission.

Let's get to the crafting, shall we? After all, this isn't a music blog, dude! There is some exciting crafting stuff to discuss, first, I made a sale! Very surprising, because I hadn't listed since the beginning of October and I was sure no one was even looking at my shop. I guess I was wrong. People are looking at my shop a bit now, because I finally posted new items! Two new notebooks, take a looksie:

Well, people aren't really looking that much. I have a bunch of new notebooks just waiting to be listed though! I'm really excited because I haven't had new stuff in so long, and I'm really proud of these notebooks, I think they're really cool and well made.
In case you were wondering, things are coming along very well with my homework. I'll post a picture when it's done, so y'all can let me know if you think it sucks.
love ya!

mel

Who Doesn't Love Geek Craft?

I know I love geek craft, especially when it's done subtly and beautifully. That's why I was excited by a post on the Craft blog today by Becky Stern about her CAPTCHA paintings. CAPTCHA is that text you see sometimes at the end of a transaction on the internet that you must enter correctly to continue. You know what I mean. (If not, here's the Wikipedia Page) Becky's paintings are really cool, this is such a neat project. Check them out at Sternlab.