Guess what? Today you get pictures AND a story. I know, I’m so generous. XD
I raced outside and up a hill to take pictures of the brilliant sunset tonight. I wish you could have seen it! It was so orange and pink and just gorgeous! But I suppose my smaller-than-life pictures will have to do. (Note: The sunset was way prettier in real life. 😉 )
This picture captured the colors about the best.
I edited this one:
I also took pictures of a sunset when we went to my grandparent’s house.
Now that your mind is saturated with pictures of sunsets, here’s a little story I wrote. (Yes, I did use Esme from WordCrafters 2. 😀 ) I’ve been wanting to write something like this for a long time. Enjoy this little tidbit of a story!
Esme lay on the hillside, staring up at the sky. A little kitten breeze played around her. It pounced on her face, batted her clothes, and ruffled her hair with soft, invisible paws.
Esme gave a sigh of contentment as she lay there with the breeze for company, watching the sun step down from its stage in a brilliant finale. The sunset was like a giant bonfire, and the puffy golden clouds like marshmallows toasting over the blaze.
Esme closed her eyes and imagined what it would feel like to sit on one of those clouds. It would be warm and soft and springy, just like a perfectly roasted marshmallow. She would nestle deep into the softness and let the colors of the sunset wash over her. The colors would feel good – tingling and throbbing with energy. If she jumped from the edge of the cloud, she would fly – she would soar over the fire in the sky, over everything and everyone.
Esme opened her eyes. She had landed back on her hillside. But Esme liked it up there with the clouds. She closed her eyes again and floated up to the clouds. This time she imagined how a sunset would sound if it were music. The notes would start off smooth but bright, like blue sky just beginning to turn rosy. The music would build, louder and louder, higher and higher, crashing in great golden waves over everything it touched. The notes would play so fast that they all blurred together into one glorious, chaotic crescendo as the sunset burned brightest. Then, gradually, the music would fade with the fading colors. The happy, throbbing tune would turn slow and mournful as the sun breathed its last. A few sweet notes would linger – the sun’s last golden tears – then the music would stop.
As Esme walked back to her house with the kitten breeze tagging along, she could still feel the softness of the cloud surrounding her and hear the sunset’s wonderful music playing in her ears. She was flying again, over the grass instead of the sky, but flying. Soaring home.
See ya later, alligators! (Or would you rather be unicorns or dragons? Speaking of which, I shall soon show you one of those, though I’m sorry to say, it’s not actually alive. Actually I’m not sorry! XD )
I snapped several pretty pictures of the moon a couple of nights ago. They might be my best moon pictures yet! I also took a video of a firefly, then made some stills from the video. Although the pictures aren’t the best quality, I still think they’re neat.
Annnnyway, tonight our friends came over and we had fun collecting snails in a variety of sizes and colors. They may be slow, but that doesn’t stop snails from being fun to watch!
Such a cute wittle scrunched up snail
Whoa! Look how far this guy can stretch!
Snail pyramid! Hey, they tried.“Excuse me, Bob. Oops, sorry Janet! Coming through, Harry. Don’t mind me, I’m just looking for my lucky four leaf clover… Hey! What are these green shreds doing here? BOB! Why do you always have to be so hungry?” Heh heh, that was fun to write. 🙂“Whee! A free ride!”
PicMonkey to the rescue:
I love this picture!
Following the leader…
“OUCH! Hey, back off, kid – you poked my eye!”The marvelous two-headed snail… or not.
Do you like snails? I hope you enjoyed these pictures!
Last week we went on a gorgeous (and rather tiring) hike with some friends. It included lots of water and waterfalls. Perfect!
Note: I edited some of these pictures. 😀 Just making sure you weren’t like, “WHOA, how does Allison take that good of pictures in a badly lit-forest?” Well yeah, I don’t. 😛
Ooh, so shiny.I love this one!
Along the path there was this gorgeous waterfall hidden away in a little hollow. It felt like a private picnic spot or something. So pretty!
Mini waterfall off to the side
Look at all of this liquid energy! Churning, frothing, bubbling water. Ahh…
I really like this picture of mountain laurel. BOKEH! XD
Meet our friends’ dog, Penny, who swam around in the river a couple of times. She was awfully hard to get a picture of. XD
Guess what? We saw THREE black bears on our hike! There are bears where I live, but it’s very rare (for us at least) to see one. So we were super excited to get to see three on one hike! They were pretty cute. 😀 They didn’t even seem to notice us, even though the first one was fairly close to the path. I got some rather bad quality videos and pictures, but at least you can see the bears on them.
I’m pretty sure the cub is drinking milk from its mother in this photo. Isn’t it funny how the mama bear is sprawled out all nice and comfy (or not) on the ground?
I was going to add a GIF, but it took too long and wasn’t very good anyway. Heh heh, so much for that. XD I might show you some bear videos in a post later.
Have you ever seen a bear? Do you like hiking? What was your favorite picture in this post?
***Allison***
P. S. CutePolarBear, it’s your turn for WordCrafters! Visit the WordCrafters 2 page to read the story so far. GO WORDCRAFTERS! 😀
P. P. S. Wanna hear something funny? You know the Baby Changing Station thingies in public bathrooms? Once I saw one where the “C” had been scraped off the sign, so it read: “Baby hanging Station.” How awful! (But you have to admit, still hilarious. XD )
Hello, and welcome to this rather random post. (Thus the title.) But hey, occasional random posts are good for the soul, am I right? (Uh no, Allison, you’re wrong. Eh, who cares. XD )
Cows…
Flowers…
Baby bird…
Feathers I drew and printed out and colored and cut out and punched holes in and hung on vases for decorating tables at our church… (*Gasp, pant, wheeze* Phew! Perhaps that wasn’t quite grammatically correct. XD )
And last but not lease, a drawing I did of our kitten, Casey! I rather like it. 🙂
And that’s about it! I hope you enjoyed this random little post! 😀
Calm down, calm down, guys. I can’t type when you’re squealing like that. XD All right, all right, I’ll show you the pictures.
(Note: most of these pictures are edited because kittens are just a teensy bit hard to photograph sometimes. 😉 )
Ahem. We shall start with our own dearest Casey. SHE IS SO CUTE! If she’s cute in pictures, she’s even more adorable in real life! (See more pictures of her here.)
Casey-in-a-shoe!Casey taking a nap beside some (rather dusty) mice. Hey, you’re not supposed to like mice, remember?Stttttretch!Casey can be quite the deep sleeper. Mom picked her up like this and Casey didn’t bat an eyelash. Well, she doesn’t have eyelashes, but still…“How ya’ doin’, folks? Shake a paw.”And off she goes.
Now for some really tiny, just-born kittens! Megan found them in the cow barn. The lighting was really bad so my pictures aren’t anything gorgeous, but at least you can see their little selves! There were five kittens in this litter.
This little guy is all white!
And last but not least, an adorable VERY FLUFFY black and white kitten! My siblings say there were other kittens, but this is the only one that I have seen. Maybe I can get more pictures of this guy’s brothers and sister if we can ever find them.
He looks relaxed here, but he normally wasn’t. XDIS THAT NOT THE CUTEST FACE? Sorry Casey. 😛 Casey definitely has a sweeter personality than this kitten, but just look at his FACE! Those eyes! 😀 (By the way, this is one of the photos that I edited.)
That was a lot of kittens! We know of at least three litters of barn kittens on our farm currently, and then we have Casey and Jinx, our kitten and cat.
Did you survive the cuteness tidal wave? If you’re still in good health, what was your favorite picture(s)?
Hello, hello! 😀 Today I have a fun idea-generator drawing technique to show you. If you don’t know what to draw, this might help!
Technique: Scribble Art-Starters
Begin by closing your eyes and drawing a random squiggly pattern on your paper or ATC. Open your eyes and connect both ends of the line if they’re not already connected. You should have a very strange looking blob on your paper. Here’s my scribble:
Next you have to use your imagination to turn your random squiggle into a picture. (Hint: the simpler the squiggle, the easier the drawing. But you may want to do a complicated squiggle for a challenge, right?) Turn it upside down or look at it from a different angle if you’re stuck. Does it look like a bird? A flower? A person? What do you think my scribble looks like?
I thought mine looked like a fish, so I turned my squiggle into an underwater scene:
Do you see how it works? Here are a few more scribble doodles for inspiration:
Heh heh, it’s kind of addicting. 😀
So there you go – a really easy and fun way to bust “artist’s block” if that is even a thing. XD
Have you ever done this? Do you think you’ll try it?
***Allison***
P. S. I first posted about squiggle drawings in this post. (Wow, that was almost 2 years ago!)
I finally finished this birthday haul post a month after my birthday. XD It’s not really a birthday haul post, actually. It’s more just reviews of some of the things I got for my birthday. Get ready for a really long post!
(The link is for the hardcover collection which I have. You can also get a paperback collection on Amazon.)
I absolutely LOVE this series by Trenton Lee Stewart. It’s probably my favorite series! “The Mysterious Benedict Society” is a group of extraordinary children who are sent on several extraordinary missions. The characters are so fun to read about – there’s Reynie, Sticky (you’ll understand his name when you read the books), Kate, and Constance. Once you pick up these books, it’s hard to put them down! They’re filled with exciting action, surprising plot twists, hilarious anecdotes, and riddles and puzzles that will stretch your brain.
Notes: The synopses are not actual back-of-the-book summaries, I just wrote them myself. Also, the pictures of each book are from their Amazon listing. If you click on the “via” links, it will take you to the listing. Some of the covers on the books below are a little different than mine, but mainly the same.
This book is a prequel to the series although you don’t necessarily have to read it first. (I didn’t.) Like in the rest of the series, the plot twists, clues, and riddles throughout the book keep your brain whirling. There are a bunch of mysteries in this book, and some of their conclusions may surprise you. It’s exciting to read how Nicholas uses his genius mind to solve problems and outsmart the Spiders and other fearsome foes. Nicholas also has a condition called narcolepsy (which is real by the way), which means he falls asleep at random times.
Synopsis: This story covers about a year in the childhood of Nicholas Benedict, the man behind The Mysterious Benedict Society. Nicholas moves to a new orphanage filled with surprises – from a huge library to a secret overlook, tough bullies to loyal friends, and maybe even a treasure! Nicholas will need all of his talents and genius to unpack the mysteries surrounding him – and to do so before it’s too late.
This is probably my favorite book in the series. I especially love the beginning when everything is so mysterious and there are gobs of strange riddles and puzzles that bend your brain. The book is exciting and clever, and some of the plot twists just blow you away. At the end you learn something totally unexpected and funny about Constance. You HAVE to read this, guys!
Synopsis: An advertisement in the newspaper starts it all: “Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?” Join Reynie, Sticky, Kate, and Constance on the adventure of their lives. After passing a series of mind-bending tests, they are sent on a very important mission: to save the world from an evil genius with a terrifying plan to control the world – and the minds of everyone in it. They will have to work as a team and put all of their extraordinary gifts to use after arriving at a strange institute. What is Mr. Curtain’s evil plan? Who is Milligan really? What is the Whisperer? These are just a few of the puzzling questions the Mysterious Benedict Society has to answer.
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey
This isn’t my favorite book of the series, but it’s still great. I love that you learn something new about Constance in this book. Her newly discovered talent really adds to her personality. You also meet some new characters like Cannonball and the Bullfrogs. The duskwort plot thread is really interesting and exciting too. (See synopsis.) Here is a quote I like from this book: (Cannonball is comforting Constance, who is quite short, by the way.)
” ‘You know what I like about buttons?… They’re very small things that hold bigger things together. Awfully important, buttons – little but strong.’ ” – page 154
Isn’t that sweet? “Little but strong.” 😀
Synopsis: After a year apart the Mysterious Benedict Society reconvenes. They have been anticipating a surprise Mr. Benedict planned for them when they find out that someone has unpleasantly surprised him. Their beloved Mr. Benedict is in danger! Will the scavenger hunt lead them to their heart’s desire, or into a trap? In the meantime, Constance discovers a new talent, and a plant named duskwort is of imminent importance. If the duskwort falls into the wrong hands, everyone is doomed.
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner’s Dilemma
The Prisoner’s Dilemma is the last book in the series. (Except for the puzzle book, but that doesn’t really count.) I really like it! It’s fun and suspenseful to follow the clues with the Mysterious Benedict Society gang, but not everything is as simple as it seems. You might be surprised – actually you probably will be! The end is quite satisfactory. 😀
Synopsis:
The Mysterious Benedict Society is bored, bored, bored. They have been cooped up together in Mr. Benedict’s house for months because it’s not safe to leave: Mr. Curtain will do anything to get back his precious Whisperer, including snatching up certain children in his way. But when Constance disappears after an appointment with the Whisperer, boredom is flung to the winds. Reynie, Sticky, and Kate are on a race against time to find their grumpy companion before the Ten Men do. They must decode secret messages and follow curiously easy clues… that lead them to an unexpected place. This adventure includes two brave girls and two smart boys, a Salamander, a missing friend, sneaky clues, a couple of “S” pies, a red bucket, and a few daring leaps.
The Mysterious Benedict Society – Mr. Benedict’s Book of Perplexing Puzzles, Elusive Enigmas, and Curious Conundrums
Whew! Why do the titles have to be so long? XD I’ll just abbreviate it “Perplexing Puzzles.” Perplexing Puzzles is a really fun book filled with… well, riddles and puzzles. It is a gorgeous book – it’s printed on glossy pages and the whole book is in color instead of black and white. Most of the puzzles are quite hard, but a few of them are easy. (There are hints in the back of the book to help you along. If you need another hint, I might be able to help you too! 😀 ) Scattered throughout the book are quotes from the series, illustrations and profiles, and other “archival materials” as it says. I love the a riddle at the very end that requires you to use letters and numbers from previous puzzles to reveal a last secret message.
Here is one of the riddles: (your answer has to fit in the blanks)
Umm… I can’t really do a synopsis of this one. XD
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Pros and cons: The covers all have delightful illustrations on them, and the books are all beautiful and well-made. Like I said, the Perplexing Puzzles book is particularly gorgeous. The box that they come in is really nice too! The inside looks like it has been plastered with newspaper clippings from the first puzzle in Perplexing Puzzles. Umm… there aren’t many cons. 😀 Of course I liked some books better than others, but I enjoyed them all. The one problem is that it’s a little hard to pry a book out of the case, but that’s okay. 🙂 I highly recommend both this series and this hardcover collection.
(I’m pretty sure you can find a pack like this for cheaper if you shop around Amazon or stores like Michael’s or Hobby Lobby, but this is the listing I found.)
Premo brand polymer clay is a very good quality clay. (At least in my opinion and from what I’ve read.) You can see lots of things I made with it here.
Let me compare and contrast it with Sculpey III, a popular brand of clay made by the same company. Premo is more of a professional clay, while Sculpey III is more of a recreational, hobby-type clay, not meant to be super durable. Premo is much stronger when baked than Sculpey III, and not as gooey and hard to work with as Sculpey III can be. (But see “Pros and cons.”) Although I do think Sculpey III has more colors available. They are both good for different reasons, but I prefer Premo to Sculpey III.
Pros and cons: Usually I love this brand of polymer clay, but the pack I got this time was a lot softer than normal. That is really helpful for conditioning and mixing clay, but not so good for sculpting. Normally though, it’s a really great clay – not too hard, not too soft – and this sampler pack comes with some really neat options, such as translucent clay (which looks transparent-ish when you brush a gloss over it), and faux rock clay which really looks like rock! The sampler pack lasts a long time if you make small things, like I do, but I found it helpful to get an extra pack of white Premo clay because I use white a lot. Even though the changeable pliability is annoying, I would still recommend this product.
I requested these to use on polymer clay. They’re kind of like chalk. First you scrape them on paper to obtain colored powder, then you use a paintbrush to paint the powder onto baked or unbaked clay for more realistic shading effects. It’s kind of like paint, only more subtle. Pastels work very well for shading miniature food. The cookie on the left is not shaded with artist’s pastels, and the one on the right is. (Sorry, it’s not a very good picture, but trust me, some clay artists can do amazing things with artist’s pastels! Like Tracey, for instance.)
Pros and cons: Certain shades of brown are missing that would be helpful, but at least you can mix colors. I haven’t had much experience with artist’s pastels, but these work quite well for my purposes! I would recommend this product.
These pens are really nice! Not to mention there are three of them, so they should last me a while. 🙂 They have a fairly fine tip and write smoothly as long as you don’t write too fast. You can use them to mark highlights on your drawings, for things such as hair and eyes:
The ink is almost marker-resistant – you can see on the left of her hair one of the squiggles is slightly more muted. That’s where I drew over it with marker and the gel pen still showed through. When you draw on top of marker, the marker ink bleeds a tiny bit with the gel pen ink, so it’s usually not quite completely white. (In the picture above, the ink turned a little grayish.)
The white ink looks stunning on black paper! Here is an ATC I made with one of the gel pens:
Pros and cons: The pens write quite smoothly unless you write fast; then they’re a little scratchy. The optimum background seems to be black paper. The ink will smudge if you’re not careful, but it’s not super smudge-prone. I would recommend this product.
I was really excited about getting this, because I use PicMonkey a lot. (Royale gives you access to lots more features – extra effects, overlays, collage options, and more. But you do have to pay for Royale. 😉 ) Three of my favorite things about PicMonkey Royale are the “Custom Effect” feature, Clone feature, and the Royale collage options. You make a custom effect by adding different effects to a photo like usual, then saving all the things you did as one effect that you can use over and over again.
Here is a photo I edited with Royale: (More kitten pictures coming soon! 😀 )
BeforeAfter
I used clone to “wipe off” some dirt, Miniature Effect, Eye Brighten, and then several other non-Royale effects and features. So cute!
Pros and cons: It’s definitely nice to be able to use features like clone, Custom Effect, extra Overlays and Collage layouts, and more. Pretty much the only con is the price. If you don’t use PicMonkey a lot, or don’t use it much besides the basic touch-ups which are free, you probably won’t need this. However, if you love photo-editing or PicMonkey or both, I recommend this feature!
Of course I got a bunch more things for my birthday, but it would take a few more months to review them all at this rate. XD I hope you enjoyed this! Which was your favorite item? Do you have any of these things?
I love making fairy houses! They’re so cute and add a whimsical pop wherever you put them. This time I made a fairy house in an old stump in my grandparents’ woods. I bought the toadstool table set and ladder from Hobby Lobby, and the rest of the things I had on hand. But the great thing about fairy houses is you can make them however you like – with lots of store bought goodies or with none at all! It’s really fun to make a fairy house out of only natural things, such as twigs, moss, bark, nutshells, and rocks.
You definitely don’t have to make your fairy house in a stump – you can even make one in a pretty pot for inside. I’ll walk you through how I made this fairy house to give you some inspiration, then you can change things up however you like.
Step 1: Find a hollow stump.
Step 2: Fill with rubbish (leaves, dirt, sticks, rocks) on bottom, and top off with nice pretty dirt. Don’t fill the stump all the way to the top. Make sure the dirt is tamped down well, or else when it rains the dirt will compress.
Step 3: Carpet your fairy house with a layer of moss. Moss is probably my favorite ingredient to use in fairy houses. 🙂
Step 4: Furnish the fairies’ home! This is how I furnished mine:
A note about the pond: the flower pond actually used to be a birdfeeder, but since it had broken off its pole, we stopped up the drainage holes with hot glue and used it as a pond. 🙂
Now for the ladder and bedroom parts:
I used this tiny wooden ladder to provide the fairies with a way to enter their house – in case their wings are sore. 😉 If your ladder isn’t long enough, you may have to set a stone under it. I also happened to find a perfectly arched twig, so I used that as an entryway arch.
For the bedroom, I wedged some twigs in a narrow passageway to make another ladder from the top floor to the bedroom. The furnishings are a little sparse down there. 😛
Step 5: Water any plants or moss you planted, and fill any ponds with water.
Ta-daa! You’re finished!
Have you ever made a fairy house? What was your favorite part of this one?
Actually I’m not sorry! XD )
Allison Marie 