Book Review 1

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson:
3/5 stars.

Documenting the lives of twins Jude and Noah, I'll Give You the Sun has some pretty decent plot twists and turns, but it is by no means a roller coaster. Nelson's personification and voice is great, truthfully describing the thoughts of teenagers.
Reading it, I have to admit that I got sucked in and couldn't put the book down... but afterwards I realized that the plot was fairly basic and the ending became obvious around 1/3 of the way in, and in a way, that let me down. The story telling was great and the writing was phenomenal, but the story itself could have been better.
In short, Nelson wrote the story as well as is humanly possible, but that just wasn't enough to offset the typical plot.
Warning -- this book is for mature audiences.

Paper Flowers

Hey guys! Wow, it's been quite a while, huh? Well, anyway, here's something that I really enjoyed doing. I made some PAPER FLOWERS out of old magazines. I really like this idea because it's super earth friendly and would be a great little thing to give someone. So here it is:

You'll need

Scissors, a ruler, a magazine, straws (or a pencil) a hole puncher, and one of those little golden buttons

Ok, so your  paper needs to be about 10.5 inches. It can be more or less around that area.

So I'm using a magazine I found on the floor of me room :P

Anyway, you want to make strips of it, 1/2 of an inch across.

You need to punch a hole 1/2 and inch from EACH end, and then one in the middle (just fold the strip in half on then punch the hole on the crease).

So now you are going to take your straw or pencil and you are going to put it through the middle hole, then the outer hole, then the other outer hole. 

Keep on doing that for each strip.

Now you're all done!! :)

Here is the flower with the straw as a stem

Here is a flower with a pencil as a stem. I put an eraser on top so that it wouldn't fall apart, though.

Yummy Rice!

Studying is never fun. Ever. Even if you play a memory game or watch an "interesting and educational film about the life cycle of the zooplankton," studying holds no fun... So I'm not going to pretend that I have found the almighty study god, who has bestowed upon us a way to make it fun. I'm just going to say that while it may not make it any more fun, it makes life a little more livable for somebody else...

There is a place called FreeRice, where, get this, you can (for NO money) feed some people who aren't as lucky as you. All you have to do is start a test, where for every question you get right, they give 10 grains of rice to someone. Sure, it may not seem like a lot, but if you hit the books, you can really make someone happy and full for days or even weeks. If you are someone who really doesn't get why we should feed other people and waste our time doing blah blah blah, there's the bonus that you can learn and study and practice for free.

If you create an account, you can join clubs and get rice under the name of that club. In fact, you can even create your own!

This may not be the most exciting post (and if it is, I'm obviously doing something wrong) but this may be the most nice one... Please join :)

It's a Date!!

How many times have you found that you have a deadline to meet, or a project to do, and you somehow manage to "forget" to do it, be too "busy" to finish it, or just found your bed too comfortable to leave? Haha, I most certainly have. So I created a binder that is sort of like an agenda, but with everything, almost the whole year, planned out with upcoming deadlines, birthdays, holidays, events, and so on... With it, you can't forget that birthday party, and although it may seem bad, you can't procrastinate with it either. No more explaining to your angry boss or teacher about your dog and her strange hunger for paper-like objects...

I got this super cheap binder from Office Max... FOR FREE! 

"How, Gracie??" 

Well, there was this sale... "Buy two get one free" and this was the free one. My brother picked out two Iron Man binders and I got the fireworks one. Have any siblings?? 

Anyway, I created most of the things inside of it by hand, so it isn't near perfection, but I'm still pretty proud of it...

First, I made little tabs for the binder out of scrap scrapbook paper, then taped (but you can glue) them 

onto white printer paper. Of course, I punched out hole for the paper to go into the binder, but that's really a given. You can change this up, but my tabs read: Calendar, Daily Plans, To-Do's, Things to Get, and last but not least, Contacts. You could really do anything like Dinner Plans, Grocery List, Things to Clean, Chores, and so on. In fact, the list of things can go on for a long while, but moving on...

A Weekly Calendar

Monthly Calendar. I got this off of a blog called Pretty Unpretentious. It's an amazing blog!

This is what I call a Daily Plan. I write what I need to do in the order that I need to do it in, and that's
how it works!

This is a phone directory from lifeyourway.net,
an amazing website that allows you print a bunch of useful things!

Above is a printable that I got for a weekly calendar to get you started!! Enjoy!! ;)

Bar Soap, Anyone?

Bar soap has long passed its golden age. In fact, I can't remember a time when I only used bar soap, but you know what? I love it! It's like a little golden egg that is SOAP! O.O It is really amazing, but maybe I only think that because I am so used to liquid soap... 

Anyway, here's an idea that I think I am going to try:

A bar soap pouch! 

http://www.whimsy-love.com/2012/04/diy-soap-pouch.html

of course this wasn't my idea in the first place, so the link to the actual thing is right up there :)

So there it is :)

ROAD TRIP!

Here's the sad but true deal ~ I haven't been posting up as many posts as I would like. In fact, I've tried, but then I get side-tracked with the deadlines and the projects... But now that summer is here, you can expect more pics, sentences, and words!! :)

But along with summer comes vacation! Just recently my family and I took a road trip in our new-ish car named Neville (who is a Nissan Pathfinder) all the way to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee... We camped for two days and stayed in hotels for 3 :P
So here are some pictures of our wonderful trip!! I highly recommend going there ~ it is so beautiful and majestic... you just want to stay there forever (another plus is that it is always fairly cool).

Sorry... The picture quality isn't very good :(

A forest on the mountains :)

A beautiful creek

On the mountains...

A cabin built on the mountain

A view of the Smokies 

Pencil Cases

We all know that amazingness of pencils and pens and all those wonderful little trinkets, right?
But since I have so many pencils and pens and I love them all so much, I am never able to take any out of my pencil case once I put them in, resulting in many broken zippers while trying to force all of those little wonders in...

So here's a pencil case that's simple and easy, but looks like a lot of work:

Chain as many as you think is right. I made mine sort of small on accident, so make sure you don't make the same mistake as me! It's okay if your pencil case is a little too big, but for it to be too small is a real problemo.

1: single crochet all the way across

2: Repeat 1

3: Repeat 1

4: Double crochet


So there you go! crochet until you think it is long enough!

You can also make this for any bag... I made a tiny one because I didn't have enough yarn, so super sorry!


(Pictures coming soon)