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)

Goin' Green

Hey guys! Sorry about the lackage of new posts ~ just been busy lately! But here's a post for those of you who are crazy about the earth, just like me :)

If you are someone who likes recycled plastic pens or used cardboard boxes, this is the notebook for you!
Pistachio is one of the most earth-friendly notebooks on the planet: it's printed with soy ink, 100% recycled paper, it's processed chlorine free, and the cardboard-like covers are also recycled and recyclable! How amazing, right?
These Canadian books are pretty awesome, and 100% earth friendly. I'm pretty sure even the metal used for the spiral has something good for the earth in store...

But there is a downer with these earth-friendly little packages: the price. For my 6x9 notebook, I had to pay a whoppin' $11.95.
I guess because I'm used to the cheap-o ones you get in the $ section in Target, this seems like a lto to swallow. But the pages are nice and thick, and there are a lot of them!

So I really think that this is the most amazing notebook there.

But if you haven't found this out yet, I am totally in love with writing and reading, so I am constantly looking for and buying new notebooks!

The cover ~ I added stickers and wrote on it :(

What the lines of the pages look like

The back cover

Ignore the 2nd notebook... Sorry about that -.-

Making Puffs ~ Puff Blanket

If you look to a later post, you'll see the infamous puff blanket, which took up about half my day yesterday to make, and that was just a fourth of it.

But if you are like a me from about a year ago, whenever someone asked me how to make a puff (even then, I had this blog, but it had nothing on it :P ) I wouldn't know how to answer them. So I was super happy when my friend Chen Chen (happy birthday to her! ) told me how to make those amazin' little puffers in a matter of seconds.

So here are the instructions that I got from the birthday girl:


What you'll need:

Scissors
Yarn (and lots of it!)
   You can have many different colors and make a puff that is multicolored.


Instructions:

1. Cut off about 4 inches of yarn from your skien
2. Take the skien and wrap the yarn around your fingers, loosely
3. Cut the yarn when you think there is enough yarn
4. Take your yarn-ball off of your hand and place the 4-inch-yarn in the middle of it
5. Tie the yarn-ball with the yarn-strip
6. Cut the loops


DONE!

On reading this again, I realized just how confusing it seems. To make it easier here are some pictures. The number below them shows the step number that it is representing:

2

5

6