Back to the Future

One of the greatest things about college is that it really is the beginning of the rest of your life. Your future begins at school! How many times have you heard someone say: "Oh, yeah, that's the same school Natalie Portman went to!" or "Did you know that Tom Hanks was one of our Alumni?" It's such a formative and awesome experience, I think I may be seeing it happen first hand.

My roommate, (you know the really hilarious and totally awesome one? You can read her blog, too) made a video this past weekend, about her love for a character, Troy, on NBC's Community. It's a fantastic show, in my humble opinion, the funniest on TV now! The video is hilarious, and in an unbelievable and fortuitous turn of events, The NBC Community twitter tweeted a link to her video!

So yes, in case you hadn't noticed, today is a shameless plug for this awesome video and the show.

So watch it: Landing Troy Barnes

And hey... Do you think we can get her to be a guest star on the show? Wouldn't that be fun!

Dorm Decor: All The Leaves Are...

Orange? Well, at least the door is brown, in any case. Ready for some "door dec" as they RA's like to call it? Since the nameplates that our RA so lovingly created for us had continued to fall off everytime the door opened, I decided it was high time to create new decorations for our lovely door.

Having some real fall leaves for inspiration, I went to work with my X-acto and cut out some leaf sillhouettes. I had intentions to use to the cut outs first of all, but I liked the shapes left behind enough that I decided to use them instead. Thus:


Voila! Sweet leaf cutouts, each with a simply penned initial for each of us (mine of course is Stephanie, also, Amy and Jordan -- they're great) and taped on up.


But I couldn't leave the original inspired pieces to be thrown in the trash, that just wouldn't be right. So, after rubbing the edges with the same green marker that I used for the initials, I bunched up a scrap of tulle (from this project!) and strung it all together with a brad. (Bonus fact: brad, en francais is attaches parisiennes.)

Pretty cute, I think. And they only took about 30 minutes, start to finish. Not to mention they are easy to change prior to cutting, I made a lot of sketches on the back before I cut, but you can't see the back so no one has to know! Well... other than all of you.

Share a fun paper project with me! I love crafty cutting.

Photo of the Week: First Rain

Here's the first real thunderstorm up here at school. But doesn't it look luscious still? I took this looking out my dorm room's door. :)

How is the weather where you are? It's starting to get pretty chilly at night here. Scarf season!

I DIY: Valentine's Door

Since the day is getting closer (oy! It's this weekend, isn't it!?) I put together a little door decor for our dorm room. I saw a picture of a deer on something, maybe on facebook... and thus the inspiration hit me.

You may not think that deer are very romantic, but they are very sweet and lend themselves to punny valentine's poems, such as; "You are deer to my heart" or the like. And baby deer are just ADORABLE! Goodness. There's a deer farm nearby, and I think I need to make a trip.

As far as the technical side of this goes, I looked up deer photos online, sketched it out till I got a good silhouette and then cut away. I gave them some foliage to enjoy, since I live in the north now. Cactus are even less romantic than pines!

The words were in fact the most difficult part. Construction paper is not the ideal medium for precise x-acto knife usage. It's actually in two pieces because it accidentally ripped! Don't tell anyone, it's a secret.

Anywho, hope you like it, and feel free to quiz me on any more specifics, dears.

(Gotcha. Bahahah!)

I DIY: Valentine's Garland

I know that it's very early to be working on anything for Valentine's Day, but I have a tendency to leave things to the last minute. So this is the perfect way to go about it!

I've been perusing anything I can find in blogs and on Martha's lovely website for ideas and other things (and there will definitely be some more Valentine's themed posts coming!) but thus far I've only done a couple of things.

One of the cutest ideas that I found comes from another blog, Oh So Crafty, and although I couldn't find the link when I wanted to do it, I think my version worked well!

You can head over to Oh So Crafty for the instructions, but I'll fill you in on my few modifications.

I don't own a heart-shaped punch, so I just grabbed the nearest magazine and pulled out my X-acto knife. It worked well, although I did end up with a few wonky hearts!

I sewed my hearts vertically instead of horizontally, because I ended up hanging some of them next to our bathroom mirror. It's like love for your face while you get ready in the morning!

And my advice on the how to make it work is go SLOW. I turned my machine to big stitches and took it really slow. I also had my hearts lined up in an order I liked so I could just pick one up and put it under the foot when it was time. Slow and steady wins the race for this project, for sure.

You'll see more of these later, that's for sure!

Any great ideas for decor so far?

Dorm Decor: Christmas Edition

Ah, dorm life... It has it's ups and downs, it has it's cupboard sized years and it's suite-style eras.

This year we (the roommate, Nicole and I, that is) happen to live in a suite style dorm. It's pretty nice, but those white walls can get old after a while! Most of all, it's just a shame to walk down the hall and see so much of the same boring wooden door. Like a sad little sub-division of houses, all the same.

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So in some cheery Christmas spirit, I got a cheap roll of wrapping paper from the local drugstore and decked the hall! (Haha - ah, terrible pun.)

I also jumped on the bandwagon and threw some paper-cut silhouettes on there to replace the name pieces that our residence assistant usually sticks on. Nice, eh? I'm telling you, once you get a silver pen, you final all kinds of uses for it. I got mine at Michael's, and it's a fine tip.

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But really, it's pretty simple. Cut the paper to size (I needed Nicole's help for that) and then stick it up with tape. The cutout for the peephole was a a little ragged. Exacto knives are nice, but if you are just cutting with a hope that it's accurate, that's less helpful!

I'm back at home now, and helping my mom decorate around our house. The inside is mostly finished, but the outside still needs some light.

Do you have any favorite semi-crafty decorating ideas?