Ebb and Flow Necklace

I first got into beaded jewelry through chainmail jewelry (which I got into through chainmail armor making, but that's a different story). It started with adding beads onto the chain to add color or focal points for the particular piece. After a little while, I started repairing jewelry (including beaded necklaces and bracelets) for my mother and her friends. From there, it was a pretty natural step to start making my own.

This necklace was inspired by a similar design on ArtBeads.com, located here. ArtBeads is an amazing source of jewelry-making supplies. If I'm looking for something particular and can't find it locally, I order it from them. I also find inspiration just by looking through their catalog. They also offer free shipping! Honestly, how can you beat that?

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Now playing: Arctic Monkeys - Balaclava
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Deep Dish Pecan Pie

At work, we designate one day a month to celebrate everyone's birthday that falls during that month. Well, one of the guys in our group had a birthday this past week, but was out of town for the party, so I thought I'd bake something. He had mentioned liking pecans before, and I had been wanting to try this recipe anyway, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to try it.

Now, I'd never made a pecan pie before. Well, I'd never even had pecan pie before. So this was all completely new to me. Although, after being horrified at the ingredient list, I came to the conclusion that anything with that much corn syrup in it would have to taste okay.


The pie filling looked pretty gross. You know when you're at a lake or something, and there's a bunch of sticks floating near the shore, and you suddenly change your mind about wanting to go for a swim? That's what the filling reminded me of. So I covered it with pecan halves. I tried to make it look like pictures of pecan pie that I've seen in the past.

Matt from MattBites is a professional. I mean, literally a professional food photographer. I'm a huge fan of his work. But I still have no idea how he got such a clean cut on his pie. It's really amazing, and makes mine look terrible. However, looks don't affect taste, and this tasted awesome. Of course, I didn't really have anything to compare it to, but the guys at work and my parents all thought it was good. Also, I have no idea if whipped cream is a proper topping for pecan pie, but that and some cinnamon was awfully tasty.



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Now playing: Joss Whedon - Firefly - Main Theme
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New Wallpaper Project!

I've recently been asked by a friend I met in the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI to create a custom wallpaper featuring his game character. I had started to make one for him years ago, but it was lost... somehow. Still not exactly sure where the file went, but we both kind of forgot about it.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this project because I've learned a whole lot since the last time I made a wallpaper, which was a year and a half ago... Man! What have I been doing these past two years?!

Below is my most recent wallpaper. It's from the anime Please Teacher!. I completely redrew the main image in Photoshop because I wanted the lines and colors to be smoother and more even than the raw scan was. Altogether, it took 9 hours to complete, and the background isn't even that great.

Also, here is the link to my profile on AnimePaper, the wallpaper site I post to. If you're a fan of that kind of thing, it's the best site on the internet for anime and game related wallpapers.


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Now playing: Andrew W.K. - Party Hard
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Garfield Minus Garfield

A friend pointed this out to me - it's a regular Garfield comic strip, with the big orange cat and all his lines omitted. From the website:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?

I am not afraid to admit: I lol'd profusely. Here's the link - Garfield Minus Garfield

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Now playing: Gackt - Vanilla
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Happy Pi Day!

Today (3/14) is Pi Day (3.14). Festivities include calculating the area of circles and eating pie. So it's basically the 3rd best holiday out there, after Christmas and Talk Like a Pirate Day.

To celebrate this wonderfully geeky holiday, I made a peanut butter pie last night and brought it into work today. It was generally well-received, although it's quite high in calories. Probably almost dangerously so. But so are most things that taste good, right?



For the decoration, I stuck some strips of duct tape onto a piece of cardboard and cut out the shape of a pi symbol. Be sure to draw it backwards, which is actually more difficult than it should be. Carefully lift it off the cardboard and place it (sticky side up) over the finished pie. Then just sprinkle crushed-up Oreo cookies over it and lift the tape stencil off. Easy as 3.14159!

Peanut Butter Pie recipe from RecipeZaar.

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Now playing: Belle & Sebastian - We Are The Sleepyheads
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Photo of the Week #5

This is my blog-writing gear: I don the feathered cap, and quill in hand, painstakingly transcribe my thoughts to papyrus. The document is then scanned and faxed to a small monastery in southern France where a team of friars take turns typing the text into Notepad. The file is then emailed back to me, which I copy and paste into Blogger. So if it seems that I don't post very often, you now know the reason.

Bonus alternate post:
One of my favorite hobbies is calligraphy. I picked it up a few years ago and have practiced off an on ever since. I'm not the best, but it's something I enjoy and I find it surprisingly relaxing. I am a big font fanatic, so I suppose calligraphy is a natural extension of that. Or is it the other way around?

I've found a few uses for it, which is always exciting. My graduation announcements were addressed in calligraphy, and I have filled out the marriage certificates of two of my friends. That was especially neat because it's something they'll have and cherish for a long time. Maybe sometime soon I'll post a few examples...

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Now playing: ORESKABAND - Chuck
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Photo of the Week #4

There is a cat on my shed!

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Now playing: ai otsuka - Sakuranbo (Original)
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