DIY: Mini Accordion Journal

Accordion journals use one long continuous strip of folded paper where the pages can be used individually or unfolded to create larger sections. To create this Mini Accordion Journal, I decided on using used gift cards to create a sturdy cover.

A Bad Movie

A movie is supposed to tell a story, and to be a good one it needs intriguing characters, engaging dialogue and an interesting plot. It seems like this would be a doable feat, but sadly this is not always the case. Somehow bad movies still get made (and I’m talking about the bad ones that are no fun to watch and are truly bad). There are numerous ways that a movie can be bad (e.g. poor acting, poor editing, etc.), but for me, the largest flaws generally stem from a poor script.

You know you’re watching a bad movie when you want to shout at the characters as they’re making stupid decisions. You want to implore those characters to take a second and actually think; use some logic before diving into a dumb decision that will inevitably make things worse. But of course, they don’t think and choose to do one stupid thing after the next and then wonder how things got so bad. (Which just makes me want to roll my eyes that they are so blinded to their own stupidity.)

You know you’re watching a bad movie when you’re rooting for the “bad guys” to win. Where the “good guys” are so annoying that their deaths seem preferable to listening to them whine or watching them be imbecilic. And while you realize that there’s practically no chance that the “bad guys” will win in the end, you’re still kind of disappointed when they lose to the moronic “good guys”.

You know you’re watching a bad movie when there are giant plot holes that are filled with crap explanations that you know don’t make any sense. Yet somehow those who made the movie thought so little of their audience that they thought that we would just accept their crap with no problem.

You know you’re watching a bad movie when it’s just not entertaining. And once you realize you’re watching a bad movie, it’s probably best to just stop watching it. Because if you don’t, you’ll probably be irritated once it’s over that you just wasted two hours of your life watching something that wasn’t worth your time (or boredom or frustration).

Raspberry Raglan Dress

I got this raspberry fabric with faint polka dots on it and knew I wanted to make a dress with it. After looking at some patterns (and considering how much fabric I had) I settled on a raglan dress pattern.

As Good as New

Often it’s the things you love that get used and worn down, like a comfy sweatshirt or a favorite mug. After a while you realize that the thing you love it on the cusp of death. Some items are beyond repair; they’re so rundown that there’s really no point in trying to reclaim their former glory (and you just have to let it go). Yet with other items it just takes a little help to make them nearly new again.

I had that moment not long ago when I snagged my heel on the carpet and finally took a look at my shoes and saw that the heel was down to the nub; I could see the nail (and that wasn’t good). These were not terribly old shoes (probably less than a year old), but I wear them fairly often because they’re low comfortable heels. They’re a nice all-purpose black pair of heels made out of material with a bit of shine to them. And because I liked them, I was hard on them…and it showed.

I haven’t done too much in the way of shoe repair in the past (other then my beloved boots) because usually my shoes aren’t worth saving. Often my shoes are made of cheap materials that get scratched and cracked and fixing a heel wouldn’t be enough to save them. But the shoes in question were worth saving—so I saved them. I got the heels fixed and now they feel like new shoes. I’m glad I can wear these shoes a bit longer (instead of having to hunt for another pair of shoes to replace them—which would likely be a long and arduous task).

DIY: Tangram Stamps

After I posted Tangram Magnets, I thought that creating Tangram Stamps would be fun. It’s not hard to create these stamps that can be used as individual shapes or used together to create tangram shape combinations.

One of a Kind Piece

One of the most frustrating aspects to thrift shopping is finding something really cute but there’s something wrong with it. Most of the time it’s a size issue where the garment is either too big or too small, while other times it’s a quality issue (like it’s missing a zipper or the length has been hacked off but not hemmed). You always have to look closely at the garment at its seams and at the material itself to make sure that it’s in good condition.

Recently I tried on this cute pleated black and white skirt that both fit and that I liked, but when I took a closer look at it there was a coffee stain, and it wasn’t a small drop of a stain that I could ignore blissfully, it was a big blob of spilt coffee. I hadn’t noticed it at first glance because the pleating had covered up a large portion of it, but once I saw it, it was all I could see. I was so disappointed. I would have bought that skirt if there hadn’t been something so glaringly wrong with it.

It’s so disappointing to find something you want but you just can’t get it. At a department store you could just find a replica of that garment, but there’s no such luck at a thrift shop—there’s only that one garment. There are no other options; you can take it or leave it. It’s funny how the garment used to be a clone of many in a department store, but with time it has been transformed into a one of a kind piece…special.