25 Million People Can’t Be Wrong

My irritation rises when I hear opinions or perceptions presented as “facts,” because they are not facts. This is not an uncommon occurrence, whether it’s while watching TV, in advertisements or in everyday conversations, faux-facts seem to worm themselves in there. When I hear opinions stated as facts, it gets my back up and I immediately think, “No, I disagree.”

Recently I saw a commercial for a TV show that basically said that lots of people watched this show and that “25 million people can’t be wrong.” And I instantly thought, “Yeah, they can be wrong.” [Pause.] “And yes, they are wrong. (At least in my opinion.)” I tried watching this TV show during its first season and was disappointed by the stupidity of the characters that kept making dumb decisions. But for whatever reason, I thought that maybe during its second season things would improve…they didn’t. The characters were still stupid. And I was stupid for watching it. So I stopped.

But I digress, a simple fix for this commercial would have been, “25 millions of people watched this show,” because that would have been a fact (assuming that it was true). I don’t really care if people watch this TV show, but adding that “can’t be wrong part” in the commercial just irritated me. It was as though the commercial was trying to peer-pressure me into watching it. “Come on, everybody watches it. Don’t you want to watch it too? Be like us. Be one of the cool kids.” [Pause.] So the take away is: just say no to peer-pressure. [Cue inspirational PSA graphic.]  

Word of the Day Exercise: Week Eight

This week I was somewhat ambivalent about my Word of the Day exercise. For whatever reason, I wasn’t quite in the mood or particularly inspired by most of the words. Whenever I feel excited about the Word of the Day words, I tend to like my drawings more, while with the words I’m rather apathetic about, they generally turn out (at best) mediocre.

Vintage Cigar Boxes

Recently while at a thrift shop, I bought three vintage cigar boxes that were each 99 cents. While I didn’t need them, I thought they were interesting so I bought them. I rationalized this purchase by telling myself that I would use two of them as packaging for gifts (which is both less expensive and more intriguing to look at than the new gift wrap found in stores…at least to me).

Word of the Day Exercise: Week Seven

I enjoyed the drawing the Word of the Day more this week because I thought some of the words themselves were more fun and interesting.

Trashed Tin

Throughout the month of December there was a fairly steady influx of holiday food at work; there were fruit baskets and boxes of chocolates and baked goods, and while some came in disposable packaging, others came in reusable ones.

More than likely, most (if not all) of the packaging got thrown away. Most of it I wouldn’t have had an issue with it being disposed of (e.g. anything made of paper). However, one afternoon I opened the trash can to throw something away and I saw this tin sitting on top of the pile and thought, “Why is this being thrown out? It’s perfectly good." 

I’m not very interested in metal tins in general, but I thought it was quite wasteful to throw this one out. It’s a fairly cute and festive tin; it’d be great to use as packaging for Christmas presents or to hold homemade cookies. So I salvaged this trashed tin, washed off the coffee grinds from its exterior and brought it home. This coming Christmas is quite a ways off, but I’ll be ready for it with my “new” tin.

Word of the Day Exercise: Week Six

I officially ended my Word of the Day exercise last week, but I’ve just been continuing on. I admit, this week I was less inspired by the words than in previous weeks; I’m not sure if it’s because of the words themselves or because I just wasn’t as motivated in general…maybe both.

A Classic Strand of Pearls

I’ve been on the lookout for a pearl necklace for a while because a strand of pearls never goes out of style. A pearl necklace is forever refined and lady-like; it’s a simple accessory that immediately dresses up an outfit. It may be costume jewelry, but it’s elegant costume jewelry.

Word of the Day Exercise: Week Five

This week marked the final day of my one-month exercise of drawing the Word of the Day each day. It felt pretty good to reach my goal. Yet, I couldn’t help but finish off the week (because once you start doing it, it’s hard to stop). I may continue to draw the Word of the Day...or not (I guess it depends on how lazy I get).

Painted Umbrae Card

I created this simple thank you card with some paint I happened to have on hand. I used a sky blue, colbalt blue and black (which I combined with the cobalt blue to create navy). I just used a paintbrush to layer the colors onto the paper, starting from the lightest color to the darkest color to create an umbrae effect.

At first I thought I could just paint the paper (that was already cut down to a greeting card size) and then I would be finished. But the paper I was using just wasn’t strong enough to hold up to the wetness factor of paint and water. The paper started to curl on the ends and paint seeped onto the other side of the paper (which wasn’t very attractive).

So instead, after I let the paint dry, I cut the painted sheet to the size I wanted. In this case, the greeting card itself (which I just made myself) is 5.5 inches wide and 4.25 inches high, and I cut the painted section to 5.5 inches wide and 3.5 inches high. I used double-sided permanent tape to stick the painted paper to the card, and then in wrote “Thank you” in pen. And it was done.