Safe and Sound--on the web :)

Ever get one of those OCD projects, where you realize halfway into it that you didn't need to do all this, but by then you've put time and effort into it so darnit, better to just keep on....  Add in that it's also one of those times where you know you created something on your computer but it insists that you didn't? 

Yup.  All night long.

So now I'm going to make use of this amazing electronic world and "store" my beautiful OCD list of World of Warcraft books in mostly chronological order here on my blog, where I'll probably never look at it again.....  Not very interesting to most, I know, but here it is so I never have to do this again!  I've also emailed it to myself. :)  But maybe someone else can find this list if they need it one day.

I'm also working on a general list of all the series books I read.  I plan to print this sucker out and tape it on a shelf where each series books are stored.  Another part of my OCD is that I cannot start a book or series unless I've read the previous books.  Even if I'm loving the book, I'll put it aside until I get caught up with the one I'd started.

I'm a sick, sick person sometimes....

I did manage to find two excellent chronological lists, and without them, well, it wouldn't have been pretty this morning at all!
So thank you:

Eric J. Weldon for his "Warcraft Books In Order" list on Amazon.com, 

and since I can't find a name to honor, I'll just say that the WoWWiki is so incredibly helpful, especially this completely awesome "Novel Guide" which helped me along my way.  It's an  extremely helpful resource for a game as complex as World of Warcraft., no matter how long you've played.  

I also for the sake of my family decided not to try to hunt down some of the stray short stories; I'm not really into "short stories" on their own, and I also made a choice to stop when I did, although I've been sitting here playing around with the colors, etc, and I am seriously stopping this now!

World of Warcraft fiction

The War of the Ancients Trilogy by Richard A. Knaak:

The Well of Eternity

The Demon Soul”

The Sundering”  And using the info from the WoWWiki, "ancient" is seriously ancient, being set a whopping 10,000 years ago and yet still being somehow relevant to the present.......

*Day of the Dragon by Richard A Knaak

*Lord of the Clans by Christie Golden

*The Last Guardian by Jeff Grubb

*Of Blood and Honor by Chris Metzen

=The Warcraft Archive Omnibus

Cycle of Hatred by Keith R. A. DeCandido **this book begins exactly one year before (“vanilla”) WoW**

***Rise of the Horde by Christie Golden

***Tides of Darkness by Aaron Rosenberg

***Beyond the Dark Portal by Christie Golden and Aaron Rosenberg

+”*The Last Guardian” by Jeff Grubb

***=Chronicles of War Omnibus

Night of the Dragon by Richard A. Knaak

Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden (this prologue and epilogue take place just before WotLK)

Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak

The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm by Christie Golden

Wolfheart by Richard A. Knaak

Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects by Christie Golden

Holiday Hangover

Since the school had their Halloween event this past Friday, I've been "over" Halloween ever since.  (By the way, the school's event was a "book character parade," and it never fails to amuse me the many ways they can celebrate Halloween without ever calling it "Halloween....")  My sister-in-law is currently out with my son trick-or-treating in our lil town's "shop downtown" Halloween event.  I'm so thankful for her, you have no idea!

My head has moved on from Halloween straight to Christmas.  "It's the most won-der-ful tiiiime of the year!" has been running through my head all day.  I actually love Thanksgiving, but we haven't really been "into" it the past several years.  Currently, I blame the lack of songs ;P  If there was an annoying Thanksgiving song, then it'd be running through my head, I'd probably be feeling more Thanksgiving-y....

Oh well...let's pull out the lights and wreaths and all those fun ornaments!!  (Not really, I will wait a day or two...maybe.)  One of the best things about having a fake tree is the ability to put it up whenever you want to, and leave it up for as long as you like.

While I'm debating whether the tree should go up tomorrow or wait til the weekend (ha ha) here's some pictures of Christmas past to tide me over:

2007, and yes that's a bow on my son's head, he seemed to think it appropriate and we've gone with it--every year on purpose now.  Don't you love family traditions like that?  I do :)

2008--I put fake things under the tree as place-holders for presents, like stuffed animals

Our first mantle in our home--Christmas 2008

2009--opening presents with Daddy I <3 this sooo much!

Let's get some red and green flowing through this house!!!

This Past Week's Crafts

I have a stomach virus at this moment--most likely the one going around the schools right now.  I'm utterly miserable, and looking at my crafts makes me feel better.  So these are all new, and I'm attempting to include explanations and source inspiration everywhere.

 Fractured Flower

This design is based on the stencil "Fragmented Flower" created by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and The Crafter’s Workshop--however, my hand-drawn design is on a 20"x30" foamcore board, and I used my geometry tools to create the petals.  More information about Julie's great stencils can be found here.

I plan to paint each section of the flower and I might add photos or ephemera as well, art journal-style.  I call my piece "Fractured Flower" because I think Life itself can be this way: sometimes everything is perfect, and sometimes everything falls apart and cracks appear.  This is a long-term project for me.  I don't see myself finishing it before Christmas.

Homemade Mod Podge

source

"Homemade Mod Podge"---You've seen it, I'm sure, it's all over Pinterest right now--and it works, it really does!  I'm not happy with the half water/half white glue mix recommended because I like a thicker decoupage medium.  I do see applications where the original recipe works better though.  I recommend to shake often, not sure if it's necessary, but better safe than sorry since a brush-full of water can ruin your work.

 

Also, a word from the wise: if you are going to use it straight from the jar like this, always use a clean brush or a "decoupage only use" brush--I had a tiny amount of black paint left in my brush bristles after swirling it through water to rinse it, and it turned the ENTIRE jar gray and I pretty much had to start over.  But, white school glue is 50 cents at Dollar General, so all is well.  

I made my concoction in an 18oz jar, which ended up being 3/4 full, containing 3 bottles of white school glue ($1.50) and 2 and a half  bottles of water (just use the same bottles the glue was in) so it equals around 15oz.  Brand name decoupage medium at this size costs at least $7.99, if not more.

I may get adventurous one day and attempt a colored version, as well as some with (high quality) glitter just to see the results.

Scrap-style Framed Vacation Photo

My son and I went on a 2-day vacation at the very beginning of this year.  It was a HUGE deal for me, I'd been suffering from agoraphobia for a long time and was uneasy about being out and about.  I'm enormously proud of myself for making the trip all on our own, and this picture of us on the train is a true treasure for me.  I FINALLY got around to framing it, and decided to do it scrapbook-style.  Ric-rac sparkly white ribbon makes the snowflake on the top right corner, and the red heart I cut out of an old purse.

Framed Fingerpainting

My son made this finger-painting back in 2007.  Along with 3 others, it has hung on our refrigerator ever since, because I wanted to frame them but never seemed to get around to it.  Part of the pile of goodies from my mother's new farm was this great frame, the perfect size for my favorite among the 4 painting.  I painted it Metallic Blue Topaz and it looks awesome :)  

Another thing I learned about Metallic paint: it highlights every single flaw, so I will never, NEV-ER use it on furniture!

Ugh, more to come........  I hate having a stomach.

Too Much of a "Perfect Thing"

Did you ever get something for crafting, like paper, ephemera or cloth, and then be too afraid to use it?  Well, not "afraid" exactly, more like keeping it for a "better" project while you instead on go crafting, only a "better" project never shows up?

I've been doing that.  Back in August (I can say that, because its almost October!) I bought 1 yard each of the perfect lime and the perfect turquoise for my obsession crafting.  I also got a yard of this yummy brown material that uses all the colors together. Only...I've never used it.

I'm not sure why, but those 3 materials are still sitting here, perfectly folded, while I've used all kinds of other random, boring, not-quite-right materials to make:
a lampshade
a pinboard
basket slipcovers
approximately 20(thousand, lol) flowers
and covered my 12x12 scrapbook paper storage thingie (did I show my storage thingie?  It's a stack of Pizza Hut boxes, clean ones of course, stacked and taped together.  They're the perfect size!)

see this cute but non-matching material?  My skirt from my college days...and this tower needs more work still in this picture, it looks better now

Well, no more!  I am resolved to MAKE SOMETHING with my "special" fabric this weekend!  Although I have no idea what.......

Cats.....

I love my cat.  In fact, I'm a "cat person," as opposed to being a dog person.  I can name all my cats I've had since high school, and they all had different personalities, habits, etc.  Just like people, right?

But why, oh why, do they ALL do this?  See my mouse in the first picture?  She wanted to lay down ON my mouse and I pushed her aside. 

And that's my pen, which suddenly attacked her, apparently, as you can tell from her "What?  I got it, everything's good now, thanks to me--AGAIN" attitude in the 2nd picture.  She's not even supposed to be in this room, she should be on the bed asleep.  But no, she had to come visit me and then save me from my pen.

Aren't you glad to know I was saved from the human-eating pen?  Because if you don't admire her prowess and rub her head, something far, far worse will attack my feet once I go to bed.....

Impossible!

I'm rarely on Facebook.  It's not that I have anything against it, I'm just not "into" it.  I'll spend a whole day going through the 9oo+ links on T&J's Weekend Wrap-up, but I lose interest in FB within 5 minutes.  This might be why:

In high school, my 2 best friends were in the class above me.  They graduated in 1992 and I graduated in 1993.  I logged onto FB just now and one of the first things I see is their 20th High School Reunion invitation, set for July 2012.  Now,see, that's impossible!  If they graduated 20 years ago, then I graduated 19 years years ago.  And that can't be!  I'm way too young for that.  And too irresponsible.  And too...young. 

My birthday was this past week.  I had a happy one.  Until just now, when I thought "old" was closer than I thought, lol.  It's tons more fun looking at 300+ dresser makeovers than to be shocked by milestones I don't want to reach.....

Pom-Poms Are Evil

That there, ladies, is a LIE.  It is not "oh-so-easy;" it sucks.  And to top it all off, when I asked hubby to attach my pom-pom flower that I loved and had worked very hard to create, in my favorite colors even, he replied "What is it?" (this is where I gave him THAT look and he said "It's pretty, whatever it is." insert eye roll here)

One of the blogs I read everyday (I can't remember which, I get about 30 emailed to me) had a beautiful book page wreath up in her kitchen, and then found out her husband hated it.  He said it looked like a phone book.  I think her husband and mine are related somehow.....

Anyway, this is the honest truth about making pom-poms:
1. You need 8-10 FULL-SIZED sheets of tissue paper.  I tried cutting 2 sheets into fourths, and I cannot bring  myself to even photograph that monstrosity.  My poor little green and blue baby there is 4 sheets of 20" paper that I cut in half.
2. A useful tip: (I think I came up with this, but probably not) I used an alligator clip at the opposite end from where I was folding, so the pages stayed even together.
3. Make LARGE accordion folds, like 1.5" or even 2."
4. Crease each fold as if you were using a bone folder.  Seriously. 
5. Lastly, making your first one at 11pm at night after a long and difficult day is also something I advise against.  This is not a peaceful craft project. 

One more view, but a warning first: I attached my "happy little pom-pom" to my turquoise floor lamp I got last year for $5 during Wal-Mart's Back to School days (I'm hoping lime and turquoise things are still in fashion this year!)  Also, I've been painting today, so my brushes ended up in the picture too.

So, speaking of paintbrushes, I discovered something kind of awesome: I'm doing this FREE online art journal class provided by Strathmore called Visual Journal Series.  I'm loving it!  I have no art instruction in my background at all, so it's been a huge help!!  So many of my favorite Art Journalists are starting courses soon, but I feel like I don't know the basics, so I'm refusing to allow myself to give in to the temptation to pay $50 to just get confused and frustrated.

I think these classes are only available until August 1, so hurry on over there and get to listening.  Each class is about 20 minutes long, and there's also a worksheet with "homework" full of details they couldn't address in the video.  I made some backgrounds today:

Anyway, happy Sunday!  This is our last weekend before school starts.  I'm an absolute nervous wreck.  Did you ever see that movie where the cheerleader gets pregnant, and the other cheerleaders help her rob a bank?  Well, they disguise themselves as "Betty" dolls, and they name one of them "Mood Swing Betty."  The phrase stuck in my head.  I'm in total Mood-Swing Betty mode....  "Sugar & Spice" is the movie, thank you IMDB!