Incoming Mail + The Prettiest Handwriting + 3 Things

Yesterday was such a wonderful mail day! I know I usually post my "Incoming Mail" posts on Wednesdays but I've been getting to the post office a day later because of reasons so I've been a day behind.  I'm kinda glad, though, because I was able to take the time to take lovely photos of all the goodies that came in the mail this week!





 This awesome pin-up postcard and collage (which is totally getting framed!) comes from Roberta all the way in Denmark!  I sent her some Creepy Hearts Club hearts and she sent this back as a thank you!  So sweet!  I've got a little something cooking for her, too!  :)



This sweet card (and super cute envelope) is from Rachel.  I told her about my 10 hour adventure in the car in January and shared in my pain.  And guess what?  She's also a video professional!  I love that!  I'm totally going to geek out in my next letter to her!  I hope she doesn't mind :)



This next package is from sweet Kathleen in Australia!  Last time, I sent her an origami heart and some other little things and she was sweet enough to send me some gorgeous origami papers from Japan!  Also tucked away in the cute card, there was a C.S. Lewis quote (which I can't wait to frame), 3 things about her and a Mail Tag with 3 prompts for me: A spritz of perfume (I know just the one!), my birthday, and the best thing about Georgia.  I found a cute little note card in my stockpile and filled out my 3 things already but I'm saving the perfume spray as the absolute last thing I do because I want it to last the whole trip to Oz!

I was so happy to see such a bounty in my P.O. Box yesterday and I realized I have two half assembled packages that need to be sent out!  Ugh - I've been such a space cadet lately.  One of them can be delayed a little but the other should've been sent out ages ago!  I'm hoping the recipient doesn't mind its tardiness!

I'm hoping you're having an awesome week!
Happy Thursday!

Writing my demons away

As a participator in NaNoWriMo since 2009, I think my writing is...okay.  I've finished a script and I'm working on another but I feel like I need more.  My writing mentor randomly sends me roundtable discussion videos with scriptwriters - which I adore - and sometimes, he'll send me inspirational interviews to read from novelists or scriptwriters to help me get into the zone.  While I love all of that, I have all these stories stacking up in my head just waiting - no - screaming to get out.  Just yesterday morning, I woke up from a dream that had the perfect framework for a suspenseful film and in my spare moments, I'm writing the second episode to my soon-to-hopefully-not-be-fictional-anymore TV show.
Okay.  So...now what?
Luckily for me, I was scrolling through my iPad's open tabs and saw this post from Becky at The Pink Samurai.
Yes, I want that Gipsy Danger shirt...yes, I want to do a hand-printed galaxy wall in my house...and then I saw the link to an e-course called "How to Write and Pitch a Book Proposal" and I HAD to click on it.  And buy it.  And read it immediately.  And download the PDF.  And print it out.  And scan through it a million times.
I'm so insanely inspired!  It made me think back to this article by Hello Wordsmith.  You know, the tough love thing.  So I spent most of yesterday afternoon and the afternoon before that (after work, of course), revisiting the previously finished script.
I have to admit that I'm a little afraid of revisiting that particular story because it's really tough on me emotionally but I have to power through it (like Hello Wordsmith says) and get it out.  It will be a little different this time, though.  Last time, I stuck to the most important details in the story - like you would for scriptwriting.  This time, I get to explore the emotions that particular situation brought out in me.  I think I'm partly afraid of revisiting this particular story because it's based on something that actually happened to me and, while I think it's movie-worthy (think Blue Valentine sorta kinda), I don't really want to revisit that particular time in my life.  Maybe it will be a good energy exercise to release that negativity?  Who knows.  I'm hoping that with this, I can expel it once and for all and move forward.

As for the other stories, well, we'll see how they shape up.  I put my old man in charge of episode one of my soon-to-hopefully-not-be-fictional-anymore TV show and he's not delivering.  I took it upon myself to give him the benefit of the doubt and have a little faith in the pilot, hence the reason why I'm writing the second episode.  I might just wrap up episode two and back track to pick up episode one.  Or make episode two episode one instead.  I need to do a little more research, though.  Ah yes, good ol' research...

Are you working on any passion projects?  What are they?  I'd love to know!
Happy Wednesday!

Do You Even...?!

Born out of a silly joke with my cousins and enhanced upon by my sister, I dragged my old man to Target to take the above photo.  Oni and I talked about Photoshopping it but I wanted realism.  I wanted to actually be holding a for real GoPro for the GoPro BRO photo.

During this journey, while I didn't purchase the GoPro HERO 3 (like I actually want...), I did purchase the Instax Mini I mentioned here.

 

Not bad! I'm still playing around with the ridiculously bright flash (as you can see in the pirate photo above) but I found a scrap from some orange gels at work and some really nice transparent tape (no haze!) and took this photo outside.



I love it!  With more experimentation, I think I might make a #DailyInstant tag on my Instagram and do a weekly post on it here!  What do you think?

Happy Tuesday!

Behind the scenes: Work and home

I had been writing about some work-related anxiety on ye olde Tumblr and I think the two photos above are the only two that can legally be shared.  I say "legally" because you can't really see anything concerning the actual shoot - except for two silly camera operators!
Yes, that shoot was fun and super stressful and I'm kinda really glad it's over now.  Geez.  I'm hoping the end product turns out as well as we'd hoped!  More on that as it gets closer to release time...



On to less stressful things!  My old man has decided on a photo series for his blog.  That's right - he has a blog!  You should check it out!  On Saturday night, it stopped raining long enough for us to go on a little nighttime adventure in our neck of the woods.  The downside?  It was FREEZING cold and the wind was blowing majorly crazy!!  I got to stay in the comfort of my warm car while the old man got out and took some photos in the cold.  While he was shooting, I decided to join in and experiment with my Hipstamatic app.
I don't know if it's my old 4S or the lack of space on my phone for photos but I'm starting to get more and more disappointed with the performance of the app because it keeps crashing!  It doesn't work as well as it did before, which makes me sad because the Hipstamatic app was my go-to app for all things photo but because it crashes so much, I end up using the default camera instead.  Saturday night, I threw caution into the gale force winds and shot with the Hipstamatic - specifically, the Hongdae Hipstapak.  I even played around with the double exposure feature I keep forgetting about!  I think it turned out nice!

It was fun watching my old man getting all creative this weekend!  He did some new things and I'm so proud of him!  He even had a cup of coffee from Dulce Vegan.  WHAT?!  I'm kinda hoping to win the Currently List Starter Pack Giveaway at Campfire Chic because I would love to keep lists of all the new things my old man has been doing!  I've started him on a self-improvement journey so that he can see what it's like to live a happy and grateful life and after all the fun things we were able to do this weekend, I think he'll keep the momentum going!  Unfortunately, we had to miss out on a few things but I'm hoping we can make those up.  I mean, I have a kind of important birthday gift to deliver, after all!

How was your weekend?

Secret Pen Pal Scavenger Hunt 2014 - Progress!

On Tumblr, I revealed a little snippet of what I'm putting together for the Secret Pen Pal Scavenger Hunt 2014!  I was a little hesitant to post anything about it because I took the "Secret" part of the title literally.  Like, as in ZERO posts about it until it was reveal day.  But I got a happy email from the organizer encouraging (and reminding) all participants to post their progress, so I did!  Here are my little things:



For the first two photos, I attempted calligraphy again and wrote out the recipe for a Colony Cocktail.  According to ProhibitionRepeal.com, the Colony was a speakeasy in New York where the Vanderbilts and Windsors went to dine in a civilized manner, with a cocktail (or two), no questions asked.  I also included two photos I took last year of the Biltmore Estate to bring it together.

The train ticket is a cute little piece of ephemera that I found and filled out with the recipient's information and it'll be tucked away in a little Travelogue I'm putting together.

I've been having so much fun with it and photographing items along the way with my Nikon and I can't wait to share the whole thing on reveal day!  The send date is quickly approaching and I'm hoping I collect all my items this weekend so I can finish assembling items and photographing the whole thing before it gets sent to its wonderful recipient at the end of next week!

I'm also very excited to see what I get in return!  It's so inspiring checking out the #secretpenpalscavengerhunt tag on Tumblr and Instagram!  I've been in a bit of a slump with social media so this might be the thing to perk me back up again :)

And because I'm trying to up my mail game, I'm going to start sending my lovely Californian something every month.  This month, I finally sent him his I Miss You card from Stay Home Club because I was feeling very selfish and I wanted to let him know that I love him and miss him very much.  I already have his Valentine's Day card picked out (with confetti!) and I'm already thinking about what his birthday card will look like for May.  I've also got a couple of ideas floating around for my nieces and their birthdays and some other folks I plan on sending pretty mail to!

Omiyage Blogs, Wreck This Girl and The Love Parcel are big time inspirations for this new project for me and I can't wait to see how many new friends come from it!

Are you doing any mail exchanges?  Send me links to your incoming / outgoing mail!

NaNoWriMo 2013

It's November which means NaNoWriMo!  I was going to write another story but I want to focus on my main one so I can get a script together and out of my brain!!  I mean, I've been working on it since last year and all...I just never really like to end my stories.

Why?

Because that means it's over!  The story is over!  The characters move on!  Who wants that?  Not me!  I love my characters - good or bad - and I want their adventures to continue!  Granted, they can't and I know that but still.

My old man hooked me up with one of his co-workers, who just so happens to be a writer, and he gave me some GREAT advice.  He also encouraged me to step away from my main writing project if I need to, just to get an emotional break, but he told me something very important: KEEP WRITING.  Whether it's a crappy idea or something I might want to pursue later, WRITE IT DOWN!!!  I knew that already but it was great to hear it from him because it proved I've been doing the right thing all along!

Meeting with him was great because, I know I've said this before but I'm going to keep pointing it out, at work, I'm very isolated.  I'm the only person in the building that does what I do - editing, animations, a specific kind of writing...so it's hard to get motivated and stay motivated when my co-workers don't "get" me, so I cherish these kinds of interactions because they really do mean a lot to me and it feels great to be surrounded by others that have the same interests as you, right?!

I'm happy to say that I'm 34 pages into my script so far and I'm right on target with the parameters he gave me, which makes me so happy that I'm getting this DONE!!!  One of the exercises he gave me was to read a script similar to mine so I could get the proper structure.  Surprise - the script I chose was none other than Blue Valentine.  It is structured kind of in the same way as mine but it's slightly different, of course.  Reading the script now, after having seen the movie forever ago, is great because I thought my mind was going to drift off to images of Ryan Gosling being super romantic and Michelle Williams being her lovely self (in the flashbacks) but really, I'm looking at it from a totally different perspective now and it's helping me maintain my momentum with my own story.  Granted, the last few weeks have been CRAZY at work but I'm getting back into it - including already having come up with a great concept that I'm going to build up, write a pretty in-depth synopsis for and pass on to my mentor to see if it's a "Yea" or "Nay" to pursue.  So far, all signs point to "Yea".  YAY!

Anyone else participating in NaNoWriMo this year??

The SMASH*Book Daily Journaling Adventures Continue

On Monday, I admitted I was doing a daily SMASH*Book journal thing and so far, it has been lots of fun!  At first, I had NO idea about what to post so I did what I see most blogger do: I took photos of my  outfit for that day and wrote a little about it and got stuck - what do I post next?  Well, I definitely saved some blank space so I could maybe glue in some True Blood screen caps the following morning.  And boy, was it hilarious!



Yes - I made a flame for the Eric screen caps I printed out.  WHAT.  Who am I??

So - for Tuesday and Wednesday, it was the same deal: outfit photos with whatever happened that day. But I had a hard time filling in the blanks for Tuesday since it was pretty uneventful.  As I was trying to find a way to fill it, I cut out the cutest folder template from the Wreck This Girl blog and made the design more of my own by laying a base of my cute Washi tape down on some construction paper.



Cute, right?!  I love the roses on the original template and I definitely plan on using it once I can print it onto some sturdy card stock.  So cute!!  Yes, I cut around the outside lines on the original because I wanted my folders to be slightly bigger - but not my much.  The extra bit helped out!

Anyway - it's getting a little tough to fill out pages for this daily journal thing but that's part of the challenge, right?!  Here are some pages from my first week:

Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday

     

I still can't get over the silliness of the flame I made for the True Blood screen caps!
Tuesday was a little rough so I decided to fill it out with my footage experiment that I wrote about on Hello Avid and my new favorite blog: Bitchface: The Masterworks.  Check it out!
For Wednesday, as you can see, I dedicated a page to Pinkberry because...it's Pinkberry!  The cherry flavor that's out right now is SO GOOD!!!
Thursday was a bit of a slow day as well but when my friend Carter emailed me that photo of him holding a bunny, I knew it had to go in the book.  That bunny is too cute!

One thing about my book is that when I picked it out, I didn't really pay attention to what the plastic cover had said.  The plastic cover said it was 365 journal - or something like that - but I didn't flip through it at the store - I just bought it.  Me and my impulsiveness, huh?  Once I opened it to start journaling was when I realized that it each page was themed for each month.  Thursday's pages are on a Groundhog Day theme.  Today's is cute because it's a Friday post on Valentine's Day themed pages.  Cute for Friday, right?!  So, to hide my goof, I'm trying to cover up the themes as much as I can.  Like the Tuesday post for National Opposite Day (on January 25th)...Kind of the double challenge of journaling daily AND covering up out-of-date stuff.  Silly me.  Hopefully there will be enough stuff for me to finish the book through the rest of the year and I can start another one on time next year!

Happy Friday!

More SMASH*Book Adventures!

Not gonna lie - I've kinda turned my SMASH*Book-ing adventures into a bit of a joke on the ol' Tumblr.  Here's a sample of my latest pages:



The first one was an experiment with ribbon, found construction paper (I had it in my bookcase upstairs all along!) and Elmer's glue (because the attached glue stick to the pen wouldn't cut it).  I based my bunting experiment on the English flag tutorial at the Wreck This Girl blog here.  So cute and so easy!

The second page was my realization that I didn't have anything from when we all saw "Despicable Me 2".  I think I gave the girls back their ticket stubs for their books and I guess I had thrown mine out or lost it.  Enter more paper crafting!  Since this past weekend was a much-needed chill one, I decided to turn on Ancient Aliens and get to craftin'.  Not bad, eh?

And because I got a comment shout-out from Shaunte over at the Crafts Unleashed post that sold me on SMASH*Books, I decided I'd jump ahead to using a newly purchased SMASH*Book as a daily journal!  In my header page, I called it the "original blog" LOLOLOLLL.  I'm still deciding how it will look and what will be in it but I'm doing it, dammit!  I still can't wait for her daily tutorial, though!  Maybe that will help me feel a little more inspired...

I'm sure I'll be posting a lot of SMASH adventures here!  You have been warned...  :)

Smash*Booking with the kids!

Phew!!  What a crazy couple of days!!  Or I should say: What a crazy couple of weeks!
Sadly, my nieces left yesterday.  Yes, I was able to hold back the tears until I got home.  I blamed it on the most recent episode of True Blood  while we were catching up but seriously, I was missing them so much!
We had a BLAST while they were here and I picked up a couple of Smash*Books for them to make of their time here because I read a GREAT review on them here.  In my hunt for the original blog post that sold me on the books, I found two other great examples of Smash*Books here: the Wreck This Girl Blog and this Memory Works post.
Keeping the Smash*Books in mind, we tried to keep EVERYTHING we could think of to put in their books.  Originally, I had wanted them to start on them the day they arrived and add to the books nightly but we ended up not getting to them until it was closer to the day they left - which actually turned out a bit better since we could reminisce about the earlier things we had all done together.  There were some pockets of downtime since Georgia has been having crazy rain all Summer!  :(  Kind of a downer but it made Smash*Book time more fun.

Here's Amaya's book that she made herself - including a few memorable stories.





The cover with the super-awesome pen+glue / The very first page with a hilarious story about macaroni and cheese. The girls LOVE accents and this one was about them hearing a very Southern accent / The day we went to the movies / The day the grandmas took them to Sky Zone (I wish I had gone!!) / Cotton candy at the fresh.iam pop-up shop with my sister / Adventures at North Point Mall / Adventures at Mall of Georgia / A great story about Amaya's intro to Disney Vinylmations.  Tess at the Disney Store at Mall of Georgia is WONDERFUL and she is the one Amaya is talking about in her story / Photobooth fun and bungee jumping / Medieval Times!!  That was so much fun! / The girls at their fort / Pancakes at IHOP plus some cute images from our Captain Underpants-themed birthday party / It wouldn't be Amaya's book without some Skylanders stuff included (she LOVES them) / Oni got Amaya the coolest 3D puzzle of a swan / We took the kids to Bone Garden, the Cartoon Network store (which will be in another post) and we TRIED to get a ride on the newest addition to ATL: the Sky View ferris wheel but the weather rained us out / Pool time (there was A LOT of it) and our fun night at Ru San's for sushi!

So much fun!!  I highly recommend these books if you're looking to document special events - especially with kids.  I mean, the kits are a little pricey but since they come with tabs, mini journals, a pen / glue stick, tape and a bunch of other things, it's DEFINITELY worth the money because they'll have something they'll remember forever and it's all self-contained!  You don't need to buy anything extra - unless you really want to.  I'm thinking about starting my own to document my time with the girls this Summer so I can not only share with the fun but to experiment for the next time we get to make these!