Greenville South Carolina Home Page

Erica dear, this is all your fault. I LIKE this place. Hidden bronze mice statues! Trolleys! A used bookstore called Fiction Addiction! A river named Reedy! An actual nonfake downtown!

I'm coming down one day. I have to see the mice.

I got to play Chicken this morning.

Once again I am driving through a maze of orange cones to get to work. Park Avenue was down to one lane, with a flagman at each end. I'm not sure if just one of the flagmen was an idiot, or if both were, but they both signaled at the same time for cars on their side to pass. I realized this in time to pull off the road before the cones and the workers got too much in the way.

Yeah, so I lost the game, but the other car was a big shiny Lincoln with an old lady driver.

Flagmen: I know it's a tough job out there in the hot sun with stupid drivers all day, but please, you're not supposed to COPY the other flagman, you're supposed to do the opposite! Or at least make sure you know which way your sign is facing.

My grandmother seems to have acquired a new addition to her menagerie - a bat.

He's taken up residence between the screen and the window in her bathroom, and skips out at night to get dinner. I'm sure there's some hand-waving freak-outery going on over there, but my general thought is that there's a lot of bugs in her backyard that need eating. (everyone's got the bug bites to prove it!)

I made Mom sit down with me while I showed her pictures of bats online to see if we could identify it, and decided on a little brown bat. Common lil fella, no unusual features like big ears or funky nose. I hope they don't scare him off too soon - I want to see him! Or her, as the case may be. He's got a nice little home there.

Two Things Today:

Sprint: Locker Room - Google Video

Saw this just last night. It just made me laugh. I'm probably an evil person.

Thing Two: Nestle Crunch Stixx. Try them. They're yummy.

Category:Other Personal Care and Style - WikiHow

I was wrong. Some of these are hysterical. I do, however, wish the makeup tips had illustrations . . .

How to Unhook a Bra - WikiHow

Possibly the weirdest how-to I've come across. I mean, a woman knows how to do it, a man won't read the instructions anyway . . .

Yeah, so you think I have nothing better to do. I know I have plenty of other projects without starting something new, but I just can't help it sometimes. And this one hasn't been easy.

Mom and I experimented last night with the tea dye. Four bags to a bowl full of water, heated for five minutes in the microwave, then soaked til I got bored. Immediately we discovered something interesting with two of the fabrics. The pattern on them had been printed with some sort of ink. The fabric was changing color, but the ink wasn't! I stood there with my stirring spoon, poking at the fabric and chanting, "Dye! Dye! Dye!" It didn't help. While it had an interesting effect on the striped fabric, the beautiful lacy print didn't really do all that much. We couldn't believe it. Next time, a different fabric, and perhaps more tea.

I had bought about 6 different fabrics on Friday, trying to decide which to use for the skirt. Today I chose the three in the picture. (None of these are the weird fabrics from the tea dye experiment.) I rather wish I could have gotten the garments grungier looking with the tea, but I'm not done yet! I may try spraying a solution on with a water bottle, and experiment with ripping the fabric or adding patches.

I also sculpted her hands and feet and face and shoulderplate. Then I ran out of clay. I had to mix the color to get the effect I wanted, and didn't make enough. I DID, however, make enough for the parts that would show, so it really doesn't matter what goes underneath. The hair is embroidery floss (obviously not in its final shape yet). I was hoping to imitate dreadlocks, although later it occured to me that cornrows or even a kerchief or turban would do just as well. I rather like the idea of a turbanish type hat. I will experiment and see!

While Tia Dalma inspired me to create the doll, I still have a strong impression in my mind of Queen Mousette in Blues Brothers 2000. I know I have stills of her costume somewhere, but I remember it as being very shiny. I think I prefer the earthy bajou look. Again, I still have to experiment. But first, I need a body to dress.

The clay kept getting too warm, and too soft. I had a hard time preventing everything from shifting the wrong way, and I can never see my mistakes til I take a picture, at which point, it's too late! I tell myself that real faces are rarely perfectly symmetrical, anyway. Just please remind me not to forget to paint her eyes!

I forgot the penny again. For scale, a penny is the size of her head. I just measured.

So I read that Knightley suggested a certain scene in the second movie. I'm so sorry to have yelled at Disney for it. I should have yelled at her.

Not that I can blame her. She just wanted a good excuse to kiss Johnny Depp. I mean, c'mon now, who doesn't?

I came across some fantastic photos of Tia Dalma's Costume. (scroll down a ways.) Today I poked around a fabric store, looking for suitable prints. I was very excited to find some very nice tiny prints, although, when I got them home and compared them to the photos, I found that they were nothing like it! I think I'm going to have to experiment with tea dyeing. It should age the bright crisp fabrics beautifully.

Every time I look at the pictures I see something new, like the shells sewn to the flaps on the bottom of the corset. I should be able to imitate those with clay. I'm still trying to figure out what the little round things are around the shoulders. Pompoms? Bits of garlic? Could be ANYTHING.

My mother can be a brilliant strategist at times.

Her advice? Locate every Dairy Queen in the area, and then figure out who was hiring within walking distance of it.

I'm sure the same could work for Dunkin' Donuts, Ben and Jerry's, or Coldstone Creamery.

There's already a Starbucks within walking distance of . . .well . . .every other Starbucks. Thank goodness I haven't gotten into THAT filthy habit.

Movie Review: Pirates Of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Ah, Disney. You're so easy to figure out. "HEY! We made a lot of money with this movie! Let's do it again! And we'll steal ideas from all the online fan fiction!"

I've already yelled at Rowling for doing this. Why don't people LISTEN? *grumbles*

The Kraken was most excellent. There were TONS of inside jokes about the previous movie. I thought this was a bit hokey. I liked the Bajou witch. I want to make her in miniature. But don't worry, I won't stick pins in her.

I'll reserve that for Disney.

I log in to complain and end up having to complain about logging in! Seems Google has taken over blogger.com? All's I know is, I couldn't find the dashboard so I could create a new post and complain about the changes. I had to click the switch button. Didn't want to. *complain*

I want my braces back. Retainers SUCK. They keep causing me to start gagging. I can't talk with them in. I can't even drink when they're in. If I make feeble attempts to communicate my tongue knocks the lower one out of place. It's awful.

At least I can get out of answering the phone. "Heyyo?" Ooh. Now I can answer the phone with, Ahoy! and say Aye instead of yehath!

Yes, I know I've gone insane. Don't worry. It's muchy nicer once you admit it.

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Critter Country (Catch of the Day)

Incredible story. I was laughing the whole time.

Tuning into Herndon - News - Herndon Connection - Connection Newspapers

Slow news month for the paper, so they decided to do a piece on us. So far I refuse to read it, but you're welcome to.

Item Four of Very-Hard-To- Find-In-One-Inch-Scale items: swords.



Attempt at a Katana. Roughly four inches long, so it's just a little bit too long for true one inch scale. (that'll teach me to eyeball things.) The silver and gold clay by Premo has a really great effect to it, doesn't it?

However, I'm having a problem. I'm not sure if it's the clay or the way I'm baking it. While this sword may LOOK halfway decent, it, well, it's a bit . . . floppy. Admire it all you want, but take it in your hand and it will allow you to perform daring feats of strength and skill by bending it almost in a circle. On letting go, it will slowly begin returning to its original position. It's basically a miniature rubber sword.

That wasn't exactly the effect I was going for.

Stop laughing.

Overheard at the Beach | The Voice of the Towel


Distraction of the day.

2 am, and I'm making miniature canopic jars.

Worried. DEFINITELY worried.

I think they turned out well. I really like that 'gold' clay. Took quite a bit of research to figure out just what canopic jars traditionally looked like. It boiled down to a figures of a human, a jackal, a baboon, and a bird (falcon? hawk?). The baboon proved to be the hardest to sculpt. I realize there should be writing on the jar, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Hieroglyphs are a lot more complicated to do when they're that small!



Go ahead and add THESE to my list of things not available in one inch scale!

Toys (Plush, Figures & More!) - Egyptian Plush Gods

Curse my geekiness. It leads me to sites like this one.

Egyptian Plush Gods would be a great name for a band.