Obsessed With Pens

Hi there! So I got this really cool idea for a series of blog posts that I'll talk about at the end of this post. I'm trying to make this blog a little more focused on arts and crafts. I'm really excited about it!

If you've known me for a while you probably know me as a pretty artsy person. I doodle a lot and I have an entire wall of art in my room. There are 16 pieces of art on that wall and only 3 of them were not made by me. I haven't added to that wall in a while, but I do have quite the stash of canvases at the moment, so I hope to work with those soon...
Anyway, I've always loved pens and markers and anything that I can use to make more art. Recently this love has kind of escalated into an obsession after getting a small pack of Copic markers for my birthday. I thought I would take this post to show off my collection of pens and markers (but mostly pens). If you're a fellow lover of pens, you might like this post a lot!

Crappy picture quality, oops, but this is my pen station. The drawers on the left contain pens and the bin on the right has my markers. 

Starting with the pen drawer. These are all of my fineliners. I've had the Faber Castell pack (left) for a while. Most art pens are labeled with numbers for sizes, but Faber Castells are labelled S, M, F, B, and so on. Plus they have those nice little examples on the front of the pack. Even the smallest size isn't super tiny, so if you like having bolder lines in your drawings, Faber Castells will probably work great. 

The pens in the middle are the most recently acquired pens I have. Every time I went to Michael's I would look at these Staedtler fineliners and wonder if I should get them or not. Last time I was there I finally gave in. It was worth it. I like them a lot because they're my favorite size (0.3) and they're smooth and colorful. It took me a couple weeks to figure out how to close the case. I actually went to my friend Katie's house and her stepmom just happened to have a pack sitting out and she showed me how to close it. So thank you, Mrs. Cheryl! 

The Copic fineliners are on the left. I REALLY love these. As you can see, they don't all look the same and there's one sitting out of the case. Funny story. If you like to doodle on your skin at all, DO NOT USE COPIC PENS ON YOUR SKIN!!! It will completely destroy the pen and make it unusable. So far I believe my Faber Castells have been fine on skin, but these Copics are NOT made for that at all. I tested it out with two pens and they both crapped out on me. Sadly, they were my favorite sizes, 0.1 and 0.3. So I asked for replacements for my birthday. I won't go into all of the details, but it took a couple tries to get the right sizes and I still don't have a 0.3 Copic pen. I'll have to pick one up next time I go to Michael's. So those four silver Copic pens are a brush pen that they accidentally sent us, two 0.1 pens, and an extra 0.03. Oops. Anyway, I really do love these pens because the smallest sizes are super tiny and they're great for detail work. They're my favorite out of these three packs because of the variety of sizes and the quality of the pens. Just don't use them on your skin...

Gelly Rolls! I found out about these pens by watching Baylee Jae videos on YouTube. We have three packs of these that Tessa and I share because she bought one of the packs. We both like them a lot. I think they're great for doodling, but they all have different looks.

Metallics (Top Left): I haven't used these very much because it's the pack that Tessa bought and I'm not a huge fan of metallic things. They show up really nicely on dark and colored papers. For some reason there are two yellows in our pack, and I'm not sure what color we're missing, but I don't think it's too big of a deal. If you like shiny, you'll like metallic Gelly Rolls.

Souffle (Top Right): These were the Gelly Rolls I was really excited about getting when I saw them. They were the most expensive pack at Michael's, but they were advertised to show up on dark surfaces with a matte look to them. I LOVE anything matte, so I got them. My first test with these was really disappointing at first, because they didn't show up! They were completely invisible! It was like I'd taken a white crayon to a white piece of paper. BUT! A few minutes later I looked over at that page and there was the bright color! If you decide to get Souffle Gelly Rolls, their color won't show up on a dark surface until they dry. And don't draw over lines you've already made with these pens because it will completely mess them up even if they've already dried. Despite that, I love these pens now that I know how they work. I love drawing something in a black pen or marker and adding details over the black with these Souffles. The colors are lovely and matte and great for doodling.

Moonlight (Bottom Left): This was the first pack of Gelly Rolls that I got. They are super bright, practically neon colors that almost look like they're glowing. I don't have much to say about them, but I do like them. Again, great for doodling, as most Gelly Rolls are.

Glitter (Bottom Right): Tessa bought these pens separately from the packs because who doesn't love glitter? I like using these to add sparkly touches to my drawings. Usually a few dots is enough to add a nice amount of sparkle. 

Opaque White: More Gelly Rolls! I had been searching for some opaque white pens for another project I was working on and every one I tried just wasn't cutting it for me. They were either too sheer or just plain bad quality. I got these for my birthday and they are PERFECT! These work as well on dark surfaces as a Sharpie works on anything. They show up fantastically. If you're in need of an opaque white pen, these Gelly Rolls are probably your best option. 

The three white pens were my other opaque white attempts. The one on the left is a brand called "Recollections," and it required going over the lines a couple times to be opaque. Even then it wasn't good enough for me. The two in the middle are "Ranger" pens. I don't remember why I did't like them exactly, but they're kind of like regular gel pens. The two pens on the right are the remaining Faber Castells from my first pack. I mostly use them for outlining on paintings. 

I love American Crafts Chalk Markers! I got my first pack of them when I was first introduced to hand lettering. The four pens on the right are the oldest (I used up a couple from that pack) and the 5 on the left were birthday presents. I'm not sure where the white one in the very middle came from. I haven't gotten a chance to use those birthday presents yet but I did test them out when I got them and the metallic colors are really nice. The white chalk markers really look like chalk on dark paper and they stand out nicely.

These are Koi Coloring Brush Pens. I don't use them much anymore but they were basically my replacements for Copics when I wanted Copics but didn't want to buy them and didn't have a birthday or Christmas coming up. I do like them because there's such a wide variety of colors in this one pack and I don't recall them being overly expensive. The one thing I don't like is that they're brush pens. And they're those really loose brush pens. I don't know how else to put it. You don't get a lot of control over brush pens like this, but they're nice for coloring because the colors are bright and smooth. And there are so many colors! 

I'm finishing this long, rambly post about pens and markers with my lovely Copic Markers! I was very happy to get these for my birthday this year. Every artist knows that Copic markers are the best markers out there. There are hundreds of colors and different types and if you mix a black copic marker and a yellow copic marker on paper, the yellow one doesn't get gross! And you can blend colors all you want without messing up the tips. And the colors are so bright and they have wonderful quality. I feel like I don't have to explain them too much because they're so popular. Plus this post has been long enough.

So there's my extensive collection of pens! 

Now here's my next blog series project! Everyone who uses Pinterest knows this feeling. Most of us have boards filled with hundreds of DIY projects that we'd like to do someday. Unfortunately, "someday" gets put off over and over again while more and more projects pile up in that DIY board. I'm on a mission to complete the projects I've pinned and document how they turn out on this blog. I have 602 pins in my DIY board, so I highly doubt I'll do them all, but the ones I do manage to complete will be shared here. I plan to make at least one project every month. Once I finish a project, I'll move it from my DIY Board into the new Pinterest Projects (Completed DIY's) board. There's nothing there yet, but there will be soon! Follow one or both of those boards to keep up with my progress in this endeavor. 

Oops...

I honestly could not think of any other title to give this post. I've never been good at keeping up with writing things, which is quite worrisome considering that I'm majoring in English, and now I've managed to forget about my blog for a whole month... Oops... There actually were a LOT of interesting events that occurred in the month of October, and I'm going to try to blog about them within the next couple of weeks. I did tech work for a show, participated in the Ribbon Run, went to a masquerade ball, helped paint the set for my high school's competition show, and Halloween happened! At least that's all of the stuff I managed to get pictures during. I will write more in-depth posts about those things soon!
Even though I haven't been blogging, I have still been writing! Well, I've been writing essays for English class... But that counts! We wrote 4 papers in a row. Most of them were easy, but the last one we wrote happened to be the hardest and the ONE paper that I procrastinated on. The instructor seemed to really like the bits of it that she read in class, but her grading is extremely unpredictable. She gave me a B on an essay which I felt deserved a much better grade, and an A on another essay that wasn't any better than the other. I know that a B isn't bad, and I wasn't upset about getting a B. I was upset that this particular paper was given a B without any good explanation. Oh well.

I've been doing some more art recently thanks to Michaela needing help with making a business card. I did some hand lettering for that and then got addicted to it again. I even started a new banner for this blog! I'll finish that when I get the chance and then make a few updates to the look of my blog. I don't plan on moving any important buttons or anything, so don't worry. It'll be set up the same, just with different colors and backgrounds and fonts.

Last night I did some painting! It was a really quick project on a piece of scrap wood.

The picture of it isn't very great, but you get the idea. I'm very pleased with how my birds turned out. 

So yeah, I guess that's a little update! I don't think I'll be doing "Wordy Wednesdays" weekly anymore, because they started to become a struggle. I can't force myself to think "Oh crap, I need a quote. What quote should I use? What should I say about it?" It's much easier to write about a quote when I have inspiration from something in my life that relates to it. I'll most likely be blogging on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and weekends for the rest of this semester.

Sorry for disappearing, but I'm back now! 

October- Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Hello again! I'm sorry I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. I even skipped two Wordy Wednesdays! How horrible of me! I don't really have a whole bunch of school work or anything like that preventing me from blogging, I just kept forgetting about it.
But yesterday was the first day of October, which, as most of you should know, is breast cancer awareness month. This past year, my grandma, who I call Nana, was diagnosed with breast cancer and had the surgery to remove it. I feel like this is a great opportunity to bring up a few pictures I took back in 2011.
When I was still really into photography and Deviant Art, I made my own little photography challenge called "25 Days of Pink" during the month of October. The reason it's only 25 days is because I didn't start it until the 7th of the month. So in honor of this month, I thought I would share a few of those pictures with you!

Day 1:

Day 2. I was so excited when I found this car.

Day 8:

Day 11. Apparently I found this bear while cleaning my room.

Day 12. My friend Maura always wears cute dresses and hair bows. I wasn't very good at photo editing at this time...

Day 15:

Day 21:

Day 22. I wonder if Michaela still has these pajama pants.

Day 24. Let's appreciate that we still used mp3 players 3 years ago.

Day 25. I had a lot of fun painting these pumpkins and slinging paint at the one.

So that was basically how my photography skills were in 2011. I mean, not too bad to be honest, but I'm glad I've learned photoshop now... I really like that I still have these pictures. 

This year I'm participating in the Ribbon Run with my sister and her dance company. Apparently I also have to wear a pink tutu. Our grandma's name is going to be on the back of the shirts we're going to wear.

On another note, not only is October breast cancer awareness month, but this week, October 1st through 7th, is Body Focused Repetitive Behavior (BFRB) awareness week! And if you've been keeping up with my blog since the beginning, you know that I have one of those! So I'll be pretty decked out in green and blue this week (or I'll at least wear my bracelet) and for the rest of the month I'll wear pink as much as I can and use my pink polkadot phone case. I encourage you all to become aware of Breast Cancer and BFRBs this week and month, learn as much as you can about them. The internet is a grand place to learn about these things. 

Now I have to go to my second to last Orientation class, so I'm off! I hope to blog more soon, although tech week is next week... Happy October!

Photoshop Experiments

Recently I've become somewhat obsessed with Photoshop. I downloaded a bunch of new brushes and had some fun with them. These are what I've made so far:

The flower was a stock photo, so the quality isn't all that great. I was playing with my paint splatter brushes, which I've had for a while. The last two were mostly for experimenting with my new brushes. The hand and the leaves were outlines, and I colored them in. The green in the hand picture is all brushes. They're not super great because I'm just starting, but practice makes perfect, and I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of practice.

It turns out that Photoshop is really calming to me and it helps me when I'm feeling anxious and stressed. I made the leaves when I was having some anxiety, and it took a couple hours but it really helped a lot and turned out better than I had expected it to. I've been hoping to find a good outlet for my anxiety, and I'm pretty sure this is it. I'm so happy that I've finally figured it out. I don't know why drawing and hand lettering never helped and this does. I assume it's because this requires a little more thought and focus which helps me to think about something other than my worries. 

When I realized how much fun I have in Photoshop, both with editing pictures and making graphic art like the pictures above, I texted Michaela and told her that I'll happily be her personal photo editor since she's majoring in photography. I'm still going to major in English and edit for newspapers and magazines and such, but I'll need something fun to do as well. English is really boring me at the moment. 

On another note, I started doing some tech work yesterday morning! I'm so excited to be back in a scene shop working on a set. Katie and I finished painting a wall and a ceiling. The first thing we heard when we walked in was the sound of a saw, and I think we both got excited because it had been a while since we had heard that. It had also been a long time since we got sawdust in our eyes, but that's kind of inevitable in a scene shop. After we finished the set piece, we went to Panera for lunch because we realized how hungry we were. After we ate, we went to Oktoberfest! We were there for the rest of the day, riding rides and playing stupid games and eating funnel cakes. We waited in the hour-long line for the ferris wheel, and we were pretty disappointed that we were the last ones to get on and the first ones to get off. Other than that, the whole day was awesome and fun and exhausting. I don't know if I'll go back today or not, but I'm hoping I do so I can take Tessa and introduce her to it.

So that was my little update. I'll be back on Wednesday with the weekly quote!

The Power of Pinterest

Pinterest is probably one of the best things to ever happen to social media. I read somewhere recently that Twitter and Facebook are "look at ME!" sites, while Pinterest is a "look at THIS!" site. I love it because it's so organized and you don't have to search too hard to find exactly what you're looking for. "Pinterest is my Google." 

Since I started blogging, I made a board on Pinterest specifically for everything I find related to blogging. There are so many helpful things on this site for blogging beginners! 

I think the most popular thing about Pinterest is the wide variety of DIY tutorials you can find. Even just some suggestions that give creative minds a starting place for crafts and interior design and gifts and makeup and nails... I could go on forever. Here are some of my Pinterest-Inspired accomplishments:

My weekly calendar made from a frame (super cheap at Walmart!). Tessa had fun with it...

I came across a painting of a tutu, which inspired me to paint Tessa's costume from her first competition dance on a little canvas. I plan to paint each competition costume for the next two years.

The icicle lights I had around my room died, so I took them down. I hated how empty that little piece of wall above my closet looked, so I printed out a bunch of Instagram pictures and hung them up with yarn and clothes pins.

I covered a cork board and reupholstered my desk chair with some cheap fabric I found at Walmart. Both are holding up nicely!

There have been more, but some are gifts that have not been given yet... 

While Pinterest is awesome and fun and helpful and inspiring, it's also addicting! I tell myself all the time that I should be DOING the things I'm repinning instead of sitting here repinning more! And obviously I do force myself away from my iPad to make these things every now and then, but there are a lot more crafts in my DIY board that I haven't done yet! 

There are also so many helpful links for college students that I've discovered since my friends and I are headed in that direction. Ways to save money, alternative sites for buying and renting cheaper books (which I realized last night are ridiculously expensive- there is no valid reason for them to cost that much!), and multiple links to lists of what to pack for people living on campus. 

If you find any of this appealing, you should make a Pinterest account and follow me as well. Another cool thing about Pinterest is that you can follow specific boards a person makes, so if you don't care to see me repinning hand lettered stuff all the time, you can unfollow that board! And if you just want to see what I pin in my DIY board, that's all you have to follow. 

Happy Pinning!