Project Life 2014, "The Rest of April"

Hello, laziness! This is my attempt at not spending a lot of time "catching up" on the weeks I have been skipping. I am strangely fine with it...not that much happened anyways. 

Project Life 2014, Week 15

Another page done for 2014.

This was two weeks ago...mostly weekend fun because I haven't been taking pictures during the week. And Vortex was seriously good. I feel like my list of books to read is getting longer than my to do list! 

I have not been the best blogger lately...generally I can post more if I write them over the weekend and then set to publish through the week. But lately I've been a little sickly, a lot tired, and trying to spend my time either resting or tackling my to do list. I am going to work on that though!

DIY :: enamel dots!

source

So in the scrapbooking realm, enamel dots are all the rage (at least for me!). The downside is that a pretty package with about 40-60 dots usually costs $4-5. Not highway robbery...but I love to put a nice little cluster on a card or scrapbook page, so as a result I tend to hoard them. Anyways, on instagram I noticed that some people were making their own with perler and pony beads. I decided to give it a try this weekend.

I bought this package of perler beads from Michael's for about $10. That's 11,000 dots for $10 plus the electricity to heat my oven. Yes, please. Of course, you can't get the variety in sizes...but that's okay.

before...during...after

They make me so happy. Now I just need to find maroon beads!

Here are a few tips from what I researched and experimented. This worked for my oven, but I'm sure everyone's is different.

• Put down parchment paper on a cookie sheet and lay them out. I like to arrange by color because it's prettier to look at. :)
• 280-285*F for 30ish minutes. I put a timer on and rotated the pan halfway through because they seemed to cook a little unevenly.
• At first I tried dark colors and light colors separately because I heard they took different amounts of time...but I did not find that to be the case. Black, white, grey, and clear beads all seemed to take longer than the rest of the colors though. On the last batch I did a variety and just kept those four colors in the back the whole time.
• When the dimple disappears from all of them, take them out and let cool to the touch. Mine didn't stick to the paper, so I was able to funnel them into a container easily.
• In my experience there was no smell at all, but I didn't try any pony beads (I read differing reports on smell between the types of beads).

Project Life 2014, Week 14

Last week was kind of brutal. I just had no motivation to blog! I worked on this over the weekend in between cleaning and watching Pioneer Woman. Unfortunately my laziness extended to taking very few pictures last week, so I'm not sure how I'll work that one out...

I might add text over some of the pictures. I will have to keep looking at it and see if it needs something else. Also, I must admit that the picture of Brody is from earlier this year that I never used. I've been taking more Sophie pictures lately, so I felt he needed a cute picture in the Project Life book. :o)

Project Life 2014, Week 13

Look out Oscars selfie. Our cheer selfie is pretty awesome! Last week was a really strange week--I took a half day off work for a nap, I had some weird stomach bug on Saturday, and Tyson was super busy running.

Weeks 12 and 13 together. Hizzah!

Project Life 2014, Week 12

I did not take many photos this week...I even had to go back through my texts to remember about this week. How sad, considering it was only a week ago! Seems like a really long time. My photos seemed so very beige, so I needed a little pop of something in my cards. I choose pinky red from the cut & paste kit. I think I am liking how it turned out!

Enjoying...

I read We Were Liars last Saturday. It was amazing and thought-provoking and strange and I loved it. I knew nothing about it when I started, and I think that's the only way someone would enjoy it. My librarian got an Advanced Reader Copy of it and said she needed someone else to read it so she could talk about it. Best book I've read this year. It comes out May 13th. Get it before someone lame spoils the ending for you.

I'm still working on The Here and Now. It's interesting in the fact that it's time travel, but there's still a small element of dystopian (to me, at least) because there's a society that has traveled back together and they have rules to coexist with the time natives. Reserving judgement until I finish.