My past two weeks have been stuffed to the gills with spring term finals, moving back home, and unpacking everything only to have to pack again for my big trip, plus visiting friends, and tons of craft projects! So I wrote about my sudden Etsy addiction earlier. Well, it hasn’t gone away. In fact, if anything it’s grown and given me so much inspiration to tackle some projects on my own.

So perhaps my proudest achievement is tackling my mom’s sewing machine. The last couple times I tried to use this thing, I felt like I had to fight it and I just ended up frustrated and swearing at an inanimate object. It’s been a few years, so I thought I’d try a relationship with the sewing machine again. And whaddya know?! We get along!! Mostly…. There are still a few rough patches, but with a little practice, the help of the instruction manual, and occasionally calling in my mother for an emergency rescue, I’ve completed several projects! What do you think?

Camera Case

SD Card Case

I have been addicted to Etsy for the past week. It keeps me up late at night whether I’m online or not. Either I’m endlessly browsing through pages of cute handmade crafts, or I’m dreaming up my own ideas and sighing about creating my own shop someday.

I only have two issues that keep me from starting now. One is that I don’t have the time or space to do any major projects. I have classes and homework to keep up on if I’m going to graduate in three years. (Yes, I’m going to be in college for five years total… stupid requirements.) The other issue is, I don’t have a steady address near a post office, and that is basically essential when running an online business where you need to send customers a product. If I lived at my parent’s house, that would be possible, since we live quite literally, two blocks from the post office. But I’m at college, where I change apartments once or twice each year, and tiny college apartments are not easy to work out of, trust me. Especially when you have to share that tiny apartment with a roommate.

Still, I love Etsy. I’ve found so many great things, made my first purchase, and met some great people as well. I love the seller’s attitudes on Etsy. They have a passion for what they do, and all things handmade, and love to support their community of artists and crafters. Hopefully I’ll be able to be a part of that someday as well. I mean, it’s making me contemplate dropping out of college. If that’s any indicator of my passion, I will have a shop someday! Haha!

New favorite website! Not that I really had a specific favorite before, but I think I have one now: sketch.odopod.com This site is SO much fun. You just sit there and sketch… whatever the hell you want. The canvas is your browser window (Want a smaller size? Shrink the window!), the brush your mouse or trackpad. Or in my case, this site made me bust out my Wacom Intuos Tablet and play for a few hours. :P

Things I love about this site, is the textured background. It has that grainy paper feel that just gives it that little bit of realism rather than the obviously generated, perfectly white computer screen you get most of the time. Another thing I love, is the texture of the colors. I can’t decide if it’s like marker or like chalk. But the properties of the utensil (whatever it’s supposed to be) are very intuitive, with slower motion bringing it to a smaller point for detail work, and the fattest width when you scribble quickly. The other thing I love is the limited palette. Whoever made the color choice, made it very interesting. The colors aren’t loud or vivid and they all work very well together. It gives every users work just a little bit of professionalism because it takes away any garishly bright colors your average 14 year old would first pick.

Overall, I love the Indie feel of this site. I just don’t know what it is about it other than the above mentioned that makes it so homey. Great job Odosketch creators! Check out my sketches!

So, it’s about time I explain an obsession of mine. OMGPOP. OMGPOP is described as, “a place to hang out, play free online multiplayer games, chat and make friends.” And it does just that!!! It’s fantastic.

They started out as iminlikewithyou. Very cute, no? But kinda long. I kept accidentally typing inimnlikewithyourmom or some other mangled form of that. I liked “IILWY” better, but omgpop is way easier to type.

Anywho, my all time favorite game on there you should know if you follow me on Twitter, is Blockles. Or, their version of Tetris. I love it! I can play for hours. I’m not fantastic at it, but it’s amusing nonetheless.

Look! I'm winning!

One thing I love about this site is the interactivity. You can play with other people and you get items that lets you scramble opponent’s screen, send them lines, take away your lines, etc. It’s an added element of fun for me.You have the option to start a game without items though, for you hard core rule abiding tetris players.

Some other awesome games OMGPOP has include, Hover Kart (Mario Racer), Letterblox (Scrabble), Jigsawce (puzzles), Draw My Thing (Pictionary), and Balloono! What’s better than moneys and water balloons?! They have several other fun games as well.

So go sign up and add me as a friend and we can play some Blockles or Balloono together!

EDIT: They removed the original Blockles due to litigation from Tetris, which I am very unhappy about. Unfortunately, I no longer use the site. I hope it returns someday. Until then, it’s boycott for me.