The Life Pursuit: San Smith

True Colors Concert & Cyndi!

So last night my mom and I went to the True Colors concert featuring Cyndi Lauper and the B-52's. (Photos!)  I was really tired before we left and not really sure what to expect due to being kind of out of it from my cold for the past week...We got there early, ate a little bit and settled in to our seats which were very close to the stage! (I was surprised - good job picking tickets Mom!) The opening act was a band called The Cliks - this was the first time I had heard their music and it was pretty awesome!  Lead singer Lucas Silveira's voice is sooo good - a great mix of melody and harsh scruffy rock sound.  The songs I liked best were "Oh Yeah", "My Heros" and their cover of "Cry me a river".  I really recommend them - I want to go get their cd now!

Up after that was Tegan and Sara - which honestly...I don't care for their music - its a little too folksy for me.  My mom really enjoyed it though, which a fair trade off since she seemed pretty bored during The Cliks...other than when she was trying to catch a glimpse when one of the guitar players did an awesome jump/spin move while playing.  (She was looking down every time it happened!)

There was then some stand up from Rosie O'Donnell - and then the B-52's came out!!  I have always really liked their music but I had no clue how fun they were live.  Holy crap they really are a "party band" as they claim - they had the whole audience going bananas dancing/throwing beach balls/screaming & singing.  It was totally hilarious.  That and Kate Pierson was looking super cute and her hair looked awesome.  I had a blast dancing to their songs!

Finally, at the very end Cyndi came out to perform.  She began singing "Change of Heart", and while I knew I would be excited to see her live and singing in person - I didn't anticipate how good she would sound, or how cool it would be... I don't really remember what I said when she came out singing on stage - but it was something along the lines of "OH MY GOD!" and I covered my mouth in shock like a little girl because - there was my childhood hero in the flesh! :)  I felt like a teenager seeing my idol - it was ridiculous. My mom found it really hilarious and said something to the effect of, "Did you ever think you'd get to see Cyndi in concert?"  And then the next thing we knew, she was hopping down off the stage, walking through the crowd and came straight over a few feet from where my mom and I were at - stood up on a table and continued to sing.  I managed to snap the above photo in between the OMGZ and goofy teenage-like gasps and tears of excitement.  It was really really ridiculous how excited I was - I totally didn't expect myself to react that way :)

She played a lot of her hits and then a few songs from her new album, Bring ya to the brink.  They were all very good - and the crowd was super jazzed through out the whole thing.  She ended up having two encores - during one she sang "Money changes everything" with Lucas Silveira (which was really really awesome, I am curious now if I could find a recording on the internet...), another she sang "Everyday people" with the entire cast of performers, and then of course, "True Colors".  During all of this, they released tons of multicolored gigantic balloons which floated over the crowd gently, falling a bit so we could push them back up into the air.  It was a great finale, and over all an amazing concert.  I'm glad I went, and so happy I was able to share the experience with my mother who introduced me to Cyndi's music as a little girl.   

mondayland!

I delayed my weekly Sunday posting to maximize the evening with Chris since he would be leaving this morning for California and wont be returning till the end of the week.  That and I was busy with our housewarming party, and then a birthday party, and then there was also the crappy tornadoness.  I don't even want to dive into that!  I am however very glad that I'm ok, and everyone else I know is ok.  If you were caught up in the bad Atlanta weather this weekend, hope all is well!

Things I'm excited about at the moment:

- Drew Barrymore's super cute office is in Domino Magazine this month.  Two different blogs I read covered it (Decor8 & sfgirlbybay), and now I'm pumped to go pick up the issue.  I've always adored Drew and her great sense of style!

- Emma Magenta's adorable illustrations & her interview on Design*Sponge

- JemiBook's cd, "Make Music Monday"!  I received my copy in the mail today and it was packaged so adorable.  Jem's soft pretty voice and ukulele is excellent to chill to with a glass of wine or while making stuff.  I am really digging her songs!

- Felted nesting bowls - I really want to make these after catching up on design*sponge and seeing the tutorial

- Elderberry & Craspedia - I really want to get some elderberry to scatter on a dessert, and some Craspedia to decorate my desk with!  I just recently discovered these flowers and I'm swooning over them. 

- Molly Dooker wines - fantastic!  I have loved all of the ones I've tried so far.  And they have the BEST labels!  They have inspired me to start saving and collecting my wine labels now.

No crafting!  Just lots of hiding in the house from stormness and visiting with lovely people.  Hope to be bringing you some fun crafting news soonish though!  :)

Hi Sunday!

1. Surprise Chili meal!, 2. Pika up close, 3. Heart shaped pasta,
4. Valentine's Day Pins, 5. Scooter Dreams, 6. New couch!! 
7. New haircut san, 8. Raining hearts, 9. Kangaroo Pin

Hello !  This week has been a very heart-filled one.  Not a whole lot went down, pretty laid back and not super tons of crafting.  Chris was gone for two days this week at a conference in Las Vegas where he was a speaker, and during those two nights I went and got my hair cut.  Its really short in the back and makes big hair a possibility again (yes!) and I also have bangs again.  I have a real soft spot for bangs and big hair, so this hair cut has definitely grown on me.  This coming weekend I'm going back to have some teal highlights put in - I'm really excited!  I haven't had fun color in my hair for six months now.

On Saturday my mom and I went by the knitting store Knitch to get an idea of where it was located and what it was like.  (I'm going to attend knitting classes for the next three weekends starting next Saturday!)  It was very very cute and comfy feeling inside, and everyone was very nice.  There were some really beautiful different kinds of yarn that I am dying to find a way to use - my heart is currently set on a little bundle that had off-white, teal and gold glitter mixed together.  I hope my class is a success and I really enjoy knitting!  After poking around in there my mom and I went and had lunch at Belly General Store, which has the cutest Valentines decorations right now.  There were plastic hearts hanging from the ceiling everywhere, and really super yummy looking cupcakes with candy hearts in the window that I wish I had gotten a picture of.  I did end up snagging a photo (and a bag!) of the heart shaped pasta from Italy though.  The food was very tasty and like homemade - I had a blt with avacado, and it came with a pickle and deviled egg.  I really want to take someone back there with me and share the yummyness, because it was such a fantastic fun little place.   

After lunch, my mom headed home and I walked down to Parkgrounds to check out the Atlanta Craft Mafia.  They were accepting membership applications, so I filled one out and then made a little pin with their craft stuff they had on the side for fun.  I didn't stay too long because I was feeling a bit tired, so I headed home, rested up and then went to Jeremy's goodbye party.  He is a bike friend of ours and is moving to Boston next week.  He will be missed!

Today, I've just been organizing my craft room - I finally got all my sewing supplies here and I needed to go through it badly to sort what I still would use and what was trash.  Other than cleaning, I just made some little Valentine's day pins while listening to JemiBook's songs.   They are really cute and my favorites are "Elope", "Little Asian Girl" and "February".  I definitely recommend them!  They were sweet and inspiring to listen to while making stuff.

Tomorrow I'm hopefully going to be putting up an etsy store if all goes well.  I was hoping to do it tonight but cleaning got in the way.  I should be selling a pins, plus cats, and cards I think.  We'll see what I have!  Exciting!  If it does infact go up tomorrow, I'll post it here.  Also - thanks everyone for the nice comments, I'm trying to figure out tonight how to reply back to them by using typepad properly.  Ack! Its still sorta new to me. :)

And last but not least, Chris made me a super yummy surprise dinner of spiceeeey Chili tonight.  Mmmmmm.  Hooray for sweet boyfriends who can cook!  :9

super crafty weekend zooom

1. Baroque Corkboard, 2. Jellyfish!, 3. Cupcakes & Gocco arrival,
4. Whale shark feeding, 5. New Shirt I customized, 6. Looking in the Mausoleum,
7. Otter Toy!!, 8. First Gocco Printing, 9. New Fabric! Yay!

Super fun craft explosions week I will refer to this as.  Eee!  Last weekend I had tested out some resin (Testing resin photo) on a heart necklace I gutted out the old imagery from, and it had finally dried.  (Success!!) It turned out pretty good, I filled it with pictures from an article on Les Shadoks - it has the Gibis on it and it says, "C'est tout pour aujourd'hui" which supposedly means, "That is it for Today."  I put on the back a picture of another Gibi and it says the phrase in english, and I poured resin on that tonight so in a few days it should be ready.  I'm excited about the possibilities of making jewlery and sealing things in resin, so I hope to expand on this after testing it on different kinds of paper! 

I also bought some cork board and cut out a shape in it to make my own baroque themed corkboard based of the idea from design*sponge.  I was on the fence at first if I liked it or not, but its slowly growing on me.  I think once my room is painted and there is a lovely color behind it, I'll enjoy it more.  The calendar I have pinned up on it is from Magnolia Moonlight, I had my eye on it for a while and it went on sale recently!  I definitely recommend it, it is really bright and fun.

Aside from Calendars (and cute fabric!) arriving in the mail, I also got another very exciting package this week - I recieved my Gocco printer from Japan!!  When I came home Friday from work it was waiting for me along with super delicious confetti cupcakes my boyfriend made. :)  I didn't dive into a printing frenzy until Saturday though because shortly after coming home we went to go see Charlie Wilson's War.  (Which was very good.)

My gocco printing went about kinda goofy the first time.  I drew out a little cat, scanned it in to clean up the black, printed it out, loaded up my Gocco to do its business - flashed the lightbulbs, lifted up the lid with excitement to see my new screen and...NOTHING!  Turns out, you cant use print outs from home photo printers.  If I had read the directions more carefully, I would have seen that... Oops!  I redrew my little picture with the recommended Riso pen, and that time it worked fantastically.  I printed my design on so much stuff, I kinda went over board with excitement.  I made some Valentines to send out, and then 10 to put in my etsy store when I set it up, 3 blue felt patches and one pink one.  I also decorated a CD envelope I'm sending to my friend Krysti.  If you are curious about how the Gocco works, here is a tutorial that was very helpful.  Most of the kit has english through out so it was pretty easy to work with, but its still a odd little mysterious machine which can be a tiny bit intimidating.  I'm so excited about it though and cant wait to buy more bulbs for it so I can make more screens!!

I also had finished up working on a little shirt I made waaaay back at the Indie Craft Experience this past November.  I had printed their little bird logo with craft paint on a shirt there for $5, and then saved it hoping I could figure out more to do with it when I got home.  I ended up painting little little pink hearts onto it, and stamping the letters "create" and then hand stitching floss around the print.  I like it a whole lot now, Its one of my new favorite shirts and I wore it to Yoga with Jenny this past Saturday as its first out of the house experience!  Zooom - I hope to maybe print and hand stitch more shirts now with my Gocco printer.

To wrap up this weekend up, this morning Chris and I went to the Atlanta Aquarium.  It was Chris' first time going, and he took some really good pictures, much cleaner and easier to view than the ones I posted on my flickr because his camera can capture things 10x better.  We saw an awesome leopard printed ray (I had never seen that there before!) and we also got to see a trainer playing with otters and teaching it how to sit and when to let her pet it.  After, we went over to Six Feet Under to eat Lunch, and then went across the street to explore the Oakfield Cemetary.  There were so many pretty tombstones and mausoleums, we both took lots of pictures.  I then proceeded to take a super long nap, and now I'm going to package up my new little cards, eat macaroni and cheese and prepare to make an etsy store! 

One last note - I recently got two new albums which I definitely recommend and want to share the word on: Janelle Monáe's Meteropolis and Stereo Total's Paris <> Berlin.  Stereo Total has been around for a while, but Janelle is a new artist who I think is fantastic and want to introduce more people to.  So check those out!