{goodbye, USA}

no pictures today! hope you can live with all the pain and suffering of a tired girl's ramblings.

so, i leave tomorrow morning (at 3 am) for my big missions trip to costa rica. i was planning on making a cutsy little collage to take a picture of (to say goodbye, and all that, to my nonexistant readers), but i've been packing all day. and i have to go to work soon. it's not going to happen. anyway, after wrestling with suitcases all day long and trying to round all of the neccessities up, i am beat. work is not going to be pretty.

i felt like i should do something for my readers who don't exist, so i decided to post some of my favorite random sites. i take such pleasure from randomness! *insert spontaneous hooray here* hope you enjoy:

1) bembo's zoo: hooray! funny animals made out of letters! clever. clever.
2) sweet gifs: wow. this is totally pointless, but very creative. and colorful. and rather impressive. ooh, i love the guy with the glow in the dark glasses! how many are there, anyway?
3) human clock: bahahahahaha. i just like this utter pointlessness and inspiration. what time is it, anyway?
4) stripe generator: perfect for knitting projects. or just for nothing. but still clever!
5) free rice: great idea. good way to get your vocab up. pile up that rice, will you?
6) internet archive of books: exactly. i love it. this link is to the children's section. somewhere around here you can even see old french fairytales. i love this!!

hopefully that will keep you entertained till i get back.

see you on july 3rd! ciao.

{hodge podge}

phew. these last few days have gone by in such a blur. so many things to do! and truthfully, i should be packing right now, but seeing as though procrastination is my middle name, i guess i'll blog about what i have been doing and what i should be doing. i should be getting ready for my trip on sunday. i have to leave at three in the morning (a scandal, i think, even for adults--even more so for those of us under twenty who don't function fully until 10ish) to catch our plane. and i have to bring two suitcases. i must admit, normally i love my suitcases (hello, pink!), but right now they are talking to me from my bedroom and i am trying to drown them out. i got them very cheap at tj maxx (hooray! bargain!), and they have seen me through some exciting adventures, to say the least. but i am not a fan of them right now. this is why i took such a hideous picture of them:

in other random news, i made another little card for my quote book. i don't like this one so much, but i have this thing where i won't throw anything i make away. hopefully i can think of something better for the next slot. i'm thinking layers of paint and a paper bag (*evil laugh here*).

also, on thursday, my littlest sister and i went to the library to stock up on reading materials for my trip. there's this gorgeous park next to it that i adore. i have had many...erm...interesting experiences in the fountain in the center (*another evil laugh here*). the reading nook (atleast for me!) was especially appealing that day. i wish i were there right now instead of putting off packing.

okay, this has been a pretty cruddy post. that's what i get for deciding to do anything but pack. i'll leave you with a random self-portrait i took on wednesday. this one makes me laugh. i went totally overboard with the editing, but i don't care!gotta love taking pictures of yourself in your bathroom mirror! ciao.

oh! i lied. one thing more. millions of thanks to this girl who is amazing. hers is probably my favorite blog evah! thanks for everything, kara!

{project prompt} & {getting ready}

so i have a confession. i've never actually made anything for a prompt before. so that project that i mentioned yesterday (for the art is found) was a totally new experience for me, but yes, it did get done! in one day, no less (this is a rareity, but if it didn't get done today or tomorrow it wasn't going to get done at all). i wasn't expecting to like what i made, but surprises of surprises, i did! i was really drawn to the colors in the boden catalogs i saved (love love love!), so i decided to do a mini on my obsession with color. the hardest part, i think, was the button and ribbon, inspired by a journal i gave my sisses for christmas two years ago from ten thousand villages (which, by the way, is a totally cool company you should fully check out). so here are some of the pictures (the rest are on my flickr):

in other news, i went to target today to get ready for my trip! hooray, everything is finally falling into place. the most hilarious part of the day was how we decided to make my bed (since i am not going to get one there!) so that it could fit into my suitcase-we bought a floaty raft for my mattress and then a cheap throw pillow for couches for my head. at least i color coordinated them! *sigh* this is going to be a memorable trip. ciao.

{feeling artsy}

i love summer. finally, time to do things. namely, artsy things. *sigh*. i was super excited this morning when my rss feed demanded that i poke over to the art is found (don't rss feeds seem a bit...forceful, sometimes? with that threatening bold typeface?), one of my favorite scrap prompt blogs. this one is about (my favorites!) magazines and catalogs, which are basically all i use ever. i like finding my paper rather than buying it-much more inspiring (and cost effective, mainly. i don't have a whole lot of money to spend on paper if i want to clothe myself). yeah, so i pretty much freaked out and started coming up with ideas. i immediately got out part of my stash and started ripping.

i also have a lot of inspiration bouncing around in my mind, waiting to actually come out as projects, but i'm starting a few things. one of them is a little atc mini using a perfect-sized business card holder from target (woot woot!). it's about quotes. i worked a little on it yesterday. i'll post the end result up, eventually.

i'm also toying with the idea of starting my quilt again (post on this comes later), but that will have to happen after i get back from costa rica (i leave on sunday. yikes, i am so not ready!). i'll leave you with a picture of the random strawberry patch found growing by our fence. ciao!

{hello, i'm kate} & {a creative sunday}

hi there.

i've wanted a blog for a long time, but the time never seemed right. probably because i am still a teenager, and blogs seem to be for the adults who know what they're doing. i'm not entirely convinced that anyone ever knows exactly what they're doing, so i think i've got a pretty good shot at getting this right.

whatever that means.

anyway, i'm kate. i'm young, lively, creative, and pretty complicated. that's why i like to make things, to get everything out that's pounding away in my head. i draw, paint, scrap, sew, embroider, among other things-you name it, i've tried it. i hope to use this blog to hold me accountable to make things more often. oh, and i like to talk. a lot. most of my posts will probably be me rambling on about nothing. if we were talking, though, i promise i'd entertain you with amusing facial expressions (my specialty). so try to picture that as you read, if possible (basically think of a girl making a fool out of herself).

when i said before that i wanted to make this blog to hold me accountable to create things, i meant it. and it's already working because i was pretty creative today (since our power was out for 7 hours and i didn't have the computer to distract me). i made a mini journal and a blog header for my mom. you can see all of these on my flickr, hopefully in better resolution. but maybe i did it wrong. okay, here's where i show you the pictures and let you rest your eyes. i hope all of you people (meaning basically just my mom since no one else will read this yet) have a lovely rest of the night. all 20 minutes worth. i need to go to bed.