{i can't get anything done}

okay. i had a list. i made it on monday. i wanted to clean my room. get a new phone. make some new minis for a journaling project. catch up on my email. get some school shopping done before i leave for switzerland. among other things.

but absolutely nothing got done, so far. and i have to work today and tomorrow, which leaves me little time until the week is over. i'm starting to panic.

here's another confession: i am the world's biggest procrastinator.

this probably isn't hard for most of you to believe, seeing as though i ramble on about practically nothing in most of my blog posts. actually, right now i'm supposed to be drying my hair. and getting dressed. and attempting to clean my room. here's how my thought process went:

hooray! my makeup is done. ooh, looks good. i'll go into the bathroom to dry my hair. what's this? nobody's on the computer! let's check blogs. ho-hum, nothing updated. that's too bad. oh, no email either. ooh look! a rubber band! that reminds me of a video i saw!! let's go watch it again. oh yeah! that was on the distractions blog! i love that blog. blog. ooh, i was supposed to post on my blog. i made two minis, but i don't like them. so i might not take pictures. what the heck am i supposed to write about? i've done nothing! ooh, i'll post about that! here i go...

and in the meantime, my room is still messy and my hair is airdrying ugly-ish. *sigh*

does anyone else have this kind of problem? now that you've heard how weird my thoughts are, do you think i'm rather freakish?

hmm, that's okay. i kind of am. ;)

anyway...i've just decided i'll take pictures of one of the not-so-loved minis and show you tomorrow. and that's a promise. because i know that you all just pine for more of my ramblings when i'm stuck doing nothing at home. or scooping ice cream at work.

and for all of you people like me who are so easily distracted, here is that fabulous video that i remembered after seeing that rubber band. i kind of love this one.

power to the procrastinators!!

now i really need to go dry my hair.

{confessions...}

okay, i'm awol no longer! sorry i disappeared for a while...it's been quite a week ;) and i thought summer wasn't supposed to be busy? not a chance.

anyway, i thought i'd confess two things in today's post, to account for my missing-ness and my latest mini. and then maybe some randomness, just so you know me better (*chuckle*).

1) i am addicted to books
truly, i am. i devour books, and very quickly. it really is like a hunger, sometimes. that's what's been mainly distracting me this week :) i decided to jump on the bandwagon and try reading twilight, because target was having a sale. holy. stinking. cow! i read really fast, so i finished it in 6 hours on wednesday. i drove back to target on thursday, and bought new moon. i finished that one in 7 (it was a little slow in the middle...). i had work to do after i finished it friday morning, so i had to wait till yesterday to get eclipse. finished that one in 6, too. i am so surprised at how much i actually ended up enjoying them. because they're not really well written (yesssss i am an english nerdlette...thank my mother for that one...), but they're so creative! and addicting. i can't wait till next saturday to get breaking dawn! seriously. read them. and share with me book suggestions! :)

2) i tend to be a perfectionist.
okay, this is one of my bad-kate traits. i am kind of obsessed with not messing up. i work way too hard at school to get good grades-i actually exert so much energy into everything to make sure i don't let people down. or myself, for that matter. so naturally, this year (my junior year) is going to end up killing me unless i lighten up a little ;) (surprising, i'm actually really a very easy going person. i just like to do things really well.) so yeah. i'm kind of fearing failing on some decisions right now. i'm really trying to work through these faults, so i made a mini to get my thoughts out. really helped. you can see all the pictures on my flickr.


3) i'm probably taller than you.
i don't know if i've mentioned this before, but i'm over six feet tall. it's pretty useful. also annoying. if i ever meet you, please try to refrain from pointing out this observation. i really don't mind (that much) if you forget, but seriously. i get told at least once every day (a lot of times by strangers) "wow! you're tall!" i never do, but i'm always tempted to say "really? i've never noticed that before! you see, we don't own a mirror in my house..." yeah. but it can be totally fun (when i'm not sticking out like a sore thumb...), especially in shoe stores. and target. i always try on really high stilettos and walk around the store, pretending to look for my friends to ask about how they look. people are hilarious!! they have such funny reactions! little kids have pulled on their mothers' shirts, pointing, one guy tripped over a shelf one time, people have stopped conversations. it's hilarious. and in europe...well, i think i endangered people in the middle of the street who forgot to look where they were going, just gaping at me. ha! yeah. fun times.

4) i'm hardly ever sad.
it's true. i say this to people all the time, and they totally underestimate how i'm not lying. i really am hardly ever sad. i can get contemplative, and sometimes i do get down...but it only lasts five minutes, tops. i'm really quick to forgive, too...so i'm hardly ever mad at people either. i'm convinced it's totally God's doing. it's like that song i used to sing in sunday school..."i've got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart..." yeah. if i meet you, i'll like you. if you make me mad, i'll forget it in a second. but only if you promise not to call me tall (kidding!).

5) i talk a lot.
but you could probably figure this out from my ramblings. :)

okay, that's it for today. ciao!

{lately...}

so, as i promised, here's a post dedicated to what i've been inspired by lately. it's kind of a hodge-podge, so try to stay with me! ;) (i'm sure you'll have no trouble...)

1) the proust questionnaire from jayson home & garden

i love this little guy. okay, so mainly i love the color of the cover, but the idea of journaling by answering questions really appeals to me. i'm working on a mini that will entertain this idea. you'll see that pretty soon.

2) the plastic fantastic collection from studio jspr

okay, no picture for this one, but seriously. check it out. how fabulous are those chairs? and the couch? i mean, look at the colors! if i had more room in my bedroom (and money...) i would so get a white or pink one.

3) this picture by daffie @ flickr

wow. i can't get enough of this. have you noticed how i really like pink? and this camera. swoon.

4) the heidi merrick fall collection

i know this has been a big one going around, but if you haven't seen it already, go look. i love it. it totally speaks for itself.

5) story beads by fieldandsea

okay, seriously. how genius is this? she wrote a story, cut it into lines, and made beads out of it. i just love the idea. i've got to get me some of these.

6) the visual dictionary

this whole idea is fantastic to me. people take pictures of words and send them into this site, which makes a dictionary out of the images. i want to make some moo cards out of these and do a magnetic poetry type thing.

yeah, so that's some of what i've been loving lately. i could go on and on but figured possibly i should stop. i'll do another one of these later.

oh! one more thing! the fantastic fashionistas over at SIS featured two of my minis on the catwalk this week! i'm totally freaking out. i just wanted to thank everyone over there for their fantastic comments and encouragements. you're the best!

till tomorrow, ciao!

{mamma mia!}

hooooo boy! just saw the new mamma mia movie with my chicas today. oh my goodness gracious, i think i'm in love! it was completely fantastic. i'm pretty sure half the theatre absolutely hates me because i was just shrieking with laughter the entire time. the music of abba is totally fantastic, too-i just can't get it out of my head! the above clip was one of my faves, because i just got a kick out of the dancing on the dock. i know it's not good resolution, but seriously. it. was. hilarious. go run to the theatre now!! actually, no. read this post first and then go.

i also made a layout last night for the one little word challenge. the word this week was "if", so i found a bunch of quotes (reoccuring theme with me!) and whipped up something simple really fast. my handwriting was kind of wonky, but i am a firm believer that the imperfections of something make it better. so my quirky little lo is growing on me (i absolutely hated it at first).

i also promised to post things that were inspiring me lately, but i'm going to have to do that tomorrow. so that's something to look forward to! i'll have another mini coming later this week. so keep reading! and i absolutely adore all of your encouraging comments. everyone reading this is so nice! i didn't even expect any readers other than my mother after only a month of blogging. it's sort of unfathomable. *blows a big kiss*

okay, till tomorrow! ciao.

{thinking...about tonight!!}

sooo...i got creative this morning! i dreamed up a babysitting job. i woke up early early (very hard, since it was raining and rather darkish) to go and babysit, but apparantly it was the wrong day. not one person was up, and i woke them all up. and i embarassed myself. apparantly i was supposed to babysit them two weeks from now, or something. ga. that is just so like me!

but i also got creative in the scrapping department. made myself a little journal to commemerate this week where i decided to just be. it's a journal of all that i have been thinking about this week. i really wanted to use the sewing machine, so i whipped up a bobbin and sewed most of the pages in some way or another. i used that fantastic bag from the thrift shop as the cover. like?

you can see the rest on my flickr. link is on the left. it was totally fun to make. took up a good three hours of my morning :)

but now onto my night. i am going to the american idol concert tonight!! i'm totally excited! my family is totally into reality television. it's totally sad, i know, but we are. this is one of our faves, so the chicas in our fam are going with one of my friends and her mom. ack! it's going to be fab! plus also i love jason castro and can't wait to get a picture of him... ;)

it's going to be fantastic! i'll post pictures tomorrow and give links to where i've been inspired lately. till then, ciao!

{how many can you think of?}

i'd kind of been in a creative slump for a while, but i finally dragged myself to my desk today to make something. i have a long list of projects i want to do sitting there, but seeing as though the week is almost over i decided to do the prompt from the art is found. which is about notebook paper. which i love.

i took eight pieces and layered them to do a lo and then decided i'd encompass one of my own challenges in there. i do these things from time to time to get my creativity going where i set a creative goal for myself. this time i wanted to think of 50 unique things one could do with notebook paper. so i went to town and wrote a list on the layered pieces of paper and added some envelopes for texture/dimension. it's not the best thing i've ever made, but i really had a fun time thinking up all of the different things one could do with paper. so i kind of love it.

how many can you think of?

if you want to know what it says, i can write the list here. but it would take a while and frankly, i don't have the energy at this moment. next i'm going to work on a yes/no mini. i think this should be amusing. i'm also going to make some more atc's to put into my quote book. this will come probably saturday since i have to work tomorrow.

until then, ciao! :)

oh wait! did you see project runway last night? what did you think?? i loved it besides the fact that they recycled a challenge and let two weirdos stay. but other than that it was a pretty inspiring episode. i love recycling to make art! especially how kelly did the bleaching on that vacuum bag. pure. genius.

okay now i leave you.

{*insert excited shriek here*}

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
that is me releasing all the utter fabulousness from my day into this post. did you feel it? cuz that was quite a strong "ah". very. very. strong. it was a good day. here is a recap:

1)i got my drivers license! finally. and i mean, finally! not only have i had my permit for over a year, but also i've been sixteen for four months. it's really about time. plus remember yesterday when i told you that i didn't have my night hours? so i went last night with my dad to drive around for two hours (we got pulled over by the police in a parking lot where i was paralell parking. i was embarassed. my dad got a kick out of it. so did the police. the cop and my dad were making fun of my complete lack of skills. i was mortified then, but now that i think back on it, it probably was one of the more hilarious experiences of my life. seriously. because i was quite a site, seeing as though my dad is a terrible paralell parking teacher!), so that this morning we could go to the dmv to get my license. we get there after a twenty minute drive and realize oh! i left all the paperwork on the island of the kitchen! silly me! soooo after another hour, we get back. to make a long story short, i am now a proud carrier of a certified license from the secretary of state. hooray! *bows to all the fake applause*

2) i got four shirts from a plato's closet for twenty three dollars. if you don't know what that is, it's this totally cool place that carries extra clothes from stores like hollister, forever twenty one, american eagle, etc. or donations from girls with cute clothes who don't want them anymore. it was totally great. i am so excited to wear all those things. is it possible to wear four shirts at once? plus the one i got from american eagle after that? i wish there was. i love new clothes.

3) we had home run in pizza while watching jon and kate plus eight for dinner. need i say more?

okay so those were the highlights. but when i checked my email just now, the day got even better!!! ooh i am excited.

so sistv is starting their project catwalk tonight!!!!!! piggy backing off of the challenges for project runway (best. show. ever!!!!) which is also starting tonight! ooooh in ten minutes! i'd bettere wrap this up. so everyone, you need to read the challenge at ten tonight and email your work of pure stylish art within 72 hours. i will show you mine tomorrow night. and also ramble needlessly about the awesome designs coming out of project runway.

thank you for listening to me ramble away. i'm so happy right now watching aiden and leah pat alligators on the television while sketching project ideas that i just can't think straight. i hope you find it adorably cute instead of annoying, which i am fearing. i promise promise tomorrow's post will make up for it.

dude, i am so excited. five minutes left!

ciao.

*******edited************
okay so i was feeling totally like a loser blogger so i decided that i would give you a couple of links. happy now? :)
1)quizilla: this keeps me entertained for far too long.
2)flip: i love. i've made some seriously sweet stuff on here. and gotten total fashion inspiration from all over.
3)sis: go and start challenges!!
4)project runway: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!
5)papa louie: bahahahaha. another one of those stupid websites that keeps me entertained.
6)polyvore: i. love. this. site. so. much. true true true love.

there. have i redeemed myself at least a tiny bit?

********edited again************
just realized that licsense is spelled license. mom, please don't kill me. holy cow, maybe i do need to go back to school. ack.

ciao for real!

{good day}

okay okay okay. i lied. sort of. i said i'd try to post every day this week. i fully could have done so yesterday, but i really didn't have the energy. because it was like midnight. and i was very very sad.

i was sad because i was supposed to go this morning to get my driver's licsense. but last night i took a tumble down the stairs, ripped my social security card, and then realized that i was short two night driving hours to get my licsense. so obviously we had some work to do today. i was very mad at my parents for making me be honest about my hours, but okay, i guess i see how lying to the government might be sort of an issue. oh well. tonight i guess i will drive around town for two hours. oh joyous.

but today turned out to be quite a fantastic day! my friends are all back from their vacations, so we got together and had just a simply fantastic time at katie's house. i tried a wii for the first time, and was totally hooked to this racing cows game. oh and the boxing. but especially the one with the cows. because seriously, could there be anything more funny than watching this cartoon guy with an afro kick his legs up on the back of a cow every time the cow hit a scarecrow or jumped a hurdle? or watching your totally hilarious and awesome friends make crazy weird movements when trying to seriously maime the other person on virtual boxing? (we're talking seriously hilarious movements. seriously.) umm, no. i didn't think so. it was entertaining in every sense of the word.

also this morning i got this email from sistv about the class (unpredictable requests) held next week by the totally awesome ashley wren (hooray hooray hooray!!!), and i totally signed up. for twenty dollars for ten days, it's totally worth it. so excited! i've never looked forward to a monday before. so seriously, anyone who reads this (probably not that many people yet, but still), sign up here! i totally can't wait to see what comes out of that class.

and finally, like a cherry on the top of my good day, my ap us history test scores finally came in the mail. i was totally totally totally nervous, becuase i remembered how stinking hard the test was, and how scattered all of my essays were, and how wrong all of my answers seemed, but...(drumroll please...) i got a four!! a four!!!!! (that's really good if you didn't know about ap scoring.) i was so happy. am still happy. wow.

so now to the pictures. another great thing that happened last night was one of my friend's dad (who works for a print company) gave me all of these fantastic paper sample books their company gets inundated with from wausau papers. they cost like 9 dollars normally. i was so incredibly happy and excited. the colors, shapes, and textures are fabulous.

also, like i promised, some sketch book snapshots. there's a game i played with my friend marilyn on a plane, and some other random doodles i did. it's more of a doodle book. i love drawing.

wow, that was a long post! anyway, i hope your days are all fantastic! until tomorrow...ciao.

{longish post coming your way}

i've got a lot of ground to cover in this post, seeing as though it's been a couple of days. i went up to wisconsin to get my little sister (who i haven't seen in a month!) from camp, and i had a great time re-living the memories from when i was a camper. i feel totally old, even though i'm totally not, because it seems like that was just me, like last year. riding up to camp, eating so many m&ms i got sick, missing home like crazy, marvelling at the beauty of creation, getting pelted with hail, shooting a gun (they trusted me??!!), camping (um...yuck), missing camp like crazy when i got home. it made me a little sad. but not too much.

anyway, i got some great pictures of the boats there, among other things. i got this one picture of an otter that really made me laugh (what is it about otters that is so funny? am i the only one with this problem?), but i didn't upload it. i took way a lot of pictures. especially at the hotel pool that night with my friend and sister...yeah. you can't see those either. but you can see some of the boats! because they were so colorful and pretty.



then i came home and made a journal from my scrap box. my scrap box is huge and has many many many many many random pieces of paper in there. i love it probably most out of all my supplies. i meant for it just to be beautiful and reflective, but it turned out to be beautiful, reflective, and pretty personal. so i decided not to take pictures of all the pages. it felt so great to get some journaling done, it's been a while. i did decide to take pictures of the cover, though :)

i made it out of: scraps of patterned paper, a business card, catalog pages, an invoice, a page of a french map, a greeting card, an envelope, a library card, an awesome pink playing card, post it notes, my favorite post card, an index card, and a 3d coloring book page. i love it. i'm going to make another one, later, and take pictures of the blank pages. maybe i'll even give it away.

you can see the rest of the photos from this weekend on my flickr.

i'll try to post every day this week, but no promises. i'm working on a pretty great project now that you can definitely see. plus also i think it's time you took a look at my sketch book. so pictures are coming your way, too. so until tomorrow, ciao!

{accidental adventure day!}

so today i woke up thinking i will make a mini-journal today using all of the great paper i gathered from around the house at midnight last night! okay, maybe not in so many words, but that's fully what i planned to do. it hasn't happened. yet.

but! i went on an unplanned adventure downtown with my sister today and came back with some fantastic stuff from thrift stores. such as vintage simplicity/mccalls patterns, some various scraps of paper for journals, a gorgeous purple bracelet i'm kind of obsessed with, and some stolen goods from the library. yes, stolen.

see, i've been looking and looking for old due date cards all over etsy and the internet, but i have found none. and i can't get them from our library anymore because we went *gasp* digital last year (meaning that we have computer chips inside our books for checkout instead of cards) and i haven't seen those little cards in a long time. sadly. if only i had been a smart little child and taken every single card out from the books i checked out! but of course i never thought i'd be a scrapper back then.

anyway, we went up to the second floor and poured through all of the books no one ever reads, like the tolstoy/aristotle collections. this worked really well, because there were a lot of forgotten cards with hardly any stamps on them because seriously, who ever looks at those books? (sorry if you're some kind of philosophy lover...) i basically squealed every time i found one, and felt such a rush as i shoved them into my bag.

okay, i can see how that is totally lame. honestly, i need to find a different way to rebel.

i also found random scraps of paper/bookmarks in the books up there, so i pilfered those, too. i didn't take pictures of them because some of them are a little creepish (such as this possessed-looking kitty with a bottle. i know. it's weird.) but it was totally more fun than it should have been. and we totally made the librarian up there really mad. so i guess that means our mission was a success.

and that's not the end to the fun, either, because when i got home, there was a crisis concerning the mail. my youngest sister is at camp right now, and her rare letters are a very celebrated occasion at our house. but today my mom happened to drop one of them under our porch, through one of those teeny tiny slats, and we could not for the life of us get it out.

we eventually had to tape a dust pan to the end of a rake, break a window in our laundry room, cut the screen with a razor, and shove my sister in there with the rake to try and get it out. it was entirely the most amusing sight i have witnessed this entire summer. i'm just thankful my mom got it on video camera.

that book hasn't gotten made yet. and i'm going to wisconsin tomorrow for a few days, so it might be a while till you get to see pictures. sorry!

oh well, i love not doing much in july. and random adventures. and summer. and shopping. and rakes. and purple bracelets. and stealing library cards. and arnold palmers. and paper. and dustpans.

basically, i just love.

ciao!

{one fine wire}

my head was all in a jumble today. i felt like there were about a gajillion things on my mind (okay, actually not a number, but you catch my drift) all waiting to burst out at once. my head had one little rest when some of my favorite girls came overfor a couple of hours to watch sydney white and the seven dorks (again! oh how i adore that movie!), but as soon as they left it started hammering again (like seriously, hammering. am i the only one who feels like gnomes pound away at my head with little hammers? okay, so maybe i am the only one).

so needless to say, i was absolutely stir crazy the rest of the day...until i was playing double solitare with my sister (which gets pretty heated in this house, let me tell you, because i am the reigning champion and everyone tries very hard to beat me). i actually wasn't doing so good until my mom popped one of my favorite cd's into the stereo system (colbie caillat!!) and one fine wire started to play.

it was like a miracle. it totally summed up how i had been feeling all day, so as soon as i whooped my sister's toosh at our game i dashed to my room, shoved aside the junk from my other projects, and whipped up this baby. i wanted something really simple, really clean cut--to ease my mind and make it easy on my eyes next time my brain was driving me crazy. i totally met that goal--i used no glue (only staples), and only one catalogue! my toast catalogue came while i was in costa rica, and i had been swooning over the pages since friday...so its pages became every single page of my book. except for the cover, which came from my stash of vintage sheet music:

you can see the rest on my flickr.

please excuse the photo quality--it's dark out here and i don't have great lighting in my room. and i know it's not fancy, but it was perfect for what i needed. my mind is totally at ease now. so if you're undergoing some serious brain trauma right now, don't freak. put colbie on your ipod and you'll be fine in no time.

ciao.

{flickr faves}

well, today was sort of a non-productive day. i had to work today (ga!), so that should explain a lot. who ever knew that scooping ice cream could be so tiring? or boring? oh how i wish i worked at the library.

but that is a different story.

i'm absolutely fine with my current state of unproductiveness, since i'm still recovering from my 28-hour travel day on thursday/friday (i think i'll be using this excuse for a while, since it sounds so shocking coming out of a sixteen year old's mouth. isn't it the kind of thing you'd expect a hotsy-totsy guy in a business suit with a blackberry and bluetooth to say? i like to shake things up). i'm totally at peace right now, so that's all good (obviously).

in the creative department, i've started on one of the projects i plotted out on the plane while gaping at a demonic chihuahua (how do you spell that?!), but it's nothing i want to photograph yet. hopefully in the next few days, but i promise nothing. i'm currently living up to the teenage stereotype of getting nothing done (and i kinda like it).

in the meantime, while you await my fantastic creations (typed with sarcastic fingers), i decided i'd share with you some of my favorites on flickr. i absolutely adore flickr. have i mentioned this before? no? well i do. i could spend hours upon hours drinking in all of the photographs i wish i took. maybe someday i could be that good...

these are my current faves, mainly because of the colors:


you can see who took all of them on my flickr. hopefully drinking in all the lovliness will tide you over till i can show you some of my own creations.

until then, ciao!

{i'm back!}

and in one piece (barely)! costa rica was the absolute best trip of my entire life. i can't even think of where to begin to write about it (and certainly can't write it all!) so i'll start with some pictures.

these are some of the fantastic kids i got to teach the first week. my spanish skillz came in handy, but the fact that all of the kids are learning english kind of helped (a lot!). costa rica is on a different season schedule than those of us north of the equator (they're in winter right now!), so they had their winter break the second week. the girl in the middle of the last picture cried and cried when i left. she kept saying "kate, you're leaving me? i don't want you to go! don't leave me." it made me cry. i miss all of them so much!
i went to a zoo, and the parrot wasn't in a cage. it was pretty much amazing. when you spoke to it, it said "hola!", so i thought it deserved a space on the post. plus also i really liked the colors ;)

we did construction our second week. we dug ditches (shown here) that took forever, and i had a run in with a cement mixer we "fondly" called gordita (little fat woman, for those of you without spanish skillage). i have many bruises and sore muscles to show for all of this. plus a cement sidewalk and ditches for pipes. hooray!

costa rica was incredibly beautiful, and so were the people. even in the poorest parts of the city, eveyone was so welcoming and kindhearted. i could totally see the work of God everywhere. i felt so close to Him there-man. it was just the most amazing thing ever. i wasn't homesick once (much to my surprise {and my parents' dismay!}) and bawled when we left (our plane was delayed and we had a 28 hour travel day coming home with 4 hours of sleep, so i guess that's what i get!). i want to be a teacher when i grow up, and i can totally see myself teaching english on the missions field there. more on this later, but i just feel so full of spirit right now. best experience of my life.

in the creative department, i sketched project ideas out the whole trip. a couple of things are in the works. actually, many things. expect an influx of pictures coming soon!

i miss costa rica terribly, but it's good to be home.

ciao!