Superhero Hair

Three of the best things in the world, sculpted out of hair. Tell me I'm not a genius. Not to mention master hairstylist. 

superman

batman

avengers

Anastasia

My friend Rose and I seem to be going on a Disney spree. In the past few weeks, we've watched Sleeping Beauty, Tarzan (for the first time), Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Hercules (also for the first time), and now Anastasia.

On the Anastasia DVD special features are four drawing tutorials. I did 3 out of the four:

Anastasia

Dimitri

Bartok

Well. My favorite, needless to say, is Bartok, who is going insane over a lollipop. Anastasia looked like a monkey until the next to last step (she still does look a little simian). And Dimitri... well, he's not too, too bad. The artist was really into using angular lines to make him look rough and muscular, and his crooked nose apparently keeps him from being overly handsome. In my drawing, it's more his overall appearance that keeps him from being handsome at all. His, as Rose calls it, Leonardo DiCaprio hair needs a little work.

There was also a tutorial for Rasputin, but it looked nothing like Rasputin. More like a drunk goblin with a hand bigger than his face. 

Thank heavens I wasn't on the drawing crew for that movie! 

Romeo and Juliet - Together (and Alive!) At Last

I would say that the main good thing about this book by Avi is it's funniness. Some parts of it were so amusing that I was unable to speak for several minutes, even though somebody was trying to ask me a question. 

The two names Romeo and Juliet cry out romance from a mile away. They also cry out Shakespeare, but mostly romance. 

So you can imagine quite easily that Romeo and Juliet- Together (and Alive!) At Last is a romance novel. About middle schoolers putting on a play (that takes place mostly in Italian but also in a few other places, as they say in the book) to bring together two of their classmates who are too shy to look at each other. 

It's short- only about 150 pages or less, and easy to read. I was done with it in two days, reading it only at night. I'd give it three out of five stars– three stars for hilarity. 

Breakfast

Another short film- not stop motion this time. Live action. I call it: Breakfast

Kinda wonky, but it was just practice. 

Wood Burned Cookies

My mother has a wood burning clay oven in our back yard. It is in this oven that she bakes her amazing sourdough bread and, whenever she fires it up, cooks a roast or some chicken for dinner. Also, her daughters have taken to baking chocolate chip cookies in the oven.

Generally, it's my sister Rebecca who bakes the cookies. They always turn out perfectly, taste better than any other chocolate chip cookie under the sun, and only take a couple of minutes to cook due to the extreme heat of the oven. 

This time, I made the cookies. I wasn't so lucky as to have perfect cookies. Exploded cookies is closer to the truth.

But hey, they still taste good. I think the picture enhances their appearance as well. 

Next time, I will succeed. Or rather, next time I'll let Rebecca take control of The Bakery. 

The Bakery

Last week or so, at dinner, two of my three sisters suggested a remodeling of our 'Garden Room.' The Garden Room, I suppose, used to be a place of gardening and plants. But for as long as I can remember, it's been the place where my mom bakes bread.

This is how the more redone side of the room looks now. I unfortunately neglected to take a picture of how the room looked before. Imagine an off-white wall with none of the shelving. 

The first day, we painted the walls. We painted one wall red, and the other three and a half (I'm allowing room for doorways and stuff) the same creamy white they were before. 

Before we got to work on the red wall, we gave it a little decoration. 

Just to show our fandom. By the way, we redid this room before DKR came out. 

After the first layer of paint, you could still see traces of Batman

It's a good thing we still had another can and a half of paint. 

I took the initiative to bake a snack. What other than our favorite, chocolate chip cookies? 

I somehow managed to make one of the cookies without any chocolate chips, so our dog Homer got that one. He loved it. His very first whole cookie. He did have some trouble getting it off the ground...

On day 2, my two sisters installed the shelves. I think. I might be getting my dates a little mixed up. But I think it was day two. I didn't help with this at all. 

On day 3: Ikea. We obviously had to buy new jars and containers for all of our baking supplies. 

I loved Ikea. Best place in the world. My new life goal is to get a 24 hour job there. The dozens of bedrooms and kitchens put of display on the second floor made me feel like I was in heaven. Who would have though pulling out every drawer in a model kitchen could be so much fun? I also took advantage of the beds in the mock bedrooms. Very comfortable. I really could live there. They even have a restaurant! 

That evening, we put everything in the room, and voila, we have the newly renamed Bakery! 

Oh, the beauty of it! 

A Bat of Yarn

Crochet is definitely getting more love from me these days. Having never designed a crochet pattern that's more complicated than straight right to left rows, I decided I wanted to crochet the Batman logo. How hard could it be, after all? It's just a bat. 

vs

I'd say I did an awesome job. Obviously (Well, I hope obviously) it's the newer Batman logo, which I find much neater and more aesthetically pleasing than the original. My sister Rebecca certainly thought so. ("Oh my gosh, did you see what Anna made? Without even using a pattern?")

I'll post the pattern when I get it on paper in a way that makes sense, and once I  I'm not much of a crocheter, so bear with me if the pattern makes no sense and is impossible to follow...

curls!

My hair is very straight. My hair is also beautiful, gorgeous, amazing, thick, and the envy of many, as my sisters tell me multiple times daily. I try not to be vain.

But I have now discovered a hairstyle that, when taken out, leaves my hair in gorgeous curls that last more than the usual five minutes granted by the curling iron.

Okay, so it's not that curly, but it you know me (or rather, my hair) you know that that is more curly than my hair has ever been. Except when I put it in those tiny braids for a night and it comes out super frizzy and awful in the morning, even though I don't brush it. Those little braids are very deceiving. 

The trick is a french braid with the end rolled into a bun. I had it in for only an hour or two today, and when I took it out, voila! Then I put the braid back in and left it till tonight, and was rewarded again. Who knows how long my hair will remain curly; half an hour at best.

As I said, my hair is very straight. 

Poster Revamp

Earlier today my dog Homer starred in the poster of the Dark Knight Rises. With the help of my friend Rose and her PC (the only flaw in Macs is that they don't have Paint) I have given the poster some new flair:

Batman! 

Crochet Hooks

The prototype for this had only one weakness: it's tendency to fall over whenever I put something heavier than a single crochet hook in it. 

This version is just a crocheted cover for a glass jar to hold my crochet hooks. Much better. 

I did about half of it in single crochet, and then did a couple of rounds in double crochet, and finished it off with those little rounds that you put on crochet flowers. I added the hot pink bow on a whim, and even though it looks kind of weird with the burgundy yarn, it fits in my room. 

Finally, a successful improv crochet project!