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Elvish style jewlery

So... I have always loved the clothing and jewelry in The Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and other movies similar to those. I've always especially loved the Elven style. I fact, I love everything Elvish. I am hoping to make an Elven dress if we can get the supplies. It would be blue and silver... Anyway, I have always wanted Elvish style jewelry. Way back in 5th grade, I got an Evenstar necklace (for $3, when it normally was $10!)




(It's not as nice as this one- this is the "official" $100 diamond one)

I also love "medieval" "fairy" or "Celtic" style jewlery, which I dub as "Elven" since it really looks alot like it. :)

Since it is virtually impossible to find anything like this in Rolla, and even if you did, it would probably be very expensive, I decided I would try to make some for myself. I HATE WAL-MART. Let me say that again: I HATE WAL-MART. They took away 3/4 of their fabric, but their worst transgression is the fact that they have deprived their art section of anything of worth. Once upon a time you could find beads and wire, embroderiy floss, random craft sets, paints of all kinds, etc. Now all you can find are: premade bead necklaces, some scrapbook supplies, cheap kids crafts sets, and wedding decorations. I HATE WAL-MART.

To get to my point: There are no other craft supply/hobby stores in Rolla that I know of. (Unless you count that moldy one downtown). I had to deal with a small Ziplock baggie of leftover beads from old projects and thin floral wire. At a garage sale I found a small spool of thicker wire, but I already use it up in these projects... Dad had a pair of needlenose pliars that are really helpful.

My first attempt that didn't fall apart:

 

I was actually fairly proud of this next creation. I'm calling it an ear cuff. Sounds funny, I know, but what else should I call it?

Here is how it is worn:

(random girly thing- my hair looks curly in that picture! And not super frizzy... :P)
I think you would probably only wear one of these, and you can wear earrings with it, too.

I made these before I made the ear cuff I made "earrings" for Adelynn. She simply loves dress up and has been deploring the fact that her ears aren't peirced (keep delporing for 5 more years, Rosie!)

 

I also made a rock necklace:

This was laying on my desk, and so I just had to take a picture of it. I can't claim credit for this one: Rebecca made it. :)

 

Maybe next time I should lay a piece of white paper underneath when I take the picture...

Crocheting

Guess what I've recently fallen in love with? Crocheting.

The above are pictures of my in my beret. :) It was my second real crochet project. Its so fun! It was also the very first time I used an actual crochet pattern. I used an old 1936 pattern I found online. It is very simple and easy:

Beret

Ch. 3, join in a ring.

Row 1: 6 single crochet in ring. = 6 sc's

Row 2: 2 single crochet in each stitch. =12 sc's

Row 3: *Increase one by working 2 single crochet in next stitch, 1 single crochet in the next stitch. Repeat from * around Row. =18 sc's

Row 4: *2 single crochet in next stitch, 1 single crochet in each of the next 2 sts, repeat from * around row. =24 sc's

Continue to increase in this manner (1 extra stitch in every x, x+1, x+2, etc.) 6 times in each row, until work measures 10 inches in diameter. (You have just crocheted a circle). Work even for 1 inch. Then decrease by skipping every 10th st. in each row until hat fits desired head size. Work 2 rows even. Break yarn and fasten.-Minerva Yarns 1936

 

Nick looks like a mushroom from Mario Brothers in it. :) I had to really twist his arm just to let me take this picture.

 

It didn't take any arm twisting for Marcus to wear the hat! He actually stole it off my head. He is so cute!

What was really funny was that I wore it to garage sales this weekend. Some random lady asked if I had made it, and asked me for the pattern!

Mom thinks I should put a pom-pom on it. :P

Adelynn, of course, had to have a hat, too. As has been the case with most of my projects, I simply made it up as I went along, the result being that it looks very 70's and is lopsided. :) 

She loves it, though.

 

So does Marcus, apparently.

I had made William a Gryffindor scarf for his birthday. Of course, Nick had to have something, too. So I made him a hat (which takes 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of the time, lol) Here is William wearing his scarf and commandeering Nick's hat:

School

So, who is excited about the school year? I was... until I began. :P My subjects are pretty fascinating, but man do they take forever! I guess that is why it is called high school. I am three weeks into the school year so far.

I am using Kolbe Academy, pursuing the Summa Diploma, and doing Honors in just about everything. Thankfully Honors is not that much harder than regular classes. I have to write an extra essay per week per subject. Thankfully I can scribble an essay in about half an hour.

Here are my subjects:

History (Ancient Greek)

Literature (Ancient Greek)

Theology- Bible studies and alot of reading from the Cathechism

Biology

Geometry

English (Composition and Rhetoric)

Latin 2


I am reading the entire Histories by Herodotus in the first quarter. >:( He is an author from the ancient Greeks. Every few paragraphs, he goes off on wild tangents and you can never follow him. Hopefully the other Ancient Greek texts I will study for history will not be so annoying.

First quarter I am also reading another entire book- the Iliad. I like it much better than Histories. Of course, being Homer, it draaaaaaaags, and it is hard to follow, but at least everything is written chronologically!

Theology is very enjoyable so far. I have to read a ton of encylicals (sometimes fun, sometimes looooong). So far I have been learning about the history of the Bible- how it was written, and the different translations, etc.

Biology is facinating. Not as much as Physics was. ;) But it is soooooo much better than chemistry. I was really upset when the first chapter in the Biology book was a review on chemisty. Now I am studying the cell. Yay! Tons of memorizing, though.

So far in geometry I have not actually done geometry. Rather I am doing conditional statements and sylogisms and what not (major deja vu from Logic class). This week I started on proofs.

English= ultra easy. Therefore, English= very fun. :) Yes, I am lazy...

I have not begun Latin yet. I was a year ahead last year, but got very confused and tired of teaching myself. Mom signed me up for Memoria Press' online class, using the same book and timeframe that Kolbe does. It starts in a week or two.


I know I am doing a ton of complaining... its really not that difficult *cough* *cough* and I am studying some very interesting things.

Glasses

William now has glasses! He refuses to let me take a picture of him wearing them (he declares that he hates them) but rest assured that they look very handsome on him!

New Background, by Yours Truly

We just installed Corel Paintshop Pro Photo X2 on the kids computer! Dad had had it on his work one and transferred it. The new header and background you see are created entirely by me! I hope you like it!
I "simply" created a 2"x6" picture for the header. For the background, I used the instructions found at The Cutest Blog on the Block Many of you use their free backgrounds, but I took it to the next step and made my own. :)
Now I had a TON of fun with it (even though it took nearly 3 hours in all). So if any of you want to "hire" me to make a specialized blog for you, please tell me!

EDIT: Something else is up with it... if you view it on different size browsers its all messed up. I am going to work on that now.

SECOND EDIT: I've fixed the glitch. I'd forgotten the all important part of the HTML code: background-attachment: fixed; So everytime you look at it, the background would move around like jello in a car on a bumpy road. :)

Pride and Prejudice

It goes without saying that Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, is one of my favorite books. (Most girls will agree with me on this, but those strange males never seem to realise the genius of it). Fine Linen Drama is going to be preforming a play of Pride and Prejudice this spring. Poor, poor, poor me, I shall be moved, and I shall miss the oppertunity to act in a non-musical preformance of my favorite book.

We recently watched the latest version of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightly. It was very enjoyable, but I think they could have done better. First off- its impossible to do a good interpretation of this book in a two hour movie. Just like Lord of the Rings, it demands good time to tell the story properly.

The characters and their development in the movie were very good and fairly true to the book. However, the casting left much to be desired. The actors did a wonderful job, but some of them just weren't right for their part. Lizzy and Wickham were cast fairly well, but Bingley... Not how I imagined him. At all. Mr. Darcy, at first, does not seem like a Mr. Darcy at all, but as the movie goes along, you can really see him as Mr. Darcy. Mr. Bennett just wasn't right- they messed up his character.

Most movies are very vague interpretations of their story, but this version of Pride and Predjudice followed the storline nicely. One of the best things about it was the dialogue. Jane Austen chose the perfect words, and the makers of this movie kept the original wording (except at the end). However, alot of the words are little-known, so I suggest using subtitles.

Its a good version to watch if you just want to get through the story quickly, or you love dazzling cinematography (the lighting, effects, and costumes were amazing). But if you want to see justice done to the book, watch the 5 hour BBC mini series.

 

Its been awhile since I've seen it, but it is worth the 5 hours. It is not as dazzling but does a much better job with the storyline. Plus you can follow it even if you've never read the book or a synopsis. (My brother watched the Keira Knightly version with us and was totally and utterly lost. Well, I guess he also hated it because its a love story)

Chandelier

Remeber that picture of the chandelier I took at the Fox? Papa fixed it up on Paint Shop and guess what? Well, I'll just show you. :) Click here

Half a Week in St. Louie

Ben and I stayed an extra 4 days in St. Louis with Grandma and Papa! Here is a picture I took of the arch. I didn't edit it yet...

We toured the brewery! That was really neat.

Grandma and Papa eat out for lunch and don't eat dinner. So we got to go out to eat every day! And we also got deserts each time. :) Even the time we went to Arbys. I got a Jamocha shake! YUM!

On Monday we ate at the Four Seasons Hotel restraunt. It was so fancy. They had fresh ham and sushi at the buffet bar! I ate so much I could hardly move, and I wasn't hungry for dinner or even much breakfast the next morning. We looked around the hotel, at least the places you are allowed if you aren't staying there. Everything was so neat and fancy. The workers there opened doors for you (even car doors). Everytime they did that it made me feel like giggling, or pretending I was a princess. :) I think regular people need to hold doors more often. Then everyone can feel like a princess (or prince or king or whatever). Just like Rose said in The Shadow of the Bear: "Have you ever felt that there's a story going on that everyone is a part of, but not everyone knows about? As if the people you meet aren't just their plain, prosaic selves but are actually princes and princesses, or fantasical creatures who have hidden their real shape, who don't remember who they are?" (I'm paraphasing here, I couldn't find the quote in the book so I just went from memory)

There I go, rambling agin. *supercilious sigh* lol, look at me, being supercilious to myself! Okay, back on topic. Trip to St. Louis.

We also took a tour of the Fox theater. We took a ton of pictures, but it was dark so they didn't turn out great. :P They had this whole hallway where the cast would sign their names on the wall. I took pictures of a bunch- they had nearly every musical imaginable there. :)

This was the chandelier at the Fox. It looked tiny, even from the very top balcony, but it is actually 12 feet in diameter! It reminds me of the chandelier in The Phantom of the Opera. *shivers delightedly*

We didn't get to go onstage :( because they are working on the stage. Did you know that every show brings in its own stage floor? So that you can do all those disappearing things with trapdoors and whatnot.

We also went to the art museum (yay!) but half the stuff looked like it belonged in a history museum, and a ton of it was abstract (aka, utterly pointless blobs of paint in my humble opinion. One was these four celieng-high sheets of plain gray, shiny metal. And that is art...?) They had a couple Monet paintings, and several awesome realistic ones. I got a few ideas for artwork.

We did tons of other stuff, and had a Blast.

City Park

On Monday we went to the City Park in St. Louis.