It was 2005 when I met a boston terrier for the first time. Her name was Daru she belonged to my friend Jessie. She had the greatest spunky personality, and loved you so much when you got home she not only wagged her tail but she practically danced it off!! In 2007 Read more..
Anyone who knows me personally knows about my “Ariel obsession”. It started before I was even a teenager and I was “moving out” of sharing a room with my little brother and getting my own room. Even then I was pretty crafty and creative. People see while walls – I SEE BIG CANVASES for decorating 🙂 So I thought and about it and I wanted to make my room a THEME. I had some of my old toys left, including an Ariel doll and a case. I decided to make my room into an “under the ocean” / “Little Mermaid” theme. I was 12 then, and I still have those toys to this day!
That’s how it all started… and it never ended. The Little Mermaid Obsession. I went through high school and everyone knew it. Even my teachers. I knew people laughed behind my back, but I didn’t care. It was me – my character. I wasn’t obsessing over N*SYNC or Dawson’s Creek like everyone else, I was doing my own thing. When I turned 16 and I entered my high school’s art program and began learning more about painting and drawing. I decided I wanted to paint scenes from The Little Mermaid movie on my walls. The biggest problem was convincing my mom to let me. It took me a few years but I made it happen… And 10 years (almost 11) years later it still sits in my old room at my mother’s house.
Back then it felt like “oh this will fade, the movie came out in 1989, the 90s will take over and it will be forgotten”. Because in the beginning it was hard to find Ariel-related things. I had to check certain stores every-so-often, and most of all The Disney Store. But today that isn’t the case. It has blown up and now all these kids who weren’t even alive when those movies came out (Sleeping beauty, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, etc) are loving them as if they came out last week. I think it’s awesome.
Originally I was going to make a photo-blog of my “Ariel stuff” and in a way I have. I started an instagram, which also updates the tumblr I created: arielfreak.com. It’s pretty simple, because I can update it with my phone. 🙂 You can also follow my account @arielfreaks on instagram. If you are a big fan yourself please send me any photos of “Ariel stuff” you have or mind come across. I’m always interested to see what others have!
I added four items to my shop this weekend… Â I have some other earrings on the way that are a lot different from what I’ve already posted in my shop. Â I’ve been experimenting with many different things, and I have a lot more I want to try! Â But I told myself I really shouldn’t buy any more supplies until I have my first sale. Â I’ve sold some work in the past, but I have yet to sell a pair of my earrings. Â I also take custom orders for these post earrings so if you have something in mind just contact me.
Ahh apartment living. Something you learn as you go. We moved into our apartment 3 years ago, since then I’ve had to get used to sharing a laundry room with my hallway neighbors. I’m one to put my laundry in and quickly take it out because I don’t want ANYONE and I mean -anyone- touching my stuff. I could cringe at the thought of someone putting my wet clean clothes on top of the laundry machines. The thing that took me the longest was sorting my clothes between two dryers – ‘high’ and ‘low’. It drove me nuts, for months. I wanted to be able to sort them but I REALLY did not want to buy two hampers. That would just take up too much space. Â I just wanted a bag I could carry down to the laundry room.
One day I noticed my neighbor was using this bag for his laundry – a good sturdy bag that can stand alone but it wasn’t a hamper. ANNND it had 2 compartments which read “light” and “dark”. Even though that wasn’t exactly how I sorted my laundry I knew this bag was THE ONE. I had to have it. Over the next 12+ months I search time and again for this bag. It was originally distributed by Crate and Barrel. That link is a huge tease because it shows you the product and its reviews BUT they don’t sell it anymore. I even took the time to email them to see if they had any available anywhere but they said no it was discontinued. Why they have the link still up is beyond me… but anyway.
After months of checking the internet, even putting alerts up on ebay I decided to craigslist it. I went to the “wanted” section under “for sale” (oh yes for those of you with dirty minds I know what you are thinking). I posted a photo of the bag and said if anyone had it collecting dust in their broom closet that I would gladly buy it from them. Within a few minutes someone emailed me letting me know they recently bought it at Home Goods!! I right away made plans to head over to the store and I even dragged Bryan along with me…
I looked up and down the aisles and nothing. I searched for a good 30 minutes. No sign of it. We were about to leave when Bryan noticed this big bag underneath a pile of stuff (this happens a lot in home goods, doesn’t it?) It ended up being exactly what I was looking for!!!! There were two left… so I bought both. In the 20 minutes between waiting online and checking out I had two people ask me about this particular laundry bag. “Oh where did you find that? How much is it?”.
OMG. Hands off house-wife! THIS IS MINE. I’m an apartment-girlfriend and I need it! =]
[edit] I realized afterward on the tag that the company that made this particular bag is TaylorMadisonDesigns.com.  [/edit]
Added some more brushes today… from old magazine photographs. I love old photography ESPECIALLY black and white photography. What I wouldn’t give to have a photo lab near by.. but anyway. These are 4 large photoshop brushes created with CS4. Find the link to them in my goodies section. 🙂
There’s an Antique store up where my mom lives and any time I know I’ll be near by I make sure I stop there. Â It’s the Four Winds Antique store in Middletown, NY – so if you’re ever in Orange County New York I recommend it. Â My mom and I stopped there Friday and I never really go in there looking for something specific but I do know what I like – old photographs, tintypes, old illustrations or postcards, jewelry, old books, old or foreign coins. Â Friday I found a good handful of items with illustrations:
Tintype of “Jennie” she’s wearing a cool scarf! I like her.
Vintage Easter Card with a beautiful illustration of flowers
Vintage Mass Cards I really like this illustration as well
This was my favorite of all I bought – a vintage valentine’s day card!! Those purple flowers caught my eye. And look at the hand-cut detail of the edges. Beautiful. Dated from the early 1900s.
Flower jar and foreign coins – I collect foreign coins so this is going to add to that collection =o) I’m still not sure what I am going to do with that jar – probably fill it with spare buttons!
Being that I am in such a crafty mode and spending a lot of time on Instagram I thought why not mix the two together? Of course I’m sure I’m not the first to think of this but I wanted to try it out anyway. I printed some of my own favorites of my Instagram pictures and obtained some nice square pendants. And I made my own Instagram photo on a necklace!
Of course I can’t share ALL my secrets… but these are squares smaller than an inch 18mm to be exact. I felt that an inch square was too big I don’t like bulky things on my neck so I went with this slightly smaller size. They seemed to have worked nicely and now I am selling them in my etsy shop! You can send me your own photo and I will create one with any Instagram picture you’d like. Don’t have Instagram? Thats okay too! I can create this using any photo as long as it can fit in a square nicely. If you are not sure you can always contact me and ask!
To celebrate my shop’s recent opening and these new instagram necklaces use coupon code BLOG15 for 15% off in my etsy shop!
A collection of photoshop brushes I created from a vintage postcard/photo. There was a unique design on the back including the photo studio’s logo! Find this in the goodies section of my site 🙂
