ADV 1321 Blog

  I am making my mother a screaming possum as a gift. The teeth were very hard to crochet. Currently, the possum looks terrifying, but I'm hoping it will look better once I add some eyes and finish the legs. I also need to sew the top mouth on. Shoutout to all of the kind YouTubers who post free tutorials online. I wouldn't be able to crochet without them. The tutorial I'm following right now has an Australian woman speaking, and her accent makes it so much more fun. 

My high school had something called "Go Time," a mandatory 30-minute period in the day when we literally did nothing. It was supposed to help people catch up on homework. Back then, I was an academic weapon and on top of my homework. To pass the time, I made a different paper bird each class. My teacher thought it was funny and let me keep them on his classroom window. 

  For PALS, I was asked to create a few Halloween posters to put around the school. I completely forgot I had a pixie cut freshman year of high school. 

  In middle school, I made all of my friends personalized snowmen. I miss having people to craft for. My boyfriend and I joke that I'm like a penguin leaving pebbles as an expression of love. 

  Years ago, I made my friends cards for Valentine's Day. I thought that it sucked when you were single on that day, so I went out of my way to make my single friends feel special. What's unique about this particular card is that I made it for a straight girl I had a crush on in my friend group. I'm not sure why I spent hours handcrafting roses for a straight friend (who wasn't particularly kind to me). I suppose I was just a hopeless romantic back then. We don't talk anymore, and sometimes I miss her. 

  During the summer, my boyfriend worked long hours at the local movie theater. To pass the time when my shift at the jewelry store was over, I scrolled through Instagram. One of the reels provided steps to make the "most romantic" love letter ever. Intrigued, I followed along. When you unfold the letter, it turns into a mini museum. On the walls, I put "art" that reminded me of him. You can see his cat Mosi in the top and his other cat Kitty in the bottom right. On the left, you can see an image from his favorite book, The Dark Tower . I cut a small door into the bottom-left corner so there could be multiple exhibits. 

  Last semester, one of my friends introduced me to the 3D printer at the DIG. I wanted to make my boyfriend a gift (he is very spoiled, ngl) and had a stroke of genius. He likes Pokémon. He likes chess. What if I made Pokémon chess pieces?? After printing the pieces, I hand-painted each character, as you can see in the photo. It was ridiculously fun. I might've skipped a class because of how obsessed I was with the project. 

  To add some whimsy to my dorm room, I tied thread to my chickens and hung them from the lights under my bed. I tend to work on homework there, so it's nice to be able to look up at something silly. The blue chicken in the back is the first crochet animal I made when I started learning how to crochet. I was determined that my first project would be a chicken after paying $15 for a crochet chicken at a farmers' market and saying, "$15?? I could do this myself".  

  My grandpa has a wiener dog named Abby, and he asked me to crochet him a copy of her. This was one of my hardest projects so far. The head, tail, and ears were made separately; I had to figure out how to attach them to the body. One leg is raised up because I winged the belly after the instructions stopped being useful. The body was particularly difficult because I didn't start with a magic ring and had to go row by row instead of in a spiral.  

  I took Tristan to the NASHER museum, and we had fun taking photos of the artwork. I made this particular photo my phone background because it's whimsical, which makes me happy. 

I made this on Pinterest during freshman year on a bus going back to Dallas from Austin. The bottom city is Dallas, the last place I want to be. Above that city is Austin, my home. At the very top is an ambiguous city. The woman reaches up because she is rising out of Dallas into a better place. Peonies cover Austin, representing my romanticized vision of coming back home. The ambiguous city is darker in color, blurrier, but still beautiful. It is the unknown, but it is somewhere better. 

  For Spring Break, I went to A&M and stayed with my boyfriend. He had a chemistry test on Friday, so we went over to his friend's house to study. Well, he studied. I just messed around on the back of the whiteboard. The words are verses from my favorite poem. 

  I'm procrastinating so hard right now on my accounting homework. Well, it's not even homework. I have a test tomorrow at 10:00 am. I'm just studying. I want to go to bed. I tried to make a horse, but it morphed into a platypus. It was just a regular platypus, but then it put on a funky hat and BAM - it's Perry!  Wish me luck on my exam tomorrow, Willie. 

  I am this weasel, slowly being unraveled stitch by fucking stitch. Fuck CVS. Fuck 8:00 am classes. Fuck accounting.  Similar to the weasel, you cannot see my true emotions on my face. In this half-formed pre-caffeinated state, I want to grab the proverbial crochet hook and swat whoever is closest to me or sew myself up with spite. 

In my second creative project, I was told to create a 30-second commercial about myself. Inspired by my Consumer Insights class, I focused on my eyes and how they change when I do mental math. To get the shot, I sat in the dark in my dorm closet with my boyfriend. He filmed and asked me the math question. For the ending of the ad, I was thinking about making it feel like a PSA, which is why you see the big block white letters. 

A few days ago, I started reading the Bible to see what all of the fuss is about. Remarkably, it managed to repel me further from Christianity.  For this drawing, I was inspired by the Garden of Eden. I always thought that Adam and Eve were kicked out because they disobeyed. Well, apparently, there is this "Tree of Life" that would've made them gods. When Eve ate the apple from the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil", God panicked and threw the duo out before they could fully become gods. This image is inspired by the idea that Eve went for the Tree of Life first, instead of Knowledge, securing immortality. As she takes a bite out of the yellow apple, she transforms from ash and dust into a piece of the universe.   

  For my first creative project, I had to create a mind map presented in an unusual way. My theme was heaven, and I made a detective board with red yarn and sticky notes. For the back of the board, I knew I wanted to attach angel wings. After scrolling on Pinterest, I found a tutorial on how to make paper towel angel wings and got to work. The DIG already had cardboard and fluff. I bought paper towels from Hughes Trigg and hot-glued the "feathers" on. 

  A creative endeavor I have recently pursued is assigning "vibes" to my music-listening habits.  In Oldies I love , I chose dandelions to represent the joy I feel when listening to 50s music. The vibrant yellow is eye-catching but unalarming, providing a nostalgic doorway to the past. In Warm Tea , I chose a photo of Stede Bonnet from the show Our Flag Means Death. This playlist is comprised of songs that radiate comfort and whimsy, two words that describe Stede very well.  In Moody Indie Mix , I chose a painting of a suspicious cat holding a wine glass to poke fun at the solemn nature of the songs in the playlist. I chose a painting specifically to capture the romanticization of discontent.  In Black Coffee , I chose a very literal image of a coffee cup. Black coffee is bitter but familiar, which is why the playlist contains old rock songs.  In Bisexual Vibes , a lot of the songs are pop, so I used a blurry image of people partying to convey the intense glamo...

  I like to make my boyfriend little gifts from time to time. A quick project I finished in February was this purple Pochita from Chainsaw Man. Tristan introduced me to the manga, and I fell in love with the Pochita. I used purple yarn instead of orange yarn because purple is Tristan's favorite color (and it was also the only color I had easy access to). The little guy turned out great and is currently being used as a keychain on my boyfriend's backpack.  

  I work as a receptionist in the veterans & transfers office, which gives me a lot of free time when I'm not doing homework. During my previous shift, I was listening to a song called "The Mariner's Revenge Song" and felt inspired to draw the final fight in my planner. Color theory has helped me make the image look more interesting and make the most of my very limited supplies.