Purple and Yellow Peony Flowers and Purple Butterflies Hair Pins!

As I showed last year in one of my posts about doing the meadow twist seen at this link: http://tabularasacoker.blogspot.in/2016/02/headband-twist-meadow-twist-medieval.html , I like doing my hair like that and I used to just place the fake flowers in there and hope the ends were rough enough to hold in my hair but I’ve had some close calls with fly away butterflies in a wind storm and flowers falling out here and there but fortunately each time I found them after they got out of my hair. However even though I found them I began to get tired of asking my mom are four flowers and two butterflies still in my hair each time I wear my hair like that.

So I saw an example not long ago of people using bobby pins to hold flowers and gems in their hair and I thought that would be amazing and way easier. So I took the fake butterflies and peony flowers and I hot glued the ends of them to the rounded side part of the bobby pins and used extra hot glue and pressed them firmly to make sure they stuck on real well and they did. Now when I wear my hair up in the meadow twist I can place the flowers and butterflies in without worrying about them falling out or flying away without me knowing! I also tried these fake peony flowers pins and purple butterflies pins on a side braid as seen below as I sometimes like doing a side braid as it reminds me of Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games! This method of hot gluing to bobby pins can be done as well with other flowers and gems if you care to!

If anyone is wondering about the lipstick color I am wearing it is Expert Last NYC and the color name is Blue Rose! I got it for $1.50 on sale at Wal-Mart!

 

• Purple and Yellow Peony Fake Flowers- $0.97 at Wal-Mart. I bought them a while ago but I think they are only $0.97.

• Purple Fake Butterflies- $0.97 at Wal-Mart. They had the Honeysuckle Flowers with two Purple Butterflies on a stem of the flowers which I thought was a great score.

 

• Bobby Pins- A few dollars in the beauty supply section of most any store such as Wal-Mart, Wal Greens, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, ect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two Hot Air Balloons Flying Above My Housing Area!

October 21, 2016 when I was headed out with my parents to go into the preaching work we were backing out of our driveway and I got so excited as right there over our housing area was flying two hot air balloons! The city we live in there is a hot air balloon ride business but I hadn’t seen hot air balloons in quite a while though I used to see them quite often when a hot air balloon festival came to the state of Arkansas not far from where we live in Missouri and I would see them doting the sky line from the third floor window of my High School many, many years ago.

I’ve always wanted to ride in a hot air balloon but I just haven’t yet but I was so excited to see these so close to not only me but where I live and I was able to take a few quick pictures which I sent to my friend Cameron who I had just been talking to about hot air balloons a few days before.

I wasn’t going to share them here initially but I think the pictures turned out pretty good and I want to share them with my blog readers so I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

 

 

 

 

 

Category for DIY / Crafts to be Added!

I am adding a category for DIY / Crafts posts alone for the convenience of all who read my blog and for myself so I don’t have to hunt all the time for the items that I make and add to this blog lol!

Musings of a Lonely Writer! ----- Characters with Mental Illnesses or Perceived Mental Illnesses!

It has been a while since I’ve done a Musings of a Lonely Writer segment post and I’ve missed it but I’ve been forced to put it off for a while as I’ve been a tad busy and really had to think of a topic I found interesting enough to discuss as well. But I am so glad to be back and adding this topic to my Musings of a Lonely Writer segments.

So since I write mostly Young Adult Novels I’ve begun to wonder about this as when I’ve been looking at novels lately I’ve found quite a few with this similar theme, characters with mental illnesses or perceived mental illnesses and locked up in mental hospitals. I think if used appropriately it can give depth, challenges, anxieties and difficulties to a character just as nearly 1 in 5 real life Americans alone each year suffer from a mental illness but I find many of the stories aren’t like that but rather the character is locked away in as some say in the novels a loony bin, whack shack, or other derogatory term and they aren’t crazy but are there for some insane reason which really seems a way to just get the character where the authors wants them so the character can uncover some deep dark secret or conspiracy and get to the adventure of solving the issue.

I mean there was a story I contemplated writing that had three different possibilities of where the character is, either a mental hospital, living the life of a ballerina who looses her senses and leaves the ballet to live on an old farm or is whisked away to an alien planet and the same man is in all possibilities and she falls asleep in one only to awaken in one of the other three with no clue as to which is true and I leave the readers questioning her sanity and sometimes their own, or rather I was going to if I ever write the story, lol.

So you see even I’ve played with the idea of mental illness or perceived mental illness but stories now seem like they are trying to make the character have a perceived illness to make them interesting but the character falls flat as they are just too perfect and it’s the whole worlds conspiring against them kind of thing which I don’t really like. I would rather a character straight up have an illness even a little bit or make it more interesting as to why they are locked away not just because some insane government agency or person wants the main character gone as they are the key to saving the world or something.

So I am hoping that the perfectly perfect character locked in a mental hospital thing isn’t the next fade in YA literature unless it’s handled in away that makes it different and unique but I’ve yet to really see that.

This has been Musings of a Lonely Writer! If you have any thoughts on this topic please leave a comment in the comment section of this post! Keep Reading, Keep Writing, and Keep Inspiring!

Edit November 5, 2016:

So fellow blogger Jasmin Weaver left a comment on my Character Names Galore blog Musings of a Lonely Writer! ----- Characters with Mental Illnesses or Perceived Mental Illnesses! post and I replied but thought some of what I added should go under this edit so I better explain my views on this topic. If you want to read the comment go here:  http://namesaremygame.blogspot.in/2016/11/musings-of-lonely-writer-characters_1.html 

I try not to handle such weighty and complex subjects as mental illness unless I’m willing to put in the time and effort into doing plenty of research and interviewing professionals, ect. In a rare case I have had a character that slowly drove herself to insanity as did her mother through a serious of events but I never really tackled it straight on but rather from the sidelines kind of thing.

I don’t think every author tackles mental illness the same way as I have seen some that have handled weighty subjects as mental illness, sexual assault, murder, and suicide in as proper a way as one can with such subjects. But then there are authors that have romanticized it too much and made it only a perceived illness so as to not really get into it and handle it as a proper illness or disorder and to show it’s ok to have an illness, well its not what anyone is supposed to ever have but because of inherited imperfection people have such illness for the present time but not in the future, but show a person can live a fulfilling healthy life even with a mental illness or disorder.

I’ve seen two instances where it was handled oddly to me. First one the character was locked away in some big bad mental hospital but through some handsome orderly or something she finds out she’s a Princess from a different realm and isn’t crazy. Which I think romanticized it and didn’t handle illnesses in such a great way. The second story showed people locked away all willy-nilly for not choosing the right group of people to be with, a weird reason to lock people up in mental hospitals for.

I think mental illness and hospitals that house mentally ill individuals would be interesting but not to just entertain or to say someone needs an illness to be interesting or anything but rather to tackle a real issue but in a unique but honest way but I haven’t found a YA novel that does so fully but maybe just not fully to my satisfaction but I need to realize I can’t get my way when it comes to other peoples stories but I can only have a strong opinion, lol!

The blogger mentioned Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ or ‘Hamlet’ but I only read what was required Shakespeare reading in school so I never read those but I have heard of them and how those characters were.

What I find interesting is ‘A Tell-Tale Heart’ by Eagar Allen Poe which basically I like the narrator trying to convince everyone of his sanity but all the while his murderous activities were anything but sane. In those kinds of gothic literature novels of that era and later very much had a lot to do with insanity and manipulation into insanity which really was handled in a creepy but interesting way in my opinion.

The blogger Jasmin Weaver mentioned gaslighting and yes I have heard of the term gaslighting and even seen the 1944 movie which I was just talking about the other day, lol! I saw the movie some years ago and I found it to be really interesting how that was played out and how the phrase came to be and what it means. I even have a soon-to-be-written story called ‘The Gas Light Murders’ set in 1890’s London or I’m thinking of moving it to America but same era and my character is hearing about a rash of murders and as the investigation lands on her husband her sanity is called into question as little things and then big things begin to point to her as the murderer and she fears what she’ll do and worries for her sons life but as the story will unfold the lead detective begins to figure things out after basically being a victim of gaslighting and the reader figures out my main female lead has also been a victim of gaslighting by the real murderer who is closer to her home then she thought. The title of the story has to do with that phrase gaslighting but also the murderer leaves notes on gas lamps within the city to lead the detectives to his crimes and as a way to mock them as well.

So anyway I agreed with her that gaslighting would be an interesting take on mental illness but also psychological abuse.

 

If I have any further thoughts I’ll come back and edit again! If anyone has any thoughts on this post, edit, or comments again leave a comment in the comment section of this post!

Edit November 12, 2016:

The Gas Light Murders novel details have changed as I no longer want a murder mystery but am going with a different type of mystery so I won’t be incorporating murder or the gaslighting phrase in that novel now, so just wanted to say so, lol!

If I have any further thoughts I’ll come back and edit again! If anyone has any thoughts on this post, edit, or comments again leave a comment in the comment section of this post!

Multi-Use Denim Bag!

 

 

This is my favorite item right now! I was watching TV and they showed during a commercial one of those DIY shows and I saw they made a denim bag and I literally saw it for only a few seconds but I was like I can make something like that!
 

Back in High School I had a favorite pair of blue jeans but after leaving school for a few years the jeans got so many holes in the inseam area that I just couldn’t wear them anymore so I bought a few new pairs that became my favorites! But I really liked the pockets on the old pair and knew I could use them somehow so I washed them and put them in a drawer, and I am no hoarder I always throw old stuff away but like I said I thought I could use the pockets for something so I saved the jeans. So when I saw the show advertised that showed the denim bag I knew exactly the pair of jeans I was going to use!
 

So I dug the jeans out of my drawer and washed and dried them again and then waited a few days as I thought over how best to do it. So I took the jeans and cut them as you would cut off shorts straight across the leg area on the one side and saved the rest of the cut off leg for the strap / handle later. I then cut upward toward the waistband but avoided the crotch and zipper area on mine as that is where the holes had come after many years of washing and wearing.
 

I took the fabric and folded it to where the inside is facing out toward me and then leveled the fabric up, kind of how one makes a pillow. The pictures below should help you understand how to place it to sew. I took black thread and sewed, by hand as I don’t have a sewing machine but if you have a sewing machine it will go by faster, across the bottom and then up the one side until I got all the way to the top of the waistband. One side already is taken care of as there is a seam there already so no sewing is necessary. So then I did what you do if making a pillow I put it back right side in and pushed my fingers down to push out the edges inside! So the example I saw was done but I wanted to add something to my version to spice it up!
 

I took some lace ribbon I have and cut off a little bit and instead of sewing it to the waistband I did it right underneath and under the one belt buckle area. When I cut the lace ribbon a little of it wound up on the other side of the belt buckle and was a little uneven and shredded a bit so I decided to use a daisy button later to cover it! I bought a sunflower iron on appliqué, 3 daisy flower iron on appliqués, and then I was going to do 2 bumble bees but they were sew on instead of iron on appliqués and though I can sew I decided not to do it but instead bought a little grey smiling kitten with a little butterfly on his head iron on appliqué. I attached the sunflower and 3 daisy flowers first after finding the right arrangement for me and a few days later I got and attached the little grey kitten. It looks like the kitten is walking through a garden and a butterfly lands on him much to his delight! :~)
 

Now it would look perfect as this point but I decided to make an attachable strap / handle as I had seen on the one on TV. So after the iron on appliqués was added I bought some daisy flower buttons which match the whole flower power bohemian theme, lol! I attached 2 of the largest daisy buttons to each of the side waistband of the jeans at the top and one of the medium size ones I sewed over the ends of the lace ribbon at the back where it was frayed as I explained earlier. My version is rustic but if you are better at sewing it may look a lot better!
 

So now onto the strap / handle. If you saved the leg pieces as I did then the strap / handle will be easier but if you didn’t then on your version then just use the other pants leg to do it or make a strap / handle out of other material if you care to or you can just go without a strap / handle. I cut the pants leg up the center and the one side was easier to sew as it was already sewn because of the one seam but I did the same as I did with the bag I turned it where the inside is facing out and sewed up the one side and then carefully turned it right side in which was a challenge, lol! The rest of the material I sewed both sides and then put it right side in as well.
 

I took the two pieces and sewed them together which doesn’t look so great but honestly it was the only way I could think to do it but it does have a padded look which is good at the shoulder area where it falls on me. I made holes for the buttons at the end of the jeans just above the hem with just a pair of scissors. I eye balled the area and the buttons to see about the size I needed so it wasn’t too small or too big a hole for the buttons and then I just carefully cut a small area and then extended it carefully with the scissors. This gave it a rugged look but when the buttons are in nobody, you included, can tell how the holes were created. I then attached the wider strap / handle that I made by pushing the holes through the buttons and then there you have it!
 

 

Of course if anyone makes this they can make thinner straps as I may wind up doing or make handles if they like! And of course they can decorate it in any way they so choose to make it their own! Have fun with it! If anyone is unclear on my directions please leave a comment and I will try and explain the process in an easier way!
 

Voila! Now this bag can be a tablet carrier, purse, day hike bag, book carrier, ect!
 

 

The bag has a tad bit of a floppy appearance but that is true of a lot of bags and tablet carriers but if you want to give it a firmer look then I’ve heard fusible fleece is the way to go but since I haven’t used fusible fleece before I didn’t use it but I might add it to it sometime in the future. I’ve heard it isn’t too hard to add so I might play around and see how to do it in the future!
 

Also if you put a tablet in this multi-use bag then you can also put cloths inside so the denim doesn’t scratch your screens or just put the cases in along with the tablet and of course this is a smaller bag but bigger bags can be made by cutting lower on the jeans and incorporating more of the upper top of the jeans. My jeans are stretch jeans as well which I think is great as it allows for a measure of maneuverability and stretch. Also the pockets of jeans allow you to put headphones, charges, cash, cleaning cloths, ect in which is great as well!
 

I am putting some pictures of it on me below as well and I thought they looked good but may look a little goofy instead, lol! In some of those I am the Queen of the stump in my back yard, lol, which used to belong to my little cat Missy who sadly passed away earlier this year so I chose to do them in honor of her. Other pictures I forced my cat Tommy to be in the pictures with me, well maybe not forced as he loves his picture taken and loves to sit in the sun on the banister, lol! In the one it looks like I’m forcing his head that way but really I am just itching his chin which he loves more than anything else, lol! Also if anyone is curious the book I was reading is The Juliet Club by Suzanne Harper which I read many years ago and just used as prop in this picture, lol, but it is a very good book and I recommend it!
 

• Sunflower Appliqué- $1.47 at Wal Mart or similar appliqués can be purchased at any hobby or sewing store
• 3 Daisy Flower Appliqués- $1.47 at Wal Mart or similar appliqués can be purchased at any hobby or sewing store
• Kitten with Butterfly Appliqué- $0.97 at Wal Mart or similar appliqués can be purchased at any hobby or sewing store
• Daisy Buttons- $1.97 at Wal Mart or similar buttons can be purchased at any hobby or sewing store
• Lace Ribbon- $1.00 at Dollar Tree or similar lace can be purchased at any hobby or sewing store
• Pair of Blue Jeans, preferably old as similar jeans will give it a cool used look