Coffee, coffee BUZZBUZZBUZZ

I was skimming the headlines on msnbc when I spotted this:  5 Hour Energy binge sends woman to hospital.  She had been drinking 10 bottles a day for 2 weeks.  That's 700 hours of "energy" in a 336 hour period!!  The article neglected to say why she needed that much energy.  Was she cramming for a final?  Ten finals?  Trying to do a semester's worth of college in a week?  Working three full time jobs?  Terrified of sleep? 

I have had my ups and downs with caffiene.  I used to drink almost my blood volume in diet coke, but when I got pregnant I phased it out.  I have it now and then, but mostly I drink iced tea.  Without it, I become an angry zombie.  However, my worst caffiend period of my life was when I worked at Starbucks.  They allowed us to have as many brewed beverages as we wanted on shift.  I worked the early morning shift and would start off with a five shot venti iced americano.  4:30am is harsh and I needed the caffiene bomb to get going.  By 2:30pm when my shift was over, I'd be dragging my knuckles on the floor, so I'd make another to sip on my walk home.  My hands shook all the time.  My sweat smelled of coffee.  Yeah, there's such a thing as too much coffee.

But how much is lethal?  This nifty website will tell you exactly how much of your favorite caffiene laden beverages will kill you in a single sitting.  Sadly, they don't have five shot venti iced americanos listed.

Pick-your-own adventure

Yesterday we took a family trip out to Haines Berry Farm to pick some blueberries.  The kid seemed to love it.  He kept yelling "booberries!!!" and seemed surprised to find out that they come from bushes, not plastic clamshell packages.  Together three of us picked 13lbs of berries, but that was nothing compared to the haul a couple older women brought in as we were leaving.  They filled seven 25lb pails of berries!  That's an insane amount of blueberries.
We brought our box of berries home and I made 8 and 1/2 pints of blueberry jam, loaded the food dehydrator with berries to dry, stuck a couple pounds in the freezer, made a quart of booze berries, and I still have fresh berries in the fridge. 
Last night I dreamed I was buried in blueberries.

Well, I tried.

My creative urges are rapidly being sucked down a black hole.  I haven't made anything new in five days.  Without putting all my business out there, I'll just say that there is a problem in my life and all my energy has been diverted to working out a solution.  I can't seem to be treated with basic human respect.  So many people in my life think it's okay to not listen to me, to disregard my wishes, to commit me to things without even asking me, etc.  I don't know how to put a stop to this.

30 Days of Creativity day 16

On day 16, I worked on a couple of butterfly pendants:

A pair of pretty pink butterflies.  1st one:

Pretty happy with how this one turned out.  Gonna add a protective coat and put it on a chain with a few embellishments.
2nd butterfly:

This one, not so much.  Colors good, outline needs work.  I'm gonna reheat this one and try again,

30 Days of Creativity day 15

Wow, halfway done already?  Seems like I just started this!

Today I was messing around with some wire.  I was trying to make a small butterfly, but the proportions are way off.

Still like this idea.  I'm gonna keep playing around with it.

30 Days of Creativity day 14

Doodle!!

Last night my son and his buddy were making some art at the table with a huge piece of paper.  I grabbed a marker and started doodling in a corner.  I used to doodle like this a lot in school, usually when I was supposed to be taking notes on some dull subject.  I'm toying with the idea of doing some free-form doodles on shrink plastic and then shrinking them.

30 days of Creativity days 12 and 13

It's a two-fer! 
So yesterday I was working on this:

It's a friendly plastic butterfly pendant with a couple fancy dangles.  I love the key.  I actually found it with the scrapbooking stuff.

And today, I did this:

Shrink plastic I.D. style bracelet with stencils and stamps.  I used an old salsa jar while the plastic was still hot to give it that curve.

30 Days of Creativity day 11

This one's a work in progress.  I'm working on a soda/beer tab maille bag.

Unfortunately, I'm out of tabs.  Time to go for a walk in the park and look for some.   I'd really like this to have a flap like a messenger bag.  That's going to take a lot of tabs.

30 Days of Creativity day 10

Still behind, but hey, there's always tomorrow.

Today I completed my most ambitious shrink jewelry project yet.  Presenting the Bib Necklace of Awesomeness!!!!

This project was originally conceived of as a bracelet.  When my original idea didn't pan out, I decided to try a necklace.  I have a few minor structural revisions in mind for this design before I'd feel confident offering it for sale, but overall I'm pretty happy with it.

30 Days of Creativity day 9

Yeah, I'm a day behind.  Maybe I'll get caught up this weekend.  Maybe.  Moving on....today I bring you red velvet bacon cupcakes.

Oh, yeah

Full disclosure, I used a mix for the cupcakes.  It sounds gross, but the salty bacon on top of the sweet icing tasted awesome.  Hail bacon!

30 Days of Creativity day 8

More shrinky dink goodness:

I really like how this one turned out.

30 Days of Creativity day 7

Playing with the poetry magnets on my fridge.

I have two sets.  One is cat themed, the other was a freebie from a clean energy group.  We've made some interesting combinations with the two.

30 Days of Creativity day 6

A day late, a dollar short, blah, blah, blah......

OM NOM NOM

This looked prettier before it was half eaten.  Fresh strawberries from just outside the city taste so much better than ones trucked in from 3,000 miles away.  Next year I vow to get to the pick your own farm and put some up.  I got a pint of these ripe lovelies in my CSA share, and cooked them into a simple sauce and put them on a super easy no-bake cheesecake.  Mmmmmmm.

30 Days of Creativity day 5

So for day 5, I decided to try my hand at an all recycled materials project. 

I have so many of those old store loyalty keytags hanging around my house.  I decided to try to dress one up a bit.  The foils and paper I punched the butterflies out of are old samples my husband brought home from work.  I'm feeling kind of "meh" about this, but I think the idea might have legs.  Mini artist trading card?  Art loyalty card?

30 days of creativity day 4

It's day 4 of 30 Days of Creativity, and I decided to bust out the shrinky dinks!  Yep, shrinky dinks, the plastic sheets we played with as kids.  I've seen some great shrinky dink jewelry, so I've been playing around with making some jewelry elements of my own out of the shrinky stuff.  Today I did these earrings:

Sorry the pics are so crappy.  I was too lazy to find my lightbox.

I really like how these turned out, especially the green color.  Color is tricky with these guys, because it becomes more saturated as it shrinks.  I've got a couple more sheets left to play with, and some more ideas brewing.

30 Days of Creativity day 3

I think I'm gonna do two make-up days randomly to catch up, but for now here's my offering for day 3:  chunky cocktail rings!

Sorry, I really need a damn tripod.

What happens when you combine ring blanks, glass globs, and glitter?  Sparkly goodness!   I am really liking how these turned out.  Should I stick 'em in my etsy store?
I have no idea what to do for tomorrow, but I'm excited.  already I'm enjoying this challenge.

30 Days of Creativity Challenge

I'm a little late to the party on this one, but there' still 27 days of June left, so I'm gonna dive in and take the 30daysofcreativity challenge.  This should be fun, I've never done anything like this before.