This kitten condo was constructed by my boyfriend for our friend's cat, Lope. Lope sounds like a funny name, but it stems from Penelope because his previous owner wanted all female cats, no matter what gender they were *sigh*... So now he is Lope, pronounced, lo-pay

Materials:
   - Two or more plastic tubs, these were on sale after Halloween.
   - Hot glue or some kind of adhesive (it won't be where the cats can get to it don't worry)
   - an old short bladed kitchen knife
   - a candle
   - any extras you want, like bedding material or cushions, tennis balls with rope to hang them from the ceiling, etc.

He cut entrances on the smaller side at the bottom, one through the "floor" in between the two tubs (we put his kitten hammock inside to be used as a stair). By stacking the tubs upside down, and placing the bottom lid on the very top with some adhesive, it creates a nice roof perch

We cut the plastic by heating the knife with the candle. We drew the lines first.

After this picture was taken for him to heck out his new pad, we used black grosgrain ribbon which i used non-toxic craft glue to cover the edges tomakeit look nicer They aren't sharp though, the plastic is very thick.

The little sign outside was made from scrap, and V204.5 is his address inside of his owner's apartment, V204 A rope with a tennis ball hanging from it hangs from the sign. The bottom floor has cat toys hanging from rope we fixed to the ceiling by poking holes and knotting on the other side. We bought nylon rope at Lowe's for this.

He really loves it and we have a plan to make one for our kitty using slightly more narrow but taller tubs and adding a scratching wall on one side with carpeting.

So last summer (summer 2005) was the summer after my Senior year of highschool. Our highschool was incredible and we were all very close, so when the time came for people to start going their seperate ways and moving states away from each other, I decided to come up with one last amazing themed party.

I know that themed parties don't always work out well for everyone, people don't always adhere to the theme, but I am fortunate enough to have an amazing group of friends who go for that sort of thing as many of them are into theatre and things of that nature, so any chance to act crazy is always fun.

The theme? A chocolate party. We had the movie Chocolat playing in the background, everyone brought chocolate dishes of various kinds such as cookies, a platter full of unwrapped chocolate bars, cakes, truffles, cupcakes baked in ice cream cones, kahlua dip, chocolate martinis, chocolate milk, and of course chocolate fondue. For the fondue we found that melting it once in a bowl over a pot of boiling water, then sitting the bowl inside of a bowl full of warm water was enough to keep it melted all night. We used chocolate chips because they melted faster. For things to be dipped, we put a plate of fruit out and had centerpieces which consisted of teracotta pots painted gold with a piece of floral foam wedged inside, and wooden skewers with marshmallows and strawberries stuck into them arranged in the floral foam like flowers, and then m&ms were used to cover the floral foam. M&Ms were scattered about the table, and people had a blast. The best part about this event was the themed clothing. The dress code was limited to browns, caramels, creams, white and black and everyone stuck to it. It was a blast.

We all have livejournals so spreading the word went rather quickly with one simple posting of this invitation I whipped up on Paint Shop Pro:


Some of the guests:



The strawberries went over well.

Distressed after eating SO much chocolate.

Brenton demonstrates how even a simple outfit can still stick to the theme!

A friend of ours created this incredible cake named the "Speghetti and Meatball Cake" by pressing white chocolate ganache through a potato press to make it look like speghetti, and creating "meatballs" from chocolate truffles.

The spread.  In this picture you can see a foreign nutella kind of substance in a jar, kahlua dip, brioche, brownies, ice cream cone cupcakes, little debbies, cakes, cookies, oh and this was only like 1/4 of the three tables we put end-to-end. There was also another table on the other side of the room.

It was one incredible event and I recommend it to anyone who shares a love for chocolate.

The only difficult thing is that people are expecting me to top it this year! But don't worry...because I'm going to! This year I'm thinking about renting a pavillion at this park called Big Lagoon and having a beach- Pirate party.

[As always with my pieces, please no constructive criticism, I just do my work to please my own eye. Thank you though! Saying if you do or do not like a piece is fine, but suggestions for improvement or change I just would rather not have.]

As always with my pieces, please no constructive criticism, I just do my work to please my own eye. Thank you though! Saying if you do or do not like a piece is fine, but suggestions for improvement or change I just would rather not have.

I've seen the overly gothic photographs of cemeteries before, and I wanted to do something different. We have a gorgeous historic graveyard in my town and the headstones on some of the pieces are incredible works of art. I think that the craft of tombstone carving is a lost artform that has been replaced with polished granite and I for one think the old pieces are just beautiful sculptures. So I decided to find the beauty in the cemetary.




A photo of my friend creating her own cemetary photographs.



This photograph makes me think of Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" and the cycle of life and how it will always continue over death. The grass growing over the stone just seems so symbolic of that.

[I would like to ask you to please not give any constructive criticism. I know that makes me sound either rather pompous or entirely too fragile of a human being, but I assure you neither are true. I simply create my pieces to express something I was going through, or capture a subject I found to be beautiful or inspirational. I gather all of these pieces and use my art in order to chronicle my life experiences. Therefor, my art is created for me and me alone, and criticism is meant for art which is made to be pleasing to many eyes, which I respect. The thing is, these pieces are my emotions, my feelings, my memories, and for someone to give me advice on how to change them is rather hurtful even if that is not the intent. So I ask kindly for you to hold constructive criticism and suggestions from your comments. Thank you very much.]

There were so many on the last page and I hate linking photographs, so here are the rest.

And once again, my disclaimer thingy.
"I would like to ask you to please not give any constructive criticism. I know that makes me sound either rather pompous or entirely too fragile of a human being, but I assure you neither are true. I simply create my pieces to express something I was going through, or capture a subject I found to be beautiful or inspirational. I gather all of these pieces and use my art in order to chronicle my life experiences. Therefor, my art is created for me and me alone, and criticism is meant for art which is made to be pleasing to many eyes, which I respect. The thing is, these pieces are my emotions, my feelings, my memories, and for someone to give me advice on how to change them is rather hurtful even if that is not the intent. So I ask kindly for you to hold constructive criticism and suggestions from your comments. Thank you very much."


We have a Naval Base here, NAS, and a Museum of Naval Aviation, which includes a replica of our town in the 1950s, and pieces of several voyages into space. I'm unfortunately not up with history of our space travel, but they made a movie about this one particular voyage, where I believe they didn't make it into space, (or didnt make it to the moon?) and had to come back and land in the water. It could have been Apollo 13 I'm not sure. Anyway, we have the part of the shuttle they landed in the water in (the pyramid thing). I thought that was interesting. Anyway...

Not very artistic, but a strange photo none the less.

A 1950s Pensacola kitchen put together by a photograph.

This whole area was made to look like a setup in Vietnam, and this is a plane they retreived from the water.

My favorite shot. This is the entire museum with a focus on the battleship portion in the center. I like the lighting in this one.

I have sushi nights with up to 30 of my friends about once a month, and this is what I do with the wasabi and ginger while I wait for all of us to get our individual checks.

When most people think Florida they think Disneyworld and Orlando or South Beach and Miami, or Panama City Beach and Spring Break, but Florida is so rich in so many different cultures. While Pensacola has a great beach and historic downtown area, just 5 minutes away this is what we see. We are only 5 minutes from Alabama so we get a taste of the southern culture as well.

And another.

A friend of mine's suitcase fell off of the bed in our hotel room at a Thespian Competition (I said thespian) and I thought it looked very pinupesque.

An ode to springtime.

And another.

A twist on the simple.

A star I have hanging from my bed.

I thought what I did here was a little witty.

It seems like a simple snapshot, but I really do like this action photo. The colors and the placement of everything is what I was really honestly going for.

In the shadows of sparkling light.

Our new year's baby.

My boyfriend and I. I made him hold this position over and over again until I had the right picture I don't think he minded

A rose he gave me for our 6 month anniversary on New Year's Eve (along with an amazing dinner on the beach) I recommend taking photos of roses to chronicle a relationship. It immortalizes the flowers, which die after only a few days, unlike our love.

An old firetruck out front of Seville Quarter, a very old bar and social gathering place of our area.

I found this interesting.

I love brick.

And leaves.

[I would like to ask you to please not give any constructive criticism. I know that makes me sound either rather pompous or entirely too fragile of a human being, but I assure you neither are true. I simply create my pieces to express something I was going through, or capture a subject I found to be beautiful or inspirational. I gather all of these pieces and use my art in order to chronicle my life experiences. Therefor, my art is created for me and me alone, and criticism is meant for art which is made to be pleasing to many eyes, which I respect. The thing is, these pieces are my emotions, my feelings, my memories, and for someone to give me advice on how to change them is rather hurtful even if that is not the intent. So I ask kindly for you to hold constructive criticism and suggestions from your comments. Thank you very much.]

I would like to ask you to please not give any constructive criticism. I know that makes me sound either rather pompous or entirely too fragile of a human being, but I assure you neither are true. I simply create my pieces to express something I was going through, or capture a subject I found to be beautiful or inspirational. I gather all of these pieces and use my art in order to chronicle my life experiences. Therefor, my art is created for me and me alone, and criticism is meant for art which is made to be pleasing to many eyes, which I respect. The thing is, these pieces are my emotions, my feelings, my memories, and for someone to give me advice on how to change them is rather hurtful even if that is not the intent. So I ask kindly for you to hold constructive criticism and suggestions from your comments. Thank you very much.

That is my boyfriend standing in the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at the University of Florida. We are both Gator football fans and this trip was a particularly sad one for me because I was there for a stressful interview, but this moment is a really great memory I have.

I'm blessed to live in a very picturesque town, Pensacola, Florida which is the "tip of the gun" (a little geographical humor for you) and our downtown area is rich in history and still has so many historic buildings and homes. I find them beautiful in such a haunting way.

Yet another old door. Rust and old brick fascinate me. Our town actually still has a brick manufactoring company downtown that has been running since the creation of these buildings, so the bricks used in the construction come from a mere block away.

A haunting house on the hill.

A rusty old lock on a door of a building housing antique cars.

Not many people talk about hurricane Ivan now that Katrina has hit, but I'm sure some of you remember. It hit my town the hardest (though mostly the homes of people who decided it was a great idea to live on a sandbar) and this little guy, though cemented into place, was plucked from his home.

I like to think of this picture as my 19th birthday present from God. My best friend David and I took a trip to visit our boyfriends for my birthday and there was no traffic in the Tallahassee area (amazing considering its FSU country) and there was a rainbow and clear blue sky.

A place here called "The Bluffs" which is a rather literal name. These cascading stairs weave around trees down to a lovely beach. Its quite a labriynth.

Another shot of that.

I have quite a few on here so I am going to start a second topic with the rest.

So I posted about the Chocolate theme for an end of the summer party I am throwing with a friend of mine, but I need more ideas.
I have already thought of chocolate lipgloss, soaps, and candles, but I really need some other ideas for easy, cheap favors and decorations. I'd also like to know your ideas for chocolate recipes? Anything will help. 

Other things:
-We're doing a black, white, cream and brown dress code.
-Chocolate potluck where people bring in their own chocolate dishes
-Making chocolate bowls by dipping balloons in melted chocolate
-Double Boiler Chocolate (Fondue style) White and Milk Chocolate
   What are some things to dip in chocolate? So far I have: strawberries, pretzel sticks, marshmallows, and i can't think of anything else...
-Using brown table clothes
-We don't know exactly how many or who is coming, so I can't really make personalized favors or anything. Ideas would be appreciated!

Hi there! I am a bit of an ansomniac (or however you spell it) at during a late night conversation with a friend of mine about Starburst, we began discussing chocolate, which led to the idea of a Chocolate Party. Here are the ideas for the party so far:

- The invitations will be actual chocolate bars, we are replacing the labels with ones we make ourselves.
- There weill be semi-formal (like church dress kinda) dress code which consists of white, cream, browns, and blacks.
- The only food served will be chocolate. We will do this potluck-style with ideas ranging from chocolate pizza, to chocolate fondue, to hot chocolate or chocolate soda (Ew! lol) and your staples: brownies, cookies, cakes, etc.
- We are watching the old version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory during the party (well, having it on in the background) and going to see the new one afterwards.

If you guys have any suggestions for decorations or anything else it would be very appreciated!

My best friend just made me a pair of custom butterfly wings for Graduation - so sweet! Kind of a "you are flying free now!" kind of a thing.

I will try to get a more detailed tutorial later, but here are the pictures! I LOVE them! The only thing she will not tell me is how she gets the nylons to form to every curve and twist. She uses craft wire to make the wings in two separate pieces, the left and the right. She also makes two big hook-like curves that act as straps to sit on my shoulders. She stretches a pair of little girl's ballet stockings (they are light pink) and after attatching all the nylons, she sprays the middle airbrush-style with a nice complimentary color in the middle. Next, she sprays a craft-glitter all over both sides. She draws her pattern on with pencil, and then uses gold glitter Tulip brand paint to put on the lines. She adds a few sequins, and wraps the hook-straps with a marabou boa and attatches ribbon to the bottom of the wings and the ends of the straps to keep them on.

I hope that makes sense!