Instantly Back in Time

Everybody wants a Polaroid camera (alright, I like to think that because I do), but with the price for film, it's a tough buy. For those that don't know, Polaroid no longer makes the sweet instant cameras we are used to and their warm film. Impossible Project now provides film for Classic Polaroids. It's a steep price though at roughly $24 for only 8 pictures. I just started getting into instant pictures, but I was left to dreaming when I saw that price. As a sixteen year old without a job/ income, there was no way I would be able to buy film.

But then I was on YouTube for some reason looking up reviews for something (iPod covers I think), and came across a really cool channel. This guy is a little weird sometimes (he did a haul, odd for a guy), but other than that he's great! I seriously sat there and watched all his videos (well, almost all). His youtube account is iRaymond, and he's really into photography! Anyways, I found out about Fujifilm's instant cameras this way.

Fujifilm Instax cameras may look like "Fisher Price toys" as I heard someone say one time, but they are a far cheaper alternative to Polaroid. Film for these babies runs about $20 for 20 exposures. Yaaah! Much more affordable! (considering it's only about a $1 or a bit more per each picture) So have a look! These are the two (or three) I desparetly want!

Buy the Fuji Instax 210 Wide Instant Camera at the Photojojo Store!

The Fuji Instax 210 and the Fuji Instax
Mini 25. Both of which can be bought
through Photojojo!

Buy the The Instax Mini 7s and
Mini 25 Instant Cameras at the Photojojo Store!




Buy the Instax Mini 50s Instant Camera at the Photojojo Store!

Fuji Instax 210 Wide Instant Camera: I used to not like the wide picture because it wasn't quite the same as a Polaroid picture. However, after looking at many pictures, I am in love!
Fuji Instax Mini 25 and 50s: I think I might love these little babies even more! The pictures are a bit more in the Polaroid style, but they are much smaller. Film is a bit more, but these photos are so cute! I wouldn't mind having one of these to throw in a purse. :)
P.S. Polaroid does make a new instant camera similar to the ones above and film is a little bit more than a $1 per picture, but I think I'll stick with the Fuji Instax :)

Back Into The Fantasy World

Remember those days when you thought all the fairy tales were real? Those days when you pretended you were a mermaid or a fairy or flying on a magic carpet? As a little girl, I used to think fairies really were real. I thought they hid in the walls of our bathroom where there were tons of sparkles (really caused by hairspray from my mom). Everytime someone said that fairies weren't real I would start chanting, "I believe in fairies. I believes in fairies." Louder and louder, just like they did in Peter Pan. Eventually I realized they weren't real. But I still love to imagine all those fantasy beings.
I love to dream of elves and dragons and dwarves. I'm sure as a child, many people did. And when we were on a carpet, it was a magic flying carpet like in Aladdin. When we swam, we were mermaids. Jumping off the couch we were flying like Superman.
Growing up, we were still fasanated with these powers or abilities these fantasy characters had. We would ask each other whether you would want to be able to fly or breath under water. I have always said that between the superhuman powers of flying or breathing under water that being able to enter the mermaid world would be far cooler. There are so many things undiscovered in the ocean! Well it seems that there are real life mermaids out there. Some people didn't have to imagine they were mermaids when swimming in their pools. These people can hold their breath for long periods. They dive incredible depths without oxygen tanks or wet suits. Hannah Fraser used to build her own mermaid tails and swim around in her pool. Watch the video! Some of the things this girl has done are so cool!

Real-Life Mermaids on 20/20: Hannah Fraser and Linden Wolbert

Things That Made My Day

Buy the book here
 (click the picture)

Blogs I Found:

Just found out the author of Riyria Revelations has a blog for the series! This really made my day! Check it out here: http://riyria.blogspot.com/. But do yourself a favor, and don't read what the other books are about because they give away a lot of stuff if you haven't read the whole series!

Second blog I found, http://ido-nicethings.blogspot.com/ oh! and http://awkwardgirls.blogspot.com/ (which I have to mention because of their blog title: Awkward Girls) As for "i do nice things" blog, I love it! She has lovely posts and lots of pictures! Check her out! And as for this other blog called Awkward Girls, I love the title. You see, once upon a time on a missions trip with a lot of people there I wrote Awkward on my name tag just to be well, awkward lol. (Alright it was a funny thing because we were just talking about it. The act wasn't done in a creeper kind of way!) The thing is, I wrote Awkard instead of Awkward. In my mind I thought it was spelled perfectly right. (ah!) And standing in an elevator full of teens, my friend points out that I spelled awkward wrong. Of course, I opened my mouth in protest as the dumb blonde and said, "No I didn't!" Haha! One of the teen boys took it in his mind to correct me and someone (maybe me in my dorky embaressment) said that it was great because it made the name tag even more awkward. Oh fun days :)

Books I'm Reading:

Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography- I'm reading it for school, but it's great! And really I've already read it twice for this one unit, but I'm going to say that skimming through it for quotes is as good as calling it a current read. Plus, I couldn't NOT mention it! :)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Writings by Washington Irving- Alright, this one's for school, but I'm reading ahead in my units (probably not a good idea lol). I read "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle". Between the two I prefer the last over the former. I don't like scary stories or movies! Not for me!

The Last of the Mohicans- I'm trying to get into this book so that I feel motivated to get my current paper done because once again, this is from a future unit. However, I'm only two chapters in and it just isn't catching me. It's rather confusing with all the M names! But hopefully I get into it more. :)

Honey for a Teen's Heart: Using Books to Communicate with Teens- More on that book in a later post seeing as it is SO good!

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers- How I manage to be reading this books at one time, I have no idea, but this is one of my fav series all time! This, the Inheritance Cycle, and the Riyria Revelations. Get an idea of what kind of books I like? lol (For those who haven't read any of these, they all have elves, magic, and technically dragon type creatures) I don't think Lord of the Rings needs any more discussion, other than I love the series!

http://instagr.am/p/
All the photography books I'm
reading right now!

Ansel Adams Autobiography: Seriously one of the best autobiographies I've ever read! This and Ben's from up above! I never read autobiographies before Franklin's and now I seem to have fit three in recently! (I tried to read Yanni's but it was a bit too naughty and so I had to put that away, sadly, since I love that man's music!) Ansel Adams wrote this book with lots of stories, which is just what I like to hear from elderly people. (Although Franklin "speaks" in a more elderly tone.)

I'm also reading various photography books, but seeing as my list of books is growing far longer than I thought it was, I'll have to do a different post sometimes within the week on the books I have. I have to mention one right now though. And that's Expressive Photography by The Shutter Sisters. It's so amazing! Check out their blog as well! http://shuttersisters.com/

Music I'm Listening to: Lots of Jason Mraz!

"Geek in The Pink" and "Love for a Child" by Jason Mraz

"Drops of Jupiter" by Train

"Keep Your Head Up" by Andy Grammer

The Little Things Making Me Happy:

-ChapStick Moisterizer Green Apple

-BALI Mango lotion from Bath & Body Works (where else would you get great lotion!)

-The fact that Shabby Apple has a Mad Hatter collection :) (Just found this site and I love all their dresses! Awkward Girls is having a giveaway for $100 gift card that ends tonight!) P.S. Shabby Apple is about modest, cute clothing. Isn't that awesome!

-My iPod docking station

This simple post has turned into quite the long list of books! Haha! So sorry, though each book was worth words to mention :) One more little news update: I have a tumblr! It has quicker, unfinished blog posts as well as reblogging of things I find interesting. Check it out! http://explore-imagine-create.tumblr.com/ Oh! And it has quotes and stuff like that. It also has expansions of twitter posts which will probably end up as polished posts here. Well, alright I'm only thinking of one. ;) I just saw Hugo and I'll be doing a review on it this weekend :)
P.S. I have had over 100 pageviews! Granted, I'm sure 1/4 of them are probably mine for when I didn't have the "Don't count your visits as pageviews" setting on, but it's still a marker and a big leap from having a big 0 up there all the time. I definitely saw the jump when I made a facebook page! But, it could be from my pinterest or twitter as well. It doesn't matter because that's a BIG thing that has made me happy today!

Best Music Video Ever!

This video was so cool, I had to make a post just for it! ;) I've never heard of this band nor heard this song, but wow! Just watch it- they made a musical instrument out of a car. A car and some seriously smart engineering and musical talent. It's so cool! I can't describe it!
P.S. speaking of instruments, I need a ukulele. Everytime I hear a song with it, I think, "I would love to play that all day if only I had a uke!" I already play the guitar and a few other instruments, so picking up a uke wouldn't be too hard. :) Any suggestions as to what brand?
*Extra Fact About Me: I love to write songs! Mostly the lyrics and the guitar part. I mostly improv for piano parts, so that's dif every time (!) Right now when I write lyrics, I usually have an idea of what I want the music to be, but I'm not particularly talented in a wide range of my multiple instruments so I'm stuck with what I know. I'm really itching to get a uke right now though because a few songs I've written recently I have guitar chords to but I envision a ukulele. And to have uke part, I would spend hours figuring out the ukulele so I know enough to make my songs!
Oh, and for those guitar players out there, I have a great app on my iPod I have to mention called All Guitar Chords! And for piano players, another app called Chord Picker- Play Piano. Although, I have most chords memorized for these two instruments (at least the chords that I use often), I like to have the apps for the occasional crazy chord you find! But none of these instruments I've mentioned compare to this car playing instruments. :) Watch it if you haven't yet! You won't be dissapointed by this music video!

Happy Tuesdays

Listening: to The Popular Recordings of Glenn Miller (love that 40's music!)

A Few of My Favorite Things: the breeze, two new Alice in Wonderland folders (love!), that bag (absolutely adorable)

Doing: Pre-Calc (no fun there)

Thinking: about inspirational things (hence the brown organizer, which holds all my notebooks, and I'm absolutely loving it right now!)

To Come: pictures came in from my first two rolls of film (yah!)

A Few More Things From Today



The view from below, looking through the tree branches, the sun peeping through

Loved the trees and clouds of this picture

This picture didn't turn out quite like I thought, but it's still pretty.

I was trying to focus on some cool weeds in the middle, but the ipod doesn't do that.

I only put this picture in here because I loved how light

my hair looked will all the natural highlights. :)

This post was inspired by Her Library Adventures. Particularly this post: http://herlibraryadventures.blogspot.com/2012/07/sunday-evening.html Mine isn't as wonderful because of the rushed time I did it. Although, overtime hopefully I'll learn how to create a quick post. I'm still experimenting on different styles.

(Sorry about the last three picture being smaller and their captions normal text. The bar used to change sizes and add captions won't show up, hence why this is posted Wednesday even though it was from Yesterday (I waited to see if it would be different today- it wasn't). I'll try to change it in the future, but for now, it's like it is.)

The Plaid Barn Giveaway

Lately I've been into a lot of giveaways. I got a twitter just so I could enter more (how crazy is that). No, I haven't won any yet, but maybe one day my luck will turn. Out of all the giveaways, this probably excites me the most: a chance to win a Fuji Instax 7 +5 Twin Packs of Film!!!!



The Plaid Barn Giveaway

I got an email for this giveaway and literally squealed! I have wanted an instant camera for a long time, and though it's unlikely I'll win, I would love to have one of these. I'm sure you wouldn't bind one of these around either, so you can enter too! Just click the picture and it will take you to the site where you can do all 4 ways to win. Good luck! I hope you enjoy this :) May the one who will use it the most win! ;)

The Little Things

Me and my two beautiful sisters

     There are small things that make up each of us: the foods we grew up with, the type of music we listened to, whether we went to church or not, and other things like that.  Each of us have a unique arrangement of people, events, choices, and small little details that make us who we are.  We have similarities that draw us to certain people and likewise, differences that keep us away from those we think we wouldn't like or get along with. Some of us are interested in anything and everything, while others devote their lives to one thing or maybe just a few.

     I think it's the little thing in life that make us who we are. It's whether we slept with a night light on or not as a young child. It's whether you lived in the city, the suburbans, or the country. Was there a library nearby or did you rely on the books in your house? If there was very many or not? Do you talk to strangers or follow the rule you were told as a kid to "stay away from strangers and don't talk to them"? Did your parents read to you and take you on picnics to the park and beach? What type of school did you go to? Were chores a mandatory or did you get paid or not have to do them at all?  As a child there are so many things that make us who we are later. Some are major events and ways of living such as the type of school you went to, whether your parents were divorced or not, or if you grew up in the church or hardly went at all. Then there are the things we never think about, like whether we talked to elderly ladies very often or if there was a window in our room.
     Everyday I like to notice something small that I do, and I ask myself, "Why do I this? When did I start?" Like yesterday, when I wanted my blinds to stay shut while the fan was wildly blowing them apart, I reached for my hair clip and used it to keep them together. This idea probably came from when we built forts as kids with blankets and used lots of clips to hold them together. Even the fact that we built forts and pretended to be Indians or treasure hunters is most likely one of the reasons that I love to write stories or sit in my room just imagining and dreaming.
     What are the little details that you remember about your childhood? What are the people, events, and choices that you made that changed your life? Think about it and the stitches of life that made you a unique blanket to show the world. Ask yourself today what are the little things in life  that make you who you are? What do you want your kids to remember made them who they are? It's not just the main events of our life growing up, it's the little details of life that make us who we are, and each day we can find something that will change us forever, even if it's just a small change.

My School Life and The Last Few Months

I'm a bit of nerd too!

     Since this is my first blog post, I thought I would share a little about me.  First, and most importantly, I am a Christian. After years of growing up in the church and trying to do the right thing, I finally gave my whole life to God, trusting Him with it. I want to tell you that the feeling of the Holy Spirit coming into you is absolutely amazing; I'll never forget it. Secondly, I'm a homeschooler. I like to say that "once a homeschooler, always a homeschooler." ;) Because of the experiences I have had in schooling, I'll probable mention it a lot. I have plenty ideas and opinions that I'll share on the topic of education in America. For now, I'll give you the rundown of my school life as well as why I'm still in the middle of tenth grade when it's halfway through summer.

     K-3 I was homeschooled. Then, in fourth grade I started going to Holly Academy (a great place). For high school, I began in a public school, but halfway through tenth grade I began to miss the life of homeschooling. It took a while to convince my parents, and I probable could have approached it differently, but we eventually made the switch back to homeschooling right smack dab in the middle of December, just before Christmas break! This led to the purchasing of books to be delayed, and therefore, I didn't get my books ordered until halfway through January. By March all my books were in and I really began homeschooling. Of course, then April came, and with 1 week of distracting kids, 1 week of vacation, and 1 week of housecleaning and preparing for that vacation, time slipped from my fingers and I got further and further behind. May was a successful, hardworking month, but coming into June, I knew I wasn't going to be done anytime soon. June was a busy month; between planning for a birthday party and a missions trip, two more weeks were chopped out of my school time. July brought another week of vacation where I mostly relaxed from the busy June. The rest of my summer is free, but after summer vacation, it took a while to get back on track. Okay, it took a week. :( So here I am in the fourth week of July, still trying to get back to a 100% normal schedule. I'm halfway through tenth grade, which is okay considering I've only been able to work on it 3 1/2 months (that is after you take out the weeks I couldn't work on it). 

Fav nail polsh color, my sketch book,
and my art journal.

     This fall I'm hoping to be done with tenth grade so I can order my junior yr of books soon (yes, I'm homeschooling again next year). I'll also be attending a skill center for a Viscom class. It will have art, graphic designs, photography, and something with movies. I'm really excited!

      Alright, I suppose that's enough for my first blog post. Two big things about me (three if you picked up on the class I'm taking) and the last few months of my life. :) I'll make sure to post something about all my hobbies, and I'm sure everyone will find something they connect with. I'm practically interested in everything! Ciao for now!