Living the Creative Life

I don't know if it's like this in other graphic design programs, but in mine, there seems to be a very sharp drop-out rate. We began the year with about 60 first-years, and now, halfway through the year, there's probably about 30. To give a sharp comparison, there are only 9 second-years. You do have to petition to get into the second and third years, I know that much, but I also see a lot of people psyching themselves out and quitting early. Perhaps graphic design just wasn't for them. It's hard to tell. I feel like... we're kind of in a competition. I mean, not really, but kind of yes. I know they don't have a set number of people who they let into the second year, but in a way, the more who drop out, the more pressure I feel. The ones who were here just for fun are slowly falling to the sidelines and now those of us who are left are in a more heated battle to the end. Our teachers are very patient and gentle, but they do push us to try harder, be b...

My sister does tons of cross-stitching, and we were talking about this cross-stitching website the other day, and anyway... then I stumbled across this pattern , which totally reminded me of myself! Just a day-dream-y girl on the beach with a book. ;-) ***** Have you ever found a photo or piece of art that seemed to describe you perfectly? What was it and what did it say about you?

Yesterday I parked at the shuttle and took the bus to school. When I got back, my TIRE WAS FLAT!! Sigh... Just what I needed at 6pm in the cold darkness. Luckily my dad was home and only about 5 minutes away, so he came and rescued me. (I am absolutely fine with being a woman who doesn't change her own tire!) . ***** Do you change your own tire? Why or why not? If not, do you know how or do you just not want to? ***** In other news, we have a winner for this month's giveaway ! Congratulations, Tranae! ( Email me , please! Your Google account is coming up as noreply-comment@blogger.com, so I have no way to get ahold of you) .

Remember my painting project ? I finally finished it and turned it in last Wednesday! Our teacher kind of scolded us a little for not perfectly lining up the 1" cut-outs of each swatch when we pasted them all on the templates we were given. Oops! I should know better by now - it's a really big deal to create perfectly straight/squared-off things as a graphic designer. Anyway, most of the colors turned out awesome. I could've used a little more blue in the blue-green, but by the time the paint dried and I realized it wasn't quite the color that I was expecting, my blue paint had run out. Oh well... The purples were probably the hardest colors to get right, mainly due to their darkness. I kept imagining a nice, soft, spring-y color, but you'd have to add white to the paint to get that and we weren't allowed to use white for this assignment. My NEXT assignment is to paint a value scale of the color yellow. Two tints and two shades. I guess I bett...

Spring is springing here in Oregon!! We didn't have much of a winter to start with this year, but I'm looking forward to Spring just the same. Easter, new flowers, more sunshine... it's just a pleasant time of year! I think my favorite thing about Spring is the lengthening of the days. I don't mind the rainy winters we tend to have here in Oregon, but having the sun go down around 4:30 or 5PM can get rather depressing. You can tell Spring is coming when the sun stays around later and later into the evening (by summertime, the sun stays out until nearly 10PM!) ***** What's your favorite thing about Spring?

{ Blog } { Twitter } { Facebook } Q. You have an interesting blog title - is it a nickname or how did you come up w/ that? A. Well THANKS! My best friend in 4th grade came up with it. Until recently, she was the only person who called me Aunie. When I met my boyfriend, his family said they needed a nickname for me because Annelise was too long. They loved Aunie. Q. How long have you been blogging and how did you get more than 50 followers? Do you have any advice for growing your blog into an active community?  A. I began blogging with my first blog LastLash in November of 2010. I began Aunie Sauce in November of 2011. I gained followers by swapping! Swaps are so wonderful to help promote your blog. Just get yourself out there and email away! (Make sure the people who you want to swap are blogs you actually read and enjoy reading... ) Q. I noticed when clicking on your nav bar that you actually have several blogs! What made you decide to do that, as opposed...

In the lull after midterms and before finals, I've been attempting to catch up on my blog reading. It's a full-time job, I'm telling you! I'm diligently working on starring the entries in Google Reader that interest me, to prepare for narrowing down my subscriptions. Keeping caught up should be a little easier with not as many blogs to follow. The problem is, I keep finding new ones I like! ;) Reading so many posts right in a row has me pondering some of the ways that blog writers could make it a little easier on their readers. Here are some things that come to mind: 1. First of all, I really wish more bloggers would realize is that   word verification   requirements are annoying! The original purpose of those were so non-human spam-bot computers couldn't post comments, but I'm not sure those even exist anymore. In any case, I don't think the average personal or fashion blog really needs to worry about that, especially when it makes it that much more diffic...

{ Blog } { Twitter } { Pinterest } Q. I see you're studying Political Science! What exactly is that and what do you plan on doing with that? I'm assuming it has something to do w/ politics?? A. I have no idea! I wish someone would have told me that even though Political Science sounds like a great major, there is little you can do with it other than go to law school or graduate school. It's a dream of mine to work in East/Northeast Africa, but I don't know whether or not that will happen. I know I want to make an impact, so if I find myself in advocacy or some type of lobbying, I won't be disappointed. Q. You have a rather new blog. What made you decide to start blogging? Is this your first blog? A. This is my first blog. Blogging started off as a way to both journal my day to day experiences and keep in touch with my friends and family while I'm off at school. After a couple posts, everyone kept telling me they loved my writing and I soon reali...

We had a pretty interesting assignment today in Photoshop. We created a TV wall, like you would see on a show like Entertainment Tonight, and populated it with both a background image and a foreground image. Here's the one that I did. I created all the black boxes, which are supposed to be TV screens. Clearly the movie Inception has been on my brain lately, because I had to add that for the background image! (I saw it again last weekend and I'm still pondering all it's ins and outs.)  The lady in the foreground is apparently a new correspondent on Entertainment Tonight, so she made logical sense to put in the picture to create a sense of scale. (I forget what her name is, but you can Google it if you really want to know.)

Who wants to win some stuff?? :D A few of my sponsors have so graciously donated ad space ! "What would I do with that?" you might be asking yourself. Do you have a blog or Etsy shop? Advertising on blogs is a great way to get some new eyes looking at your work! And you'll get an entire month of ad space on all three blogs! To sweeten the deal, I'm also giving away a $10 off coupon to my Etsy shop: Desert Rose Knits . Etsy doesn't actually allow me to make "dollars off" coupons via their automated system, so let me know what you want to spend it on and I'll make up a custom listing for you with the discounted price applied! (Coupon may only be used by you and may not be refunded for money.) So how do you enter? 1. Subscribe to this blog:  Living the Creative Life . 2. Subscribe to Aunie Sauce . 3. Subscribe to Keeping up with The Cantelmo's . 4. Subscribe to Boyish Chic . 5. Follow me on Twitter . 6. ... o...

I've been working on a painting project for my Color class this weekend (well, the project is being done this weekend, not the class) . Red, Red-Orange, Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow, Yellow-Green, Green, Blue-Green, Blue, Blue-Violet, Violet, and then a full value scale of Blue (light blue to dark blue). Last term I did a similar thing with a gray value scale, but I'm realizing I never blogged about that! Anyway, I'm supposed to have this new project done by Wednesday, but so far I've only done 2 1/2 colors. The "half" is violet, but because I did it but it didn't really turn out right so I'm going to have to re-do it. It doesn't look too horrible in the photo, but in real life it looks brown! OH!! I forgot to mention, all of this has to be done by using only red , yellow , and blue paint. For the value scale, I can also add black and white . Very cool, but it's going to take a lot of time to get all the shades right! Here's w...

Today I've been finishing up some cute baby hats for my Etsy shop !! Aren't they just the cutest? ;-D I used a super soft yarn called Cuddly that I found at JoAnn's. They have quite a few cute baby colors, but I just got a couple to start with. Surprisingly, these knit up rather quickly. The slowest part was doing the i-cord for the straps. Have you ever knit an i-cord? It's sort of easy, but just takes a long time. This video explained it pretty well for me.

I was watching Grey's Anatomy  last night and it struck me how glad I am that I'm not a medical student / intern. Not that that was ever an option, but can you imagine me doing that? I'm much more suited to the artistic life of a designer. Lol. We work hard too, but it's a different kind of hard. We're not in 12-hour surgeries or up to our elbows in someone's innards. Instead we decide from 20 different shades of yellow and work painstakingly to draw the perfect lines with the smallest pen tip you've ever seen. Definitely more my speed! ;) ***** What about you? Are you suited for where you are in life? Do you ever catch a glimpse of someone else's life and feel glad you didn't choose that path?

Seeing as how it's nearly time to start drumming up sponsors for next month again, I've been doing some thinking about that. Maybe I'm too busy to worry about sponsors. I love the idea of mutually supporting each other's blogs, but the actual practice of it can be exhausting. Every blogger you sponsor wants you to send them a recent photo and a laundry list of hopes and dreams written poetically about. Then there's the hassle of getting everyone's buttons and photos and info to put up on MY blog. Sometimes it can feel like you're chasing around a bunch of squirmy kittens. I was asking myself, how can I streamline this process so it's not as painful? Is sponsoring even necessary? I love having other blog's buttons in my sidebar - it's a great way to get the word out there about other great blogs. I am constantly clicking through on buttons on other people's sites to discover new blogs to browse. So I really don't want to do away with tha...

We're on to week 2 of the February Photo a Day challenge (read more about it on the blog: Fat Mum Slim ). This has been a pretty fun challenge so far! I'm curious, have any of you been participating in this? { Week 1 } {Week 2} {Week 3} {Week 4} {Day 6} Dinner {Day 7} Buttons {Day 8} Sun (or lack thereof -- it actually hasn't stopped raining here for about a week!) {Day 9} Front Door {Day 10} Self-Portrait {Day 11} Makes You Happy {Day 12} Inside Your Closet

{ Blog } * { Twitter } * { Facebook } Q. How did you come up with your blog title? A. Well at first it was just my Twitter username, then I said "Heeeey! This would be a great name for my blog." Q. You mention in one of your recent blogposts that you're home-schooled. Was that your choice or just how it is in your family? What's your favorite / least favorite thing about it? A. I begged my mom to be homeschooled after my first year of First Grade. My favorite thing is that I have time to do a bunch of things like blogging, singing, and traveling. My least favorite thing is that people tend to stereotype homeschoolers... other than that I LOVE it! Q. Where do you see yourself in ten years? Where will you live? What will you be doing career-wise? A. I see myself...in a LOT of different places... well in ten years I'll be 25 so I see myself getting married. Maybe! Haha. I'll live in Miami- South Beach, honey! I will be singing and writ...

As you may or may not know, I'm 32-years-old and single. Some days that doesn't bother me, and other days it really does. Obviously today is Valentine's Day, which is always one of the more difficult days as a single person. While everyone else has someone to snuggle with and whisper sweet nothings to, I'm stuck on the sidelines. I ran across this poster on Nicelle's blog  the other day and just had to smile. On days like today when I'm tempted to worry about my life and why it doesn't look like everyone else's life, it's helpful to remember that God loves me just the way I am. In fact, He's the one guiding me to take the paths in life that I'm taking! He knows where my Mr. is and when I'll meet him. It's all under His control even when it doesn't feel like it. And that's a very reassuring truth. :)

(found this awesome survey over on Wonder Forest ) 1. I started my blog because:  I think better with writing than with speaking. For years I kept a written diary. Now with the advent of blogging, this has quickly become my brain's default way of processing life.    2. One thing I love seeing on other blogs are : When bloggers participate in a fun blog meme or survey (like this one!) that shows off their personality. 3. Something I love about blogging: Having a little place of my own on the internet. It's fun to think of fun posts and to have a place to share ideas and pictures that I'm fascinated with. I also love meeting other women who think like me &/or are more creative than me and can inspire me to be a greater version of myself! 4. A favorite blog post of mine: My latest " About Me " post is pretty fun. I like doing those every now and then to introduce myself to new readers. 5. Something my friends in real life know about me that I...

I love this idea, but not sure I'd have the courage to do it myself! Alycia is an amazing filmmaker (or if she isn't IRL, she should be). This day in the life video was really captivating, despite there being absolutely no dialogue. If that isn't a sign of a good filmmaker, I don't know what is!  ;) A day in the life from Alycia on Vimeo .

I ran across an interesting idea that I'm going to try. Have you ever noticed the stars next to each post in Google Reader? Yeah me neither. ;) I read a tip recently that suggested that you should star any post that you find engaging / interesting. If your eyes glaze over and you skim through a post as quickly as possible, don't star that one. Then after a week or two, go into "Trends" and compare starred items to frequently updated items. The theory is that if the most updated blogs are not the ones that you star the most, you should unsubscribe to them. Basically those are the blogs that are wasting your time and cluttering your in-box with things you didn't really want to read anyway. I just started starring things today, so we'll see if that helps me narrow down which blogs are actually exciting my creativity and which blogs are merely cluttering the landscape. I've already been kind of trying to keep a mental tally of which blogs I tend to skim and wh...

I bet you've been wondering... how is Jennifer doing on her technology detox ? Well... I'm glad you asked! Some areas of detox are going well, while other aspects have crept back into my life. I haven't been strict on myself, but instead remind myself regularly to slow down, observe my restfulness level, and not try to constantly keep my mind busy with technology. Some technology is fine, but constant technology has a way of not letting your brain ever really rest. Netflix: I'm doing well with this resolution. I've maintained my one DVD at a time rule, and am still not watching any streaming. It's been interesting to discover that the lack of thousands of movies at my beck and call makes that one movie on the weekend so much more interesting to watch! TiVo: I went ahead and deleted everything two weeks and older on my DVR. I still had Christmas movies on there! If I haven't watched them by the middle of February, I probably never will. It's w...

Um wow... I've been incredibly busy lately. Midterms are next week and a gazillion projects are due. Three tests as well. Fortunately, if I survive, the week after that only has 3 school days in it and looks like it will be rather light on homework! Here's one of the things I'm working on today. Trying to correct an old family photo (all those white splotches and dirty grain are not supposed to be there) . Definitely harder than it looks...

{ Blog } * { Shop } * { Twitter } * { Facebook } Q. How did you come up with your blog title, "Twelve Discovery Drive"? A. I really started thinking about what I wanted to do over the next year. I want to try at least one new thing each month. Twelve new things to Discover who I am and the Drive to complete them. Each word in the title has personal meaning to me. My tagline is "Creating My Own Happy Ending" - when I think about my "ending," I always see myself in a beach house or lake house overlooking the water, sitting at my desk writing something. That little thought just always puts a smile on my face :) Q. What did you always want to be when you grew up? Are you doing that?  A. I'm not really sure what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was so confused about it that I joined the military right out of high school. I went into the US Marines when I was 18 and stayed in for seven years. Once I got out, I went back to s...