Thursday, August 7, 2014

I am selfish. I am brave I am divergent.

Mom was nice enough to share her DVD copy of Divergent with me this week, and I must say... I was impressed. One of my fears in seeing the movie was that everything I imagined about the book, would be presented differently. But it wasn't... HOORAY!!!

Watching the movie though, reminded me of one... simple little thing.... I never had a chance to finish book 3 of the series last fall! WHAT??? Yes my dear friends, I was enrolled in a fiction class, and had 20 required books to read over the semester. Books like Allegiant fell to the wayside...

So, since I'm off until school starts again I downloaded the book onto my trusty tablet and spent all night (and most of the day) reading it. I won't post any spoilers here, but I was a bit sad. In my view, the story was always about Four, and what fangirl isn't in love with Four???

So in case your wondering, according to the test:
YOUR CHOICES DEMONSTRATE THE VIRTUES OF MORE THAN ONE FACTION,
SCORING HIGHEST IN AMITY AND ABNEGATION TRAITS

 So it's over now, well the books are, but we can celebrate our fandom with some awesome DIY ideas in the meantime:

Divergent inspired wire bracelet tut from Capital B. I'm sure they are multiple ways to modify this idea especially if you want to substitute the red wire beads. Check out the tut at: http://www.creativecapitalb.com/2014/03/divergent-inspired-dauntless-bracelet.html?m=1

Living Lucurto has designed free PDF printables for themed party ideas including faction tags, invites and more. Excellent for parties, book clubs, or movie nights. Get em at: http://www.livinglocurto.com/2014/03/divergent-party-free-printables/#sthash.NaQJVNPD.dpbs.

CurlyMade
And my absolute favorite: a template of swallows. In this tut the author used them to paint a wall, but I want to resize the template and decorate a book or my laptop. Get the PDF for free at: http://curlymade.blogspot.pt/2014/03/swallows-wall-decor.html

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Zerg! Target Acquired! Digital Cleanup



With the fall semester upon me, I tasked myself with a nasty, and dreaded necessity: cleaning up my digital junk off the laptop. And I'm a messy nerd... the type that clutters her desktop with icon after icon after icon... I've been told it drives people mad, especially those with OCD.  

So ready to zerg your digital messes? Here's my list:

iPhone & Tablets:
  • I was greatly inspired by this article: Organize your iPhone in 5 minutes, which consists of a simple wallpaper you download, and arrange your icons over. What did not work for me was the assigned categories (based on my app selection) however, never fear, the author offers the same wallpapers with no categories for your personal organizational needs. 
  • Remove apps and games you haven't used in awhile. Unless you were blessed with massive GB storage, these apps take up space and over time just look messy on your screen.
  • Folders, and more folders. I honestly dislike scrolling through screens to find an app. I have several folders living now on my screen, and went from 6 pages total to 2 pages of icons.
  • I'm a photo addict. I use photos for funny BookFace posts, and blogging, but it eats up my storage like crazy. Time to cloud those pics, or erase them.
Cloud Storage:
  • Speaking of the cloud, I finally activated my free additional storage as a Samsung tablet user today through DropBox. To free up some storage on my tablet I started moving PDF, ePUB, and other documents onto my cloud account.  
  • DropBox also allows users to earn free storage simply by referring people to start an account. Wanna help a student out? Sign up for your free account here: Join DropBox for Free.
  • I've also installed the free PC app, so now I can move items as needed onto my account for better organizational goodness.
The Monster of em All: Laptop
  • Dailymom.com  offers a simple, straight-forward list for achieving PC goodness, and I have been faithfully following it today. Depending on the amount of stuff you have to clear up, be sure to have a few hours available to complete this one.
  • My lifesaver today has been folders. Last semester school projects are neatly tucked away, and photos moved off my desktop. Wow! I can see my wallpaper! Which just happens to be the little pixel monster who's hanging out up there at the top of my post.
Wishing everyone an organized and decluttered fall semester!

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Visiting Vintage Recipes

Golden Press / Via midcenturymenu.com
There's something delightful in vintage cookbooks, a fact I had forgotten about until earlier today. While stumbling across the usual mess of pictures and status updates, I found the most terrible and shocking article on bookface: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariannarebolini/truly-upsetting-vintage-recipes, 21 Truly Upsetting Vintage Recipes. I will warn you, they are upsetting! So upsetting that I wasted an hour surfing the internet for more vintage recipe goodness.

I found recipes using tomato soup in chocolate cake,  jell-o which used to come in "salad" flavors, and cheese molded into the shapes of trees and weird pottery.

There's a blogger out there, who actually blogged about making a vintage recipe weekly. Sadly I've lost her name. 

BAD food photography. baaaaad. 

Perhaps it's time to dust off the old cookbooks mom gifted me.  Wonder if she has any vintage jell-o molds....