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Jasper, the psychic, trailer-park gypsy
This post is sponsored by eBay.
In college I took so many creative writing classes that I got a minor in English. This was completely by accident and not planned at all. Somehow I took one class and then next thing I know I was buddies with everyone and I kept taking more. It was a fun bunch of people to hang out with and the class was a hoot. Then when I was about to graduate, my advisor said, Why don’t you take a grammar course (which I was horrible at, no surprise there) and a literature class (Japanese Literature – it was awesome) and you’ll get a minor in English. So I did. And now to this day I can boast that I have a minor in English.
So it’s sort of a niggling thing that I don’t write fiction. I loved doing it so much in college, why can’t I be the next JK Rowling or Stephanie Meyer or at my worst, maybe I could write porn under a surname and make zillions of zillions of dollars like the fifty-shades lady.
I’ll probably never do any of the above, most of all the last because, ew. And second of all, I love love love to write descriptions all day long but when it comes to dialogue and a plot, I come up floundering. In fact, now that I think about it, all I ever wrote in my creative writing classes was a creative take on my real life. Kinda like this blog.
I digress. What I was trying to get to was that I have a friend who has been challenging me to write fiction. In fact, I even made up a character for her and together we were going to write chapters, trading them back and forth. To get my creative juices flowing I started a collection on ebay with all the things I thought my character, Jasper, would have or wear. It was a lot of fun. I recommend it for anyone needing help visualizing their character. I think I secretly wish I was a tv stylist with an unlimited budget. I could totally get down with buying things in character.
Without further ado, here is my story. But wait, I do have some ados. I need to preface this story by saying that this character came out of my imagination completely on her own and does not reflect anything from my real life. All my relatives should know that I am not psychic nor do I read tarot cards and I do not make out with boys in mobile homes. If any of that might offend you then perhaps this story is not suitable for you. Click away while you still can!
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An Artist’s Afternoon
This post is sponsored by eBay.
I love reading style blogs. I love when they make collections. You’d think this is because I’m really into fashion and I want to stay up on all the latest trends but that’s not the case at all. I don’t give a flip about what they are wearing in Paris or what lipgloss has the best shine. I just like style blogs because they are visual. I love to look at pictures. I could look at pictures all day long. I’d say 80 percent of the blogs I read, I just scan photos and never read a line of text. Isn’t that weird? I guess everyone’s brain is made differently and we like what we like.
This got me thinking…maybe I should make a collection. I tried a little bit with my Paris Party Planning post but maybe I should stick to things I know. Like art supplies, perhaps? Oh yeah. You can talk about your Nars lip gloss and your booties that cost five hundred dollars and I’ll just glaze over but get me started on gel medium and glue guns, googlie eyes and glow-in-the-dark paint and I’ll talk you under the table. Or talk you into coming over to my house Friday night for crafts and drinks with the girls.
Here’s a little collection I put together on eBay called Artist Afternoon.
1. Mod Podge! If you’ve followed any of my craft posts over on Alphamom, you already know what a staple this is and you’ve already got five jars of it in your well-stocked craft cabinet in five different shades and weights. It’s not your mother’s decoupage goop, though you can certainly use it for decoupaging. It’s pretty much your average white glue that works on anything without the orange applicator cap that always gets stopped up anyway. If you don’t have a bottle of this on hand, you need one.
2. Small Watercolor Painting Tin Isn’t this cute? I’ve been thinking of making my own altoid tin version but I have to admit the tiny divider thing is a selling point for me. Especially if you use tube watercolor paint, which I don’t but I might try one of these days.
3.Gloss Gel Medium This stuff is the secret to not being a starving artist. You can add a tiny bit of paint to a big glob of gel and magically the pigment from your paint will color the entire glob without weakening the color at all. This is great when you discover that you are out of some important color and you really don’t want to run to the art store to stock up.
4. Washi Tape! There are so many uses for this stuff. Even if you aren’t the DIY type you need this around for taping small notes and wrapping packages. And also color coding your power cords.
5. Googlie eyes You already know how I feel about googlie eyes. I think everyone should have a very large collection. EBay is a great place to start.
6. Coveralls. I don’t have any but I’m thinking I need some. It could be like my super hero costume for crafting.
7. Glow in the Dark Paint! I’ve been perkolating a bunch of ideas with this stuff. I might even have to break it out for Halloween.
8. Sexy Boyfriend Jeans I live in these. Baggy, comfortable and NOT frumpy.
9. Liquitex Acrylic Paint A lot of people swear by other brands but I’m pretty loyal to Liquitex. I’ve been using them since forever.
10. Super Bonder glue gun This is not Glubert, my trusty glue gun, but if Glubert suddenly bit the dust, this is probably what I’d buy because it’s red and it’s SUPER. Super Bonder to the rescue!
If you like the above, there’s more here. I hope you enjoy my collection! Be sure to follow me on eBay to check out the rest of my shoppable collections. I’ve got a few that I think you will find very interesting…let’s just say I’m using my collections to inspire some fiction writing I might be doing. Stay tuned!
(My eBay Collections were curated as part of my collaboration with eBay #FOLLOWITFINDIT)
