#gettingcrafty: smashed potatoes !

(I may or may not be starting to run out of ways to use the word "smash" cleverly...)

It's been almost two weeks since I last touched my SMASH Book, but since I go back to SD for school in less than two weeks, I want to finish smashing in the rest of my stuff so I don't have to bring any of it back with me.

I finally did the front and back covers. I'm less than satisfied with how the front looks, but it'll do for now. I'll hopefully add more stuff and make it look more colorful (even though I love the color pink) and less bland.

Front. "There comes a day when you realise turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because your realise there's so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on." - Zayn Malik

Back.

 On to the pages ! This time... DCON Edition ! When I was in Key Club, District Convention (DCON) was always one of the events I looked forward to because you got to interact with Key Clubbers from all over the District. It was rare in high school to even meet Key Clubbers from other divisions (it makes it even tougher that I lived in Nevada and not California where most of the Key Clubbers are). In Circle K, there are many more opportunities to meet other Circle K'ers because there are more District events, so I looked forward to Circle K DCON because of meeting other Circle K'ers AND it's just a familiar event due to KC DCON. DCON is a lot of fun and I had a blast ^__^ Looking at this page brought back some good memories~

I added this pocket to hold the DCON Program.

I used the black and white paper ad for DCON that we got back at FTC as a background for the page.

All my cool swag I got from DCON. Thanks UNR, UCB, CSUF, OCC, Sac State, UNLV, and Capitol Division for stuff! :)

Under the HIMYM Tie (courtesy of UNR) is my room key ! I roomed with Charlotte, Lynn, and Jen Keli :D

I really like this spread because it's a perfect collage. It feels like it didn't take me too long to put this together since everything seemed to fall into place, but it probably did take me as long because of distractions... and I'm a perfectionist :P

Anyways, look forward to more of my SMASH Book pages in the near future ! Need to get this done before I go back to SD !

#hair: peek-a-blue/green !

I'm almost a week late posting this, but better late than never, right ?

On Labor Day, I got my hair trimmed AND decided to do something spontaneous. I got a peek-a-boo/under layer dye... in the color blue-green (which is now more green than blue and will end up being green because curse having dark hair ! But it's okay !).

Before

After

The "after" picture is directly after I got it dyed. I've washed my hair twice since I've gotten it dyed so it's starting to become more green than a blue/green/teal color. The process wasn kind of slow, but she was working on my mom's hair while I was waiting for my hair to do be done. She pinned all my hair except for the bottom layer to the top of my head, then had to bleach my hair first before she could dye it.

Bleach/hair lightener. My hair was this blonde/light brown shade that was really, really nice, even though it was unhealthy because it wasn't dye and just the hair lightener/bleach.

Blue dye ! Kind of wish it turned out this blue, but I do like the color I have. It's more subtle :P

The reason it's called peek-a-boo dye is because I can hide it under my top layers of hair when it's down over my shoulders, have it peek out when it's down over my shoulders (either slightly or completely like the "after" picture I posted above, or if my hair is up, it shows on the underside of my hair.

This was after the first time I washed my hair. The yellow light makes the color a bit distorted, but see how it shows through even though most of my hair is black ? :D

This was before I washed it for the first time, but look at the way the color shows when my hair is up !

In hindsight, I wish I could do this with a hot pink color because pink is my favorite color, but I do wear more neutral stuff and this green/blue color looks more natural with my clothes/my hair, so this was a good choice. If I do decide to dye my hair like this once it does grow out, I'm going to get a red or hot pink color. But I'm 18, still young enough to do "reckless" things, so I thought, "Why not ?" I've gotten a lot of compliments on my hair from my friends who have seen it, so I know I took a good risk.

I've only had my hair up or just straight down over my shoulders, so I haven't fully embraced the potential this color has; can't wait to experiment more with my hair and see how the color turns out !

#haul: labor day shopping adventure !

I wanted to try to do a haul video--you know, like the ones that famous makeup/girl YouTubers make--but I think I'd be really awkward modeling in front of a camera (& I don't know how to model !) and talking about what I got and why I got it. I'd rather just type it to save myself the embarrassment. Maybe one day I'll get over feeling awkward and just go for it x:

Anyways, this past weekend was Labor Day weekend, which is a giant shopping weekend because of Labor Day and End of Summer sales. As a natural shopping addict, I had to leave my girl cave to seek out the great deals... and it was totally worth it !

My shopping adventure started at an outlet center north of the Strip on Saturday (where my ex saw me pass by the entrance and asked if I wanted to meet up and say hi... but he left before I was finished buying my bag. Eeeek !). My best best guy friend works at Kate Spade New York in the stock room and gets an employee discount, and he told me that this weekend would be the best time to get it because along with the original discount the outlet holds from the original price, there is an extra discount because of Labor Day, and then on top of that, he has his employee discount ! So my mom bought two bags and I bought two bags. I absolutely love the black soft leather bag I got. Like I'm absolutely in love with it. The other one was already on clearance and still super cute, something different from my other cross-body bags.

THANK YOU, JAMES !

Then after church yesterday, we went to Town Square. I originally needed to go to buy makeup at M.A.C. and get my free pair of underwear from Victoria's Secret, but whenever I go shopping, I tend to buy more than what I need...

We stopped at Victoria's Secret first since it was the first store we came across that we needed to go to. Like I said, I was just supposed to get my free panty, but they were having a 7/$26 sale on PINK panties and I had a $10 off a bra coupon.... I love shopping, but shopping for underwear essentially makes me the happiest.

Five seamless panties, three cheeksters, and a bra.

After my sister got some Lollicup, we went to M.A.C. It was my first time ever buying face makeup, so the dude that was working there helped us out. I got a liquid foundation because I liked the coverage better than the foundation x powder combination. He also recommended the liquid one to me because he said that my skin was already so flawless and nice so I shouldn't need to cake on it (': He also put this really nice blush on me that complimented my skin tone, and my mom said I should get it. So I did. I also bought the finishing translucent powder because I sweat easily and if I don't set the foundation, then it'll look like I'm melting when I sweat.

Foundation, blush, finishing translucent powder.

We were on our way to Capriotti's afterwards to have lunch, but we stopped by Francesca's Collections, one of my mom's, sister, and my favorite stores, to take a look... and of course, came out with a few purchases. The first top is a nude-ish pink semi-sheer not-really-but-idk-what-to-call-it top with 3/4ths sleeves and it's kind of long and loose. I'm hoping I can use it for professional dress or more dressy-casual purposes. The second is just a short-sleeved semi-sheer same-material-as-the-last-one top with one of my favorite prints, chevron print, on it.

Look, I'm trying to model ! :P

We went to eat then stopped at H&M, NY&C, Bath and Body Works, and American Eagle, but I had no purchases. Passing by Abercrombie & Fitch, a store we never shopped at, we decided to go in. Surprisingly, I bought a few things. First was a cotton button-up with 3/4ths long sleeves. I couldn't choose between blue or gray, but ultimately decided to go with blue because I have a lot of gray in my closet. I got this blue striped knitted sweater because it was super cute and I thought it fit me pretty well. Lastly, I got a flowy floral printed dress... which I originally wasn't going to get, but it looked so cute on me... I couldn't resist.

The lighting is slightly off for this one... I don't know why x:

That was the last store we stopped at, since my dad was coming home from work. By that point, we walked the whole perimeter of Town Square, so it was a successful shopping and "exercise" day for the three of us. This will probably be the last shopping adventure I have for a while since Labor Day is the last shopping holiday/weekend before I go back to SD, where I rarely go shopping because I don't want to spend more money than I have to since college is very expensive x: I'm still super happy with my purchases and can't wait until I go shopping again ! :D

#gettingcrafty: smash it up !

Greetings ! It's been almost a week since I last updated with the progress of how my SMASH Book is going... and not much progress has been made within that amount of time. Every time I do something creative, I feel like I have to let my creative juices rest and do other mindless things until they are recharged, kekeke. With the short break I took, I managed to do two pages (sadly, only two pages).

One of the reasons why I took so long in doing another page or two was because I didn't know what to smash next or how to order things from that page onward. I'm trying to do it chronologically, but I have so much stuff that don't fit together chronologically, but the categories can be arranged chronologically, so I decided to just go with that.

Before I get to the pages, I bought some more stuff to help me with my SMASH Book ! I was in Target and I passed the scrapbooking aisle. I curiously looked and saw a few SMASH products on sale ! :D I bought four pockets, these magnetic clip thingies, and this booklet for around $4 :D

And without further ado, here are the two pages I did !

The theme of these two pages is FTC (Fall Training Conference). It is an annual CNH Circle K event held in Sonora, CA. Bunches of workshops, new members are called on stage and get a certificate welcoming them into the organization and clubs hand out/trade cool goodies to put on your name tags and show off during the event.

Here is the first page~

A close up of the first page.

My certificate ^__^ I went on stage to receive this ! 

From SD to Sonora in NorCal ! The washi tape parts say what school I got the cool goodies from.

And the right page~

I got that bag from UCR. I'm using it to hold the FTC program. The space-related stickers are also from UCR, since their theme was Men In Black. It took forever to get the bag to stick on the page.

The beautiful program~

Behind the straps of the bag, since I didn't want there to just be an awkward space.

That's it for now ! I'm debating whether or not to do a giant Circle K chunk (aka a few pages, since I have random Circle K stuff) or KP/Phamily pages next, since I don't know what would be better chronologically. Maybe I'll do all Circle K stuff (including DCON, which is after those two chunks) and then KP/Phamily pages afterwards. Or my birthday after the pages I just did THEN those pages ? Maybe I should've done my birthday before these FTC pages.... AHHHH, I don't know.

I still also do not have a cover. I know what I want on the cover, but I don't know how to design it yet. Hopefully, I'll get a random burst of inspiration and design the cover before the book gets TOO fat.

I'm excited to work on the rest of my book & keep you all updated ! (:

#gettingcrafty: how smashing !

Earlier this summer, I decided I wanted to make a SMASH Book after seeing it all over Pinterest. I thought it was a cool way to store all of the small memorabilia I keep throughout the years. I'm going to document my journey with my SMASH book here~

After buying some washi tape and some more scrapbook supplies and salvaging other scrapbook supplies from our hallway closet, I decided to get to work!

They sent me two rolls of the bird tape on accident/purpose ? Most of these I got from downtowntape.com. Two are from cottonon.com, and two are of the SMASH brand.

All the scrapbooking supplies I found in the closet. The red composition notebook is what I'm making into my SMASH book, which is an old notebook I used in the 7th grade.

Two SMASH pens (I'll buy the blue one next time !) and a paper pad by Teresa Collins.

Close up of the SMASH pens (with New Girl in the background) !

First, I covered the edge of the composition notebook pages with washi tape. This would help group the pages to make them thicker (versus gluing the pages together) and make the side of the book look pretty at the same time ! Tutorial is here.

I didn't know what to do for the cover, so I skipped to the inside cover. I glued a paper patterned with a field of lavender flowers and a flower-related quote... something girly and cute to open the book with.

"Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower." - Shigenori Kameoka

It took me a couple of more days from the point when I made the cover to actually do the rest of my SMASH Book. I had to dump out all the stuff I had from the past year of college (I'm starting the book here; I have a bunch of stuff from high school that I think I'm going to save for another book) and think of how to organize the stuff together and arrange it nicely on a page.

I didn't even realize how much stuff I had ! It doesn't look like so much, but, trust me, it is.

Here's what I came up with for the first page. I imagined this to be a two page kind of design, but I lacked name tags. I had a bunch more name tags but I think I threw them away when I was moving out of my dorm. I'm still mostly satisfied with how the page turned out though. I think it's a pretty good introduction page, right ? I used washi tape to decorate the page more.

Hello ! My name is...

It took me a while to decide what to do next, but I decided to make it UCSD/Triton themed since it was my first year attending university. I didn't have a lot to work with, but I think I made it look good !

Program from Convocation ! Inside the program, this guy & I were writing messages to each other. Kinda cute.

Underneath the Convocation program.

Sun God wristband and a bunch of pins I've gotten from school so far. I don't know if I'm going to keep the pins in there or not since it makes the book so fat already.

Signed concert tickets & the wristbands, Sun God babies, random stickers...

Underneath the tickets. Back of the Sun God babies & a random star sticker (which I wish I placed differently, but I couldn't remove it after I put it there >___<).

Under the wristbands.

Anyways, that's all I have done for now. I'm excited to keep working on my SMASH book and improve my scrapbooking/creativity skills ! (((:

#concert: jonas brothers concert !

I went to two concerts in about one week, which is pretty unusual. This time, I went to the Jonas Brothers concert ! It's been about three and a half years since I saw them live for the first time, back when they were still super popular, when tickets were sold out almost instantly. I'm not obsessed with Jonas Brothers like I am with One Direction, nor was I obsessed back when they were popular, but I always loved their music.

I went with my cousins and my sister. One of my cousins (who was visiting from Vancouver) is a HUGE Jonas Brothers fan. She obsesses over the Jonas Brothers like I do with One Direction (which is enormous, if you can't tell). They made the concert experience so great. I don't think I would've had as much fun if I went with just my sister.

My cousin in the middle is the super obsessed JB fan :P

We got there at almost 6PM. My cousin bought a shirt (which was as expensive as 1D merch... I guess merch is that expensive. How annoying !) and we found our seats. On the way there, we saw my cousin and aunt and uncle, who got free seats. Their seats were pretty good ! Our seats were pretty good too, since they were floor, but it was kinda hard to see sometimes.  It was also kind of sad because there were a good amount of empty seats open; they didn't completely sell out like they used to. Nevertheless, it wasn't too bad... and as soon as the concert started, the people next to me and in front of me left because they couldn't see, so I had more room to dance/peer around heads, waving hands, and cameras to see. I wish I had a picture from the Jonas Brothers concert I went to in December 2008 (I think) so I could compare views... but I don't have one handy on me !

Some DJ was the opening act, starting at around 7PM. He helped pass the time a little bit before Karmin, the other opening act, went on. A guy on the stands was dancing to every song he played and it was so funny/awesome. I couldn't stop laughing. I wouldn't mind dancing with that guy. THEN KARMIN CAME ON AND I WAS SO EXCITED ! I've been a fan of theirs since I saw their "Look At Me Now" cover that caused their current status of fame. They opened with my current jam from them, "A Capella," played some new songs, sang "Look At Me Now" (I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS, OMG), then ended with "Brokenhearted." Their set was long, but I didn't mind because I thought the Jonas Brothers would be out after that.

But I was wrong. The DJ came back and started doing a set with only his mouth or whatever, which was cool at first, but got kind of boring really quickly (plus I don't think he's that good of a singer). A lot of us were getting restless.

Finally, the Jonas Brothers came out a bit past 9PM. A lot of us were feeling bored and tired while waiting for them, but instantly woke up when the lights turned off and when they came out. It was so exhilarating seeing them after so long ! I can't believe it's been over three years since they last toured. Here are some pictures I took !

This was so cute, omg. I screamed so loud.

Nick played piano for "A Little Bit Longer" and the drums for Joe's solo song, "See No More." Ugh, musically inclined boys are so hot.

They brought Karmin back on stage during their song "Let's Go," which I guess they are featured in. It was so sick. I was so happy they did a collaboration... only makes sense since they've been touring together this whole time.

They even brought back Big Rob (apparently he isn't their bodyguard anymore ;~;) via video chat (probably pre-recorded, but still cool) to do his rap in Burnin' Up ! I was so excited, omg. I wish it was a real appearance, but this made me so happy.

BIG ROB'S FO REAL (AND THAT'S NO LIE) !

Although it's been a really long time since I've seen them live, I'm so happy they're coming out with new music and touring and still playing old music with perfection ! Being a loyal fan pays off so much. It was such an enjoyable and fun concert and man it was just a great night. I hope that if One Direction ever took a break and decided to tour again years later, they would have a successful comeback like the Jonas Brothers are, and would be able to fill a big arena with loyal fans. I'd be there in a heartbeat.