They should totally pay me for this.

I'm an indie music geek. Just going to come out and say it. I am obsessed with diving as deep as I can go before I hit bottom and seeing what shred of amazing music I can find there. That being said, I have found a new way to indulge this passion LEGALLY. Yes, that's right. And it's totally free.

Oh, and did I mention legal? Yes. FREE AND LEGAL.

Noisetrade is a website which was originally started with christian artists, and though it is still widely dominated by them, at least half of it is just regular music. Not saying christian music is bad or anything, just personally, it's not my thing. You can find pretty much anything on Noisetrade. From acoustic indie to a Franz Ferdinand-esque band called Board of Whores, and even a few metal bands and rap artists. Noisetrade provides a chance for all artists to post their music for people to download for free. On the side of the page, there are even ways to learn more about the band, such as via Facebook or Twitter. Scroll down, and you get info about whether or not the artist is touring.

To navigate Noisetrade's massive music library, you can search by band name, what's newest, the top downloads, genre, or use "For fans of" if you want something similar to other bands. You can play the selection by clicking the play button on the artist's picture once you're on their page. To download, enter your email address and zip code, and a link will be sent to your email. It's really easy and virus free. There is even a spot where you can donate to the artist if you REALLY want to give them your money.

My favorite Noisetrade artists: Board of Whores, Paul Dempsey, 1476, and Anselmo the Brave.

Problems and Bigger Ones

College. I'm scared. Honestly I am. I don't have a job or a plan, and at the moment I have zero scholarship opportunities. I don't even think I have time to still apply for financial aid. I'm going to a community college for my first year, which is only five thousand per semester, so I'm not in as dire of straits as I would be had I chosen to go straight to university, but still. So much debt. It's daunting. I literally feel sick to my stomach when I think of it. After my first year, I have plans to transfer to a much much more expensive college out of state, and that's even more stressful. But that's a more than a year from now, and I have more important things to think of now.

 Passing high school without any classes wreaking havoc on my grade, for one. I took a test in AP Literature that I didn't do that well on. It was on Philosophy, and I guessed the answers of no less than half of the questions. Hopefully my grade will still be above C level. I have the stresses of family to deal with. My mother will not be proud or approve of anything less than an A. My current B- is disappointing because she knows that I can do better. Even though my teacher for AP Literature grades objectively, not entirely honestly. But, then again, a lot of teachers do that, don't they? I don't know why I see it as such an atrocity. People are human, indulge their own biases, and the like. I'm sure if I was a teacher, I would subconsciously do the same.
I just really have to ace every test and quiz from now on. Even the tiny, minuscule, ten point ones. 

I've been sitting on my bum in front of this computer screen all day. My neck has a crick and my cat has stolen my pillow. I have neither showered nor gotten dressed. Now that I have run out of interesting things to say, I bid you Goodnight.

--Mari.

Faux Turban Headband

I got this tutorial from Studs and Pearls, but instead of sewing the fabric down, I used hot glue, because I lost my sewing kit. In the process of creating it, I burned the hell out of my finger! Instead of putting the knot in the middle of my forehead, I put it slightly to the side, because I love asymmetry. It's just so me.
The process of making this was pretty simple. I took an old headband, one that I absolutely never wear, and tied a legnth of fabric around it.
Using hot glue, I set the knot in place, and then wrapped the fabric around the rest of the headband on either side, using more glue to hold it in place. I know that this one doesn't actually look like a turban; I purposely made both of my creations' fabric looser because I liked the look better. I don't care if people can tell it's a headband. :)
I was so mad this morning! I got up at 4 because I realized that I'd forgotten to read Turn of the Screw for my AP Literature class, and when I finished at 6, I decided to take a half hour nap before my alarm went off at 6:30. At 6:15, I was bombarded by text messages from friends about the snow day we were having. :P If I'd just turned on the tv at 4, I could have been sleeping that entire time.

The House that Lars Built

I was cruising on Cut Out and Keep, and this week they featured a website called The House that Lars Built. It is by far one of the coolest, most unique blogs that I've seen in a long time. The bloggers travel and DIYs and does tons of really awesome stuff. The DIYs are really cool, everything from topiaries to "heart attacks." The heart attacks were my personal favorite. Boxes full of hearts, hearts pasted across windows, pink hearts in the snow--they were all adorable. I now know how I'm going to show my appreciation for my friends! Every week, they also feature a really beautiful door that they saw in their travels. I saw a ton of posts from their trip to Paris, and it made me so jealous! Check it out!
http://thehousethatlarsbuilt.blogspot.com/

Last Days of Pompeii Coffee Container...thing.

Whoo! Yes, guess who's back. In the past x-amount of days, I have learned many things about myself. Mainly that my love of gas masks is unhealthy. I found one on Etsy for 20 dollars, free shipping, and I was aching for it. It was torture to just look and not be able to have!! When I grow up, I'm going to collect gas masks from different eras, and there will be a room in my house wholly dedicated to them. And the design for my house will be based off the castle from Poe's short story, "Masque of the Red Death." In this house, I will live in the purple room and my closet will be full of Zooey Deschanel-esque dresses. See Mom? I DO have a plan!
This project was made out of the remnants of my book box project. I couldn't bear to let the insides of my box go to waste, so I used them and liberal amounts of Mod Podge to make this coffee thing worth looking at. The book was The Last Days of Pompeii, which was so old that the pages were literally flaking. This created really cool patterns in the collage. Or, at least, I thought they were cool.
Today is Thursday, time for the new episode of Project Runway All-Stars! I'm so excited. Mondo and Michael are my favorites. Mila kind of scares me, though, and I don't like any of her stuff. I find it kind of funny that Austin gets all the attention in the commercials, but none of the clothes he's designed have been much good. Love his vibrant personality though.
Tomorrow I'm going shopping for a vintage prom dress! We're mainly sticking to Goodwills and Salvation Armies, trying to find one that's really cute but cheap. Wish me luck!

The State of Things

Alright, so...I am not continuing my 365 Project. I know, I know, I promised I wouldn't quit, and I said I hadn't given up. I am still going forward with my blog, I'm just going to expand to covering more things about my life. I was thinking about centering it more around fashion. Maybe. It's still in the works.
My reasons for this change are the recent happenings which have gotten in the way of my blogging. Most of them are over with now. Due to emotional difficulties, I needed to take a break from the internet in general and just wallow. After two days of Project Runway reruns and hot glue gun burns, I am back and ready to take on my newest plan. Thank you again to everyone who follows me, I'm sorry if I have let you down, just keep reading! I have big changes in mind for this blog.

I HAVE NOT GIVEN UP

Hello, Loves. I haven't been blogging my DIYs for the past five days, because I've simply been too busy to be online, but I just want you to know that I still have been DIYing. My projects of the past five days include (not in chronological order): a rhinestone pendant, a Valentine's Day decoration fest, fitting a too-large dress, dying eyelet lace trim, and using the flaking, breaking pages of The Last Days of Pompeii to cover a coffee container. Pictures and notes about the processes of these will be posted as soon as I have the time, so, in other words, tomorrow. Don't lose faith in me!

Day Forty Two: Mod Podge Paint

Yes, that's right. I learned the correct spelling of Mod Podge! You probably all thought I was some sort of simpleton or something. :P I felt so silly when I actually took the time to READ the label! Anyways, I made this today after looking at a tutorial for making lip gloss with eyeshadow, and then another for making matte nail polish with eyeshadow. I just thought...why not paint??
Then I thought back to the 856 bazillion glitter shoe tutorials there are on Youtube and various craft sites, and how they're all pretty much the same. But what if you use eyeshadow instead of fine glitter? Mistress Mari investigates.

First, I combined all of the different shades of the colors I needed to make the color of shadow I wanted. I made sure to crush it up completely.
After this, I added approximately the same amount of Mod Podge as there was eyeshadow. I mixed well.
I have not yet found a pair of shoes to test this on, so I tested it on some scrap fabric. It looked lovely. :)

Viola! Done.

Day Forty One: Ombre Trench Dress

I was deligated the task of creating a DIY project for my school newspaper for this month, and I had the coolest idea, to combine a vintage 70's skirt and an old messenger-bag style purse and create a hipster backpack. It would have been awesome, if I hadn't have completely lost my sewing kit. Instead, I made this ombre dress, and hopefully someone likes the tutorial.
Although, if I find my sewing kit by Sunday, I will hopefully have enough time to make the backpack, write up the tutorial, and take a picture before Monday. Fingers crossed.

Alright, so first, I mixed my two colors of homemade spray paint.
I sprayed the red one around the edges and the blue mainly in the middle. I sprayed them each sparsely in between, but I made sure to concentrate them in their own areas.
In a separate bottle, I combined the two colors to make a purple, which I also sprayed a little bit in the middle-ish areas. It is important not to go to heavy on this shade.
You don't have to cover the entire area of the garment. Just make it look awesome!
Let it dry. I hung mine over a furnace vent.

Viola! Done.

Day Forty: The Rejection Stamp

It's so good to be back blogging again! I haven't been able to be online for the past few days, but I'm back now with two more DIYs plus this one. Also, I got a B- on that test I was fretting about and studying for, which was an absolute blessing.
My school is hosting a dance this week, which I am not attending (I've never been a 'dance' type of person). Even though I have a boyfriend, I was inspired by the rash of invitations to make this rejection stamp.

All I really did was just write the word no on a rubber eraser, then cut it out with an exacto knife. Easy as cake! Anyone can do it!

Viola! Done.

Day Thirty Nine: Chain Flower Bag

Guess who got her camera to work again! Ha, that really made me happy today. As for how my huge test went...well, I honestly have no idea. I did my best, and hope for a good score, but anything at C level would make me happy because of the difficulty of the class. I have decided on another clay project to make; this one is a Lady Gaga inspired bowl with shards of CDs glued strategically on it. We'll see how it turns out. :)
I've been wanting to do this for days. I was inspired to do this by the ruffles on the bag. Looking at them just made me want to hang chains from them. Also, the flower is drooping on purpose, because I wanted to give it a slight edge.

I used several different legnths of chain, measuring them by sight.
With an exacto knife, I poked holes in the lining on the underside of the ruffles, and threaded through jump rings. To these jump rings I attached the chains.
I took a flower hair clip and used it to clip several of the chains together to make it more edgy and more like my style. :)

Viola! Done.

Creepy Ole Me...Saying Thanks

I would like to thank any person who reads this blog. Anyone at all. In current times, I've been incredibly depressed, and the very idea of having an actual purpose, something I have to do every day, has kept me from being as completely consumed by it as I have been in the past. Rather than sitting around, writing depressive poems and wallowing in past diary entries of misery, I've been doing constructive, positive things, and it has been an incredible asset to me in my emotional state of need. Thank you, Anyone. Thank you, Everyone. Thank you, Imaginary World.

Day Thirty Seven: Elastic Headband to Bow Bracelet

Mmmm....huge ass test tomorrow. I don't swear that often, or--in this situation--lightly. It will literally make or break my grade in my Advanced Placement Literature course. I am right now skimming over and answering questions about all of the poetry we have covered this unit, hoping for some new inspiration to help me on this test. Wish me luck, I really need it. Every single essay I have ever turned in in that class, I have gotten a C on, mostly because the teacher doesn't like me very much, and she's well-known for being a very biased grader. Wish me lots and lots of luck. I wish you the same in all of tomorrow's life adventures. :)

Okay, so I took an elastic headband that was incredibly plain. As you can see, only the back of it is elastic, the front is just fabric.
I fit the elastic to my wrist, and pinned it where it wasn't cutting into my skin.
I then had one huge loop of the not-elastic fabric over the elastic around my wrist. I flattened it down, then tied a ribbon around the middle, making it a bow. It looks a lot better than the picture. Once again, my regular camera is currently dead, so I have resorted to taking pictures with my webcam.

Viola! Done.

Day Thirty Six: Bow Front Shirt

I saw a similar shirt online for about forty dollars. With an old Goodwill shirt, some thread, and ribbon, I made my own for free.

I made a bow out of ribbon.
I sewed the bow into place.
I put it on.

Viola! Done.

Day Thirty Five: Huge Wire Bow Necklace

The second DIY from my camera deprived days.

I took one of the bows that I'd already made for a previous day's DIY, and using two jump rings and some chain, made it into a necklace.

Viola! Done.

Day Thirty Four: Diary

Haha, so my camera hasn't been working for the past three days, but I figured out how to use my webcam about five minutes ago, so it's all good now. Please be proud. This took much computer tinkering to figure out.

So, I took plain sheets of white paper. I folded each in half.
I put Modge Podge along the edges, cementing them together.
I allowed them to dry periodically, so as to reduce my risk of mess-making.
Finally, I applied glue along the spine, cementing the pages together.
TWO MORE DIYS TO COME TODAY!

Day Thirty Three: Huge F-ing Bow Headband

Hahaha, so I made this bow, which I am actually going to wear in public, today. I love Lady Gaga and crazy style and stuff. Today I got many compliments on the outfit that I wore, which was really hilarious, because I was late to school, so I picked the first complete outfit off the top of my clean clothes pile. I ended up wearing a kimono-style translucent dress over a pair of bright red short shorts and a homemade tank top that says "Love Saves Lives" in horrible stenciling that I was experimenting with about two years ago, coupled with a pair of neon pink tights. Needless to say, I looked interesting.

Alright, so I pretty much just gathered a large piece of tulle and wrapped a purple ribbon around the middle of it three times, so that the ribbon would be more noticeable.
After glueing the ribbon in place, I glued the entire thing to this headband.

Viola! Done.

Day Thirty Two: Shoe Revamp with Tights

Mehhhh...my camera wouldn't work yesterday, so I'm blogging two different DIYs today. This one is my project for yesterday, because I made it yesterday. So it counts. I got this pair of shoes from a friend who got them from another friend and found they were too big. They're size 11. My feet are size 8 and a half on a good day. Right now I'm working on figuring out a way to alter them on the inside so that they'll fit me.

When I started out, these shoes were a shiny, innocent white. Cute, but not my style.
I had a pair of tights which had a run in them, and I decided to use them.
I cut off both of the legs of the tights.
I put one shoe inside each leg of the tights, and then painted Modge Podge over the material, making sure to manually pull the material tight so that there wouldn't be any wrinkles. Doing this, I covered everything except for the heel. I DID NOT ATTACH IT TO THE HEEL WHEN DOING THIS STEP OF THE PROCESS.
I used an exacto knife to trim off the extra fabric. I used a larger piece of this extra fabric to cover the heel.
After allowing the heels to dry, I used an exacto knife to again cut off the excess.

Viola! Done.