Special Post: Mockingjay Craft

Even though I have a really awesome Hunger Games t-shirt (it says, "Keep Calm and May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor"), gifted to me by my best friend Lindsey, I decided to make something inherently awesome to celebrate the opening of the movie version of Suzanne Collins' masterpiece.

Thanks to the wonder of Pinterest, I found a great Mockingjay template and a neat idea for putting a symbol onto a shirt. Basically, you cut out a symbol/letters on paper, place it on a shirt, and spray bleach around the image. This way, the fabric around the symbol becomes lighter. Peel away the symbol, and you're left with darker fabric underneath.

Here is a link to the Mockingjay template.
Here is a link to the DIY tutorial for a bleached shirt.

My work space is not the most organized, but I work better in chaos.

My crafting partner stayed at my feet during the process.

I started out with an old black t-shirt, the Mockingjay template (on plain paper, but I suggest using cardstock), an X-Acto knife, and a bottle of spray bleach. My bleach was completely undiluted, although some tutorials will tell you to use a 70%/30% solution. I'll be trying that eventually.

For my "trial run," I cut along the lines on the template exactly. The template was originally made for carving a pumpkin, which is why there are breaks along the circle. I thought it would look cool that way, so I cut the spaces out just as it's shown. Here is what the template looked like when I tested it on scrap fabric:

As you can see, because the template was in several piece, the bleach leaked under the edges. The arrow in the Mockingjay's mouth is almost invisible because it's so thin.

So, I decided to print another template and trace around the entire image. I cut on my mark, not the edge of the template.

I also didn't cut out the breaks this time.

I didn't take pictures of the bleaching process, but I just took the shirt and template outside and laid it on my glass patio table. I placed some cardboard in between the layers of the shirt, and put the template in the center. Spray the bleach above the shirt and let the mist fall down onto the shirt. Because I used black, the color was radically altered. If you used a lighter color shirt, you may not have to bleach the entire front, but on black I pretty much didn't have a choice. After the front dried a little, I hung the shirt on a hanger on the clothes line and sprayed the back to match.

I read (after the fact) that you should dunk the shirt in a sink full of cold water soon after the color starts to turn. This will keep the bleach from eating through the material. I think I left mine on a little too long before rinsing it, because it feels a little thin. It was an old shirt, anyway, so maybe that's why it seems a little frail. I rinsed it in the sink, then thew it in the washer with detergent. Some of the tutorials I read said to run it through a wash cycle with no detergent... Mine turned out fine with soap. It's up to you, I guess. I ain't no expert... But I know I have a pretty cool shirt!

Special Post: Another Year Over

Well, we have seen another ball drop here at the old blog. Let's recap what happened this time last year:

• We changed the name of the blog to Descripted, due to the fact that "Sixty Books" wasn't really accurate anymore.
• We started a monthly Descripted Book Club via Google Groups.
• I (Chassi) resolved to read thirty books in 2011, while Derrick made the gutsy resolution to read a whopping twelve -- one for each month of the book club.

Now, let's see how that stacks up:

• We're sticking with Descripted. Not that it matters. Raise your hand if you care... Didn't think so.
• The book club lasted for about four months, although I don't think we ever had a single month where every member read the book and participated in, you know, actually discussing it. I gained the nickname "Book Club Nazi" because I was constantly reminding people to nominate, vote on, and post about books. I tried. I really did. Unfortunately, the club was comprised of real adults with real lives. Truth be told, even if the book club had kept on truckin' after the summer, I probably would've dropped the ball around August because things got crazy at work, with school starting back (job #1) and football season rolling in (job #2). It was a pleasant idea, and I wish we had all had more time to devote to it. I read books I never would have read without the book club (Life by Keith Richards, American Gods by Neil Gaiman) and... kind of... enjoyed them. Sort of. Who knows, maybe we'll try it again sometime when we're all a bit more settled, or perhaps we should give longer time periods... Or maybe I just shouldn't be such an anal-retentive jerk about it. We'll see.
• I read thirty-four books, because I'm an over-achiever like that, and Derrick probably read abboouuuttt... .three, unless you count comic books or text books about educational leadership. (But let's give him some credit -- he is a mere internship away from completing his Master's Degree in May!)

As for my goals for 2012, I think 30 is a good number of books to read in a year. I had plenty of time, I read a variety of things, and I didn't feel rushed or tempted to opt for a short, easy book just to help myself meet a deadline. So... 30 more in 2012!

Here's to reading a book that'll change your life this year. Cheers!

--C

Special Post: Bookshelves

Just did a little bookshelf re-organizing. Thought I'd share it with y'all since... no one else cares. And you probably don't, either, but this is my blog, so tough.

Most of our fiction:


Nonfiction, Reference, Fantasy, a few random collections that wouldn't fit on the fiction shelf:



And, something I have thought of doing for a long time... A "Favorites" shelf :)

Aaaaaannnnddd, We're Done

Honestly, there were a few times throughout 2010 that I doubted Derrick and I reaching our goal...

But we did it! Both of us! I hit forty, he hit twenty, and you lucky readers were blessed with sixty brilliant and thought-provoking reviews. We all win at life.

I believe I speak for both of us when I say that this little challenge was totally worth it. For the last four years or so, I've pretty much always been in the middle of a book, so I would've read a lot in 2010 regardless; however, this pushed me to read much more than I would have otherwise. I'm not gonna lie -- it's been a crazy year for me. Six months of student teaching, two months of debilitating 24/7 migraines, a summer full of job-searching, a wedding in November, and working two jobs... I'm definitely glad I had something pushing me to make time to read. There would have been plenty of times this year that I would have said, "Oh, forget it, I'm exhausted" and skipped that twenty minutes of reading before bedtime... But there was that little voice. That gnawing, annoying "... but will you make it to forty books?" in the back of my head. It kept me going, and I'm glad it did. Even though there have been a few lemons in the bunch, I'm glad I read every book that I read. Even if I hated it (looking at you, Stupid Christmas), it made me think. Thinking is never bad. Broadening horizons is never bad. I'm even glad I read Twilight. Now I can back up my hatred of Stephanie Meyers with cold, hard, sparkly facts.

I'm certainly going to do this again in 2011, although, I admit, I'll be lowering the number of books I'm challenging myself to read. Not because I don't think I can read that many -- it's clear that even with a whole lot of life in the way, I can get the job done -- but because I think it had more of an effect on the books I chose than it should have. There are a lot of pretty thick books on my shelf I've been wanting to read that I put off because I knew they'd take a couple weeks to get through. This especially applied to what I chose to read these last three or four months. I don't want to put off reading books I'm dying to read because of a limitation I've placed on myself.

Derrick and I are doing a bit of a twist for 2011 -- We're still planning on reading and reviewing books here. One book per month will be in association with a book club we've begun with friends and family. The rest will be on our own, just as they were this year.

My goal for the year? Thirty. Twelve of those will be determined by our book club. The other eighteen... Those are all mine.

Any of you have reading goals this year?

--C

I totally agree.  I'm extraordinarily happy that we both attempted this and completed it.  Rolling into December, I was a bit worried, but we made it, and it was tremendously rewarding.

Unfortunately, next year I may be sticking mostly to the 12 books selected by the book club.  I am going back to school in January, so most of my reading time will be taken up by textbooks and, no doubt, scholarly articles.  It just wouldn't be fair to subject you to that.

So, dear readers, as we bid 2010 adieu, I thank you for listening to my ramblings, putting up with may apparent zombie fetish, and giving me a creative outlet.

Cheers.

--D

P.S. Be on the lookout for a name change in the near future.

Special Post: Librivox

When I read my last book, Diamond as Big as the Ritz & Other Stories, I used some pretty diverse methods to finish it. I originally found the paperback on the bookshelf (no doubt from one of Derrick's zillion English classes), and I read some of the book in hard copy. I also downloaded a Fitzgerald short story collection on my Kindle that had all of the stories in Diamond as Big as the Ritz, plus some more. I read parts of the book on my Kindle and some parts on the Kindle app on my Droid Eris. Then, one day at work, I had to cut the white edges off over 500 4x6 photos (don't ask), one at a time, so I clearly needed something going on in the background to entertain me during this menial task.

Lo and behold, LibriVox! Free audiobooks! At LibriVox, volunteers record themselves reading books, chapters of books, or short stories and post them online. You can click to play through your computer's (or phone's) media player, or you can download them to put on your mp3 player. Any book in the public domain is accepted on LibriVox. In the U.S., that generally means anything published before 1923, or something that's had the copyrights otherwise lifted. So, it's great for classics, but not much else. Pretty much anything you could find for free on Kindle or in Project Gutenberg.

I downloaded the short stories in Diamond as Big as the Ritz and knocked out "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" while I was cutting all those pictures. So, thanks, LibriVox, for making that task a little better.

Anyway, ENJOY!

Special Post: The Home Stretch

Well, we're only a few short days from December. Maybe it was all the million things I had going on, but I'm of the opinion that 2010 flew by. That means I have a mere 32 days to read 10 more books. Derrick only has to read 4 more. (Jerk.) I know some of you might be a bit concerned for me, but, hey. Don't worry. I got this. I work better under pressure, OK?

Admittedly, we have both slacked a bit over the last 11 months, especially recently. We have a pretty decent excuse, though:
We got married on November 20. :)

We just want all of our faithful followers (all... two of you?... one of you?... none of you? Who cares?) to know that we are well aware of our commitment, and you shouldn't give up on us yet. We won't disappoint you. And I plan on coming back for more in 2011.

Special Post: EXCITEMENT!!! (Part II)

Last time I got really excited about something book-related, I made a special post about it I think I should do it again today.

I unexpectedly received a graduation present from my brother and sister-in-law in the mail today. Lo and behold, the Amazon Kindle!

I am beyond excited. I've been fiddling with it for the last hour. Truth be told, I've only read a chapter or two in the book I started a few days ago, so I thinking pretty seriously about scrapping it so I can read something on the Kindle.

Special Post: EXCITEMENT!!!!

Just had to post to share that the gift Derrick ordered me for graduation came via UPS a few minutes ago. How excited am I?! VERY. (See?)

The third book in Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (which, oddly enough, I mentioned in the review I posted earlier). It came out a couple weeks ago, and my cheap self was going to wait on the paperback. I literally just started a new book an hour ago, but as soon as I'm done, I have a date with Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist! Thanks, D!