What I've been up to.....

This past week has been quite busy! With my brother here and recovering from epic Zombie race I'm finally able to reflect on all the things that I have been up to....

From a few years ago, but its a nice pic of me and Billy

I was excited to have the bro-ham, Billy here. I don't know why but we have a very special bond. No one else in our family gets along like we do. Even though he lives in Florida we talk almost every day and we are closer than ever. He came up for the Zombie race but it turned into a nice little vacation for him. He had just finished up a tough semester and was going to start summer session in just a few days. So while he was here I wanted it to be jammed packed!

Sunday was race epicness. After we survived the race we needed to recover. The next day we took our older brother, Charlie to the movies and we saw Iron Man 3. The movie has gotten mixed reviews, but I certainly enjoyed it. The previous Iron Man had a lot of flaws but this one made up for it. I also liked how they alluded to the events in the Avengers, however I would have thought some shield agent or maybe Steve Rodgers to show up and be like "hey whats up with this terrorists that calls himself the Mandarin?" I'm sure they were busy with something.

After the movies that night was Craft Night. We all had fun making our magnets. However one of my friends was absent. My friend Trisha (who was also my wedding photographer) was unable to make it because she was training for a new job. She told me next time I was there to pick up a gift she had left there for me. I found a bunch of cool antique sewing supplies and a few pairs of sheers!

Later in the week we took a trip out to Brooklyn. We were planning on going to Brooklyn Botanical Gardens but unfortunately it rained the entire day. We spent the entire day at the Brooklyn Museum instead and looked at some amazing art work. There was an exhibit on sketching and they left out books and graphite pencils inviting museum goers to draw something. I made a portait of Billy with mega hands.

Before I knew it was time for Billy to go back home. Before he left we hung around and got some and do some snuggling with Gypsy. I also made him a pretty sweet Rebel Alliance decal for his lap top.

Tutorial coming soon! 

After Billy left we were off to Citi Field for our first Met's Game of the season! It rained and they played horribly. I still had lots of fun with all of our friends! My other favorite part of going to the games is the food! I got some delicious garlic fries from Box Frites, however after the 6th inning I was hankering for some shake shack. The shakes are so good but the line is always super long. Since they were totally screwing it up (like always - the pains of being a Met's fan) Mike, Noelle and I didn't mind waiting on the line. With admission we received this amazing Mr. Met bobble heads. I don't know why Mr. Met is knitting but as a crafter I appreciate it very much! He lives in the craft dungeon with all of my other toys.

                              

Speaking of the craft dungeon... Tim put the desk top on top of my cubby. Its nice because I know have a space dedicated solely to computer and blogging! I also started making a chalk board calendar to help keep me on task (I'll show you when its all done). There is a second half to the desk top which will be all for sewing and is a work in progress. I love my new workspace and my craft dungeon.

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Bottle cap magnets

I had yet another craft night. This time around we made bottle cap magnets! I thought it was perfect because Callie at Crazy Beans has been working up quite the collection of bottle caps from all of the brews they serve. It was a great turn out and here are some pictures of the wonderful magnets that everyone had made.

Laura always makes something Manatee themed! 

Some of the supplies you will need

If you would like to make your own Bottle Cap magnets here is how to do it!

Materials & Tools:

• Bottle Caps (save them up!)
• Old Magazines, comics or images (for the image in the magnet)
• 1 inch hole punch
• Clear bottle cap coating
• Glue
• Circle Magnets

Instructions

• Figure out what you want your magnet to be. You can use an old picture, draw some small pictures or old comics. They just have to able to fit into a 1 inch circle. I used my hole punch and made some templates to figure out what would work best.

• Once you have your images picked out, dab a little bit of white glue in the cap, then place the image in there. Let it sit and dry for a few minutes.

• Peel off a clear coating circle and place it in your magnet (on top of the image) The coating has an adheasive so it should stick in there. If not a little dab of modge podge will do the trick. Let it sit for another few minutes to let it dry.

• Flip the bottle cap over and glue a magnet to the back. Let it sit and dry.

• Place that sucker on the fridge and enjoy!

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Zombie race!!!!!!

I did it guys, I ran a 5k! But this wasn't just any 5k it was the Zombie Race. It involved getting chased by zombies while also doing military obstacles and getting good and muddy. Its something I never thought I was do. Being physically fit is something fairly new to me so I am extremely proud of myself that I finished! Before the race started I was really nervous. Rebel Race posted videos of other races that they had done and I was really scared and thought, "what have I gotten myself into?" There was no turning back!

The entire reason for doing the race was because of my friend Matt. The race fell on his birthday so we all signed up. I think this helped calm my fears a bit because it meant I wasn't going through this alone. When I was telling my brother, Billy, about it I jokingly said “you should come up to Long Island just to do the race.” He responded with “challenge accepted.” So its an excuse to see my bro!

The race itself wasn't that bad! You start the race wearing a belt with 3 flags that represent your 'life' and the zombies reach for them. That was were most of the anxiety came from. When I started the race I was jogging and was worrying when the horde was coming. When we saw the first batch of walkers everyone ran of the track to avoid them and the group was disbanded a bit. Then we came to the scariest part of the race, running down a steep hill into a mud pool of zombies! That's where I lost my first flag. My friend Laura lost all of them at that one spot alone. I kept on jogging but at some point just had to walk because too many people were on the trail. I made it to just about 2k with a flag but then some little girl zombie snatched it up. After all my flags were gone I felt like the pressure was off and I could relax a bit. I waited around to join up with Team Zeus and everyone was crowded around my friend Kahn and he puked. He's a trooper though and continued on. The rest of the race we just kept saying where are the Lentini bros? My friend Joe and his brother Pat signed up but on the zombie side. They even had a back story, they were former zeus members that got infected. We were approaching the end of the race, running through old cabins and I was asking where the Lentini's were. Pat came bursting out of a cabin and handed us a bunch of flags. Further down the way my friend David jumped out of a bush and grabbed us. It was the one and only time a zombie scared me in this entire race. After our encounter with the Lentini's we had to get past one last zombie horde, a rope wall and put pit with barbed wire. We did it! 

                                 

Afterwards it was time for a much needed drink

I thought I would share with you some of the things I did to get ready for the race: team t-shirts and my motivation running playlist!

As soon as I signed up I knew we needed some sweet t-shirts. One night while playing around on picmonkey I came up with a logo for our team. We are team Zombie Eradicating Utility Squad (ZEUS) I knew we needed a lightning bolt in there and it was perfect for the T ! It came out pretty awesome I must say.

After I got my silhouette machine I was psyched to learn that I can use it to make freezer paper stencils (a technique I am very fond of). After a quick test run, it worked beautifully! So I made a bunch of stencils and we had ourselves a t-shirt party.

I knew training for this thing wasn’t going to be easy. I imagined it would be like a 1980s montage, so I need an appropriate soundtrack to keep me motivated! It turned into a very eclectic mix. Here are some of my favorite tracks that make me feel like I can do anything.

You're the Best

I wasn’t kidding about the 80s montage so this was a crucial addition to my playlist!

Jump In the Line

Ok this is on here pretty much because of its involvement with the movie Beetlejuice.

Animanaguchi

This 8-bit band is behind the theme for the Nerdist podcast. I love the rest of the album. It makes me feel like I’m a video game character dodging evil turtles.  

Latterman

Pop punk is my guilty pleasure! Not the really bad stuff from the early 2000s. I'm talking about stuff like the Get Up Kids. Latterman was a Long Island based band. An ex was friends with them so I saw them play a bunch. Anywho, its good motivation music and pumps me up.

We all had so much fun and can't wait to do the next race! First I need to rest up because I am sooo sore!

Wordless Wednesday (week 1)

Doctor Who Clock

So I had this ugly old clock in my craft dungeon. Ok so it really wasn't that ugly, but I thought it needed an update. I stuck a sticky note on it that said "DO SOMETHING WITH THIS CLOCK!" So I tried to think of a color scheme or theme. Right next to the clock is my Doctor Who action figure and its time, time lords, traveling time and space and its a clock... get it?!

I took this bad boy apart and did some spray painting. While painting the clock face I taped up the hands because I wanted them to stay the same color. So I primed the clock face and gave the wood rim and nice silver coat. After it dried I repainted the clock face with a metallic blue acrylic paint.
While the paint tried I got to play around with my fancy new Silhouette Cameo. Its an amazing die cutting machine that you can program to cut out just about anything you can think of. I cut out the words "Wibbley Wobbley Timey Wimey." Then I used the silhouette's sketch pens as well as cutting to make a TARDIS. It came out pretty amazing. Lastly I made the numbers with a typer writer font on black paper.

After I had all of my pieces I glue them on. I used glue dots for the wibbley wobbley saying and made it look all swirly around the clock. I just used a regular glue stick for the numbers. For the placement of the TARDIS, I was think a few different things, then I thought right on top of the second hand is probably the best place. I used my hot glue gun for that (because I wanted to make sure it stuck real good)

After everything dried I put the clock back together. After I turned it around and looked at it for the first time my jaw dropped. I don't mean to sound self absorbed or anything, but I couldn't believe how amazing this thing turned out! It looks legit, like something I would buy off of Thinkgeek! I always get
excited when I finish a project, but for some reason I was over the moon with this one.

If you are going to attempt a clock re-do of your own here are some helpful tips! 

• Have a plane well before taking the clock apart. 
• Gather all of your materials and have supplies at the ready
• Take your clock apart. It is helpful to put all of the items in a cup or small box (that way you don't loose them) 
• Be very careful when handeling the clock hands (if they are damaged, they will not tell time correctly) 

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Sunday Snapshots

Last week something exciting happened at work. When I drove into down it was unusually hopping. What the flip was going on? Apparently Jonah Hill was in town filming a movie. He came out to greet some onlookers. I however was at work. I'm not one to get star struck anyway. After I got off worked I walked around town because I was curious. By then filming had wrapped up however I was excited to see that the library was included in the signage for filming.

                                             

Speaking of being star struck, this only happened to me once. In the 90s my family would often go camping at Woodstock. In 1999 they had a big celebration concert (not like that famous commercialized MTV one where riots broke out, my brother Charlie went to that one). My Dad had a friend who worked on generators and he gave us all access passes. It was pretty sweet. I met Joanie Mitchell, Joey Ramone and the Goo Goo Dolls (I really loved them back then). One of the people that was super nice to us and talked to us the most was Richie Havens. I had no idea who he was at the time  but he was super nice. We saw him perform and it was pretty amazing. When I heard about his passing this week, it brought up that Woodstock memory.

So I had this ugly clock in my room. It was just too blah. So I decided to take it apart and do something about it. I thought it was appropriate to make it Timey Wimey, so its going to be a Doctor Who clock.

This clock project also let me put my new toy to use! For years I have always wanted a die cutter. We use them at the library and its pretty cool. The only downside is that its super expensive and I would want to create my own designs. I didn't know there was such a tool until someone mentioned the silhouette on a blog. I have intrigued but not sold yet. My friend Noelle has one and on a visit to her house she showed me all of the decorative things she had made. Ok I was sold, I needed one! So far I love my cameo and you can expect more silhouette related posts!

I've needed new glasses for a while and just put it off because of the expected cost. However Coastal.com seemed to know of my dilema because I saw their ads all over the place claiming that the your first pair of glasses with them is free. So I figured I would check it out. I was able to get this pair of Geek Chic beauties and all I paid was $ 16 bucks. They also came pretty quickly and came with a nifty glasses cleaning kit!

                                   

Tim is a grown man with his very own lego collection. While doing some cleaning I found some lego guys he thought were M.I.A. I had some fun playing mixing and patching their accessories. I put some swoop hair on Han Solo and dubed him, Han Brolo. Enjoy...