bagel bites

Yesterday me and my brother had the first of what will hopefully be an annual "90s Day." I bought all of our favorite childhood snacks -- bagel bites, cosmic brownies, lunchables, yoohoo -- and we spent all day watching the movies and tv shows we loved to watch when we were little. We revisited three cartoons (ironically two are from the '80s but they got the most VCR action in our house in the mid '90s) The Brave Little Toaster, The Land Before Time, and Mulan. And then we also watched our two favorite disaster movies, Twister and Dante's Peak. And a couple episodes of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (which, shockingly, has apparently never been released on DVD!)

Kyle claimed the couch and I got cozy on a giant pile of blankets and pillows stacked on the floor. We stayed off our cell phones all day, and our parents surprised us with chocolate Pop Tarts and Capri Sun! To quote Pooh, it was my favorite day. I think the only thing that made it better than the actual '90s is that we have cats now and Arrietty stayed cozy by my side the whole time.

There are so many books and movies about how sad it is when people lose touch with their inner child and I think that message really got to me when I was a kid. I've always been so scared of being "too grown up" and I actively try to keep my wonder, excitement, imagination, creativity, and enthusiasm. I know I probably skew too far in that direction and I make for a pretty pathetic "adult", but I wouldn't have it any other way.

dress - thredup | shirt - vintage

belt - amazon | shoes - bait footwear

my top five: web resources

Does "web resources" make me sound like someone who hasn't learned any new internet terms since 1996? Probably. But I'm not sure what else to call it! I've wanted to do a post like this for years (I actually have more than 5 items for the list so I'm going to have to do a part 2 soon!) rounding up some of my favorite go-to websites. Maybe everyone has already heard of them, but if not hopefully something on this list will help lighten your load or make life a little easier for you :)

1. Convert Case - You can paste text into this site and convert it into lowercase, uppercase, sentence case, etc. It's perfect if you accidentally left caps lock on while you were typing, or if you're doing graphic design work and want to test out text in all caps and lower case without having to re-type whatever you were working on. I use it constantly. Especially for custom buttons where I copy customer text from Shopify, and convert it into all caps before pasting it in Photoshop. That way I know for certain the text will be *exactly* the same as the customer entered it and there's no room for me to mistype it :)

2. RhymeZone - I do use this to find rhymes, but they also have homophones, similar sounding words, synonyms, phrases that contain the word you searched for, etc. There are just so many awesome uses for this. It's perfect if you like to write poems or if you've just written the word one time too many and need to say picture show, film, motion picture, or flick instead.

3. If This Then That - This is a website that generates recipes for internet behavior. For example, IF I post on my blog, THEN I trigger an automatic post to Pinterest. Or IF I log a movie on my letterboxd account, THEN I trigger an automatic tweet about that movie. It's a great way to be able to automate some of your social media if you want to share across platforms without having to manually post everywhere. I have recipes set up to share my blog posts to Pinterest and Facebook, as well as a cool one that downloads every photo I post to my Instagram onto my Dropbox account for backup!

4. Shoptagr - This website lets you bookmark items on websites and get notified when they drop in price, or come back in stock. It also can alert you when an item you like is running low in stock so you can snatch it up before it sells out. I tend to use this for items where my size is sold out. That way I don't need to stalk the page, refreshing and waiting to see if it's ever restocked. If it comes back, I'll get an alert. I also use it for pricey items that I 100% can never afford at full price.

5. Difference Checker - This website detects the difference between two pieces of text. This is great if you sometimes go back and forth with edits. I most often use it to detect changes in contract text on the rare occasions that I have to draw up a contract with someone. A lot of times someone will slip something in that I would never have noticed if I didn't have this website to compare for me. I like to think I'm eagle-eyed but I'm not *that* eagle-eyed.

I will definitely do a part 2 of this post because I am too neurotic about breaking my "top 5" format but I have a few more that I really need to share, lol :)

video: the x-files tag!

I feel like three weeks in a row means... I'm a vlogger now??

Yes, that's right, three videos in three weeks! And I feel like each one has been a bit of an improvement in my ability to talk to the camera. I even came up with a fun idea for a series (!!) that I'm hoping I'll have finished for next week's video post!

I had SO MUCH FUN with this video because it's about my favorite tv show, The X-Files. I found two tags that people on youtube had created and combined them into one list (I typed out the questions below in case you want to make your own video, too!) Don't forget if you like my video to hop over to my channel so you can like and subscribe! :)

1. When did you start liking The X-Files?
2. Are you a Mulder or a Scully?
3. Do you ship Mulder and Scully? Why or why not?
4. What are your favorite types of episodes - the myth arcs or the stand alones?
5. What is your favorite episode?
6. What is your least favorite episode?
7. Who is your favorite guest star?
8. Original series or reboot?
9. Favorite season?
10. What fan theories do you think should be canon?
11. Scariest monster?
12. What did you think of the movies?

taking chances

I wish I was more comfortable taking chances. I take them constantly, but I wish I felt confident or at least a little less stomach-churning-anxious about them. I don't even mean big chances. I mean all the little ones you take every day. Emailing someone and being unsure of their reply. Trying a new food. Taking scissors to your bangs for an impromptu trim. It all stirs up my anxieties and makes me uneasy.

All this to say.. I took a chance this month that I was so nervous about I almost threw up the day I did it. I feel like most people are going to stop reading when I say this but... I started a Patreon. Please stay for a second! I think the word "patreon" scares everyone off. But you don't have to support it, I just want to talk about what that experience has been like for me.

I honestly, truly, 100% did not expect to have one single patron. I'm not entirely sure why, but I have a very low opinion of my online self worth, and I don't really think anyone genuinely likes me or my work. I do get some sales in my shop here and there, and I do still get some blog traffic, but my brain always tricks me into thinking that I'm kind of washed up as a blogger and artist, and no one cares. Or that because my shop has been declining and my blog traffic has decreased, that has somehow erased *all* sales and *all* traffic, which isn't true. Anyway. I went into the Patreon assured that nobody would support it. But then some people did! By some magic miracle I have 26 patrons. I am flabbergasted.

If you are one of those 26 people who has thrown support my way this month, you literally have no idea, NO IDEA, what you have done for me. Although the patreon was really meant to help prop up my waning income, it's done more for my mental well being than I could put into words. I feel so supported and even though I'm not a hugger I just want to wrap all of you up in a big snuggly bear hug!! To know that there are people out there who like my work and want to support it and help me to keep doing what I'm doing... I just don't have the words. Thank you.

To anyone who is thinking about taking a chance like this - just do it. Even if it makes you want to throw up from anxiety. If I didn't take a chance and put myself out there, I'd never have known the warmth of support that I feel now. I think that I've taken less and less chances ever since my career started sliding because I get more and more afraid of what I assume will be certain failure. But maybe that's when we NEED to take more chances.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. Like I said, you absolutely do not need to support my patreon. If you are reading this blog, I appreciate that so much! Views and IG likes and Twitter retweets, everything is a form of support. But, if you *do* want to support my patreon, you can click here. I've been sharing time lapses of my drawings, my one-second-a-day videos, sneak peeks at new products, a video of my trip to DC with my family, free printable art prints, and more. Plus all $5+ pledges will get a hand-written thank you note and a free sticker! I send out all pledge rewards on the first of each month so if you sign up after April 1st, the next mailing date will be May. Just saying ;)

shirt - forever 21 | skirt - asos | sweater - old navy

shoes - amazon | tie - flapper girl

wishlist wednesday

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7