Two cute etsy artists

Riverton has an arts festival every year and I usually just have the kids do crafts and jump in the bouncy castles. It's free admission and then you just pay per craft (ranging from $0.25-$8.00) and they usually have dance groups and bands performing. Fun stuff!
Anyhow, this year I actually broke down and bought some stuff from a couple of cute ladies who both have etsy sites. There was some other fantastic and beautiful stuff, but I really shouldn't have even spent what I did, so I think it says something about these ladies that I was even tempted, let alone gave into temptation :)

First, I actually bought a necklace! If you know me, I hardly ever wear jewelry, other than my wedding ring and watch. But, I just couldn't pass up this fantastically chunky necklace. Normally I have a hard time finding something that strikes the right balance of being chunky, but not overwhelming and I feel this was perfect:






And I also got a cute little crown necklace for Ava for only $5. Not only that, but after the first chain broke, and the second one fell off, what did she do? She got another crown charm and put it on a different kind of chain for us! That's customer service! Go to her etsy site at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/dboutique?page=1

Then there was another lady there selling those little kits that have the crayons, colored pencils, and paper. But these had another bonus - the middle was a little chalkboard! So cute!!!

Her etsy site is

http://www.etsy.com/shop/kiddiecloset?page=1

Check them out! They have some super cute other stuff as well!!!

In honor of a new season of So You Think You Can Dance?

How can I possibly post all my favorite dances from the past 7 seasons? There isn't enough room, but I'd like to post some of my very faves since this new season is going to kick "A" :)

First, here's the only ballroom dancer to get in this year. Dancing with Pasha (*drool*)



Jeannine and Jason dance a Travis Wall contemporary in season 5



Katee and Joshua from season 4(?) dancing a Samba. This was so the power couple that season (next in line would probably be Mark and Chelsea).



Ellenore and Jakob from season 6 dancing my favorite Sonya routine (Mark and Courtney dancing "The Garden" would be my second fave Sonya routine)



Oh no! I forgot my other favorite Sonya routine! :) Alex and Allison dancing to "Hallelujah" - so beautiful!



Speaking of Alex, how about one of the most surprising hip hop performances ever?! Sorry for the quality, most of the vids had embeding disabled



Kayla and Kupono dancing "Addiction" by the dancing genius that is Mia Michals



Sexiest Argentine Tango and there's only ONE video posted on YouTube and it won't let me embed it. *grrrr* Go check out Lauren and Pasha (oh big surprise) from season 7

http://youtu.be/E81hcQQRm5s

The dance that made me fall in love with Mia Michaels. Lacey and Kameron from season 3:



And, how do I choose a Wade Robson routine to share? I don't... I choose a few :)

"Ramalama" from season 2



How do I not include the Hummingbird dance? I think this is season 3



Brandon and Janette dancing to "Ruby Blue". Janette got gipped! She should have made it to semi-finals, at least!



How do you not include one of the very first NappyTap routines? Mark and Chelsea "Bleeding Love"



And I can't resist one more glorious Mark routine - "The Garden" :)




Oh, okay, I could go on and on, but I won't. Must stop watching dance vids... must.... stop :)

New links

Check out the links over there in the sidebar! I added some of my favorite sights - subcategorized, of course! :)

BBC's Sherlock Holmes

I have to confess, I haven't seen many Sherlock Holmes films - the pipe-smoking pompous know-it-all detective aided by the bumbling fool just never interested me, I guess. I did see the Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law movie and thought it was fun and enjoyable. I just recently rented "The Hound of the Baskervilles," which I found out, through the featurettes, was one of Arthur Conan Doyle's most popular Holmes novels.
The only actor I was familiar with was Richard E Grant (A&E's fantastic Scarlet Pimpernell, also the dad on "Penelope"), whom I'm a big of. And he's fantastic in this as well. As Holmes, they cast Australian Richard Roxburgh, who has such an interesting screen presence. He seems a really great mix of being able to pass as an English gentleman, but there's something off about him, which works great.
And Ian Hart as Dr. Watson is personable and SMART! I love that there was geniune frustration between Watson and Holmes.
The supporting cast is beyond fantastic as well. John Nettles, who plays Dr. Mortimer is able to carry off the telling of the legend of the curse of the hound of the Baskervilles - a feat not to be taken lightly. What could have been the most cheesy part of the movie ends up being actually creepy and feels almost Shakespearean.
This movie was superbly done from the acting, to directing, the CGI is a little cheesy, but for a small budget, it was passable. It's eery and genuinely creepy. Love it! I would definitely recommend this one!

Here is the clip of Mortimer explaining the legend. You need to forward it to 7:15, where it begins. It only goes till about 8:30, so super short and will give you a flavor. The whole clip is actually the beginning of the movie if you want to watch the whole 9:40 to get a better idea.

Were you "one of those" who missed "Arrested Development?"

I had caught a few episodes here and there when Arrested Development was on the air and remembered it being funny... boy, was I wrong. It's HILARIOUS! It's right up there with "Scrubs" and "The Big Bang Theory!"
If you aren't familiar with the story line, it's pretty simple:

Level-headed son Michael Bluth takes over family affairs after his father is imprisoned. But the rest of his spoiled, dysfunctional family are making his job unbearable.

You have GOB (pronounced like Job from the bible), Michal's older, womanizing, money-spending, aspiring magician brother, whose tricks don't always work out the way they're supposed to. I couldn't find the clip I wanted of him doing a coffin trick at his Dad's funeral, but here's the opening of his act on stage (he ALWAYS plays this music):




Then you have his twin sister Lindsay, who isn't the brightest crayon in the box. And she is married to former Dr. Tobias Funke, who has the most horrible habit of saying double entendres and not realizing it. Some fabulous person put together this compilation:



You have the baby of the family, Buster, who is still treated like a baby.



You have the patriarch in jail, who at first is finding it a bit pleasant.
Then the matriarch, who is a sharp-tongued ego-centric booze-hound in such a delightful way.
Then you have Michael's son, George Michael, and Lindsay's daughter Maibe who also have their own awkwardness going on.

There are a few fantastic things about this show:
It's all so politically incorrect, but the joke's on the main characters, not the group they're mocking.
Some of the most quotable lines (i.e. After Gob finds out he has a son,
Gob: What is this.... feeling?
Michael: What you're feeling is what most people think of as a feeling.
Gob: It isn't envy. I'm not hungry.
Michael: It's love Gob.
Gob: I know what an erection feels like, Michael. This is the opposite, it's like my heart is getting hard.)

The most crass and vulgar stuff gets bleeped out. Which is NOT a shame. What's funny is knowing that a character is saying something so completely disguisting and how the other characters react to it. The bleeps that I have no idea what they might be bleeping out are just as funny as the bleeps where I do know what they're bleeping out.
It's witty and clever and why wasn't this more popular? Get the DVD's (there are 3 seasons) and be prepared to laugh your guts out!
I leave you with the several variations of a theme on "the chicken dance"

Photo Block tutorial

These are my belated Mother's day gifts to my mom and mother-in-law. You could do them for birthdays, Christmas, or just because though. What's great is there's a pic on each side of the picture blocks, so they can switch up which picture is showing, and there are four different quotes on the larger block about grandparents.

Namely: "Some of my greatest blessings call me Grandma"

"Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your kids"

"Grandchildren: the only people who can get more out of you than the IRS"

"No cowboy was ever quicker on the draw than a grandparent pulling a picture out of a wallet"

I just got one 4x4 from Home Depot, though it's really closer to 3.25x3.25 and used a circular saw (from my awesome neighbor again!) to cut it into the sizes I wanted.

Then I obviously sanded them.

I then spray painted them copper

Then I painted them antique white with acryllic paint. Then I just distressed them with some sandpaper.

Next, I modpodged the pictures on. I wanted to make sure they were cropped the exact way I wanted them, so I cropped them and then dragged the images to a Word document and just printed them on normal paper (I printed them down at the local UPS store).

Then I slapped on some varnish, so the pics would be protected.

For the main block - I didn't think I could use the CitraSolv technique since it says it cleans paint off surfaces and I didn't want that! I also don't have a Silhouette machine. So, I searched blogland and found a post about using ModPodge. For some reason I can't find the one I used, but heres the link to another one: http://jaimelyn11.blogspot.com/2011/04/pottery-barn-inspire-image-transfer.html

This is what mine looked like partway through. Just make sure you don't rub too hard, or the ink will come off with the paper. Where that happened, I just took a permanent marker and filled it in.

My mother-in-law's only grandchildren are ours, but I know she'll have more; plus only 2 blocks would have looked odd, so on the other blocks I used the paper modpodge technique for this:

The other great thing is that you not only can change what picture is showing, but also how they're stacked. I only took one other picture of an alternative:

A link to "Snide Remarks: Mysterious Kin"

I can't remember how I heard about this blog, but Eric Snider is hilarious! He also happens to be an acceptably accurate movie reviewer (meaning his opinions of movies match mine maybe 60% of the time).
Some favorite quotes from the article:

If it's a girl, you have to paint everything pink and buy clothes with flowers and lace, and start saving up a dowry so that she will attract high-quality suitors.

This isn't a hermaphrodite/Middlesex/Jamie Lee Curtis situation.

The parents are tired of society putting all these DEMANDS on them, always INSISTING that a person's gender is determined by something as random and arbitrary as whether he or she has a ding-dong or a hoo-ha.

Then we'll discuss the infant's social circle and political views, maybe talk about what movies it's seen lately, who it follows on Twitter, and so forth. Then, eventually, maybe I'll get around to asking whether it's a boy or a girl. But that's pretty far down the list.

Grrrr....the powers that be in blogland apparently don't want me to put any links in - at least that's what I assume since it isn't working. Okay, a pain, but just copy and past this into your web browser:
http://www.ericdsnider.com/snide/mysterious-kin/