Skip to content

Plans For My Etsy Shop, Foxtrot, Hinge Point, and Brownie Bites

Hey guys!

It's been forever since I last posted, which I'm really sad about. Today I am going to share what I've been up to lately.

Etsy
Just today, I added a new listing to my shop, which you can find here. It's for faux-denim dresses with red contrast stitching, designed to fit AG or other similar 18" dolls. It's modeled by Elisabeta, and her friend Jasmine (thanks, Madeline!).

I'm planning on making a lot of spring-time clothes, from floral dresses to embroidered jumpers to skirts and blouses!

And coming soon, hopefully before the middle of March, pdf patterns! I have such fun drafting my patterns, I thought, why not sell some? They could be cheap, and since their digital, it's an instant download, meaning I don't have to ship anything.

Foxtrot
During the in-person days at LAU, I'm taking a ballroom dance class. It's a lot of fun! So far, we have been learning the foxtrot, and now we are starting to learn east swing, AKA triple step swing.

Hinge Point
Another fun thing I've been doing is listening to Hinge Point! It's a new musical group, composed of three sisters, with fantastic voices! Their music is clean, and uplifting, and fantastic!

Brownie bites
Detoxinista has this great recipe for brownie bites. They're super health-nut-ish, but they're surprisingly good! I've probably made them six or more times in the three-ish weeks since I discovered the recipe.

A Letter To The World, From Elisabeta



















Dear World:

This is Elisabeta. I don't have a middle name, and I don't have a last name.

This year, Liliana has been discovering and chasing her dreams. I think it's about time I do the same.

And guess what, I love politics! And setting records! And breaking tradition! And being awesome! And making a difference!

As a result, I have decided to run for president of the USA. Don't worry, I was born in the USA, I'm thirty-five (in twenty years), and I love the American Dream. So I'm good to go!


My platform:

Stop micro-managing the economy
Lower taxes for everyone
Encourage American entrepreneurship by cutting red-tape so it's easier to start a small business
Finish the USA-Mexican wall that Trump started
Cut red-tape for educationalists
Start a trend for localism-- everything done on the most local level possible, from business to education to government to policing to corona virus management, you name it.


A little bit about me:
I'm thirty five (in twenty years); I love fashion and writing and reading and hanging out with friends, I'm super mature and responsible (ask Liliana if you don't believe me; my room is WAY cleaner than hers ;-)); I love history, government, and politics, and I'm very interested in the business that Liliana is working on starting.

My ideals are: honesty, justice, integrity, honour, freedom, entrepreneurship, private ownership, hard work, and innovation.

My favourite quote is by Mae Jemison: "Never limit yourself because of others' limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination."


In Short:


I'm running for president of the USA.
I'm going to do a lot of awesome stuff to make America freer
You should vote for me



Sincerely,
Elisabeta


Fashion Shoot With Elisabeta: One Base Outfit, Many Looks

Hey guys, long time no see!

Even though I posted just last Friday, it feels like I haven't posted in forever, since I usually post almost daily.

Today I decided to do a fashion shoot with Elisabeta. I took one base outfit (black slacks, white blouse) and used accessories and hairstyles to get different looks out of it.

It was a lot of fun, and I think I would like to do this with myself soon!

I started with one base outfit and eight accessories: shoes, hair things, layering pieces, bags.





Outfit one: base plus a double-sided blazer, sandals, and a skinny braid in her black hair.

























Outfit two: same base, plus the double-sided blazer, her gray scarf used as a headband, and white and black sneakers.























Same base and headband and shoes, now with a scrunchie, and purse.






















Outfit four: same base and sneakers; now with a floral hair clip, and her scarf tied around her neck.


















Outfit five: same base and clip and sneakers; now with her scarf tied around her waist as a belt.






















Same base and shoes, now with a scrunchie and purse; in her hair is a pearl headband.


















In the last outfit, we have the same base and shoes, and the purse.

Elisabeta says, "Don't I look like I could be the next Madam President? Maybe I should join the 2020 race!"

July Journal Entry #1

Hola, folks!

Alright. It's been a while since I've posted... so I'm going to catch you up to date.


Wednesday, July 1
Wednesday was pretty ordinary. I worked on my Camp Na-No-Wri-Mo novel, and wrote about 4,300 words (my goal for Wednesday was 3,716). I ate, I slept, and basically just wrote my novel. Oh, and my bedroom floor was almost clear. :-)

AND I put thorn guards in my bike tires... almost all on my own! ~listens to applause~



Thursday, July 2
Yesterday was sort of an adventure. I wrote in my book (about 2,500 words of my 3,716 words goal), I ate, I drank a lot of water, I did some extra work for money, I weeded in our family's garden.

I also wrote and sent out The Young Scholar's Gazette (a little bi-monthly magazine I do just for fun that I send to a few of my friends), which took me like three hours and is why I didn't make my word count goal.

And then in the evening, I made some doll shoes!


We will now talk about doll shoes.

So, I used a pattern by HappyBankkyCraftyMom and foam I got at HobbyLobby, a hot glue gun, and cardboard I found in our recycling box.

(looking everywhere for my camera so I can take pictures of the really cute doll shoes I made)

(finally found my camera)

Elisabeta's blue shoes! She absolutely adores them. I think they are her favourite summer shoes.
Okay, so I made a darkish-grayish blue pair first. I really like how they turned out, and I love the pattern! Really easy to use, with a simple and classic design.















The white shoes are SO impractical, but they're still really cute!
The second pair are white with pom-poms for a fun touch. A bit more playful, they are also not that great to play in because they are white (what on earth was I thinking of?) but that's fine because Elisabeta doesn't really play that much. She likes reading, writing, making sarcastic comments, looking beautiful, and taking naps. She definitely doesn't like mud.

French Minimalism With Elisabeta

I was recently researching "how to start a clothing line" and I came across an absolute gem: French Minimalism. Yeah, it's trendy right now, but that is not why I like it. The whole style is so simple, so put together, so polished! And I love that sort of stuff! :-) :-) :-)

Basically, French Minimalism is a style inspired by (made by) French ladies who look ultra chic. It is based on a wardrobe of tailored clothing, largely in neutral colours. Sound boring? Yeah maybe... but you're forgetting the accessories. The colour, the pop, the pizaz, is added in colourful accessories.

So all your clothes go with all your clothes, and all your accessories goes with all your clothes, and you can make a thousand different looks just by changing what accessories you pair with what.

It's so cool!

Because I can't really make myself a French Minimalism wardrobe (as much as I want to...) I went for the next best thing and made a French Minimalism capsule wardrobe for Elisabeta. "Hey," Elisabeta says in protest, "What do you mean, second best?" (stands there with hands on hips). Oops... sorry Elisabeta. Rephrase: Because I can't make myself a French MInimalism wardrobe, I chose the BEST option and made one for Elisabeta. "Much better..." Elisabeta says.

I chose a skirt, a pair of pants, overalls, two shirts, a coat, sneakers, and a few accessories and made the following outfits (I could have made many more, but I only had thirty minutes, and each outfit takes about five minutes to put together and photograph):

This lovely picture is Elisabeta wearing her black pants, sneakers, white blouse with puffed sleeves, and her scarf. "I look fantastic," Elisabeta says.


Now she is on the front steps of my home, ready to start a new adventure and a new day.


In a stripy shirt and her overalls, Elisabeta looks very nice framed by the purple flowers in bloom behind her. "I look like a goddess in this photo" Elisabeta says approvingly.


In white blouse and overalls, Elisabeta is standing on the metal bench in our front yard.


Wearing a short frilly skirt, a coat, and her blouse, Elisabeta is climbing a tree. "Very impractical pose," she comments. "Why couldn't I have done that one in a pair of pants?"


In her stripy shirt and black pants, Elisabeta reclines on the couch. She offers no comment, being mad about what she calls 'poor lighting.'

Shakespeare Bootcamp Done

Sadly, the 2020 Spring Shakespeare Bootcamp is over. I had a lot of fun, understood a lot more Shakespeare, and had some god bonding time with Elisabeta. ;-)

Due to the success of the bootcamp, I think I am going to do something similar every year, although they might not all be Shakespeare based. For example, one year I could read something by Aristotle everyday; another year, I could sight-read through an original Beethoven piece everyday.

And my bootcamps will ALWAYS be in the first weeks of summer... because that's the best time to do it.

All's Well That Ends Well

It all starts with a forlorn maiden... one of lowly class... who is desperately in love with one of high status. After having received her love's mother's blessing in her effort to find a way to make the match work, she heals the king of a terrible malady and demands as payment her choice of husband. She, of course, picks her love.

However, her love disdains her for her lack of noble title. After much threatening from the king, he agrees to marriage.

~pauses in telling plot to rant~
FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, is this maiden (Helena) DAFT? Marrying someone who has been forced to marry you is a recipe for disaster. Resentment, anger, and frustration and going to build up and explode into divorce or worse. BAD IDEA!
~continuing on in telling the plot~

Screenshot By ME
Her love, Bertram, hating his new wife, flees to fight in the war, leaving his wife at his mother's house. Realizing what happened, Helena feels horribly guilty for chasing him "from thy country," and decides to leave in hopes that he will return home and be spared from the horrible war, though knowing that she could never be a beloved wife of his.

Knowing that her husband would not call her wife until she had born him a child, and swearing that would never happen, Helena tricks her husband, bears him a child, confronts him, and says she is his wife.

It's a bit of a confusing romance... and also kinda boring. The best line is at the very end: "Mine eyes smell onion, and I weep anon." Other than that, it was just okay.

And here is Elisabeta's two cents: "We keep doing romances." (rolls eyes here...) "I'm sick of them. We need to do something FUN like Macbeth... or maybe we can go do Julius Caesar again..."

Soon, Elisabeta. ;-)

Shakespeare Bootcamp: Challenge Accepted

I just decided to make a change to how Shakespeare Bootcamp works. In addition to reading a play every school day for two weeks (ten plays total), participants also need to memorize a passage, speech, or stanza from one of the plays they read.

Elisabeta is going to do the poem in the leaden casket in the Merchant of Venice; I am going to memorize Mark Antony's speech in Julius Caesar.

And then we are going to recite it... and record our recitations... and post it on here! So start looking for it in about a week... maybe a week and a half.

Yay! Hooray for challenges! (I love challenges... if you couldn't tell already ;-))

Antony and Cleopatra, er, Julius Caesar

As I told you earlier, I had been planning on doing Antony and Cleopatra next. However, I couldn't find a good video to follow along. Too much 'passionate kissing' (it is about an affair, so what did I expect?) and also ten minute clips of productions.

So I went with Julius Caesar, which is my second favourite Shakespeare play.

I found this video... and it was really good. Definitely a tragedy. Like, all the good guys die in the end, usually by suicide or else aided suicide. So yeah. But there's some great speeches in there!

Like Mark Antony's speech "Friends, Romans, country men, lend me your ears" ........ holy cow, what a wowzer. The way he takes a crowd hating Caesar and praising his assassins, to loving Caesar (and, of course, Antony) and going off to murder Caesar's assassins....... just wow.

And holy cow this post is gonna be long... ;-) so grab a few cookies, stretch, and settle down.

Okay, here are some of my favourite quotes from the play:

"Men at some time are masters of their fates: / the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / but in ourselves, that we are underlings."
"What you have said/ I will consider; what you have to say/ I will with patience hear"
"Awake and see thyself[!]"
"and what other oath / than honesty to honest engaged/ that this shall be, or we will fall for it?"
"Cowards die many times before their deaths;/ the valiant never taste of death but once."
"Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more."
"The evil that men do lives after them"
"A friend should bear his friend's infirmities"
"Good words are better than bad strokes"
"This was a man!"

Okay, now to my thoughts on it:



Brutus did it all wrong.

But still, let us learn from him (wow I'm waxing poetic, it must be the listening to Shakespeare for 2.5 hours straight); for in our lives, we will each be called upon to, in one way or another, stand up against tyranny.

Brutus started out doing okay: he considered the matter instead of rushing into it rashly; he refused to form a secret combination ("No, not an oath!... do not stain the even virtue of our enterprise.").

And then from there it went all wrong.

1. He participated in cold blooded murder (okay... maybe this is an exception to the rule... I'm still thinking about it).
2. He attacked other people offensively, instead of defensively
3. He did the same thing expecting different results
4. He gave up and committed suicide

So what should he have done?

1. Persuaded the Senate to give a trial to Caesar (with his "power of speech" I'm sure he could have managed something; plus, he had quite a few friends in the Senate)
2. Allow the enemy to attack first (fight defensively)
3. Tried new, innovative ways to fight the wars
4. Had the end in mind- like, how will government be organized/ who will rule when this is over/ etc
5. Never give up! It is never as hopeless as it seems...

Okay, but now I want to point out something else.

The American colonies rebelled against Britain; the French rebelled against their king.

One revolution worked; the other failed spectacularly.

WHY?

Allow me to point out a few things that determine the success or failure of any revolution.

1- The rebelling citizenry have a classical education! In other words, they have read all the great books, discussed all the great books, and they are great thinkers! In the American revolution, it wasn't just the founders who had an amazing education, it was, to a large extent, everybody!

2- Bring God into it. The French were, at that time, a people who 'worshipped' science and atheism. The American colonists knew there was a Supreme Being, worshipped that Supreme Being, and believe (to a large extent) that he was involved in the affairs of man.

3- Have the end in mind. The French wanted to not be ruled by a king. The American people wanted to live in a free society. Big difference there, and that difference is clearly spelled out in their results: the French lived without a king (at least for a while); the American people lived in a free society.

So, going through those three things: do you think that the revolution Brutus helped spark had that classical education; a belief and worship of a Supreme Being; and had the end in mind?

I don't know about how it actually played in real life, but it is my opinion, that in the version of events that Shakespeare lays out for us, that he had none of those things.

And that, is why he failed.

The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice has been the most interesting of tales from Shakespeare Bootcamp...

Basically, this young man (Bassanio) is in love with this girl (Portia) who is condemned by her late father's will to pick her husband by a queer method: to have three chests (one of silver, one of gold, one of lead) and one will have her likeness in it, and her suitors have to guess which chest has her likeness in it, and if they guess right, then wedding, if not, kick them out.

Bassanio has a friend of his borrow a large sum of money, Bassanio wins his lady but gets news that his friend has failed to pay the debt back and must give, as his penalty, of pound of the flesh closest to his heart (yuck!). And then... No. I'm not telling what happens next.

It is maybe my third favourite Shakespeare play. Macbeth is definitely #1, the Julius Caesar is #2 (because Brutus' speech is the coolest speech ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)), and Merchant of Venice might be #3.

So here are some cool tidbits I got from this play:

"Let none presume to wear an undeserved dignity"
"O! that estates, degrees, and offices/ were not deriv'd corruptly, and that clear honour/ were purchased by the merit of the wearer!"
"Some there that be that shadows kiss/ shall have but a shadow's bliss"
"There is no vice so simple that assumes/ some mark or virtue on his outward parts"
"You that choose not by view..." (to paraphrase) shall get the better part.
"He is well paid that is well satisfied."

Yeah... this play is super good. I highly recommend it!

Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Two Gentlemen of Verona was a very interesting Shakespeare play to read.

It's basically this really 'complicated' loves story.

Guy #1 falls in love with Girl #1; Guy #2 falls in love with Girl #2; Guy #1 goes to visit Guy #2 and falls in love with Girl #2. Guy #1 betrays his friend, Guy #2, and woos Girl #2; meanwhile, Girl #1 decides to surprise Guy #1 by going to visit him (in guys clothes, which is a huge deal in the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century), and learns that Guy #1 is wooing another woman; Girl #2 absolutely scorns Guy #1; and then, somehow, Guy#2 and Girl#2 and Guy#1 and Girl#1 fall in love they way they were in love at the beginning and live happily ever after.

One thing that ticks me off: Guy #2 freely forgives Guy #1 for getting him exiled, and for slandering him. Like, what? How?!?!?!?! I guess forgiveness is a different matter than trust... one can forgive without trusting... right???

I think it was really interesting to see their allegiances.

Guy #1 (Proteus): Self
Guy #2 (Valentine): Good/God
Girl #1 (Julia): Good/God with maybe a tiny bit of self in there?
Girl #2 (Silvia): Good/God
the Duke of Milan, and father to Silvia: Money/wealth/power

Shakespeare Bootcamp: Report

I've told you about Elisabeta and I going to boot camp? Well, we are right in the think of it.... safe at home on my very cozy bed!

The first Shakespeare play I read was Henry V, then Two Gentlemen of Verona, and just yesterday, the Merchant of Venice, which I really enjoyed.

How I did the Two Gentlemen of Verona and the Merchant of Venice was, I found a production on youtube and then played it while following along in my book. So much easier to understand when you do it that way, you should definitely try it out!

Oh, and here are the links to the videos in case you want to do the same:

Two Gentlemen of Verona And holy cow the actors do a good job! Especially whoever it is who played Julia... just wow!
Merchant of Venice One problem here? They totally skip the last scene! Which is a really important scene! So make sure you read the rest of the play as well... if you read it aloud it's way easier to understand that if you read it in your mind. ;-)

And today I'm going to do Antony and Cleopatra.

Doll Shoes, Pairs Three and Four and Five

I made more doll shoes! Again! Already!

Last night, I made three pairs.

One of baby blue, one dusty pink, and one navy blue.

Only one worked. ;-) That's fine though, because I identified WHY they didn't work so now I know what I did wrong.

So here are pictures of the pair that worked:





And so let me explain why the other pairs didn't work:

So the navy blue pair, I accidentally made one of the shoes inside-out because I wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing, and I only realized that AFTER I had finished the pair, using up all the trim in the process. So, I couldn't redo it. :-( It was even my favourite pair!

And the pink pair? Well I cut them to have a fringe, except, it's impossible to get the shoes ON without all the fringe ending up wedged in so you can't even see it! Other than, of course, the odd tuft here and there making it look like these shoes are in the middle of falling apart.....

But I am not deterred. I shall continue to make doll shoes until I have mastered the craft.

Doll Shoes, Pairs One and Two

A while back I said that I wanted to learn how to make doll shoes. Well I finally got around to making my first two pairs. I was super bored last night, so I just sat down and made them. It was sorta stressful but also super exhilarating.

I drafted my own pattern (because why not?) and used this tutorial.

First I made a maroon and baby-blue pair, then a cream and blue pair.

They're not perfect but I am very proud of them (these are my very first and second tries, after all). ;-)