Be warned in advance – this post is picture heavy!

So, to begin:

This is an ongoing weekly scrapbook that I needed to catch up on this summer – I got the idea halfway through the second half of the school year and didn’t have time to get very far! Since I never use my weekly written planner and use my computer’s calendar instead, I’ve turned it in to a scrapbook.

Each week is a spread made up of a collage of things I’ve collected that week – movie or concert tickets, say, or a receipt from dinner with someone, or a post-it someone left me – combined with cut-outs from that week’s issue of TIME, my favorite magazine. I’ll post more spreads from time to time, but this project won’t actually be finished until the year’s over.

The second project I’ve been working on is a knotted headband, which is actually practice for a necklace I’m planning. Think glorified Chinese staircase anklet.

Everything spawns off of one knot, and I’ve thrown in braids and a bunch of different knots and patterns. I’m doing this first to get the length right, and then I’ll start on a new one for the necklace, except with beads and charms thrown in. BECAUSE WE ALL LIKE SHINY THINGS.

Another big project is a website I’m building for my friend Shawn’s film portfolio – here’s a sneak peek at his cartoony face! This is coming along pretty decently, it’s just quite involved and is my main priority, hence why everything is still wonderfully greyscale around here. lulz.

This is a fish. For some layout thing. WONDER WHAT FOR.

And, for good measure, some real-live swimmy fish.

Finis.

I’ve spent this whole weekend entrenched in paper, colored pencils, stickers, and notecards – my goal being to write letters to about 15 friends, to be mailed out on my day off when I take my bike to the post office. What has bothered me more than anything about this process is how hard it is to decide what to say even in the letters being written to my very best friends. These are people I can write a Facebook message to that’s eons long – so why is this so hard?

Some time ago, I read this article in TIME magazine about the loss of handwriting skills. I pride myself on my handwriting. “I WILL NOT LET THIS HAPPEN,” I thought, and yet here I sit unable to write a letter. I used to love sending and getting mail, and did it constantly – when I was 8. Now I’m hindered with, “Maybe they won’t enjoy this story. Maybe they’ll have found it out on Facebook already, or tumblr or Twitter, and will think I’m being ridiculous and repetitive!” In this day and age where people know every move we make instantaneously, it’s hard to tell people what they don’t already know.

I keep telling myself to just write. My friends will appreciate the effort I put in – look, I’ve even done colored pencil headers! – no matter what I say. Yet it’s still difficult! I found myself wanting to actually type them out first and then copy them down. Am I so dependent on my computer for assistance with communication that I seriously can’t just straight up write something with a real live pen?!

In any case, I will prevail. These letters will be sent out on Wednesday, and I know that my friends will be happy to receive them and I, in turn, will feel accomplished and happy that I made them happy. Maybe it’ll even turn in to a habit.

So how about you? We know everyone loves to receive snail mail, but do you have difficulty writing it? Or does it come to you easily and you send letters regularly?

Despite all of this, IMPETUS IS NOW REGAINED. I’m having trouble with the actual artistic portion of the layout, so for now, you can watch as I whip everything in to shape with code and the designy bits will be added later.

ONWARD, HO.

School, a bad bout with strep throat, and several other factors have all converged to keep me from relaunching this site on time twice now. I keep getting little bits at a time done, but never enough for the entire site to be complete in time for a certain date. So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m starting over from scratch and opening the site now, and leaving it wide open so you can actually watch while all of the tweaks, additions, and breakage happen over the next few days, weeks, whatever.

I figured that this was appropriate because in the end, a major part of this website’s focus is going to be the creative process. What better opening than to let you watch how my process works?

So, feel free to peek back every so often and see what the heck is going on. A lot of links lead to nowhere right now, but that will soon change. For those of you who don’t care to look at a busted-up website, I will of course post again when everything is completed to my satisfaction – and you can sign up for the RSS Feed or become a Facebook fan to get an update as soon as this happens. Hint, wink, nudge and all that. If you want to get a play-by-play of what’s going on, you’re more than welcome to follow my Twitter, but be aware of the irreverent quotes and my anger at programming that will be interspersed very heavily in between. I’ve been told it’s rather funny, though.

Most of all, this will give me more motivation to actually do something because I know people are watching. So really, we all win here. Keep your hands and arms inside the website at all times, and let’s go!

And of course, mad props to Elliot Jay Stocks and his wonderful stripped-down WordPress theme, Starkers!