Dangerously close.

There is a point at which empathy becomes love.

Where another person's pain begins to tear you apart at the seams.

Recent Creations.

Hand of Hamsa - Red/Black/White Batik

Basic rundown: I took a long strip of white cotton cloth (has to be an all-natural fabric for the wax to soak through), did an outline of my design in pencil, painted the parts of the design I wanted to remain white with melted Gulf Wax. Once I wa ssure the wax was compeltely dry and had soaked compeltely through the cloth, I dipped the cloth in red fabric dye and let it sit for approx. 6 hours. I removed it, let the cloth dry, and waxed the entire background (the part I wanted red.) Once that wax had dried, I scrunched it up in my hands to crack it and let it soak in black dye for approx 1 hour. (That's what gives it the tie-dyed look, and the black around the hand. Done as a project for my Arts & Crafts class.

I'm hoping to do a larger, more difficult batik sometime this summer - I'll try to remember to do a detailed how-to when I get around to it :))

Annnd some other stuff I've done recently;;

Jacob and I <3

Gel pen and sharpies! Haha. Drew this for him. It's hanging in his room :)

Mother's Day Turtle Mosaic

Part of my mom's Mother's Day gift. She's really into island-y stuff and the ocean, so I thought a turtle would be appropriate. I don't care too much for mosaic so I probably won't do a how-to on this one, but I'm sure Google has plenty! Also done as a project for my Arts & Crafts class.

I love art :)) I'll try to keep posting my best stuff on here. I'm hoping to get a lot of stuff done this summer! <3

More later! 

Laurenn.

Welcome to the Jungle.

This is the shelf I mentioned. I'm rather happy with the way it turned out. It was part of a "repurposed furniture" project I did for arts and crafts. It used to be hot pink, $4 at Goodwill. I painted it black, glued black and white cutouts of animals, drowned the whole thing in ModPodge, and WALA! Oh yeah, and Jacob helped.

Oh yeah, and that's my guitar. Which I do not play well. But at least I'm trying.
She wanted to be in the shot.

OH YEAH. And I have a record wall :)

Also, while I'm thinking about it;
since I talk about Jacob so much and you probably already resent him just because you keep having to read his name (sorry) I feel like I should give him a chance to redeem himself. He has a blog!
THIS IS IT! HIS BLOG! AREN'T YOU EXCITED?!

"You've got a smile so bright,

you know, you should have been a candle."


Our student body is truly incredible. Darick's memorial today and all the love and support that has been shown in his memory have been amazing to watch. It's bittersweet how much a tragedy like this can knit people together so tightly. I'm sure Darick would have loved it.
I've been thinking about his smile since I found out.
I truly regret that we weren't closer friends, and that we lost touch.
You never think about how much you take people for granted.
Darick had one of the brightest smiles of anyone I've ever known. It was always so genuine, raw happiness.
I didn't realize at the time how valuable it was. I wish I had. I wish I'd let him know how much he always brightened my day, even though we weren't so close. I wish we'd gotten to be close,
I send my love to his family, and to his girlfriend, and to his many other friends who are missing him.
<33
I really hope he's where he needs to be. And I hope all the pain he couldn't bear down here has left him. I hope he's smiling all the time now. If so, the pain we feel is completely worth it.

Balloon release for Darick; photo by Bree Burrell

I need a turn around. I'm starting to get that heavy feeling again.
Maybe summer will lighten my mood.
:/

Dear Prudence....

Won't you come out to play?

Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day.

The sun is up, the sky is blue.

It's beautiful, and so are you.

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play.

Dear Prudence, open up your eyes.

Dear Prudence, see the sunny skies.

The wind is low, the birds will sing

that you are part of everything.

Dear Prudence, won't you open up your eyes?

Look around.

Dear Prudence, let me see you smile.

</3

I'm gonna miss you Darick. I hope you're having fun up there.

You were beautiful and real and we all loved you.

Today was awful. 

Here's to hopes for tomorrow.

Look at the stars, how they shine for you.

I swam across, I jumped across for you.

Oh, what a thing to do.

You see, we're all yellow.

I drew a line, drew a line for you.

Oh, what a thing to do.

It was all yellow.

You're skin, you're skin and bones,

turned into something beautiful

Do you know, for you I'd bleed myself dry

For you I'd bleed myself dry.

Fleeting social life.

I highly suspect I may be codependent. I could google it and self-diagnose but I'm too busy laying in bed feeling sorry for myself because I lost all my friends because all I care about is my boyfriend. Basically, I suck. Oh well. Maybe I'll fix it this summer. (But probably not)

So I read something interesting today, on a site called Kensho (I stumbled it.) The post was called The Death Delusion and it really blew my mind. Not that it's all that hard to blow my mind. But still, the post was pretty cool. The guy that writes it basically spends the whole post proving that death doesn't exist, and we shouldn't be afraid of it. And his reasoning was pretty solid, in my opinion, but I'm a seventeen year old girl so my opinion doesn't hold much weight. (Which reminds me, I need to tell you about my interview with my mom...I'll get to that in a minute.) But basically he discusses how thoughts are just series of electricity, and that they are dependent on, but not limited to, the physical medium of the thinker's body, and that once you seperate the body and mind, the thoughts continue to exist, just not as a part of the body. He believes that death is not real to us, because we basically cannot experience it, since our experiences are relayed to us through senses, and our senses will not exist in death. That might not make any sense, but click the link up there and go check him out. It's a good read if you're in the mood for thinking.

Okay, the mom thing. So I had to interview my mom for school today about the 70s. I was kind of dreading it because, me being a teenager, talking to my mom is weird to me, especially about her high school life. But I thought some of the things she had to say were pretty cool. She talked a lot about music (duhh, it's the 70s.) and a little about the Vietnam War, but the thing that struck me most was what she had to say about rebellion and protests when I asked her. She was talking about how society tended to overlook young people, and how her generation was really concerned with making their voices heard, even when they were young. I can't decide if it's better now, since I don't really know what it was like to be a teenager back then, but I think I'm leaning toward a yes. I can usually enter an intelligent conversation without getting dirty looks. So mad props to my mom's gen for giving us that. Ha.

I'm making a batik in art tomorrow. I can't decide what to do. :[
Seven school days left.

Almost free <3