Santa's Little Minions

For my cousin Nicole who also likes to draw. She requested a drawing of the minions from Despicable Me celebrating Christmas.

Even though it's a CG movie, I thought the drawing would look better outlined. I like it looking more cartoony

I had fun coloring.

And even more fun decorating the tree with Despicable Me related ornaments.

Merry Christmas Nicole! Hope you liked the drawing :)

Perry Christmas!

This was suppose to be for his birthday, but I got bored, so I made it early.


I was inspired by this papercut by papercutsbyjoe and one of Perry's pictures.

First I drew it out in my sketchbook. He needed his lower half, so I made it up.

I didn't have black paper, so I just colored the drawing in. First I outlined the drawing with a black pen.

Colored with black sharpies.

And cut the drawing out with my new, very sharp, dollar store knives.

Now what to do with this Perry shaped hole in my sketch book..

Of course Urban Outfitters again. Kinda looks like something Perry would do and wear.

Now it's not so empty.

Kay, back to Perry's present. First I attempted to draw his sunset.. but it ended up looking like unicorn barf.

So I just kept it simple instead.

I added paper in the back just for this picture. I was trying to take a picture with no background, but I couldn't get a straight shot without getting my reflection in it. So this will have to do.

Dave the Snowman

To make my room just a little more festive, I decided to decorate my t.v. space.

After clearing a bunch stuff, it was ridiculous how much stuff I was able to put there without blocking my view of the t.v., I added some "snow." It's so fluffy!

Then a mini Christmas tree complete with a paper star I folded and painted with gold-ish nail polish and a little snowman I made from a bunch scrap felt about ten years ago. 

Add a few tacky snowflakes to complete my mini(malist) winter wonderland.

Meet Dave the snowman. I just decided to name him Dave like five minutes ago, because I've been listening to Dave Barnes (thanks to Perry), and Dave is also the name of the cute (to me) guitarist in Lady Antebellum.

And so begins the mini photoshoot.

Me trying to provide a white background. And yes, I am watching Tyler Florence, he was making gnocchi.

Some of the photos after taking it to HP Photosmart Premiere, the default photo editor for HP computers, and Paint.

Dave the snowman and I wish you a happy December.

Project Cho Chang: Self

Cho Chang first appeared in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry first meets her while playing their team in Quidditch. Cho becomes Harry's first love interest. Weird. Personally I don't really like her character, J.K. Rowling made her too weak and depressed all the time, constantly pining over her ex-boyfriend turned vampire (I know, different franchises). I do like her house, Ravenclaw, however, and the fact that she's the only Chinese person in the book; therefore, no matter which character I attempted to dress up as, I would automatically be stereotyped as Cho Chang.

To get her look together, I striped a tie, made a wand, found a white, collared shirt, black cardigan, altered a black skirt, black tights, black flats, and cut my bangs.

In the bathroom, lame, I know. Time to fix that.

After some meticulous Paint work (no Photoshop), final look (sans wand).

HAHA, close.

Cho Chang is not in part one of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but I'm hoping they'll bring her back for part two. She is suppose to make a cameo during the Hogwarts fight scene (in the book, anyways). Part one, however, was amazing. I was left there wishing they would continue the movie into part two, it's cruel they're making us wait another seven months.

I watched the movie twice, first at midnight the day of the premiere, to which my brother said, "I watched it 12 hours later, and it was the same." -____-

The second time, a few days later, we took pictures.

Sigh, the closest we'll ever be to meeting them.

My favourite moments in the movie:

• Opening scenes of Hermione, Ron, and Harry that show the intensity of the situation.
• Ron embracing Harry when they reunite at the Dursley's.
• The seven Harrys polyjuice scene. Bravo Daniel Radcliffe.
• Ron helping the others raise the tent. Whew.
• Hermione and Ron's cute moments.
• Harry and Ron arguing. Good acting. 
• Hermione getting tortured. Not because she's getting hurt! But, because of Emma's acting, she needs an award.

Things I wished they included:

• Harry and the Dursley's having a proper goodbye. I was looking forward to Dudley saying," I don't think you're a waste of space."
• Was Mundungus even on Mad-eye Moody's broom??
• The invisibility cloak
• More polyjuice potion use
• Emphasis on the "Voldemort" taboo
• Lily's letter!
• More Dumbledore family history

The ending of the movie was a bit abrupt. What a lot of reviews from other fans have been saying, and I can agree, was that they should have had Harry realize what the hallows were, and that his mission was to destroy the horcruxes, not to collect the hallows, all while they show Voldemort unearthing the elder wand. But why they probably didn't go that far was because they're saving that story for part two. Part one went through ~25 chapters, leaving ~10 chapters for part two, so they'll be needing that split missions story. Part one was just to show how dangerous the situation was, how alone the three were, and how the only instruction left by Dumbledore to destroy the horcruxes was affecting the three. Part two is about to be an epic finish. 

My emotions are up and down. I CAN'T WAIT, but then again I can, because once part two comes out it'll mean it's over. BITTERSWEET. In the mean time, I'll just be reading the books over and over again :)

Project Cho Chang: Wand

Instead of shelling out ~$30 per wand, I decided to make my own. I searched online, because I knew someone had to have tried making their own wand. This was the best tutorial: http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-awesome-Harry-Potter-wand-from-a-sheet-of-/ 

First start off with a sheet of paper, and curl from the bottom right hand corner.

 Just keep rolling, just keep rolling, just keep rolling.

After rolling about half of sheet, you can start to loosen the top of the wand. You want it to look like a really thin cone, kinda like those cones you use to spin cotton candy with.

Tah-Dah. Now where's my cotton candy..

To add stability, since the wand is currently hollow, I stuff small bits of paper through the wider end by using a stick and a pencil. Again, the urban outfitter's catalog has proven to be very useful to me. Our wands now possess the essence of looking fashionably cheap, but expensive.

I keep stuffing until the entire wand is filled, then close the bigger end by folding down the edges and wrapping paper around it.

Next, I make the "handle" of the wand. It was too hard to recreate the wands they had in the movies, so I just made up my own.

My tools: tape and twine. (If you say that fast, it kind of sounds like "turpentine" with a funny accent. ha ha?) 

First add glue to the handle, and spread around the area where you want your handle to be.

Then wrap the twine around the handle area, and add tape at the two ends to hold the twine in place until the glue dries. 

There could've been more pictures of the process, but I needed two hands for this part.

Now, time to start painting.

Paint the entire wand.

To add some color and to make it look more "magical," I take gold and silver nail polish and paint the handle.

Then I finish it by taking some clear top coat nail polish to add some shine to the handle.

This is Alane's wand.

My wand is the on the right, it was the guinea pig of this process. Whatever I wanted to test out, I would test on my wand first. That's why it's a bit tacky looking. Ah, if only they were real. haha, the things I could do.. 

Project Cho Chang: Skirt

Time to get my costume together. Here is my trusty sewing guide. I got it at the library like four or five years ago. It's one of those books people donate, and the library sells for.. well, as you can see, $1.00. Also, if you can't tell, this book is from the late '70s. So the styles in there are all high waisted pants, ruffled blouses, ascots, and elastic waistbands. Cute.

I first work on the skirt. I've had this one long skirt that my grandma made a long time ago. Well I cut about four inches off. I don't have a picture of the original, because I actually started this project maybe two years ago. I picked it up again recently for the purpose of Harry Potter :)

After cutting the skirt to the length I wanted, I had to hem the raw edges. First step is tacking by basting. I folded the raw edge up about three quarters of an inch and used a general stitching method (basting) and sewed about an eighth of an inch from the bottom to secure it temporarily (tacking). I used pink thread, because it's easy to see.

Next step was to begin the hem. To hide the raw edge, I fold it down about an eighth of an inch, and did a backstitch.

To secure this hem, I sew it to the skirt by using a slipstitch.

After sewing all around the skirt, I remove the pink thread.

Skirt? Check.