Episode 29: New Year, New Goals

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Just like probably everyone else out there, I, too, made resolutions for 2014. Here are mine:

1. Write a blog entry twice a month

2. Focus more on my Etsy shop

3. Create at least one YouTube video per month. (Going to try to aim for 2)

I'd also say "exercise everyday", but I'm going to be realistic and not even say it because we all know that one doesn't last too long! haha. Hopefully I'll remember to exercise at least one a week though :)

So for the new year, I'm excited to say that I picked up a new hobby. And as you can probably tell from the picture above, it has to do with stamping! I discovered rubber stamp carving around late November to early December, actually. It looked so awesome so I started surfing the internet for blogs and YouTube videos on how to carve stamps. Unfortunately I didn't find too many videos or blogs that went into great detail about this hobby. I wanted to learn the technique of carving with an knife rather than the popular Speedball tools. I was only able to find a few videos in Cantonese that showed this technique, which was quite disappointing. I suppose I will have to slowly learn how to properly do this on my own! This wasn't my first attempt at carving a stamp. I tested it out with smaller & simpler designs before.. well, here is the final result below:

The tools I used:

I must say that it came out better than I expected! It's a stamp for my Etsy shop. I wanted to make something that I can print onto all of my thank you cards. How does it look? I didn't carve this out of the proper rubber blocks though. I bought the Polymer Erasers from Target to test out before I carved from the real stuff. It is quite pricey! I think for my next stamps, I'll attempt at carving from the rubber blocks. I bought one off eBay for about $7. If I ever start selling stamps in my shop, I think I'll buy the thicker blocks from Blicks Art Store though. They have a discount online if you buy in bulk and it seems sturdier than the eBay ones.. although the eBay ones come in such pretty colors!

As I mentioned, I want to focus more on my shop in 2014. I hope to one day be able to turn this little hobby shop into a full-time job. I'm trying to find a new direction to take my shop - something that I can do everyday and not ever get sick of it. It's such a hard decision because I can't possibly have like 4 different focuses on my shop. I think at most I can do is 2.. decisions decisions! Hopefully I'll have an answer for myself by the end of 2014. :)

That's all I have for today!

See you next time~

Episode 27: September 2013 Barkbox

My (actually Penny's) very first BarkBox Subscription Box :)

This post is long overdue, but I haven't had time to put it up till now. So without further ado, let me tell you about my first BarkBox experience. They have subscriptions for 3 types of dogs: small/toy size, medium size and large size dogs. I have a Shih-tzu that's about 14lbs so she definitely falls into the small/toy dogs category. I purchased a 6 month subscription which was $114, but I used a $12 off your purchase coupon from Wrapp, so I paid $112 for 6 months. 

I was super excited to receive my first Barkbox. There are different items every month, so its always going to be a surprise. I was looking at the last 2 months before I decided to purchase. I must say, I was a little disappointed with the items this time. I was hoping for treats that were made out of meats, as those are Penny's favorites. So let me review each item that I got for you:

Episode 19: What's in My Bag?

Hi guys! :)

So I decided to do a "What's in my Bag" video for my channel today. I really wanted to do a DIY video, but I was unable to bring all of my craft stuff home this weekend. So I guess I'll have to wait on that until I've organized everything again because I can not, for the life of me, find anything I need! 

Anyways, you can watch the video below! :) 

I've always wanted to do this tag because I just find it so much fun to watch others on YouTube doing this tag. So the bag that I used was the Coach Penny Purse. This is a crossbody bag with detachable locks so it can be used as a clutch as well. :) I really love this purse because it helps me limit the things I carry out with me (I have a habit of stuffing as much as I can into my bags...) and keep a balanced weight on my back/shoulders.

Episode 16: Honey Teriyaki Salmon

Lately, I've been trying to eat a little healthier to get myself back into shape. I have a tendency to start obsessing over random foods once I start eating them. As you may have guessed, salmon is one of them. A few months ago, I ate grapefruits like my life depended on it. I would crave it every day and eat one every meal. Eventually, I got over it and stopped since it's not really good to eat too much of one thing. So glad that watermelon and mango season is coming so I can munch on those now! 

So back to the salmon, I was at the supermarket, looking for foods to buy for this week when I came across the salmon section. I've been ordering it a lot whenever I go out to eat lately, so I decided to try to make my own. I looked up a recipe online (here), but I didn't have all the ingredients that they listed so I used it as my base recipe and added a few other ingredients to it. I love this website because it allows you to adjust the servings to how ever many people you need! Makes my life so much easier...

Episode 15: Anticipation Looms

Hi my lovely readers!

Today's post is going to be non-craft or fashion related, actually. April came so fast. It feels like New Years just happened and now, its already almost halfway through the year. Usually the years go by quite slow and feels like every thing happens at normal speed. But this year, it's different. This year is a special year for me. I'm finally going to be graduating college! :) I'm so excited, yet at the same time, I'm scared. After graduating, it means I'd have to officially start the adult life and look for a full-time job and take on full responsibilities. It's kind of a lot to take in since it does mark one of the biggest achievements in one's lifetime. 

Throughout the middle of the semester, I contemplated on going for grad school just to avoid finding a job. Interviews are so nerve-racking! My shyness doesn't help with that either. Haha. But after thinking about it, as an ITI major, I think experience is more important for me to advance in the positions I'd be applying for, so I decided to just man up (or woman up...?) and just face it! At the moment, I'm no longer that nervous about facing the real world, but that might change once the time comes. :P I always wonder what my first job would be...

Episode 14: Joining the YouTube Community!

Hi everyone!

It's been SO long since I've last updated this blog. I'm so sorry! School work always gets in the way. :( But I have some news! I have recently decided to get into making YouTube videos. The focus is the same as this blog: fashion, DIYs and crafts. At the moment, I'm not really sure how often I will be making videos, but I'm aiming for one per week? Hopefully school doesn't get me off track again... haha. 

What made me want to make videos was mainly because I wanted to find an easier way to make tutorials. It took me a long time to make the dolphin tutorial because I had to stop and take pictures at every step. It took me a while to actually go and make a video because I'm actually very shy. I hope that through these videos, I'll be able to improve on myself as well as provide useful tutorials for everyone else.

The final push that made me make my first video was actually because of my current ITI class. I'm taking Information Visualization this semester and video editing/filming is one of the projects I have to do. I figured I'd make a simple video to get a hang of recording before I started recording/editing for the project. :) 

Check out my first video down below! (Please excuse my awkwardness and the top being cut off... haha :x):

I definitely need to work on editing and filming techniques! Haha. Please let me know in the comments of either the video or this post on how I can improve! Also thumbs up and subscribe so I know you're enjoying these videos. :D Thank you so much for your support! ♥

Angela

What kind of videos do you guys want to see?

What are some editing/filming suggestions you have for me?

Episode 2: Etsy Shop

Hi everyone!

Starting a shop of some kind has always been on my To Do list, but I never had enough time to actually do it. After starting this blog with Brenda, I've become more motivated to create the shop because I'd have a partner to help me out. This also allows for more variation of items in our shop. We have different interests in crafts. Brenda's specialties are knitting scarves, DIY jewelry and doing DIY customization on different pieces of clothing, such as studding, dyeing/bleaching, fraying, etc. Mine are polymer clay, wire rings, and needle felting and sewing. 

If you have noticed before you stumbled onto this, we have a link in the navigation that says "SHOP". We have finally opened a shop of our own and I am more than just excited about it since I've been wanting to open one for at least 2 years. I sincerely hope that you guys will enjoy shopping at our Etsy shop. We will be sure to create a blog post for everything that we sell in the shop and let you know what is now available! 

Episode 1.2: Introductions

WELCOME~

Hi guys! Welcome to our blog. My name is Brenda! Like my sister has said, this is a collaborative blog because we both don't have the time to manage a blog on our own cause of classes, exams, homework, and so on. You get the idea, cause we're COLLEGE STUDENTS :)

Well let me introduce myself a bit. Just like my sister, I attend Rutgers University and currently a junior. I'm technically considered a sophomore because I'm a transfer student and some of my credits weren't able to transfer over. Oh well. Anyways, I'm currently 20 years old so the BIG 21 is coming! I always wanted to make a blog, but I didn't have the time to maintain my old one, so hopefully this collaborative blog will work out for the both of us. My sister said most of the important things below, so just read that. We're mainly going to do DIYs, fashion posts, hauls, reviews, and all the other good stuff so please keep on the lookout!

Thanks a lot guys and hope you become inspired by our posts and follow us! :)

Episode 1: Introductions

Welcome to the Just Honnie blog!

Let me introduce myself as well as give you a brief background of what this blog will turn out to be! (hopefully... :P)

This blog is a collaborative blog between me and my younger sister, who will be doing an intro on herself sometime soon. We lead two completely different lives and thought it would be fun to create a blog that we can share. It's a bit difficult for us to each maintain our own blogs since it requires quite a bit of almost every day. We're still college students at the moment so we have to spend a bit of time studying and doing homework every day, so by sharing this blog, we can take turns updating it which can allow for more frequent posts as well as provide some variety of posts throughout this blog. :) We hope that this blog will be entertaining and helpful to you. Thank you!