fall in photos

More to come. 

Happy Sunday to You, You, and You! 

the weekend

After 5 very long days of rising before the sun, dragging my stuff from class to class, pushing my way through the crowded hallways, coming home to do nothing but homework, then going to bed and repeating it all over again, the weekend has finally come. I'm fairly certain that it couldn't be any more welcome than it already is!

Weekends are for babysitting, spending endless hours on the computer, hanging out with friends, sleeping, drinking hot chocolate, snuggling in a warm bed with a good book, and most importantly, catching up and winding down.

This is what my weekend consists of, but what about yours? 

click it up a notch picture share | october

Slight change of titles this month, but still the same thing as always! It's (already) that time of month again over at Click It Up a Notch! My favourite this month:

-Hope

life can suck

I'm not the kind of person to complain about meaningless things such as fights with friends or a bad grade on a test because I know those things will blow over and I know that everything will be better soon. However, my grandma had a stroke yesterday and I guess you could say that I'm upset. 

First off, she's fine. She's at home safe and sound with my favourite auntie who will no doubt take very, very good care of her, but I'm still left shocked and saddened. Wasn't it just over a year ago when she was in the hospital for a quintuple bi-pass open heart surgery? 

The thing that hurts me most is that she does not deserve this whatsoever! She eats properly, exercises regularly and is the healthiest woman I know, so why do things like this keep happening to her? Between losing her husband to cancer, having a quintuple pi-pass open heart surgery, and a stroke, hasn't she had enough!? And even worse is that she'll beat herself up over it because she feels like she hasn't done enough to keep healthy and stay fit. 

I just hope that these kind of things would stop happening to our family, because honestly, it's really starting to stress not only me, but everyone else out, and it can suck, but such is life and we'll move on.

-Hope

subway art tutorial

I posted a picture of a personalized present I made a friend for his birthday on my flickr, and a couple of people asked for a tutorial, so here it is!

What You'll Need:

- A Blank Canvas (I think mine was 18" x 24", but you can use whatever size you would like)

- White Spray Paint

- Black Spray Paint

- Letter Stickers (I actually used a Cricut Personal Electronic Cutting Machine with vinyl paper, but stickers would probably work just as well- as long as it's adhesive)

Instructions:

1. Take your canvas and spray paint it white. I know the canvas is already white, but over time it will start to fade and turn yellow, so I spray painted it just in case!

2. Plan what kind of theme you would like to make- mine was Taylor Swift song titles, but you could do anything that interests you or the person you're making this for. 

3. Take your stickers and arrange them on the canvas however you would like. It looks a lot cooler if you use different fonts and sizes, but like I said, it's all up to you!

4. Once you have all of your letters laid out, take the canvas outside and paint with a thin layer of black spray paint. Paint it with thin layers over and over again until it's completely black. It's important that you do many thin layers instead of one thick one because you don't want to create bubbles and make it messy looking.

5. Read the label on your spray paint and wait the suggested time until the paint dries.

6. After it has dried, carefully peel off the stickers.

7. If a bit of spray paint has sneaked underneath the stickers you can just take some white acrylic paint and a paintbrush and carefully fix the little mistakes.

8. You're done! The finished product should look a little something like this:

If any of you decide to try this out I would love to see your results, so make sure to leave a link in a comment so I can check it out! :) 

-Hope

chloe & annika

I had a sleepover last night with my two favourite twins, and this morning, before I left, I so kindly asked kinda forced them into having a quick little photo-shoot with me, and I'm so glad I did because I really really love how well some of these pictures turned out! :)

Annika:

Chloe:

Any favourites? :)

-Hope

my reason for stopping

If you follow my flickr account or check up on it every so often you'd know that I've decided to stop my project 365. It kind of sucks because of how far I've come, but after I took my 4 day break to get inspired, my 365 sort of went on the back burner, and now I haven't got any motivation to keep it going.

Am I sad about it? Yes. Is it for the best? Probably.

When I started my 1st project 365 back in June, I didn't really think about it and how hard it would be. It lasted 14 days. A couple days later, I decided to start another one, and all was fine and dandy until about 2 weeks ago when it was starting to bring me down. I tried my hardest to start up again, but it just isn't working, so call me a quitter, but I'm stopping it.

The whole idea of a project 365 is to learn and grow, and I have. I have learned so many things since I first started this project back in July, and to be honest, I'm pretty proud of myself for even making it to day 101!

Come January 1st, I'll probably be starting another 365. Hopefully I'll have more luck, motivation, and inspiration the 3rd time around! ;)

day 1

day 101

-Hope

crazy, busy life

A lot of changes have taken place in these past couple of days and in the midst of it all I haven't had very much time to photograph, never mind blog! Until things slow down a little my poor blog probably won't get as much love as it deserves- the best I can do is leave you with the few pictures I have taken! :)

kali-cat mid yawn!

-Hope

i want to remember

I want to remember the fun times during lunch, sitting with good friends, and laughing over the silliest of things until we all have tears running down our faces.

I want to remember the fabulous sleepovers where we stay up talking about boys, school, and pretty much just life in general until the early hours of the morning.

I want to remember the way hundreds of students flood into the narrow hallways when the bell rings, and the crowded bus rides home from school.

I may just be a crazy sentimentalist, but I want to remember all of the simple everyday things that will soon be forgotten. Why? Because time is literally flying by. I mean, it's October the 14th for goodness sake!

Doesn't it seem like just yesterday I started 10th grade? To me it does, and to be honest, it kind of scares me, because before we know it we'll be graduating high school and moving on with our lives as individuals.

I'd be lying if I told you that I don't miss the simplicity of being a child, but then again, I'd also be lying if I told you that I don't enjoy my day-to-day life as a 15 year old, 10th grade, high school student.

So for now, I'm just going to enjoy every moment, and knowing me, most likely take a million pictures to remember them by, because memories are priceless and you can bet that I'll be trying my very best to preserve them!

What about you? Do you think time is flying by too fast, or not fast enough?

-Hope