#though i think i'm done with the big poster sized paintings

[ravinoforre]

It's a little bit late, but Happy Anniversary to Pokémon Colosseum! This took the best part of a month to complete (working on and off). Likes and reblogs heavily appreciated! Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40

The two paintings side by side on my wall (as a side note, both of these were signed digitally on their solo photos for me to show online, since I didn't want to risk messing them up with my inconsistent squiggly signature or have the pen misfire horrifically ^^' )

[blessingmaxxer]

some things I love about my perfect CR (aka the reality I'm going to live soon):

• revised my entire life to my desires; revised my age to 16, and went back to September 2020 from March 2024 (well I guess it's 2020 right now so... I made it so that this year was 2020)

• my skin is never bumpy or pimply, or itchy (this was Hell for me in my past reality)

• my room is big, Baroque-style-fancy + whimsigoth, light blue, and looks a lot like the room in time princess; with lots of pretty furniture, a balcony, a reading nook, two altars for the deities I worship; and a huge gorgeous, gaudy four-poster bed (think princess-like), etc. (I used to have a small, white room that I had to share with other too many other people 🙄 I had to keep my altar in a miniscule cabinet, and only had space for one... my room is now the size of my OR apartment, so I no longer have that problem lol) + decorated with my fave fandom stuff/interests + full of amazingly beautiful furniture

• life like a fun teen movie or slice-of-life anime (in a good way, not the racist, fucked up way... Anyway, I used to barely go outside for fun, and didn't have much money to do stuff, and sure as hell didn't get invited anywhere... still salty about that)

• I never get headaches, stomach aches, cavities, most pains, etc. (I left period cramps cuz I wanna feel human... But yeah in my past CR I was sick and in pain a often, it was almost a personality trait at a certain point 😭 But not anymore!)

• I'm always hygienic and clean no matter what + I have the most perfect skincare and hair care products for me + I always smell like cotton candy and/or caramel (I used to be stinky and had weird shit going on w/ my body... Embarrassing)

• I have lots of Hot, Rich and Intelligent friends who absolutely adore me and listen to me and low-key worship me (let's just say this was very much not the case in my OR; most of my friends were NOT ride-or-dies for me... and most we're hot HRI...)

• homework is extremely easy for me because I just revise/wish it done + extremely high IQ, even though IQ is technically bs (I was only book smart in my OR, and even that started the die w/ age cuz of short attention span) + kid genius to adult genius pipeline

• family is super kind to me and are emotionally intelligent and perfect + spoil me and dote on me endlessly w/ money and affection (my OR family were nice 60% of the time, but were 40% toxic and stingy, which is still too much... 60% is barely a passing grade!)

• gigantic mansion.

• no but like, GIANT MANSION. It's literally something out of a fairytale, it's interesting and magical and full of secrets, lore and history (and, as I've stated before... My room. Is now. The size. Of my. OR apartment.)

• well-behaved younger siblings (they barely exist rn, but they will, and I'm excited to have younger siblings that don't make me want to kms when watching them)

• I was never parentified or had to raise anybody's kids

• immediate family won the lottery so we never run out of money + I have a magical, interdimensional job (it's fun but I won't share any details cuz it's top secret... Just know I make bank)

• really great and talented artist + great at the all the arts, whether sketching, painting, musical, performing, martial, etc. (in my OR I was barely so-so at drawing, and DEFINITELY behind my peers + I didn't know how to fight or play instruments)

• I have a HRI, kind, responsible and brooding bodyguard/personal assistant around my age (he's not in my life yet, but he will be... I shouldn't simp for him, but... 😩)

• now a triplet (I remember seeing a success story where anon manifested being a triplet, so I was like, yeah! I want that, too! I used to be a twin in my OR) + I have good relationship with all of my family

• me and my family are super intelligent + my parental guardians now have their dream jobs and are super educated (one's a lawyer with their own firm and the other is has their own restaurant and is now studying to be an engineer, plus we make a lot from stocks w/ 0 losses)

• me and my siblings have amazing singing voices (amazing range)

• I go to an extremely beautiful, fancy high school (my OR high school was super mid)

• manifested a fancy, wealthy and fun town into existence (used to live in a good but unwalkable town in my OR that is now next to my CR town)

• fancy walk-in closet and my own fancy bathroom (trust me when I say this; your jaw would drop at the beauty, just as pretty as my room)

• full health, whether mental or physical, for my immediate family

• perfect and ideal hair + skin

• I have everything from my desired scripts + everything I want that I haven't written down

[annakie]

Fixing The House Part Six: You Will Leave Some Paint

Part One: I Do Not, In Fact, Have the Power

Part Two: Let’s Spend Lots of Money!

Part Three: All These Things That I’ve Done

Part Four: I Really Want to Stay At My House

A little interlude.

Part Five: Power Down

Look, if I don't start really working on telling this, I may never finish. So I'm just going to start, and whatever comes out, comes out.

Doing this room by room probably would be smarter, but oh well. There's still NO room that's 100% done. I'd say at this point that there's still a good 5 - 7 full days of work ahead of Arturo and that's probably 2 - 3 actual weeks at this rate.

But things are definitely progressing. So let's go back to where we left off... kind of the end of the power getting fixed.

Uh yeah if I don't put a cut here, someone will cut me.

Part One: Living Color

As you can see in the pic above, and in a pic or two from the last post, a thing that had to happen on any wall on the edges of the house is that they had to cut into the drywall near the ceiling to be able to run the wire down to the outlet to fix it. So naturally that drywall had to be patched when the work was done, and then repainted. Just a part of the process. Cool. Up there is the guest bedroom and down below is the master bedroom with the patching done but not painted.

I had very smartly saved either paint chips or lids or even whole cans of the paints I'd used originally. I was able to figure out exactly who made and the name/tone of every color in the house except for one, which we didn't need anyway.

Remember guys, saving stupid stuff for 21 years sometimes IS helpful!

So Arturo went and got the paint for all the rooms, cool. He said now would be a good time to decide if I wanted to repaint any rooms but I was like nope! I like my colors! He got just quart sizes of most of the colors because that's all we needed.

...so anyway it turns out after 21 years (or even just 11 for a couple of the walls) paint changes colors so the new paint is definitely visible against the old paint.

At that point, we'd need to buy a lot more paint and repaint every room probably. The compromise was to paint just the full wall where the patching happened so the other walls would be slightly different.

There were also things like this:

Where that patching happened was just a very visible drywall line that had bothered me for 21 years. Arturo fixed it.

There were a couple of rooms that, tbh, just really needed new paint, and there were cracks in some walls that needed fixing. It started to just make sense at that point to just... maybe do full repaints of rooms. Arturo gave me a very reasonable price for that. Honestly, I think too little after seeing everything it took and how I made it harder.

I was super annoying at first though, and decided to keep some of the same colors, especially out here in the Office (which, remember, is the room most people would use as their living room) and the dining room, which were technically one big room except for one Thing, which we'll get to later.

So Arturo's crew repainted the office that dusty rose color that I loved. They also repainted the hallway, which really needed it, the same Silver Trophy you see above, which was also on the one wall that connected the office and dining rooms.

Um... hey... did you guys know that if you leave a massive framed Star Wars poster hanging in the same spot for like 21 years you can totally tell once you finally take it down?

Honestly I had no idea that wall was that dirty. It was just normally so damn dark in my house, tbh. Remember, I JUST got lights put in a week or two before this pic!

So yeah, that wall got a repaint, too.

I did decide around that time that the living room needed a repaint, partially because I didn't have a blue room in my house, and I felt like I wanted a room that was blue, and also just wanted my LR to be real damn cozy.

As a comparison... here was the before.

Some notes about this room lol... this is the room I camped out in during The Great Freeze, and starting then I nailed a blanket over the window and never took it down because I liked it dark in the room and also until the fence went up, that window looked right into my neighbors bathroom. Looked bad, but it kept the glare off the TV.

There was a big patch of drywall rubbed through from leaning my chair back and scraping the wall back when this smaller bedroom was the office. There was a big crack in a wall. There was also a recliner in there that turns out was made with the cheapest fake leather known to man that was constantly flaking off, very grossly. It was very crowded in there, and the recliner needed to go but I couldn't get it out myself.

So actually the day I spent working in the LR I asked Arturo to please get the recliner out, and they did.

Arturo ended up with a gallon of paint for the original color of this room (pictured) we didn't use because they mistakenly made that instead of the gallon for the hallway at first, but that was at least their fault.

It was around this time I was just like... fuckit, we're going to repaint the whole house. But at first, I thought, keeping most of my same colors.

My mind began to change, especially after the new color went on the wall in the living room. But I can't show you that yet.

Part Two: Cierra la puerta, por favor

I'd mentioned last post that there was a reason the sliding glass door from bedroom door to the patio got left open a lot.

That's because it was a really old, shitty door, and unless you knew how to close it just right it was likely to come off the track, and then it was really annoying to put back on the track. Also it was really freaking noisy every time you opened it. Like my neighbor on that side had complained about it before noisy.

It wasn't worth it for the workers to keep trying to close it every time they went in and out.

Also, the glass was so old that even with cleaning, it was never actually clear anymore. It was one of many, many things that were original to the house. Built in 1963.

So one of the earliest "Hey Arturo, can we...."s was "replace the sliding glass door?"

The price was reasonable, and the relief at knowing it would get done was surprising to me.

I think Arturo was almost as happy as me to get it replaced.

That's not Arturo, I think it's Antonio, removing the static plate of the door, I didn't catch them fast enough to see them removing the door itself.

And honestly I wish I'd taken a recording of the sound of opening that door before they removed it, though it will live in my brain forever.

The only picture I'll ever have of NO DOOR AT ALL. I was giddy at this point.

The first pic of... NEW DOOR. Oh my GOSH, so beautiful. I wanted to cry. You can see the pane of glass from the old door leaning against the pole out there.

Arturo brought me to see it the first time and was like "OPEN IT!" and I grabbed the handle and pulled, and NOTHING, lol. He was like "Is it stuck?" and then I pulled again and it moved and I said "IT'S SO HEAVY!" Arturo laughed and was like "Yeah, it's got twice as much glass, it's double pane!"

Like, look, I know, double pained (sp?) glass is the norm these days but my brain didn't even conceive that I could have double panes in my house until then. Oh, energy efficient double panes? WTF? In this house?!? Seemed sus.

I quickly got used to the new amount of force it took to open the door and marveled at how quiet it was after I opened and closed it a few times.

All the workers expressed their happiness that it was fixed, too, lol.

And later that night, it was still around 100 degrees outside, I was alone in the house and I just went and stood by the window and realized... it wasn't significantly hotter by the door than a few feet away from it? It was like, the same temperature? Like truly insulating, energy efficient? Is this the real life?

The new door is slightly (like 3") shorter than the old one so they did have to add a little padding at the top, they just don't make doors the same size anymore, but honestly they did such a great job finishing it, I wouldn't have even known if I hadn't seen it go in.

I loved that new door so much, so fast, that it really got me thinking... if I could have a new door, double panes, energy efficient... could it be possible for... other new... energy efficient things? We'll get back to that.

Part Three: Sea Salt

Just realized looking at the above pic that another change was visible...

I had started interacting with what would become my new best friend for the next couple of weeks, the Sherwin-Williams Color palate... what do you call it? Swatch book? My friend is still here with me, and I'm going to be sad when Arturo finally takes him away. We have spent many hours together the last month or so, I am very well familiar with all of his options and can pull up many precise colors in just a few seconds at this point.

A day or two before the door went in, Sherwin and I made our first choice together, the colors of the patio.

The ceiling would be painted Sea Salt, a beautiful, beach-inspired light green. I also decided to have Arturo paint my patio furniture the same color.

So early on, the ceiling got caulked. They also filled in the shitty job bits that Jose had done over where the roof met the house, it looked great, actually. And a day or two later, the ceiling was painted.

Hey, that's the OLD sliding glass door there!

OK so for the first day, NGL, I didn't love it? And I later realized it was because of that green paper you see there that they put up to protect the house. The paper made it look like the ceiling was just... white. I did not want just white.

Arturo said to give it a couple of days to think on it if I really wanted it a different color, he'd have to charge me for the new paint and labor, which is totally fair.

I realized when the paper was gone and you could see it against the white bits of the house, it was gorgeous.

OK even in that bottom pic, it's hard to really see the color, but trust me, you can tell it is not white.

Also, quick note, yes, the patio has looked like that OR WORSE every day since they started. The patio is the main work and stuff storage area. It's just... constantly in disarray, with good reason. Luckily Tuesday is Trash Day so Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning all the trash gets move to the curb and it's less chaotic, for a few days, lol.

A week or so later, the fan went up! Hey, this is a much better way to see the color!

The fan has to be on the same circuit as the other light on the porch, which is slightly annoying, you can't have one without the other, but it's fine! The fan is very pretty, and uh, look, I hadn't ever bought a ceiling fan myself, and especially not recently, and I didn't realize they were mostly remote controlled now? So it's got a remote next to the door to control it with. Neat!

That Ceiling Fan is the thing that started... the rest of this by the way. If it hadn't been for Joel suggesting we put a ceiling fan on the patio.. maybe the rest of this wouldn't have happened. Or maybe it would have, since the fuse box was dying anyway, but still, Arturo and I have joked about the consequences of that ONE FAN.

Anyway! Literally just today the patio furniture got painted! As you can a little bit see in that pic above and others, it was stained redwood stain, because that matched the wood on the old patio. Now...

Pic taken just hours ago!

OK it still doesn't look that green against the greenish color of the drywall it's sitting on, but it looks great, OK? I also bought grey cushions which will look good with them. The patio cement is obviously not painted yet, that'll be probably the very last thing Arturo does for me, for now. The color is picked out. When you see pics of that... it'll be done.

Part Four: I'm a Fan of this Fan

When that fan went up, Arturo and I had been discussing the dining room lighting situation, especially as it is the same room as the office, which had gotten the new recessed lighting.

Arturo was like "You know, the other fans in your house are very old. Especially the ones in your dining room and guest room. We can replace them, when we put in the recessed lights in the dining room. I have a ceiling fan that doesn't have lights that would look good in the dining room, I'll throw that in for free if you also buy a fan for the guest bedroom and we install that."

Friends, I just spent like 30 minutes scrolling through six or seven years worth of pictures and I could not for the life of me find a single picture of my dining room ceiling fan. I don't have many pics taken in my dining room at all but most of those that are, are like, specific things on the table, or in a china cabinet.

I was planning on posting "lol look at these 2003 pictures" when I started discussing individual rooms with big changes, but tbh, I'm just going to post a couple of those pics here.

These were taken in 2003 with a 2003 digital camera, so sorry that they're tiny and ugly.

So that's the best picture I can find of the ceiling fan... see? It is old and ugly and it was there another 21 years!

Oh, um, don't mind that Thing in the foreground of the first pic and background of the second.

We will discuss that Thing. Just not now. Now we're talking about ceiling fans.

I also invite you to scroll all the way back up to the top of this post (sorry) for a pic of the guest room with the ceiling fan mostly visible.

We'll get back to the dining room ceiling fan in another dining room focused post. Amazon Prime days were a key buying weekend for me, and during those I ended up buying this ceiling fan for the guest room. And then I liked it so much that it was still on sale a couple of days later, so I bought two more and put them in my Living Room and Master Bedroom.

Ceiling fans with remotes are amazing. These also have day mode and night mode for the lights so with one button you can go from bright blueish light to dimmer warmer light for night/early morning. Can also program them to shut off after 2 hours, 7 speeds of fan (though 1 is fast enough tyvm) etc. Absolutely love taking the remote to bed to shut off when I want without getting out of bed. It's a small thing, but important to those rooms.

Arturo said that all of the fans in my house were real old but the dining room one was especially old... he said it was one that was like, oil-based and very very heavy, lol.

There it is, sitting on a heap of trash... where it belongs.

Part Five: See a Little Light

Will leave this with one quick other thing.

Both sides of the house were real dark at night. There's a streetlight in the alley that shines right into my yard, which is great, it's otherwise really bright back there. But not the sides.

So I bought a 12-pack of these little solar lights. They got installed.

They work great!

There's something else happening in that last picture, but we'll get to that next time, I think. This is ridiculously long enough.

Annnnd we're just getting started.

[tea-with-eleni]

Perfection is Overrated

Ever since elementary school, I've noticed that whenever I try to make something, it cannot come out perfectly professional. There will always be seam lines, or fingerprints, or something visibly wrinkled.

This isn't a good thing or a bad thing, per say. It's just a thing.

There was a girl in 8th grade who, for her big project, used spray adhesive and foam board to make her pictures look like a professional museum plaque. It looked amazing. I used modge podge and poster paints. There were bubbles in my crinkled signs. My project looked fine, no complaints, and there was a giant hand-painted picture in the background of a panel... but it also looked a lot more human-made. Nobody would mistake my work for something done with professional equipment. It bore the unmistakable tool marks of a person.

This was out of place for the city where I grew up. My city prided itself on appearances. Everything was about looking polished. Perfect. The same as everyone around you. If you stood out, that was... well, it wasn't that anyone would ever have admitted it was bad. But like a rock tumbler, the city would try to grind you down until you fit. Until you didn't leave a seam. Until you were polished to a gleam or worn down to nothing at all.

The town where I live now is different. The museum where I work, for example. They redid the floors in the education offices last summer. I can see the small crooked gaps between the tiles. We have a giant tesla coil. Heaven forbid anyone look at the wiring around the edge of the room - they'll start screaming at the rat's nest of chaos. When you fire the coil, it shorts out the projector. The coil itself was wound by the museum staff. It took forever, apparently. The planetarium dome is missing part of a panel. They built it to slightly the wrong size, so the projector system will never, can never, perfectly line up. We try not to draw attention to the area of the sky with blurry or doubled stars.

The people here know what professional work looks like, but the appearance isn't everything. Or, rather, the appearance is secondary to the function. It all works, doesn't it? So why does it need to be perfect?

Perhaps that's why, even though I've been stressed out and annoyed at my job at times, I'm not as anxious. Because I don't have to be perfect. I just have to make things work. We don't have perfect things. We have things we made to get a job done. They do get the job done. Sometimes, if we choose our battles carefully, they pass for the machined perfection of the big city, if you don't look closely.

But more often, you can tell that humans made the thing. People made it. Real humans, who weren't perfect, but who did the work with the best care they could. There are sometimes bubbles or gaps or seams, but those aren't flaws. Those are the imperfections that come when a real person left their mark.

I think I prefer being able to see the connections to other people.

[sinsofsaints]

My SaltwaterAquarium

Hello, and thanks for checking out another one of my Sins of Saints Creations.

Today we will dive into fish tanks.  I have always enjoyed having fish tanks. The setup, the fish, the custom stands. I even put a 30gl tank in the wall one day. It was pretty sweet. Looked like a picture hanging on the wall.  Even the cleaning process seems to relaxing in its own way.

 So, I moved into my house about 4 years ago. Really wanted to set up a tank. Just wasn't sure, where I would put it and what size. My son Calub had a great idea to put a big tank in the wall that separates the office/bedroom and the hallway. Very cool thought and the hallway is always so dark. The lights from the tank would light up the hallway and seeing the tank every time we walk by would be something.  Things to consider.... busting out the wall. Building the stand. Making the access to the tank at the top and bottom, for cleaning and storage.  How to run the power and, filter and pump lines. So, we held off on this project and giving it more thought and time.

Was at my friend Myle's house. He had a salt water tank. We got to talking about his set up. How it crashed and all he had done to it. At this point, I'm very intrigued.  Never had saltwater aquarium. Gets me thinking. That's a bad thing sometimes hahaha.  A few days later, I was at my cousin Quentin's house. He also has a saltwater tank. A corner tank.  My mind then went to yes! That's it! I know the perfect place for a tank such as this. So, the journey begins.

Started researching saltwater aquariums, what's all involved and needed. Sump n pumps, skimmers n sands, powerheads n lights. I must say this guy.... holy hell theirs so much that goes into a saltwater aquarium, but diving deeper, and  looky looky at what I found on Craigslist.  

A shop in Tempe AZ called Discount Aquariums.

Some of my Facebook friends may remember me posting this picture and asking for help on how I should customize it. I gathered everyone's great ideas and recommendations. Thank you all for the help.  But you know me, I just got to add my own twist to it.

Step 1.    Sanded the wood down.  Removed all the clear coat, sealant.  Got it all nice and smooth. Then set it on fire. Yes, fire.  Hey, no one ever said I was normal. Haha. No really, I burnt the doors and trim pieces.  Then went and painted the rest of the base, black.

Step 2.     Time for the rock work. Measured the inside of the tank.  Cut out a piece of cardboard to represent the bottom of the tank. Then measured about 2 inches in from that to leave room between the rock work and glass.  Now let's stack up some rocks to form the aquascape.  Again, thanks to y'all, that help me decide on one.

Step 3.      Before we get the aquascape and sand into the tank, let's do something about this glass background of the tank. Yeah, we can go and buy the poster tank backgrounds. Some people even paint the background black to help the aquascape and fish stand out. I looked into different store-bought backgrounds. Didn't find anything that was right.  Really don't just want to paint it black, even though it would look great with the black base and burnt wood. So here we go again. Let's be crazy and try something different.  I did this with a few spray paint cans.

Step 4.      The set up. Rocks are in. The sand is in. The water is in. Now the waiting game for the cycle period of about 6 weeks.

What else can we do while we wait?  My friend Carlo said to try modern oceanish colors.... ( oceanish....his word, not mine. Haha) so something different than other tanks. Beach themes? So, this has me thinking again.........

Step 5.      Let's do some tank decorating. Decided to go with ship nets and ship ropes. Anchors, life preserver, and ship wheels. Then I wanted some shelves. Let's cut 3 pieces of wood and burn them. Then we can use some ship rope to hang them. Then I remembered.... I have the perfect little critters for the shelves. A few handmade creatures made out of sea shells, that I have acquired over the last few years. Now I know why I had to have them. Funny how some things work out.

Then let's take some of that ship rope and make some door handles. Yeah, that works.

We have a lot of rope leftover. What can we do with some of it?...  Okay I got it. Let's make an octopus.  So, I started by cutting 4 long pieces of rope. Then just knotted them together and wallah.....this guy

Step 6.      Now we need a place to sit and enjoy this tank and all the critters.  I found some cheap bar stools at Walmart.  Picked up two of them. Sanded them all down. Burnt the tops to match the burnt trim on the tank. Then painted the legs of the bar stools, black.  Then with some ship rope, I went ahead and wrapped the foot rails.  But still not quit done yet. Something is missing.... huh...Oh I got it. Let's bust out the wood burner. Here is what I did.

Step 9.      Everything is coming along nicely.  But I really want to do something crazy. Let's make this tank stand out from any other tank. So, here's the plan...let's put metal in the middle of the trim on the doors. Not just regular metal though guys. Come on now, that would look funny.  Right? I'm thinking we should use corrugated metal.  Yes....that's it. Can you picture it? The look of the wavy metal, on burnt wood, and black base. If you're thinking, that would look awful, then I agree  hahahaha. Well, we are not done yet. Time to get out the airbrush gun. The top three panels, let's go with sunken airplanes.  The bottom three panels, let's go with sunken ships. And here she is.

So much goes into having a saltwater aquarium.  But I am so happy to have jumped into the hobby.