Feeling Crafty: Armitage Army Steampunk Card

I was feeling crafty today.

OK, not enough to actually finish the projects I had abandoned, but I needed something quick, easy and fun.

A while back I had come across this post at Epbot which involved metal tape (aluminum foil tape to be precise), black acrylic paint and plenty of beating and bashing.

Steampunk-licious? Sign me up!

Every so often I send out a card to my fellow Armitage Admirer as way of thanks for something tasty I received from them, but I always struggle to come up with a funky design, or I’m out of cardboard to print it on and so on, so I needed a fun card that was quick to make and purdy 😉

The biggest challenge was to find that aluminum foil tape.

After checking out some hardware shops (I know, it was scary…) it turned out that it’s used for fireplace isolation stuff, so you should find it in that section.

I also bought “drywall seam tape” which is a fancy name for adhesive mesh thingy and some foam letter stickers so I could lovingly create the “Armitage Army” sign.

Once I stuck the letters on, I started adding the seam tape and then covered the whole area with the aluminum tape.

The process was OK, word of advice though:

I felt the letters I had used were a bit too small, therefore when I started to push the tape down to make them more visible the tape punctured in a few places.

Maybe had they been a bit bigger, it would have been easier to really get into all the nooks and crannies and they would have been clearer (“m” was particularly challenging…).

I also think you should avoid having tape seams on the letters.

 

Having said that, the black acrylic paint luckily covered any rips and I did make my card plenty grimy!

I should add that I wasn’t using any professional tools, I was free-styling with the rivet holes and such, so maybe if I had a clay tool, it would have been easier.

Anyway, now I’m thinking about what else I could do:

cards? notebook covers? an image to stick in a frame and hang on the wall?

Have a wonderful day 🙂

That’s a No No, Richard!

A quick question for you today:

What would Richard have to do to make you go off him?

I remember the uproar when info spread that Richard was/is a smoker, not to mention the cat/dog person storm of 2013.

I’m eliminating any illegal activities for obvious reasons and asking about your specific pet peeves.

Here are mine:

A hairy back

No, just no.

There’s absolutely no excuse to have enough fuzz back there to knit your own sweater!

A foot fetish

Every time I see a picture of Quentin Tarantino (although I admire him as a filmmaker), my initial impulse is hide my feet under my bum, point my finger at him and yell No! Quentin, you’re not getting your grubby hands on my toes…

Feet are meant to hold up cute shoes and to get me from point A to B. The end.

Nail biting

Nice long fingers can catapult your thoughts to images of pleasure, but nails gnawed down to the cuticles make me shudder (no delight involved!).

I want piano-worthy fingers, not a piano has fallen on my fingers…

Lucky or unlucky, depending on how you look at it, for you Mr A, you don’t seem to posses any of the features that I would consider a deal-breaker, so I’ll just go on my merry fangirling way 😉

What are your fangirl/admirer/well-wisher deal-breakers?

Get Thorinized for Halloween

Although  I’m still holding on to summer for as long as I can, it seems others are already thinking about Halloween.

We don’t really celebrate it here because November 1st is All Saint’s Day which serves a whole different purpose, but the few times I did get to play  Halloween costume dress-up, it was a blast.

I think it’s safe to predict that the cast of The Hobbit, and Thorin especially, are going to be popular this year, although I hope producers will have ironed out the look a bit by then.

For now it’s a pass from me…

Just so we’re clear what look we are aiming for, let me give everyone a quick Thorin refresher pic.

Masculine, furry, bulky, metaly… yup, I think I have a feel for what we’re going for here…

But how’s he going to dance dressed like that?

There’s something to be said about this dwarven boyband look, but does he have the moves?

More importantly, does it come with its own wind machine for that tousled look?

You can also go biblical…

There just aren’t enough dwarves in the old testament if you ask me.

Talking of bygone times:

If you’ve ever wondered what Guy would look like dressed up as Thorin…

You’re welcome!

By the way, sheriff Vasey is going as Gollum.

Shop bought Thorin costumes are not for everybody (might I dare suggest they’re not for anybody…).

You may just be better off sewing your own stuff from patterns.

Nothing will get you into that butch dwarf mindset like slaving away at the sewing machine.

But if you know deep in your heart you can never make a convincing Thorin, just pass the fur coat buck to your household pet…

Click on images to be linked their source.

Ye can bet yer scurvey legs I’m missing The Hobbit!

Shhhhhh! *whispers* It’s me… don’t look around, pretend I’m not here…

Ahoy, me Hearties!

I should be studying hard, but being away from the fandom has actually opened up a floodgate of RA-ish related thoughts, not to mention a mean case of the North & South itches which I can’t seem to scratch no matter how many fanfics I read, and how many Thornton cravats I tie (and untie) in my mind…

Also, Richard and I had a bit of a tiff yesterday (although only one of us was aware of it for obvious reasons…) but I’ll tell you about it some other time.

I digress.

I have a quick question for you today, and was wondering what your opinion is.

I won’t be seeing The Hobbit in the cinema anymore.

Unfortunately there’s only the dubbed version still out, and I have clearly not yet lost my mind to sit through 3 hours of seeing Richard and yet not hearing him.

I can’t however wait for the release of the DVD, apparently scheduled for release 19th of March in the US.

No, really, I can’t wait.

Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!

I know I’ll be buying The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey DVD the moment it’s out, but I wouldn’t mind having something to tide me over.

I’ve been checking my usual online sources, but there haven’t been any good copies out, and I’m too afraid to download it from a torrent.

A part of me feels a bit icky about even contemplating it, while on the other hand it’s not like Warner won’t get my money anyway…

So, I have a question for you today, my dear Mayteys, but remember:

Dead men tell no tales, savvy?

So speak your mind or walk the plank!

By the way, if you do decide to cross over to the dark side, you’ll probably need a new Buccaneer name:

OK, Bloody Bones Holystone needs to go and get back to scrubbing the deck (aka studying for her philosophy exam…)!

I want to eat an Armitage praline a day and make the box last…

Never have I wanted to hail  a cab so darn much…

Taxi…Taaaaxxxiii…. Follow that cab…

I swear I wasn’t planning to do a disappearing act for so long.

It’s gotten to a point where my sister (who doesn’t really visit here that often) has been chewing me out for not posting for such a long time.

What’s strange, and quite frankly a little disturbing, is that my stats have really been going through the roof in the past couple of weeks, despite me not posting a thing.

Richard may be badass, but there’s nothing bad about that arse…

Here’s the deal:

I really had that “I want to be somewhere else” feeling a few hours before the New Zealand Hobbit première.

I had set my alarm clock for 3.30am but the only thing raising an alarm that night was my inner fangurl.

It just felt better to not engage and be caught up with all the craziness I’d usually lose myself in.

Richard wields his sexy magic and even the poor cab driver falls under his spell…

I can offer 2 reasons:

Firstly, I just really want to see the film.

I don’t want to read about it, hear about it, see pictures, stills, costumes and teasers.

I’m teased enough and now I’d like to experience the actual film and make my mind up.

I’m trying to avoid any reviews so I can allow myself to feel whatever it is I will after anticipating The Hobbit for so long.

Enough with the teasing act, I want to be sitting in the Odeon cinema in London’s Leicester Square with Judit and Linda60, clad in unflattering 3D glasses and jumping up and down with joy (sorry girls, feel free to pretend you don’t know me…).

Taking blood has never looked this hot…

Secondly, I think I need to savour the moment.

I’ve been an Armitage  fan admirer nut for some time now and I still haven’t seen all RA related goody.

I don’t need to do so, as I like the feeling of having something to look forward to.

Do you remember how excited I got when I unearthed Richard and the Chocolate Factory?

I was literally the last person within the fandom to see it, and yet it really did make my day (mental note to self: I’m way too easy to please…).

I have a whole year before the next Hobbit film comes out and I want to use that time to slowly make my way through the new photos and interviews.

Instead of getting RA diabetes, I want to satisfy my  sweet tooth one day at a time.

I want to be able to pop one Richard praline in my mouth each day and make the box of bonbons last.

Does that make sense?

It makes me crave chocolate though 😉

Grey is the new orgasmic…

I’m happy that I can take things slow, ad that’s thanks to the hard work of our friends at RANet and RAC.

A huge Thank You!

Anyway, before I go I just needed to post the pictures from  Glamour magazine (UK) January 2013 issue, as it has become my new favorite photo shoot (can you guess what my previous favorite was?).

The moment I saw it, it was absolutely love at first sight and the new chic Cary Grant vibe is making me fall in heavy sweaty lust all over again 🙂

Oh Richard!

Ps. Is there a name for someone with an unhealthy vest / waistcoat fetish?

Because I’ve got that…bad… 🙂

All images from RANet

Quirks, Imperfections, and why I’m in Good Company

Yesterday, my sister shared with me her new favorite pastime.

It seems she enjoys going through the comments on my posts (nothing disturbing there) and… has a giggle at my typos.

Oh Dear!

How lucky am I that she doesn’t read what I leave in other people’s comments 🙂

It’s true.

I’m a notorious Typoist!

I think the reason fo this is three-fold.

First of all, I type with 2 fingers.

I did attend a typing course, but abandoned it, thinking my two index fingers were more than ample to express my thoughts in writing.

Oh, the mistakes of youth!

This also means I’m not looking at the screen when I write.

I’ve been known to type a whole paragraph before I noticed the Caps Lock was on.

It doesn’t help that on reading my texts I see what I think I’ve typed rather than what’s really there.

Secondly, my laptop sometime experiences a case of ‘sticky keys’, which is a second-long glitch where the computer freezes, not registering the keys pressed.

Therefore, my sister got a charming request via email asking her to ‘pint this document’.

Last, but not least, when English stopped being my primary language, I’d continue making use of all my language skills apart from writing.

I’d speak English (it’s still the language I use both in my private life and at work), I watched BBC and Sky, I read English books.

Writing was the only skill I didn’t get to work on for a very long time, and I can honestly say spelling suffered.

Before you think this is my way of saying mea culpa, let my shatter that illusion.

As I said to my sister when she laughed at the ‘pint’, my typos are my quirk.

It’s my imperfection, and one I am willing to embrace.

I know there are one or two people out there who take a strange form of pleasure pointing out my shortcomings.

To them, and to all my readers, all I can say is this:

If you are willing to laugh at them, I’m willing to laugh along with you.

Like the time I sent @Sebababy a tweet that said:

“That’s Harry’s thong” (instead of ‘thing’).

Trust me, that shifted the discussion in a whole new, and very interesting, direction 😉

I truly believe that we are either all perfect, just the way we are, or none of us will ever reach that state.

I actually like imperfection, interesting noses being one of my favorites.

Yesterday I saw a before and after picture of Jennifer Grey, who’s best known for playing the role of Baby in Dirt Dancing.

Don’t get me wrong, she looks amazing.

The only problem is, by fixing her imperfect nose, she stopped being characteristic, and therefore recognizable.

This lead me to think about the imperfection of a certain Mr Perfect.

I know RA has had some work done, like fixing his teeth, and has most probably worked very hard to make that beautiful mane stay thick, luscious, and sexy enough to want to run your fingers through.

I’m so happy he never had work done on that glorious honker.

I shudder to think how his face would change if he ever decided to go under the knife (or the chisel…).

That imperfect nose works perfectly smack in the middle of his gorgeous mug.

He may have felt like a ‘beanpole with a nose‘ growing up, but now it’s attached to a body worthy to be on the cover of a Harlequin novel.

Armitage also possesses another one of my favorite imperfections, meaning he’s a sexy man with a cute little scar.

The one that decorates his forehead was most probably caused by a scratched chicken pox or measles spot, and never has a contagious disease created something so sexy!

So today, instead of focusing on what’s ‘just not right’ in ourselves, how about embracing it?

How about lifting a hand and saying: Yes I suck at this, that and the other!

How about laughing at our quirks, and therefore biting our thumb at them!

It’s our imperfections that make us interesting and characteristic.

If we’re lucky, as Mr Armitage has proven, it might even be sexy 😉

So, I’ll start:

Hllo, my naem in Agzy, and Im a notorios Typoist!