Tonka Smash

atatforamerica:

Big thanks to Andrew Grexa for the cool new logo! Please spread around. 

The people trying to create an At-At. I cannot wait to take one of these things to school.

Okay before I delve into poetry and all its wonder, I should note that I haven’t posted something on here for like, a million years. Oops. But all that is behind us right? Meh. Anyway, Happy April everyone! I would try and pull some clever April Fool’s prank or something, but I am way too lazy and no one cares.

So that being said, today is the first day of National Poetry Month according to some group of American poets that sadly no one pays attention to. Every month should be national poetry month. I’m talking out of my ass. That was not very poetic. Seriously though, I adore poetry, particularly English Victorian poetry. The Victorians had quite a few brilliant poets in their midsts. So to commemorate the first day of NPM I wanted to share one of my favorite poems (not THE favorite, but pretty high up there). I’m sure most people have read it but for the sake of nostalgia and enlightenment, read it again!

It is Porphyria’s Lover by Robert Browning, and you can read it HERE.

I am madly in love with the Target dollar bin. Do not be surprised when half the stuff I recommend you get is from there. So here is another super quick (as in, took me about two minutes to do) project for displaying artwork. I found these ridiculously adorable mini clothespins in the Target dollar bins and thought they would be really cute for hanging art! Here’s a pic:
 

It came with 6, but as you can see, some of them are already in use in my apartment. By the way, that background is a clipboard I got from, you guessed it, the Target dollar bins. Haha! So, you can buy cute mini clothespins like these at Target, or get a whole ton of larger plain colored ones at the dollar store, which you can leave natural or paint if you’d like. Then take some double-sided foam mounting dots or squares (which I got at the dollar store too but you can probably find them loads of places). I used these:
   (sorry for the god awful quality)
Take one and cut it into small slivers, and stick it to the backside of your clothespin, like above. Then just stick it to your wall, and clip whatever art you want displayed! It’s great for photos or smaller artwork. Here’s what I did:

These are “Perfect Match” cards that I got out of a HOW Magazine (which was also a buck at Half Price Books, and it had all the goodies still attached!). They are printed on cardstock from The French Paper Company, and I know you can’t tell from the picture but they have really interesting texture and sheen to them, they’re pretty nice! The one with the man reads, “Disgruntled super villain seeks exotic bride/receptionist/weapons expert,” and the woman says “Disoriented former assassin hunting for love. Vast experience with killer lasers.”

Total project cost (including my art cards): $3 (with plenty of stuff leftover for other projects). I use parentheses way to much, wow.
Hopefully this was fun!  

So, if you are like me and you use your phone as an alarm, this little project may be of interest to you. Or you could just use it as a way to display art or hold books! Best part is, it’s dirt cheap. 
I have to have my phone close to me when I sleep, just, don’t ask why. Makes it easier to hit the snooze button. Anyway, the way my bed is set up, I don’t have easy access to my side table (I’ll post pictures of my bed at some point, it has a story of its own). So, I headed down to my favorite place ever, the dollar store, and found a really easy way to fix the problem! I got my stuff from Dollar Tree, if you live by one of these, MAKE USE OF IT. You could probably find this stuff at other dollar stores as well. Here’s a picture of what mine looks like…

I would show you what my phone looks like in it, but I was using my phone to take the picture…lol! That artwork I have in it, by the way, is a Russian toy (hence the Russian written on it) in which the kid burns the image into the wood with a special tool, pretty hardcore. 99 cents at Goodwill, brand new. Heck yeah. Here’s their site if you’re interested in Russian toys or something. So anyway, the basket is really small and out of the way, perfect size for putting a small book or your phone or whatever. The basket was supposed to be a pencil holder. I also found the most amazing hooks ever at Dollar Tree:
 
These are what the hooks look like. For some reason that picture refuses to come out right side up, sorry! These are much bigger than the ones that I used for the basket, but these bigger ones are a great alternative to nails if you are a renter, they can’t hold anything too too heavy but they’re pretty useful! The smaller ones come in a package of about 24 I think, for only a buck! They have adhesive on the back. So find the smaller ones, use two (make sure the distances apart are correct for when you hang the basket on there) and put them on your wall! Then you can just hang your basket from the little hooks. Super super easy. Here’s a further away view of what the basket looks like:

 

Sorry that picture is really crappy quality. Oh, by the way, that is a Girl with a Pearl Earring pillow. Haha I love Vermeer, and my friend bought that for me when she went to Belgium last summer. Yay! Behind that pillow with the trees is an outlet, so I can easily charge my phone as well! I just kept my basket white, but if you wanted to make it fit your style better you could always paint it! 
So total cost of this project is $2. Plus you’ll have a bunch of left over hooks to hang art with. Or more baskets, you could even turn this into a way to display books! Hope you enjoyed! 

Probably not. But for some odd reason, I just remembered an awesome conversation I had with my wonderful friend Keith in which we came up with what could possibly be one of the most entertaining/annoying sitcoms in the world… Let me set this up for you.

Three men share an apartment together and have to deal with the quirks and lifestyles of each other. These three men are Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne as Batman, Rorschach, and Clint Eastwood as…himself. What do these three men have in common? An uncommonly gruff voice that you could grate cheese with. I just liked the idea of hearing them talk to each other about whose turn it was to wash the dishes or who clogged the toilet. It’s all in the voice.

Okay, maybe that was silly. Whatever, I’d totally watch it. :D 

My notebooks were looking pretty boring this semester, so I thought I would spruce them up a bit with a cute label! I got this from the Dover Sampler from last week (they let you download it for free, Hell yea!) and thought it would be perfect for each of my notebooks! I printed it on a kind of tan colored card stock that I found in a closet at my mom’s house, and it looks really pretty! Plus it’s a bit heavier than normal paper and more resistant to tearing. Here’s a blank one in case anyone is interested. Could use it for labeling other random stuff as well!

 

In case that isn’t as big as you’d like it to be, here is the link!

• Question: WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET? - tumblrbot
• Answer:

  New Zealand!

Well, this is the first official post of this blog! Huzzah! So, what to say, what to say. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, school just started back up and I can tell it’s going to be tough. Organic Chemistry II at 8 am is not quite my idea of fun, but I’ll make do. Actually, while I’m on the subject of school, maybe this is a good place to start! Because being a student means being hopelessly poor, and I know there is a purchase that all students out there dread making…TEXTBOOKS. Textbooks, bane of my existence!! I am kind of a freak about comparing prices and finding the best deal out there, especially when it comes to purchasing textbooks. Who wouldn’t be? So here are some quick tips for you! 

Now most of these are probably common sense or things that you are already aware of, but let’s go over them anyway!

1) If you are lucky enough (as I am) to live near a Half Price Books or similar bookstore, this is actually a pretty decent place to look for textbooks. That being said, the likelihood of finding the most current edition that is required isn’t terribly great, but they do usually have older editions and I actually have found current ones as well. I found my history text from last semester there for $29!! And even better, I found a place to sell it back to for $20 at the end of the term. Yeah. Also be sure to ask your professors if older editions are okay, a lot of times they will say yes but warn you of possible differences. These are considerably cheaper! 

2) Another place too look is actually your local library. The nice thing about this is that it will be totally free to check out your book! Again, the likelihood of finding all your textbooks here isn’t great, but libraries differ from city to city and so you may be able to do better than some. I found my Greek mythology textbook as well as a book for my rhetoric and writing class at my local library, and although you have to renew them a million times (which really isn’t that bad) you save a ton of money! 

3) I really really like the website www.bigwords.com. All you need to do is type in the ISBN of the book you need and it compares prices of different rental/purchasing websites! Sometimes they even have coupon codes that you can use to save a few bucks! I prefer renting to buying my books, it’s usually considerably cheaper. 

4) Now this last suggestion (www.bookholders.com) is probably only useful for students at UT or the following universities (bear with me here): 

• University of Maryland (UMCP), College Park
• University of Maryland University College (UMUC), College Park 
• Howard University (HU), Washington
• Baltimore City Community College (BCCC), Baltimore
• Towson University (TU), Towson
• Virginia Tech (VT), Blacksburg
• Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Richmond
• West Virginia University (WVU), Morgantown
• University of South Florida (USF), Tampa, St. Pete
• University of Texas (UT), Austin (That’s me!)

Okay, that was a weird list!! I know this is very specific, but it is still worth while to search for your book on this site even if you don’t go to these colleges, you never know! This site offers books that you can purchase or rent, and their rental prices are really awesome!! And if you go to these universities, it makes it really easy to know which books you need for your particular class, you can click on the appropriate semester, click on the university, click on the class, and choose your unique number, and boom! Textbooks required by that professor! Or you can just search by title, ISBN, whatever. Just make sure you don’t wait till too late in the semester or they’ll run out! My other rhetoric and writing textbook (retail price: $41) I rented from here for $16! Delivery is free or if you live in one of those cities listed above, they should have a store near your university that makes it easy to pick up and drop off books.

Well that’s all I’ve got for you today! Hopefully this was helpful!