Here are some photos from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, to be released in 2010:

Today, in case you live under a rock and were unaware, Michael Jackson's memorial service was held. I found it touching and bawled through a great portion of it. That may sound silly to the few who weren't fans, but I was amongst the thousands of fans for whom Michael Jackson was an idol. People, let alone artists, like Michael do not come along often in this world. I can't think of anyone still alive who holds a candle to his all-around greatness.

More than any of the performers or speakers at the service, I was completely moved by his daughter Paris. I know what it is to lose a father and I'll tell you it doesn't matter what bad things other people say about them; to a kid, a parent is everything.

While there was so much positivity amongst the sorrow, I have to say I made the mistake of recording it via ABC News. While it was bad enough, and I tried to let it go that they had Martin Bashir commenting the night he died, I was appalled at the fact that they made this mistake twice.

After what Martin Bashir did to Michael Jackson, he should be hiding under a rock right now. The gall it takes for him to be commenting, like they were on good terms, after he completely betrayed Michael for the whole world to see. I am horrified...horrified!

Secondly, with all the recaps of everything that is Michael, I keep seeing Jamie Foxx's asinine statement, "We want to celebrate this black man - he belongs to us - and we shared him with everybody else.". Michael wanted to breakdown the color barriers. Things like this go against everything Michael spent his life trying to do and to overcome. After Jamie Foxx's racist comment about Miley Cyrus, maybe he should shut up for awhile.

Just a quick note for those looking to rent a free movie the next couple days:

4J7LF6 (Monday July 6th expires at midnight)


7HE79B (Expires July 7)

My husband and I went and saw Public Enemies with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. For anyone who doesn't know, it's about infamous bank robber, John Dillinger, back in the 30's.

While it follows both Dillinger and the agent trying to stop him, Melvin Purvis (Bale), it is mostly told from the "bad guys" point of view. Thus, we get to know Dillinger and begin to root for him. Of course, this being a true story, you know it doesn't end well. However, you can't help hating the people who take him down.

It took place during the depression, when regular people cared little about businesses getting ripped off. In fact, the public routed for Dillinger much like the viewers do.

J. Edgar Hoover was in charge of the FBI at this point and when Dillinger became the Public Enemy #1, fleeing from state to state, national laws were put into place where none had been before. So, in a way, it changed the way crime was done and how it was punished.

I thought the movie had an interesting cast, with all kinds of familiar faces popping out of the woodwork. Johnny did great, of course. This wasn't his typically, off the wall movie, but it was solid.

Personally, I love watching movies about this time. Tommy guns and gangsters, that's good stuff. If you agree, then I highly suggest checking out PBS's site on the facts about John Dillinger's life.

With my previous post, you can see I displayed what code to use to create meta tags. Now, usually if you try and cut and paste HTML code into a post, it won't show up. However, I found a site that makes it really easy.

All you have to do is take the code you want to use and paste in the top box here, hit "enter" and it will give you what you need to paste into your post.

Meta tags are what's going to help people find your blog on search engines like Google, and Yahoo, Swagbucks, etc.

You're going to want to follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your blogger dashboard & click the 'layout' button
   
   
2. Click on the 'Edit html' tab
   
   
3. Look for: <b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>
   
   
4. Under it, add the following:

<meta content='DESCRIPTION HERE' name='description'/>
<meta content='KEYWORDS HERE' name='keywords'/>
<meta content='AUTHOR NAME HERE' name='author'/>

I know it's been a couple days, but I am still reeling over this week's Bachelorette. One because Ed is back!!! So awesome. He was the only one I liked. I don't even know why, but there's something about him that makes him stand out.

The second reason I can't get over the episode, of course, is that Wes stayed. What is Jillian thinking? I've lost total respect for her. You'd have to be an idiot not to realize he's on there for his music. That's all he does. If I have to hear her supposed song again, I'm gonna puke.

Not only are you warned; but rather than spend time with you, he plays with his band, hello, wake up call.

I'll say this, even if I liked his music, which I don't, I would never buy his album because he's a jerk. I am really surprised to see how many women he has in his family only to treat them like dirt.

My husband, a super-huge Transformers fan, and I went and saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen last week. Without wanting to offend too many people, I will say, I cannot stand Michael Bay. I think he's a sell-out who doesn't care about the Transformers fans.

Yes, the movie looked good with lots of good effects; but the story, like the last, had gaping holes in it for me. Mind you, I am a girl and wasn't big into Transformers as a kid, but holes are holes. I don't even need to know the history to know things didn't make sense. Thus, I can completely understand why my husband and other real fans would have been disappointed.

small SPOILER ALERT: The girl "robot" looked like something from Terminator not Transformers. She had flesh, how does that transform?

The twin robots were offensive in many ways. I know if I were black, I would have been offended at the stereotypical garbage that was spewing from their mouths. As a parent, who would have brought my son if he'd been older, I am offended by the fact that they were using unnecessarily vulgar language.

Okay, now here's some of my personal beef:

I CANNOT STAND action movies that try to be love stories (aka Speed). If my life is in danger and I've just been through hell, I'm not making caddy jokes at the end about love or anything else for that matter. If I'm there with my parents and a girl who I can't even tell I love you, guess who I care about at the end? My parents. I mean it's pretty obvious by the fact that he wouldn't let his dad come because he didn't want him to get hurt but he tells her, yeah come on.

I also don't like set-ups, like the one with John Turturro making a big deal about going to the pyramid for no reason other than to set up for the line about robot scrotum.

On a POSITIVE NOTE:

There were funny moments. The "I'm not talking to you for 10 seconds" thing was good. I wish the guy tagging along would have been more comical. As it was, there wasn't a lot of reason for him to be there.

I guess the biggest pro for me is Bumblebee, though my husband didn't like that he's treated like a pet. Optimus Prime's pretty B.A. too.

Today, the world has lost the best artist of my generation, Michael Jackson. It's a shame that so much controversy surrounded his life, but I remember when ...

I remember seeing Moonwalker at school and thinking I was going to marry him. I remember rushing to play his new tapes as soon as I got them, records too. I remember watching him dance in absolute awe of his gifts. I remember singing Man in The Mirror in Choir.

I remember collecting everything I could; things that I still have to this day. In fact, I still have the shirt I am wearing in the picture. I remember wanting to get a Michael Jackson tattoo when I got older. I had the design and everything.

Man, I loved him. I'm truly sad. He will be greatly missed.

A few weeks ago, on our way to Jiggle Jam, we came across a happy surprise at Crown Center in Kansas City. A Lego Exhibit! Specifically art made from Legos by artist Nathan Sawaya.

Now, that may not seem like the biggest deal except that my husband is a Lego collector and is obsessed with the "art" of building. So this was like me just happening upon a free Pearl Jam concert--HUGE!!!


If you are in the KC area, the exhibit is going on until September 7th and is free! Here's a couple of our photos, not the best, but ours none the less.




The above was my favorite. It was more intricate, I thought.


Had to throw this in, it's actually from Jiggle Jam, but it's my son playing with Legos.

With the 4th coming up, I thought I'd share some fun crafts for kids along with some other, non-Independence Day crafts.

Star-Spangled Wavers- Now these are easy, but I think the kids would love em and, if nothing else, they would be good in pictures. Hey, scrapbookers have to think of these things.

Musical Stars and Stripes (left)

I am thinking of adding some sculptural things to the yard and I remembered seeing these Toadstool Table and Chairs on HGTV. Now that I have a kid, these would be fun to do.


While on the subject for HGTV, I also remember seeing these fairy wings that I started making at the time, but was distracted. I do intend to finish them soon though. I have some b-days coming up for which they'd be perfect.



Here's some fun ideas from Family Fun Magazine:

Edible bangle bracelets out of jelly beans and thread. They also have a version with fruit loops and peelable licorice thread.

Make "Rock Candy" from a box of conversation hearts and two mini peanut butter cups. While these are technically for Valentine's Day, I just had to blog about them now so I don't forget myself.

While I've been aware of sites where you can read books for free on-line, I haven't paid too much attention to them. I'm big on libraries and the old fashion idea of reading...with an actual book in hand. Frankly, I stare at a computer screen too often to want to read anything of real substance this way. I do, however, read blogs and forums, anything that can be done relatively quickly.

So, that being said Google books does offer free books, more importantly to me, they have some craft books. These are great for referencing once you have to take the real thing back to the library.

Titles include, The Michaels Book of Arts & Crafts and The New Book of Image Transfer just to name a couple.

Here's their complete list of craft books. Of course they have all kinds of books of every subject as well.

I decided to do a shirt card for my husband for Father's Day so I'm hoping my husband isn't reading this. I found this great Origami tutorial here or just hit play below.


Now she does this on a small scale, but I took the measurements and increased by about 2 inches. Basically, I started with a 12 x 12 scrapbook paper, folded it and then followed her instructions for one half of the paper so that mine would be a folding card.

Here are some variations on this idea:


I found this one on one of my favorite Scrapbooking sites, Two Peas in a Bucket. I like that it has sleeves and a bit more detail.


This was made by Southern Bliss. If you want to ditch the tie, buttons make a great addition.

I found a new site that I'm loving! I've actually blogged about Crafty Nest before, but I just can't get enough. Check out some sample posts and bookmark her for sure. She rocks!

Postcard “tapestry” tutorial. This could just as easily work for photos or any kind of memorabilia.

faux capiz shell lampshade tutorial

Handmade stencils tutorial

Hanging Jar Lights- Super easy, but with big effects. You could use a wide array of jars and some wire.

Pants hangers + drawer pull picture hangers. This would be nice because the pics could easily be switched out and with a rapidly growing baby boy, I am looking for something I can keep updated quickly.

Wooden tissue box cover "transformed from eyesore to mod"

Staying on the art theme for a minute, I thought I'd share some of my pics from our last visit to the Nelson-Atkins Museum and my favorite, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art here in Kansas City, MO.

I was trying to get things from different perspectives and I think I did pretty well.

This is my favorite piece at Kemper. It's a staple, "Untitled" by Petah Coyne. The pic doesn't do it justice. It's actually all of these small pieces that look like they're covered in wax or tar.

My Husband, framed

Me and my babe. Apparently it's been longer than I thought cause we're dressed for the cold. Of course I like wearing winter hats so I drag that out as long as I can.

This is actually in the parking area, but we had some time before it opened and so I thought I'd play around.