Stop that! It's silly.

WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS SWEARING, SO IF THE WORDS "BITCH" AND "MOTHERFUCKER" UPSET YOU, GO ELSEWHERE FOR YOUR NONSENSE FIX.

This is probably the silliest looking thing I've ever made.*

*This statement is probably a lie.

I also finished my TP tube thingy. I ended up spray painting it bronze, but I don't have a picture of that. Deal.

And now, a tribute to Ben Folds and his musical genius:

I'm gonna paint this bitch
Tell you what, I'm gonna paint this bitch
I'm gonna paint it like the bitch has never been painted before
Tell you what I'm gonna do
I'm gonna paint this bitch
I'm gonna rock this motherfucking bitch, 
but only after a frantic trip to Walmart for more spray paint on Easter Sunday
because it is the only store open.

I'm gonna paper this bitch
Tell you what, I'm gonna paper this bitch
I'm gonna paper it like it's never been papered before
Tell you what I'm gonna do
I'm gonna paper this bitch
I'm gonna paper this motherfucking bitch
but it's going to get me back by rejecting the paper on the front bits
so they peel off and make me swear a lot.

I'm gonna stain this bitch
Tell you what, I'm gonna stain this bitch
I'm gonna stain it like it's never been stained before
Tell you what I'm gonna do
I'm gonna stain this bitch
I'm gonna stain this motherfucking bitch
But staining paper evenly is really hard
and it's not even but I tell myself it looks like leather.

To all of you who are scratching your heads right now, Ben made up a song on the spot at a concert when a fan yelled "Rock this bitch!" And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Ben Folds is awesome.

The running backstitch, while attractive, is not your friend.

Life update: I may have a place to live next year. Right now I'm waiting for my application to be reviewed/for the landlord to make sure that I'm not a Sketchy McSketcherton. More at eleven (not really; more like "more at the time that I remember to slap up a crappy post on my blog").

As some of you may recall, I danced a little jig when I was done at the book store. Welp, I'm applying for jobs again. I've decided that having limited funds is less fun than having a mindless job. If I get a job at DSW or Bed, Bath and Beyond, at least I'll have a sweet discount...

So remember the dresser from this post? Well, it's primed. That's about it. It's not that I'm lazy, it's just that apparently spray paint does not like temperatures below 50 degrees and will show its displeasure by flaking and bubbling, thereby making your furniture look like it has a case of leprosy. Curse you, Wisconsin spring!

In the meantime, I explored the paint shelves in my basement a bit and found six more containers of stain in various shades. SIX. I decided that if I really wanted to be satisfied with the stain I picked I would have to test them. So I did.

I dub this the "stain family reunion" photo.

I dug out some icky looking piece of wood, mixed up the water-glue solution, and papered that baby.

Next, I sectioned off rectangles and labeled the tape so I would know what was what. I left one area as a control (labeled "control").

Tah dah! I still like the espresso stain. The only regret I have is that there weren't really any seams in that section, but I'll take my chances.

And I found drawer pulls! Huzzah for World Market!

I'm also working on a pillow. It's a CB knock-off tutorial that I found. Thus far it's been pretty easy, but I can't sew decent circles on a machine because the bobbin thread tangled up and I wanted to hit it with a hammer the fabric doesn't turn well and I end up with odd polygon shapes, so I'm hand sewing. Eek.

This shall take me forever. Or a week of poking my fingers while trying to watch Biggest Loser and Top Chef and trying not to swear too loudly. Either way, I don't know that I could put up with the shame of having my decorative stitching looking like this:

...especially when this is much prettier:

Life-altering decision time.

Ha! Basket!

Like most things I make, it's a bit wonky, but whatevs.

I didn't take many pictures of it in progress, but I wanted to include this one. Is that a hair clip with a metallic green pom-pom? Yes. Yes, it is.

All of my fabulous readers (and by that I mean Kelly, the people I asked, and my aunt who told my mom on the phone) have spoken, and I shall be brown papering my dresser. I think I shall stain the brown paper with THIS!

I like my stain like I like my beer: dark. I think I'll do a trial on some scrap piece of board first; this stuff looks black, and I would not like to have a black dresser.

On to more important things.

I made a decision. I sent in my acceptance for (drum roll please) the University of Illinois! Huzzah! Break out the bubbly! I'm searching for apartments online and will hopefully make a trip down to Champaign this weekend or next weekend to look. It has to be dog-friendly, though, since I couldn't possibly leave this behind:

"Percolate" is an awesome word.

Yesterday I went to UW Madison for the vet school open house; I have a few days to make a decision on a school. Yikes.

I decided that I needed time to let everything percolate in my subconscious for a while, so I grabbed some coffee and put on my painting pants.

Jumpy Monkey, why must you only be sold in Iowa?

 Painting pants: only slightly less sexy than party pants.

It was time to man up and finish the painting I started a week ago. I call it "Thin-armed Octopi in a Ball Pit."

I promise that the colors aren't as gross as they look in this picture.

I think I may have gone a bit overboard with the dots, but I'm okay with that. I started off doing two layers of paint per dot, but I stopped doing that pretty quickly for several reasons. One: I liked that you could see the brush strokes and the "branches" underneath the dot color. Two: I am lazy.

This is my favorite dot. It looks like it's eating the green one (yet another product of my laziness).

Yes, I have a favorite dot.

After I finished with clean up, I went out to the garage to tackle this:

I found it (plus mirror) at an antique store in Appleton for $40. And that is why I love antique stores. It has some ugly-ish hardware:

I haven't quite decided whether it's so ugly that I like it or if it's just ugly; so far I'm leaning toward the "just ugly" side of things. I have some knobs that are less offending to the eyeballs, but I would have to fill those holes and drill new ones in the middle. Le sigh.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it, but I was thinking about doing this for the drawer fronts and top and painting the rest. Thoughts?