Merry Christmas!

Hey everyone! I'm taking the week off for Christmas, so I won't be posting again until the new year. Have a merry Christmas everyone, and happy New Year!

P.S. Here's a recording of me playing "Silent Night" on my ocarina. Enjoy!

Craft: Rubber Band Bracelet

Make a bracelet like this!
(For anyone who's curious, the other
wristbands are for Skillet and To Write
Love on Her Arms)

Hello everyone! Just in time for the holidays, I have an easy, inexpensive craft. I'm sure you've seen those rubber band bracelets people have been wearing lately. To make most of them you need to buy a special loom for, known as the Rainbow Loom. However, there is one kind of bracelet that can be made without the loom, known as the Fishtail Bracelet. You can make one using two nails stuck into a piece of wood, or even on your fingers! In this tutorial, I'll show you how to make a fishtail bracelet without using a loom.

For starters, unless you want to use your fingers, you're going to need to make something to weave your bracelet.



Materials
A piece of wood (mine's a scrap piece I found in the garage. Hopefully no one will miss it)
a hammer
Two nails
a ruler
a pencil

Step 1 - using the ruler, draw two dots one inch apart.

Step 2 - Hammer a nail into each mark.

Now you're ready to make a bracelet! Click the jump to find out how to do it.

Christmas Music

It's that time of year again. The time when your local radio station plays the same set of Christmas songs over and over and over again until you're ready to punch Rudolph in the nose. Well, I may have the solution for you.

Now, I have nothing against Christmas music. It's just that... Well, it's often overplayed or repetitive. I've made my own Christmas music playlist of songs by some of my favorite bands, whether they're original or covers of other songs.

For starters, if you like bands like Hawk Nelson, Switchfoot, Anberlin, Kutless, Thousand Foot Krutch, or Sanctus Real, then you should check out the album X Christmas. It's part of the X series of compilation albums put out by BEC recordings, and it features all of the artists mentioned above, plus a few more. A lot of the songs are covers, but there are a few originals like "His Favorite Christmas Story." You can listen to the entire album here.

Want more Christmas music? Click the jump!

Creative Wednesday: Lexi

Hello everyone! Creative Wednesday is here again, and this week I'm featuring my friend Lexi, who is a great friend of mine and also a published author! She has written two books, Step-Twins and Triplets-in-Law. You should totally check them out! They're available for purchase on Amazon.com, and you can get them in a physical form, or for your Kindle.

Step-Twins
Triplets-in-Law




I have my own copy of Step-Twins, and it's a book I really enjoyed. I really encourage you to check out those links, and you can read some of Step-Twins after the jump!

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However, I Did Not Catch Fire

I went to go see the movie Catching Fire on Monday and it was so awesome! Anyway, I thought I'd go ahead and talk about it a little bit. This is probably going to be shorter than normal, since I've been a bit busy with school and getting ready for Christmas and whatnot. But anyway, I really, really, really wanted to talk about Catching Fire. At the moment, it's my favorite book to movie adaptation I've seen.

For those who don't know, Catching Fire is a sequel to the movie The Hunger Games (released in 2012). Both movies are adaptations of the books of the same name, written by Suzanne Collins. You should totally go read them. (Or, if you're not a that much of a reader, you can check out this for some background information).

For starters, the first movie pales in comparison. If anyone saw it, you probably know that the fire effects on Katniss and Peeta's clothes look like they had been done ten years ago. Not that it was a bad movie, but I think it could have been better. Catching Fire, on the other hand...

Click the jump!