My Creations
Any of my writing that I post on the site, from poetry to short stories to art.
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December 2023 Fly-By Status Report – I got probably my coolest job to date
You know how I lamented in my last blog post that I couldn’t make money being creative and doing what I loved? Well, THANK YOU, JESUS, I have a job again! But hang on, I need to give some back story. (If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you’ll already know the scoop, but some of this stuff I haven’t mentioned there.) I met a new artist friend earlier this year at church, who took me under her wing, and encouraged me to apply for a spot at a local artist/antique/gift market shop I’d had my eye on, but never dared to pursue. She had a spot there already, and…
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Ode to a Spider {a thankful, poetic ramble}
When the giant webs appeared in our yard(and I mean big, as wide as the length of my arm)My first thought was concernBut when my bug guy reminded me that these spiders are good, actuallyI was more than happy to live and let live, as I’ve always loved bugs (with some exceptions). When a particularly giant web appeared outside my kitchen windowI was stunned at how big its inhabitant was, its body half the length of my thumbIts long legs pointy and spindly, the thickness of pine needlesBut I watched it curiously, appreciating its creepiness adding to the Halloween vibe, but little elseAt first. Then, one day, I stood at…
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January 2022 Fly-By Status Report – So we’re still in a pandemic, okay…I kinda wish it would snow…I need a cup of tea before I can start editing…
Well hi! Smiley day to ya! Why yes, I have been watching a lot of Critical Role lately, and no, I’m not procrastinating, why? Why would you even say that? I’m hurt. My new writing deadline to submit to an editor is April, which evens out to editing roughly a chapter a day if I play my cards right. But as I get closer to the end and I’m staring at a bunch of loose threads, I don’t think I’m gonna always be able to measure by chapter, there will be lots of jumping around and organizing data to make sure I finish everything up as neatly as possible. Which…
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September 2021 Fly-By Status Report – The State of the Art
Ahoy there! Just swinging by to update you on what’s been going on since my last report. View this post on Instagram A post shared by PuellaDocta's Minlandia (@myminlandia) The Etsy shop sales went slowly this summer, even as I was investigating other selling avenues that haven’t panned out yet, so I decided to take a break until Dragon Con got closer. I’ll come back to Dragon Con a little bit later in the post, but if you haven’t followed Sunlit Nook on Instagram or Facebook you totally should! I’m taking a break from MomoCon this year. Because of COVID Delta shenaniganery they decided to postpone til winter, and I…
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Temperature/Weather Tracker Tempestry Wall Hanging | Crochet Project
I’ve been seeing the idea of creating temperature scarves or blankets for a long time, and, well, of course, I had to make one! The general idea is to assign a color yarn to a temperature range, and then add one line to a scarf (or a blanket) every day with the color that matches the average temperature. For this reason, I learned from a fellow fiber crafter friend they’re also called “tempestries,” for temperature + tapestry. They’re often knitted, according to what I’ve seen posted around (I’ve seen some cross stitch ones, very clever), but I decided to crochet because I wanted to use up crochet thread I had…
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January-March 2020 Fly-By Status Report – Creating in a Time of Coronavirus
Hello everyone! I’m sitting on my couch, where I do most of my work & editing, and I’m here with my cats and Wervyn, and despite the coronavirus spreading outside, with this social distancing we’re in introvert heaven! But I was having a lot of anxiety for the last couple of weeks; in addition to not knowing if I was going to have enough groceries, my church office coworkers and I were scrambling to get everything together for live-streaming Sunday services, which was mad hectic. But I’m taking off work till April 1, and we have enough food, so I’m feeling a lot better already! And with the open schedule,…
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Inktober 2019
It’s my first Inktober! Which means I try to make a little art every day, based on prompts. I’ve been doing all this on Instagram, and reposting on my Facebook page, or you can check out my specific hashtag on Instagram! Here are the prompts I’m using: Let me know if you’re doing Inktober, and link me to your stuff! UPDATE! I did it! I’m so pleased with myself! Here are a few of my personal favorites from this month! You can see more on my Instagram. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Call Me Christina (@puelladocta) on Oct 11, 2019 at 10:14pm PDT View this post…
- About the Author, Blog, Love Letters, My Creations, Reflections, Slice of Life, Traditional Art, Writing Progress
September/October 2019 Fly-By Status Report – My First Tattoo Experience! (I’m a Grown-Up Hobbit, Part 2)
Posting a month late, twice in one year? Hey, come on, I always have a good reason! This time, I was waiting til a very specific wound healed so I could get a good photo. That is, I took my temporary tattoo idea I mentioned in my January Fly-By Status Report, and made it permanent! I couldn’t shake my desire for one, even though I had some reservations, but finally decided I should just go for it! So I got my first real tattoo the year of my 33rd birthday after all! (If you’re confused or feel like you’re missing context, read the post here.) So what does the tattoo…
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January/February 2019 Fly-By Status Report – I’m a Grown-Up Hobbit (I’ll explain)
In December last year, I turned 33! Sure, cool number and everything, multple of 11 and whatnot, but it’s also a special age for Tolkien nerds like me. Because in the Middle-earth universe, when a hobbit turns 33, it means they’re considered an adult. And to celebrate, I designed my own temporary tattoo and bought a whole sheet of them! (I’m still not keen on getting something that hurts, that will never go away and that will only blur over time on my skin.) I made a post about it on Instagram discussing its significance to me: View this post on Instagram …
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Crocheted Accessories for Radagast the Brown Costume | Original Design
I pretty much went crazy for Radagast in The Hobbit movies, and I figure it’s because he’s the kind of wizard I would be: scatterbrained, goofy, surrounded by clutter and animals, but with a heart as big as the Shire! I started this costume this year, and wore it to Dragon Con earlier this month. Most of it is a closet costume, with pieces I bought on Amazon, but the hat, hair extensions, collar and gloves were crocheted or created by me. I looked at pictures on the Internet to figure out what the gloves and hat looked like, and as you would imagine, the hat was the hardest part to make.…
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“Zelda: Ocarina of Time” Crocheted Link Hat with Hovering Navi | Original Design
I’ve always loved dressing up, and I’ve loved watching cosplayers show off their hard work at geek conventions (I don’t know how to use a sewing machine, so I’m more of a grab-what’s-in-my-costume-closet kind of a cosplayer) but as I got better at crocheting, it opened up a whole new dimension of costuming for me! I made and designed this Link hat to wear at MomoCon 2017. I based the hat off this free pattern, modifying its size with a thicker yarn and bigger hook. This made the hat heavier, so keep that in mind if you decide to do the same. I wove a headband into the double crochet…
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Project S.T.I.R.: Authentic Armenian Fassoulia (Tomato String Beans)
On this warm, Georgian Thanksgiving morning (the state, not the country ^_^), I begin my yearly personal tradition. I leave my dozing husband to stretch out in bed, while I take care of the cats and turn on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I’ll leave it on in the background (and cry at the sweet/sappy holiday commercials) while I cook two things to bring to our Georgia family Thanksgiving meal. The first is cornbread, with the recipe off the back of the White Lily cornmeal mix bag, and Armenian fassoulia, or as my family has always called it, tomato string beans. As I’ve mentioned in my previous Project S.T.I.R. blog…
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Curly Vine Pumpkin Garland (FREE Crochet Pattern!)
WHOA, guys, it’s my first crochet pattern! And here’s its Ravelry page! I made this pumpkin garland to hang up in my house during autumn. It’s pretty long (~110 inches), made to fit into a certain location, but you can make it shorter with less pumpkins. I’ll mention how to do that when it comes up in the pattern. Stitch Key sl st – Slip stitch ch – Chain stitch sc – Single crochet dc – Double crochet hd – Half Double crochet tc – Triple crochet Supplies Hook, size H/8 (5.00 mm) Orange yarn to go with the hook size Brown yarn to go with the hook size Steel Hook, size 3 (2.10 mm) Green…
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Dragon*Con 2015 Vlog (and Crochet Cosplay Portfolio Highlights)
Well, I finally edited my Dragon*Con vlog all together. Dang, it’s long! I had such a great time, of course at the Tolkien track, as well as hanging out in the smaller event rooms, like Puppetry and Writing. So check out the video for a much more detailed look at my Dragon*Con last year! (BTW, this blog entry is back-dated because I edited it all together at the end of last year, and made it public yesterday. Oops :P) Also wanted to link to some stuff in my portfolio that debuted a Dragon*Con:
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On Being Armenian, Project S.T.I.R., and how to make Authentic Armenian Rice Pilaf
↓ CLICK HERE TO JUMP TO THE RECIPE ↓ So, in case you guys didn’t know, I’m half Armenian. You might not know what that is, but here’s where we come from: And hailing from a small, lesser-known country, we cheer super loud for our tiny Olympic team during the Parade of Champions and freak out over the slightest offhand mention of Armenia in any sort of media. Like Conan O’Brien going to Armenia with his Armenian assistant! Better believe I’ll be watching that! People might not realize it, but Armenians are all over the place in pop culture, like Dave Seville (a.k.a. Ross Bagdasarian), creator of The Chipmunks, and…
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River Tam Vest Cosplay | Crocheted Commission
When a friend of mine commissioned me to make her a River Tam vest for her Dragon*Con cosplay, I was really excited because 1) I love the show “Firefly,” and 2) I’d never crocheted a costume piece before! I was also nervous for that same reason. Thankfully, other yarn-crafting cosplayers have paved the way for me, and I found a wonderful, widely used pattern originating at the Dragon Crafter blog, which includes links to some other blogs that have fleshed out the finishing phase. I ended up finishing it using Rogue Bibliophile’s rundown (the site is weird and doesn’t link directly. If you have a problem, just hunt for “River…
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#WeeklyVenture Challenge: Finding Fairy Doors & Stashing my first #FAFATL!
So, dollhouses and miniatures are my vice, nay, my obsession! They’ve basically been one of my favorite things since I was tiny myself, and this has not abated as I’ve grown up. The Atlanta Miniature Society had a show & sale event going on this weekend, and I never remember to plan for it til its too late 🙁 So I decided to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day this year with my favorite first mate, going on a quest for local burritos and fairy doors. The burritos were the best food outing idea we’d had in at least a month. The weather was fantastic, and the jerk chicken in…
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King of Pops Cart Art | Spray Paint
King of Pops is a delightful seller of frozen popsicles, filled with all kinds of delicious, all natural ingredients. In Spring 2013, I saw The King of Pops’ Cart Artist Contest on their Facebook page, and long story short; my design was accepted! So I got to go to their headquarters and work with their in-house artist to transfer my design to a stencil, and she taught me how to spray paint it onto the side of a cart! I’ve never used spray paint with stencils before, so it was a really cool learning experience! I made a video of the creation process, which you can watch below: I’ve spotted my customized cart around…
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Summer in Review & Looking Ahead
AT LAST, a post! This is what I’ve been up to, and why I’ve been so busy! BG music: “Porch Swing Days” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) LINKS to cool stuff: Follow my writing progress: http://puelladocta.com/writings/ Art portfolio coming soon! Cosplay Comission coming soon! FinnyPuppet’s tumblr: http://finnypuppet.tumblr.com/ Dragon*Con Tolkien Track site: http://middleearth.dragoncon.org/ Check out the movie my group made at Camp Flix this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQNdDqCAoYI Original Maleficent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p78C3dmLI_c&feature=youtu.be AWA cut of Maleficent video coming soon!
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Happiness is a warm kitten | Happy Birthday, Moss!
It’s Moss’ First Birthday!!! Birthdays are always special, but after all he’s been through, this one feels particularly dear. I wrote this long-form poem, which is more like a journal entry, in October last year, right after Moss had completed recovery from his invasive gastro surgery. He’d ingested a bunch of string that perforated his stomach lining and got close to his kidneys. After a nerve-wracking night of surgery, and a thankfully successful recovery, he’d had his stitches removed and his belly was still growing back all his hair. He was out of the woods at last, and I was treasuring his safety and health, wanting to appreciate every tiny,…
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#WeeklyVenture Challenge: Solo {a poem of embellishments on things that really happened}
When the yard explodes with violets and dandelions,And wasps inexplicably thump head first into the window,I know it’s finally time to break out the jellies. (They’re grown up jellies, with a low purple heel, comfort ridges and everything.) I know I’ll need comfortable* shoes because today I’m walking.I won’t have a car for an hour or so, and there’s some unexplored urban territory nearby.Jaywalking is involved. The weather is perfect, and I wish I had my bike. (It’s hiding in the shed on cracked tires.) A strip mall adjoining a nature trail is mine to conquer. A rare thing, like an old tree growing in the center of a parking…
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Puelladocta & the Search for More Money
Alas, my dear readers, I regret to tell you that I am taking a novel writing hiatus, in favor of that most persistent of goals, The Search for More Money. Unfortunately, though I’ve been looking for consistent full-time and part-time employment in the graphic design field, I’ve been neglecting my design and programming skills, in favor of writing. Which seems counter-intuitive now that I think about it. That and my portfolio site needs a serious overhaul. Plus, I want to sharpen my dulled artistic strengths, and I have other interests I want to investigate, like technical and article writing. But to develop those things, I must take a break from…
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Vlogs that I forgot to post on here
Remember how I used to have a Youtube video importing plugin that stopped importing my vlogs a number of months ago? Yeah. That was fun. As I’m updating my site I have to go back, delete the random vlogs I don’t really want on here (they’ll still be up on my Youtube channel) and re-embed the ones I do want, cuz I just got sick of the plugin. SO, in honor of Throwback Thursday, I’m posting some of these older ones from this year and the end of last year, which I really like a lot, but never made it here. They’re posted from most to least recent. Do enjoy!
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VEDA 2013 – Day #19: Worldbuilding & Ideas (Podcast)
Second and last in the series of old podcasts getting posted to Youtube for posterity!
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VEDA 2013 – Day #18: Can You Ever Stop Being a Writer? (Podcast)
Happy Amateur Radio Day! Finally posting the first of two podcasts I recorded in 2010, which I want to put on here for posterity since the podcast seriously fell out of use.
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NaNoWriMo: The Moving Picture!
Meant to post this a few days ago, but I think I have most of the kinks iron out! The ironic thing is, I spent all day making this video, so I’ve only written a hundred or so words and now I’m too tired to make my quota for the day 😛 But I think it’s worth it. This video makes me so happy! Hope you enjoy! For information about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), visit nanowrimo.org. All the music in this video is free, and I got it from incompetech.com
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January 2022 Fly-By Status Report – So we’re still in a pandemic, okay…I kinda wish it would snow…I need a cup of tea before I can start editing…
January/February 2019 Fly-By Status Report – I’m a Grown-Up Hobbit (I’ll explain)
Two Weekends of Awesome! (And Writing Advice from Maureen Johnson & Stephanie Perkins)
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Autumn Morning {a short poem}
Shining sun, chilly morning Autumn came without a warning. Sweater matched with summer shoes Milk the last of summertime, who’s Steamy grip has finally slipped And let in autumn’s tingly nip. Walk to farmer’s market square The squash and herbs and seeds are there, And with a parcel for my pay, I head back home, to tuck away Again to blankets soft and worn, To block against the chilly morn. Happy October, guys! Autumn is prolly my most favoritest season, so after taking a walk to the farmer’s market this morning, I felt inspired to write about it 😀
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VEDA – Day 17: Carmen
I saw the opera Carmen yesterday evening, and I give a Christina cliff notes version of the story, and comment on how dysfunctional the characters are. ^_^
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VEDA – Day 12: Fionnulah
I’m too busy writing to vlog, so I send Finny in as a replacement. Finny realized she may have come off kind of snippy. She apologizes! I yanked her away from her DD game so she was kind of annoyed with me 😛
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VEDA – Day 7: Ennui
Muse just went out for croissants. She’s back now. Turn off the annotations to see the real translations.
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Author Unplugged: The December Discussion
Two podcast updates at once! Mercy me! They’re actually whittled down halves of one long conversation I had with Wervyn about writing, recorded Dec. 2010. It was tough deciding to split the whole thing up, and it was hard cutting the halves down to a crisp 5 minutes or less (audioboo specifications), but I did it! I even created an intro and an outro! *is pleased*
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Author Unplugged: Appeasing the Inner Nerd
You know what’s kind of ridiculous? I just realized that some of the BEST NEWS about my manuscript all year was the focus of my first blog in 2011! It’s already shaping up to be a good year! Editing is going well, but slower than I’d like. I’m at an interesting juncture where I’m trying to integrate some worthy opinions from some trusted editors, and need to figure out if I should go with their ideas or keep things the way they are. Ultimately I need to find an agent, and they’ll help me with that too, but just trying to make the outgoing manuscript the best that it can…
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YAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!!! The Swashbooklers – International Talk Like A Pirate Day
Finally the long-promised video is up! Happy (belated) Talk Like A Pirate Day, guys! Swashbookler Cap’n Tess Marlowe and her pirate crew have a showdown with one of their fiercest enemies! WATCH IT IN HD! It’s better! I DO NOT OWN Pirates of the Caribbean or “The Black Pearl” remix. They belong to their respective owners and its use in this video is not for commercial gain on my part at their expense.
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January 2022 Fly-By Status Report – So we’re still in a pandemic, okay…I kinda wish it would snow…I need a cup of tea before I can start editing…
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Some Summer Inspiration
Happy June, guys! It’s the first weekend in June: it’s summer, so relax, enjoy it! And may you all have a sunny back porch to write on with a comfy chair to write in!
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NEWSFLASH!
EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS! I got a real job! One with a regular paycheck and benefits! So my search for more money has finally come to an end! That can only mean more writing time when I’m not working, which can only be a good thing! I’m making plans for a little poetry/short story book that I will also illustrate. I was thinking of self-publishing, but I wish the self-publish stigma wasn’t so intense. I’ll figure it out, but the novel comes first right now anyway. Editing progress is going slower than I would like with all the jet-lag recovery and job hooplah, but I am still trying to get it sent to…
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What I Look Like Doing Research XD
Wow, I actually have something to post on my YouTube account: The medieval studies topics are actual search tags I have used extensively to do research before. ^_^ I’ve been trying to think of trailers for my book to create, but for now I think I will put that on the back burner til it’s being edited seriously by people other than me. But I still want to post things up on there! I’ve been rooting around for ideas. Any suggestions?
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Panel Planning
Hit another writing wall. But I figure I need a bit of a mental health day (and physical health day *blows nose*). So I’m gonna let the novel simmer and make plans for my webcomic, and see where it goes!
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Obligatory Valentine’s Day Entry { a series of haikus }
Of all the WalgreensIn all the towns in the world,It had to be mine. My plans were simple.Some milk, maybe some crackers,Box of cereal. I knew I shouldn’t,And yet I found myself there,Red, pink and white aisle. Everywhere: all ’round:I could not escape my fate.And then there he was. His face was shapely,His coloring was ruddy.I felt a tremor. Irish! And so sweet!I picked it right off the shelf.Cuz I love truffles. SpecificallyBaileys Irish Cream trufflesNon-alcoholic. I must be crazy:I buy my own candy andI still love V-day! Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! If you have someone, enjoy them today, and make sure to treat them this way all year long!…
