Moleskine Custom Creations

I have always loved office supplies. You drop me at Staples or Office Max and I am good for like 2 hours.  Leave me with some money and I am good for at least 3 hours :) I also adore beautiful design. The geniuses at Moleskine have brought those two loves together in an amazing marriage of good taste.  Artists purchase the classic black notebooks and use their talents to create a work of art... that you can buy and use! Artists inspiring other artists! This is a beautiful thing.  Check out my favorites:

Created by: JULIENDENOYER of Spain

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Created by: HAYDEN KAYS in the UK

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Created by: BMARIA of Romania

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Created by: DENKIAI in the USA

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Created by: AZREENCHAN in Malaysia

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I am all about supporting the arts, and office supplies. Both of these are causes I can get behind. To see the full (and ever changing) collection, visit: http://artistmarketplace.moleskine.com/en

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WHICH IS YOUR FAVORITE???

Sad face, last day for Made In Roatan

Rough time for me and all the artists and vendors that depend on Port of Roatan (the cruise ship dock) for their livelihood.  Port of Roatan is official closed until November. No more cruise ships will be coming into port. This means that anyone who depended on the cruise ship tourism (read: North Americans spending $$$) will have to find other work until November.  That is especially heart-breaking for me as I volunteered at Made In Roatan (http://made-in-roatan.com/)  This is an awesome artist co-op that supports local artists and their families by showcasing their work in the shop.  I LOVED working with the visitors who came into Made In Roatan, getting to know them and helping them find unique, handmade pieces for themselves or loved ones, but more than that I loved helping the artists, knowing that the necklace/ magnet/ painting that was sold translated into dinner on the table that night for the artist's family.

Me (on left) and some awesome new friends (honeymooners from the cruise ship!) at Made In Roatan

 Now that the shop is closed we are looking for other avenues to present the artists' creations. If you want to learn more, help support, or are just plain curious about Made In Roatan, please visit our website : http://made-in-roatan.com/. If you, your organization, or your church host craft fairs, world focus events, or missions conferences and would like to show case Roatan and the work being done, please go to the site and contact Bob & Debi Cowan. If you own a retail store and would like to start carrying specific items from the website, again, Bob & Debi would love to talk more with you! Thank you for helping the people of Roatan!

Hi. My name is April and I'm a polish-aholic.

Confession: I love nail polish. I do. It's beautiful. Little bottles of paint, for your hands... wow.  So we live on a tiny island in the Caribbean where all resources are scarce, but make-up and beauty products, those are almost non-existent. My solution? Buy everything I will need for the year while I am in the US on vacation at Christmas. Sounds genius, I know. But this is what happened when I did that:

What the heck do I with all these?  I had to find a solution before they ate up all the valuable counter-top realestate.  I was totally inspired by:

This amazing spice rack revlation

by shelterness

and

this magnetic make-up board

 by Laura at LauraThoughts81.blogspot.com

So with all my polish crowding my bathroom counter, I thought, "I MUST have something that will hold all of these." Lo and behold, I did.  I had bought this very ornate little piece at the grocery store last year in order to hold all our shower/bath stuff.  I know what you're thinking, "Grocery Store?!" but lemme tell you, here it is the thrift store (meaning people bought stuff form Goodwill in the states and now they are reselling them down here in Roatan) or Eldons. Oh Eldon's Sun Supermarket, how I love thee. It is a wonderful, magical little retreat. Ok, well actually it is just a total standard grocery store for the US, but here its our equivlent of WalMart/Super Target. Therefore I love it. Check it out:

Please keep the comments about my extremely mauve walls to yourselves. I am aware they are hideous. We live in a rental. On an island. In Honduras. We'll take what we can get.

But, let's not focus on that. Focus on the awesome. All my nail polish is corralled. Along with my make up on the bottom shelf.  Out of reach of tiny toddler hands, but totally accessible. Plus, the crazy ornateness allowed me to hang all my jewelry up.  I was seriously considering giving this away because we bought it while we were living in a different rental and I have been schlepping it around as we have moved.  So glad I did not get rid of it. What a blessing it is!

How do you store your beauty products?

Pintrest Fails.

I will say it again, I love Pintrest. If you do not know about Pintrest, let me tell ya, you are missing out. It's wonderful. It's a gal's BFF. You got a question, Pintrest is your answer.

Q: "What should I make for dinner?" 
A: "Pintrest."


Q: "What should I do with this left over paint?"
A: "Pintrest."


Q: "Whats the best hair cut for my face shape?"
A: "Pintrest."


See?

Still not getting it, lemme put it this way - Pintrest is an online pin board of all your interests. Get it? Pintrest. Clever. You create virtual boards of things that interest you, like Food, Clothing, Crafts to Try, etc. They you can browse what other people have pinned (like an internet favorites link with a pic) and save them to your board. It's like your internet favorites favorites bar but now you have a visual reminder to go with it... and you get to see what all your friends are pinning (think of the facebook news feed.)

*Sad news: not everything on Pintrest is as good as it sounds. 
I am sorry I had to be the one to tell you this, but it's true. Sometimes, people are fools and pin things that are:
a)gross tasting
b)not worth your time to attempt
c)completely false
d)all of the above

How is a girl to know?! Sometimes I think "That dish looks delish, and look, that pinner liked it... so it must be good." Then I spend all my precious time and energy and money trying to follow the directions (sometimes excellent, sometimes iffy) to create said dish... only to find out that said dish is inedible. At which point I have to make my family choke it down and/or default to making bean burritos, again. Seriously, is there no help for us honest and trusting pinners?

Not to worry, illistyle to the rescue - the "Fail." Board is here.  I got so tired of pinning something, then trying it, only to find out that it was a horrible waste, that I, along with some other amazing women, have been adding these fails to a board in order that no unsuspecting pinner will ever have to eat another nasty meal/try that craft that ends up hideous/feel like a failure because someone pinned a lie.

*If you want to join Pintrest, click here.
*If you think I am amazing and want to follow me, click here.
*If you want to contribute to the FAIL board, please do the following, follow me on Pintrest, then leave a comment below requesting an invite to contribute to the board, please include your Pintrest username.

What have you tried on pintrest that has failed?
Leave your comment below & Let other pinners know! Join the FAIL board today.

You gotta problem? Yo, I'll solve it...

Sorry, I could not help myself. I love 80s & 90s pop-culture references. This is the main reason I love the show Psych... that and Gus (heres his imdb info) because he has to be the funniest actor there is. But I degress, back to the issue at hand.  I hate rust rings in my shower. My shave gel leave rust rings like crazy... ok let's be honest, in the Caribbean EVERYTHING rusts within 2.5 seconds, so by the time I am 1/2 through a can of shave gel, it's rusted itself to my shower. Nasty. I was pondering this fact one day and decided I needed to marine seal my shave gels. Marine sealing is this special varnishing treatment that is done to the wood of boats to ensure they can withstand the harsh conditions of the sea. But since thats crazy expensive and not really practical I thought of the next best thing: nail polish. Score, I have tons of that (but thats for another post.)  See bleow for my ikea-like instructions:

Ode to The Hunger Games hair.

Oh how I love The Hunger Games! I have read the trilogy twice. (Yes, only two times, sigh.) In honor of the movie premier today, March 23rd, 2012, I have done this sweet little Hunger Games hairdo. It's super simple. Two front braids that become heidi-style braids. This is a super simple technique that you can do yourself.  Thank you to asksash88 for the video tutorial (Watch it here) All her tuts are great. I love her. She makes pretty hair attainable.

Ok, back to the topic, Hunger Games... isn't that always the topic? Have you read it? If no, go get, right now. Here's the link to Amazon. Download it to your kindle and then put something in the crock pot for dinner because you will ignore your family, and your own hunger pains, and your personal hygiene for one full day while you read it. Remember, it is a trilogy, so you will need to plan two more "personal" days to the read the other books. Give your family fair warning.

Happy Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favor!

New Projects

So I work with a mission organization and the Lord sent my family down to a tropical island off the coast of Honduras to run a missionary hotel - read more in my last post : Best.Missionary.Update.Ever. But when we discovered that the hotel did not belong to the guy to whom we paid our rent... we decided to move on and see what else the Lord had for us here.

So now I am partnering with a ministry that I love: Made-In-Roatan.com Which has a non-profit store near the cruise ship port where artists display their handmade awesomeness and it has a sweet online store too  (check it out! right now... no worries. I will be here when you get back. Seriously, go. ... ok, welcome back) I volunteer there one day a week and get to help showcase the beautiful things made by these talented artists. All the artists are amazing. Though I am not as amazing as them, I do get the opportunity to display some of my art because it all goes toward school fees for island students.

The school system here is run by the Honduran government and is Spanish-speaking. Yet, since Roatan used to be a British colony, most students come from English-speaking families.  As you can imagine, this can make things difficult on the students, since they are learning in a second language.  Also, many people on Roatan do not have enough money to be able to afford the high cost of education. When putting food on the table is difficult, finding money for school tuition, books, uniforms and supplies can understandably take a back seat. A recent report shows that less 25% of school-aged children actually attend school. Only about half of those children ever complete the 6th grade.

All the proceeds from the sale of my artwork goes directly toward school fees and other needs for students here on Roatan.

Heres what I am currently working on:

Hand Painted Wooden Spoons