so much going on!

well hello, my lovely internet friends! i see that it's been almost a full month since i last blogged - inexcuseable! ;)

i have been a busy girl lately, and that is my reason for not keeping in touch. i know i'll probably leave some things out by accident, but here's what happened this month:

• honeymoon! brandon and i escaped from the texas hillcountry to... another part of the texas hillcountry :p. we made the hour and a half drive from the marble falls area to one of our favourite cities, san antonio and stayed there for nearly a week, spoiling ourselves (hey, we deserved it!) and enjoying spending time with each other. we went to the zoo (pictures to come later), sea world, lots of neat restaurants, the rivercenter mall (which is on the riverwalk... if you've never been, you really should! it's beautiful!), and on our way into town, we even stopped off at a cave for a long and strenuous cave tour. if i haven't mentioned it before, exploring caverns is one of our favourite things to do!

• the day before our honeymoon, we saw nine inch nails in austin for their final tour.
  

with my fancy new camera, i was able to get this awesome shot :).



blurry, but me and brandon before nine inch nails. we decided to sit this time, instead of rock out in the moshpit, because we didn't want to be worn out during our honeymoon! we had excellent seats, though, because i got presale tickets (presale people are given the best seats in the house).

• i'm going to be selling in two new austin venues starting this week. the first is 'beth's book box', a second-hand book shop (which also sells local artists' wares). i've been helping beth out a bit with businessy things lately to help her get everything in order for the store's opening. the second venue, which happened almost by accident, is austin's famous 'capra & cavelli', an upscale men's/women's clothing boutique, which also sells local artist merch. the buyer for the store just happened to be visiting 'sweet tempered', one of my favourite clients, and saw my items. she really liked everything i make, so she asked my friend jenny, the co-owner of 'sweet tempered', for my contact info so she could have me selling at 'capra & cavelli' asap! so starting this weekend (or shortly thereafter), my items will be available at their location inside the hilton, downtown austin! needless to say, my little fingers have been super busy making close to 500 items for these two venues!

• brandon and i broke down and bought a wii finally! it'll be here in a few days, i'm so excited! we got a wii fit with it, and a few other ultra-cool games, and i can't wait to start having fun!

• living out in the middle of nowhere makes for a sad social life, so lately, b and i have been working hard at seeing friends more often, whether it's having them out to the house, or us visiting them in austin. my super-great friend whitney was recently in austin for a visit from nevada, so i was grateful to get several days of girl-time in while she was here!

speaking of whitney, her birthday is tomorrow, so i gave her one of my pieces that i thought she would adore. looks like she does ;).

that's 'sakura flourish', and it can be found here if you want one for yourself! also, congrats to whit for closing on her and her husband's first house tomorrow! yay!

• i've been preparing for my first craft fair, which will be july 4 at an event that my step-father-in-law is organizing here in cottonwood shores. that should be a lot of fun! oh, and speaking of cottonwood, did i mention our road got paved? yessss! so nice to not have to drive on dirt anymore!

• i've also been preparing for my french examination, wherein i must test out of 16 credit hours of the language. that has to be done by the end of june, so wish me luck! i also only have 4 more college courses left until i graduate!

• i've mentioned before that my husband and i love going to comedy shows of our favourite comedians. by two strokes of luck, just a few days apart, i was able to get 4th row seats to mike birbiglia (i'm in the future also) at the paramount theatre downtown austin in november (we donate to the theatre, so we get top seats. it pays, people!), and also ::drumroll:: 10th row seats to the one and only dane cook at the toyota center (same place we saw nine inch nails last august) in houston june 20th! so pumped!
• our geckos are all back to optimum health, yay! their eyes are so big, bright, and happy now, and their tails are getting so fat! i'm so glad all my nursing paid off - i love those little lizards!

• i think the only other major thing that's going on with me lately has to do with nerf guns :p. brandon and i are about to bust out like huge nerds and participate in this LARP (live action role-play) game called 'aftermath' which takes place monthly (i think?) in dallas. we bought several nerf guns, a bunch of nerf darts, and have been having nerf shoot-outs with each other almost daily, haha. such nerds we are! the next step is to get our costumes together. i'm going to be playing this class nicknamed 'gloomies' (emo, right?), so i got these wicked parachuters' boots (hot!), and i'm about to buy this "vampire" jacket and steampunk top (i'll post pics when i have 'em)... it's kind of hard to describe the look i'm going for, but it'll make more sense to you AND me once i put everything on together, heehee. brandon is modifying our guns and painting them (he's a skilled miniature painter, so this is right up his alley). is it sad that i'm so excited about this? ;p

so yes, i've been very occupied lately with all these goings-on! i'll be sure to update you more often :).

hope you all are busy with adventures and opportunities of your own!

♥,

melissa

finally!

hello! didja miss me?

after basically a 3-week hiatus from blogging, i have returned to you ;p. things have been so eventful the last few weeks that i haven't had time to sit and blog, believe it or not! but i missed it, so here i am :)

let's see, where to begin?

• the nine inch nails concert on october 23rd was AMAZING. it was definately the best nine inch nails concert i've been to, and of course that means it's the best concert i've been to overall ;). here are some pictures:

as you can see, we got REALLY close this time! ah, to be close to trent reznor...

... but i am a married woman now, and even though trent's hair is dreamy, his voice is dreamy, his muscles are dreamy, his butt is dreamy... no! no more of that ;p.



we eventually had to retreat a bit, but i could still see mr. reznor perfectly fine, in all his yelling glory. i got a few really good videos of the concert, too.



the acoustics were much better at this venue than the one in houston, and i was blown away.



the opening band, ghostland observatory (from my native austin), was super awesome as well. the singer really struts his stuff on stage, and it's hilarious and very engaging! look them up on youtube for some examples of what i'm talking about. and yes, the other dude in the band is wearing a cape :p.

i like their music a lot, and brandon and i are going to see them in austin on november 15th at the place where i attended my very first nine inch nails concert :). i'm sure we'll have a blast! they're a lot of fun.

and of course no concert would be complete without a silly pic of me and brandon!

• halloween was mostly uneventful (would you believe that not one trick-or-treater even came to the door?!), but it gave me an excuse to wear my platinum-pink wig!

i love this wig! brandon bought it for me for my birthday last year, and i just adore it ♥.

• my etsy friend heather (auryndesign) is a super-sweetheart and featured me on her blog recently. that means a lot, especially since we are each other's competition, you might say. she is a good friend with a lot of talent, and we each have our own totally unique spin on the washi-paper-jewelry front, so it works out :). so yes, i am excited that i was interviewed for a feature, especially from a friend :D.
  
  
• you might have noticed a bunch of brand new things in my shop. well, that's because i put a bunch of brand new things in my shop! ;p. more on those in my next blog entry, but feel free to head on over to the shop and check out the new pocket mirror and pendant necklace designs! the new pendants come on 18" sterling silver-plated chains!

this pocket mirror is called 'natural beauty', and is $6 in my shop

• also, i've decided to no longer do my "monthly goals" blog post, as i rarely felt i was meeting my expectations, and it's just a reminder that i didn't do as well as i hoped for the previous month, if that makes any sense.

but the main reason i've been away from my blog is college work. i am finally done with everything but my final in my biology class, i've studied a lot for my huge french test (i have to test out of 16 credit hours of it), and now i can complete my deviance sociology class with nothing else in the way!

oh, and i still don't have any more wedding pictures to show you; they are supposed to be on their way to be by next wednesday. i'll share as soon as i get 'em :).

and one final thing: i don't like to talk about things on here that might offend people, but i just have to say that i voted for barack obama yesterday, and i am feeling extremely, overwhelmingly, and fantastically proud. his winning speech was so moving that i got all choked up. i know many of you probably would have loved to see mccain win, but hopefully president obama can show all of america how his intelligence, instincts, and know-how will give this country at least a few of the things it has been severely lacking. i have faith in that, and hopefully you guys on the right-side will be impressed with him before too long :).

okay, no more preachy-yeswecan-hope-mongering! ;D

for those of you who have been checking in to see if i'll ever blog again (haha), thanks for sticking around! oh, i'm on twitter, too (see it on the top-ish right?), so you can follow me there!

♥,
melissa

itty-bitty bookworms feature :) and my new cute hair :p

i was recently contacted by a super nice stay-at-home-mom named tara, who operates a wonderful company (itty-bitty bookworms) that makes preschool lessons for little ones :), and also runs a blog that shares her ideas with the internet at large.

tara asked me if i would be interested in participating in one of her blog giveaways, and as anyone who knows me knows: i love giving people things and making them happy! so of course i said yes :).

the blog post is here if you'd like to take a look. the whole blog is really cute, and while i'm not a mother, i enjoy reading tara's posts :). of course, if you do happen to be a mother of a young child, it's that much more interesting!

in other incredibly pressing news :p, since the wedding is over, i was able to finally chop off my hair!



i was true to my word (to brandon, who wanted me to have longer hair for the wedding) and resisted the strong urge to chop off my locks. ugh, i just hate when my hair is long! long to me is shoulder-length, haha. my hair looks SO much better short, and i am feeling free and happy now that i don't have to deal with sticking my hair up in that silly bun every day anymore, heehee!

can you guys related to the hair thing? does your partner want you to have a style that is the complete opposite of how you think your hair looks good? am i the only one faced with this burden? haha.

well, the nine inch nails concert is in 2 days (!), so i am grateful for the short hair! i've got to look my best, you know, just in case trent reznor approaches me (riiiiight...) ;p.

♥,
melissa

nin again!

(a photo i took at the nine inch nails concert i attended in august)

brandon and i thought about it really hard, and we're going to another nine inch nails concert on october 23! ah, my first concert as a married woman ;).

money has been tight around the rogers-griffith household the past few weeks, but this is something that's really important to us, so we're going! this time it's in san antonio, which is only an hour and a half away from us, so we won't need to spend nearly as much money on gas as we did last time. plus, we love san antonio! normally, we go every year for our dating aniversary (october 6), but this year, since we're getting married on the 9th and staying at a nice hotel in austin (the hyatt on town lake), we were going to forego our annual trip to good ol' s.a. now it looks like we'll be there this year, after all! :D.

well i am just way too excited right now, and probably shouldn't be typing, as i'm sure my sentences are half-way incoherent, but i just had to share my happiness!

♥,
melissa

i'm all rocked out!

nine inch nails was amazing! i might talk more on this later, but for now, here's a photo to hold you over:



i took this (not so great quality...) picture of trent reznor ♥, along with many, many others. unfortunately, my camera doesn't have a "concert" setting or anything like that, so i had to settle with "sunset". tsk tsk. but at least i got something, right? :D

okay, one more:



we had a blast! my legs are still tired from jumping up and down!

and since i took my laptop with me, i was able to post some new gear in my shop:


'japanese teahouse' earring set

and


18" silver-plated chain upgrade!

plus many more items, and even more new ones to come this week!

stay tuned!

♥,
melissa

front page premier!

i woke up this morning, checked my etsy stuff, and noticed i received a lot of item hearts and store hearts, an unusually high number, in fact. what was the reason for this, i implored?

unbeknownst to me, my 'japanese wedding' washi fortune cookies were featured in a treasury (with many other talented etsy paper artists!), and that treasury made the front page! :D



this is the first time anything of mine has made it to the coveted "fp", so i am extremely excited!

in other news:

• yesterday was brandon's birthday. he loved all his gifts (i bought him 'rockband', which he has quickly become addicted to, and thanks to which i finally own some semblance of a drumset, a wish of mine since childhood), and we had a great time with our friends playing blacklight mini-golf and having a nice dinner together.
  
• i finally got together with my soon-to-be mother-in-law. after our 6 months of silence, she finally came through on our plans to have dinner as a family (brandon, me, his mom, and his step-dad), and it was... awkward, but fine. i was civil, and everything went okay.
  
• also, my sage plants bloomed!

pretty, huh?

• the nine inch nails concert is less than a week away! i am pumped :).
  
• one other really important thing to mention:

starting tomorrow, i'm going to be introducing all kinds of new cuties to my shop, including washi bobbypin sets and new gift sets, earrings, and pendants!
be sure to check in throughout the week to see all the new goodies!

alrighty, time to go jam out on the drums some more ;D.

♥,
melissa

::swoon::

is it wrong that i practically melt when i see pictures like this? i guess my thing for trent reznor of nine inch nails will never die! ::sigh:: ;p

and take a look at this little pretty!:



'grant me wings that i might fly', a lyric from a vnv nation song, 'beloved'. thanks to lea for introducing me to that awesome band! (although, lea, i've already thanked you like a million times, haha). anyway, i thought that name was fitting for this precious piece.

♥,
melissa

a cute happening and a pendant i made for myself

happy monday, the internet! how was your weekend? mine and brandon's was alright, although we got stick from some food we ate on saturday, and i had this headache that lasted from thursday till last night :/. but one really cute thing happened that i wanted to share with you.

brandon and i were just chilling in the computer room yesterday morning, and i happened to glance out the window. out of the corner of my eye, in our side yard (which is enclosed by a tall concrete wall: i'll take pictures all around our custom-made house and show you in another blog) i thought i saw a bird in the middle of the tall weeds (which i swear we cut down 2 weeks ago. they grew back way too fast! urg!). i turned my head to look head-on at the creature, and it was actually a baby deer! you should prepare yourself, because you are about to melt:

he was standing when i first noticed him, then he plopped down into the grass and he was perfectly hidden! brandon and i went outside (i grabbed my camera, as you can see :p), and i approached the little-one. he just laid there calmly. then he sniffed the air to see if i was a predator or not. i talked softly to him and he let me pet him (he was soooo soft!), even on his little head. oooooh, i melt just remembering it! he was so adorable. well, brandon found a cactus thorn in his leg, so he pulled it out (ouch!). we were wondering where this little guy's mom was, so we looked all around our house (deer like to eat in our backyard), but we didn't see any deer. this little-one is probably only a week or two old, and it needed its mom! so we wanted to make sure he could walk/run, and that nothing was wrong with him (hopefully he simply got lost), so brandon picked him up, and while he made (cute) little grunting sounds, he didn't protest. brandon set him down on our patio, and he took off! unfortunately, he ran in the wrong direction: back into the walled area :p. so we had to kind of fake-scare him into running the right way, and as soon as he found the opening (our entryway), he dashed off on his cute little legs. he ran all the way down our dirt road, and when he got to the end, he turned down the next road and took off! he was so cute, and he brightened our little day. hopefully he found his mom.

in other news, i made this for myself (of trent reznor, for me to wear at the nine inch nails concert):

i made it from a picture i made super-tiny, then printed it on computer paper (of course, i would never sell anything of this low quality. it was just for me). it hangs wonky, which is what i was going for. i like it :). what do you think?

well brandon just came home sick, so i'm off to take care of him. i hope everyone has a great day!

♥,

melissa

busy me

i've started working on my wholesale order, and it's been fun so far! i had to make 40 of these ^ and 40 of a different design to make 20 pairs of earrings in each style. my fingers are stained black from painting the wood pieces for this batch ^ :p. i feel like a real artist!

while taking a short break from that project, i bought this from a chick on etsy. i'm planning to wear it to the nine inch nails concert in august :D.



and i forgot to mention this the other day, but i bought this super cute purse (see below) from etsy seller bagsbymelanie, and i LOVE it. it's absolutely perfect in every way. thanks, melanie! :D



i've already managed to stuff it full of melissaness, as you can see.

i should mention that the purse i bought for my wedding day that i mentioned a while back arrived, and it is gorgeous! if you want a pretty bag from some awesome aussie etsians, check out aishii, where i bought the wedding purse.

okay, i've got to get back to jewelry-making! have a great weekend, everyone :).

♥,
melissa

nine inch nails!

okay, so i've been really busy with finishing up this semester of college to tell you this, but i am soooo excited!

i got an email the other day from the nine inch nails website (i'm one of those suckers that paid $65 for an annual membership to 'the spiral', the fan-club type thing), saying that there will be a u.s. tour starting this summer! the last time mr. trent reznor did a u.s. tour was 2003-2004 for the 'with_teeth' release. i went to the concert in austin during his first round, but wasn't able to go when he came back around about a year later. so i went to my first nine inch nails concert in may of 2003, and was completely blown away. for those of you who don't know (and you probably wouldn't know it from looking at me), i am one of the biggest nin fans out there, so you can imagine my excitement at the prospect of going to another nine inch nails concert!

presale tickets went on sale tuesday at 5pm, just before i had to get ready to go take my literature final, but i managed to grab 2 tickets! this is quite an accomplishment: tickets sold out soon after that (my order went through at 5:02, haha). the concert is august 16 in houston, which is about 4 hours away from me, but it's on a saturday, so brandon and i are going to make a fun trip out of it. oh my god, i'm so hyped!

well anyway, in celebration, you know that print i have for sale in my shop of trent reznor? in celebration of my ticket-grabbing skillz, i am selling this print for just $1! i can hook you up if you want more than 1, no problem.

in other news: ugh, i am so glad this semester is over! i'm pretty sure i got all a's. so far, only my literature grade has been posted, and i got an a- in that, so that's good.

this summer is going to be so awesome! here's what's planned:

• june 7 - eddie izzard at the paramount theatre in austin


• trips to schlitterbahn (huge waterpark about an hour from where i am), six flags fiesta texas, and a trip to natural bridge caverns


• wedding stuff - buy my dress, book the catering, pick out a cake, get ahold of a ton of sparkling cider, have our picture taken as gifts for the guests, and have my bachelorette party!


• august 9 - brandon's birthday


• august 16 - NINE INCH NAILS!

i'm sure i forgot some stuff, but yeah, this summer is going to rock. then of course there's the wedding on october 9, and we got tickets to see jim gaffigan on december 6, as well :). it's a great year!

as far as my shop goes, i've got a lot of really cute ideas for new items planned, so be on the lookout for that! of course, you'll hear it first here, on the blog.

well, gotta run! now that school's taken care of, i have to make 40 pairs of earrings to fill my first wholesale order!

♥,
melissa

little critters

i'm sure i've mentioned this before, but brandon and i are the proud parents of 4 leopard geckos: asuka, trent, sonny, and mike. it all started when brandon bought me asuka for christmas nearly 3 years ago. she was a feisty little thing at the time; i fondly remember, she bit me almost immediately. a few days later, brandon caved in and bought sonny and mike for himself (we weren't living together yet). those guys are albino leopard geckos. two months later, i wanted a second one, so i bought trent. trent, it turns out, might actually be a female, but i think he just has an identity crisis :p.

and here they are:

asuka - named after asuka langley soryu from our favourite anime, 'neon genesis evangelion'. here she is, sleeping on her food bowl (wtf?):



trent - named after trent reznor, my favourite musician and hot guy behind 'nine inch nails':



sonny and mike - named after the characters from 'the godfather'. here's mike (sleeping so cutely on top of his log!):



and sonny. he's an illusive one:



we're probably going to get another leopard gecko in the near future. we already decided on a name: chopstick :).

♥,
melissa

what went on this past week

i think it's been about a week since my last post. boo, bad melissa! lots of stuff happened:

i decided, upon everyone's votes and input, to go ahead and make earring sets for sale separately from the gift sets. i've already posted three earring sets in my shop, with many more to come!



^ this is 'with a cherry blossom on top'. ha ha, get it? i like to make my item names corny sometimes :p.

also, i got my tax id card in the mail the other day. this means that i am now an official retailer in the state of texas! i'm very excited :).

let's see, what else? i've been watching a lot of movies lately. brandon and i had a few of our friends over on sunday for a mini movie marathon, so that was fun. my friend jon bought me the first 2 seasons of 'the x-files' on dvd (slimset!) for my birthday in january, so i've been watching all those episodes. i went ahead and bought seasons 3-5 yesterday, as well. in case you didn't know, i am a huge 'x-files' fan! we rented 'no country for old men' (which we should have bought right then, but i bought it with the 'x-files' dvds a day later) and 'the darjeeling limited', which i don't know how to feel about. i like it and don't like it simultaneously. i'm like that with wes anderson flicks, although i always end up buying them and watching them over and over regardless. i managed to impress brandon hardcore: at the end of the movie, 'les champs-elysees' plays (french song), and i busted out singing it immediately. brandon what like, "what the hell?" because he certainly didn't know the song, and it was as if i knew it was coming. i didn't know, i swear! i learned the song in french class in high school and hadn't heard it since, but i managed to remember the words. so anyway, that was cool :p.

trent reznor has announced a fan-based project concerning his newest release, 'ghosts i-iv', an "instrumental" collection of 36 tracks with an ambient sound. the idea is that fans will make videos to go along with the music and submit them to him via youtube. sounds like a cool idea. the music itself is interesting.

well, that's about it for now. later today i'm going to post a late caturday blog. in the meantime, please enjoy 'charles has a licking problem'.

<3,
melissa