{308} string

this roll of string had a mind of its own so convincing it to remain in the shape of my name long enough to take the picture took a lot of careful manipulation and patience. that was a long sentence.

{307} candle wax

these candles in a jar i picked up in bulk from extra foods last year are my favourite. they smell amazeballs. i took a knife to the wax and carved my name.

30 while 30

With every birthday, I always think back on the last year and am amazed at how time has passed in the blink-of-an-eye. I’ve learned a lot this year about simply enjoying this journey and valuing everything life has to offer me. This list of accomplishments—some rather small, some big—make me appreciate the awesomeness of getting older.
 

1. Held a boa constrictor.
2. Snowshoed along the Red River.
3. Went through 22 bottles of hand sanitizer.
4. Took four flights.
5. Worked out a couple of times.
6. Touched two cups: Stanley and Grey.
7. Raked 4 million leaves.
8. Started playing tennis regularly with my brother and actually won a match.
9. Accumulated 56 more pieces of Pyrex than the 17 I started my 30s off with.
10. Walked Paws in Motion for the fourth year in a row (this time with my mother in tow).
11. Uncovered a dinosaur in my backyard…or maybe it was a cat.
12. Became absolutely obsessed with the deliciousness of Ketchup Mini Crispis.
13. Road tripped to Grand Forks twice thus contributing to the US’ struggling economy.
14. Golfed from Girouxsalem to a PGA course.
15. Watched 54 movies and read 22 books (Yes, I keep a list. Shocked?).
16. Carried the same teal handbag the entire year.
17. Maintained my weight (for the most part).
18. Watched the entire Gilmore Girls series.
19. Posted lots of Instagrams.
20. Went to Folklorama for the very first time ever.
21. Laughed. A lot.
22. Took a road trip to Kenora just for tea.
23. Purchased an iPhone. Subsequently, became addicted to my iPhone.
24. Went to 8 football games, 1 baseball game and 0 hockey games.
25. Witnessed how immeasurable my family’s love is for one another.
26. Created 305 different “Laurens”.
27. Made some new friends who have "life-long friendship" written on them.
28. Did an on-air interview on CJOB.
29. Attended one major concert, four concerts in the park and one high school musical.
30. Continued to be grateful for all that I have...and all that I don’t.

{306} balloon

i always keep balloons on hand. why? i have no idea. balloon emergency?

{305} happy birthday to me

happy 1st anniversary of my 30th birthday to me!

{304} in hawaiian

a few years ago my parents went to hawai'i and gifted me with this bracelet when they returned. they told the crafter that my name was "lauren" and so she carved the bracelet with the hawaiian version which is "lalena". loves it.

{303} blank cd

well, turns out writing my name on a blank cd with a non-sharpie was not the best idea. but, by the time i finished it, i didn't want to wipe it off and re-write it with a sharpie so...here it is. as is.

{302} serviettes

when are they napkins and when are they serviettes? not sure. i grew up always calling them serviettes. hmm. a wikipedia search for the word serviette automatically takes me to the page for napkins. apparently, americans call them napkins and british (or british-ruled countries like canada) call them serviettes. nevertheless, i took a scissor to a few and created my name.

{301} cutlery

this one was on the top of my "to-do" list from the very beginning and yet it has taken 301 days for it to actually get completed. turns out i really didn't run out of ideas like i thought i would. i'm sooooo excited for this project to be completed and am feeling like i want to quit but i'm so very close that i'm just gonna stick with it and then be super proud of myself once it has been completed.

{300} orange peel

it seems that my favourite names are always made of food. probably because i love to eat. makes sense. i've been obsessively eating a lot of oranges lately...it's christmas. that's what we do. so, i took the sucked-on, dried-out peels and carved out my name from them.

300 days down! only 65 to go! thank goodness! :-P

{299} painter's tape

i love to paint and re-paint my house. surprisingly, i have not painted it at all in 2012! probably because this project has consumed my life entirely and i have no creative juice left in me. but, in 2013 i plan on re-painting my living room.

ps. go stampeders.

{298} stencil

i've been working on getting my december daily album ready for next week and i've been keen on using a lot of stencils for it so that's where this inspiration came from!

{297} famous folks

same idea from yesterday's post. this font was from fontspace.com too and is called "famous folks". so, my name is cher-lucille ball-jim carey-meg ryan-blues brothers-mick jagger. yup. that's me.

{296} lost font

i've done a fair-number of LOST-related names. this one is my name as typed with the "LOST" font i found on www.fontspace.com. i really have no idea who those characters are supposed to be that are indicated by the question marks. no clue.

{295} harry potter

totally obsessed with all these neat-o fonts i found. :) they've helped to tide me over during these last few days (and upcoming days) on this project. for serious. i cannot believe i've made it to day 295. absolute insanity.

oh, and snape was/is my favourite potter character. in the books i always sympathized with him the most. i totally love the dark bad guys (though he was a good guy all along).

{294} hollywood sign

love this. i used an actual picture of the hollywood sign and cloned the heck out of it to hide the word "hollywood" and then downloaded a hollywood sign font and changed it to "laurenwood". easy-peasy! :-P

{293} star wars

again, am i sure i haven't done this? maybe i've just had the idea all along but never done it. huh! yeah, i know that there's a "k" instead of a "u" but when i downloaded this font from fontspace.com, that's how it came out. must be in star wars-speak or something.

{292} snow globes

i'm going to do another name with ornaments yet but this was a quick and easy one. each year my mom buys me a pair of these little ornaments with mine and george's names on them. love. such a sweet gesture but i look forward to them every single year.

{291} pills

what? how have i not done this one yet? i searched my archives but it really wasn't there. a few of the pills i take on a daily basis. i'm a pill-o-holic, i tell ya.

{290} coupon book

after our day trip to grand forks on monday, i returned with a tonne of hand sanitizers from bath and body works. love. included in my bag was this coupon book so, i took a pair of scissors and cut my name into the pages. it's not the most obvious of names but it's there if you look closely!