Today we have an awesome guest post feature written by Joe from Heat Press Review
I love DIY projects & have been meaning to feature one on the blog so the email request couldn't have come at a better time. These are all so amazing & I hope y'all have mad creative fun making them.
"It's not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving." ~ Mother Teresa
It's time to overcome your self-doubt and start saving money. We're not all as successful as J.K Rowling just yet, so making family gifts can help us save some money come the holiday season. A few of the family gifts people can start making right now, include:
1. Glove Monsters
Gloves are boring, but you can make them magical for your own kids, nieces, nephews or anyone else in your life. You can sew your own gloves, or you can choose to buy them and then decorate them to add a little spunk to the look.
We'll assume you have the gloves already, so now all that's left is to:
1. Sew on eyes. The eyes can be buttons or circular fabric pieces with black in the middle. I like to use brightly colored fabrics for eyes.
2. Make a mouth: Using white fabric, cut little V-shapes out of the white fabric along the edges to look like sharp teeth. Sew into place.
That's it. This project is super simple and easy to do. You can share these creations with the little guy or girl in your family – they'll appreciate the effort.
2. Homemade Milk Bath
After a long day of reading, it's nice to sit back and relax a bit more in a homemade milk bath. Baths are not just for kids, and they're so relaxing, they'll melt all the stress and anxiety of the day away. You can give the gift of a homemade milk bath by making your own.
You'll need:
1 cup powdered milk
1/2 cup baking soda
1/2 cup cornstarch
These three ingredients will work to cleanse and soothe the skin. Simply add them into a mason jar and mix up well. You can go crazy making neat little labels, too, if you like.
This is obviously unscented, but you can add in your own essential oils, too. A few of my favorite oils to add are:
Mint
Peppermint
Lavender
3. Mint Foot Soak
Another great item to add to a gift basket is a homemade foot soak. The recipient can use this soak to alleviate pain or just to feel good before going to bed. This soothing mixture will include the following ingredients:
1/2 cup baking soda
Lime essential oil
Peppermint essential oil
2 cups Epsom salts
Place ingredients into a large bowl. You can use 3 – 5 drops of each essential oil, or however many you like. Stir with a spoon until everything is thoroughly mixed. Place the mixture in a bag or jar.
Just note that this mixture needs to be used within a few weeks or months.
4. Family T-Shirts
If your family is big on reunions, why not surprise everyone with a family t-shirt to mark the occasion? A multifunctional heat press will work very well, or you can choose to ditch the heat press and use a third-party service to print them online.
The goal is to print something everyone will remember.
A few ideas are:
The names of all family members present
The names of family members that have died
Jerseys with the family's last name on them
You can also use this idea for kids' gifts, hats or any other piece of apparel you can think of giving. A little personalization goes a long way in making a great gift that people love to receive.
5. Personalized Wooden Spoons
Wooden spoons have a place in every kitchen. These spoons can help make your next dish spectacular, and they don't have to be boring either. i recommend buying the spoons unless you're good at carving them out.
While this may seem boring, something Reese Witherspoon (no pun intended) taught us is to be a little wild.
How can you be wild when personalizing spoons?
Simple.
Wood burning kits. These kits are loads of fun, and they allow you to burn anything onto wood. Lettering is a great way to decorate these spoons. Some examples include:
Love
Happiness
Initials
Charm
Beautiful
I'm the cook
These are very easy to start burning into a wooden utensil.
If you want to get fancy, you can trace anything o to wood and burn it into it, such as mountains, designs, pictures. You're only limited by your imagination.
You can even make plaques, coasters and other items using your wood kit. And since this is a great hobby to have, you'll find plenty of uses for your wood burning kit. I find myself making things all the time for people because the rustic look is back in style.
Gracias Alfonzo Words for sharing your blogging journey
and your recent 200K Page Views per month milestone and success! I am grateful to have
shared great social media fun with our coloring image contest, cover reveal,
movie and foodie tags, giveaways and live launch for #ShineThroughTheNoise .
I am continuing to connect the dots to bring my travel thriller series
“Davanti” to the page and silver screen. I am also in talks with adding a
sequel to my first indie film, Influence . In the meantime, I will be gathering success stories like Alfonzo Words and
some friends and travelers who have put #ShineThroughTheNoise into practice for
personal and professional growth. I am still donating 10% of proceeds to my
Chicago and LA charity partner: Teen Cancer America . We will be announcing more community events together in the near future! With the precedent and political climate set during the 2017 awards season, film aficionados and fashionistas were wondering what #Oscars2017 would bring.
#Oscars2017 ~ Celebrate What it is to Live a Life
Are the Academy Awards representing style or substance? Frequently Oscar movies are about deep subjects and historical journeys, but this year present several new ideas to consider. Many saw "La La Land" as a paean to old Hollywood and the zany lives of many Angelenos in the film industry. Some called it "frothy" and wondered if escapism would prevail, or if the Oscars would play it straight and serious by paying homage to "Moonlight" as Best Picture?
Voila, now we all know what happened next. The Oscar stage and the ballot counts, cast upset as a new norm.
Emma Stone on the Oscars red carpet, shortly before her win for Best Actress. We could see the metallic trend taking shape, accented by political points in pin form.
Emma Stone in Givenchy Haute Couture by
Ricardo Tisci/Getty Images.
The Huffington Post framed it on point: "Emma Stone will be the least disappointed of the La La Land crew, having scored a triple win: an Oscar, a Planned Parenthood pin, and one of the best dresses of the night. The gold, fluid-fringed Givenchy gown looked like a more evolved, more expensive version of the yellow dress which Stone wears in La La Land, and it is fitting to stay in character–this is an acting prize, after all."
Viola Davis was the one to beat they said. Here she's
poised in Armani Prive.
She went on to become the first black woman to win an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony award for acting. See all the dresses from this year's red carpet. Check out the men on the red carpet.
As the red carpet parade was underway, K. Patrick Tutera and I were having a photoshoot and catching up on our arrival with photographer and suave driver in tow. Extra thank you and toast to Bre and the Hollywood Roosevelt guest relations team who reached out to make sure we had built in enough travel time and knew arrival protocol. As the red carpets were winding down. Patrick and I had a chance to catch some candids in character on our way to the Oscars soiree.
Akasha, all dressed up with somewhere wonderful to go! (Photos: Devin Green unless listed otherwise. Akasha's hair by Lisett Munoz and make-up by Alex of Killer Hair.)
Chauffeured ride paired with truffle pate and Ferrari-Carano.
Patrick Tutera took this photo in the library and then I took the ones of him above and below.
There were smiles, and I believe we both wear our dimples well. I respect that Patrick is an actor and filmmaker, so we did get a serious one as well. Gotta love the custom tux he purchased for this evening! Well played, bello.
The Blossom Ballroom gourmet soiree was sponsored by Piper champagne. the official champagne of The Oscars. When I asked Bre Smith from the Roosevelt and Blossom Ballroom team if she had a favorite course from the evening's menu, she said: "I'm a champagne girl. As long as there's champagne, everything else is secondary!" She also told me that they knew the dinner should be held in one room - the main event with the grand space where the first Oscars' guest gathered. AND they are gearing up for even more special celebrations as they get ready for the 90th Academy Awards.
Patrick and I both had reasons to celebrate with the his "The Last Hurrah" film festival track and my
#ShineThroughTheNoise book and branding projects reaching 9 countries and winning Marcom awards. I truly appreciate that we both have things to celebrate. #Truth - the Piper champagne was fantastic! We also both really enjoyed the prime rib carving station and extra tender chicken with sundried tomato.
I will leave you with some wisdom from an outstanding speech:
Viola Davis, best supporting actress winner, Fences
"There’s one place that all the people with the greatest potential are gathered – that’s the graveyard. People ask me all the time, what kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola? And I say exhume those bodies, exhume those stories, the stories of the people dream big and never saw those dreams to fruition, people who fell in love and lost. I became an artist and thank God I did, because we are the only profession that celebrates what it is to live a life. Here’s to August Wilson, who exhumed, and exalted, the ordinary people."
Thank you again Enricoh, and blogging community for this guest author opportunity. I'll see you on the flipside. :)
Akasha’s proud of her work as a writer, producer, and actress; she balanced branding work as a writer and producer in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, London, Paris/Cannes, Maui and Hawaii. She excels at helping clients shine with 15 awards/accolades since 2007.
Once upon a time not so long ago, we did an interview with one of the most amazing writers/bloggers. And as a regular reader of Alfonzo Words I knew I just had to ask this rising star for a guest post on movies/series as he is constantly talking/quoting/reviewing some new movie or series that came out.
A question I would ask myself constantly as I grew up. The only answers I ever found were in movies & TV series. To give you an indication:
When I watched the movie Big with Tom Hanks, I wanted to be that. For my job to be all about toys.
When I watched the TV series Greys Anatomy, all I wanted was to be a surgeon. It sparked an insane passion for Biology in High School. In fact, it was probably the only subject I studied for. Intensely. So adamant was I, that I applied to study medicine in university.
Then the real world hit, after the joy of getting accepted and an amazing graduation vacation with all of my friends, I returned to discover that my college fund had been…misplaced. There I was, Matric certificate & no idea what to do with my life. This brought on a spiral of depression that landed me in hospital. Thankfully I got a job at Primedia the month after. It didn’t pay much but I was more determined than ever to do something, anything with my life. It only took one Google search and I was hooked. Movies! I had loved them all my life, more than most. What better career could I have found than to be a Director! Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, James Cameron! I was overjoyed and for that year I saved up so I could afford college. The admission process into the Arts Department at Wits was fierce to say the least yet I managed somehow to beat out the thousands and get a spot. If you’re still in college or have ever been, you’ll understand when I say that campus life is the good life. Haha. Great friends both old and new, leisurely strolls and EPIC parties of note. Everyday I seemed to have made a new friend.
The key subjects I enrolled in was Film, Television, Fine Art, Drama & Music. The knowledge and experience I acquired there will never be forgotten.
Fast forward, I began in the industry just as I had started, with no clue how I was going to do anything haha. Got a job with an amazing company Blue Wizard Productions & additionally got hired to be a part-time cameraman for a movie. With the company I literally had to start off at the bottom. Checking all the equipment, making sure the gazillion batteries were charged, lighting, sound, graphics, promo clips. The learning curve was steep & the support minimal. Everything was expected, so when a mess up occurred boy did I get it. There were days when I would clutch my head and wonder what the hell I had gotten into.
On the plus side, the camera-man gig was going so damn well I could tear. We got to travel to the most unbelievable places within South Africa, seriously I had no idea such Opulence existed in this country. There was even a place reminiscent so closely to France that I thought I was walking those cobbled streets. Got to drive a Cobra up Cape Point, the acceleration alone ripped through me at the slightest touch to the pedal. Cuddle up under the stairs at a lodge that had beds outside on the patio. Even ended up swimming with pythons (Yeah you heard me, Pythons and of course I didn’t know they were there when I jumped in!)
These getaways were where I truly discovered the travel bug & also gave me a new found power over my work. I would return with vigor & concur the challenges I faced on a Daily basis at Blue Wizard. From the obnoxious son of the boss in all his Douche*ness to the crazy deadlines to finish a project. I took it all in stride. It’s absolutely mind-boggling how much goes into what you see on the screen. To give you an indication, I once had to edit a quick 11 minute video on Safety at a Nestle factory.
Cool parts: I got handed the entire project, which meant I would be directly involved in the camerawork, lighting, sound & editing. Not just lugging around the equipment. Got to work with the graphic designer to get the sequences & aesthetics just right.
Crazy parts: For an 11 minute video it took an entire day of shooting from sun up till sun down and then editing through those hours & hours of footage to find the right clips needed. Since there was two cameras it was double the hours. And yes the footage was necessary because of the angles, sound bites & moments captured.
From this, I was able to hone my skills and even get the chance to edit prime time TV shows, which was a true highlight in my career.
The thing that stuck with me though was that I could never watch a movie or TV series the same again haha. Thinking about the angles, camera work, lighting, sound & editing involved as I watched. What was once a mindless, enjoyable thing became a critical analysis of the techniques used and a learning process for me, yet still all the more enjoyable.
On the movie side I had finally been given the supreme honor of not only writing but also directing one of the scenes. The premise was at a 5 star golf resort where the couple would be spending their valentine’s day. Let me tell you, you can plan and plan for a scene to go one way but in the moment, aye caramba! it’s a whole other dealio. I had to think on my feet & improvise in a lot of places but true and true it was a brilliant weekend. I got teased by the actors for the romantic scenes I had written. We had tons of fun & I learned how to swing a club yet be gentle with the putter.
All in all it, everything I learned, everything I did was an unbelievable experience that I wouldn’t trade for the world. It’s made me into the man I am today. My writing might be my primary focus right now, but I still have mad passion for the film & television industry. Someday I will get back into it. Big, Big Plans are afoot haha.
So with all of that being said, I have an almost obsessive affair with Movies & TV Series having atleast 7 Terabytes worth of the stuff. That’s 7000 Gigabytes mind you. I can spend endless hours watching every known Genre of Movie &/or TV series.
Here’s a quick guide on how to write a movie/TV series review:
Be Personal! No one wants to read a generic, monosyllabic regurgitate of what’s already on the interwebs. You have a unique voice, use it. I want to know about your experience, what made the piece truly memorable for you, what emotions did it invoke whether positive or negative, speak out & speak up. Trust me, your opinion matters. The more you are your true self in a review, the more readers will flock to see what you have to say on it.
Include a short blurb of the storyline as you understand it
Include your personal experience with the Movie/TV Series
Tell us about your favorite characters
Conclude on your overall reflections
Make us anticipate a watch or deter us, whichever is your purview
Give it a personal rating out of 10
Here are some quick one liners from me on memorable movies:
Interstellar: “Transcended my perspective on the known universe. Had my friend and I, for the first time, literally on the edge of our seats.”
Deadpool: “A Chaos Storm of awesomeness! Epically changed the whole superhero game especially for Deadpool comic book fans, myself included.”
Star Wars – “The Force Awakens: Brought back all those feelings and memories of why I absolutely love the franchise. With a gut-wrenching twist thrown in the middle.”
Love, Rosie: Ah, the age old story of two best friends falling in & out of love. Made more relevant by my own story with a best friend. Somehow we always come back to each other.
The Fault In Our Stars: "Pain demands to be felt." Such EPIC feels in this movie, fresh & witty dialogue. A storyline that is just wordless in it’s beauty. Okay… Okay….
I really hope that helps should you ever want to do a Movie or TV series review.
If you would like examples check out these posts on reviews I’ve done so far:
Let's just say it's been a long long journey getting here & I know I still have a ways to go. I'm grateful for all the amazing souls I've met along the way & will continue to appreciate them in any way I can for as long as I breathe.
Know that every closed door leads to other interesting paths you never thought possible and so long as you remain true to your Dreams of Bigdom, no matter where you go, you'll always end up where you truly belong...Just Believe & never stop moving forward.
There is No equal to the creativity in Imagination~
