Kalysha Clark: January 2016

I'll start by saying that this was my first cosplay ever. I started on it in August and it debuted November 14th at NC Comicon in Durham, NC. The main reason that it took so long wasn't necessarily because I didn't know what I was doing, but mostly because I was tight on funds (since I'm serving in AmeriCorps).

With it being my first cosplay, there was a lot to learn. Pinterest was consulted often. There was a lot of planning and then adjusting and replanning. All in all, I like how it turned out. I got a lot of good feedback on it, plenty of people who wanted pictures, and at the end of the con, I was a happy girl.

Going forward, there are some things I'll change, but like I said, I liked it. I didn't want to replicate Loki's actual costume from the films, but a combination of it and some other Lady Loki artwork I had seen. So here's what I ended up with.

The breastplate was made of worbla, as well as the faceplate

of the diadem, the bracers, the pauldron, and the scepter blade.

The shoulder pads underneath the pauldron was actually

made from a door mat. The scepter itself lights up thanks to

the nifty combination of a miniature flashlight and a painted

squeaker from a dog toy. (Thanks to Axel for destroying his toy.)

All of these photos were taken by PJ Photography and Designs.

I hope to make a video explaining how I made the diadem because when I was trying to make it, I found that there was a lack of instructional videos out there about how people did it. My horns turned out to be preeeetty big, but I actually really liked it.

Let me know what you think and if you have any questions!

Welcome to my series on budgeting! This is the first post in a series of blogs dedicating to learning how to budget and saving money. If you have questions about anything, feel free to post them down below or reach out to me! Today's post is all about tracking your spending and making a budget.

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So you want to learn how to create a budget and stick to it? The first thing you’ve got to do is identify your spending habits.

For a month, carry around a little notebook and write down any and every time you spend money. Note what you spent it on, how much you spent, the date you spent it and put it into a category. Example categories include: groceries, eating out, entertainment, transportation, etc. You should do this with cash and cards, including your credit card, if you have one.

Once you’ve identified your spending habits, decide what changes you need to make. If you’re spending $100 from every paycheck on eating out for lunch, instead you might choose to add $50 to your grocery budget and pack your own lunch. If you’re going to the movies every weekend, maybe you’ll decide to go to the movies every other weekend and spend the other weekends doing something free like going to the park or watching a movie on Netflix. If you go to Starbucks every weekday and get a $2 cup of coffee, that adds up to $40 a month. You may decide to purchase a reusable mug and bring your own coffee, instead of buying it.

After you’ve figured out how the changes you’ll need to make, you’ll need to decide how you want to break down your budget as far as numbers go. There are two ways to do this. If you get a paycheck that is usually the same price every time you get paid, you can use set amounts. For example, if I know my paycheck is $500 twice a month, I can elect to put $50 from each paycheck toward groceries. If your paycheck varies, you may want to use percentages instead or a combination of both. For example, if you have a variable paycheck, there will still be some things that are a set amount or within a certain range, like your utilities. Here’s a sample budget:

$562.37	Paycheck amount
-$50.00	Internet (rounded up from 48.62, monthly charge)
-$70.00	Utilities (might have to estimate it)
-$100.00	Groceries
-$168.71	Savings (30% of paycheck)
-$112.47	Fun money (20% of paycheck)
$61.19	Remaining balance

Now, that is just a simple example. You’ll have to figure out what your monthly spendings are based on your personal bills and experiences.

Check back soon for the second part of the series, which will be on Grocery Shopping on a Budget.

Between my boyfriend's love of koolaid and my love of hot chocolate, we have a lot of little drink packets in our pantry. Originally, we were storing them in a little basket on the top shelf of the pantry, labeled "drink mixes". It worked okay. But being that I'm pretty short, I sometimes had a hard time reaching the basket, which was annoying. So I decided I wanted to change the way we were storing them. I was inspired by several things I saw on pinterest.

Specifically, I really liked how Traci from Beneath My Heart used bins she found from Goodwill to organize her small items, such as popcorn, oatmeal and drink mixes.

I also really liked how Make Bake Celebrate did something similar with acrylic sink caddies.

Knowing that I was going to make a trip to Ikea, which is a good 1.5 hour drive from where I live, I browsed the website to see what I could find that would work for me. I found the BESTÅENDE flatware caddy and knew it was perfect. For $3 each, the price was pretty good too!

So I took all my drink packets and organized them, then put them into the two caddies.

I then used two large command hooks to mount them on the wall of the pantry. The caddies already had a hole in them, though you can't see it in the picture, which fit perfectly over the large hook. I haven't yet labeled them, but for now, since they're at eye level, I can actually see what I'm grabbing for.

Now just to tackle the rest of the pantry. We received lots of candy and food gifts for Christmas so it's a bit of a hot mess.

Kalysha Clark

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