Tag – I'm It!

All righty then! (Apologies for the cheesy title. ^.^)

Big thanks to Clara at Reasons to Smile for nominating me for this tag! See her lovely blog here.

Rules:
Thank and link to the blogger who tagged you
Answer the 11 questions 

Nominate 11 bloggers and ask them 11 questions

Now for my responses to her questions:

1. If you could ask your future self a question, what would it be?

YES DID YOU KNOW I FOUND THE TARDIS? THAT'S WHY I'M TALKING OT YOU RIGHT NOW

2. What is your middle name?

My middle name is Gabrielle. :)

3. What shoe size are you?

I'm a size seven for women's shoes.

4. What would your hero name be?

Dragonfriend! I bet you can't guess what my power would be... ;D

5. Do you like Nutella on toast?

I probably would! Honestly, I've never tried the combination. I've had Nutella once before and I really liked it. I must acquire some more hazelnutty goodness to try this out!

6. What is your favorite foreign accent?

Arrrgh, you just had to find the hardest question ever! XD It's a tie between British, Scottish and Australian. If I had to made a decision, however, I would probably pick Australian.

7. Describe this scene in 3-8 words:

Dusty light. Broken Family. Clinging sisters.

8. Have you ever taken a train?

Yes, I have taken a train before, a steam locomotive! Quick note, though – don't sit up near the front carriages or else the smoke from the engine exhaust gets in your face and lungs!

9. If you had to sing a solo for a concert, which song would you choose to sing?

I hope this contributes in the factor that if I could sing! Probably Into the West, from the last movie of Lord of the Rings. 

10. How do you do your hair on a busy morning?

Most likely a high ponytail with a few loose strands near my face. (Because me using heated tools on a busy morning would be the opposite of a good idea! xD )

11. If you could automatically obtain a skill which skill would it be?
The skill to cheer someone up and make them feel feel happy even when they're sad. Cheesy, but I love making people laugh!

Now, since I'm kind of new to Blogger, I don't know that many bloggers to tag! So instead I'll just leave these questions open for whoever wants to answer them. Thanks again to Clara for the tag! I had fun answering these :D

I nominate:
Anyone who wants to do these questions!

3-D Tinfoil Toothless DIY

Hey everybody! For the past few weeks I've been working on a project – the title sort of tells all, but I made a 3-dimensional Toothless! Toothless is a Night Fury breed of dragon of the movie How to Train Your Dragon, probably my favorite animated movie in the history of ever.

His core skeletal structure is made out of wire (his wing is a different piece of wire, secured to the main body with a mess of glue and tightly-wound thinner wire) and the rest of his body is built up using tinfoil. Masking tape covers his main body. His front paws, back legs, tail fins, and face nubbins are not covered in masking tape, as you can see below.

There are no pictures during the actual construction because it was a very frustrating process for me and frankly,  I couldn't be bothered taking pictures.

And, for any eagle-eyed HTTYD fans, yes, I know I left out his hip wing fins. I realized there was no good way to secure them to the main body without additional frustration.

Wibbly-wobbly taily-finny.

 And the painting begins! I'll admit, this part was a bit of a nightmare... as you can see, the masking tape on his wing was sticking up and the brush couldn't reach every nook and cranny from every angle. The bare tinfoil had the same problem.

I live. I learn. I'll never attempt a project like this again! xD

Aaand, here's the [somewhat] finished project! I still need to find some black tissue paper for his wing membrane. If anyone can think of a better membrane-like material I should use, please let me know in the comments.

Ta-da! Yeah, my little Toothless is pretty wonky looking and the proportions aren't exact and he's missing a pair of wings, but I love him anyway. :)

I'm planning to put him in a frame (glass removed of course!) against a parchment paper background and hang it up somewhere in my room. He will flaunt his tiny mighty power!

'Til next time,

~Ze Embers

My Summer Reading Challenge!

All right! This summer, I'm challenging myself to read some classics of literature. As you can tell from the picture, on my reading list is Fahrenheit 451, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I'm a huge fan of Lord of the Rings. I've watched the movies (and all extended cuts – 11 hours of pure magical Middle Earth!) but I've never acquainted myself with Tolkien's actual work. Currently I'm about seventy pages into the Fellowship of the Ring. So far I'm loving it! Tolkien had such a crisp, simple way of writing.

One of my favorite lines of dialogue from Gandalf in the movie!

As for Fahrenheit 451, I've started it many times, but never actually finished the book. (It's sort of heavy to me – my mind needs a lot of time to process Ray Bradbury's incredible words.)
To Kill a Mockingbird is another book I've started (somewhat recently) but still haven't finished yet. Now that I've announced it, hopefully I will have more drive to finish reading both of these!

And also, I thought I'd put this in as a sidenote – as for more 'fun' reading, recently I have discovered the epicness of Doctor Who novels.
. . . 'Epicness' is totally a word, spellcheck. YOU DON'T CONTROL ME.

And now my life is complete.

Actually, my first encounter with a Doctor Who novel was Only Human, by Gareth Roberts. Gah, that book. Absolutely fantastic!! It's a story with the Ninth Doctor, my first and most favorite Cristopher Eccleston.

Prisoner of the Daleks, by Trevor Baxendale, is a story with the Tenth Doctor. I really enjoyed the story, though, just a warning, there are some scenes of strong violence. It's called Prisoner of the Daleks for a reason.

Dun-dun-DUN!!

So, grab yourself some chocolate raisins and curl up on the couch with a good book! Let me know if you have any more suggestions of classic books.

Story Prompt #1

So, this is a fun little segment I decided to have on my blog – story prompts! I write a lot, and my stories are basically my lifeblood. This is for any other writers out there who are seeking inspiration!
Sometimes the prompt might be a line or two of dialogue, a fantasy setting or animal (don't be surprised if 34% of these are about dragons), an ending line to a story, a brief character description, a piece of music, or even a picture that sparks inspiration in me. Your job is to take the idea and make it your own words, your personal style. Mold my tiny crumb of an idea into a sticky triple-layered apple cake with light brown icing, dusted thickly with cinnamon sugar as the leaves fall to the autumn ground outside.
... Sorry. I'm craving sweets right now. I have no idea where that last dependent clause came from, however.

Anyway, for today, I give you six (mostly two-letter word) character descriptions and traits: 
"Mysterious Gentleman"
"Vexed Orphan"
"The Dog with a Grudge"
"Claustrophobic Explorer"
"Vaguely Sarcastic"
"Sentient Forest"

Do with these what you will! I hope this inspires you to write. Tell me if you make anything with these characters!

The Best Banana Bread Recipe!

So, today I am going to share with you an amazing recipe I found a little while ago.
Banana bread. Boom.
I found this recipe at SimplyRecipes.com when my sister was begging me for banana bread. Here is the link to the original site. It's one of my favorite recipes in my recently-constructed 'baking toolbox' because it takes less than half an hour to make (well, not including baking time) and the only tool you need be armed with is your trusty ol' fork.
Without further ado, let's begin!

Ingredients:
• 2 or 3 bananas, very ripe and peeled
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 beaten egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Dash of salt
• 1 1/2 cups flour

A bunch of little gross things we combine and heat for a while to make it one whole delicious thing.

Baking is a weird and wonderful thing, people.

Instructions:

Mash up the peeled bananas in your mixing bowl. Pretend you're a normal person who doesn't take weird giddy delight in hearing them squish against the sides of the bowl. Conceal your glee. They cannot know your weirdness just yet.

Mix the butter into the bananas. 

Add the baking soda and salt and mix until combined. 

Stir in the sugar, vanilla extract, and beaten egg. 

Dump in the flour and mix until your dough is evenly colored and textured all over. (And yes, all this mixing and mashing is being done with the fork! Let's give him a round of applause, folks.)

Remember you were meant to preheat the oven to 350˚F five steps ago.

Sigh deeply and preheat oven.

Butter a 4x8-inch pan that you were also meant to grease well before now.

Pour the batter into the pan and spread it around so that it's even.

Consider your life choices while waiting for oven to preheat.

Bake bread for 1 hour (check after 50 minutes) or longer, if needed. Let cool before serving.

Arm yourself with a fork and enjoy tremendously!

Big thanks to Elise of Simply Recipes for this great recipe! I make it almost every month nowadays.