Tolkien Month Will Be Tolkien... Couple of Months?

Thirdly and finally, I wish to make an ANNOUNCEMENT!

I regret to announce that- though, as I said, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to spend among you- this is the END! 

I am going. I am leaving NOW! GOODBYE!" 

Nope, not going anywhere, not stopping blogging, etc, etc, etc. I just love Bilbo's birthday speech!

image via

I hope that you all have enjoyed celebrating Bilbo and Frodo's birthday month! We've celebrated Lord of the Rings poetry, artwork, interviews with artists, a giveaway, cool crafts, Hobbit genealogy  Pinterest, and more! So many amazing bloggers (and even readers without blogs!) have done guest posts and left wonderful notes about just how much they love Tolkien's stories!

But I've just barely scraped the surface.

I seriously underestimated my free time.

This is an oft-recurring problem, isn't it, my dear friends? Next time that I promise a big event here on the blog, I need you to take me aside and tell me in no uncertain terms that "No matter how hard you try, Shaylynn, you are a busy girl and much to busy to do every little project that pops into your head. Also, you are not a wizard and can therefore be late. Very late, getting things done."

I do so want to do every little project that pops into my head, and I get many ideas. Just the other day I was writing an essay on political stuff in the 1600's (my history work is just so fascinating right now) when this glorious shade of green popped into my mind, followed by a round door, and flowers, and soon enough an entire drawing of Hobbiton fought to keep my attention away from the essay! This, of course, made me remember that I was going to try to do an art contest that is due in one week, which I haven't even begun, and then I started to think about how I could get my brother to pose with my art teacher's dagger, and that reminded me... Long story short, that essay took a long time.

THIS IS ME EVERY DAY. (XKCD comic)

There are so many things that I want to blog about Tolkien, simply because he's awesome and so inspiring. I wanted to do a post on his artwork (did you know that he was an artist?), the sets and costumes of the movie, some seriously amazing cosplay I've seen online, two different crafts, and Elvish primer, and tons of drawings.

I started a Lord of the Rings sketchbook but of course am only fifteen pages into it with at least fifty ideas tingling at the tips of my fingers. Fingers which I have to force to write stoichimetric equations for at least four hours three days a week. The curse with being a homeschooler is that when you attend a class, even a college class, it's so boring. Even if the content is completely new and you actually have to work to understand it, it takes so much time.

Two insanely talented friends are working with my on a big project. That is the ONLY teaser I am giving you right now. If you are a Tolkienite geek, you'd better be excited. :)

I haven't even shared any pictures of The Long Expected Party! I know you guys are awaiting that anxiously, but most of my photos did not turn out and I want to ask some friends if I can publish theirs, and then I have to figure out who is comfortable having their photos on my blog.


In the meantime... here is a sneak peek picture of the gorgeous gown I wore:

Me dancing with Mom and Dad during one of the dances where you constantly switch partners. No idea who had my camera at this point but I'm glad they got this shot when they did!

There were lots of people there!

Ignore how funny-looking that red thing is in the picture above; to the left, you can see how the balloon decorations actually looked!




And, in just a few hours, you can see the FINISHED ENTWIFE COSTUME, complete with the jewelry set I designed!

Basically, I'm going to keep making Lord of the Rings inspired blog posts in the midst of regular posts... They won't necessarily all be arts-and-crafts-related-things, either. Hang tight, Tolkienites. There'll be more. :)

image via

Let the festivities continue!