So how do you talk to someone of another faith anyway? First, it’s important to have an open attitude. To do so you need to have respect for the other person and their faith. You need to listen with your heart and understand why they might look at things the way they do. But most of all, you need to see their humanity and that there is nothing wrong with them for believing differently than you do.

But what if you disagree, then what? Just accept differences. How?  You need to focus on what you have in common and be happy. Accept that differences will arise, and try to learn from them.

Do these things and talking to people of different faiths won’t seem so scary. In fact, people of other faiths will love to talk with you!

I call it the Bugfly. It is my first assemblage sculpture. I have always wanted to make assemblage; however, since I was featured on Modish in the section “hand made faces” I have been more inspired to do handmade art.

But what is assemblage? It is when you take things like antique items, junk, or garbage together to make a design, normally a sculpture.

All and all, I think the Bugfly is a good sculpture. Maybe not the best but at least an ok one. After all, it is my first assemblage sculpture.

The space race was born in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched the first ever space program, Sputnik Sputnik was only 22.8 inches in diameter and weighed just 183.9 pounds. It was simply an orb with four antenna, two in each hemisphere. This orb was essentially a sphere shell,a battery back, and a walkie-talkie. It was designed to send a beeping tone that amateur radio stations could hear. It orbited earth as the first man-made satellite for about three weeks before its battery died. It took about another week before it disintegrated in Earth’s atmosphere. This small orb made the United States jealous.

The United States was envious because they had been leading the world in technology until now. In order to regain their position as leader, the U.S. joined the space race. The Apollo program was launched; their mission was to safely land a man on the moon and get them back.

The first attempt at Apollo was not the best of its series. In a training mission faulty wiring caused a flash fire to occur in the oxygen rich environment, everything was destroyed. All three of the training astronauts were killed in 13 seconds. The fire was so big that people could not distinguish human parts from technological parts.

As a result, the U.S. completely remodeled the space craft but called it Apollo One even though there had been a previous attempt. This time it was a half success; the engineers of the Apollo missions were not finished with the Lunar lander by the deadline, so the astronauts had to orbit the moon instead of land on it.

Apollo Two perfectly accomplished the goal of the mission. The United States had successfully put a man on the moon and safely landed him on Earth. The launch of Sputnik launched more than a tiny orb into space—it launched a fierce competition between the United States and the USSR to out do each other. It would take decades before the two countries would work together on the first International Space station, a project that would require the help of 13 other countries.

Today, the United States is working to go back to the Moon, only this time they want to stay. In the next millennia we could find ourselves in another solar system, all because of a tiny orb named Sputnik.

Fractals
By Georges Oates-Larsen

Have you ever looked at a math book and thought, “This is boring?” Have you ever looked at an art book and thought, “This is interesting!” Would it surprise you to know that art and mathematics are closely related? That’s right, art and math come together in fractals.

But, what is a fractal? Fractals are complex mathematical equations that take geometric shape. They are vibrant, encompassing every color of the spectrum visible to our eyes. Imagine a series of triangles that repeat endlessly, constantly decreasing. This is one of the properties of a fractal, known as self-similarity. The repetition of the pattern is directed by the mathematical equation. So every equation will produce a different fractal. They can be simple or complex but all are artful representations of math.

Yet, fractals aren’t just pieces of abstract art or only for the mathematicians. No, we can see fractals in our every day life. They are hiding right under our noses, we just don’t realize what we are seeing. Ferns are fractals. Trees are fractals. The fruit we eat contains fractals. Even human beings! Every thing on the planet is a fractal—it can all be expressed mathematically. Fractals are a portal to seeing the world differently; math becomes art and art becomes math, and both are hardly boring.

Thank you for your generosity! If you have ordered a Bag Bag and not received an email from us with payment instructions, please check your spam filter. The email will be from evidently.org since my mom is handling the payment part for me.

I want to thank all of you—I will probably exceed my goal of getting chicks for Heifer. But you should know that no matter how much I sell, I will always give $1 to Heifer… I will just buy lots more chicks! Or a beehive!!

Thank you again. And please email my Mom at (Wende @ evidently. org) if you have any questions about your order.

And if you are wanting to order, please use the post below to tell me. Thanks!

Introducing the “Bag Bag”. This is a fun bag made by me to store all your plastic bags. It has a large opening in the top to make it easy to load, and a smaller dispenser opening at the bottom so all your bags don’t fall out on your floor!!

I’m selling these for $10 ($2s/h if you aren’t local). These bags come in an assortment of color combinations, each one slightly different but designed by ME! And $1 of every sale is going to Heifer International to help buy some chicks for them.

If you are paying via cash or check please leave a comment to let me know if you want one and I will email you back with payment instructions.  If you want to use paypal there is a link below.  We (My mom helps me!) try to ship things out within a week of your order.  Should there be a delay we will let you know when you order.
I hope you want one and I can’t wait to make one for you.

UPDATE: If you have left a message ordering a Bag Bag, my mom has sent you an email confirming your order. If you haven’t got the email please check your spam filter and leave another comment! Orders made by today (2/7) will be shipped on Friday. Thanks so much for your consideration! –G.

So what am I going to do? I could easily rebel but a “Smart boy” as my dad calls it would not. So I guess the only thing I can do is buckle down and get my essays written.

This is me at my mom’s sewing machine.  She says I can have it when she gets a new one.  I can’t wait!

This is the front side of my apron.

Picachu pocket!! I decided to only to have a pocket out of this fabric because it is really too bright.

Mom helped me make it reverse-able.  I like that it’s two different colors and I picked out the fabric.

This pocket is like the pockets on my hoody sweatshirts.  I like that.

Next step, cooking lessons with my dad.  I sure hope I get extra credit at school for all this work!