saturday night movie: the prize

I miss talking about movies (my first blog was Silents & Talkies) so I thought I'd start up a little weekly movie series! I have to admit, I've been a horribly lazy movie fan the last couple years. Life got busier and it just seemed easier to watch a 20 minute episode of The Office or 30 Rock before bed and call it a night. But ever since I got a projector (sidenote: I never want a real television again. This thing is so awesome!) I've had a terrible itch to watch movies constantly. Knowing you've got up to 120" of movie screen tucked away in your nightstand provides a temptation that's nearly impossible to resist. As if I wanted to resist in the first place!

Anyway, let's get to the movie. The Prize (alternate title: Paul Newman, Where Have You Been All My Life?) is a 1963 comedy-thriller that takes place at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm. I had seen it described as Hitchcock-esque -- one Amazon reviewer even said it was more Hitchcockian than the Paul Newman movie that Hitch actually did direct, Torn Curtain. I think these comparisons are kind of thrown around a lot and (with the notable exception of Charade) rarely hold up. In the case of The Prize, there were a lot of similarities plot-wise, but not so much style-wise. The cinematic perfection that defines a Hitchcock movie is clearly absent here; the direction even feels a little bit sloppy at times. But the plot should definitely delight fans of the Master of Suspense.

An alcoholic American writer finds out that he's won the Nobel Prize for literature and reluctantly attends the ceremony in Stockholm to collect his 50,000 dollars. Less than 24 hours pass before he's caught in a web of international intrigue with his beautiful blonde escort. There are definitely shadows of North by Northwest here (the screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, who also wrote NXNW)  -- ominous, lanky henchmen; Leo G. Carroll; even a nudist convention scene (I'm serious) that's clearly reminiscent of the auction scene where Cary Grant summons the police. I'm pretty sure they made it take place at a nudist convention just so Paul Newman would have a reason to remove his shirt. (Not that I'm complaining.)

The movie got off to a slow start, setting up the plot and introducing the characters as tediously as possible, but once it got going it was really fun! A couple of the suspenseful scenes actually startled me so much that I jumped in my seat! And (needless to say?) Elke Sommer and Diane Baker have some pretty fantastic 60's outfits in the movie. It's no Hitchcock... but it's pretty close. A really delightful Saturday night movie.

somewhere over the rainbow

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10 // 11

12 // 13 // 14 // 15 // 16 // 17 // 18 // 19 // 20 // 21

I had so much fun making my ice cream post last week that I decided to make it a regular (until I get sick of it) feature. It's almost like a scavenger hunt, looking around the internet trying to find a bunch of things that fit whatever theme I've set for myself that week -- in this case, rainbows! My favorite is the pastel wicker mirror (no. 16) I have an irrational fear of mirrors at night, so I only buy ones that can be turned against the wall before I go to sleep (I know, I'm crazy!) but maybe I could turn it into a picture frame or something. It's just so cool!

hearts and cats

I'm still getting the hang of taking outfit pictures in my new room. It's on the same side of the house as my old room so it should get wonderful afternoon light, but we have a giant bush blocking one of the windows. It's all thorny and wild so I need to wait until Kyle has a day off and bribe him to tackle it for me. In the mean time I guess the light is still better than my apartment, which got maybe 10 minutes of sun in the early morning and then was shrouded in shadows for the rest of the day. yuck! It's funny how I used to think people on house hunters were so picky when I'd probably have a pretty long laundry-list of must-haves now myself. Good natural light and windows in the kitchen would both top my list. And after moving everything into and out of a second story walk-up, I think ground level would probably make it onto the list as well, lol ;)

cat pinafore  (worn as skirt)- modcloth | cardigan - c/o oasap | shoes - bait footwear

tights - h&m | belt - from another dress | cat brooch - c/o i love crafty

instagram

It's been a little too long since I did an instagram update so I thought I'd pick some of my favorites from the past two months. In case you're wondering "wait, I thought I was following her but I've never seen these photos in my feed?!" you're not crazy -- I had to delete my account in December and start a new one. I'm still @kategabrielle but you'd have to re-follow. It's a long story, but if you're interested I wrote about it here.

1. such lazy kitty cats // 2. arrietty being generally adorable
3. new dwight earrings in the shop // 4. instagram magnets from sticky9
5. a little corner in my new room // 6. lovely dress from quince vintage
7. arrietty helping with laundry // 8. missing TCMFF so badly!!
9. intense cat stares // 10. tagged (ten things about yours truly)
11. making fox mulder earrings // 12. selfies with mr. hubble
13. cat cuddles are the best // 14. meeting diana in california!!
15. first time at disneyland // 16. meeting danielle in california!!
17. instagram marshmallows from boomf // 18. happiness is frank
19. sweetest package from danielle // 20. me and my best friends
21. awesome wig I saw in hollywood // 22. miss arrietty ♥

on a roll

I've been so happy with my outfits lately! I feel like I've only posted a handful so far this year because I kept feeling so underwhelmed with how they turned out. It's probably a combination of a bunch of things -- I finally like my hair again for the first time in months (wish it was even longer, but I'm okay with waiting), all of my clothes are all in one place (I never got around to bringing everything to my apartment when I moved), and I'm feeling a little more confident about my appearance again. I went through a spurt this winter where I just felt so frumpy all the time.

But probably most importantly, I'm happy. And I think that translates into how I dress. Happiness is my fuel for creativity and my drive to get dressed in the morning. When you look forward to getting dressed, as opposed to dreading it like I was earlier this year, good wardrobe things happen :) I'm actually thinking about doing some kind of post series/ebook/sort of thing this summer about confidence and creativity in dressing... hopefully that's something some of you might be interested in? I just feel like it's something I would have wanted to read when I was struggling with my style and self-image the year I started this blog. And probably earlier this year when I needed a little kick in the polka-dotted pastel pants ;)

dress - c/o oasap | cardigan - c/o oasap | tights & shoes - urban outfitters

belt - from another dress | peter pan collar - luminia

DIY shiny wall covering

I had every intention of posting this on Saturday but my body thought it would be more fun to get food poisoning instead. It definitely wasn't fun. I'm better now but it probably wasn't my favorite holiday weekend to date, lol.

Anyway! On to the DIY! My new bedroom was missing a key component that most bedrooms have -- four walls. One of the walls in my room is a half-wall with an opening into our front entryway. It's blocked off and concealed with a set of bookshelves from the front, but on my end I just see the back of the shelves, a kind of ugly that paint doesn't sufficiently hide. I have a white curtain hanging behind them but it still looks pretty makeshift. So I came up with this quick, easy (and most importantly, cheap!) project to hide the weird wall and make my closet oh-so-glam in the process! :D



All you need are door curtains from the party supply store and command strips. How many you need of each depends on the wall you're covering, but for me it was five curtains and 20 strips (four per curtain.) The total project came in under $40 and the most effort involved was just moving my clothes out of the way while I worked and then moving them back again!



All you have to do is attach the command strips to the top of the curtain and adhere them to the top of the wall. In my case, since I was trying to hide a half-wall, I attached them to the ceiling since there is no wall in the area where the bookcases are standing. You can't even tell that it isn't one complete wall now!

This next step is really only necessary if you have cats since the shiny door curtains just SCREAM "come play with me" to felines. After you attach the curtains to the ceiling, cut off the excess so that it isn't dangling to the floor. So just make sure the ends are safely out of reach. And make sure there aren't any stray pieces laying around after you've chopped off the hem.

It's definitely a bold (possibly a little bit gaudy?) statement wall but I kind of love it! It started out as a cheap solution to an ugly problem but turned into one of my favorite projects in my new room! :)

a recipe for a toothache

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13

14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25

I have a bit of a weakness for ice-cream themed things, so I decided to round up as many awesome (can I say awesome if I included two of my own sweet and lovely brooches?) ice cream things as I could, and pour them all into one post. I'm glad I snatched up that ice cream print dress from asos a couple years ago (the one I wore in my outfit post on Tuesday) because except for the dress pictured here there seem to be hardly any available anymore. When I got mine there were an abundance of ice cream dresses -- basically as many dresses as there are possible flavors. I hope it wasn't just a passing phase because I think everyone's wardrobe could use a little soft serve :)

my favorite

I think this might be my favorite outfit so far this year. I love the color combination so much! I actually forgot I had this cardigan until I was moving all of my clothes back home this week. I got it at h&m a few years ago, and it's just the prettiest pinkish-coral. Also I can't get over how fantastic my cabinets look now that they're blue :D They used to stick out like a sore thumb in outfit pictures (or at least they did to me, since that bright red was such a pain in my neck!)

Now that I have pink hair again I'm facing that annoying catch-22 where my roots seem to be growing at enormous speeds & constantly need touch-ups, but the length of my hair doesn't seem to be getting any longer. I know technically it is, but it's moving at such a snail's pace. I can't even tell you how impatient I am to finally throw my hair up in milkmaid braids again. Or a sock bun! Oh, how I long for a nice sock bun.

dress- c/o modcloth | shoes - bait footwear | cardigan - h&m | belt - f21

i scream, you scream

On Saturday we went out for ice cream to celebrate Kyle's birthday, and naturally I had to wear my ice cream print frock and a brooch from my growing collection of ice cream cone brooches! I love opportunities to theme-dress, they don't seem to come up very often anymore. Maybe I need to peruse my closet and get some ideas for fun activities from my various novelty print dresses, lol!

dress- asos | shirt - thrifted | brooch - c/o clairey lou creations
shoes - urban outfitters | sunglasses - vintage