winter mood

First of all, this picture of Claudia Cardinale is HAIR GOALS x 1000. I mean, seriously, this hair might be all I've ever wanted in life. I'm actually kind of close to achieving it (!!) so I might do a tutorial. I'm in the process of growing out my bangs so it doesn't look exactly like hers yet but I'm working on it. THAT DAY WILL SOON COME.

Anyway. This is just a little post of pictures I've been accumulating on my computer that are inspiring my winter wardrobe and hair/makeup. Right now I'm really into darker colors, a late 60's/early 70's aesthetic with a little bit of edgy 90's thrown in for good measure; heavy eye makeup and nude lips. And bell sleeves, always. I really need to start taking more outfit posts because I've been VERY happy with a lot of my outfits lately. It's just such a hassle to take them in like the only five minutes in the early afternoon when the lighting doesn't actually suck. I've had the same issue with product photos, I swear I have the cutest batch of little Christmas brooches that have been ready to go since October but I keep missing the time of day when you could actually see them without turning on all of the lights in the house :\

So somehow this turned into yet another post complaining about lighting, blerg. Okay, here are the pictures!

















60's hair and makeup + middle ages armor and chain maille? YES PLEASE.

previously in my life

Ten months is a long time. While I've been away I've been wasting time on the internet, getting obsessed with movie stars and tv shows, and generally not having much of a life, as per ush. Here's a brief summary!

+ I started tumblr-ing again
+ I got clip-on 3D glasses for people who wear glasses (life changing!)
+ I'm obsessed with Maurice Ronet (fav. film of his: The Fire Within)
+ I'm binge watching and loving Arrow (thanks Casey!)
+ I met David Duchovny! (!!!) and he said he liked my hat! (!!!!)
+ I also met Jane Krakowski! I wasn't wearing a hat that day
+ I started a tumblr dedicated to awesome sleeves, because why not
+ I started scanning my delia*s catalog collection
+ Me and Nicole went to a Chris Hardwick show (fun!)
+ I had my wisdom teeth removed (not fun!)
+ I opened my own online storefront
+ I got one of these tablets (also life changing!)
+ I went to Seattle to visit my awesome friend, The Millie
+ So far this year I've read 23 books (this was my favorite)
+ I'm obsessed with Hindsight (it's on hulu! go watch!)
+ I completed my 10 months of training at the CIA (shh...)
+ Haha, I'm just kidding
+ OR AM I? ...

interview on the littlest polly

My friend Polly over at The Littlest Polly did a little interview with yours truly on her blog! If you're interested in my daily routine (spoiler alert: I'm very lazy), my cats, and my happiest childhood memories you can take a peek right here! :)

sickly dedication

I kind of miss the good old days when I was so dedicated to blogging I even did an outfit post when I was sick. Right now I've been wearing the same sweater and pajama pants for two days and I wouldn't put on a dress and pose for pictures if you paid me a hundred dollars. I'm not sure what changed.. I still love blogging but I guess I've gotten so used to it and have a very blasé "eh, nobody will notice if I don't post for a week" sort of attitude that when I'm under the weather I just let it go. But I miss how every single day of my life was documented in 2011 (and most of 2012)... I think I might add "put more effort into my blog" to the long list of resolutions that are mounting for 2014. Although, honestly, as a very scatterbrained, disorganized person I'm pretty pleased with myself for having maintained my blog -- even if it's no longer updated on such a strict schedule -- for almost four years.

I'm definitely under the weather because I actually just wrote (and promptly deleted) this huge long post about diseases, the black death, funneling technology investments into curing all human ailments, and my general frustration with how many illnesses still have no cures or treatments in 2013. When I get sick I can be a little dramatic. I just hate not feeling good -- I know, who doesn't? I just don't handle it well. As much as I kind of hate my body right now (does anyone else ever feel that way, like as if it's totally separate from your brain? I think it's the sick talking again, sorry) I'm going to pamper the heck out of it and hope this goes away by Christmas. Fingers crossed!!

In the mean time I actually did take some pictures of my workspace for the first part of my apartment tour so I'll edit those tomorrow and post them :) The glamourous sick-day outfit posts, however, are probably a thing of the past lol ;)

10 things you might not know about me

Mandy from Miss Indie started a '10 things you don't know about me' tag and tagged yours truly! After 3+ years of blogging I honestly don't really remember what I've shared here and what I haven't but here are 10 things that I *think* you don't know about me...

1. I've never had alcohol or coffee. Not for any religious reasons, I just don't care to try it. I'm perfectly happy with grapefruit juice, fruit smoothies, and iced tea, thank you ;)

2. My natural hair color is dark brown. This September will be 10 years since the first time I dyed it and I haven't stopped since. Even the few times I've gone back to dark hair I've still dyed it some other shade than the one I was born with.

3. The first time I dyed my hair I was feeling very emotional about a boy-related-issue and asked one of my best friends to go in the drug store and buy any hair color and dye my hair. I didn't know until I got out of the shower that I was blonde. (And so begins my lifelong habit of dying my hair when I'm feeling emotional.)

4. I go through spurts where I don't draw or paint for a while, and when I get the urge to start again, I'm literally terrified that my abilities* will have completely vanished. I mean I seriously panic. I end up finding it's like riding a bicycle, it always comes back. But nevertheless, I still get petrified every single time. *There has to be a better word than abilities. That makes it sound like I'm an art superhero, which I'm definitely not.

5. I'm allergic to cats! I have a chronically stuffy nose and if I skip my allergy medication for one day I turn into an itchy disaster, but it's totally worth it. I can't even imagine a life without cats in it.

6. My biggest fear is being autopsied. Even after I'm dead and wouldn't know it was happening, the whole idea of it just freaks me out so much I can't even think about it. I've even looked into medical bracelets that say "Do not autopsy." Somehow I can sit and watch Scully cut people open on The X-Files with no problem though?

7. Speaking of The X-Files, I was such a big fan in middle school that I regularly published my own alien newsletter. I think I had three subscribers and two of them were my parents.

8. I get ridiculously excited about mail. I basically spend 11am-3pm every weekday anxiously looking out my front window to see if the mail truck came yet.

9. My three biggest pet peeves are: impatience, women wearing their coats over their shoulders (coats have sleeves for a reason!) and when your nailpolish has chipped off a bit and you run your hand through your hair and it gets caught on your nail. ugh!!

10. I just discovered that I like ice cream! My whole life I thought I hated it because I had only tried chocolate and vanilla (which I didn't like) but last year I tried coconut and that changed everything. So far some of my favorites I've tried have been winter squash, orange pineapple, black sesame and apple!



I'm going to tag Millie, Kailey, Jenny, Chiaki and Kati! And if you haven't been tagged formally but would like to do one of these posts, then tag, you're it! :)

Meet Miss Subways

To pass the time while I'm stuck on the couch sick, I've been reading, watching a lot of movies, and having staring contests with Hypatia. I've also been mindlessly looking at things on the internet ... I may or may not have gone through all 80 pictures in a slideshow about Jennifer Aniston's hair.

But sometimes meandering about the web leads to some pretty awesome finds. This morning I stumbled upon this article about Miss Subways, a NYC beauty contest that lasted from the early forties through the mid seventies. The article is fascinating (a photographer tracked down about 40 former Miss Subways for a photo exhibition at the NY Transit Museum) but my favorite part are the posters themselves, and what each girl had to say about herself and her hopes for the future. I think my favorite is "plugging for B.A. but would settle for M.R.S."

amy poehler on stress

I have oodles and oodles and oodles of things on my to-do-list today, so naturally I was procrastinating and surfing the web (do people actually say surfing the web anymore?) Somehow I ended up on the BUST magazine site, and they had a post about this new web series that Amy Poehler is doing. She takes questions from teenagers and answers them in little 2-3 minute segments on youtube.

The first one I watched was about arguing with your sister (my brother is my only sibling, but it was still incredibly relevant) and I eventually worked my way to this one, which is about stress. Particularly stress caused by having a lot to do, and feeling overwhelmed about doing it. I know that technically her advice is about homework and it's directed at girls 10+ years younger than me, but it was still incredibly helpful. And I thought if anyone else out there is having a tough time working through their to-do-list this weekend, it might give you a little boost, too! :)

ps. Can I just add that Amy Poehler is beyond awesome? Seriously.

indecisive.

Lately I've been feeling incredibly indecisive and scatterbrained. I'm very impulsive so when I'm feeling indecisive sometimes I make hasty decisions that I'm not really committed to, and end up regretting them almost immediately. Case in point -- my hair. Not really fond of the pink anymore, I hate to admit. I love it in my outfit photos, but in real life somehow it just isn't thrilling me as much as it used to. I miss the subtle pink tips I had before my impulse all-over dye job and I want them back. I feel like everybody who reads my blog is sort of rooting for me to be a pink-haired blogger until I die, but I just don't think it's for me anymore. (Sorry guys.)

Speaking of blogging, I've been feeling sort of weird about this too lately. I don't know what's getting into me. I don't want to stop blogging... that's not it at all. I just don't want to keep a rigid schedule anymore. In January 2011 I came up with a series for each day (like wishlist wednesday, star stuff, style idols, etc.) and consistently blogged at least twice a day for about a year. Then I started drifting, neglecting to post anything but outfit posts and DIYs in the morning. Then I got lazy about posting those, often forgetting (or procrastinating) to schedule the posts at night, and just putting them up the next day whenever I got around to it (if at all). And that's made me feel guilty, like I'm doing something wrong, but the only rules I'm breaking are the ones I made for myself.

Nobody HAS to blog twice a day, or even everyday. And honestly, I think if I stopped holding myself to a weird schedule (like 9am blog posts... why do I feel like I'm a failure if I don't post at exactly 9am?) I'd actually *want* to post more often. I still want to take daily outfit photos and post them here, and I still want to share DIY projects, the occasional slumber party sunday, astronomy fangirl posts and maybe some wishlists when the mood strikes (but not always on Wednesday ;) But I don't want to keep a schedule anymore, and I don't want to feel a huge burden of guilt if I miss a day. I don't want to think of a fun blog post, but then skip it because it doesn't fit into any of my preordained blog series topics. I just want to be more laid back about blogging so I can enjoy it more. And maybe if I'm enjoying it more, you will too?

Dress - modcloth | Sweater - f21 | Shoes - h&m

mad about you

I love when unexpected memories pop back into your consciousness, and you're reminded of something completely lovely that you had entirely forgotten. Over the weekend I accidentally stumbled upon an episode of Mad About You, and it triggered some very happy thoughts.

It had totally escaped my memory how much I loved that show. During my senior year of high school I had a pretty rough time socially, so I used to deeply treasure the time I spent at home. I'd stay up until 3 or 4am each night, waiting as long as possible to go to sleep to put off going to school in the morning.

In the wee small hours, I'd watch the sitcom reruns that came on after the late night shows were over. At 1:00 sharp, I'd go downstairs to our quiet kitchen and make myself a salted baked potato, toast with grape jelly and a cup of sparkling peach cider (I know how odd that combination sounds, but somehow it turned into my favorite late-night meal at the time!) By 1:30, I'd be sitting on my bed ready for Mad About You.

When I rediscovered it this weekend, my mind flashed back to how much I loved my little late night treat. I looked forward to 1:30am ALL DAY LONG. I'd sit in class and ache for my half hour of bliss. I loved the show, and I loved my snack but more than anything I loved how much fun it was to spend time alone. I honestly think that learning to enjoy being your own company makes life so much nicer... and for me it all started with Mad About You and salted baked potatoes :)

Dress - vintage | Shoes - kling

hold on, I have to turn up the volume on my pillow...

Sometimes I get something new and I have a huge urge to blog about it, but then I think "nobody wants to hear about *insert weird gadget*" and resist said urge. But this, I had to blog about.

First, a little back-story: My brother and I share a thin wall between our bedrooms. His bed is right up against the wall where my television is, so if I have the volume on loud at night, he can't sleep. This has been an issue for years and years. For a while I had headphones with a super long cord so I could listen in bed, but they aren't comfortable, and when it would come time to go to sleep I'd have to take them off so I didn't strangle myself while I slept. Having a long cord laying in the middle of my room all the time wasn't too awesome either.

Enter: the pillow speaker. I traced a super long headphone extension cord around the perimeter of my room, and plugged it into my new pillow speaker. It is literally a pillow with a speaker tucked deep inside of it. You can sleep on it at night, put a pillowcase on it and everything. You'd never know it was a speaker if you didn't hear sound coming out of it. It's a miracle! I don't have to wear bulky headphones, and I can still listen to the television even when I'm drifting off into dreamland.

The only problem I ran into was that the sound was very, very soft if my head wasn't nestled directly on the center of the pillow. It could be that my cheap-o television's volume doesn't go very loud, but for whatever reason, it posed a problem.

Enter: the headphone amplifier. I didn't think this would work as well as it did, but by golly does it work well! You just plug the amp into the headphone cord, and it increases the volume tenfold! Now I can sit in bed with my pillow on, listen to some tv shows, then turn the volume down a bit when it's time to hit the hay. This little amp would probably also work wonders on those iphone/ipod speakers that don't seem to get very loud at all!

In conclusion, I know this was a super weird thing to blog about, but on the off chance that anyone else has a need for re-routing the sound that comes out of their television at night, I thought it might be useful! :)

what's in my bag

I love this bag SO much! I missed out when it first went up on Modcloth, but then I was able to snatch one up about a month ago when someone returned theirs (seriously though, who would return this??) It came back in stock again earlier this week and I decided I'd buy another one as a back up in case this one ever fell apart (honest to goodness, I want to use THIS bag for the rest of my life. I just love it so much!) but before I had a chance to purchase, it was discontinued :( I actually e-mailed the designer to ask if it's in stock anywhere else online, so if anyone is interested I'll let you know if I get a reply!

Ok, so now I'll get to what's IN the bag! Of course there's my phone (iphone 4s with a Hello Kitty case I bought in Epcot Japan) and my wallet (pink glitter shell wallet from Five and Below.) Even though my phone can technically serve as an ipod, I also keep my shuffle with me at all times along with my minty green headphones (gift from my brother.) I have a little beaded coin purse (gift from Aunt Annie) that I use to hold my gum. I have apple scented hand sanitizer (Bath & Body Works) and Burt's bees grapefruit lip balm. The sunglasses change constantly but right now I'm wearing my red hearts (from Fred Flare.) Last but not least, a notebook (h&m) and pen to jot down ideas, sketches and grocery lists. It all fits so neatly in my perfect little bag! And I keep all of the paper junk I collect throughout the day (receipts, gum wrappers, etc.) in the zipper compartment so it doesn't mess up the organizational flow ;)

while my blog was sleeping...

I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend! I thought I'd do a little recap of some of the things I did during my week off from blogging and email (speaking of email, I'm getting caught up today and tomorrow :) I had a really relaxing and productive break but I'm so happy to be back! I can't believe how much I missed blogging, even for such a short time.



I tried enacting a little spending freeze, but that was immediately thrown out the window when I saw Rachael from The Paraders launched her new website. Look at this dress!! The mint color and pretty pleating?! I had to have it. Of course it doesn't hurt that she's offering 20% off right now (coupon code NEWSITEB) My willpower is being seriously tempted by this number, too. Please somebody snatch it up before I whip out my wallet again! ;)



Saturday night me and my brother played card games and then dyed eggs! We usually do patterns or try to write on them with crayons (which always fails) but this year we thought it would be pretty to do simple one-color eggs. I think they came out gorgeous!



I whipped up a little DIY I'll be posting later this week! I don't do them often enough, but this is by far my favorite one I've ever come up with. And that includes the cat skirt! ;D



One evening I spent the entire night playing with and photographing my cats. I wish I could do that every night! I love this one of Chloe that I took from below. She's such a manic kitty and this picture totally captured her personality!



I painted my nails for Easter, and drew a little bunny on my thumb! I tried doing a matching bunny on my right hand, but the black dots for the eyes were coming out so huge that it looked like a demon rabbit, so I stuck with one single bunny lol...





Some supplies that came in the mail for a new project I am SO excited about! I'm working on it this week and hopefully I can share it by Friday!!



I got a lot of new Flapper Doodle goodies into the shop, too! This is a set of sweater clips where the chain serves as the string link between the flappers playing telephone! This was a little collaboration with my mom, since she's a lot more skilled with jewelry making than I am :)



Also in the shop, a set of cat lady note cards! There are 6 cards in all, featuring my various drawings with cats and flappers :) I had a lot of fun doing the photos for this one.. obviously!



For the first time since (I think) December I finally did some new drawings, too! The one on the right was inspired by the beautiful lady ties by Flapper Girl! (I wore one in an outfit post here.)



And, finally, I dyed my hair. I'm sure I'll do pink again someday but it just wasn't feeling me-ish anymore. I'm not sure if the picture captured it right, but in person it looks exactly like Hayley Mills' hair color in The Trouble with Angels! I used bright red hair dye, but my tresses are a little over-processed and color just isn't sticking the way it should, so this is what I came out with. I love it though! I'm actually a little sad that I probably won't be able to recreate it since it was a hair dye goof! ♥