For this week's video I thought I'd share my skincare routine! I have very sensitive, very dry skin and I have rosacea, so finding products that don't irritate my skin is a battle. And finding ones that make my skin look nice and glowy and hydrated and healthy is even harder. But the routine I've been using for about six months has been working wonders for me, and I talk about it in this video. I also included links to all of the products in my video description box on youtube, here.
I hope you like this video, and please consider subscribing if you haven't yet! :)
If you're curious what I decided to pack for my trip to Disney World, here you go! I actually decided what to pack as I was filming this, and ended up adding a few things after I was done.. oops! Assuming I make good on my promise to film a video in Disney you'll likely be seeing what sartorial choices I made and whether or not I decided to dress Cute or Lazy, lol!
This is probably the most fun I've had making a video so far, so I really hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed filming it! And if you do, please consider hopping over to my channel to give it a thumbs up and hopefully subscribe :)
ps. I linked to all of the t-shirts and dresses in the description box on my youtube video :)
I've had this idea skipping around in my head for a while, but the recent trend towards minimalism and decluttering really made me want to sit down and finally get this started. I would consider myself a maximalist, since I love pattern and color and being surrounded by things that I love. I feel so much more comfortable in homes where people have poured their personalities onto the walls than in ones that still resemble a model showroom. But I think a lot of people mistakenly believe that organization is only achievable through minimalism, and that's just not so!
In my new series, which I'm calling "Re-clutter" (like, the opposite of declutter) I'll be sharing tips and tricks for organizing and tidying your space without throwing everything out or sacrificing personality. I'm planning on sharing one new Re-clutter episode each month, and I'll still be doing my other videos weekly. I'm so excited about this project and I hope you enjoy it!!
And as always if you do like the video please head over to my channel to give it a thumbs up and (hopefully!) subscribe :)
I feel like three weeks in a row means... I'm a vlogger now??
Yes, that's right, three videos in three weeks! And I feel like each one has been a bit of an improvement in my ability to talk to the camera. I even came up with a fun idea for a series (!!) that I'm hoping I'll have finished for next week's video post!
I had SO MUCH FUN with this video because it's about my favorite tv show, The X-Files. I found two tags that people on youtube had created and combined them into one list (I typed out the questions below in case you want to make your own video, too!) Don't forget if you like my video to hop over to my channel so you can like and subscribe! :)
1. When did you start liking The X-Files?
2. Are you a Mulder or a Scully?
3. Do you ship Mulder and Scully? Why or why not?
4. What are your favorite types of episodes - the myth arcs or the stand alones?
5. What is your favorite episode?
6. What is your least favorite episode?
7. Who is your favorite guest star?
8. Original series or reboot?
9. Favorite season?
10. What fan theories do you think should be canon?
11. Scariest monster?
12. What did you think of the movies?
I just posted a new video on my youtube channel! This one is all about what I pack in my emergency travel kit. It's a little pouch that holds everything I could possibly need (but often forget to pack) on vacation! Hopefully you'll get some ideas for making your own travel kit, too! :)
If you like the video please consider subscribing to my channel right here.
I'm going to try really hard to get some more videos up on my youtube channel this year. I feel like I'm closer to feeling comfortable in front of the camera. It helps that I'm very excited about the topic of this video, which is DISNEY! I decided to do a tag that I found on one of my favorite youtubers' channels. I embedded my video below but if you like it be sure to hop over to my channel to like and subscribe! :)
If you want to do this tag too, here are the questions:
1. A scene in any Disney movie that you wish you could experience.
2. An unforgettable experience/moment you've had at the parks.
3. What non-Disney song(s) reminds you of Disney and/or the parks?
4. When was the first time you went to a Disney park?
5. If you could choose any Disney character to be your best friend, who would you choose?
6. Who are your favorite Disney princesses (or heroines)?
7. Name a scene or moment in a Disney movie that never fails to make you cry.
8. What is the first Disney movie you remember seeing?
9. What is your favorite Disney movie?
10. Who is your favorite Disney villain?
11. What is your least favorite Disney movie?
12. What is your favorite Disney song?
13. What Disney character has your personality or has your dream personality?
14. If you could change any scene in a Disney movie, what would it be and why?
15. If you had to get stuck on a ride in any Disney park for more than 30 minutes, what would you want it to be?
Remember ages ago when I said I was starting a youtube channel? I FINALLY posted a video! :)
I really have the Christmas bug this year, so I decided to just decorate super early. I know a lot of people get annoyed by "the Christmas creep" but personally I've always loved celebrating it as early as possible. But I totally get it if you're someone who's bothered by pre-Thanksgiving holiday festivities, so just bookmark this post and come back early next month if you'd prefer to hold off on Christmas stuff until December ;)
I'm really happy with how this turned out, but I have to say I majorly suck at continuity. I have not one, not two, but three inexplicable outfit changes in this video even though I decorated my whole place in one afternoon. First I put on a sweater, then I realized I was too hot. So I put on a lace dress. Then I decided to shoot footage of me on a ladder hanging up lights and realized the lace dress was way too short for that shot, so I switched to a long sleeve red dress. But all of those clips are interspersed in the video so it looks like I just kept changing clothes all afternoon lol!
Anyway... hopefully this will be the start of semi-consistent posting. I really enjoyed filming and editing this and I'm really looking forward to shooting more in the future! :)
A couple weeks ago I made this video for Modcloth's twirling promotion which just went live on their blog yesterday. Originally the theme was "twirl around the world" so I decided to become a tourist in my own living room, surrounded by animated versions of famous world landmarks. It looks like they changed the theme since then so my idea is kind of out of context now, but I'm still so happy with how it came out!
I know asking people to watch videos on blogs is like asking you to do 100 cartwheels while simultaneously braiding your own hair (at least it seems that way to me.. people don't like videos unless they specifically typed in youtube.com in their browser) but please, please give it a watch! It's only 32 seconds.
I am just so proud of it. It took me forever to figure out how to get the animation technique the way I was envisioning it in my head. In the end I ended up editing 500 individual frames in photoshop before I even knew if it was *possible* to layer my animation over my video. I can't tell you how relieved I was when it actually worked, lol! And now I have the animation itch again (actually, I always do!)
On Thursday we went to Grounds for Sculpture, an outdoor sculpture park in my area. We don't usually go too often because the ticket prices are a little steep but I just found out that they have a summertime special where the ticket price is cut in half if you go during their extended hours, after 6pm. So we had a nice little evening outing! I've never been there late in the day before and the grounds are even more beautiful at night. There's one section that's been made to look like a scene from a Van Gogh painting (in the picture above) I thought it was so awesome! They got the brush strokes and perspective down perfectly.
The main reason I wanted to go was because I needed a statue for one of my Gishwhes challenges (yup, that again! haha!) but me and Kyle ended up deciding to film a little outfit post video while we were there and I love how it turned out! Kyle got kind of hokey trying to capture sun flares and things, and basically it's just one minute of me walking and trying to get in a hammock, but we had so much fun making it :) The song in the video is "Roll Along Prairie Moon" by Jack Jackson & his Orchestra, and it was shot using the 8mm app on my iphone.
Modcloth is having a contest where you can win a $100 gift certificate if you post a video on youtube showing off your 3 favorite vintage or modcloth dresses in your closet. This is my entry! I had so much fun making it, I might do more videos in the future :)
I've got exciting news today!! Blowfish Shoes is offering one lucky gal a pair of free shoes! whee! I know "free shoes" is amazing to begin with, but it gets even better -- you can pick whichever pair you'd like!! ahh!
To enter you just need to be a real follower (none of this follow-&-leave-as-soon-as-you-lose-the-giveaway jazz... that's super rude!) and let me know what shoes you'll choose (unintentional rhyme) if you win! You can visit Blowfish Shoes here to pick out your favorite pair, and then leave a comment on this post. You have until next Monday at 12:01AM EST to enter. Oh, and make sure to include a way for me to get in contact with you in case you win!
And that's about it! Good luck!! :D
ps. The video at the top is a music video that I made especially for this giveaway.. please take a peek (with the volume on) if you have a chance! It took a lot of work & I love how it came out! :)
There are a lot of milkmaid braid videos out there that are, I'm sure, much much better than this. But I thought it wouldn't hurt to add my sloppy, imperfect tutorial to the mix! ;-D
One of these days I'll be comfortable talking in a video, but for now this is set to music. It's pretty self-explanatory if you watch it, but here's what I would have said if I was talking: part your hair down the middle. Then twist (or braid, if you have long enough hair) one section at a time, pinning the braid (or twist) to your head with bobby pins. Voila! *insert my corny thumbs up here*
There's a lot of tucking and pinning down flyaways, so I sped up those sections a bit since they're kind of boring. But in real time this only took me about 5 minutes flat. A super simple and quick up-do! :)
On Saturday we spent the day in Princeton to celebrate my dad's 58th birthday! Every year at the end of April the university has a festival called Communiversity, and this was our first year going as visitors instead of vendors. From 2004-2010 I was selling my artwork, but since I gave up doing outdoor shows last year we were finally able to experience the festival and take our time strolling around. My favorite part are the tables on campus where International students represent their countries with information, food and souvenirs. After we were done walking around, we just wandered around the campus, ending up at a beautiful garden near the art museum. I put together this little video using the 8mm app on my iphone (soooo glad Diana blogged about this, it's now my favorite app!) The song is Little Bird by Goldfrapp.
My dad's mother, my dad, me and my brother were all born in Princeton so it's always nice when one of us decides to spend our birthday there.. to be back at the beginning, everything feels right.
Do you want to comment, but have no idea what to say? Trust me, I've been there! So to make things a little easier, here is a question you can answer if you can't think of anything else to say! :)
You have an unlimited budget for your next birthday celebration. How do you spend it?
My brother has a youtube comedy channel called FleeceJackets, and after an 11 month hiatus he finally uploaded a new video last night. I love his sketches so much... they're just so totally random! If you like the video, pop over to youtube and leave him a comment, he'll really appreciate it! You should also check out his other videos while you're there, especially his corny tv commercials like Gnome Seller and Wonder Wood. Sheer genius!
(ps. camerawork & some script revision by yours truly!)
I knew I wanted to post something St. Patrick's Day-related today, but I got quite sick this weekend (my throat is still so sore I can't even talk! ugh!) and didn't get a chance to go 'a hunting for Irish goodness until 1am this morning. I sifted through a bunch of videos on youtube before finding this gem, which combines two of my all time favorite things -- St. Patricks Day and THE POTATO!!
Yes, the potato. I love a lot of things in this world, but, if you'll notice, only 8 merit mentioning in the little bio I have under my picture at the top of my blog. Only 8 things in this entire world, and one is the almighty potato. So, imagine my sheer glee when I stumbled upon this video about the history of the potato, and its relation to Ireland (well.. and Idaho, and South America). Wheee!! It's really fun and cute... and it's about potatoes, so I'm a happy girl.
I'm going to stop typing now since I haven't really slept in days, and I'm pretty sure I'm not making any sense to anyone but me... so, Happy St. Patrick's Day!
I think this is one of the coolest things ever, and so brilliantly executed!
The Sunday Funnies feature is one of my favorites, but it's my least popular post each week. I think it might be a Sunday thing because I had a feature on my movie blog each Sunday (song of the week) that had an equally pitiful reception. So, a question-- if you blog, do you have this problem too? The posts you like the most are the least read.. the ones you really want feedback on are the ones that get 0 comments. If you have an unsuccessful series, do you keep chugging or do you stop? Ultimately, we blog because we love to. So if we like posting pictures of groundhogs in glasses every Friday, even though nobody else does, we should keep posting those bespectacled animals to our hearts' content, right?
In the last week, I have become utterly, hopelessly, wonderfully in love with the SyFy show Eureka. It's about a town of geniuses who work for the government to create the newest cutting edge technology, whether it's medicine and cellular technology or nuclear weapons. The town sheriff, Jack Carter (played by Colin Ferguson, who is so brilliant --and so cute-- I feel like squealing each time he's on screen) is not a genius, but he more than makes up for his intellectual shortcomings with his wit, common sense and spot-on hunches. The show is part drama, part comedy ... the overall storyline is serious, but each episode has more than enough humor to keep it light. Even when a computer malfunction triggers a 24 hour countdown to planetary destruction, there are still jokes all around. It's geeky, but grounded. I mean seriously.. if I could marry a tv show, I would be Mrs. Eureka by now. I'm just so head over heels.
So, you're probably wondering by now.. "why are you posting this on sunday funnies day, Kate?" Glad you asked. It's partially because I couldn't contain my excitement any longer, and my family locked me in my room until I promised I'd stop talking about Eureka (I'm exaggerating, but they'll probably resort to that soon.) But it's also because this one clip from an episode I watched tonight struck me as so hilarious that I had to share it. I don't know if it is as amusing without the backstory of the episode (short story: contaminated meat makes all of the geniuses temporarily super stupid) but to me it was spit-out-your-grapefruit-juice, hyperventilating kind of funny. But then I'm sort of high on Eureka love, so I might be a bit biased ;-D
(I apparently do a corny "thumbs up" whenever I'm feeling awkward)
I've been putting off posting anything with my voice on the internet for a looong time, but when I saw this Regional Dialect meme on Kaelah's blog, I thought it might be the perfect opportunity to finally speak up. I felt like a total buffoon doing this, but at least now you can put a voice to the face. Not sure that's a good thing though, lol ;-D
Anyway, here's the meme... if you decide to post one too, leave a link in the comments, and share in my embarrassment!
Now answer these questions: What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house? What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball? What is the bubbly carbonated drink called? What do you call gym shoes? What do you say to address a group of people? What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs? What do you call your grandparents? What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket? What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining? What is the thing you change the TV channel with?
I thought I'd share how I do my hair-bump thing today! When I do my hair in the morning, my main requirements are no hairspray and no teasing. When I take my hairdo out before bed, I don't want it to be all knotty and stiff, so I stick to bobby pins (LOTS of bobby pins) and other tools to achieve volume.
My favorite tool is the Puffy Pony. It's intended to make your ponytails more, well, puffy, but I use it to make my super lazy sort-of-beehive that you see in most of my outfit posts. It's *incredibly* easy to do, and I think it ends up looking much more fun than a simple bun or ponytail. Naturally mine didn't come out perfect in the tutorial (I think my hair is camera shy) but you've seen it before in photos so you know what I'm aiming for lol :)
I may have overcome my self-consiousness when it comes to photos of myself, but I'm still weary of sharing my voice so I'm silent in the tutorial, and just have it set to music. (Not quite ready to expose my awful New Jersey accent just yet) Soo here are the instructions (including the step I left out. whoops!)
1. Pull your hair up into a really high ponytail
2. When you're pulling your hair through for the last time, don't finish pulling it through all the way.
3. Pull the ends to puff out the hair
4. Pin back any really large chunks that didn't stay in the ponytail holder
5. Insert the pony puff over the ponytail holder from the backside, and secure it into the hair on the front of your head. (Yes mine is missing a prong.. it still works, but obviously gets a lot of use! lol)
6. Use bobby pins to shape the sort-of-beehive. You can make it really tight and small, or huge and floppy -- it totally depends on the amount of pins you use.
7. I forgot to address the bit of hair that ends up sticking out of the back of your ponytail holder. I usually either wrap it around the front and tuck it under the bun with pins, or I twist it and pin it into the back and cover it with a bow or fancy little hair knick knack :)
Basically I do my hair this way every single day, except for one other sort-of-beehive style that's pretty similar except I don't use the Puffy Pony (I feel so stupid even saying that name..) so maybe if you want I'll do a tutorial for that one too later?
My great-aunt is turning 99 years old today! It's so amazing to think she was already an adult during the Great Depression, or when talking pictures started! Although, she doesn't actually remember either of those things .. not because she's lost her memory but because she just wasn't paying attention. She didn't care to go to the movies, and if you mention the Great Depression she says "I wonder if that's why I lost my job!" lol!
I made a video interview with her last year for my Documentary film class -- if you have a few minutes, it's really fun to see what a spunky lady she is! The person asking the questions is my mom, so you're not getting to hear my voice just yet ;-D
