So with Halloween around the corner, I've literally spent every free moment brainstorming costume ideas. Yes, I am aware it is a month an a half away but to me that is right around the corner. I prefer to make my own costumes so I need the prep time.

No hints as to what I am being (or going to attempt to be) this year, but the prep starts NOW! So pumped, you all have no idea. I love Halloween and dressing up and wearing things I've always wanted to wear but it's not socially acceptable. i.e. Wearing a tutu last year since I was a ballerina or dressing up like a dinosaur.

 So like I said last year I was a ballerina one night. I made my own tutu, wore my ballet slippers from elementary school ballet, bought cheap-o tights from the drugstore and wore a black tank top. Such a cheap costume! To make the tutu I bought a few yards of light pink and hot pink tulle and cut them into strips. Then I just knotted them around a ribbon. The more tulle I used, the fluffier/more perfect it got! I seriously love the way it turned out so much I am trying to think of costumes that revolve around a tutu. So much fun.

As for the other night I went out... yes.. I was a dinosaur. Okay let me back up, so for those of you that don't know me that well, I love dinosaurs. Not afraid to admit it. Growing up I had dinosaur figurines, knew different types of dinosaurs, and just generally think they're pretty darn awesome. After a making fun of my friend's failed Thriller dance attempt and calling him a dinosaur, my obsession with dinosaurs resurfaced. We kept joking that we were going to be dinosaurs for Halloween, except I was completely serious about it. However, how does one even make a dinosaur costume? No idea. Luckily for me I happened to be home one weekend going thrifting (surprise surprise) and stumbled upon this homemade child's dinosaur costume for $7. Since I am basically a midget, it fit me and I found my best costume in years. (It's a shame you can't see the pieces over my feet that made it look like I had huge claws). The only additions/alterations I made was to buy green fabric to make a stomach and cutting the arms so I didn't lose circulation. Voila! I am a dinosaur. (Not Yoshi or a lizard that you very much.)

Now for a few throwback halloween moments that I just happen to have on my computer for all your enjoyment..

(Sorry for not rotating it.. Not too sure how to do that.) Preschool. I was a princess. I had a boy haircut.

Sophomore year in college. Tom Cruise form Risky Business. (With Lil' Wayne. Crazy that HE came to my party, right?) Easiest costume ever.

I made my boyfriend in high school dress up as Peter Pan to my tinkerbell, senior year. 

Freshman year in college.. Not sure what to label this as.. Jazzercise? I just threw together a bunch of things mainly cause I wanted to wear blue spandex pants really bad.

I wish I had some pictures of my costumes from elementary school and middle school but alas I am at school and don't have access to old photo albums. I'll leave the costumes to your imagination but I've been... Madonna in the 80's, a superhero, butterfly, Miss America, a tiger, a 50's girl, pink power ranger, baby, Grim Reaper (I was too scared to wear this to school since all the boys are always the grim reaper so I was a baby for school but grim reaper trick or treating.. but the mask got too hot so I basically wore a black robe..), a hippie, and a few others that I am forgetting about.

Hope everyone's getting their costume ideas together and if you need any inspiration, use pinterest.com that's where I got mine for this year.. hint hint.

xoxo

Finally a Free Moment

I have literally not had a second to sit down and write on this, let alone do fun crafty things that I basically spent my summer doing. Since I do finally have a free moment I wanted to share all the little personal touch/homemade things that I've put around my room to make it my own.

Earlier in the summer I posted about how I had an idea to make my own chalkboard. Well ladies and gentlemen, this is the finished product and I love it. It's not perfect looking and a little rough since I didn't sand it enough but hey homemade things never turn out perfect. I do love it though. Originally I bought chalk but I found that I couldn't really write super legibly so I had to buy chalk markers which are definitely a better option since they don't rub off and it's really bright. So yay! One project from this summer successfully completed!

This is a project I did 2 summers one night when I was incredibly bored (clearly) and it's probably one of my favorite things that  I've ever made. ( I apologize for the glare from my window) I used cut up ads from magazines and grouped them based on color. I saw a painting that was kinda similar to this.. circles and squares and stuff.. so I put my own spin on it. I love the colors and how when you look at it up close you suddenly see all of the magazines. The best compliment I think I ever got on my stuff that I've made was someone asking me where I bought this piece :)

One of the things I get every Christmas is a calendar and I always insist that it be "weird and artsy" so I usually get whatever Whole Foods is selling. Love their stuff. But anyways each month always has really great pictures and quotes and I've saved the past few calendars I've gotten. I like to use the pictures and hang them around my room, not only are there great quotes but the pictures are really unique. The top picture is hanging on my wardrobe and I have a few others from that calendar around my room. I used black electrical tape as a 'frame'. Super cheap. The bottom picture is above my desk and I love how the 4 are placed so it's like individual pictures but also one big piece.

This year my windows have really deep windowsills (love it) but I'm on the first floor so I have bars on them. Boo North Philly! I did luck out though and get these pretty bars rather than typical jail looking ones. I also lucked out because the bars are spaced just wide enough so I could fit some things on them to decorate it and add a pop of color. I'm obsessed with Arizona Green tea and also fake flowers so I've got 3 vases, photos of my parents and old dog Lacey (rip <3), candles (LOVE candles!), a card my mom gave me a few years ago, and other odds and ends.

One little last touch in my apartment. I dabbled in grayscale painting this summer cause I was bored and I practiced on this little 4x4 canvas. Such a baby canvas I love it. Thermostats are kind of ugly and boring so I threw this little painting on top of it and bam, it's more interesting.

Hopefully my schedule will continue to give me a day now and again so I can keep updating everyone on all the fun things going on during my senior year at Temple!

xoxo

School Overload

Well it has been a few days since my last post... unfortunately I have been incredibly busy with the start of my senior year at Temple! Between 6 classes, 2 jobs, and playing rugby, I don't think I'm going to have much time for anything but I'll try to work something out with this blog.

My classes are awesome this semester and I have found that every semester my classes unintentionally have a theme. For example, last spring was development and last fall was philosophy (barf). Well ladies and gentlemen, this semester is... wait for it... sex. Hilarious right? On Monday nights I have straight sex talk for about 4 hours between my sociology course titled Sex and Society and my psychology elective titled Human Sexuality. Those are definitely the more obvious "sex-oriented" classes. I'm also doing yoga (hopefully to help with my rugby injuries and back pain), photography and visual literacy, social cognition, and social, emotional, and personality development. Definitely a full course load.

Once I get my life at Temple back under control I promise to write a lovely, well-thought out blog full of pictures and quotes and delightful things. Until then..

xoxo

Frames, Frames, Frames

So yesterday my mom and I had a mother-daughter bonding day and by that I mean we tackled many of the cleaning projects in our house that have been put off for too long. We cleaned the basement of our 90+year old house equipped with only rubber gloves and black trash bags (though I would have liked a face mask maybe to deal with the moldy, musty smell!) and somehow I got stuck doing all the hard labor of lugging bags and furniture to the curb.. We cleaned our upstairs, especially our "toy closet" which used to hold all of our toys but now holds sweaters, coats, books, cds, records, storage bins, fans, etc etc. While we were going through everything my eye landed on a pile of huge framed photos that my mom got from our old neighbors before they moved. All had various pictures like this that they had taken on an African safari years earlier.

Now these are beautiful photos and nice frames but this was a definite spur of the moment decision of my mom to take these. We don't have large photos, have no intention to really hang large photos, and it's a little weird to hang someone else's meaningful pictures in our home. So I asked her if I could keep a few (okay all but 2) of the frames (there are like 10 total) and I'd find stuff to frame.

While we continued to go through the great abyss of the toy closet, many interesting things were uncovered such as beanie babies, my driver's ed graduation certificate, long lost clothing items, my dad's old really embarrassing records, photos of my ex boyfriend and I at my senior year Winterball, and best of all... old artwork of my sister and mine from elementary and middle school!

Now here's a funny story. I started to pull out projects of mine and said,

"Oh my god, this is so ugly. I'm trashing this." 

And my mom immediately counters,

"You are not throwing any of that out! I love your artwork!" 

And I turn the artwork around and she says,

"Okay that you can throw out."

Laughter ensued. 

Long story short we went through a bunch of old artwork and decided to keep some really nice meaningful pieces. Then a light bulb went off. I am going to use the frames from earlier!

After a long and incredibly irritating process of pulling off paper, digging out staples/sharp things (the photos were professionally framed), and suffering only one surprisingly painful cut to my finger, I finally got a few art pieces framed. Unfortunately due to different sized paper and frames, I couldn't frame everything because I did not want to cut anything. Here's what I got...

 This is a practice sketch I did of a drawing that I gave an old boyfriend for Valentine's Day. So glad I saved the sketch because I think it looks kinda cool half done. Also I lucked out because I saved the nice mounting from the previous picture!

This is a sketch I did a few years ago and even though it's an apple core, I think it's really cool. Especially if you look up at it close, you can see all the different colors I used. I also used this for my final project for an English class at Temple, arguing that something labeled everyday as ugly can be beautiful and claiming that I drew it for that specific class and project.. What the teacher doesn't know won't hurt her!

This is my favorite thing I framed. I found paintings that my sister and I both did of sunflowers in first grade, 3 years apart. Hers is on the left and mine is on the right. Good thing Inglewood Elementary never changes their art projects!

Such a cute thing to put up in winter! This is a pastel drawing that I did in 2nd grade. I think my shading was better then than it is now..

Now I am saving my favorite thing for last. Okay I am completely and utterly obsessed with the website Pinterest. I will dedicate a blog later to it professing my love for it. Anyways I saw an idea on there to make some sort of wall decoration by using different colored/patterned scrapbook paper.. So I ended up with this, which I LOVE and will be hanging up at school..

I found cute patterned scraps of scrapbooking paper and cut them all to the same size then used black paint to paint on the letters. Originally I used the foam posterboard that the original framed photo was glued to as my white background. I painted over it in white paint but because some of the glue adhesive pulled off paper and just left an uneven mess, it didn't really look too pretty. So I sat staring at this for about 5 minutes thinking... where can I find long white paper... then my eye landed on a dresser in my room filled with gift wrapping supplies. Ding ding ding! Tissue paper. Not only is it white and super thin, it adds a neat crinkly effect that contrasts the stiffness of the paper. Swoon.

I love this piece partly because..

I love the song "Imagine".

Sometimes I need to be reminded to imagine the endless possibilities and not dwell.

I would be nowhere without my imagination.

:)
xoxo

Here There & Everywhere

My brain has definitely been here, there & everywhere lately. Plus I'm currently listening to The Beatles so it seemed appropriate. Well since I just got my computer back from the Apple store AGAIN for repairs (that I got for free because I argued with them woo!) I figured I could do another blog post. However, I have been lazy with my camera so no new pictures of the projects I talked about earlier.

Chalk Board: The paint worked well and I was definitely tempted to blackboard-ify more objects but limited myself to only the wooden slab. After driving all over town I finally found chalk, who knew it was so hard to find chalk? My new problems.. I wanted the chalkboard to write cool quotes, etc on but chalk doesn't write that clear so I am going to get chalk markers which is what I used when I did the chalkboards at Coldstone back in high school. I also bought hooks that were too big so I need to find adhesive tape. Once I get all of that and am settled back at school I will be sure to update with a photo!

Headband holder: This project was much more of a challenge than I anticipated, mainly because I couldn't find out hot glue gun so I tried to substitute with super glue.. Not exactly the same thing. It definitely looks messy but it's not exactly noticeable once it's covered with headbands. I'll update with photos later.

Bag: Still haven't conquered this one.

Since I am getting ready for school, I'll share some space saving ideas I have. These are super important for me because my new apartment, though newly redone very cute, is basically what I like to call a large closet.

So in our kitchen (if you call it that) there is zero storage. Basically no cabinets. The girls before us had a huge bulky storage thing like this..

 They had big canvas baskets on each shelf, which though cute, made it a real challenge to get into the kitchen. I'm talking you had to turn to the side and slide in through the doorway. Instead my roommate and I are using wooden crates. They are the perfect size, not too big, and look really cute. Last year I worked at an organic farm (the job questioned the most from my resume when applying for jobs..) and they used these crates to hold fruits when they brought them in form the orchards. My sister used them in place of a dresser in her old apartment so we figured we'd give it a try. I don't have photos from our apartment but here they are in our upstairs hallway.

Another space saver/organizer idea I've used since freshman year is using a bulletin board to organize my jewelry. Just use a pushpin to hold necklaces, bracelets, etc.

This is my much more boring one from home. The one I use at school is decorated a bit more with fun pins, a nice handwritten letter to me and ribbons.

I'll update with more space saving ideas once I move into my apartment full-time and can take some photos of different things we've used.

xoxo