feeling crafty

I love Valentine's Day! And I LOVE all of the cute Valentines and crafts you can make to celebrate. Now, I know there's no special someone I can make cute Valentines for, but that's not going to stop me. I can just make them for friends! Tonight I made a little Valentine decoration for my house church leaders (who's last name begins with R, hence the letter). I love mixing media and using lots of different papers and ribbons. Sorry the pictures are out of order, I don't know how to fix them!

Starting Over!

I know I haven't posted in about a year, but I wanted to start posting again just to document the things that are going on in my life. Art, clothes, decor, crafts, cooking, anything. Mainly for myself (since no one really knows about this blog anyway and I don't really want to advertise it until I get better and more consistent), and just in case anyone who reads might get a bit of inspiration from the things I share.
I've always wanted to have a fashion blog and post pictures of my outfits, but until I find someone to help take the pictures and until I don't feel weird taking and posting a bunch of pictures of myself, I will just have to write about other things.
Today, I just want to share about my latest project and time-consumer. I'm an artist (or at least I like to call myself one!) but I've never really shared my art with very many people. Maybe because it's so personal to me or because I haven't thought it's good enough, I just never did anything about it. But lately I've been doing more and more of it because it brings me so much joy and I've felt so caged in not sharing it with anyone else.
So an opportunity arose to enter an art show for my school and after much thought, I applied for a booth! The show is for professional artists and it's a fundraiser so a portion of the proceeds go to my school. 4-5 pieces of art were required for application and I sent them in last week and won't find out if I am in until next week! Even if I'm not accepted, I'm glad I took the brave step of at least trying because I have never done anything like this before! My media is ink, colored pencil, and graphite so obviously, I love to draw! I'm constantly in my sketchbook drawing down any crazy thing that comes to my mind. Something about it just makes me so happy. Seeing beauty around me and being able to express it on paper gives me the most joy. Here are a few pictures of my work! It's really weird for me seeing on them on a computer screen. The flaws stick out so much more for me. But showing them is something I feel like I need to do for my own confidence and accomplishment.


This was a Mother's Day gift I made for my mom last year!

I love vintage clothes, especially dresses. This one is my very favorite vintage dress, but it's too small! Sadly I don't have a 24-inch waist to fit into it. It sits on a dress form in our sewing room for everyone to see and I finally had the time to draw it!

A line from my favorite hymn "Come Thou Fount." I knew I had to put the words on paper and create something with them, so this is what turned out! I actually HATE the flowers I put on the bottom, but I put too much time into that picture to not keep it.

I tried something new with the antique book page! I love how it turned out!

trying to revive my room!

I'm in the middle of trying to redecorate my bedroom because lately it hasn't been looking very nice. I've just been using random clutter to 'decorate' which made it sloppy! So few weeks ago I got rid of all my clutter sitting on shelves and started with a clean slate. I have bright blue walls that I'm not sure how I feel about but I don't want to repaint and my furniture's not the prettiest, so my room is a real challenge! For awhile I thought it was hopeless.
But yesterday, my mom and I made one of our usual Saturday vintage market shopping trips and I found some real treasures! We went to one store I had never been to that my mom wanted to show me. Hearing about it I wasn't sure, it sounded like another lame home store that my mom would love and I would get bored in! But walking in I knew it was different. The whole place was charming! It had the most adorable vintage furniture and decorations that filled me with inspiration, and it wasn't antiquey, either. Their prices were great! We left with enough things to fill our car's trunk.
After that we just went to the usual vintage stores and markets and didn't really find anything else. I did find an awesome blue velvet off-the-shoulder dress at Donna's Dress Shop that I could wear for my cousin's wedding next fall, but that's another story. As for now, it's still there because I'm still thinking about it. :)

hats were only $4 each! most places they're around $30! i grabbed two, but this one's my favorite. and i had to get this little mirror

i love my new pink cockatoo named barbara!

this iron chair was with a vanity in the store, but i liked it by itself. only $20! it would go nicely with my beautiful iron full size bed that i could've had in my room. i just didn't want to give up my comfy queen! ..if you've experienced it, you would know. for now that iron bed's in the guest room.

and this is a picture frame i got at a different vintage market awhile back with my little alien head i made last year in ceramics class

next, i need a new lamp for my nightstand and something for the wall above my bed!

winter banquet

I don't have much to say, just that I had SUCH a fun time at my school's Winter Banquet last night. The theme was Mario World and since I got asked to it less than 24 hours before, I didn't have much time to find an outfit! I didn't know what else to wear, so I just wore one of my favorite vintage dresses! It's purple, so I just said I was some Mario Character that no one knows about who wears a purple dress. The character's name was Kammy Koopa, but I forgot the name by the time I arrived, ha! Everyone looked amazing, though, and we had so much fun! Stuco decorated the gym to look incredible. The Mario Kart Tricycle racetrack, old school Nintendo games, awesome food, and wonderful friends made the night a blast.
I'll post a picture or two. I wish I had a better picture of my dress, though!

i feel like a 5 year old in my white tights, pink shoes, bright purple dress, flower headband, and tricycle

you can sort of see the decorations here. they were so cool!

Kammy Koopa!

lookbook?

I think it's about time I update this thingy, no? I've been so busy recently and haven't had the time or inspiration to blog! But today I thought I'd share about my latest adventure, lookbook. As you can see by the little picture of me to the right, I joined the fashion world of LOOKBOOK.nu. It's basically just a social networking site that lets you upload pictures of you in your outfits so other people can see them, get ideas, and give you "Hype" (similar to facebook 'like') if your outfit is fabulous enough. My friend and I spent a good two afternoons taking pictures of our outfits and we had so much fun playing model for a day! ...But also as you can see my grand total of 1 hype per outfit is proving that maybe I'm not cut out to be a lookbook girl after all. It's still fun to look at other people's fashionable outfits and get ideas, though! Here are a few of what outfits of mine might be uploaded onto lookbook if I get enough patience to load each one. :)

sunday inspirations

I may say I want to study Interior Design or Nutrition or anything else in college, but it will always be my dream to be a children's book illustrator.
Today I read the cutest newspaper article about a children's book illustrator and it really reminded me of just how much I would love to do this! Children's books have always brought me joy and I love kids and I LOVE drawing. I'm always drawing new little characters. I seriously could go to a library and spend the whole afternoon in the kids section. I don't think I could be a writer though, if only someone could write me a book to illustrate! So for now, I'm just looking at illustrators' web sites and becoming inspired to draw my own pictures! So if you're anything like me and can be brightened up by a few sweet children's book pictures, here are some of my favorites..

oh, the joys of vintage

What a wonderful day! After a difficult morning of ACT test-taking and a warm mid-morning nap, I went with my mom to do something we love to do as much as possible--VINTAGE SHOPPING! We hit up our favorite vintage markets, one around 81st & Lee Blvd. and Dharma Gallery off of Westport Road. These two shops have mostly home things but still charming as ever. I like to go and find an occasional jewelry treasure or even a lucky dress find! (a couple weeks ago at Dharma Gallery I found the most adorable 50s brownish floral dress, perfect for twirling.) Today, not as much luck, but I still had so much fun!
After exploring those shops, we couldn't help but make a stop at my all-time favorite store, Donna's Dress Shop.. I spend WAY too much money there! Right now, they are fully stocked with the most enchanting vintage dresses, it's pretty overwhelming! I tried on lots of dresses, but really didn't fall in love with any of them, except for one.. an adorable light blue plaid dress from the 60s with the original tags still attached! It was in such good condition I thought it was a new dress made to look vintage, but it's the real deal! It had a collar, big buttons, a little tie at the waist and fit perfectly.. right now I'm wondering why I didn't just buy it! But for some reason my mom was a little hesitant and wanted me to think about it, then she asked Donna the store owner how late they were open tomorrow.. so just maybe it will magically appear under the Christmas tree! ;)
Oh, how I wish I had a picture of that beauty, and hopefully it will be there next time I go! For now, I posted some pictures of the dresses there I would be so tempted to just buy, but end up not having any occasions to wear them. If you have never been to Donna's Dress Shop, you must go as soon as possible! It's located on 39th Street just north of Westport and just east of KU Med. In fact, here's the address: 1410 W 39 Street Kansas City, MO, 64111. Go, you won't be disappointed!

(photos courtesy of the Donna's Dress Shop facebook page)