We're all human, so we should act like it. Oh, and an Outfit, too!

Do you ever have those days where no matter how much you get done, you never feel productive? The days where everything feels a little out of place, and your clothes don't fit exactly like you want them to, and your favorite food doesn't taste as good, and there's no real explanation for any it? Yesterday was one of those days for me. 

I had my day planned out, including my outfit, and the blogpost I was going to do after I got home from school. It was going to be a quick outfit post, saying "Hey! Here's me wearing a sheer Zara shirt and a 100% Human shirt, topped off with a collar I made myself!" (which is all pictured above, btw). But I was just in such a weird mood, it almost felt like I was being artificial in writing something so unsubstantial. I just felt like I wasn't being honest to only write about what I looked like from the outside, when there was so much going on inside. 

I was thinking about how I felt, which was like crying, even though there wasn't something really wrong. As I felt the tears welling in my eyes, I kept trying to come up with reasons for why they were there. "Is something wrong with me? Did something happen today that made me upset? Am I about to get my period?" But the answer was no to all of these questions, which made me even more frustrated. I think that as human beings, we have to have excuses and justifications for everything we feel or do, and not even to other humans, but to ourselves.

At this point, I looked down at my shirt, which read 100% Human.

This shirt was created as an advocate for human rights, saying we're all more alike than we are different, since we are all 100% human. I love this idea, and in no way am I trying to undermine it, because I think it's one of the most important philosophies in the world right now. But I think it can be stretched to include other ideas too.

Humans are a vulnerable species, whether we like to admit it or not. We can put up barriers between each other, and we can act strong, or like we don't care, but the truth is that we feel a spectrum of emotions every single day, and unlike our actions or words, we can't really control this. So why do we need to justify this to ourselves, and others? Why is it so looked down upon to cry in public? And why do we automatically look crazy if we walk around smiling? Why does everyone have to pretend they feel "fine" or "good" every time the cashier asks? I can only speak for myself, but I'm pretty sure not everyone feels "fine" all the time. Sometimes we feel ecstatic, and other times we feel totally despondent. And this is ok! This is what makes us 100% human.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I wish that there was more honesty about emotions, and more of a dialogue between all people, regardless of how well you know each other, or how much you may think you have in common. I think it would be cool if you could tell your cashier that you felt really excited because you just ordered a cool new sweater and it could be at your house any minute now. And then, maybe your cashier could tell you that honestly, they're not having the best day ever because their dog ran away that morning and they haven't found her yet.

A little bit of honesty can do a lot of good. I think if everyone was more open, (and I'm included in everyone) people might feel less alone in their own situations, and their could even be a bigger sense of community in the world, because that is slipping away. Sure, everyone has digital connections with other people, but how many real human connections do we make on a daily basis? Not enough, in my opinion.

  And, on a totally different side note, I did make this collar the other day, and embroidered it myself. It's a really fun way to jazz up a simple outfit.

I'll Tell You What I Want

(what I really really want)

For the past week, about 90% (maybe more) of my time has been spent in bed. I had an emergency with my uh.. tailbone area, and even spent some time in an ambulance, and the ER! Woohoo. To say the least, it has all been a big pain in the ass (pun totally intended). But on the bright side, I have had endless computer time. When I haven't been catching up on homework or binging on Gossip Girl, I've been playing this game where I go on Nordstrom's or Topshop or Net-A-Porter and fill my cart up with beautiful items I can't afford, and imagine myself strutting through the Upper East Side with my lips perfectly glossed, wearing them (yes, I have been watching too much Gossip Girl). 

Anyway, I'd like so share some of the things I've been lusting after lately. 

   Gucci loafers. Another synonym for perfection. But really, could these be any more amazing? I'm just as in love with the red pair with the cat on them, but this pair really caught my eye. I just got a pair of gold velvet socks, and the two together would make the best pair. Sigh. One day I will own Gucci shoes.

That's my meditative mantra by the way. I repeat it over and over as I do my Ujjayi breathing. "I will own Gucci shoes one day, I will own Gucci shoes one day." It really gets me into that yoga zone.

One thing I am currently obsessed with in fashion right now: different textures. This fuzzy-blanket like fabric mixed with the double breasted sophisticated-ness of this coat is such a good combo. Good job Topshop.

Socks and sandals is a trend that I will pretty much always stand behind, unless the sandals are flip flops. I'll never stand behind anything that has to do with flip flops. But these sandals, besides being incredibly funky and original, would look SO cool with my gold velvet socks too! Velvet on velvet is my obsession right now, in case you haven't noticed. Plus, brining socks into the game makes these platforms wearable in winter too. Always a plus. I found these on Man Repeller and it was love at first sight. Unfortunately, even if I had the 208$ to spend on these, they're all sold out online. 

                                               

In my first life, I was a victorian princess who went to tea parties, ate crumpets, and spent my free time in Alice in Wonderland style flower gardens. The extreme desire to own this Needle & Thread shirt is a remnant of that life seeping into this one. 

I love things that you wouldn't think would go well together, but then they somehow do. For example, to me, these pretty, dangly earrings say fancy night out, but I think it would be really fun to pair them with a band t shirt and leather jacket.

You didn't think I could make a wishlist with only just one Gucci piece on it, did you? I don't care if bombers are fading out. This jacket beats trends, it's insane! The shoulder detail, the rainbow bottom, all of it...gah! Alessandro Michele is brilliant. 

I want a Gucci jacket! I want it now! (in very snobby British accent)

Well that concludes my Veruca Salt moment of spewing off the things I currently want, although I could probably list quite a few more if you let me. If only my birthday was coming up. 

No Sleep til Brooklyn

After much internal debate and some last minute decision making from my family, we decided to take a mini trip to New York City for a quick escape from small town Virginia life. 

Packing Necessities: Patti tee, a camera, red lipstick, Jeffrey Campbell boots that killed my feet, and my jeans with a snake patch.

NYC is my favorite city, I fall in love again every single time we go. This time, to shake things up a bit, we stayed in Brooklyn. 

I've had this idea in my head for a while, where I grow up and live as a fashion designer (or whatever I end up becoming) in Brooklyn. I wanted to use this trip to confirm whether or not it actually would be a place I could live, and it definitely was. My friend, who goes to Pratt, gave me a tour of the school, and I loved it. 

Now, on another note, one of my favorite things about NYC is the food. There's just so much! New York pretty much has it all when it comes to food. Here's a mini review of the best things I ate on my little trip. 

Champ's Diner (See first photo on left)-  All vegan diner food, with a cool old but modern diner style atmosphere. The sweet potato fries were out of this world!  I ordered a little bit of everything, and feasted on vegan pancakes, tofu scramble, tempeh bacon, and hash browns. 10/10 would eat there again. 

Roberta's - A very hip pizza joint in Brooklyn. It felt a little bit like we were at a club, the trap music was so loud we had to shout to make conversation, but I like trap so it wasn't that big of a deal. Plus, the margarita pizza was soo good. 

The Bagel Store - Classic tourists. One of the main motivators of the trip was the rainbow bagels we repeatedly saw on Instagram. I watched a video on how they were made, and someone in it described the experience as eating cake for breakfast. That was no lie. 

Tea Bar (Last photo on right) - A little Brooklyn coffee shop that we stopped in whenever we needed to re-caffeinate. They matcha and chai tea lattes were superb here. (I can't really believe I just used the term superb, but they were.) 

Five Leaves (Middle Photo) - This was our last food stop on the way out of Brooklyn. We had eaten so much the past few days, and I spent all the time before the hipster waiter took our order debating between more pancakes, or trying something healthy (a word I forgot the meaning of in NYC.) I went with the healthy option, a bowl of quinoa, farro, and some other grain I can't remember the name of. It had watermelon radish, poached eggs, and asparagus on it. Let's just say I'm still dreaming of this bowl today. 

Nyc is like a different world. It has trends that catch on before anywhere else in the US, and I love to go there, just to see what they are. This visit, I noticed that oversized is everything. People were wearing culottes with big, bulky sweaters. And trench coats were everywhere too. All different kinds, but I saw a lot of furry ones. Denim jackets are a classic still too, but just make sure that you don't walk out in NYC wearing a denim jacket without covering it in patches first. 

Shoe wise, I am SO happy to see that they Adidas Superstars are finally out. Vans are the new adidas for sure. 

So that basically wraps up my trip. It definitely got my creative juices flowing, and in the next few weeks (when I'm not studying, of course) I hope to be working on some new projects and then putting them up here! 

business with a twist

my outfit from thursday

it consisted of a blazer I thrifted for 3$, tassle earrings I got from a shop near my grandparents house with locally made items, the ring is vintage, and the necklaces are mostly made by me. 

dressin up

I'm home from NYC, and with me I brought back many ideas and quite a bit of inspiration. Oh, and also $80 worth of fabric from Mood....! One kind of fabric that I got is this lightly striped linen. With it I decided to make a vintage-inspired dress. It was sort of ambitious, considering that I haven't sewn a whole lot lately, and I didn't even have a pattern. But that didn't stop me. I created my own pattern, based off one of my dresses from UO, and got sewing.

 It took me three days total to make it. That means three days of spending 80% of the day in my room sewing, pinning, cutting, accidentally stabbing myself with pins, throwing piles of thread onto the floor, and forgetting to eat lunch. But it was all worth it! I am in love with how it turned out. 

homemade

In my last post, I mentioned that I had sewn something new, so here it is! I used the Wiksten tank pattern again, as a base, but made some adjustments. I altered the length of the shirt, and added sleeves (!!!). I have never made anything with sleeves before, so this was kind of fun. I love figuring things out on my own, so I created my own sleeve pattern and sewed them on the way I thought made sense.

 I only had a yard and a half of fabric, and that made the process more difficult, since I messed up a few times. But in the end, I made it work (I've watched too much Project Runway) and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Also, I am started a right-side pocket revolution! I've never seen a shirt with the pocket on the right side, and this one is.

gettin' back into it

After the very long break I took from sewing, I have finally returned to it. 

I was sort of surprised by myself when I randomly got a craving to do it. I've been into sustainable living all year; local and organic stuff, handmade stuff. etc. This sort of just fit right in. Also, I was inspired when I heard about the slow fashion movement.(Read about it here) For Valentines day my mom got me the Wiksten dress/tank pattern, and some linen, and I got started right away. 

It was an adventure for me to make this after a few years of not touching the sewing machine, and I learned quite a bit. When I sewed before, I always just made my own patterns, and avoided all difficult neck bindings, or seams that were anything more complicated than just sewing one piece of fabric to another. Making this dress, I followed a pattern, and learned how to do bias binding, and french seams! Oh, and adding a pocket in a more professional way too. I'm so happy with how it turned out, and I want to make more clothes soon. I forgot how much I enjoyed sewing.

New Enterprise: 365 days of Secondhand Clothes

 Stores, especially clothing stores, have a way of tricking people into buying things that they'd be fine without. They'll tell you somethings on sale, when really the price has been jacked up originally and then "reduced" so you'll think your saving money. That's one problem with commercial clothing stores. Another is all the waste, all of the factories, that go into making just one pair of shorts. And when someone buys something, then they're supporting the company to create more waste!
People spend so much on clothes every year, and most of the time it's clothes we don't need.

I've decided to do an experiment to learn more about this topic.
Starting today, which is June 14, I'm going to buy only secondhand clothing for a whole year. The only exception I'll make is underwear and bras-I don't really wanna wear someone else's old underwear, would you?
To kick it off, I bought these vintage shorts at a flea market this morning.



I'll blog about it along the way, giving updates about how it's going, and the ups and downs of it. So check in once in a while if you wanna see how it's going!
I'm excited, and I know my parents will probably appreciate it too, since they spend a lot of money on new clothes for me.

Also the illustration on top is done by me.

January Art Compilation

In order to make it through January, (aka the worst month month ever, especially on the East Coast) there has been a lot of drawing, painting, reading, music listening, and tea drinking. My mom has set up a specific time called our "Art Hour," where we just chill out and draw. I look forward to it everyday, and am loving the outcomes from it. Although there has been hardly any blogging lately! Finally I have returned to blogger to show what I have been doing instead recently. 

  

Street Wear (above)

My most played artists, illustrated. 

(Perfume Genius, Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, Patti Smith and Chet Faker.) 

Patti Smith Doodle (up close) 

 

Aside from drawing people, I've really taken an interest in drawing plants. 

Especially fungi. I love drawing fungi. I did this drawing earlier tonight. 

I titled this "Sushi Girl," and am excited about how it turned out. The sushi was the most fun part to paint. 

(close up)

This one is still a WIP, but I am extreeemely excited about it. It's a portrait of Perfume Genius, my favorite singer at the moment. For anyone who is familiar with him, they'd know that this drawing wouldn't really be complete until his lips are colored bright red. 

So that's it for now. I feel like I always say this, but I will try to post my art/other creations more often. 

Tea house vibes, bath bombs, and mugshots.

Sunday, Jan. 4th.
Sadly, today is my last day of winter break, and I return to school tomorrow. I am not too sad, though, because I got everything I wanted to done, and I had a blast these past two weeks. Yesterday and the day before were especially great. Here's what I did:

Friday: our friends who live two hours away drove down to visit. After a lunch of spring rolls, noodles and Asian salad, we headed to our favorite tea house, Dobra. 

The menu is the size of a novel, filled with flowering teas, lychee tea, black and green, snacks, and of course, bubble tea. 

This is a Polaroid of me and my friend Sierra. It was taken by her brother Morgan.  

We all got bubble tea. It was fantastic.

I'm pretty sure they were both oblivious to the fact that I took this. 

I could spend hours just hanging out in Dobra. It's so cozy and chill. 

Next, we went to a secondhand clothing store, but left soon since we were all full of bubble tea and needed to use the bathroom in a coffee shop next door. That's where this snapchat was taken. Morgan is wearing two pins that I made.

Our final stop was to Lush, and it was really fun, as well as kind of weird. The Lush we went to is inside of a Macy's, and there was hardly any person in the entire store. It felt apocalyptic, but no one was paying attention to us, so we could do whatever we wanted in the store. 

The Lush guys gave us a demo. 

I bought the pink bath bomb. The next picture is from when I actually used it. 

It was great, except for all of the confetti that was stuck in my hair afterwards.