I love when accidents result in something amazing. Once I thought my nails were dry I was using an extremely textured cloth for something. It ended up rubbing on my fingernail and ended up looking like these. Find inspiration anywhere.
Business woman meets smokey eye.
I love that my career allows me to be innovative both with my imagination and with my sense of style. Turning twenty-four in a few days brings about certain changes. In the past year I went from 13 piercings to 6. The majority of which are in my ears. I also felt that it was time to change up how I dress and express myself on a regular basis. My cursing has decreased immensely while my responsibilities have increased. The exciting part of growing up is the bedroom, wardobe, and make up renovations. I’ve moved on from futon days to actually sleeping in a bed that comfortably fits me and my two sleeping partners (Bhee and Lacy). My wardobe has gone from loose fitting, unflattering clothing to fitted, business appropriate clothing. The fun part about that is mixing and matching different styles of clothing to create one unique to myself. My makeup has developed from previously being 2 eye shadows and a chapstick to a wonderful rainbow of color in both eyeshadows and lipsticks. My recent and exciting purchase is a “hot rod” curling iron (thank you, Kayla) that allows fun bouncing curls similar to ScarJo’s character in Iron Man 2 (pictured above). I’ve been playing around with different everything and loving it. All in all I can’t wait to be 24 and grow into the young lady I’m hoping to be.
So after five days of strep throat and feeling like pure poo, I realized something. I got up today and looked in the mirror after taking a shower and did not recognize the person staring back at me. It had been almost two years since I took the opportunity and had the courage to actually look at myself without wearing any makeup whatsoever. Almost two years since anyone had seen me without it. Even though I wash my face everyday, my dermatologist had warned me to use purely water as anything else will cause the skin to dry out. So no matter how hard I tried to get every bit of make up off, everyday, it was nearly impossible. Well I hadn’t gone a single day in that time without putting makeup on as a fear and insecurity. Recently, I read a book that completely changed my perspective on everything. It urged me to focus on what really matters in my life, and although I should care about people, my happiness ultimately depends on doing what makes me happy. Previously, I had been so focused on making everyone around me happy that it was exhausting and therefore making me miserable. I changed it and began focusing on what I need to do to create my own strength and gain a voice capable of saying “no”. Things began changing, and I began doing things I had promised myself I would but never had the energy to. I hadn’t felt a happiness like this since childhood. There was still a piece of it missing though. Something that was getting in the way of feeling whole. It took five days of misery and feeling like crap to make me realize what exactly that was. Five days of not wearing makeup and allowing every bit of it to wash off after almost 700 consecutive days of wearing it to realize that I needed to be comfortable and accept myself as I am both inside and out. Without a mask; without anything to hide behind. Now, I’m happy enough with myself to share it with everyone. So, hello world this is me.
As an arts and crafts lover and someone who had recently been confided to their home due to strep throat, I saw my sister’s bridal shower as an opportunity to pick up on my most adored hobby that I’d been recently neglecting. I created her invitations on Adobe Illustrator by first drawing up the teacups and saucers. By decreasing the image’s opacity, I was able to add in the text without the invitation becoming too overwhelming. I did the same with the teabags. I then printed the images onto photo paper and cut them out. Once cut out, I used a razor to cut a slit into the top of the teacups that was large enough to fit the teabag comfortably. I used a glue stick to mount the teacups to a solid piece of cardstock while leaving a large enough pocket for the teabags. Then I stapled (using a colorful staple to keep it attractive) one end of the twine to the cardstock and the other end to the teabag. I tucked the teabag into the pocket and had myself a dainty little invitation. This is only the beginning to excitement my mother and I have in store for this upcoming celebration. I will, however, be updating about those on a later date.
Last night I was feeling a bit inspired to make something out of my usual limits. I haven’t been forced to pick my brain and physically create something since I graduated last May. It was so relaxing to just allow myself to let loose and create something on my own time, for myself. Bam.
In order to kill time before soccer tonight, I decided to go to Barnes and Noble. While there I looked in every section. I finally had an idea while looking through the craft section: learn origami. One more thing kicked off of my bucket list!
Everytime my Ma and I spend the day together, we end up having a great time. We typically end up hitting the stores, finding some cool things, and grabbing some lunch. I grabbed this mug today because I love humorous buys. If you can’t laugh at everything in life, then you aren’t really enjoying it.
I am in no way calling myself a photographer, but I did buy a nicer DSLR camera recently. I started fooling around with it and snapped a few shots. I’m attending a workshop in April in order to figure out what the hell I’m doing. My weakness is that I’m an avid scrapbooker, and I can’t stand when my photos come out dark! My favorite photographs are the ones of Lacy because she always shows so much emotion in her eyes. She’s such a ham. Some day, some guy is going to appreciate that I’d rather be crunchy and crafting/scrapbooking than drunk and flirting. There’s such a larger reward in creating something adorable and being commended on it. Some day.
If you enjoy living in the USA, and therefore are interested in it’s history, read this book. It’s not about aliens as some would assume, but a detailed book that allows readers to know some of the most important pieces of US history. A lot of information was derived from recently declassified reports. Even if you aren’t interested in history, the way Annie Jacobsen wrote this book encourages you to continue chapter to chapter. I’ve learned far more about the US while reading this than I ever had sitting in a classroom.
