Flower Fairy

 This picture is a demonstration of why I don't smile in blog pictures. Disregard my expression of discomfort/creepiness and look at the pretty flowers instead.

DIY flower crown, thrifted sweater and skirt, target socks, forever 21 shoes

When I wore this outfit to school one of my classmates said to me, "is there any reason for the 'flower fairy of the forest' getup?" I cheerfully told him no, I just wanted to wear a bunch of flowers. He walked away not knowing that he had just given me one of the highest possible complements a person can give me.

I'm really excited about this sweater. It was a lucky find at a thrift store I had never been to before. Most of the stuff there wasn't nearly weird enough for my taste, but I found this shrunken grandma sweater hidden on a rack and it was love at first sight! The first time I wore it I made the unpleasant discovery that it is the itchiest thing ever to come in contact with my skin. Being the clever individual that I am, I figured out that if I wear a long sleeved top underneath it, I can wear this beauty in relative comfort. Hurray!

I'm also quite proud of this flower crown. I assume that most of my readers also read Rookie and have seen this fabulous crown tutorial. This combines two of my favorite things: flowers and putting weird shit on my head. I of course had to make one, and I'm thrilled with it! I hope to make many more, especially now that I know my neighborhood dollar store sells great kitschy fake flowers.

Some warm wishes

It's the 25th! Merry Christmas, lovely readers! And if you don't celebrate Christmas, then a happy holiday season to you! To celebrate the season, I made a video of myself playing my ukulele and singing one of my favorite holiday songs. Unfortunately most of my head is cut off in the video, so you can't see my beautiful face. I figured you get enough of that on this blog anyway.

But enough of my rambling. I hope you have a wonderful day full of cookies, loved ones, and/or Chinese food! I wuv you guys!

Together we'll face the world

Thrifted lace shawl, Mikkat Market top, DIY faux fur stole, headband, and dyed jeans, thrifted jewelery and boots

I'm a little ashamed to say that I had been planning this outfit for some time now. I had to dye the jeans three times to get them the color I wanted, and while I was working on them I kept revising the outfit in my head. YES OF COURSE I HAVE A LIFE WHY DO YOU ASK?

The makeup for this outfit was this picture that I ran across on tumblr. I love everything about this picture! The muted metallics, the silver at the corner of the eyes, the Tim Burton-y vibe I get from it. Perfect. I made an attempt to recreate the look, but it wasn't as dark and creepy as the above photo. I'll try to make it look scarier next time.

Apparently I've perfected the vapid sideways gaze.

Also: I now have 50 followers! How did  that happen? All of you guys are amazing. Much love. <3

P.S. I've been really enjoying Irish and Scottish tunes lately. Here's one of my favorites from Silly Wizard, one of the many random bands my dad has in his enormous CD collection.

Octopus' garden

Looooook! I got a nose ring! It makes me really happy. I had thought about getting my nose pierced a few times in the past, but I never did it. I think part of it was that I'm pretty self conscious of my nose and I didn't want to draw attention to it. This piercing is kind of a symbol of me accepting and celebrating my imperfections. Also, I really wanted a facial piercing and I though a nose ring would look the least stupid on me.

P.S. Sorry for the heavily picniked photos. It was completely dark when I took them and I had to edit the shit out of them to counteract the hideous blue from the flash and artificial light. They look kind of vintage-y and attractively faded, right? Right? I was just way too excited about my makeup and giant beehive to wait until the sun comes up again to take pictures.

A passing ghost, a smoke wreath in the air

 

The other day I bought a plain white t-shirt because it was on sale at Jo-Ann fabrics. I didn't have a specific plan for it, I just thought it would be good to have a white shirt around. And I was right! I ran across this super old tutorial from Childhood Flames and immediately grabbed my seam ripper and set to work. It didn't take nearly as long to shred it as I thought it would, and the unraveling was kind of therapeutic. Before I knew it, I had a shredded mullet shirt!

I didn't wear my hair and makeup like this to school today because I don't have much time or creativity in the mornings. I really wanted to experiment with the faux pompadour and some interesting eyeliner anyway, though, so I put this look together after I got home. It was great fun!

I hope you're all having a good winter! Have any of you done a fun or interesting DIY project lately?

Chromat

The other day I decided on a whim to click the "next blog" button at the top of my blog, which brings you to a random blog. The internet gods must have been smiling upon me that day, because it took me to the blog of chromat, an amazing brand that describes itself as "structural experiments for the human body." I am so in love with these things.  They're feminine yet badass, sexy yet weird. If I had several hundred dollars to spare, I would definitely stock my closet with a few of these. Check out their web store here and their blog here. There are some gorgeous photos to be found. The following are from the blog I stumbled across:

Click on images for sources.

Your love sleeps in a velvet case

The other day I did some experimenting with a new hairstyle. I love short haircuts, but I've waited for so long to grow my hair out that I don't want to hack it all off (yet). Fortunately, there is a crafty and clever internet lady who was able to help me with my conundrum! Hannah over at Rookie (which has been my teenage girl bible as of late) posted this simple but amazing tutorial for turning long hair into a bitchin' pompadour. I was too lazy to curl the ends, so I left it straight and it became an angsty rocker-chick 'do. I totally love it. Expect to see more fake short hairstyles from me in the future.

Some fake flowers for an upcoming DIY. 

P.S. Here's a song from Dessa, an amazing Minnesota artist. Some of the students at my school played a cover of this song, and I've had it on repeat ever since I heard it. She's a spoken word artist and an amazing lyricist. The title of this post is from this song. Ahhhhhhhh it's just so beautiful!

Jeremy Messersmith sings backup!! I wrote about a concert of his here. He is the cutest.

Overgrown

This was my "creepy overgrown child" outfit. Notice how serious I am about holding my skirt out. The peter pan collar and frilly socks combined with the black chiffon and creepy gold necklaces gives it an unsettling vibe that I am really into for some reason.

And a flower crown for good measure.

Vintage dress from My Sister's Closet, target tights, thrifted necklaces, target socks, forever 21 shoes, homemade flower crown

Treasures

For the last few posts I've been yammering about how I was going to use my gold studs to make an extra-blingy DIY project. Well, I finally got around to it! Behold:

Ta-da! Remember this vest? I thought it could use some extra sparkle, so I jammed a heap of studs into it. It makes me happy.

 Here's a picture I took of some things that have been inspiring my lately. It's all just stuff that was laying around my room that goes together in a random sort of way.

I'll try to list everything in the picture: fake flowers from a craft store, vials of glitter from a craft kit I had as a little kid, elephant figurine from the state fair, rocks from the science museum gift shop long ago, leftover studs, fake leaves, antique necklaces. Actually, the gold necklace was a gift from a friend. She came up to me at school and said, "I used to wear this to church with my grandparents all the time. My grandma was all like, 'it's vintage!' but I think it's just so gaudy. Anyway, it made me think of you. Do you want it?" I gladly took it, aware that I had just been vaguely insulted but excited by my slammin' new necklace! It has little cherubs on it holding a heart. It rules.

This is my cat, Paprika. She hasn't shown up on the blog yet, mostly because she's really hard to take pictures of. She does that cat thing where she's sitting perfectly still and looking adorable, but at the exact second the camera clicks she looks away and makes the photo a blurry mess. This time, however, I was able to sneak up on her while she was sleeping! She is the sweetest cat. And, as an added bonus, she matches my sheets! She has a brother named Cupcake who is equally cute, but I haven't been so lucky in photographing him.

First snow

Thrifted leopard shirt, gifted sweater, Miracle Eye leggings, forever 21 shoes

This sweater was given to me by my 5th grade teacher, Martha. She's a totally amazing woman who would always assign really interesting and creative projects for her class. She also had an affinity for dumpster diving and thrift shopping, and would occasionally bring her students odds and ends that she found. One day she dug this thing out from a humongous pile of stuff in the back of her classroom and gave it to me, because she knew I loved cats. I wore it regularly back then, but as I got older I deemed it "uncool" (silly me) and it fell to the back of my closet. The other day I pulled it out and realized how fippin' sweet it is, and that it was made to be worn with velvet leggings, and behold! This outfit was born! I love wearing things that were given to me by loved ones. It feels so special to put on clothing that you love and be reminded of someone special to you.

P.S. It snowed! Joy.
P.P.S. Happy thanksgiving, American readers!

Studmuffin

I've had this backpack all throughout junior high and high school. It's served me well over the years, going to and from school every day and carrying my gear on camping trips. But it was plain and boring, and the front was sporting an unpleasant curry stain from a spilled lunch incident (you can still kind of see it in the picture). So when I found this bitchin' leopard fabric in my basement, I thought it would be the perfect complement to my faithful old backpack. I added a few studs in the corner, and now it matches my style so much better!

P.S. I'm not done with the studs! I'll have another studly project to show y'all soon.

She wore her grandma's prom dress, raccoon slippers on her feet

Thrifted diy jacket, thrifted sweater, vintage dress, Dr. martens boots, diy headband

I put together this outfit the same way I do most of my outfits: by taking a bunch of my favorite things and putting them on at the same time. I bleached the jacket myself! I'm so proud of it! I ruined a pair of sweatpants in the process and the whole thing still smells faintly of bleach, but it was so worth it. It's the same one I wore in this post. I think it's much more awesome now.

I feel like I should also mention that this dress is the one I wore to junior prom last year. I got it the day before prom for $25 at My Sister's Closet. Clearly, I'm not one of those girls who puts a lot of thought into my prom look. I was super lucky to find it, though! The details are just perfect, and it dresses down nicely with a sweater and some docs.

I found this adorable daisy trim on one of my frequent trips to JoAnn Fabrics and immediately pictured it as a headband. I just sewed 3¢ worth of elastic to the back of it, and voila!

Ciao, bellas!

Awkward turtle

Thrifted shirt, skirt, cardigan, and shoes, halloween store tights, target socks

I didn't really have anything specific in mind when I put this outfit together, but it came together in a nicely awkward kind of way. I can't get over these tights! My new favorites for sure. I also may have to start wearing black lipstick more often.

You may have noticed that I took a brief sabbatical from blogging. I used my time off to wear sweatpants, do homework, and make a ton of DIY projects, which I'll be revealing to you over the next few posts. One hint: zillions of gold studs!

Accordion to me (HA)

Something that my newer readers may not know is that I'm an avid recreational musician. I have a special passion for collecting unconventional instruments, including a dulcimer and two ukuleles. For my IB music class, I'm lucky enough to get to experiment with a ton of different instruments, the latest being this badass accordion!

 We're playing the song "A Pair of Brown Eyes" by the Pogues and I jumped at the chance to pick up the accordion for it! It turns out that my history teacher's mom had an accordion lying around that she was willing to let me use, so she carted it off to school and now it's temporarily living at my house. Apparently, she used to carry it three miles across Chicago to get lessons. This is rather impressive, considering that it weighs about a million pounds and she was only 10 at the time. Aside from being a beautiful instrument with an interesting history, it has a beautiful sound and is really fun to play!

The case is also pretty cool. When I put my coat on in the morning my dad told me I looked like I was running away from home in the 1920s, which I took as a complement.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this thing and thought I would broadcast it to the internet. Are any of you readers musicians? I'd love to hear if any of you share my love of weird instruments!

Sweatery goodness

Thrifted sweater (borrowed from Laura), levi's jeans, Dr. martens boots, ring from Spanish camp

I enjoyed the odd color palate in this outfit. The pastels and bright colored pants go together in kind of a strangely clashing way. It was a last minute outfit based mostly around comfort, but it managed to be much more interesting than I expected!

In other news, I gave myself a manicure! I used OPI's Get In Lime with Black Shatter on the tips, and filled in the very top with random black polish. I can't stop looking at my nails! They were inspired by/stolen from the nail polish extraordinaire behind Nice and Shiny.