(New) Biking in Heels

So, my birthday presents from my parents last year were a bit delayed.  My dad promised to buy me a bike, my mom promised that we would get matching tattoos.  About 5 months later, on my 6 monthiversary with the boyfriend, I received my awesome vintage bike, and went for a ride with my family and said boyfriend.  I love this thing!  I spent a decent bit of the summer fixing the brakes, but otherwise this thing is just lovely.  Of course, it won't do for any mountain biking, but for fashion, is it the best accessory a girl could wish for.  I am most excited that it will work for any steampunk excursions =)  For instance, although they are not pictured I now have a gold-colored bell and a leather pouch in the back that is perfect for sunglasses, cell phones, keys, etc.

Now, for the outfit...

red-orange corduroy blazer : Goodwill

green tank top with lace and buttons : hand-me-down from Gabby

ripped jeans : childhood momento that my mother has confiscated once again

brown Sketchers heels : Goodwill or something (yes, they are Sketchers--how sporty!)

orange scarf : hand-me-down from my grandmother

multicolored bangles : collected as a child

orange tag necklace : handmade by yours truly, featuring the boyfriend's name and class ring

sunglasses and helmet : hand-me-down from Ima

On a relatively interesting side note, Ima and I went to meet briefly with the tattoo artist yesterday--which also happens to be my 11 monthiversary with Boyfriend.  If I were to call this irony, would that be like if I posted something as my friend on Facebook because she forgot to log out, and called it hacking?

Green Beverage Day

Unless I (and Wikipedia) am (are) quite mistaken, my school is credited with the invention of Green Beer Day in 1952.  So this is my tribute to GBD 2012.  Corset!  Yeah.  ;)

purple 3/4 sleeve top : Old Navy
black and brown foliage corset : eBay (it is VERY well made, and only cost me like $10)
taupe pants : hand-me-down from Ima
green 3/4 sleeve jacket : Targét
choker necklace with gear : handmade by yours truly!
silver clay compass necklace : gift from Ima

Circuitry For You

The modem thingy.

The circuit board, removed.

The $4-ish shirt from Slobby Lobby.

The general idea.

How I plan to make it work.

Circuit board city!

Finished, fig1!

Finished, fig2!

This is a shirt that I made for Boyfriend last year.  I took apart an old modem-type thing and bought a few things from the local craft store (a t-shirt, fluffy backing stuff, and velcro squares).  The backing is used to protect one's chest from all the pokey bits on the back of the circuit board.  The velcro is obviously used to affix it to the shirt.  Perhaps the cleverest part, in my opinion, is the fact that it is entirely washable.  With the velcro, the circuit board can be detached from the shirt.  One important part was to sew the velcro onto both the shirt and the backing.  The squares I bought came with sticky backing so for some applications, sewing is not necessary but with all the wear and tear I would expect it to take in this project, I figured it would be best.  Unfortunately, the stickiness made sewing quite difficult--I had to do it by hand, and the needle kept getting incredibly gunked up.  I poked my fingers several times =(  BUT, the end project was so worth it, and in the past 8 or 9 months since I gave it to him, the boyfriend has worn it all of two times!  Maybe.  >.>

Cut & Color

In this outfit, I altered three items.  The first is the gray tunic--it was originally a romper that was a bit too small for me on the bottom.  I cut out the part that makes it shorts, and then cut a fringe into the edge, so that now it fits more like a shirt than a dress.  The second item in this outfit that I cut is the light denim shorts.  Originally, these were pants (Aéropostale actually--a cast-off from a friend of mine), but they were a couple inches too short.  I liked the fit on my waist, so I decided to keep them and make them into shorts.  The other item I altered is the leggings--these were originally tights, but because they were so small the likelihood of me ripping them was very high.

gray pinstriped tunic : W*****t (it's Miley Cyrus brand..)
light blue denim cut-offs : hand-me-down from a friend's sister
tie dye leggings : Hot Topic
construction cone orange peek-a-boo toe flats : H&M in Chicago
the 2 gold rings : antique store in Columbus
colorful beaded hamsa ring : ethnic store in Columbus
shorter beaded necklace : handmade by yours truly, at the same time I made a similar necklace to wear to my mom's second wedding

Study Session

I like this one too.  It also features something I made... ;)

white button down shirt : Goodwill
white wife beater : W*****t
cuffed blue jeans : years ago..
green and blue mini skirt : remastered by yours truly!

Yes, for the skirt...well the green bit is an old pair of pj pants.  The blue bit is a skirt that I cut into strips, and then pinned into ruffles, and then sewed.  I believe I discussed this in a much earlier post.  And my mom's dog ate some of the pins.

Masquerading

So--Saturday was this homecoming dance thing, and the theme was masquerade.  My friend and I hit up Slobby Lobby and got some plain white masks--this is what happened to mine :)

   

This is the mask, plain and white.

   

Here it is painted silver...

 

I also got Ellie a mask to play with--isn't it beautiful?!

  

This is after I started gluing sequins down--I tried just using glitter glue at first, but it needed the Mod Podge.

   

Sequins are finally done!  What a pain in the butt!

   

This is after sponge painting it with "Cloudless" blue--I would suggest sponging BEFORE putting down sequins, unless you don't mind a little paint on your sequins.

 

Here is a closer look at the paint--I can't tell if I've put blush on the cheeks yet or not, but I did eventually.  Yes, that's right--I actually used quite a bit of regular make up on this thing.  This shot also shows the glitter around the eyes.  I lined the top eyelid with Elmer's glue, then used a turquoise powder glitter and a white powder glitter over top.  On the bottom lid, and even the edge of the upper lid, I used a (really expensive) silver leafing pen.  NEVER BUY ONE OF THESE.  It was about $8 at Slobby Lobby.  I mean the paint looks great, but I think you can get the exact same effect using a sharpie--or regular paint.  I don't know why they call it "leafing", as it does not give the leafing effect.

   

Here I've placed some sticker jewels on the cheek--a flower!  The other side has a swirl thing.

   

The swirl thing comes out of the corner of the eye.

   

This is the most elaborate effect--peacock feathers AND a flower on one side.  In the end the flower ended up on the right side of my bun and the feathers on the left side of my face.

   
Same as above, without the flower.

 

This is basically how it looked in the end, except I attached a stick to the same side as the feathers instead of the black elastic band.  The stick was actually a chopstick, painted silver with the "Cloudless" blue sponge painted on top.

 

A closer look of the almost finished product--I decided to elongate the glitter on the eyes, bringing it down the nose more and giving the outer corners a more "cats-eye" look.

   

The mask, laying on the bodice of the dress.  Unfortunately the gorgeous color contrast is not as visible here..and the mask is still unfinished.  I'll have to post more pictures later :)

Blast from the past...

Oooh something shiny!

This outfit was inspired by childhood.  Simply being a kid.  The hair baubles depicted here are almost exact replicas of the very same ones I wore as a child.  Really.  It's amazing the kind of vintage-style things you can buy at CVS these days.  Okay, so they're not vintage.  Then it's amazing the kinds of things that DON'T go out of style.  Well for kids at least.  Take these Silly Bandz, for example.  This is my meager collection, each one a gift from a different person.  How long do we think these will last?

purple embroidered unicorn sweatshirt : handmade by my grandmother Connie
bangles : Indian-ish store downtown
blue and silver unicorn bracelet : I haven't the foggiest
Silly Bandz : gifts from friends
clunky red bracelet : hand-me-down from Ima
hair baubles : CVS earlier this week
sparkly heart hair clips : Meijer a few weeks ago
blue kitty earrings : hand-me-down from Ima

Lace Neck Lace

Today, in my boredom, I became overwhelmed with creativity.  I made a necklace out of lace and bamboo, and a bracelet out of ladybugs.  Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the ladybugs yet...

baby blue knit spider sweater : handmade by my grandmother Rosi
dolphin tunic dress : hand-me-down from Ima
suede-ish-y leopard skirt : 6th grade
cream tights : winter a few years ago
lilac and black pinstripe stockings : hand-me-down from Ima
lace necklace : handmade by yours truly*

To make the necklace, I began by woodburning a flower into a bamboo tile bead.  I decoupaged the bead onto a strip of lace.  The bead had two holes running through it longways, so I sewed it onto the lace as well, for extra security.  At each of the bead's holes, I sewed a tiny clear bead.  At each end of the lace, I sewed eighteen more of these beads, and a 'crystal' teardrop bead.  Tie it on, and voilá!  Alas, lace is very itchy...

Random idiot move of the day:  I bought 5" heels on eBay without realizing they were five inches.  I thought at most they would be 3 inches.  Oops!  At least they were dirt cheap, AND cute.  When they arrive, I will post pictures :)


Quote of the day...
[Ellie, on noticing her orange scissors next to my purple ones]
"Hey, let's match our scissors!  They're the same size!  Hey, let's cut stuff together!!"