Wind Caves

My friend's car broke down on Friday, so I've been helping him out by driving him around as much as I can. He works as a lifeguard at state beaches, and today he worked at Gaviota, which is about 30 minutes away from Santa Barbara, so I figured I would just spend the day there. So I gathered up a few friends and lots of snack and we made a day out of it.

First, we went on a hike up to some really amazing wind caves.

My friends Jorge was with us and during the hike played around with my Canon Powershot S95 a bit. He knows loads about cameras so he was able to show me a ton of new things to do with my camera that I had never known before. I feel pretty bad about spending $400 on a camera and not even learning how to use it properly.

Look at this nice picture he took at the beach.

It was a perfectly lovely day.

Do

I found this picture while I was impatiently (I hate being ready to leave and then sitting around for an hour) browsing the Do's and Don'ts on the Vice Magazine website in desperate hopes of entertainment. Anyway, luckily, I came across this awesome picture. I've never seen anyone look this good while rocking so many different statements at one time. Red lips, head scarf, large round glasses, and a leather jacket. Sign me up...

on second thought, i could never look this cool

New Project: Wool Cabled Beanie

This whole summer I've done basically no knitting. Maybe it's the warmer weather or something, but I've almost completely lost the itch to knit. In fact, I even bought a ton of this yarn:

Too Much Love for Fall

I used to think the spring/summer collections were my favorite, but I'm starting to realize my true love for fall. I was planning to post some of my favorite looks from the 2011 collections (fall of course) of my favorite fashion houses, but there was too much to love, so I'll post only a few for now.
Here is (some of) my best for fall:

Meadham Kirchhoff

 Prada

 Miu Miu

Dries Van Noten

Comme des Garcons

Mary Katrantzou

(all photos from style.com)

Beaded Bow Necklace

This idea I came up with literally over 2 years ago when I was living in Belgium. I had absolutely no beading supplies there with me, so I had to put it off until I got home, and then another 2 years, apparently. But I've finally gotten around to it, so I'm pleased.

It's a bow necklace! I searched for a how-to on bow necklaces a while back, thinking that someone had probably already had the idea and could just show me how to do it instead of me having to be creative, and as luck would have it, I found this: http://www.studs-and-pearls.com/2010/09/diy-beaded-bow-necklace.html

The chain was this pretty cheap looking silver stuff I bought at Michael's, but I got it because I liked how thin it was. I used this neat gold wax metallic finish my mom had called "Rub 'n Buff"

which turned it into this beautiful gold/bronze color.

Top 5

I've had a lot of time to peruse the internet lately and find things, all of which, I am now (or in most cases always have been) in love with. Basically, I've discovered a bunch of pictures that pinpoint my love for a general idea, so that I can express it not so generally, but very specifically. Anyway, so as not to fill this entire blog with pictures that will seem pointless to anyone but me, I'll narrow it to five.

1. I'm still obsessed with colored hair and this picture

(I found all of these somewhere in the depths of tumblr, so I can't pinpoint their exact locations)

2. Cats (but who isn't), especially ones as adorable as these- I WANT ONE

3. This bed setup- I wish I was this resourceful

4. Tree houses, because I hope that one day I can live in one

5. And finally, I wish I could be exploring somewhere; traveling, camping or trekking. ALWAYS.

(maybe with a break for showers sometimes, those are nice)

Braided Bead Bracelet

I made another bracelet! This one was inspired by this: http://honestlywtf.com/diy/diy-braided-hex-nut-bracelet/ but after much frustration with the clunky hex nuts I ended up adapting it into something a little more manageable.

As you can probably see, there are a good number of mistakes, braiding with beads is really hard to keep straight.

This concept, with the twine and metal beads is something I definitely want to explore more, but maybe no more braiding, this was so frustrating to make.

Doodling

I really like doodling (doesn't everyone?), especially with sharpies! High school pretty much made me an expert and because college leaves me with slim to no doodling time, I decided to do a giant 18 x 24 picture with the only large paper option i could find, newsprint- probably not the best for this- oh well (it is a lazy summer after all). I wanted every inch covered with color, so I gathered my multi-colored sharpies (I have a lot- probably an irrational amount) and got to work.  It took a while to do and although I don't actually really like the end product, I had fun doing it. 

I thought I should show it anyway because otherwise this post would be a lot lamer than it already is.

This is almost the entire picture. Being short (yes, only 5 feet tall or 5'2" as I like to tell people- sometimes I get away with it, tall people don't know the difference)  and putting it on a table, I couldn't exactly get it in proper view of the camera. And these are it in segments:

Now I'm moving onto something else, that I'll hopefully like better. Here is the beginning (but it will probably just turn into a birthday card for my sister as most things do that I start):

These pictures kind of suck, once I move in with Eva, we'll use her fancy camera full time

Thrift Store Jewelry Grab Bag

A couple days ago I went to the thrift store in the hopes of finding more ball chain on the cheap so I could make more wrap bracelets. I ended up buying a grab bag of old jewelry (which I saw some chain in).  At first, it didn't seem all that promising aside from the chain, mostly because about 90% of the stuff was Mardi Gras beads.

So many beads...

But then I found some really cool old stuff, like this!

And the only thing broken on it was this little jump ring.

And look how cool this thing is.

There were a couple more wonderful finds like this, as well as loads of useful odds and ends.

Also, I bought Model Magic today, which is just about the greatest stuff ever.

Flower Crowns for Summer Days (or always)

After a pretty good weekend. I decided that this new week needed to start off with some flower crowns to perpetuate the good vibes. And no, not complicated ones made with real flowers and other things from my backyard that once assembled would probably fall apart due to my awful construction skills, but fake flower crowns- as tacky as possible that will be around forever!

So I drove off to Michaels. They had plenty of large flowers, which was my original vision, so I found some multi-colored roses (with tiny blobs of clear glue on the petals to resemble water droplets!). But then I happened upon some much smaller red ones in a bunch, which I realized might be a little bit better. I got both.

I'm always very ambitious while buying craft supplies

Then it was off to a local beauty supply store for some cheap headbands...
which actually turned out to be like $4 dollars each, totally more expensive than I wanted- I am cheap.
A full $8- YIKES

Anyway, here it goes

I took these, ripped off the stems (no need for scissors because they come right out (and don't fall apart!) and hot glued them to the headband. They were flat enough that nothing else needed to be done before I glued. 

thirteen flowers in all (those are my baby hands). I will post a better picture of it actually on when I'm having a better face day

Next was the big flowers

they were a little trickier because they actually fell apart when I took the stems off. With a little extra glue, they were as good as new. I glued them slightly facing forward because they are larger and I didn't want only the sides showing. 

I'm pretty happy with them. 

Even better, it makes me happy when I wear them.