thrift store finds: vintage levi's skirt (and a special surprise)

Saturday morning I woke up feeling [temporarily] free from responsibility (finals week just ended) and wanting to celebrate. I decided to go shopping...thrift store shopping, to be exact. The "regular" stores are crazy right now, and we all know thrifting is my favorite type of shopping anyhow.

Pictured above...Tomato pincushion ($4) and old farm photograph (25 cents): found at an antique store I visited with my friend Jessica. I haven't shared these photographs yet, but I've been doing some work with tomatoes and tomato-like objects, including my own 15-year old pincushion of this sort. This one is much, much older, so I grabbed it in hopes of using it in a future art project. I always snatch up farming and gardening vintage photographs when I find them, so I had to have this one, of course.

From my usual thrifting spot: cloth Christmas napkins (5 at 39 cents each), hand-glazed Santa tumbler with a signature and 1965 carved into the bottom. The glaze on the lips ran which is probably my favorite thing about this creepy, creepy Santa.

I find lots of old, mostly worthless point and shoots at this particular thrift store, all the time. I always, always look at every single camera. As a photographer, I just can't help it. I pass up plenty of semi-good stuff, to be honest. My younger self would have wanted them all, but I have to pass sometimes, or my home would be full of cameras. Polaroid cameras, semi-okay point and shoots, instamatics... I have a modest camera collection and I add new cameras when I find ones that interest me. When I find a Nikon under $5, though, I pretty much know I am going to buy it. This particular one, the Nikon Tele Touch ($4.95), was made in 1986 (how fitting, since I was born in 1986 and my birthday is in five days). I have a similar one made in 1980 but it doesn't do very well with close-up shots. This camera, however, has a macro function. I was so excited when I found it! It came with the original manual, even, AND a roll of used film is inside. That is my favorite thing about buying used cameras...the possibility of used film. Going to develop it this week and see what's on it.

Embroidery hoops. I kind of have a lot of these. Next quarter I am going to be screen printing a lot of my own patterns onto fabrics and I want to display samples of them this way. I think it's going to look aaawesome. These are not really expensive brand new (a few dollars), but at 50 cents each, I couldn't pass them up! They are around 12-15 inches wide.

Then. I. Found. Something. That. Made. My. Jaw. Drop. I was looking at the skirts--buying used skirts is a great thing to do if you want to get into vintage or secondhand clothing, because it's easy to find ones that fit. I actually have quite a few that I really like and wear often. Lately I have been particularly drawn to vintage denim skirts. I was going through the rack, when I found this gem. A 1977 Levi's denim skirt...With. The. Tags. Still. On! You can bet I snatched it right up and headed for the dressing room. It's one size too big but super high waisted so you can't really tell at all. I feel weird about taking the tags off, so I haven't worn it yet...but I plan to soon! Oh, and guess how much I paid for this!? $2.99. That's right. Go ahead and pick your jaw up off the floor!

Check out the awesome hang tag on the far right. I really want to find a pair of jeans like that. I'm not kidding...I would totally wear them! I recently got some "high waisted" skinny pants from the GAP...I like them but they are actually disappointing in the "high waisted" department because they don't come up very high at all...not like these amazing jeans would!

Finally...my 12 Days of Christmas Day 4 Sneak Peek...today I bought Corey's Christmas present (he was there)...a cat! More on that tomorrow...but isn't she beautiful!? Adopted from the Humane Society.

12 days: christmas tv episodes

The Christmas task for Day 3 should have been eating the cookies I baked on Day 2. haha! Okay, but actually, it didn't require much more effort than that. If you thought all of my 12 days of Christmas were going to be amazing DIY projects, I hope this doesn't sound totally lazy: today I relaxed and watched a few Christmas episodes from shows I really like (while eating cookies).

First up was this week's episode of The Office. In my opinion it hasn't been as funny lately (actually, it hasn't been as funny since Jim and Pam got married....) but I was laughing out loud a lot during this year's Christmas episode, so maybe things are looking up.

The mood hasn't hit me to watch a Christmas movie yet, but that's on the agenda for this week. Some of my favorites are The Grinch (the Jim Carrey version), Elf, Home Alone, and The Santa Clause. What movie would you recommend?

p.s. I made this for you, dear readers:

12 days: writing christmas cards & baking sugar cookies

Welcome to my 12 days of Christmas series! Here's the scoop: Friday was my last official day of school for the quarter, and on the 21st I'll travel to be with my family for Christmas. There are 12 days in between, so I've decided to do at least one Christmas-y thing each day! Finding that "Christmas spirit" everyone talks about takes a little conscious effort...so here we go.

Pre-12-days activity: decorations! Read all about my decorations here in my guest post on Desirous of Everything. I have since added a few more items. My decor is nothing very fancy or expensive, but I love seeing it every day.

Day 1: The first day was Friday. Originally I wasn't supposed to have to go into school that day, but I ended up having a meeting. I finished writing/addressing my Christmas cards while waiting for my meeting to start (unfortunately I did not have a camera at school with me! oops!).

Day 2: Baking Christmas cookies! I am a really serious cookie baker, you guys. I love baking new types of cookies as well as constantly trying to perfect my secret chocolate chip cookie recipe. For these sugar cookie cut-outs, I used this recipe from Allrecipes (it has 4.5 stars and an astounding 4,600 reviews, wow!). I only make vegan baked goods, so to make these vegan I simply used vegan butter and flax and water for eggs (1 Tbsp. ground flax + 1/4 c water = 1 egg). You can just barely see the flax, but since I used sprinkles, it is not noticeable. You can't taste it, if you're wondering. I used the handy Allrecipes tool to scale down the recipe from 60 cookies to 30.

A few tips for rolling out dough: First of all, it is easiest if you are willing to just do it on your countertop and clean it afterward. This is because the countertop stays in place. I hate rolling out dough on something that is sliding around. Second, put flour down on the counter, as well as on top of your ball of dough before rolling it. You don't want it sticking to your surface or your rolling pin. Third, invest in a rolling pin! Seriously! Fourth, divide up your dough into small balls and keep all except the one you are working with in the fridge or even freezer (I put mine in the freezer since I rolled out all the cookies over the span of about one hour). When the dough gets warmer, it becomes sticky and hard to work with. I roll out each piece, make my cutouts, then collect the scraps and throw them back in the freezer. After working through each big piece of dough, I put all the scraps together and make more cutouts from them.

Corey took a few photos of me with some finished cookies. He didn't want to be in any of the pictures, unfortunately! p.s. New glasses!

I was really excited about my Christmas sprinkles!

I also made chocolate icing to dip some of them in. I made it using confectioner's sugar (which I made by blending sugar + a little corn starch in my Magic Bullet), water, vanilla, and cocoa powder. It adds a lot to the tiny circle cookies I made!

The other shapes I had were dinosaurs, hearts, larger circles, and polar bears. My family has a lot of other shapes but I made do. I think they are pretty great, actually! The other day I saw these nifty camera cookie cutters at my local camera store, but with such a hefty price tag I decided to pass on them (still, adorable).


The dinosaur cookies are probably my favorites. Raaawr!

Bonus: Did some thrifting yesterday as well and scored some awesome cloth Christmas napkins as well as a hand-glazed ceramic Santa from the 1960s. Pictures of my thrift store finds soon!

p.s. Check out this extensive list of holiday cookie recipes from various countries via Food Network. When my sugar cookies are gone I think I'm going to have to make some of these!

What sorts of holiday treats do you buy or make as part of your traditions? Do you have any signature cookie cutters?

special delivery! christmas postcards have arrived

We've established that I just LOVE getting mail. (Who doesn't!?)

I love all kinds of mail besides bills and junk mail. Have I mentioned that I get a LOT of junk mail? It's not even mine! I get a nice collection of big and tall catalogs, hunting magazines, and cable tv offers, all addressed to long gone tenants of this apartment. That aside, this is a great time of year for mail because of all of the Christmas and birthday cards that find their way to me.

One type of mail that is extra special is orders from my printer! I love seeing what my designs look like in print. There's always that magical moment of opening the box and finding 50 or 100 or 150 copies of my own design...it's so satisfying!

Well, yesterday I received my Christmas postcards. Normally my print orders are for my wedding clients so this one was especially fun since it was a personal order!

I spent my free moments yesterday filling out cards for friends and family. I only have a few more to write before I send them off tomorrow.

This one in particular is to my brother, whom I'll see in two weeks.

Do you send out Christmas cards? Do you make or buy them, and what types of designs do you favor?

p.s. We got our first signs of snow yesterday with some flurries...I learned last year that I really hate snow! I'm not looking forward to that first snowfall at all. Do you love it or hate it? I want to learn to love it...but it's just SO COLD!

diy screen printing, pt. 3 - lessons in problem solving

I was so on top of everything all quarter. Everything except one thing: making these little zines or artist books that I proposed I would make for a project. At first they went along perfectly with the photographs I was making, but then my work shifted a little and they didn't seem as relevant. Still, I very much wanted to make them. I just kept putting it off. I would work on the stories, and the layout of the books (I was thinking of them as zines but I think now they are more of a little handmade book...the title is irrelevant, I suppose). But I didn't get around to printing them. Screen printing them, to be exact. I LOVE to screen print. I just learned how earlier this year and I am really excited about all of the screen printing possibilities in my future. However, it's kind of a big commitment compared to say, inkjet printing them.

I had it all figured out though. I was completely finished with everything else, so I would simply do all my screen printing this past weekend, just in time for finals week. Then I was sick for a few days. Time was running out! Monday, I got to work. It did not go smoothly. First, the light bulb in my "exposure" lamp burned out...after only about 3 hours of use total since I bought it! It went out Monday night, after I finally had everything ready to go. I went to bed.

Tuesday morning, I woke up and went to the hardware store first thing to replace the bulb. Funny thing: there are only really serious handy people at the hardware store at 8 am on a Tuesday. I was looking pretty girly in a pink jacket and rain boots, and buying a poinsettia plant and light bulbs...at 8 am...got a few strange looks! But I had been meaning to get a poinsettia plant so I took the opportunity when it came to me! haha The new package says the bulbs will last 2,000 hours apiece! Um, what! I was so furious. The previous bulb had come with my lamp and like I said lasted ~3 hours...was it like those batteries that come with stuff and only last 1/4 as long as regular batteries, I wondered? I got home and changed the bulb, only to discover that the one that CAME with my lamp, was the WRONG voltage! Seriously! Super dangerous! It was 130 V while the lamp CLEARLY read in all capital letters, don't use a bulb over 120 V! I got back to work.

I'm not going to lie, my photo emulsion was expired, by 3 weeks. It had been refrigerated the entire time, though, and I thought 3 weeks would not be a big deal...turns out, it was a big deal. If you are reading this because you searched "DIY screen printing, etc., etc." (I know people are searching that and finding me from my stats--that's cool, welcome, maybe I can teach you what not to do today!), do not used expired emulsion. Just don't do it. Okay, I KNOW emulsion is expensive, and I know maybe the nearest place you can buy it is 10 miles away (okay, that was me) and it's raining and you just don't want to drive across town, but you're going to regret it if you use it. What happened, you ask? Well, it just never hardened all the way. When I would wash out my screen, the front would look fine, but the back would look hardened but then become sticky from the wash out water. Maybe if I had increased my exposure time from 25 minutes to 1 hour, it would have worked, but do you have 1 hour to test that out, and then to burn your screen every time? If you do, by all means, try it.

So I finally replaced my emulsion, got home, got back to work, and the rest went pretty well. I did not finish all three of my books. I only finished one, in an edition of 8. But that's okay, I have the pages all ready to go on transparency for the others and maybe I'll get to them next week, or maybe next quarter. I'll be in a studio class devoted to screen printing 6 hours a week next quarter, so I should be able to knock them out no problem.

My home screen printing studio is still pretty sweet, despite its initial hiccups. This was my third time to use it since I got everything set up (almost 5 months ago), I will shamefully admit. I am planning to use it all the time now, though, so get ready! If you've been wondering what sorts of new products will be in my Etsy shop in the next month or so, screen printing might have something to do with it, *hint, hint*! I am working on a small winter collection to start things off, so stay tuned...that's all the spoiler information you get for now.

In my next post, I will show you the actual handmade books I was printing!

Also, coming up this Friday, December 9 to Wednesday, December 20: My 12 days of Christmas! This is the time I have in between school ending and going to visit my family for Christmas, and I'm going to do one Christmas activity per day and post about it. It's going to be amazing! Cookie baking, looking at Christmas lights, making ornaments, and the list goes on...I will be posting lots of photos and DIY tutorials!

turn your handwriting into a font

I spent the weekend in bed sick, watching episodes of Felicity until I got to the end of the series (does anyone else think the end is strange?). I don't really know what I had, but I am feeling much better today. At first I thought it was the flu, but luckily it was not. It wasn't a cold. I don't have any other guesses. Corey was awesome and made me soup and took care of me. It's finals week but fortunately a lot of my final projects/critiques/whathaveyou were completed last week and I have only a few obligations this week, so I'm not very behind. Today I am resting some more and finishing up one last project that I was supposed to have finished over the weekend: screen printing three zines.

I've had an interest in zines since I was a kid. I was quite the nerdy child, with a love of stationery and all things paper, home printers, writing utensils, stickers, stamps, etc., etc. The creative side of me loved writing stories, and the nerdy side of me loved formatting those stories and making copies of them (yes, I realize how ridiculous that sounds!). My dad works with computers, so we always had one around, as far back as I can remember (and even before). For example:

Yep, that would be me. I remember learning to type on a word processor (a few years after this photo was taken...haha), and getting into trouble plenty of times for using up too much of that printer paper that is attached at the ends and has little feeder holes going down the sides. I remember rationing out pieces of colored paper when I got so lucky. I remember the magical day when we got a scanner in our home.

All that to say, I strongly believe my wanting to be an artist comes directly from these creative moments of childhood.

The other day I stumbled across Writing Fonts. It is a website where you can upload your own handwriting and turn it into a font (for $7)! This brought back memories of a time in high school when I attempted to make a font of my handwriting using a free program I downloaded. It was actually really neat, but the spacing was all off so I could only use it in Photoshop where I could control the space between the lines of text. I decided to give it another go with the Writing Fonts website. It took me 3 tries to get all of the text written evenly (it's difficult to eyeball the height of each letter and make it all equal in their template that you must fill out), but I am pleased with the result! Once I decided it was complete, I paid $7 to download it. Not bad at all considering how much time they saved me if I would have tried to do it myself again.

What am I going to use this for, you ask?

Well, I use my handwriting in my custom Etsy designs, but I won't be using it for that. I want those to be without-a-doubt handwritten and I don't want someone to compare the letters and realize it was a font. I am working on some other things that I think it will be useful for, though. For example, those zines I mentioned earlier. I am doing a series of hand-pulled screenprinted zines with autobiographical stories in them. I type out my stories first, then had been writing them out and scanning them in. I sort of hate writing them out and scanning them in, but I also sort of hate the way they look in any normal font. I think this is the perfect solution!

I'm almost done writing and formatting...then on to screen printing...I will share what the zines look like once I have them assembled! For now, here is a sample of what it looks like written in my new handwriting font:

I think it looks a little more child-like than when I actually write things, because the height of the letters is not perfectly even (like I said, the template made that difficult), but I still really like it.

my first ballet performance

Five months ago, I set foot in my first ballet class! I decided to take ballet because a) I've always wanted to, b) I am a figure skater (fun fact I never talk about here), and c) I needed summer credit hours!

It turns out my school has a really fabulous dance department, so when it came time to register for fall classes, I signed up for ballet again...and I'm already signed up for winter quarter ballet too! It is a really good thing that I am doing this. I find it so much more fulfilling than going to the gym (if you just love going to the gym, that's cool too, but I don't really).

So anyhow, Thursday was my last day of class, and for the past two weeks my instructor had been teaching us two dances (one at the barre and one in the center) that we would perform for any friends we cared to invite for our "final performance." Corey came to watch, which was really sweet. My instructor even video taped it for us, so I am going to share it with all of you!

Just remember when watching, this is the beginning ballet class, so most of us had limited if any previous experience with ballet! So of course it's not perfect. But it was really fun! This starts on our barre dance, but if you want to skip ahead to the center dance, it starts at 4:08! You can see me starting on the far right side for both dances, wearing black pants and a black shirt! Check out the guy wearing a giant, white tutu as well...gotta love the comic relief.




My sponsor Sarah also enjoys ballet and has been posting a lot about dancing this week! Check out this awesome Christmas dance as well as this post!

p.s. I'm having such a busy end-of-the-quarter two weeks but I am ALMOST THERE! I have so many fun posts planned once the madness is over!