you can do it all by yourself

Traditional, Minimal, Whimsical

When it comes to decorations there are three types of people. (Four actually, if you count the grouchy, under-their-breath-muttering Grinches who don't decorate at all.) First, you have your traditionalists. For them Christmas is cherry red and ever green. Period. Second, there are the minimalists. These people like golds, silvers and whites with subtle hints of deep reds (maroon, burgundy or ox blood this year if they're on trend) and maybe some moss greens. The last group is anyone else. Bright colors for Christmas? Holla! Tacky ("vintage"), every color lights?--they're their.

I find myself in the latter two groups. I guess I'm a bit of a rebel against the man. (You know, the man who decided Christmas colors were red and green.) This year though I'm saving my whites and silvers for New Year's and I'm trying to make our home merry, bold and bright for Christmas.

These are some easy diy decorations to get your home all cozied up for the holidays.

(The first one is a link to a kit which is a little too pricey in my opinion. If I make these, I'll probably get some stiff felt from Joann's and trace the shapes from the cookies cutters that we got from IKEA. (These cookie cutters are ridiculously awesome by the way. The package included animals like a porcupine, a squirrel and a moose.))

Are you a traditionalist, a minimalist, or a do it your own wayist?

masked crusaders: saving the world one bamboo shoot at a time

Halloween was a'ight, but our costumes were the bomb.

I'd like to thank the makers of felt, Pinterest and too much free time homework but no desire to work on it for stopping what would have been the unnecessary creation of felt flowers and turning my time and felt into a serendipitous union. (I googled "make felt" to see what other things people do with felt and felt flowers was the first search to pop up.)

Also, these masks were super easy and fun to make; although, for visual impairment reasons, I only wore mine for this picture and to come up behind people and say hello with a straight face. Now, I really want to make more masks, perhaps for next halloween, a masquerade ball, or any criminal activity that we might stumble upon and need to put a stop to. Paper mache, watch out, I'm feeling some inspiration flowing my way.

As for our Halloween-y activities, we watched a bit of Hocus Pocus (best Halloween movie ever, just so ya know), took photos on center street for a photo assignment (which allowed us to see lots of interesting costumes, including a too realistic Joker a la Heath Ledger variety), and bought the newest Orson Scott Card book (so good!).

Even though nights at home are awesome, we've decided that we are going to step up our celebration of holidays and random events. Luckily, Guy Fawkes Day is coming up. We're working on a life-sized effigy for the burning. (If anyone is down for a bonfire Monday night, it's on. Otherwise I'm just kidding.)

this is halloween, this is halloween

I wanted to share a spooky story, but it's late (or early) and Nick has begun talking in his sleep. (Talk about creepy--he reached over and said, "It's time for bed, you're always on the computer, you lob." And then shut my laptop. When I asked him what a lob was he woke up confused, trying to be alert enough to understand me. Weird!)

This was my most recent photography assignment. You can see the other two that I've shared here and here. The assignment was to take a self portrait that included some part of our body (no pinkies), use interpretative color, and add texture into the image. I was going for a renaissance painterly feeling of a girl reading. (Entitled: A Girl Reading) Think Whistler's Mother.

That idea evolved as I looked through the shots that my friend, Sylvie took for me. The more soft, demure pictures of me "reading" the book didn't have as strong of a profile and there was just something about the ones where my eyes were visible. My eyes plus the color I chose makes the piece a little more eerie--perfect for Halloween.

My teacher's biggest advice was to not be "safe" on this picture. Do you feel safe looking at this picture?

Happy Halloween

What are you dressing up as for Halloween? Or what would you want to dress up as for Halloween if you weren't too grown up?

November holidays

Sweater/Top/Belt: Thrifted, Shoes: TootsiesCloset, Jeans: Walmart, Socks: Forever 21

Besides Thanksgiving--coming to a Thursday near you--November has a lot going on.

I'm sure all of have seen or experienced Movember to some degree. (In case you didn't know, I am not a fan of facial hair perse, but I am a huge fan of health and health awareness and so I salute the men who are growing out their stache in an effort to encourage people to stand up and take notice that men have health issues too. I just feel bad for the men whose above the lip hair grows in sparse or weird; they look a little pervy to me.)

November is also Child Safety Protection Month, International Drum Month, National Adoption Awareness Month, Native American Heritage Month, National Novel Writing Month and I've seen some blog posts about No Makeup November as well. I am all for child safety; we live right next door to a drummer (which is usually fine, but I wish he slept in a little later on Saturdays); she has a very inspirational blog about her ongoing experience with adoption that you should checkout (I think adoption is one of the most beautiful gifts a couple could give); I am part Blackfoot Indian and wish I knew more about my heritage; and I am working on a novel.

So, yay for November! But what I am thinking about today is the No Makeup November challenge. I first heard about it over here and to be honest I didn't really consider joining in, at least not this year.

For one, I feel like I'm not super addicted to wearing makeup; in fact I used to wear it only on Sundays, holidays and dates, which usually coincided with me "dressing up". (And over the last four days I only wore makeup once.)

But another reason is that although I am not a very shy person, having pictures taken of me is still a somewhat awkward experience and makeup, much like my glasses, provides a safe shield between me, the camera and anyone who ends up seeing said pictures.

I don't consider myself a vain person either but why does makeup make someone feel more safe or confident than not wearing makeup?

Would you ever go a month without wearing makeup?

P.S. As a sidenote I want to say that I am not one of those girls that you might think is wearing makeup when they are not; I look human, in the grittiest way possible, by the end of the day and when I wake up. And not just in terms of makeup; curly hair grows exponentially larger as the time between conditioning it lengthens.