Embrace Thy Inner RDJ + Ozealglasses

______Ozealglasses sports a slick range of carefully selected prescription eyewear, sunglasses, and even biking shades (holla!). Their hand-picked brands lend a modern twist to traditional styles, with thick frames, luscious colors, and dreamy silhouettes. Their brands include, but are not limited to, glasses from the nearly-futuristic Human Skull and pumped up vintage specs from Ospirit. If those aren't your style, then take a gander at their wooden glasses and embrace your inner woodland fairy. There's really nothing that compares to wearing wood on your face.



______I ended up choosing these snazzy tortoiseshell frames by Human Skull and adding a pink tint to them. You can choose a variety of tint colors (eg. pink, blue, orange) and shades (eg. light, dark, sunlight sensitive) as well as picking from a plethora of frame options. I love how their tints are actually vivid opposed to extremely desaturated colors; I've always wanted some sunglasses with rosey lenses that are actually pink, not a gray color that has a touch of washed out rose in them. I'm very tempted to purchase myself a pair of purple or amber tinted lenses in the future...

______But like I was saying, their website definitely offers tons of customization. Even if you don't see a pair you like (doubt it), you can get your inner artist on and create your own. I spent way too long toying around with potential glasses combinations and messing with their virtual webcam try-on. Next stop: customization central, choo chooooooo! That was cheesy. Sorry.



______I had Robert Downey Jr. in mind when I was making these... The man has a tendency to wear fully rimmed glasses with hue-licious tints in purples or blues. Not that I'd know much about his style or anything.

______But I would, actually, because I'm a people creeper.

______(opens a new program to conceal RDJ computer wallpaper) DowneyIluhhyouuuuuuuuu...

______(ahem) Yes, so if you're looking for some special new specs that are high quality, long-lasting, and customizable to the max, look no further! Ozealglasses is here for ya. Guys, I would honestly pick these snazzy shades over a new pair of Ray-Bans any day. Their quality and customization is astounding, plus their customer service is helpful and efficient to the max. These came in the mail under a week and a half and they were custom. Hot damn. I'm in love.



______In terms of my week, it was fan-flippin'-tastic! I won an art scholarship even though the competition was super fierce this year (there were three times as many people as there have been in past years, and friends I thought would hands down get scholarships did not). One of my college goals was to obtain an art scholarship for every year I attended the university, and I can now proudly say that I have done that!



Glasses: Human Skull, c/o Ozealglasses (identical frames here)
Dress: KnowStyle
Blazer: Charlotte Russe
Monkstrap Oxfords: Jeffrey Campbell (exact via Bloomingdales)
Necklace: Charming Charlie
Chain bracelet: Charming Charlie (similar)
Socks: Target

Everything's Greener After Rain

______Earlier in the week, I was that pesky person in class who coughed every five minutes and who you wanted to throw spare pencils, pens, and nail clippers at. I wasn't sick, but I had a case of the throat tickles that would wake me up at haphazard hours of the night and force me to overdose on water and tea. Plus, the throat tickles were accompanied by a burlesque change in my voice--imagine Fran Drescher's voice after chain-smoking a few packs of cigarettes. Yep. That was my voice for four days. I would by lying if I said I didn't use it to its full potential to wig people out.

______That being said, I'm at least relieved that lately the weather has been dreary with smoggy grey skies--to me, it makes the days much quieter and easier to push your way through. Sunny days can seem too hectic oftentimes! I'm more at ease when the weather is melancholy.

______But then again, quieter days means peoplefolk can hear you coughing better and thus detest you a bit more. Win some, lose some.



______Plus, grey days bring out all those sneaky little creatures who usually hide in dark, damp places. Below, we have the elusive and patient Mr. Slug Buddy. He and his entourage of slimy friends were loafing all over these moss-encrusted rocks, probably scouring the area for ingredients for a meal they planned a fortnight ago. Ah, the unfortunate woes of slow locomotion (and also being a slug). I hope I didn't squish one with my butt or anything. That'd lay their dinner plans to rest for good.

______But not mine.

______(produces a set of tiny forks and knives from thin air)




______I kid. I would never eat slugs, for they are friend. Just like all the other creepy crawlies we secretly adore.



Sweater: TJ Maxx
Skirt: Moon Collection, via Modcloth
Hiking lace-up booties: Lucky Brand, secondhand (similar)
Socks: Forever 21
Rose earrings: Charming Charlie
Necklace: Charming Charlie (similar)
Ampersand ring: c/o BornPretty
Lips: Hourglass
Hair: styled by momma Hval

Donuts Are Like Viewfinders

Donuts Are Like Viewfinders, Lithographic print, 18"x10"

Lithography, Spring (March) 2014

______Here we have my second lithographic print! I'm enjoying formulating personalities for my made-up creatures, these being rather loop-like and possessing some sick hovering abilities. Now we've got sea croissants and land donuts. Next up? A biological pastry critter that holds dominion over the sky. I ain't even playin'.

______I actually had a different image before this one, but it ended up sucking up so much ink when I was preparing it for printing that turned into a ginormous black blob--my professor jokingly named it, "Black Bears in a Black Forest at Midnight." Holding back my manly tears, I sheepishly grained the black blob away from my litho stone and moved on to bigger and better things. Like dancing donut critters.



______Somehow, I flawlessly pulled all six of these prints from the press with finesse. I think the lithography gods felt bad for me and let me print without repercussion this time around. Maybe the inky blob stone was actually some kind of sacrifice needed to print properly. Who knows.

______I posted my success to Facebook, and mi professora saw them and shared them to her wall, thus making my soul happier than a friendly fern in a friendly farm of ferns. That was just as difficult to type as it was to read.

Sparrow Keeper + DressVenus

______This dress, this lemon-y-licious cape, and these rings were all courtesy of DressVenus. When they bestowed a generous budget upon me to shop around with, instead of plucking items of no relation, I opted for creating one mad interwebular ensemble. DressVenus has webpages upon webpages full of wholesale clothing and accessories, and I had more fun than a fly in poop farm browsing them all. This dress has a darling sparrow pattern and is woven from a hefty fabric that will last for years to come. This cape is the perfect shade of mustard and has an addictive swinging motion to it, though the buttons could have been sewn on with more than one strand of string. Nothing I can't fix! Except for that one button I lost in our driveway after leaping 007-style into the backseat of my dad's truck. Whups.

______For a while there, I was unsure if my order had gone through--I hadn't received any e-mails back about the sponsorship when I sent my order number over, but then a month and a half later, everything had arrived in the mail. I e-mailed the folks and they were quick to reply after I noted that I had received my items, but the lack of communication in between made it a tad unsettling.



______And now to Ali with the weather. Oh wait, she's already speaking...

______....On to Ali with the weather, anyway!

______(stop talking in third person, you twerp!)

______Gosh, you could be nicer about it.

______Spring has finally sprung, my precious little pecans, and it's as refreshing as it is blinding. I'm not used to all this sunshine and all this mucky green clover stuff that's crawling all over the ground and in the crevices of sidewalks. I'm also not used to seeing all these campus dweebs and dweebets sporting Nike shorts without pairing them with their trusty leggings and Ugg boots. Most of all, I'm not used to having the air infested with those foul, winged creatures we call wasps, those dainty creatures we dub butterflies, and of course, those delectable and elusive creatures that we know as the toastflies.

______Just kidding. Toastflies only spread their wings in autumn. You knew that.



______Oh! And as if this post wasn't haphazard enough, I'll letcha know that I'm also over at Lily's blog this week while she's on her social media fast--check it out for a compelling backstory that humorously illustrates the creation of this blog.



Sparrow print dress: c/o DressVenus (extremely similar)
Yellow cape: c/o DressVenus
Rings: c/o DressVenus (pointed ring, curled ring)
Socks: Forever 21
Oxford heels: Jeffrey Campbell (similar)
Necklace: Charming Charlie
Earrings: Betsey Johnson via Nordstrom

Pink Can Be Badass, Too + A Rant

______I've been thinking about creativity.

______The other day I was scrolling through Tumblr and came across an image that I thought a person I knew had drawn, a person who we will call Jessie. It had thousands of notes. "Hey, that's Jessie's picture!" I thought excitedly. "Good for them!" But upon closer inspection, it wasn't exactly the same image. A few stray lines were here and there. I knew Jessie had posted their version to Facebook, so I opened the two side-by-side and compared them. They were nearly identical. It was, disappointingly enough, a copy. A disappointing copy that Jessie had clearly made of the drawing from Tumblr.

______When I Google searched the Tumblr image, it came to an artist who had posted it a few years ago. It had been re-pinned, re-posted, and such so many times that the artist name had been lost, thought not a struggle to find. It's disheartening to think that a person I know would copy then claim another artist's image as their own. Maybe they don't think it's a big deal. But... it kinda is. Yuck-o.



______That's not to say it's wrong to look and be inspired by others' art, absorbing their ways of making or utilizing a technique you hadn't thought of, along with viewing source material as a reference--because it's most definitely not. Looking at other art is the only way to grow and not have your art look like other art! And references are great ways to make sure an aspect of your work is accurately depicted, as is copying it for the purpose of pure practice. However, to directly copy something line for line to the point where it's practically a replica, then adding an extra line or two and calling it your own? That's sort of more disgusting than a moldy egg sandwich.




______I understand that coincidences may occur, but coincidence and inspiration have to stray from each other at some point. The fact that Jessie turned their art in as an assignment, as their own, is what bothers me the most. Maybe the original drawing isn't the most renowned piece of art in the world, but it's still someone's creation. So why would a person say it's theirs? Whyyyyy? What would you gain except for a cheated sense of praise?

______I apologize for the grumpy gargoyle mood in today's post, but I suppose a blatant disregard for artists is one thing that picks at my nerves. Especially when it's another so-called "artist" doing it. People shouldn't get credit for what they didn't work hard at. You gain so much more through failure and actually trying than you ever will from turning in something that isn't yours. Art is something that should come from a person's own artistic knowledge, not an uncredited image from Pinterest.

______What's one thing you could rant on for hours about?



______On an outfit note, these snazzy-fierce Jeffrey Campbell boots were a Christmas present from the parental units. I think they make for a surprising combination with this hot pink dress. The metallic heel and embossed snake print in the leather caught my eye quicker than a bearded man in a room full of beardless men would. Nature calling? No, no. Shoe calling? Yes, yes.

Dress: Cynthia Rowley, via TJ Maxx (similar)
Sweater: via TJ Maxx (similar)
Boots: Jeffrey Campbell, via RevolveClothing
Necklace, earrings: Charming Charlie
Hair: styled by my most beautimous mother