once in a while, she don't wanna call you

I only have phone pics to offer in this post... sorry for the dingy quality. (Check out my neapolitan ice cream hair situation from early this year, haha. One's bound to have misadventures every now and then when working with bleach.)

It's been a ruff and tuff year, oh man. Oh lordy. Ding dang dong, was it RUFF STUFF! Earlier I was making a list of positive things this year offered: televised musicals, Carly Rae Jepsen, trendy Nintendo apps, getting to know new friends and reconnecting with old ones, music I enjoyed. My therapist wants me to give more weight to the positive. I don't want to undervalue any of these things. They have kept me afloat, for sure.

"This has been the worst year of my life" is a phrase I'm trying to avoid fixating on right now, however apt and truthful it seems, because I know there have been rough times in the past, too. I've had pretty bad episodes before. Now that I am far away from those times, their gravity doesn't have a hold on me, and I can't remember every moment of angst. But I think it's okay to say "This was an excruciating year" and acknowledge that, and look forward to being disconnected from it.

My prayer for 2017 -- besides continuing to just survive, white-knuckled, teeth grit, eyes on the horizon -- is simply to make things... make use of my hands and brain and time.

However, to kick off the year, I'd like to just take a break from everything. I've been mostly absent on social media because of my shaky mental health (particularly since the election), and I know it has benefited me. So I feel like I would like to disconnect a little further and see how that treats me!

If I want to blog here or make videos or have an active presence on Twitter/Instagram, I will. But I'm taking it off my mental to-do list for a bit, if that makes sense. If you don't see me around for a stretch, I'm just on hiatus so I can take care of myself, okay? :)

Let's all have as productive and pleasant 2017 as we can!

Read More

"So..."

Finally filmed that haul I mentioned last month.


I also filmed this doll collectors tag!


I'm halfway-ish, I guess, through my Habitica party's November "Work On Your Project Daily" challenge. Many are writing, one is painting, one is coding. I've missed 3 days out of the 17 so far. I have definitely not written every single one of these days, but for me, writing on this project (which is currently 64k words -- for perspective, the first Harry Potter book is ~77k) often includes hours of research (aka Googling) to decide on details, and hand-writing pages of notes.  It's been a trying time, in terms of what's going on with politics and the state of things, to try and concentrate on something that is comparatively silly, even if I need that kind of escapism and to not be frantically worried all the time.

After I publish this post I hope to hop right into my writing (but lbr, I'll probably watch YouTube videos for a while, then roll sluggishly into my writing).

Read More

somewhere deep inside of these bones

What? I can't believe October is over. :( I was looking forward to this month for ages, and it has drained away from under my feet so fast.

I spent most of the month writing. Joy! Joy! Joy!!! Writing is the thing I treasure the most in my life. I would choose it over every other hobby I have. But it also the most difficult hobby I pursue, and the most touch and go even when I am at my best. I haven't written in over a year, and not seriously in a couple of years. So I'm shocked that I've been managing some hardcore writing when my state of mind feels so diminished and my energy levels at an all-time low and have just been limping through everything in life. In some way, it is like a safety net that has caught me at the bottom of this months-long freefall, I think. Or maybe it's like one sense growing stronger when all the other ones have been lost.

After thirty days of this business, my brain feels like a stripped tire. A scooped melon. A mere husk. This is pretty normal around the 30k words mark for me. I've taken a couple of days off here at the tail end of October in the hopes I can recharge a bit, because in November, I'm participating in a writing challenge on Habitica alongside my party, some of whom are writing for NaNoWriMo. I'm not doing NaNoWriMo myself, but a daily goal is very helpful for me at this point in my story.

Realizing that my ability to write will eventually click away again, as per usual, is excruciatingly sad a thought for me right now, but I'm grateful that I wrote even once this month, let alone so many days in a row with such dedication and concentration. It is a gift that I have been treasuring.

This month, I have also a) temporarily joined my mother's church choir because they are singing for an Evensong service "Cantique de Jean Racine," which I sang in high school and still know, and b) taken a knitting lesson. Still rubbish at knitting. Still barely an alto.

Anyway, here's a picture of Drew.

Drew has been wearing this little periwinkle-ish number Anne made me for a few weeks, and I made this hat in August, or something like that. All this purple is quite unusual for any of my girls to be decked out in!

When I took her outside earlier, I saw that her RIT-dyed hair is starting to really fade a lot. I think I may contact the woman who customized her (who lives in the same city as me! Last I checked, anyway) to get it fixed, because I don't know that I feel up to re-dyeing it myself. But it will have to wait till 2017, I think. I already know my budget is going to be tight as can be this holiday season.

Now I'm going to spend the remainder of my Halloween evening by singing "Jack's Lament," finishing this hat, and perhaps watching some Supernatural.

Read More

90s Teen Witch Part 2

Happy October. I can't believe we're almost halfway though it! Stop going by so quickly, October!

I'm finally starting to limp into recovering from my #cruelcruelsummer. I couldn't wait for the weather to be cooler, for it to seem like fall, just so I could feel like summer was over with. Now here we are, in spoop season, and I want the days to slow down so I can soak in the chill and not have holidays looming.

The other day I got this cute romper from the sale rack at Target. I didn't realize it was a romper until I was trying it on, but I still liked the top enough to get it; I figure I will wear it with a black skater skirt I have, because I need more volume on bottom than this offers. But it spoke to my witchy feels! And I thought wearing it with a choker would treat me just right. I got this one today. (I love that chokers are "in" right now!! Thank you, 20-year fashion cycle! I'm just going to go ahead and say that, yes, I'm still deep, deep in the 90s Teen Witch aesthetic that I posted about here.)

Looking at chokers, I was reminded of my favorite autumnal movie, Sleepy Hollow (which I can't watch this year due to Johnny Depp; it will take me some time to separate the art from the artist. Such a freaking bummer!!) because in it, Christina Ricci has this necklace I'm obsessed with.

It's not a choker, per se, but it is a short necklace with a star-shaped charm that she wears throughout the movie on different ribbons. Ob-sessed with Christina in this movie. Her fantastic costumes, her thick blonde hair, her bleached eyebrows. While I was looking at chokers, I kept thinking, "Oh, that's Katrina-esque. I want it because it's Katrina-esque, but I know it wouldn't look good on me." So I did the next best thing and found them online so I could compile this little post.

( one, two, three, four )

If I were better at Polyvore (is that still a thing?) you can bet I'd be compiling modern day Katrina van Tassel fashion boards.

In doll news, I am going to film a little haul sometime soon. I really wish I could film an autumny dolly dressup with Gavin; we'll see if I can manage to do both. Gavin's so hard to dress, yo!!

Read More

neither looking forward nor looking back

It's been a grip!

First things first: I finished another dolly dressup video.  Here it is.


My dad is out of the hospital now. He was there for 12 days, most of which were spent on a ventilator in the CV ICU. Despite a rough transition home and some hard days and nights, he's on the road to recovery. He isn't able to speak above a whisper yet due to the ventilator messing up his throat, even though he's been off it for a few weeks now.

I'm grateful he's home and doing well. But I can't wait for this period of time in my life to be over. I'm so glad it's September. It won't feel like autumn where I live for another month, at least, but I am looking forward to it being autumn just to feel like this summer is in the past. I want to feel adjusted and like I have the mental room and physical energy for other things.

Yeah, it's been a rough time. But I have to end on a positive note. When I journal, I dump out all the negative things first, then finish off an entry with a list of positive things, no matter how small and inconsequential they may be in comparison to the negative things. It helps to remember things aren't all bad. My therapist has asked me to keep a journal of positive things, and I'm like, "I'm way ahead of you. I already do this."

• my cat was being super cute yesterday
• clean bedsheets!
• fresh haircut/bleach = fresh pink
• crocheted a deer hat while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, and man, it was pleasant!! I wanna do it again! Maybe even today!
• visited with my friend and his wife
• don't make fun of me, but... the only celeb I remotely care about dropped the name of his Snapchat and has been blessing me with ridiculous selfies and videos!!! 

It really, truly is the small things in life.

Read More

fences

This has been one of the most difficult summers of my life. If you have positive vibes to spare, please send them my way. My dad has been in the hospital for four days and will likely be there for several more, as he had some major heart surgery. I'm sorry I don't have happy news to report, anything fun to share, or anything else really going on... I really wish I did.

As you know, I don't like to post bummer stuff here. That's just what's up.

My Blythes have been packed away in my closet since late May (I started out June by painting my bedroom). I just unpacked them again today. I dressed Mallow, but left my other girls naked.

It's so instinctive for me to dress Mallow in light colors and pastels, but since none of my dolls were wearing anything at all, all of the clothes and shoes I have for them were available to pick from, and I decided to try and do something different. I ended up using this brown and blue checkered dress, blue tights, a navy tutu as a petticoat, brown CoolCat boots, and this new deer-eared headband by dinosaurparties which I got in a trade.

To see the outfit come together was rewarding, and to try something new for Mallow was, too. It's super hot out, not really time for tights or fur-trimmed boots or anything autumnal, but who cares?

That is it! I just wanted to post at least once while it's still July.

Read More

paint it pink™

So, dealing with health issues is only one thing I've been up to. For the past two weeks or so, my room has been torn up in various ways, as I've been painting it pink. (Duh!) My room has been green for at least ten years, and I've been planning to paint it pink for 2+ years; I've had paint samples I got back in 2014 sitting in my room all this time.

Last week, I was at Home Depot five out of seven days, picking up samples and finally gallons of paint, and new outlet covers, as mine had been essentially painted to the wall. I was painting patches on the wall and wasn't satisfied with any shade; I was having a hell of a time getting the pink to be light enough. I was moving all my furniture in stages, gathering up tons of stuff in bags (my dolls are all each individually wrapped and in my closet), spackling nail holes, taping, and finally painting.

I chose a very pale pink that was technically under the "red-toned whites" section.

The above picture is off my phone and I took it while in the process last week, so it's weird and grainy and not completely color-accurate, especially since that was only one coat deep. The green was gnarly to cover up, I don't mind saying. It literally took three coats to not be able to see green through it. It also took many days of revisiting, as I did my room two walls at a time.

In the midst of all this, I was going to doctor's appointments and getting bad news and immediately dealing with it. I was sleeping away from home half the time so I wouldn't be inhaling paint fumes all night. So coming home to my room being not so much the sanctuary it typically is, all my stuff packed away or otherwise inaccessible, has really contributed to my sense of stress. I really didn't know I was going to be dealing with health stuff or I might not have started the project.

Painting my room was, in the first place, something I was finally doing for myself, something in the vein of self-care. A change, something else I could put focus and energy towards (e.g., substitute obsessive thoughts about bad things with obsessive thoughts about painting) -- something to make me happy. The process hasn't been super smooth, but now that I'm rounding the bend with my progress and have the actual painting part totally done, I'm really looking forward to getting my room back to being functional and tidy. I think that will actually help my mental state a lot.

It's time for me to tackle the cluster of furniture, move stuff back where it's supposed to be, get rid of things I think I can part with, and ponder about more small changes to my space.

Currently I'm also repainting my bedside bookcase, and I still need to spray paint my mirror, but I haven't been able to make myself get back to Home Depot just yet.

Read More

ain't no cure for the summertime blues

It's summer, or just about.

I'm taking up swimming this summer. Until going yesterday, I hadn't been swimming for probably over ten years. The pool I joined, pictured above, was the one I went to when I was a kid. My sister and I would go almost every single day, sometimes for a good four or five hours. It's sort of funny to be back there after all this time. But the water was lovely.

As a glasses-wearer and a person with pink hair, I can't submerge myself fully. I can't see if I take my glasses off, and as for my hair, I fear it turning some weird putrid shade and/or just damaging it even more than it already is. So although I'd love to flip around under the water, that just isn't in the cards. But the exercise will be nice.

In other news, I am having a really difficult time right now. While I finally got my health insurance situation sorted out (it took several weeks and was massively stressful for me), getting that done started off a domino effect, so right now my life is an endless kaleidoscope of waxing and waning and intertwined medical stuff. New doctor. New psychiatrist. New medications. New diagnoses of various things that are wrong with me. Tests that are still in my future.

To be honest, I'm extremely depressed. My mental health has been shaky this year already, and to be dealing with physical stuff on top of it... it's difficult, and I feel very alone and very overwhelmed. I almost feel like for a while, my life is not going to be anything other than dealing with this stuff. It's probably going to take me some time to process and adjust.

In the end I have to be thankful for modern medicine and how great it is to be able to catch health issues before they cause too much damage or become immediately life-threatening. I have to be thankful that there are medicines I can take for what ails me. Despite what's wrong, I am still a fortunate person because I could have it so much worse, be so much worse off.

However, that said, this summer is going to be a struggle for me.

I don't really post about stuff like this here as a rule. If it weren't for the fact that I feel like there is a sense of expectation that I can and will make doll-related videos regularly, I wouldn't mention it at all. But what's going on right now is majorly affecting my energy levels, my headspace, my motivation. I'm doing all I can to scrape by day to day right now, so I may come back and post soon about other stuff, but I may not. That's what's going on. ("Nothing's fine, I'm torn!")

Read More

Heart of the ocean...?

I'm all bizarrely into this one shade of blue-green lately... it's hard to name in particular, word-wise. (Is it... dark... teal...?) Also Pantone-wise, I can't officially place it, because monitors all look different. I can't really link that with confidence that it's the color my eye really wants to see... but you get it the gist, right? It's a shade of blue tinged with green, but not so much you'd see it and think, "That's green!"

And it's hard to find out in the world, in terms of clothes or -- as pictured -- nail polish. It's really easy for the color to be a touch too green and wind up looking like some cheap dark green vinyl restaurant tabletop, as that Nuance polish is. (I'll still use it -- dark nail polish suits me best.) I think I'm going to try mixing in that blue Orly shade (I've had it for years and it's one of my favorites!!), but the Wet n Wild one, I thought maybe ombre nails or something...!

The other week I scoured the fabric racks at the craft store for a shade that was right, but they were all too green or just plain ol' blue. So I went to the embroidery floss. I picked out some, but then just got carried away and picked out more and more because I got inspired to do some embroidery! Hopefully that'll be my next project. This kind of color doesn't go in my room at all, but I gotta follow my bliss.

Don't mind Fey. She's part of the blue-green obsession currently. Another thing I can't get enough of right now is this OGX argan oil conditioner. (Oh, excuse me, "hair butter.") I use the other deep conditioner, too, because my poor bleached hair really needs the extra help now and again. Leave-in conditioner is a completely new experience for me...

Basically, these pictures are representing the mental color shrine I'm slowly building. Maybe I'll even clear off one of my shelves and create a tableau. I've done it before.

Read More

Just so typically me.

I made this little pink deer hat for a trade -- white/frost hats aside, I usually make these hats in variegated yarn, I think it looks better that way. But! I love pink, so I like how this looks. Not so much in pictures, but in person it looks soooo bubblegummy and nice. I'm making myself one out of the rest of the skein and I think I'm gonna froof it up ridiculously. Beading? Applique? Yes?!?!

Today I painted an embroidery hoop for that Lemongrab piece I did. I painted it gold, since the fabric has those gold triangles on it. This scrap of cardboard has been my palette for projects the past few years... I think you can tell that I like to paint things pink and gold.

Yep. "It me." I'm not saying that if I could start with a completely empty room like in The Sims and decorate it to my whims that it would look like that palette, but... it probably would. I'll let you know when I find a place for that Lemongrab piece. There's too much stuff on my walls already.

Here's one of the garlands (yes, plural) I made the other week hanging over my mirror -- this one doesn't have green, just pink, white, pink/white, and neutral goldish/white. It's highly unnecessary. Like, my room just plain does not need this.

(But doesn't my Enid Collins mouse box bag just ~go~ in my space? It's crazy. Also, those leis are left over from my birthday... not sure what to do with 'em. But they're not usually there. The bunny ears, however... yes. Always there.)

Oh, to close out this entry, I wanted to post about Mallow's dress. I never mentioned this dress in a haul or anything, but I snagged a House of Pinku dress last year (LAST YEAR!!!) and Mallow has been wearing it ever since. It's got this sweet heart beading on the bodice! It's presh to death. House of Pinku makes dresses I adore, but I never seem to catch them, and they are technically beyond my Blythe budget. I'm very good at sticking to that budget and am rarely tempted by things that bust it, but I don't mind going over it every now and again if it's for something I really love like this dress.

Underneath it is a MINI JIJO tutu skirt thing, and of course, Mallow was my helper model for the pink hat. With all this pink on, she looks like a blonde.

Read More

e.c. mini (my bag, baby)

Happy Friday the 13th! I'm getting good vibes off this day.

Last weekend was the ol' b-day, and I don't mind telling you it was a prosperous one. I got hella gifted! It was a pleasant surprise. I kind of dread birthdays, for every conceivable reason. I'm getting older? I have to socialize?? I have to think about my life whilst feeling it run out like so much sand in the hour glass and reminisce and wind up feeling existentially horrible?

I am not a hugely material person (although I know my propensity for going "yay!" here and taking pictures of things I've recently gotten doesn't make it seem such; I appreciate stuff, of course. I am a Taurus) but get truly touched at the notion of anyone thinking of me in particular. Being known as a person is just nice, and I got a few gifts this year that made me go, "Wow, this person really knows me and my whole steeze." My best friend K sent me a package with lots of stuff in it, but I wanted to take pictures of this item in particular just because it's so stinking cute??

It is a wooden box bag from the 60s, made by Enid Collins, and it has a pink mouse (!!) on it! In person it looks extremely good, too -- the eye doesn't catch the imperfections that the camera lens does. It is so buttery in person. I love vintage as much as the next Beatrix, but it also it tends not to suit my personal style, but this is PERFECTION!

K and her mom both collect these box bags, which can be carried as a purse or just displayed. She called it "mid-century Etsy" in style, and she's delightfully right. But more than that, UUGHHH!! She said that she thought of me when she saw this design and hunted one down for me, and it really is perfect. It totally just goes with me.

I can probably fit my phone, a pack of gum, a tube of lip balm, and a small card-holder situation in here if I want to really carry it. It has this gigantic mirror in the lid!

Right now it's just on display hanging from the toadstool hook by my mirror. Looks so cute!!

(Oh, and for posterity, I found a couple of "this looks like it belongs in my room" tissue paper sets in the dollar section of Target and have been making these little tassel garlands out of them. My room absolutely doesn't need this going on, in retrospect.)

Read More

"You made me!"

As I mentioned, I've been keen to embroider, although I've been waiting on some fabric from my sister to really let it rip. But I wanted to do something in the meantime.

It's sort of a given these days to do pop culture embroidery -- it makes what most people think of as an old-fashioned granny thing relevant and hip. So many 30 Rock and Arrested Development quotes on hoops out there. Not that there's anything wrong with that! I'm guilty of worse. Also, I like embroidering text. There's something satisfying about it. But I didn't really want to do something that was pithy that I wouldn't actually want to display somewhere after making it.

I decided to do this go-to phrase from Adventure Time. Adventure Time in general is a go-to for me and this isn't even the first creative project I've done this year with AT characters. I actually quite feel like the Earl of Lemongrab on a deep level. He struggles to relate and to know his purpose, and so do I. He's high-strung, ridiculous, and annoying, and so am I.

I didn't really plan out anything, as I just did the first thing that came to mind, but applique became part of the process almost immediately. I used to do tons of applique with felt, and now I rarely do (the last time was when I was stitching felt lollipops onto tulle for my Princess Lolly Halloween costume), but I knew I could do a better job actually constructing Lemongrab out of felt than I could embroidering him. So he's both embroidered and appliqued, with the exception of his nose, which is just glued on.

I just kicked back and worked on it while listening to Daft Punk, going from start to finish in a few hours.

But look, a little rainbow fell across him as I was taking pictures. Acceptable!!

Read More

April showers

So, April was troublesome for me! As I posted before, March was a month of growth for me, and in a way I think April continued that trend, but with more of a "strength forged in the flames of adversity" angle. That sounds pretty dramatic, haha. But I did things this month that really tested me in terms of my anxiety disorder, and if I look back to where I was a year ago, let alone four or five (or even ten, since I first went into therapy in '05), the fact that I can tell that I have made progress -- even if it's very gradually -- is amazing to me. Honestly. If my self from the mid-aughts could see me now, she would probably cry. She never would've been able to imagine any of it.

Really, no normie would look at me or my life and think I am accomplishing anything big. People who can just do typical life stuff without it pinging on their personal Richter scale and having mental health ramifications... they don't get it -- they can't get it. Which is lucky for them. But I'm just happy that I got through April somehow, and even though it had its challenges.

Jeez, I'm literally listening to Break My Stride right now.

Anyway, yes, I did have computer troubles, health insurance troubles, personal and existential woes, and here at the tail end of the month I'm having a hilarious little health blip (no biggie!! Just kind of an "oh, of course, let's add to the pile" annoyance).

But I am relieved that I got the computer and health insurance stuff sorted (at least, I hope!!!!) and there's a lot of stuff I'm really grateful for:

• that my little health thing isn't much worse
• spending really nice time with my younger sisters
• having work be calm enough that I could withdraw from the world a little and focus on other stuff
• FRESH PINK ON MY HEAD
• smooth sailing on a day where I had tons to do
• rewatching Bunheads with my friend L
• cheap nail polish... check these galaxy nails!!

Picked up some fabric the other day while at the craft store with my sister. I'm thinking new backdrops for video purposes, but also embroidery...!! I'm so weirdly stoked on the idea of embroidering right now but I'm not sure what to embroider, haha.

But let me tell you, winding embroidery floss onto tabs the other day was absolutely soothing. Now my yen to return to the craft store and fill out a few colors I'm missing or low on is tickling my brainpan.

Accio May!

Read More

video: Vintage Ken Doll Duds

Hey there! Here's a video I just recently uploaded about some vintage Ken doll tops that I scored for Beatrix via eBay.


On a technical note, some reason the video is really cool-tinted and it's bothering me so much. It looks normal on my desktop (where I do all my video editing), but that monitor has a warmer tint, and my laptop monitor is more cool-tinted. So it looks like it has this major gray cast to me now that I see it on my laptop. However, my last video didn't have that issue, so I don't know why this one does. Furthermore, I often notice color differences between the video file and how it looks on YouTube, so this extra and random degree of color variation is super annoying!!!

Since everyone has different monitors/phones with varying settings, I'm sure it looks different to everyone. Yikes.

As of late, I've been:

• studying frequently
• exploring my new Nintendo 3DS XL (I've never had a handheld gaming system before, and I'm from the Gameboy/Game Gear generation and literally everyone I knew had one, so it's pretty exciting for me; my birthday's coming up and I'm going to ask for DS games!)
• dealing with a super stressful health insurance situation
• wasting time on the Miitomo app

I'm unspeakably exhausted from this health insurance thing. I feel like I am neither eating nor sleeping enough, like I just can't recharge fully. If I don't resurface again till May, don't be terribly surprised!

Read More

I'm soothed just looking at this post.

Uh, I've posted about my abrupt obsession with Claire's-style rings here before. Recently. A couple of times. As well as my odd little love affair with geodes. 

WELL, I was hanging out with my sister a few days ago and she lives about three doors down from a local shop that, you know, sells Grateful Dead tees and glass pipes and incense and... I'm sure you get the idea. But they had a case of rocks, and I got a few that I liked. I wish I had written down the names, but I didn't, so I don't even know what they are. But I like having them on my shelf.

ALSO, I had a really rage-inducing morning, so I stomped out the door and drove directly to Forever 21 so I could buy some stupid cheap rings, because sometimes, you just need some retail therapy. Seriously, I spent $26 for about 21 new rings, and it was very soothing. I was highly vexed, but new bling and Carly Rae Jepsen helped me down from my ledge.

For further therapy I grouped some rings and stones together, color-wise, and took pictures. (I really like taking pictures of rings, I guess?? But also I like grouping things by color. Pleasing.)

I honestly just keep these rings in a little plastic baggie that something came in; I need one of those ring tray things. To display my collection. Of worthless but soothing rings.

Read More

Spring things.

March has been a month of growth for me -- mostly positive stuff. That's part of the reason I haven't posted very much this month. I've just had a lot on my plate. I don't want to get into specifics, but I've journaled a lot because I've had a lot to think about, and I've been studying something that has been interesting me for a while now. I'm very happy I'm finally devoting some time to it. It's been rewarding so far. Maybe sometime in the future I'll share about it, but I'm not ready to do that yet.

Easter, to be honest, wasn't my day, but I tried to have a fairly good attitude, and wound up with some nice pictures that my mom took with my phone while I was... EGG HUNTING! Which I had heard was not happening. My grandma filled a small amount of eggs because she thinks it's fun even if it's silly (which I agree with).

I'm happy to be welcoming April, even if it comes with increasing amounts of tornado sirens where I live. I have a dolly video in progress right now and plans to shoot another ASAP. I want to continue with my independent studying and continue enjoying it to the extreme. I reconnected with my friend L this month and want to keep that connection thriving.

Read More

video: Get Fidelia Ready With Me!

This week I filmed a couple of dolly videos, and here's one of them. Dolly Dressups are my fave and I really like the ensemble Fidelia ended up in. (She's really tricky to dress to my satisfaction!)


In other news, I'm ready for Lent to be over!! I've been failing more and more at keeping from Laptop Lounging (which, again, means essentially doing nothing; if I'm actually doing something -- even if that something is catching up on Pretty Little Liars and throwing a fit because NO TO ALL THESE DUMB OLD COUPLES -- then laptop usage is fine).
Easter looks like it's gonna be a bummer this year. Usually we hunt eggs, even though the youngest of us is 17 or so, but it looks like that's not in the cards. For a long time now it's been the only reason I don't hate the holiday as much as I hate Thanksgiving. It's not that I particularly love to hunt eggs -- there have been years where I've hidden them rather than hunted -- but I enjoyed it as a way to spend time with my sisters and cousins. I'm sad when things like this, traditions, change.

I came back and added this picture to this post! It shows Fidelia's brown chips that I mentioned in the video... and it's about as Eastery as it's gonna get this year!

Read More

Cave core. Glitter mom. Geode trash.

As of late I've been in a tactile and deeply introverted sort of mode. I want to color (in my adult coloring book, a picture of which I've linked rather than post because MY COLOR COMPULSION WON'T LET ME), draw, journal, stamp, read, and listen to Carly Rae Jepsen in the dark all by myself.

I don't know if I mentioned this, but for Lent, I gave up lounging on my laptop.

I realized a while ago that I've started associating sitting at my desk with a) work, and b) editing YouTube videos and all that entails (also work).

I used to use my desktop for everything! I crafted at my desk, as well. But now I like to sit on my bed while I craft, regardless of whether my laptop is open and playing me some Netflix or closed and across the room, and even though I love the coziness, I also don't think I should spend so much time on my bed. It makes me feel like a bump on a log, even if I've been crafting like a maniac.

It can't be helped much. I deleted all the TV shows and Sims game data/downloads that were on my desktop so I'd have room for gigs upon gigs video footage, and that really made the splitting of my time much more obvious. I've gotten to where I do all my lazing on my laptop -- TV and movie and Buzzfeed video-watching, Tumblrin', playing Spider Solitaire, general internet surfing -- and just use my desktop for work. Work-work, but also stuff like editing photos for blog posts... so, hobby stuff as well, but not for just kickin'.

So for a month now I've been trying to do everything I can on my desktop, and just use my laptop for legit TV-watching -- like, to catch up with my shows in real time, not to laze and just watch Netflix sans purpose. When I'm done with my shows, I close the laptop and try to do something else.

I have not been in the mood to make a YouTube video lately. Although I have a sense of guilt about that, I'm trying to mute that beeping alarm in the back of my brain that is telling me I am being neglectful. I just feel introverted and in my own world, and like being in a little dark cave doing cave paintings, but I will emerge again when I feel up to wrangling equipment and doing voice overs.

Right now my jam is stamping.

Scored all these ink pads (and a set of alpha stamps) from a dollar bin at Michael's. Last year for my birthday my mom got me some similar pads and an alpha set, which I love and you can see in this blog post, so I was really happy to find some more! I've been doing a lot of stamping for my journal and other tangible projects.

Just really randomly, because I was enjoying myself so deeply, I did a page of bonkers aesthetics from this aesthetic generator. I love that thing. Any "dad" aesthetic makes me laugh automatically. I just stamped all the ones I liked. "Sun goth." I can't.

Still real into my geodes! I didn't get any colorful ones from my "break your own" box, but I don't mind. As I said, I am feeling very tactile right now, so I just like to touch them and look at them.

Finally, here's my dumb cat, Smokey. He's grown up so much since we adopted him in November. He's like a young adult now. He had his big operation recently (you know the one) and he can go outside now, which is hugely exciting for him, so he's still adjusting to this new stage of his life. His cuddles are rare gifts.

On my mind is spring cleaning (my desk really, really needs cleaning!), my little notebooks and writing projects that I'm stamping all over right now, and an unexpected doctor's appointment I have tomorrow!

Read More

90s Teen Witch

It seems we're saying goodbye to winter -- it's been springy here, although I'm sure we'll get snow in May. It's happened before! But before February is out and Easter colors start kicking in, I thought I'd make a post about my bizarre fall/winter aesthetic~ of the past six months.

I'm calling it "90s Teen Witch." It's not particularly any one of these three words -- not fully 90s, not fully teen, and not fully witch.

It's very nostalgic-feeling for me, though. In October I was strongly feeling 7th grade vibes. It was the mid-90s at the time. I wore plaid flannel shirts and blue Converse high tops. I was having memories of random things like the blue lipstick my friend and I bought at Walgreens; the tiny jar of "fairy" glitter we wore on our cheeks; the jewelry we had at the time (happy face necklaces, zodiac sign necklaces, mood rings, and anything with a celestial theme); the music we listened to (a blend of radio hits and stuff like Meat Loaf on cassette tape).

I got a plaid flannel that really jived with the ripple throw I was making for my gentleman friend, and I gave into the yen to collect some celestial jewelry that pinged my nostalgia radar.

I've acquired lots of rings because I did it old-school style, via Claire's, The Icing, and Forever 21. The 90s have been back "in" anyway, so Claire's has jewelry frighteningly similar to the kind they had when my best friend and I hung out at the mall for fun when we were twelve.

I also got three resin rings from the Etsy shop ARTISUNtis. They have gold flecks in them. I bought one in lilac and one in amber, and got a third for free in a darker purple. Perfect!! I love these rings. I actually bought two for my best friend K as well. They're probably the only rings I've got that won't eventually turn my finger green/blue!

Another major aesthetic pleasure for me has been my Nicoletta Ceccoli tarot deck. It was a gift from my little sister and I love it. The beautiful art wasn't necessarily created to be tarot cards, so I am not using the deck to learn (just the basic Rider-Waite deck), but hopefully I'll be able to use it someday. For anyone particularly into the big-headed creepygirl Blythe aesthetic, I recommend Nicoletta Ceccoli's art!

My 90s Teen Witch aesthetic has stretched to encompass geodes and rocks -- although I'm not looking to start collecting crystals or stray Wiccan. My phone case has a bunch of beads and rocks glued to the back of it, haha. "This speaks to my aesthetic," I noted. I have realized that my aesthetic has been that of that one store at the mall that sells incense, pewter figurines of dragons, crystal balls, Enya CDs, and three wolf moon tees.

I've said "aesthetic" a lot now. Here's an interesting video about the trend of using that word, by the way.

To truly harken back to 7th grade, I'd have to add a grape Blow Pop to this picture. I have plenty, but I only just thought of it...

Read More

all about that lace

The amazing Anne sent me a long, fluffy blush-pink tutu/crinoline (uh, amongst numerous other confections!) and it's the definition of "I can't even." Visions of sugar plum fairies, I'm telling you.

I was re-dressing some girls the other day (Beatrix and Plummery) and decided to try it on Klara just for fun. I don't really have a top that does it justice, but I did remember that I bought a vintage Barbie petticoat off Etsy at least a year ago and have never gotten the chance to make an outfit with it, so I layered them!

The petticoat is really, really pretty. It feels delicate and it's embroidered with thread that (I believe) is light pastel and might be variegated. It gives it an iridescent effect without being literally iridescent. Super, super pretty. The blush crinoline makes the petticoat stand out to its fullest potential.

I'd love to find a leotard or some kind of top to complete this ensemble. Right now, Klara's just wearing white knee socks and a white t-shirt. Still a stunna.

Read More