Heck Yes, Anthropologie!: Ruffles

Ruffles might just be my favorite thing. Hanging off the edge of a garment, sometimes just tacked on to some fabric at random, they might be an afterthought. But in my opinion, something beautiful can always be made beautiful-er by adding ruffles.

Ruffles add attitude, oomph, grace. A mob of ruffles, scrambling every which way. Stiff ruffles, lined up in a military procession One shy lonely ruffle, curling around and disappearing in itself. An adventurous ruffle, blazing a trail across a vast plain of cloth.

So you can imagine my excitement when on the Anthropologie home page, there's a button promising to let me "see the unexpected side of ruffles." As always, Anthropologie does not disappoint. Or, it disappoints only in only one way: Their beautiful clothes are way, WAY too expensive for the likes of myself. Sad face.

The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread?

Green Day Rockband?

Could it be?

It is!

While I could really care less, my sister is positively geeking out. She's already expressed all of her disappointments ("It's not accurate to playing the song on a real guitar!" and "They're not animated enough! They don't just stand there - they jump around the stage!"),  but I can tell, she is the most excited she's been in weeks. I'm somewhat afraid for the day in August she's going to see them in concert - I'll have to make sure I'm not at home when she gets back; I don't think I can withstand the hurricane forces of her obsession.

Aren't I attractive? Anyway, the Boyfriend and I went to see Get Him To The Greek today, instead of last night, as was previously planned. And let me tell you, it. was. hilarious. Russell Brand plays the same rockstar as in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, with rip-roaring success!

My outfit today is nothing particularly thrilling. I love, love, LOVE these jean shorts, but unfortunately I've loved them too much, as they're no longer the nice dark wash they used to be. I'll pick up some RIT dye sometime this week and redye them. My favorite part of today's outfit is the earrings. They're made out of Mike's Hard Lemonade bottlecaps, and I got them for $1 from my school's art club.

Also, I took these pictures AFTER I went out-and-about for the day, so my hair is a bit disheveled. I apologize.

How to Shoot at Someone Who Outdrew You

I found some sheet music of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen (although I think what I found was the Rufus Wainwright version - the one on the Shrek soundtrack) and my sister has been learning it. It's so pleasant to be sitting in my room on the internet or whatever, and hear that lovely song coming up from downstairs. It's a very welcome change from her usual repertoire (Green Day, Green Day, and more Green Day!)

I was going to blog later tonight, but at the moment I'm waiting for my boyfriend to finish dinner with his family so we can go see Get Him To The Greek. So, my thoughts on the movie will have to wait until tomorrow, but I figured now was as good a time as any to share today's outfit.

I've been wanting to wear this jacket for a while, and since it's not too hot today I figured I'd go for it. Also, the movie theater is usually pretty chilly, so I always dress to keep warm. :)

Thinking about, almost everything in this outfit was free. The only thing I actually bought was the shirt. My grandmother gave me the shoes because they didn't have enough support for her feet, the jacket came from rehashclothes.com, and my necklace belonged to my great-grandmother before she died. And I made the skirt. The fabric is white with lots of lines of sheet music on it.

The top has a yoke with some embroidery on it that reminds me of the mexican shirts that are white with rainbow embroidery, except this is all the same color. I'm quite happy with this outfit!

Also, earlier today I had somewhat of an adventure into the world of 3D plush making. I made (or attempted to make) an elephant. Considering that I had no pattern and not much experience, I think he turned out pretty well. He's made out of an old sweater that got accidentally felted.

And the cat was being a giant lump as I was taking these pictures, as usual.

Update: We're going to see the movie tomorrow because if we go before noon it's only five dollars. So we're going to make a day of it. Which means I got all cute today for nothing! I haven't even been out of the house, except to drive around for a bit. And now I have to think of ANOTHER cute outfit tomorrow. This fashion thing is hard work!

I think I'll watch American Psycho tonight, maybe.

Yesterday my sister bought home a piano from Goodwill.

I just have no idea how to play it. She's pretty good, though. (Especially considering the fact that she's thirteen!) It's nice to just sit here and listen to the music going on in the living room. 

Inspired by the lovely Annebeth (or, the Styling Dutchman), I wore a maxi dress yesterday! I have two and they are so gorgeous but I rarely ever wear them. They seem impractical and I never know what shoes to wear. Well, yesterday, Annebeth wore a maxi dress and it was so cute I just had to play copycat. With it, I wore some tan sandals (although you can't see them in the pictures) and a gold bracelet, both of which came from rehashclothes.com, which is one of my favorite websites in the world. Here are some pictures, although they are rather uninteresting and do not flatter me. I need to practice taking charming pictures.

Oh, and I wore it to a block party I went to with my boyfriend, and got several compliments! Hooray!

The boyfriend's sister graduated from high school yesterday, so I made her a correspondence kit as a present. It includes an address book, postcards, envelopes and labels, all handmade, of course! (Except the labels...)

 

AND! I got a bunch of business cards in the mail yesterday! Such an eventful day!

Mastering the Arts of Cooking and Blogging

Thoughts upon watching Julie and Julia yesterday:

1. I must cook.
2. I must blog.

Also 3. Meryl Streep is pretty rad.

I really. really need to learn how to cook, at least some things. Next year at school I'll be living in an apartment with a kitchen instead of a dorm, so I would like to be able to make some things more complicated than cereal. Perhaps I'll make something a bit more interesting than a PBJ for lunch today.

You see, it's just so easy to not cook at all. My mom always has dinners planned, and if I say I want to make it (with her minimal help), she ends up stepping in to do most of the work. (Sorry if you're reading this, Mom. It's true, though.) Yesterday I said I wanted to make enchiladas one day next week and she just looked at me funny and said, "Enchiladas?"

And so. I must take it upon myself to cook some things. I already bake up a storm, so cooking meals can't be that different, right? Maybe.

Regarding thought #2 above, I already have it partially accomplished. I have a blog. I post in it. It just seems that no one is reading my posts.

So. How to get more traffic? I think when I comment on others' blogs I'll leave a link to my own at the end. I've seen other people doing it and I click the link about half the time. If anyone reads this, and has any tips, please let me know.

And regarding thought #3 (the movie), I really, really enjoyed the Julia bits. The Julie bits in the present were less interesting, as I found the Julie character to be so melodramatic and self-absorbed as to make herself unsympathetic. But maybe that's just me.

The bits about Julia Child, however, were fantastic. Meryl Streep played the part really well.

And as I watch more movies with Stanley Tucci, I'm finding that I really like him. He just looks so different. Maybe that's it. I'm intrigued by the way he looks and the way his voice sounds. It's just so fun and interesting.

And I really liked him in The Lovely Bones, although I was disappointed by the movie as a whole.

His EYES are GIANT POMPOMS!

Here's a teaser for the delightful little monster I made yesterday. Like I said, his eyes are made out of pompoms, which was a stroke of genius on my part, in my humble opinion. The whole process was quite an adventure; I cut a general shape out of the back of an old t-shirt and went from there. He reminds me of a plaque monster hidden between your teeth. (But in a good way - he's misunderstood, just looking for love, it's not his fault you don't floss...)

Today and yesterday have been so very productive. Literally. Yesterday I made a plushie, and today I made recycled paper, which is one of my absolute favorite things to do. There's also freshly baked honey wheat bread in the house, though my mother is to thank for that, not I.

Oh, and another thing! The most exciting thing of all! Last night I babysat the two coolest kids. They're daughters of one of my professors - 9 and 10 years old. While the younger one was reading her comic books, the older (named Flannery!) picked out a movie to watch.

You will never guess what movie she picked.

Go ahead and guess.

Oh, I'll just tell you. This kid, who's in fifth grade, picks out Casablanca! And then when it first starts Peter Lorre reminds her of another movie, so we end up watching some movie from the 40s called The Mask of Dimitrios. The conversation centered around how "they just don't make movies as good these days" and "what's wrong with black and white?"

She is my hero.

I watched Julie and Julia over lunch today - will probably blog about it later.

A Delightful Romp Through the Postmodern Imagination

I think I really just like the word "romp." Isn't it so wonderfully giddy?

Anyway, I finished this book yesterday, called House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. If you're perceptive, you'll have noticed (Good for you!) that the word house is in blue. This is one of the many (MANY!) oddities contained within this novel. It is laid out as a nonfiction work, complete with footnotes, appendices and an index. House of Leaves, however, is a work of fiction. Most of the footnotes reference nonexistent works, and the apendixes and "exhibits" at the end of the book are half-missing. Entire passages are struck out and written in red, and the text often appears broken into segments, sometimes upside-down, sometimes diagonal.

If this sounds like a headache to read, I'm not surprised. Pages replete with bits of words removed because they were supposedly burnt away by ash? Pages missing? One word to a page? Footnotes, for crying out loud? And not just any footnotes, footnotes that DO NOT EXIST! No thanks, you may say, Leave that kind of reading to the professionals.

I gobbled it up. I have to turn the book in a different direction to read every page? Yes, please! A book within a book within a book? The more the merrier!

House of Leaves is quite possibly the most intriguing book I have ever read. The sheer amount of time and research that must have been put into making it as polished as it is astounds me. As soon as I finished it I wanted to start over from the beginning. It has layers upon layers of meaning, and I'm sure I've barely scratched the surface.

If you don't like to think too hard about the books you read, this is not the book for you. If you're in the mood for something challenging, pick this up right away! You must!