The Bibliophile in her Native Habitat

My mom was my photographer today, and let's just say she took a little artistic license with the pictures. When I looked over at her and saw that she was holding the camera crooked she actually seemed surprised when I asked her to hold the camera straight.

The cardigan is from H&M and the shoes were a present from my grandmother, but what I'm most proud of is the dress. When I bought it from Goodwill, it was white, but I dyed it and some other clothes (a t-shirt and a pair of shorts) pink yesterday. Well, I really was just trying to give the faded shorts some new life, and the t-shirt was in my "to give away" pile, so I really didn't care about it, but I was very excited to see how the dress would turn out. And I must say, I'm very happy with the dusty pink color.

The dyeing process:

Note how the colors fade from the original violent fuschia to the pale pink of the last picture (which, the clothes still being wet, is darker than they eventually turned out). The shorts did darken up a bit, which is nice.

I spent today running errands with my mom. I came home from the library with three books and a movie: Remains of the Day, God is Dead, Push, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. I decided to check the movie out after reading this post at The Clothes Horse. I was going to watch it tonight but I'm far too tired for a movie before bed so it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

And I admit, I got a bit carried away with myself with the books. I'm going to take them all with me when I go to the Outer Banks with my family next week, but I have to finish Love in the Time of Cholera before I start any of them!

All-Time Top Five Songs About Death

1. Chemo Limo by Regina Spektor
2. In Case We Die - Architecture in Helsinki
3. No Children - The Mountain Goats
4. I Can't Decide - The Scissor Sisters
5. Angels Hung Around - Rilo Kiley

Inspired by the movie I watched last night, High Fidelity. I was looking for something to watch before bed, and my boyfriend suggested it - it's one of his favorite movies (and based on one of his favorite books).

Well, let me tell you: I was smitten. First of all, this guy compulsively makes lists. Just on the basis of that alone it's a match made in heaven! There's no one who enjoys a good list more than I do. In fact, the title list (death songs) is one of the lists in the movie.

And then there's the whole - obsessed with obscure music thing. I'm not so much into that, but my boyfriend is, a whole lot, so I could get into it.

And the whole - making yourself miserable, not happy with what you have, even though it's the best you could have - I've been there. Not so much anymore, thankfully, but I could relate.

But, yeah. The lists! Watching this movie made me inspired to revive and make more use of my listography account. Because lists just make me so happy.

And I love the part where Jack Black makes fun of John Cusack's sweater for being a "Cosby Sweater!" Too true, too true.

Suitcase Project: Before

I got this nice old leather suitcase last summer at a yard sale. I fell in love with the shape and the fun, vintage feel of it. The only problem - the smell. This thing smells mustier than your great-grandpa's 50-year-old collection of crossword puzzles. Something had to be done.

So, after spending some time last summer trying to wash it and make it stink a little less, I failed and shoved it in the back of my closet to think about some other day.

That day, my friends, is today. I'm just about finished cleaning my room, and I pulled the suitcase out of my closet just to see what it's been up to this past year. Well, it still smells like old feet. But this time I'm determined to defeat the stank!

I just took it outside and determined that the lining fabric makes up most, if not all, of the smell, so I just ripped it all out and tossed some baking soda inside the shell to hopefully soak up the odors.

I plan on checking on it tomorrow and reevaluating the situation. Eventually, I plan on lining the inside with some fun fabric and maybe decoupaging the outside. The leather's very pretty, but it has some scratches and paint marks I'd like to cover up

I feel like my mouth was just assaulted.

Either Pop Rocks aren't as delicious as they used to be, or I'm too old to enjoy copious amounts of sugar exploding in my mouth.

The explosion was as fun as was remembered, but I now feel like I need to take an SOS pad to my mouth to remove the "Tropical Punch" flavor.

And btw, since when has tropical punch been blue?

Po-Tee-Weet

I've been involved in a swap on Craftster recently called Birds Birds Birds! I absolutely adore birdies of all kinds, so it was perfect for me! :D

I know next to nothing about my swap partner, other than the fact that she likes red and aqua and she has a baby girl with a bird-themed nursery. So, now that the swap is all wrapped up, I'll share everything!

I made a stuffed owl and a baby hat. The hat (sunhat! perfect for summer!) is made out of cute orange birdie fabric, so I sent some of that scrap fabric along with the package.

I'm very happy with the way everything turned out. I tried to make the owl baby-friendly by not using buttons or anything for eyes. There's nothing the baby could chew off and choke on! The hat was from a pattern from Sweet Booties by Valerie Van Arsdale Shrader. I expected the brim to be wider, but eh, I think it's pretty good for not really knowing what I was doing.

From her, I got a stenciled t-shirt and a tissue cozy. I am definitely going to use the crap out of that tissue cozy! I've really been wanting one for a good while now. And it couldn't have come at a better time, since I'm currently in the throes of a vicious cold. (I woke myself up this morning at 6 with a coughing fit. No es bueno.) The only thing is that I might stitch a little bit on the sides of the openings so it doesn't gape open so much.

And the stencil on the shirt is an owl wearing headphones! How precious! I'm absolutely in love with it! Perhaps I'll wear it today to Matt's sister's graduation party. I was going to wear a dress but it's supposed to storm later so we'll see.

But I digress. The swap:

Oh, and I almost forgot the most exciting part! Apparently there's a mysterious extra gift that was late in arriving, so she'll send it along when she gets it. What could it beeeee?? I'm so excited! :D

My sister is flipping awesome.

My sister, who is thirteen years old, tuned a piano today. With nothing but a wrench and her ears.

I, who can hear that the note doesn't sound right but am helpless beyond that, am completely in awe of her musical talents. She just played the key, wrenched the knob around inside the piano a little bit, played it again, wrenched some more, etc.

Mind is blown.

Sorry about the less-than-steller photos. The lighting was weird in my living room, and I tried to play around with them to make them look less yellow, but I'm not sure how well it worked.

What I've Got To Work With: Scarves

Despite the fact that I have a cold, and have to pause every few minutes for a coughing fit, I decided that today would be a good day to work on cleaning my room! What began as an innocent straightening up turned into rearranging half my furniture, and I must say that I'm very pleased with what I've got going on so far. I'll post before and after shots once everything's spick and span.

So, as I cleaned today I took a good hard look at everything I own, trying to decide if it's worthy of being in my life or if it's time to move on. And I decided I'd take a look at some categories of my wardrobe. So today is scarves!

All of my scarves but the LOVE one I got together at a yard sale for fifty cents for all of them. Needless to say, I couldn't pass up such a bargain! My resolution from now on is to incorporate them into my outfits more.

I'm considering attempting to wear this one as a top tomorrow to a graduation party, but we'll have to see:

They're all very pretty and elegant-looking. By far the quirkiest is this one, which has pictures of trains all over it:

I'm rather at a loss for how I'd wear that one. I'm sure someone more fashionable than I could pull it off quite nicely, though.

Oh, and one more scarf came in the bundle that isn't in the group pictures, and that's because it resides permanently on my dad's cowboy-hat-that-I-stole/borrowed.