Style: Fairytales and Darker

My mother's, brother's and my favorite modern show is Once Upon A Time- we love sitting down on a weekday evening, plugging the computer into the TV set, and watching it on Hulu! (Less commercials that way.)
My clothes today were appropriately inspired: flowing long skirt, rabbit necklace, flushed makeup. It's toned down versus what I could do, but I'm headed to work!

Susie Rose shirt, vintage skirt, Talbot's tights, Merona shoes, H&M necklace. I later pulled on a wooly, hooded, cardigan thingy that made me look like I should be creeping through the woods, dark flowers blooming in my wake...

Where I do get the most freedom is my nails: and this morning I laid the foundation for an Alice in Wonderland card-deck look. Each white nail will be painted with a red heart or diamond, or a black club or spade.
My ears are hidden in the photos but I had a magnetic earring where a helix piercing goes- I don't have any real piercings right now but I like how it looks.

Aaand- one of my coworkers asked me to do her makeup! She very interested in a 50's retro look but has no past experience with red lipstick, while I have quite a bit as I wear it almost every day. We plan to meet sometime this month when our school and work schedules aren't colliding. :P

Jewelry: Altered Spider Bib Necklce

I bought it from Claire's this past October and just altered it from a boring grey chain to a beaded one I made myself.
Snood, thrifted top.

Style: Steampunk Gentleman

Although, as I am said gentleman...

Thrifted button-down, thrifted vest, Talbot's pants, Merona wedges, ancient snood, Claire's earrings, self-made compass charm necklace.

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I suppose I am dressed as if I was a Victorian woman who had had to masquerade as a man to gain access to the fantastical Time Traveling Machine. Now, she's come to the modern age, and she's amazed (but delighted) to see women wearing pants like nobody's business. (Which of course is true.) Exploring, she enters an overgrown, enclosed plaza she landed near. In the stores within she finds many curiosities of technology, such as portable music devises, flat metal sheets you can read entire books from, and cameras that show the image on a screen as soon as it is taken! She even finds a little jewelry shop that caters to all sorts of tastes, where she picks out a pair of ornate earrings that remind her of her own time.
Wandering by a quaint antique shop, she stops. No one else seems to notice her or it among the modernity; at least, all walk by without a sideways glance. As she steps in, ringing an old bell above the door, a white haired man unbends from the counter he is arranging a row of tiny glass bottles on...

"My dear Ana," he smiles, looking surprised in spite of himself. "How have you been? Why, over one hundred years passed since you fell off our map."

I love, love this vest- I'm a sucker for a pretty vest- though since it's a man's, it's a little bulky in the waist. (When you're trying to look gentlemanly, that can certainly come in handy.)

Made this! I love the compasses, though I rarely get to use one. I have a fairly good sense of direction that serves me well in getting back to camp if I'm separated. I always carry one in the wilderness, though, just in case!

Jewelry: Cage the Moon

This has been a Really Good Week. Wednesday my mother and I tried on clothes at work. And bought some. For me, the most elegant, beautiful, cape-sleeve, drape-back, above-knee, lavender dress I have ever seen. Thursday I went to the library. Friday I went on a bunch of errands including Roger's Gardens and found wonderfully done lenticular photographs and a Tim Burton-ish not-real-pumpkin squashed albino jack-o-lantern, and then a REAL, small, pumpkin utterly abandoned in the parking lot that I adopted. I actually hopped out of the car to rescue the poor thing. Saturday, my dad's birthday (homemade cake!), birthday shopping for my mother's birthday in three weeks, and I finally worked up the courage to ask a co-worker if she is Goth (she is!).

Also, I redid an old necklace I had never gotten to look quite the way I imagined, like I had trapped drops of moonlight or water in a delicate beaded cage. Now, I have, by switching in white pearls and using a four color gradient in the seed bead strands.

DIY Safety Pin Cuff Bracelet

I was browsing through my blog roll a few weeks ago when I came across this post on Asylum Alice's blog, Aversion to Color. I loved the safety pin bracelet and had to make one of my own!

The photos don't really do it justice... I will have to see if I can take some better ones.

I really liked to part where I put beads on the actual pins. I never would have though of that.

Style- Fruit of the Spooky Tree

From http://forestertreeservice.com/plum-tree/

I love plums. Biting into their sugar-sweet flesh to be followed by the sharp sour tang of the skin is one of my favorite things about summer. At their peak ripeness they are deep purple-black, maybe frosted soft silver. So I was delighted when plums arrived in the local grocery store's produce section. I had to make a special, simple dessert: fresh plums and strawberries with homemade whipped cream!

Then, inspired by the fruit's deep hue, I coordinated my nails, makeup, and outfit.

Elf black eyeliner and Revlon Va-Va-Violet on lips. OPI's Black Cherry Chutney polish.
Altered Claire's stabbed-heart earrings, self-made bead choker (inspired by Tim Burton in general, Nightmare Before Christmas and Vincent specifically!)

Thrifted Judy Knapp lace vest, Faded Glory printed tank top, Lee Riders shorts, Merona flats.

Style: Lightening up for Work

My managers were slightly teasing me on my affinity for black-on-black-on-black clothes, AND I do work at a mainstream store heading into the summer months, so I decided to lighten up a little.
I got this scarf for my birthday and I need to remember to wear it! It blends quite nicely, the outfit overall has a rather watercolor effect, doesn't it?

Target scarf, tee, Brooks Brother's skirt, no name belt, Merona watch, tights, and shoes, my own bracelet and necklace.

I also had to do a bit of jewelry-altering today. The earrings I bought from Claire's were on fishhooks, so I converted them to clips... while running around my room holding my new cameo (from Wal-mart) against various silver and pewter chains, trying to find a match to the hematite-colored metal. I finally settled on my own pearl necklace- they work well together! The whole thing does have the tendency to bounce on my chest when I run, so to extend the cameo's stability and versatility, I'm going to attach a pin backing to it.

Style- Wool in summer... ain't cool.

But it had to work. My foot's still recovering, so I wear tights to hide my socks.
Merona tee, tights, and shoes; thrifted skirt, Target hematite necklace

5$ finger armor on the left hand; mood ring on right index, assorted vintage bands on middle finger. The insanely green stone ring is turquoise, vintage, and authentic NA: apparently, as turquoise oxidizes, it turns green. This has been oxidizing 50 to 60 years- it was my grandmother's!
Merona watch.

Style- Warrior Bohème

Branching out a little- both in style and location!
Inspired by a brand new nail polish color- OPI's Yodel Me On My Cell, a deep jewel teal- I set out to create a bohemian/tribal look.
I have only a few bright shirts in a closet of interchangeable neutrals, yet after half a week of super-classic clothes I wanted to look as different as possible. I've collected a wide range of vintage scarves and jewelry, so I piled bangles and necklaces over a charcoal tunic-tank and grey petal hem midi skirt.
Then my brother and I jumped a wall to photograph in the Vacant Lot Next Door!

Thrifted Twenty One grommet detail tank, thrifted petal hem skirt, Mossimo gladiator sandals, vintage scarf worn as belt, vintage and thrifted jewelry.

Eighteen Candles On My Cake

I had a lot of fun tonight. My family took me to a vegan Vietnamese restaurant, which even my dad (a "bacon! pork! beef!" person) enjoyed. The Gluten-Free chocolate cake my mother baked is awesome. She decorated it with mint-colored butter-cream icing, her specialty, and some of my pansies (which are edible flowers, BTW). I've compiled photos of most of what I received, minus the OMG JUSTIN BEIBER PIL-POW AND ALARM CLOCK! Aiiiiiii!!!

(Please re-read above with a heaping helping of sarcasm.)

Let me clarify.
It is a long running tradition in our family that a birthday present (usually the first) is a gag gift. It started when my father generously gave my brother a Bag of Farts, a garbage bag he blew up and tied off. Last year I gave my brother an old shoebox filled with his own Legos, labeled "Box of Parts". So knowing what I think (or maybe, don't think) of Justin Beiber, it was a PERFECT gag. Oh, I love them.

Now, to what I actually got:
Lace, chain, and enamel heart choker (to be DIY'd, in a succeeding post)
key-shaped charms
Merona bangle-bracelet watch
OPI nail polish in Malaga Wine and Black Cherry Chutney
China Glaze Magnetix in Pull Me Close and magnets

ombre scarf

Mossimo shrug

My mother also rented Animal Farm and 1984 from the library, which I have been trying to get my hands on for a while. I just finished Animal Farm- it's a very quick read!

Jewelry- Mermaid Necklace

Glass beads, plastic beads, and gold spacer beads.

Jewelry- Shell and Turquoise

Glass sead bead and blue seashell with turquoise pendant

Jewelry- Scarlet Strands

A necklace made of seed beads, faux pearls, and gold; the top bracelet is three connected seed bead strands with small red flower beads; the bottom bracelet is one long strand, looped around itself several times... it can also be worn as a necklace.

Jewelry- Vintage Fish

 

Blue seed beads and oval glass beads create a wavy effect between bronze beads. The fish pendant I found in one of my grandmother's jewelry boxes!

Jewelry- Goth Choker

 Four wires strung with opaque black seed beads and blue faux pearls make this Victorian-inspired necklace.

 It took some experimentation to get it right- in a previous incarnation it had each pearl wrapped by five bead strands instead of three; it was too bulky.

Jewelry- Chains and Seeds

This was REALLY hard to make. I had to get the numbers of beads between each loop of the chain just so or it looked wrong.

Jewelry- Teardrops

I found an old pendant in my bead boxes, so I incorporated it into a necklace I was already making-