Want It: BCBG Quilted Toggle Belt

I saw this baby while randomly browsing through Family Circle at work...Yes, Family Circle!  What a sexy belt.  I think I'd wear it with something like this so it can stand out:

Ted Baker Women's Bleu Dress

(click link to see product)

For Sale - Vigoss Shorts $18

Check out one of my eBay listings...

• Brand new
• Women's size 30 (or Junior's 9)
• Retail $45
• Style "The Ritz"
• Distressed look
• Extra wide beltloops
• Front patch pockets
• Inseam is 2" (very short)
• Low-rise

Click here to buy!

Fashion Inspiration - "Blade Runner"

My other post about the movie Blade Runner is popular, so I thought I'd do another one, but more fashion-focused.

Rachel has kind of a glamorous 1940's goth thing going.

Look like her!

             

 Hair tutorial!

Pris has a punk-y style.

Look like her!

Damn, I need to go shopping!

A Time To Dye

I had a few things that needed to be black...

yellow puff sleeve hoodie, pink long sleeve dress 

green shorts, pink swimsuit cover

pink long sleeve dress, seafoam sweater

I used a whole bottle of Rit Dye in a 10 gallon bucket.  I made the mistake of doing this in my bathtub and the black dye splashed all over the white porcelain...  Luckily I had some bleach on hand.
                                                           
I ended up not doing the pink dress because I didn't think I had enough dye.  And I was right--my stuff wasn't as black as I thought it would be.  (Then again, it could be the type of fabric that is causing this.)  In fact, the green shorts came out a really ugly dark green color!  Everything else looks pretty good.  Yes, the buttons on the sweater are still seafoam, but I think it looks cool.

I really think the best method for dyeing is the washing machine.  Even though I haven't used this method yet.  The reason why I didn't do it this way is because I use communal washers and I didn't want to be responsible for accidentally f***ing up anybody's clothes...Bad karma, you know.

I ended up doing my hair after that--darker and browner than usual.  I'm not photogenic at all--I tend to make weird faces--so I'll just post an internet pic of someone else with the same color...

Even though my favorite red is this...

But I'm trying to look like this again.  Boyfriend likes it.  ;-)

One of the few good pictures of me, only because my photographer sister took it.

I use the Joico Vero K-Pak color system.  Professional coloring at home can be a bit tricky, but it's worth it.  There are abundant YouTube videos and forums where you can learn how to do it.  These are the colors I used:

          

All the while, I had the perfect soundtrack.

                                                          

A Little Stranger

A multi-talented woman!

These were all created by Holly of A Little Stranger.  All of her stuff is really awesome and cute, and I encourage you to visit her blog.

Music For DIY-ing

TheCoolHunter.net has a great Weekend Playlist to help you chill out.  I think it would be great to listen to while doing a project!
I really like this one...

TheCoolHunter.net is a great site in general if you're interested in art, architecture, technology, and that kind of stuff.

Reading: Kate Bornstein

Something this blog hasn't touched on is my views of gender.  To put it plainly, I absolutely detest the dominate culture's limiting binary views on sex and gender.  For example: your chromosomes are XX, so you have to wear a dress; your chromosomes are XY, so you have to play sports--blah, blah, blah.  And what about those of us who have both XX and XY chromosomes?  Or XXY chromosomes?  Do you see how silly it becomes?  It's a gigantic can o' worms...

Anyways, Kate Bornstein pretty much sums up how I feel. I've been reading some of her books:

And then I found this cheer online today, written by the Radical Cheerleaders:

Coming out Day Cheer: CU Boulder Campus Crusade for Queers

"Yo all you girlz; hey all you boyz,

Leave all the stereotypes bring on the toys.

Y'all ready for rhythm y'all ready for rhyme,

Come on everyone it's gender fuck time

Gender, gender, fuck it we say Life's more fun with gender play.

Gender, gender, it's not what's down there,

Assigning strict roles, that ain't fair.

Gender, gender, it's a fluid thing Fuck their rules we're celebrating.

The gender police, What assholes, Forcing us into gender roles.

Just boy or girl is what they are trying to sew, That silly binary has got to go.

If I wanna wear whitey -tighties with my dress, Who are you messing with my happiness? If I wanna wear high heals and I got a dick, Leave me alone, don't be a gender prick.

So I've got short hair and a big strap-on, You have no right saying its wrong.

Gender, gender, fuck it we say Life's more fun with gender play.

Gender, gender, it's not what's down there, Assigning strict roles, that ain't fair.

Gender, gender, it's a fluid thing Fuck their rules we're celebrating.

BUTCH FEMME FAG DYKE Be who you are dress how you like.

OVERALLS LIPSTICK PANTIES TIES Don't be the gender police in disguise. PRETTY CUTE HANDSOME TOO The secret is, JUST BE YOU

Gender, gender, fuck it we say Life's more fun with gender play.

Gender, gender, it's not what's down there, Assigning strict roles, that ain't fair.

Gender, gender, it's a fluid thing Fuck their rules we're celebrating.

I say fuck, you say gender FUCK, GENDER (2x)

I say gender, you say fuck GENDER, FUCK (2x)

I say gender, you say queer GENDER, QUEER (2x) what'd you say? QUEER!! Coming out Day Cheer: CU Boulder Campus Crusade for Queers


Yo all you girlz; hey all you boyz,

Leave all the stereotypes bring on the toys.

Y'all ready for rhythm y'all ready for rhyme,

Come on everyone it's gender fuck time

Gender, gender, fuck it we say Life's more fun with gender play.

Gender, gender, it's not what's down there,

Assigning strict roles, that ain't fair.

Gender, gender, it's a fluid thing Fuck their rules we're celebrating.

The gender police, What assholes, Forcing us into gender roles.

Just boy or girl is what they are trying to sew, That silly binary has got to go.

If I wanna wear whitey -tighties with my dress, Who are you messing with my happiness? If I wanna wear high heals and I got a dick, Leave me alone, don't be a gender prick.

So I've got short hair and a big strap-on, You have no right saying its wrong.

Gender, gender, fuck it we say Life's more fun with gender play.

Gender, gender, it's not what's down there, Assigning strict roles, that ain't fair.

Gender, gender, it's a fluid thing Fuck their rules we're celebrating.

BUTCH FEMME FAG DYKE Be who you are dress how you like.

OVERALLS LIPSTICK PANTIES TIES Don't be the gender police in disguise. PRETTY CUTE HANDSOME TOO The secret is, JUST BE YOU

Gender, gender, fuck it we say Life's more fun with gender play.

Gender, gender, it's not what's down there, Assigning strict roles, that ain't fair.

Gender, gender, it's a fluid thing Fuck their rules we're celebrating.

I say fuck, you say gender FUCK, GENDER (2x)

I say gender, you say fuck GENDER, FUCK (2x)

I say gender, you say queer GENDER, QUEER (2x) what'd you say? QUEER!! "

 
It made me smile.  ;)



Love this pic!



Book - "The Singularity is Near"

This book by futurist Ray Kurzweil is absolutely mind blowing!  I mean, I think you have to be kind of a science geek to really get into it, but I'll tell you about it anyways...  Kurzweil wrote this 652-page doorstop (harhar) to help us imagine the future, synthesizing our current technologies & predicting the developing ones, by explaining the practical applications.

Is this how you picture nanobots?

A lot of the book is about nanotechnology, which for me is the totally trippy part.  We are currently developing microscopic robots that mimic the functions of our own body's cells--blood cells, pancreatic cells, respiratory cells.  Do you realize the implications of this kind of technology?  No more diseases!  Because the teeny tiny robots swimming around in your body will fix all that!

This is not a joke, or some fairytale.

Kurzweil says, "Nanoscale scaffolds have been used to grow biological tissues such as skin.  Future therapies could use these tiny scaffolds to grow any type of tissue needed for repairs inside the body" (242).  ...Which theoretically means we'll be able to live forever!

This is a cell.

How exciting is that?  I'd love to hear what you think.

TOMS - One for One

At first, I thought TOMS was just a gimmick to make white middle-class consumers feel good about buying an over-priced pair of shoes...  But that was before I read about the creator of TOMS, Blake Mycoskie.  He's an amazing person, and I was so impressed by him that I read his book, "Start Something That Matters."  The book explains Blake's business model, which somewhat improves the "evils" of capitalism.  His story made me inspired to do my own charitable business kind of thing--I re-opened my Etsy shop and decided to donate 50% of the sale price of each item to my chosen organization.

Generate Hope is the organization that I chose because it's based in San Diego and it helps women who are victims of sex-trafficking, which is a cause I'm passionate about.  I feel like, now knowing what the abused women go through, how could I not help prostitutes?  It's something that pulls at my heart.

It's more common than you think.

Now, I want to write a letter to Blake and buy TOMS for everyone I know.  I want to spread his story to all who will listen!  I would even love to work for TOMS, but I don't know what the chances of that are...  What I am going to do is organize a "One Day Without Shoes" group to promote his compassionate message.

http://www.onedaywithoutshoes.com/photowall

All I need now is my own pair...  Luckily, I dug up a Nordstrom's gift card that I had been saving for something special.  My TOMS will arrive in the mail any day!

My Stats

Cool!  While I live in the United States, I have some readers from United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Russia...

Film - "Blade Runner"

I've heard that Blade Runner was "one of the best movies of the eighties"--a decade I am very disappointed to have missed--so I decided to watch it tonight.  First, it was waaayyyy different that I expected!  And not really in a good way...I chalk it up the sociocultural differences between now & 1982.

When I first saw Pris, I thought she was a transgender prostitute because she was walking on a dark street.  What a dork.  But when I Googled Daryl Hannah I found out she was in one of my favorite movies!

...And then I felt dumb for not recognizing her.  Pris ended up being my favorite character; partly because she was the only one that seemed "human."  I just could not understand  the other characters and why they did what they did.  I guess you could say they weren't relatable.

I totally didn't get what was up with this guy...but then again, I'm a little slow.  He looked really cool anyways.

Of course, I'm a fan of Rachel and her 1940's/Goth awesomeness.  No surprise there.

I was pretty disturbed by this scene--it seemed like he was trying to rape her.  Even more disturbing, I think it was supposed to be sexy.  Ugh, it was creepy!

Some parts were pretty racist.

But I really liked the music!

Yay for Lana Del Rey!

She's effing weird and I love it!

I Made It - Painted Tennies

 Back from a creative hiatus!  (My absence was caused by the myriad other projects I have.)

Very simple diy:  There was a pair of white tennies hiding in my closet because I had spilled wax on them (don't ask...).  Perhaps you can see the slight discoloration on the toe?  Like many other crafters (and broke former college students) I couldn't just throw away a perfectly wearable pair of shoes.  Finally, I brought them out, dug up some turquoise acrylic paint from my disastrous supply closet, and went to work.  I had to use one of those makeup sponges because I didn't even have a damn paintbrush, but it worked out really well.  For the stripes, I used regular old scotch tape.
This is where I got my inspiration:

TOMS!

And a tutorial I once saw that is very similar to this one:

Stripes + Sequins's SaturDIY Neon Stripe TOMS

What really pushed me to get creative yesterday was this Lifehacker.com article:  How I Feel Satisfied With Every Day.  The author's simple guide to happiness is to do 3 things every day: make money, get fit & make something cool.  I already knew I needed to do those things, but the article reminded me of why--to be happy!

Kill bill vol 2--Song

I just used Shazam to discover Tu Mirá by Lole Y Manuel.





Haven't seen it?

Watching "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny"

I fucking love it.

You can watch it too!