Two things: this is my 200th post! ++ I'm surprised with myself that I haven't gotten around to posting Portland pictures, but I am surely waiting for a good opportunity filled with free time this weekend coming to do so. Don't worry.

01. Lime Crime My Beautiful Rocket Opaque Lipstick & Hollygram Carousel Gloss - I'm not one to be all about buying makeup, but I love wearing fun colors every so often. A few months ago I managed to snag blue lipstick from Inglot, and even though I don't wear it often, it's a purchase I don't regret. I like fun lipstick!
02. Blueprints For Building Better Girls - I randomly came across this book browsing through Amazon. Sounds like my kind of read. I have so many books to tackle as it is, but this is surely on my list to get around to!
03. YES Tiger shoes - I LOVE LOVE LOVE these shoes. The bold color and the geometric print. I need. And now you know.
04. VANS ASPCA Sneakers - I like VANS and I like cats. Basically sums up why I feel it's necessary to own a pair of these shoes. BAM.
05. Dan Funderburgh Tshirt - I have been enjoying patterns and art by Dan Funderburgh lately. His bold designs are something that inspire me to be simple. I came across this tshirt he designed, and I am loving the color combination mixed in with his pattern.

I'm so relieved that it's hump day. I'm anxious for the weekend to roll around because I have so much to do. My semester is over in less than three weeks! EEK!

Before heading to Portland, I finished up this canvas piece in which I sort of based off The Runaways "Cherry Bomb" song.
I really find that I like working in markers sometimes because it helps me learn to be more graphic and bold. And I like that about this piece. I appreciate the chance to experiment.

Just like all of my other finished canvas pieces, I put this up for sale in my Storenvy shop. If you're a fan of The Runaways, I think this would be a nice little piece to own. Just sayin' :)

Speaking of Storenvy, I changed my layout up a bit. I got rid of the header, made a nice little icon for the top left of the page, and threw together a little pattern for the background. I feel like it makes the store look a little cleaner and not so cluttered, although it really isn't too much of a change. But I do like change!

I realized I posted earlier this month about a photo album I made last year, but I wanted to share this new book I made. It's very different from the other photo album.
I learned how to make this book in the bookbinding class I'm taking this semester. We had a midterm assignment to make a book and fill it with content. When it was assigned, I immediately thought to fill it up with photos that I planned on taking during my Portland trip. I bought disposable cameras and got them developed.

I didn't want to make the book too large so I settled on 10 spreads/20 pages. I planned on inserting 20 photos, so I measured the pages to fit a little larger than standard printed photo proportion. After measuring and scoring the pages, I measured out the cover, which this book was made to wrap around a few times. I couldn't find a decorative piece of paper long enough, so I used my washi tape to connect the piece. This sort of binding has the pages sewn to the cover. So I used clip to keep the pages together while sewing.
It's a super easy book to make.

I ended up buying more washi tape while I was in Portland, so I picked twenty good photos from the batch I got developed, and taped in two opposing corners.

When I got back home, I sliced the pages behind the corners not taped and slipped in the loose corners to fully constrain them and to get the feel of a photo album.

Besides the two disposable cameras I got developed, I have 3 more disposables, 2 110 film rolls, and a half filled disposable camera and 110 roll. I brought my Lomo Diana Mini with me but had such problems getting the wheel to advance the film, so I gave up and bought disposable cameras.
My plan within the next few weeks is to get everything developed and make more photo albums like this. I really love how this book came out!

Just got back from vacation yesterday and cannot feel happier than I do right now. Well, I'm bummed I'm back home having to get back into routine, but I had such a great time in Portland that I just feel so happy. I'm hoping the next time I go out there will be my official move. We'll just have to play that all by ear as I still have one more month till I graduate! So much excitement.

Anyway, I was excited about Record Store Day this year because I got my first record player for Christmas. I've been buying records left and right lately.

I was pumped to participate this year, especially since it fell during my week in Portland. And Portland is known for their local support and vintage shops. Unfortunately our schedule didn't call for shopping that day and I missed out, but it's no big deal. Our daily trips throughout the city and to the coast was worth missing out on RSD this year.

In the meantime I wanted to share records I bought this year that are perfect for springtime background music.
In clockwise order - Ex Hex, La Luz, She's So Rad, & Keep Shelly In Athens.

But while in Portland, I did manage to pick up one record by The Pretenders in which I was excited about.

I've been on a heavy record buying binge. It's the greatest thing walking into a thrift store and discovering a great find as well as supporting more local bands by buying their records. I've been all about it lately and can't wait to discover more in the spring & summer.

I'll get to editing photos from my trip so I can share them in upcoming posts!

I have exciting plans tomorrow, and I've been preparing for my trip this whole week. I'll be on en route to Portland tomorrow for the week and I can't be more excited!

01. My midterm project for my bookbinding class is to make a book filled with content. So I found this trip to be the perfect opportunity to take photos and print them for my midterm book. I have it all set up waiting to go!
02. In between time packing and doing last minute homework assignments, I played around with a screen printing project that I will be posting about at a future date!
03. I'm so excited to be using my Lomo film cameras; I went and bought film for it a few days ago. I bought quite a number of rolls for this trip.
04. During some last minute shopping, I bought this new bag and wallet today at Target. I really wanted a new bag to use for my trip especially, and I can't be more excited to have them!

I've been doing such a bad job at packing. It's always the part I dread most.
But I'm really excited to visit the city again so soon. I'll be traveling with a few friends while staying at an Airbnb space. We looked up the weather and see it'll be raining most of the trip, but we won't let that get us down. We have fun stuff planned. I really can't wait!

This is a little project I've been meaning to finish when I started it back around...sometime last year. My brother has saved mostly all of his bottle tops. He planned on using them for his own projects, but never seemed to do so. So I took a few with the intention of making fun little magnets.

I painted a few to play around. The only frustrating bit is that you need quite a number of coats of acrylic paint. After many coats, and a few months later, I sketched a few little designs on the tops.

I collected my paints and painted the little designs.

Some of the paint came on a little streaky and lumpy, and I was scared of chipping - so I thought the tops needed a good coating. I used my Krylon clear spray to take care of that.

A few days ago I took a trip to Michaels and bought magnets and E600 glue, which I heard is a good super glue. I needed good super glue.
Before gluing the magnets on, I didn't want the magnets to be level with the edges of the tops, so I glued down a small strip of cardboard to elevate the magnets.

I let the bottle tops sit around for a few hours to let the glue set before playing around with them.
They're so precious and bright. It was a success for sure, I plan on making so much more knowing how it works out in the end. I have so many ideas!
Start saving bottle tops and give it a go!

I think I've mentioned at least once before that I'm interning at a screen printing shop in NYC? Well if not, now you know. It really is the coolest and most laid back place to be. Well, sometime, as in most of the time, it gets pretty hectic because the office is so small, there's only four of us that work there, and the phone is always ringing along with people constantly walking in and out looking to place orders. But really though, it's the best thing I can ask for right now.
It's a pretty hoppin' place, and we've printed for so many people, including celebrities as well! But we've never actually seen the celebrities; they send their personal assistants. And here is an example.

Last night we had Lindsay Lohan's assistant come in looking to print this shirt for her. (I took care of this order because there were only two of us working last night. If you see her wearing this, yes it was me that printed it! )

Apparently her credit cards declined a few days ago while shopping and news stations felt it was necessary to share the story. I didn't realize that it was so news worthy. Guess it must of been a slow day.
Anyway, she plans on pulling a Tonya Harding and wear a 'NO COMMENT' shirt for her next NYC outing.

It's been the new trend in celebrity land from what her assistant shared with us. Lena Dunham sported it, and it's a thing that's being sold in some Etsy stores.
It's always interesting to see the trends come and go for celebrities. But hey, this beats all other stupid phrased t-shirts that people wear. I wouldn't be opposed to wearing this. I think it says a lot about how I feel all the time, and I get it!

This project started last semester when my professor told us that we needed to put together a physical portfolio. Knowing me and my cheap crafty ways, I started planning on how I could possible construct it.

I had the whole semester to plan it as it was due the second to last week of classes.
From the self taught knowledge of bookbinding, I gathered my usual materials consisting of cardboard, fabric, glue, thread and needle, yarn, and a few other fun things here and there.

I first went shopping for clear portfolio pages in which I measured my cardboard covers according to that. I glued fabric around it, put together the spine. After that I glued down pieces of fabric to cover the insides, as well as adding pockets for business-y things. I also thought a fun touch was adding a snap to have the portfolio close nicely.
I honestly had difficulty figuring out how to add the pages, but figured out a way that would work to keep the option open to add or subtract pages.

The end result was successful as I found a way to make it all work.
When Christmas rolled around, my mom wanted me to put together a photo album for my grandma. I thought it'd be a nice gift to put one together for her and fill it with photos. Of course, first we went shopping for photo album pages so we can judge how big to make it.

I found some scrap cardboard, which I had used for a backing of one of my illustration projects back in first semester. That project was garbage so I had no problem taking it apart. I took the cardboard off and peeled whatever green construction paper I could get off. I glued fabric around it and found an old binder that I took apart to use the rings.

After everything was glued and dried, I made little flap for a snap (rhymes!). I then used fabric to cover up the inside to make it look clean. I followed some same methods as the portfolio, and tried different methods to modify what didn't work. Overall, this came out good! A little flimsy because of the cardboard used. But all good!

My last semester ever I finally got around to taking a bookbinding class. I love what I'm learning and I can't wait to make things on more of a professional level now that I'm learning the proper methods with proper tools!

Not one wish list seems to go by where shoes are not featured. I love shoes way too much.

01. One Small Stoop Floor Mat - I'm not a big fan of having rugs and mats on my floor as they tend to get in the way most of the time. But when I saw this moon mat, I figured I can make exceptions, right?
02. Musumono Socks - I love socks, and I love socks with fun patterns and colors. I don't have many solid colored socks, and that doesn't bother me. This is one I would definitely buy in a heartbeat.
03. Le Bunny Bleu Blue Brities Oxfords - Oxfords are my favorite spring and summer kind of shoe. I've bought quite a number over the years, and this is definitely a fun pair. I love the color combo!
04. Asos Montana Monk Shoes - While we're on a shoes kick, these shoes from Asos are wonderful, I love the pattern and they would sure stand out from anything else I have in my closet.
05. The Melancholy Of Mechagirl - I stumbled upon this book on Amazon and love the artwork from what I see. I've also been trying to take up reading again and I would not mind having this book be a part of my collection.

It's exciting to see some spring like weather roll around! Finally a break, and a chance to move on from this horrendous winter season.