Getting Ready For A New Year!

I just arrived home from a week long vacation to Florida... It was an interesting week...

The first day we get there, the day before Christmas Eve, I made the silly mistake of venturing into the mall... I bought a gorgeous pair of Nine West shoes, but the mall was insanely packed.

Then on the way to my cousin's house, my cousin, little sister and I get into a car accident. We were stopped at a red light and the other car slammed into us.

We spent the night at the ER getting X-rays, we are all fine, but my back definitely still hurts.

I took pain killers and pretty much slept through Christmas eve, but not before getting all dressed up.

My Nephew Matthew and I getting ready for Noche Buena!

We spent Christmas Day at my Aunt's house, I got makeup and clothes.  And forgot to take pictures.

 Since, most people were either sick or sore from a certain car accident, I spent most of the trip just hanging out with my nephew.

And I got my Michael Kors watch!

Horrible picture of my beautiful MK watch. 

15hrs later, and we are home! Ellie and Lolly slept most of the trip

Nail Polish of the Week: Stealing the Scene

I know it has been a while, but truthfully I didn't paint my nails for about a month. GASP! Last week I went with Stealing the Scene from Essie its a metallic mixture of silver and gold... and after a while it just looked completely silver.  Nevertheless, its a great festive color.

And I misplaced my camera... so Iphone pictures for now. 

This week, I have my KISS Everlasting French Manicure going. I haven't grown tired of it yet and popped them all off, hopefully I'll keep them on a full week this time.

And my toes are a lovely shade of Envy, which looked especially festive with my red peep-toe flats. 

It Lifts and Separates

 I may have mentioned, I've been consumed with school lately continuously working on projects. Well, this week as the semester draws to an end, so do my projects.

I think my favorite, but most intense class this semester has been pattern making. I spent many nights and countless hours in the classroom working hard on my patterns. My pattern work, wasn't as good as I would have liked. So when given the chance to challenge myself I went for it.

Our final project was to make a bustier foundation garment. We had to make a bustier with princess seams, or we could make a bustier with bra cups, which was a bit harder.

After my first sew up, I was starting to regret my decision. As you can see, the muslin was HUGE on Betty.

But it really wasn't that bad, it only had to be taken in... a lot. I did two complete muslin sew ups,  then the canvas/final sew up. I then had to replace a whole piece of the canvas, because apparently Betty is lopsided. I added a bra (a padded fabric, which we had to make ourselves) and some boning.... 

I am so incredibly happy with how it turned out! While I'm happy to have some free time, I already can't wait to get back to pattern making in the Spring!

MIA

I know, I know... I have been missing around here for a while. School, is the culprit... just project after project. Don't believe me?
Exhibit A: I'm writing this at 3 a.m. (I just finished a project, and thought I'd check in.)
Exhibit B : 140 unread emails in my inbox this morning.... I am usually super on top of going through my emails.

Well, I have my big Bustier final due on Friday, and finals the week after... then freedom... and more regular updates on the blog!

My final project bustier, in muslin before the first fitting. 

Crazy Times!

When I say the last week has been full of crazy, I mean it! There were obviously no posts from me last week, I was busy putting together my Visual Merchandising project, which took up all of my time.
But I will now attempt to do a quick recap of things you might have missed:
First, we missed Halloween, where I made a costume for the little sister. She went as Super Glue. I did not dress up...

Next, I went to Voodoo fest and saw Muse and Weezer. It was an interesting trip getting there but once there, it was AWESOME!

The next big thing that over took my life, the Visual Merchandising project. Where we created our own window displays.

We spent many long hours working... 

Obviously, we didn't go with my design, but my group and I were very happy with the end results.  The writing on the window says:

 LBD

A Sure Bet

Oh and my nails have been naked for over a week, hopefully I will get some time tomorrow to finally paint them so we can have a Nail Polish of the Week this week.  I am between redoing Envy from Ulta or finding a completely different color from something I've already done.  Let me know what you think in the comments! 

Block Party

It feels like I have been working on my block for forever! But really its just been a couple of weeks. Last night, making copies of my pattern, I was amazed at  how far its come in a few short (very stressful) weeks.

We started out draping the muslin on the dress form, and came out with a fabric pattern piece.

Then we transfered the markings from the fabric to paper, from there we made corrections added seam allowances and cut and made our first sew up.

After the sew up, we did fittings. A few tweaks to the pattern later and we produced our block!

Now I can make tons of copies!

My block consists of five pieces: bodice front, bodice back, skirt front, skirt back and a sleeve. I am just displaying the bodice front piece though.

Nail Polish of the Week: Damsel In a Dress

This week's color is Essie's Damsel in a Dress. I got this color forever ago, and I think this is one of the first times I have used it. Anyway, its use was long overdue. I really love this dark almost black purple color. Its a great week before Halloween shade.

Scheduling

Its that time of the semester again! Time to schedule for next Spring, I have the classes I want lined up and now its all about waiting to get them. If all goes according to plan I'll have Fridays off, which is pretty neat.  I miss those days, I had a schedule like that last spring, it was really nice.
I am planning to take Pattern design with Computer Application, Apparel Design Studio, Management, and Interpersonal Communication.

Love having fresh flowers in the house.

The coming week is set to be pretty stressful, I have three big tests at the end of the week and I probably have to make at least one halloween costume. So I venture to guess you probably won't hear too much from me.  I do have the nail polish of the week lined up for later today, and I did buy a new pair of shoes that I must show off, so at least we have that for this week.

Nail Polish of the Week: March of Hearts 2009

This week's color is an ode to Breast Cancer Awareness month, March of Hearts 2009. Its a great light pink color, perfect for those quick nail polish jobs, I did this one 5 minutes before I had to walk out the door.

Practice Makes Perfect

As I mentioned in my last post, I have numerous projects going on right now. 

One of which is the Window Display Project.  We are given windows and must come up with a display idea and construct it. In my group, we all decided to come up with sketches and then from there we would decide on our two favorite to submit to the teacher and from there we would pick which display to do our project on. 

I came up with two sketches. In the first, the drape should be more of a lilac color although it didn't come out right in the picture. 

The second, features fashion sketches scattered throughout the background with crumpled sketches on either side littering the floor. The idea is that "Practice Makes Perfect", us designers work hard coming up with tons of different concepts and ideas and then we finally have the perfect finished product. 

My group liked both sketches, but we chose the second to go forward and get reviewed by our teacher. The other design that got chosen by the group was really good too,  of course I'd love for us to go with mine, but I have a good feeling about our display either way. 

Bleh

So there is nothing else to say really, other than bleh. The past week, thats what it has really been, just bleh. Even though my midterm tests were all the week before, this week has just been jammed packed with STRESS. But I guess that just means I'm getting into the bulk of my fashion curriculum.

First, we were given 2 new projects to start working on. One of which we have about 1/2 page instruction for this huge assignment (the teacher really doesn't care about the class, but grades hard anyways). Both projects are group projects, and I have pretty much the same group for both. Hopefully the group thing will end up to be a positive.

Next, we had muslin fittings this week for our pattern... it just hurts me to talk about it. I worked so long and hard on my pattern and in the end you just want your pattern to be perfection. However, mine of course had its flaws. Which I guess I should just accept since its my first time doing this. I was crestfallen. Sewing is the one thing I think I am good at, and to have errors just blows.

This week, my hours have been so bleh. Tuesday I was at school from 8 am until 9:45 pm, we ordered pizza to our building. I hear the hours we keep just get worse, which is delightful to hear. As downtrodden as I feel this week though, I have a feeling that in the future I will look back and wish that this amount of stress was all that I had to deal with.

Oh, if you were interested in my projects?

For Product Development, we have to create a "company" and do target market research, create a line, do spec sheets and cost sheets and stuff like that. Its a big project with a lot of work and the teacher doesn't really care to give us to much info on it.

The second project is for Visual Merchandising. We get to create window displays! I am equally excited and petrified of this project. We have a lot to live up to from last semester, and I don't know where to start with it. But I am excited to get to work on it and see the end product.

Anyways, I don't know when my schedule will finally calm down, but until then, Ill try to enjoy the ride.

Vampire Weekend Concert!

Last weekend, Mary, her little sister and I traveled down to New Orleans, to go to the Vampire Weekend concert! On the drive down, before we got lost, we saw this car, decked out in Hello Kitty!

 Then we preceded to get lost and we ended up going through the French Quarter, but we eventually found our way and made it to the theatre before the concert started.

The concert was awesome, they had incredible lighting and backgrounds to go along with each song.

At one point, chandeliers came down from the ceiling and they moved and the lights flickered with the beat of the music. 

It was a truly great concert! Can't wait till they come again. 

Check out the lighting affects that went with their song Cousins, it was pretty awesome.

Nail Polish of the Week: Merino Cool

The nail polish this week was supposed to be Sew Psyched a sage/grey color from Essie's current Fall collection. However, life had other plans and my nails got completely messed up from some fabric adhesive. So the color for this week is Essie's Merino Cool, also from the current fall collection.

I'm not happy with how this picture came out. In person, the color is a darker purple. I love it its really pretty and neutral. I think I'll try to take more pictures later of this color, but in the meanwhile check out ByHillary's post on it, I think her color is more accurate.

23 Days Left

Halloween is right around the corner, 23 days away to be exact. In the past I have made my costume, and costumes for friends. This year, with school and other activities making their presence known I doubt I'll have time to do much. 

Back in 2007, Amanda and I were pretty obsessed with Wicked, So we did our own version of the theme. I made her dress, and my skirt. 

In 2008 and 2009, I did the whole Alice in wonderland thing, way before the movie came out. 

 Last year, I made Grace and her friend Phoebe Wilma and Betty costumes. 

 If I do make something this year, I'm either tagging along on a friend's plan to do Pacman, or I could live out my dream of making a Marie Antoinette costume (but I really want to devote some time to that). I have been watching costume makeup tutorials lately trying to get ideas. I love Kandee Johnson's costume make up videos, they look amazing, be sure to check them out.  I so want to try one!

 Anna and I doing the whole Halloween thing, back in the day. My grandmother made these costumes. 

So what are some of your costume ideas. 

Nail Polish of the Week: Russian Navy

Its that time of the year again, its fall! I am so happy for cooler weather, its been in the 80s for the last week and its just amazing. The cooler weather makes me love breaking out the darker colors. So its that time again, time for Russian Navy. One of my favorite colors a rich dark navy color with a little shimmer to it.

A Touch of Vintage

This morning, Rhonda and I headed over to the vintage sale. I was running a little late so once we got there a lot of the great items I saw on Thursday, including the outfit I put together, were already gone.  

But never fear we still found some great items. 

First I got this necklace, its gold and the beads are wood. Its pretty long and can be doubled up, $2.50.

Next, I got these black and gold cameo earrings. They are pretty old looking, and they are "clip-ons" but really the back screws tighter to hold the earring in place, $2.50

Last I got a dark blue with gold accent clutch, $5.

So in all I did pretty well. There were some gorgeous vintage dresses, but I had no real use for them, other than admiring how pretty they were.

Rhonda also bought some things...

She got a tie for her boyfriend Scott, $1. 

I love the abstract floral print on it!

Rhonda also got this great cross body bag, its a really pretty grey color, $5.

 She wanted to add a little something to it, so we found this really cute red rose pin $2. 

This weekend had gorgeous weather.  I went to the football game Saturday, it was really nice in the stadium.  Today was a great day to do a little shopping and then just laze around the house catching up on things.