Icing on the cake

As if today couldn't get any lovelier, after running around the house feeling like a fairy and eating popsicles (100 percent whole fruit) in the summer heat, my family's package from "Hands On" art studio arrived today. We visited there when we went on vacation, it's in fish creek Wisconsin. We spent all day creating things, and they fired them in the kiln and sent them to us! I made this fantastically adorable little mod teapot, whom I've decided to name "Janet". In my growing collection of teapots, she is my new favorite. Admittedly she has her faults, when I poured tea it dribbled down the front and made a bit of a mess, but with the amount of tea I drink, I'll probably just end up drinking from the spout anyway ;)

JANET

Grace, one of my little sisters,  spent about 4 hours on this fused glass piece. 

 And my family made a fused glass wind chime.

Oh! And we're going to go to air traffic to learn how to juggle now.

Update: I learned how to use a diabolo at air traffic and played with my juggling sticks. I'm going to work on astrojax tomorrow and get myself a proper yoyo so I can do yoyo tricks too. Made myself some poi, because why not learn it all? oh, and I can juggle with three balls now. maybe I'll add some or try pins next?

Outfit of the Day. Like a fairy

What to do on a day when you've got absolutely nothing planned till 6 pm? Spend hours playing dress up to get ready. I love feeling pretty and costumey, and I also love being able to pull it off in real life. I thrifted this $4 skirt yesterday and decided I needed to play with it while ideas were still fresh in my mind, and this is what I came up with!

What I'm wearing: lace tank top from rag stock, Charlotte Russe corset thrifted for $5, garage sale kissing butterfly belt, thrifted skirt worn with slip, thrifted black ballet flats.

The flowers are from an old dance recital, the earrings are from a garage sale

I went with no eye liner today, I have a white shimmer in the inner corners of my eyes, pink eyeshadow on the lid, matte gold above the lid, and white along the lashes, topped of with kirkland signature mascara. Wearing e.l.f. bronzer and clinique lipstick in rhubarb poppy

the belt! this thing is from a garage sale I went to when I was nine, then I grew into it a couple of years ago :)

Thank you to my lovely sister for taking these photos, I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

Foam Rollers Tutorial (plus cleaning)

Ok, One of my favorite things to do with my hair is to make it AS CURLY AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. I have straight/wavy...ish hair naturally, so curling it up is a fun switch for me. However, I also have a LOT of hair, which means standing with my arm in the air with a curling iron/wand is not my idea of a good time. I have some hot rollers too, but I only use those if I didn't think to use my trusty foam rollers first. They're the good old fashioned kind, and they get my hair curly like nothing else. This is not going to turn out like prom hair or barrel curls or anything though, I opt for crazy curls.

Ok, to start with, you need a set of curlers. If your hair is anything like mine, a set of 8 is NOT going to be enough. I have a set of 48 curlers in various sizes by Conair, which I got at walgreens for $10. They come in four sizes.

Pink is the largest, then green, purple, and blue is the smallest. I'm going to be using mostly purple and green today. The thing is, not all of my hair will fit into the set of one color, so I use a smaller size on the top, with the next size up on the lower half of my head.

to insert the curlers, start with barely damp hair, I waited about an hour and a half after my shower. Brush your hair, and place the curler under a 2-inch section of hair, rolling it under and away from your part like in the picture above, this will make the curls look slightly more uniform and natural.

Purple on top, then green, and I ran out of green so I used pink at the very bottom.

Then sleep on  it! It may feel uncomfortable at first but you'll get used to it. If it helps, you can wear a large beanie or scarf on your head to sleep on so that they won't get pulled out while you're sleeping.

In the morning, I pull all the rollers out one by one, starting with the ones at the bottom (pink-green-purple) and shake my head really hard....I whip my hair back and forth so to speak. I also separate some of the more stubborn curls with my fingers. I don't use any product, so it flattens out a little bit, but you can put in hairspray or mousse or whatever you want to keep it just as bouncy as when you first take the rollers out all day.

Finally, I add a headband to tie it all together. This is one of my favorite looks. If I get tired of it by the end of the day I can whip it up into the worlds most fabulous messy bun. (which I will probably show you later.) Hope you enjoy getting your hair as curly as possible.

Finally, if you've used your curlers more than a few times like I have, you may notice they aren't as springy as they used to be, they might also have some residual hairspray or just oil from your hair in them. Turns out they're very easy to clean! I put them all together in this delicates bag and put them in the washer on delicate cold, then I hung up the bag whole and they turned out perfectly. In fact, I did that just before using them for this tutorial. Clean hair products keep your hair healthy!

Ciao! Have a happy fourth of July!

Update, here's the messy bun I mentioned. It's great to have curls in a bun cause of all the volume!

The Incredible Avocado

I had two avocado themed meals today and as a result I am one happy blogger! The first was made by my mom.

 It's a cold corn flour noodle salad with shrimp, olive oil, lemon, and cilantro, with half an avocado and a whole tomato.

The second I made myself! It's a whole avocado, pitted and peeled, 6 ice cubes with some water, a couple spoonfuls of plain greek yogurt, a splash of vanilla, and about a half cup of honey. All in the blender. It's very filling, mind you, so I have a half glass left in the fridge for later.

Ear Candy

Hello there! Today it was once again around a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. All. Day. And I had rehearsal outside of course. We had loads of fun anyway, and made sure to stay well hydrated. I wanted to share with you my ear candy for the day, A totally cool way to make an otherwise plain outfit pop is to add accessories. And I love accessories to a fault.

The hoops are some statement pieces I got in Chicago a couple of years ago, and the ear cuff with the chain is from ebay, the cuff on my upper inner ear is celtic design, also from ebay. I don't have a problem with non-silver/gold metals on my ears, so shopping on Ebay isn't a problem for me, but I wouldn't recommend it if your piercings are sensitive.

The chain was only on one side, on the other I had a white rose stud to offset the stone in the hoops.

To use the heat as an accessory instead of a hinderance I went all out on the eye makeup today... (well, as far as I would go...I'm not one for big flashy colors) and used coral and pink together with a bold liner.

I used a gel liner from ebay, kirkland signature mascara, and pink, coral, and neutral colored eyeshadows from Coastal Scents' original 88 palette. I used cover girl stick concealer as a base. Finally, to make it stand the heat, I used e.l.f's translucent powder.

Don't go out without your sun hats in this heat! This one's my new favorite, $4 from a thrift store, I added the green braid and intend to use all sorts of colors on this hat. Keep cool! Check back tomorrow for a tutorial on how to curl your hair with foam rollers.

Hot Day, Cool Outfit

 So My aunt took me and my sisters to see Brave today which was absolutely incredible. I  cried at least three times, which for me is the mark of a good movie. Also, what wouldn't I give for Merida's HAIR?

Look at the Celtic goodness!

It's hot as balls in Minnesota, so I wore shorts. We had a nice day at the mall including a stop at Panera. We spent about an hour at Marbles and Air Traffic playing with juggling games. My new favorite toy is most definitely the Astrojax.

I'm wearing shorts AND t-shirt from Old Navy, and comfy summer sandals from Tradehome.

I'm quite proud of my hair today! braided my own headband successfully, and topped of my bun with a vintage silver bow.

I just got my third piercing done about a month ago so that one is being boring. :)
The bronze one is a die cast dress design, very vintage looking but I actually got them on Ebay for about $4
The middle one, tear drop is actually vintage, was my mom's in the 80s, and she got them from HER mom!

But overall my favorite piece of the day is this necklace-watch-pendant...thing. Graduation gift from mom, I thought it tied the earrings together nicely.

At any rate, this was a nice, cool outfit for a hot day, I wasn't uncomfortable and I felt great in the theater, the mall, and outside.

Healthy Granola Yoga

Hey everyone! I went to a yoga class at Zenon dance studio in Minneapolis today! It was open level, so I figured why not give it a try? There were about 16 people in the class, a fairly diverse group of people. There were some 30 something women, a middle aged man and a 50 something woman, as well as 3 older guys who had APPARENTLY been doing yoga a while because I can promise you your average grandpa is not that flexible.

 Over all, the class itself was GREAT. I got a lot out of it and felt good afterwards, however, parking in Minneapolis sucks. And while Zenon has really reasonable prices for dance classes, I found yoga, Pilates, and Zumba classes at my community center for about half the price. The community center is also closer and has free parking. I'd love to continue taking yoga, and for me, the community center is just more reasonable.

This morning I ran off without breakfast by accident. I am a firm believer in good breakfasts and I happened to leave mine sitting on the counter. Whoops! When I got back from class I ate it right away. I had these amazing granola-type clusters from Costco, about a handful, with a banana and some of those fresh berries that are on the counter.

 Have you taken yoga classes? How was your experience?