Guest post #2!!

I'm excited to share with you a guest post from one of my favorite crafters-in-crime, Anna Moiso. These shoes turned out AWESOME and I can't wait to try them myself!! Enjoy!

Greetings! If you don't know me, I'm Anna, and I have the great pleasure of guest-posting on MCA! I am super excited about these GALAXY SHOES I made last weekend and can't wait to share! All the sentences so far have exclamation points!

Anyway....I originally got this idea from a crafting site I frequent, but if you google “galaxy shoes” you'll get many, MANY results. My basic plan was to take some old, cheap, black, Keds-type shoes and spruce them up in a space theme.  I began with:

• shoes (obviously)
• paint brushes/sponges
• acrylic paint in pink, purple, black, white
• newspaper (to protect the work area)
• painters tape
• black paper

I wanted to try out some color combinations/patterns before I worked on the shoes. I was going for a space clouds/nebula type look.

Ok, so the painting here is not very spacy, but I did get some ideas of how I wanted to mix the colors. It was also at this point that I decided I wanted to add a little water to the paint to make it slightly thinner. This turned out to be a good call :)
Next, I taped the soles of the shoes with painter's tape so I wouldn't get paint on the rubber edges. (also I took out the shoelaces!)  Then, I started painting the cloudy parts using a combination of colors and white. The sponge brush was great for this.

After I was pretty satisfied with the cloudy parts, I took a pencil and dotted everywhere with white paint in varying sizes (mostly small). I tried with a small paint brush at first, but the pencil worked better for me. Try both ways and choose your own adventure. :)

Things I would consider doing differently next time:

• Find some sparkly acrylic paint – I think this would be VERY cool
• Plan out my pattern of where I wanted to paint the clouds- the two shoes look pretty similar and I would have liked them to be a little more asymmetrical
• Some slip-ons (vans style) would be very cool for this project too!

Thanks for reading and have a great crafternoon!

Anna

uh-oh spaghetti-o

oops. looks like it's been a month since i posted...that's troubling. 

well i know all of you have been lost and fashionless without me, but don't you fret. no more long hiatuses. hiati.

perhaps the reason i haven't written is because i haven't seen a lot of things this summer that i've loved. most of the fashion trends i see revolve around constantly looking like you're in search of a music festival and/or burning man...and as i always say, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

but i can think of some summery things that i've really liked, and i'll share those with you.

first of all, i am loving this billow-y fabric trend. who doesn't love a good chiffon on a hot day? we all know i love clothes that can do double duty, and chiffon tops go so easily from work-appropriate to happy hour and dinner casual. h&m has a lot of these tops in different styles, but so do loads of places.

hm.com

the second thing i'm in love with right now are phone cases that double as wallets. or wallets that double as phone cases. something about carrying a big purse around on a hot day is a little unbearable, and i'm terrified of dropping my brand new iphone or leaving it somewhere (which reminds me, i could do a whole entry on iphone cases...). enter the iphone wristlet! there are lots of options out there, but my choice is the deborah dot wristlet from kate spade. and it's on sale at nordstrom!

nordstrom.com

if kate spade's not quite your speed, i'm also really in love with these. OTTERS:

bungalow360.com

and summer wouldn't be summer without a great pair of neon sandals. plus with the 40% discount happening at j.crew right now, plus your student/educator discount, they are kind of a deal!

jcrew.com

and last but not least, staying hydrated in the heat is a must. and even though i don't have one of these, i really want one. so in the event that you find yourself needing to buy me a present, look no further. this little buddy lets you mix fruits or veggies to diffuse into your water. science is amazing:

fab.com

d'accord! those are my favorite summer things right now. what's keeping you cool on these wonderfully hot days?

terrific terrariums

in this second round of crafting with colleen, we very successfully made terrariums!!

step one: pick your jar. there was a wide selection. i chose the fishbowl style.

there was also a rock selection. some people did a great job picking out their rocks. i made the mistake of overdoing it on the red rocks and had to go back and pick all the red rocks out when i decided i hated them. 

tim took his time really taking in the inspiration that other people were providing. 

rocks round 2.

this is when i was picking out all of the red rocks. it took awhile, but it was worth it.

there was a selection of succulents to choose for your terrarium. 

terrarium in progress!

this was my finished terrarium. i added an abnormally sized lizard (let's say it's a komodo dragon) and an army man stalking the lizard. let's look at this masterpiece from a few more angles. 

colleen puts the finishing touches on her terrarium.

 chris is finally ready to make a terrarium of his own. he starts by dumping in a handful of army men in the jar and then drowning them in red rocks.

chris was excited about his creation. tim finally felt he had enough inspiration to start on his.

basically, it was success all around. here's my recipe for terraria:

materials:

- white sand

- potting soil

- plants that don't require a lot of water

- toys

- rocks

- bowls

- moss

be sure to:

- plan ahead. it's hard to make edits.

- know when to stop. it's easy to overdo it.

- make it really awesome!!

i want to make a dinosaur terrarium sometime. with a volcano in the middle. for now, though, my wonderful terrarium is in my new office. it looks great and i really hope i don't kill the plant.

the end!

can't win em all

i've been having a few craft adventures with my friend colleen recently. some of them have been more successful than others. sometime soon i'll post about the terrariums we made at colleen's birthday party. here i'm going to write about a craft adventure that didn't work out as well.

the goal was to take jars and wine bottles and breathe some new life into them with spray paint. we had two bottles: one was a wine bottle we planned to cover in gold spray paint and one was a mason jar we planned to cover with chalkboard paint. spoiler alert: one of these turned out and one did not.

for the wine bottle, we first took a hot glue gun and wrote colleen's name in glue. i don't have pictures of this because i wasn't thinking about pictures just then. but suffice to say this was really hard. hot glue is really stringy, as it turns out. but we did it and took the bottles outside to be sprayed. we set them on some logs because that seemed like a good idea. and it was.

colleen vigorously shook the spray paint for two whole minutes. or most of two whole minutes.

and spray! our spraying technique improved over time. at first the glitter was just really runny because we were spraying in one place instead of waving the spray paint all over. clearly we were never taggers in our youths. 

the runny glitter was really pretty while it was dripping and glittering, but less pretty when it ended up streaked.

anyway this is how this one turned out. we weren't thrilled about it.

we added a few more coats, but still were not thrilled. 

next we turned our attention to the chalkboard mason jar. we kept it simple and just focused on doing a good spray paint job.

this one turned out really well, i think. several lessons were learned from this project:
1. hot glue guns are mostly terrible for crafting with any precision.
2. chalkboard paint is as awesome as it sounds.
3. simplicity usually wins out.
4. spray painting is not as simple as one would expect. who knew?

ode to stationery

allow me to say something very hipster right now:

people don't send enough hand-written shit anymore.

emails are dandy, but letters are sweeter. thank you cards trump all. pretty paper makes everything look sunnier. these are basic tenets of my existence.

luckily, i'm not alone. there are a lot of people out there making really beautiful papers and things so you can feel hip and cool while writing a card, even if your handwriting does not look like calligraphy.

my very favorite stationery company in the world might be rifle paper co. my office is slowly being taken over by rpc notebooks and notepads. i am obsessed with this vibrant florals and simple prints. observe:

i'm also a big fan of yellow owl workshop, not only for their stamp sets but also for their french-themed cards:

and of course, no stationery post would be complete without some recognition of the beautiful paper source:

those are just a selection of the myriad stationery sets that i've seen and loved. so go forth and send letters! and if you need my address, just let me know :)

double-duty

while i was busy getting excited about floral prints and freaking out about qualifying exams, it seems that a lot of my friends have been planning their nuptials. i went to my first wedding of the season last weekend in hampton, virginia - my bff from FES, mrs. rae wynn-grant davis. in a few weeks, i'll be headed home to celebrate the marriage of ms. jessica stern, and the month after that i'm planning a trip down to querataro, mexico to see kyle ww and sarah tie the knot.

with all of these weddings, i quickly realized a big fashion dilemma:
1) i don't want to wear the same dress to multiple events
2) i don't want to go bankrupt from buying dresses i'm only wearing once.

finding the first dress was a challenge, but after i did, i realized what i was looking for: the perfect dress can be dressed down with a jean jacket and cognac boots, and dressed up with heels, a blazer, and a piece of statement jewelry. so i started looking for dresses i could wear to class and wear to wedding festivities.

ann taylor loft has quickly become one of my favorite places to look for this double-duty dress. for example:
this dress could definitely play both parts - the belt and shoes can make the difference between day and night.

though this dress is a jersey knit, the gathering at the side makes it something a little more special.

 i love this dress. full stop. it may ride the line with being a little too fancy with the jacquard print, but i love neutrals and neons together.

 this is the dress i ended up getting and wearing to the wedding this weekend. it looks like silk, but it's not, so wrinkling isn't as much of a problem. i paired it with a chunky yellow necklace from charming charlie and a pair of taupe patent wedges. for school, though, a jean jacket and sandals or cowboy boots are the perfect way to play up the fun, springyness and down-play the formality.

there are tons of dresses like this - and even if you end up spending a little bit more, you can rest assured knowing that it's a multi-purpose garment! i have a feeling that i'll be attending more and more weddings, graduations, and other celebrations over the next few years so i'm planning to stock up on a few of these kinds of dresses and rotate them around. 

thoughts? what are your tricks for helping your dresses adapt to multiple situations?

dash vishtashana

let's talk about working out. for the past few years, running has pretty much been my only form of exercise. there are a lot of things i really like about running: past the initial start-up cost, it's free. you can do it anywhere, and most importantly, you can do it outside. plus somehow bragging about running is better than bragging about other sports (as evidenced in my contribution to this blog. there are a lot of things i don't like about running, namely that it sucks and it's boring. well, it gets boring when all you do is run the same course every other day for years.

so i've been trying to branch out. my friend jillian has convinced me to come to the gym with her and we've started working on "operation 6 pack." in the name of O6P, we have done lots of novel things like lift weights, do plyometric workouts, and drink kale smoothies. i don't know if it's going exactly how i want it to, though, because i took two weeks off to go to south america and oregon and now all my packs are gone. no packs. 

i also really like yoga, which is no secret. yoga is hard to fit into your workout routine, though, because to get really good at it you have to go pretty regularly. my budget, however, allows me to go exactly one time a week. UNTIL NOW.

because NOW i have a desk job at a yoga studio in palo alto where i work for 2.5 hours every week and get to do as much yoga as i want all week long FOR FREE. they also have trx and barre classes at this studio. i'm stoked. i plan to go to yoga at least 4-5 times a week for the whole quarter.

not having to pay money for yoga means that i can rebudget for awesome workout clothes. so let's look at some of my favorites:

nike.com

i am obsessed with these shoes and i must have them. this is the nike studio wrap pack - it's three different components (one of the components, a ballet-shoe style flat, isn't pictured) that you can wear in five different ways. i've always been mildly disgusted by the fact that sometimes in hot yoga you step in pools of other peoples' sweat. and have to go into the bathroom with bare feet. and by mildly i mean extremely and by disgusted i mean horrified. these shoes are a dream come true because i can be a germaphobe AND be cute about it! unfortunately, they don't come out til may. but still. awesome.

as far as sports bras, i find little joy in wearing something that hardly anyone sees. while i love the lululemon sports bras, they're too expensive for something i'm just going to throw a tank top over. instead, i swear by the champion sports bras at target:

target.com

they are great. now on the next item, hear me out. i too was initially discouraged by the price tag on this yoga mat ($68). but i caved because everything else i found was too thin or not grippy enough and i was having a lot of trouble with sliding around. and headstands are really unpleasant on thin mats/wood floors. i decided if i was going to spend a lot of money on anything yoga related, it was going to be the mat (kind of like shoes for running) because it's something i use every time i go, and it actually makes a difference in my performance/enjoyment of the workout. on a related note, i would really like a cute mat bag. someone should make me one. 

lululemon.com

i'll stop there for now. i really love workout clothes from zella because i can buy them from nordstrom rack for way cheaper, and they're pretty much as cute as lululemon without the insane investment. 

et toi? what are you workout-must-haves?