Hand Painted Floral Docs

So I’ve been on the search for floral Doc. Martens for as long as I can remember! I’ve been dreaming that one day they’d magically appear in a thrift store, but alas that was just a fantasy. After years of searching, hoping, and dreaming, I finally went online to look for a pair. Although after doing a bit of looking they just seemed so expensive to me. I just couldn't justify spending that much on shoes (even if they are Doc Martens). I always end up thinking about how many yards of fabric that I could buy with that money. Haha.

So I found these awesome Doc. Marten look-a-likes at H&M for $20 and I bought my own fabric paint for $10 and went to town. I worked on them during Christmas break and I just now got around to photographing them. They’re super fun to wear and I’ve worn them around like crazy! There’s a little bit of chipping at the creases due to walking, but that's pretty normal for painted shoes. Other than that, I’ve found that fabric paint holds up pretty well. Here are some close ups...

Do you have any tips for painting shoes? I'd love to hear them!

Absolutely nothing to do with fashion or sewing.

Hello everyone! Wow, I can't believe that it's mid-July already! I've been working on a 1920s inspired lace dress this week which I'm really excited to photograph and show you. I've been playing around with different sewing techniques all this summer which has been a lot of fun and I’m learning a lot through just experimenting. I have a backload of dresses and jackets that I need to show you.

But right now, I thought that I'd show you my poor dog who has allergies right now and has to wear a cone to keep her from biting her itchy spots. When I first put it on her, she didn't move from the same spot for 4 hours. haha. I don't know if you have any pets, but Libby is the most emotional dog that I have ever met. Are your pets like that?

Scholastic announcements...

Soooooooooooo…Thursday was the National Scholastic announcements and well….I’M GOING TO NEW YORK CITY!! I received a National Gold Key for the Masking Tape Dress and I also received a National American Vision Award for the video that I made of my Grandma. I feel so blessed and excited right now!! I’ve never been to New York before! I’m so completely stoked that I can’t even put it to words! I want to thank all of you for being so supportive of me and always saying such kind words… it really means a lot and I just feel so blessed!


…now to figure out how in the world I’m going to ship the masking tape dress to New York! haha.



^all the National winners from the Funky Formal (can you find Waldo? haha)

^some of the kids from art camp and of course my twin!

^This is Max and Joslyn. They head up the Scholastics Program at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, and they are also two of the nicest people that you'll ever meet!

P.S. I'll post more pictures of my dress later...I finished it literally 10 minutes before I had to leave! Haha I was cutting it a little close (pun intended!)

A self-portrait story

Self-portrait drawing. It recieved a regional silver key in the Scholastics :)

During the past few weeks I’ve been working on my artist statements for the Scholastics Art and Writing competition. After writing them and seeing the crazy amount of self-portraits I’ve taken over the past two years, I’ve realized something: my self-portraits have really become a personal diary/journal for myself. At first it was just a way to document the clothes that I made. Then I needed models for my clothes, but by the time I called up a friend to model for me, the weather that I wanted would change into something else. So I was stuck with doing self-portraits most of the time.

For a while I didn’t want to show my self-portraits, because I didn’t want anyone to think that I was in love with myself or anything (blgh, gag me). I felt like they were more of an embarrassing thing. It’s really not until this year that I’ve finally become comfortable with showing them.

The first self-portrait that I ever took...oh dear.

A more recent self-portrait

I was looking back on some of my first self-portraits the other day, and it was pretty funny to see the difference! I’ve changed so much within the past couple of years that I wonder what I’ll be like in a year, or even five years from now. Woah, I don't know if I want to think that far in advance!

I’ve been thinking a lot about colleges and what I should be, and I have so many people giving me advice about what I should go into that it’s all kind of turned into a jumbled mess. But I’ve decided that in five years from now, whatever it is that I’m doing I just hope that I’m truly happy and in love with whatever I chose to go into. Maybe it will be fashion, maybe it will be film, or maybe I’ll combine the two and do something with costume design! Who knows! All I know is that whatever I decide on it’s going to be something that I love and something that I’m crazy about.

Masking Tape Dress

I made this dress for the Scholastic Art and Writing competition. It’s made completely out of masking tape and let me just tell you that it was a bit of a sticky situation (haha pardon the pun, but I just couldn’t help myself). I was inspired by architecture and an empty butterfly chrysalis.

I first constructed the underneath by using a stiff interfacing. Next I had to add a couple of layers of masking tape on top of that in order to get the length where I wanted it. Then I started adding, one by one, layers of masking tape starting from the bottom. I used over 18 rolls of masking tape and over 80 hours went into making the dress. The dress is completely wearable. It has a zipper sewn in the back for getting in and out of.

I might have nightmares about wads of tape attacking me in my sleep, but I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. Haha. I just dropped it off for judging and I find out Sunday if it got in. Oh I’m so nervous! Wish me luck and I hope you like it :)



***Update Sunday*** I got the results back and the dress won a Gold Key!! :D Thank you everyone for all the kind and encouraging words!

Inspiration Journal:

Hello everyone! Here are a couple of pages from my inspiration journal. I've been slowly filling it up with photos and quotes that inspire me and it's now finally all finished! So I guess I’ll just have to start a new one. Enjoy! :)

Drawing of a Girl

Hey everyone! Here's a drawing I did the other day. I forgot how much I liked drawing. I used to draw all the time when I was little, but then I switched to knitting and other fun stuff. I'm starting to pick it back up again. :)

I hope you're all having a great Saturday and don’t forget to set you’re clocks forward!

P.S. If you know the source of the original photograph could you let me know. I saw it on a blog once, but I forgot the name of the blog...I've been trying to figure it out and it's been driving me nuts! Haha It'd be much appreciated!

Drawings

Hey everyone! Sorry for the late post, I’ve been slaking on taking photos lately due to it’s FREeeezing outside! In the meantime, I’ve been drawing quite a bit, so here are just a couple of them, I hope you like them. :)

P.S. I still need to give the last drawing hands...Oops. Haha.

Inspiration Journal:

Hey guys. Right now I’m waiting for the weather to change to take pictures. So I thought I’d show you some of the pages from my inspiration journal I’ve been keeping. Hope you enjoy. : )

Fashion sketches:

Here are some of my fashion sketches. I thought I would show them to you while I’m waiting for good picture taking weather. So enjoy.

Foil Dress

This dress of mine is made out of foil and tape. It took around 4 days, 6 boxes of Reynolds Heavy Duty Foil, tape, and one room completely covered in foil. I entered it in the Scholastics Art Competition 2010 and so far it has won a regional Gold Key. So pretty exciting. : ) The award ceremony is next week and I’m trying to figure out what to wear, hmm. I’m for sure wearing my beloved neon, orange chucks which could flag down a plane, even at night time…or so I’m told. I guess I’ll try to sew something up this week, or maybe I’ll hit the jackpot at Goodwill. So until then I’ll try to figure it out.

Plastic Bag Dress

While I’m waiting for good photo taking weather, I thought I’d show you a couple of my old stuff that I’ve made. This dress was made out of plastic bags. Overall it took about 100 hours in the process of making it. I started out by making a dress underneath and then layering on hundreds of cut-up plastic bags with glue. I entered it in the Scholastics Art Competition and it won a regional Gold Key. But now the dress’s days are over, thanks to a heater in my room. The front bodice is now completely melted. I really wasn’t sad about it, but I think my mom could have used a box of tissues. At least I still have my memories of it.

Sailor Dress & Homemade Fashion Feature:

I love the old sailor dresses from the 1950s. When I finished sewing it I showed it to my mom and she was like, “I used to wear one of those when I was a kid.” So that was kind of funny. After lots of bribing, I finally got my little brother to help me with the photo shoot. I am now 2 candy bars short because of it and that’s worth a lot in my house. We live on a steady diet of Anti-Cancer-Soup, (don’t ask), and vegetables, so every type of junk food is valuable. The photos were greatly inspired from the music video for the song Hoppipolla by sigur ros. It really brings out the imagination of a kid, and has beautiful instrumental parts.

I take all my photos with a tripod and self timer.