just kidding...nature kicks mario cart butt!

Family Game Night was cancelled thanks to a certain someone (John, your immune system sucks!) So am home tonight, when I should be downing massive amounts of grape soda and losing miserably at Mario Cart. On the bright side I spent the evening with my mom and we went out to one of my favorite places in the whole wide world - Sephora! I got some stuff...which I will blog about tomorrow. The lighting's not good at the moment and Cammy (my camera) is being kind of a big jerk right now - not focusing like a good little camera - so I have been forced to blog about something other than beauty and fashion - NATURE!

These were taken two weeks ago during my walking tour of Jill's hometown. No Jill to be seen in this post, but lots and lots of NATURE! I just love the fall for its colors, for its smell, and also for the amazing backdrop it creates for my photography...okay I really like stuffing my face at Thanksgiving and hot chocolate on a nippy night, BUT I still love the scenery more than I love that of summer or spring. I don't take a lot of photographs of subjects other than people, but its been growing on me a lot lately and I think I will be doing a lot more of it. I was experimenting with my "sports" option on Cammy for the water shots. I don't use this option too often because...well I don't go to a lot of sporting events that I actually watch. ANYWAY it took the fast moving water beautifully so for that I think I will be using it more often for moving targets (for lack of a better word.) It took me this long to actually go through the nature shots and edit the keepers and I am so glad that I finally did. I do have more that I edited, but I'll save that for a rainy day.

Assuming that all my friends don't come down with some cursed 24-hour flu tomorrow, a bunch of us should be seeing "Due Date" tomorrow afternoon and then going over to Jill's for the night. I know last weekend was great with the Blair Witch Project and Toy Story 3 so I'm hoping tomorrow night will be just as awesome! Thank goodness for long weekends...and the mercy of my high school for giving me an extra day off Friday.

john lennon specks

(Thrifted circle sunglasses)

Since last April, my friends Lexii, John, Peter, and I have been getting together for "Family Game Night." We've had 3 since last spring and we've been trying to have them whenver we can and we're having one tomorrow at Lexii's! It's a good time we play Star Wars Trouble, Family Feud, Mario Cart, and the Game of Things. I'm not quite sure why we always play these, but its what we have and its fun every time. This will be the 4th time so...I'm thinking we might do something we don't usually do.

This photo was taken at our last Family Game Night when Lexii asked to try on my "John Lennon Specks" - as I call them. I got these from Saver's...like every other awesome thing in my closet. Not much of an upload tonight. I've got a lot of work to do and tests to study for, but I took a little break to do something fun. I just wanted to fill you in on my plans for tomorrow. Since my school decided to be awesome we have Veteren's Day (Thursday) and Friday off...just because. So I obviously am going to take extreme advantage of this and do as much fun stuff as possible!

Here's a video that I made of what our game nights are typically like. The footage is all from our first one back in April. ENJOY!

video propaganda

Over the summer I began experimenting with videography. I edited a few fun videos out of clips taken of me and my friends and then I began filming more art films. I posted yesterday and then realized that I hadn't posted any of my videos on here! I thought you guys might want to check it out. I edited the two with Lexii in "Windows Movie Maker" which came with my laptop and I edited Birgitta's with "Adobe Premiere Elements 0.8."

I really hope you enjoy them.

This one was my very first art film. Lexii and I are both huge Andy Warhol & Edi Sedgewick fans so we decided that for our first video collaboration we decided to go for a vintage, 60's feel and that's what the finished product became. It was funny at first because Lexii wasn't used to seeing herself starring in her own art film and I wasn't used to having pictures moving as I edited them.

During the first video, Lexii and I overlooked quite a few bits of good footage. This was pretty much a scrap video - made of some scraps of unused footage and some previously used footage. Hope you like it!

My little cousin, Birgitta, is one the people I care about the most in the world. This was the first video that I edited in Adobe Premiere so please be kind. The footage in this video was taken the same day as the "Skinny Love" photo set.

Nothing too happy happened today. I went to school, got home and went right to my room to study for 3 quizes, finish up a project, and do other homework stuff. Not a very eventful Monday.

How was yours?

in my shoes + mixtape #2

 (Jeffrey Campbell wooden clogs, Dr. Martens, Jeffrey Campbell for Free People studded oxfords & cork wedges, thrifted white moccasins, Kelsi Dagger wedge booties)

So over the summer I began my "cool" shoe collection; before this summer my shoes consisted of a pair of black, buckled UGG boots and a million pairs of converse, which I hardly even wear anymore. I got into Jeffrey's after looking for a pair of heeled clogs that looked like the ones from Chanel S/S 2010 and found these at Nordstrom. I loved them so much that I went on solestruck.com and found at least a million pairs of shoes that I love - I've been hooked since then.

These brown Docs are not my only pair - they're the only pair that I wear regularly. They're actually supposed to be my mom's, but she never wears them...because I wear them all the time! I got them in June and thought they were way too awesome to wait to wear until fall so I broke them in pretty fast in that hot, humid, New England weather. They look pretty old now - just the way I them!

I got the Jeffrey Campbell oxfords and the wedges in the same order on sale from Free People. The oxfords were supposed to be my school shoes (Catholic school with uniform) but I'm pretty sure that now that its cold enough to wear tights and flats I'll be wearing these more places than just school. I wore the wedges out a lot towards the end of the summer and also quite a few times to school on free dress days (days when we can wear whatever-the-hell we want) and I've gotten a bunch of compliments.

Alright so these "Walkables" are pretty much Minnetonka knock-offs. I actually have a legit pair - hmm probs should have included those...whatever I'm too lazy to add - but the sole fell off the first time I wore them out so I felt pretty jibbed. I fixed them with hot glue. ANYWAY I found these at Saver's for $8 which is WAY less then what I paid for the Minnetonkas. I've been wearing these a lot just because I love the beaded bird on the front and I really...don't have any white shoes.

*GASP!*

These black wedge booties are the newest edition to my collection...and have yet to be worn outside the house. I was SO close to wearing them out the other day BUT I found something cooler to wear...pretty sure it was the Docs...I'll wear these eventually, but I <3 them so it won't be a problem. I got them at Marshall's for a pretty good price along with a pair of knee-high boots, which I was also going to include in this post, but couldn't figure out to properly shoot them sooo. You'll see them eventually; they're the kind of boots that look better on than not.

M I X T A P E
1. Thieves by She & Him
2. Kisses Over Babylon by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
3. Before Destruction by Spoon
4. Your Lips Are Red by St. Vincent
5. I Like My Mice (Dead) by Mildred
6. Opposite of Adolesence by Chiddy Bang
7. January Wedding by The Avett Brothers
8. Shakin' All Over by The Guess Who
9. Woman King by Iron & Wine
10. Split Needles by The Shins

Thankyou to all the awesome comments that I've been getting. I greatly appreciate everyone of them!

your lips are red



(Active lace top, Free People lace slip, and thrifted vest)

The vest - I'm just about positive - used to belong to some old lady with a million cats, but I'm not sure. I got it at the best place in the world - SAVERS! I'm telling you its the store I've been to the most in the past month. Even my friends love it! Oakley actually picked out this old-hippie vest saying "I bet you could rock this with something cool." I took her up on that bet and bought it for $4 and I've been wearing it everywhere.

During the summer I began to beg my mom to let me wear bright red lipstick. Whenever we would be in Sephora I would go right to the bright-colored lipstick and attempt to try some on and she would be all like "NO!" you're too young to wear red, it makes you look old. But I just would think "Hmm...well I'm 17 now, if I wear it now and look older that's fine, but when I'm like 40 looking old isn't good sooo...wouldn't make more sense to wear it now?" SO we were at the M.A.C. counter in Macy's and I snuck some M.A.C. Pro Longwear Lipcolour. Mom finally decided to let me buy it. I wore for about a week straight in August and then kind of just forgot about it until last night when I pulled it out again to try. So while I was editing these my Mom comes in and goes "WHOA! Why are you wearing red lipstick?" then she tells me to throw out the tube. I get all freak out and go "NO! It's from M.A.C. no way in hell am I throwing it out!"

Haha so yeah that was my night. I'm a sucker for nude lips, but sometimes they get boring so I pull this out for whirl. My eyes seem to get all the attention in the morning; it was time to give my lips a little attention.

I'm considering wearing this shade tonight when I meet up with my friends, but I'm not quite sure yet. I mean I like it in pictures and everything, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to showcase such a bold lipcolor to my friends quite yet. We'll see!

I cannot wait until 7:00 to get out of the house and away from homework!

Hmm...I'm thinking of blogging about my shoes tomorrow! Have a Happy Saturday!