Take a walk on the wild side

Today (now 4 days ago, I write this now on Wednesday, originally on Saturday) was my birthday party, one month overdue, but it was basically a food gathering/tie dye extravaganza/ in a field that I invited all of my friends to before we go off to do two weeks work experience, in the end there were about 20 people. We listened to a whole load of random songs from a whole load of random iPods meaning Katy Perry was within the track listing amongst the Tammys. We climbed trees and ran down to the lake and it was the cooliest.

I wore my flower crown (It must seem I wear it daily, but honestly its like less than once a fortnight), a lace dress from Camden Market almost two years ago for £8, 3 necklaces from a car boot sale for £1 and a black floral skirt from the Salvation Army for 75p.

I also bought a new camera, so I can now blog more because I won't get all depressed thinking my pictures are awful and only negligibly acceptable, It's a Pentax K100D and wah it is fantastic, and it only cost me £140 from Ebay.

Mary-Ann took this.

Ellen may also have taken this.

It was a great day and I felt like I was in a movie. For the next two weeks I'm doing work experience and won't be in school, I'm doing it in London I would say where but STRANGER DANGER. I'm staying with my auntie, uncle and cousins though, and their house is really cool like 50's windows, doors and aaaaah.

I started a dairy about 3 weeks ago, to document ~life~. I just think I'll regret it if I don't keep one, and I have a journal for other stuff. It's made of a book called Garden Shrubs from the Salvation Army for 10p or something.

This is the invitation I wrote (to my diary) for my party, I bought a pad of them from the salvation army for 10p and aimed to send them to my friends, I only distributed 3 in the end (in some letters I sent to Becky, Lauren and Paige) but I have them for next year. I can't decide whether the chef is transgender with a moustache, a man in drag including fake eyelashes and blusher for make up, or just a woman with facial hair. Nothing wrong with being liberal. There was a guy walking in Covent Garden yesterday wearing hooker boots who was carrying a Lady Gaga bag. Preach it.

The three letters I sent.

                                       

 Have a good Week, and sorry for the image heavy post, now I have a new camera I hope I will be able to post more often!

Awkward alliances

Some of the first 'old' things I bought, like, 3 years ago towards the end of year 7 were sewing patterns, stemming from the discovery of well, sewing. I made a strawberry bag in textiles that didn't fall apart and thought I was some sort of seamstress oracle. I have built up quite a collection of them and despite three being destroyed last year when I made a shift dress for a fashion project in History and left them at the bottom of my bag with some rotten sandwiches so then they went all mouldy and shrivelled (bye 60s shift dress patterns) *holds head in shame* I am relatively protective and in awe of them.

Fashion and that sort of stuff is all about perfectionism, some of it is anyway and that's how the media portrays what is somewhat make-believe and that is why models are seemingly super humanly grown in laboratories (tall and skinny) and I am led to believe pop stars have make up tattooed on their faces because they're rarely seen without it. I don't know what it is about the illustrations on the front of sewing patterns but the use of drawing instead of pictures is kinda refreshing. Maybe it's their imperfect nature, the sketchy lines and stuff, one of my favourite quotes is "Imperfection is underrated" - Helena Bonham Carter, I write that from memory because I use it so much but it truly is. The awkward intricacies of people and nooks and crannies of language and pop culture and other wondrous things that aren't widely known of are what I (as I am sure others do to) relish in.  I'm not saying that popular things aren't good too, they are, but I just want others to recognise what's great about the imperfect and the unknown.

Knitting patterns, furthermore, share the same nature, people take things at face value but I for one have recently been trying to take everything in life with aesthetic value, trying to pay attention to the world a bit more I suppose, and while on study leave a couple of months ago I cycled to a charity shop and sifted through the knitting patterns and took pictures of the girls striking such gawky poses, their jutting elbows to show the full design of a garment or bending so unnaturally to show some embellishment. It's hilarious in part but beautiful in another.

  

I don't really know what I'm going on about and my head is crammed with chemistry and other inane knowledge, I can't wait to not feel guilty when spending time poring over blogs and being somewhat creative. I want to make a cropped tie dye top and it's my birthday party in a few weeks, I'm going to try and invite most of my class and friends to have a picnic in a flowery field near my house and tie dye and paddle in the river there. Should be fun, and I really want to see moonrise kingdom but it only seems to be being played in the 'cool' cinemas like Brighton and Camden in the UK (odeon anyway), and be an explorer in general. It's 1:51 in the morning and my brain is in a conundrum as to whether I should watch Pretty in Pink or not, I lost Ghost World otherwise I would be watching that but I did re organised my shelves so it may be suffocating under all of the junk there. There are doilies with revision notes on them round my room and my nail varnish is chipping off. My room is becoming a bit of a hovel and I have a four foot pile of books and clothes adjacent to me. Paul McCartney was good at the jubilee concert and I wished I had a 40s Union Jack flag from the war to take pictures of because I have become a monarchist and feel this requires me to be patriotic, I am about to read books about feminism because I agree with what I have heard about the movement but don't want to declare myself one until I know I am one because it's what I truly believe in and not because a lot of other people on the internet are feminists, or because it's seems to be becoming 'fashionable' to be a feminist, but the Rookie article about street harassment really angered me and it's opened my eyes to a lot of things that before I just accepted as how society is, going to an all girls school I probably don't see a lot of it and this is why I don't know a lot about why it is 'required' to be a feminist, or why I need feminism. This paragraph is way to long and really not chronological but I'm reading Adrian Mole and think I'm secretly an intellectual, no I joke, I joke. 

Sorry if you painfully read all of the above, I'm a bit befuddled.

The Swinging Sixties

I mentioned last Thursday my recent obsession with the Beatles, yep. Well I've also been marginally obsessed with the 60s in general, I have even bought two pairs of Mary Quant tights and I have my eyes on a third.

I have been wearing my hair is milkmaid braids but you can't really even see my hair is plaited really because It's a really boring mousey colour so I was just going for cropped hair really, Twiggy, Peggy Moffitt style, but I have been called all of the following names:

•Grettel (of hansel and grettel)
•Heidi (who this is I have no idea but it's a common one, a teacher even called me this)
•Jane Austen
•Maria from the sound of music
•A 1940's filmstar (a different teacher called me this)
•Rapunzel (which I don't understand because she has long hair but I'll go with it)

I'm sure there was more but I can't recall. I got such filthy looks and I wore fantabulous barrettes the majority of the days from Ebay too, I think they look like the flower of the Mary Quant logo, if they can't pass for that I'll go with FLOWER POWER. They were £1.60 including shipping so go and buy yourself some, I'm trying to source many more barrettes to add to my childhood collection from Etsy with my birthday money.

Here are some 1960's inspired pictures, The coloured ones are taken on a camera with the lens obscured by old film negatives, it's not some repro effect. (no srsly i'm dying without picnik tho).

I have also attempted cat eye make-up which you can't even tell but it's fun to apply.

My 60s cape.

I'm doing the Swinging sixties for my textiles coursework at the moment too, I had to choose between this topic and 'The age of punk'. It was like picking a favourite child, I hope I don't get sick of the project because I've immersed myself in it so much already but it's unlikely! I took some photocopies out of a book called 'In Vogue' that was in the library, I would have gotten it out but It was bigger than my school bag so sat lonesomely flicking through the pages, taking note of things I liked, but I did get the Fashion Sketchbook 1920-1960 book which is AMAZING. This morning, a charity shop gave me the Adrian Mole book for free and I'll finish it later, and the Fashion Drawing book my mum bought me is also fantastic.

It has a foreword by Mary Quant seen below which was interesting to read. It's a really good book to see how fashion evolved and the illustrations are really intricate themselves.

The illustrations in the 'Fashion Sketchbook' one.

This other book, I've been trying to find for ages, I couldn't bring myself to spend the £9 Amazon are asking for it so when I was scanning the spines of the books in the fashion section of the library that Is largely neglected by 99.2% of the school I was ecstatic to uncover it. To top it off the first designer featured is Rodarte, which always makes things better. I admit, yes, It is produced by Teen Vogue, a teen magazine I'm not really an advocate of because of the complete focus and emphasis of the importance of beauty and perfectionism when they have a platform to deliver strong, effeminate knowledge to young, impressionable girls BUT with a wealth of knowledge available to me about what I want to possibly do in the future it seemed totally stooopid not to take it out, for educational purposes, yano?

Said book.

The hands are my obliging sisters, to whom I thank for the co-operation. The curtain behind all the books is something I made with lots of paper ephemera including year 7 school merits, a rabbit postcard with a vintage stamp on it, a Marwell zoo badge, a noughts and crosses game from my year 6 notebook and various other things, I've hung it in front of my window which are ugly 21st century made things.

Good day guurl, thanks for reading!

Fifteen

The map is a metaphor for the journey and the paths you take in life, obviously.

It's my birthday today, I'm 15 and feeling old, my back will give out tomorrow I'm sure. I got some pretty FETCH presents from my parents, friends and family though.

A LABEL MAKER (showcased in the collage above). Ghost World DVD (dont throw rocks I haven't seen it yet but will do tonight), gym sock thingys, a new tripod so I am able to photograph outfits outside the confides of my house, hundreds (literally - not metaphorically - speaking) of packs of fruit salad flavoured chewits (they're my weakness shh), a top I ordered off Etsy for my incapable parents who then gave it to me to wear when roller skating, a new hobby I have decided I am going to learn/take up, and money so I can buy some lovely clothes and hopefully an SLR camera to replace my digital, I am in serious need of a new one and all the pictures I take at the moment are from my iPhone which isn't totally practical! 

I had school and spent the morning with year 3 children who came to our school, teaching them how to throw beanbags; that was fun. (decide for yourself if i intend sarcasm or not). Then I had French and Biology which are possibly the worst lessons I could ever have but people were generally nice to me and it's FABULOUS TO BE IN CONTROL FOR A DAY. However I do need to 'control' my own use of capitals.

I discovered how to use the scanner, yep, I don't know where this will take me, but I CAN'T STOP USING IT IT'S GREAT.

I made a crown out of a tiara my Sister uses when she dances (she does ballet) and some flowers from outside, I'm holding a birthday cake candle in the second picture, and my printer is running out of ink, I haven't grown green lines on my face!

A metaphor for 'Taking the leap in life' - No I am joking this is my grandma when she was younger, probably the 70's, she was voted 'Supermum of Dorset' or something and she is still proud at 58 years old, I just found the picture in the Scans folder, some pesky person in this family was aware of how to use the scanner before me and didn't make me aware.

A metaphor for unity and friendship - Ok this is getting ridiculous now I will stop, another picture in the scans picture from my Grandad and Grandma's wedding, my grandad is on the left, I'd estimate this is from the 60's, hence the 'tashes.

My captions are far too long I am aware, anyway I hope you have had a better than average 25th of May 2012 as I have, the other exciting this that happened today is that I realised there's a very pretty greenhouse a school that I can take pictures infront of, maybe, possibly, probably not. People always walk past it, I don't know, maybe next mufti day. 

Bye!

A hodgepodge

I haven't posted this week, but before I am sent to an early grave I will dispense actual LEGITIMATE reasons as to why not; firstly i had an ethics exam worth 25% of my ACTUAL gcse last tuesday so I was revising for that and I have since been revising for another ACTUAL philosophy exam in a month and chemistry and physics re-sits, I got B's in January for chemistry and physics but I taught myself the whole course in a month to get those, and I did get an A* in biology! I don't know I'm a bit of a perfectionist and want A's ok. I also:

• signed two petitions, one campaigning against use of animals in testing (a year eight girl with green eye shadow and a headscarf who I thought looked really cool came to our form room one lunch which coincidentally was just before our ethics exam so we took it as a sign that one of the 12 mark questions would be on that subject, guess what? IT WAS. Obviously psychics, us.), the second, one on Change.org about banning photoshopped images in seventeen magazine. Us 'gurlz' have to stand up against this stuff.

•Stood from afar envying prefects badges that said prefects have been adorned with. I didn't apply to be one because I suck with self confidence and can't make myself seem like someone they would actually WANT as a prefect so I just put off writing my application and then it was past the deadline and :-(.

•Went to the library for a lunch time alone and found the best books about fashion, then hid a stash of national geographics I didn't know prior to this excerpt that the school library actually owned/hoarded/had that I don't want anyone to read before me. The new junior librarian is also nice although she laughed at my year 7 school picture on my library card, which is understandable. (I will show you the books later this week).

I have been experimenting a lot too this week you could say, I was met with a lot of 'what on earth' stares. I don't mind, I find it quite amusing and treat it like a puzzle that people aren't able to solve because these people have CLOSED minds but basically I went to g&t's last saturday after volunteering at the salvation army (I am a good teenage citizen, ut it also means I get a discount so..), and bought mounds of stickers, temporary tattoos, stars, you get the gist. Anyway, I would show you pictures of each individual purchase but I've used the majority of them so you'd only see massacred remains of glitzy cats and spangly hearts that sadly, had lost their stickiness after my constant rearranging of aesthetic thingy mabobs and got returned to the sheet they came from to grow old and die, no probably until I become so desperate I glue them on instead.

I put stickers on my locker at school, all over my planner, and tried to turn my classmates into festive, jolly looking people in dispensing some charming star stickers reminiscent of the ones stuck on especially good work at primary school for them to put on the lapel of uniform blazers, some accompanying prefect badges *sad, envying face* ok I will scavenge to find and wear my mum's 80s cycling proficiency badge, my monitor badge from year 6 and my mum's old prefect badge to adorn my own blazer in tomorrow. Most classmates obligingly agreed to the sticker adornation. School is a happier place because of me.

The temporary tattoos; although my desire originally was to keep these for a while, got used on the Sunday after I bought them. I've had a selection of them on all week and last week, and as my school has reasonably strict uniform rules (no skirts higher than 8cm above the knee, no make up whatsoever, no extreme 'hair colours', the list goes on, all girls grammar school blah blah blah) I have been pulling my blazer sleeves down all week to conceal them from beady eyed teachers, although namely, this is my year 7 blazer which despite my still minuscule height (5"3) is very small on me, so i had difficulty doing this and the seams joining the arms to the actual jacket were probably fit to burst.

60's FABRIC BACKGROUND. YES. yeah a collage I made.

So here are the ~rad~ tattoos, I felt the peace signs fit in really well with the Woodstock background, they look totally REAL. No really I've just become super obsessed with the Beatles and John Lennon so I'm liking the peace sign at the moment, this love stemmed from watching The Parent Trap (remake) about 2 months ago, I've always loved the bit where Annie (BUT REALLY ITS HALLIE!!!) goes across London with her mum and 'Here comes the Sun' is played, so I began humming it at school and then started listening to loads of other Beatles music in the form room at lunch so basically my whole form, teaching group, in fact my year are singing it (no word of a lie) although they don't seem too keen on the bangles, queen, and a variety of others that I've also been humming.. oh, and THEN, it was the first song on a rookie playlist- do those guys read my god damn mind??! I got to listen to the Beatles in philosophy last week too and I wanted to cry it was so beautiful.

Random collage in which stickers and tattoos are exhibited. Patchy arms exhibit A.

I apologise for this whistle stop tour of my life this week, and the patchy arms in the pictures are due to a DofE walk I did last sunday where I got sunburnt, yay. I got a picture of a cow though.

Toodloo. I won't leave it so long to post next time I promise I know what I will be writing about.

Uptown Girl

You are probably familiar with, or have encountered, self doubt. (If you haven't you are super human so go and become FBI intelligence or something). Myself, I often sit and cry because everything seems so cOo0l compared to me and I feel like I JUST DON'T BELONG HERE BECAUSE I AM SUCH A WORTHLESS COMBINATION OF CELLS or something. I wonder why I bother with dressing like I do, why I have sub zero confidence levels resulting in every word coming out of my mouth sounding so loserish and ridiculous and why my maths grades are so abominable, but eventually I do remember why life is worth living after all by writing down my angsty feelings and trying to meditate them away. Also, time is such a virtue.

I would be utterly lost without dressing as I do, I become so eminently enchanted with clothes so much so that I want to weep at their beauty, on a daily basis. We're always force fed growing up with the idea of 'be yourself' by every adult in the entire stratosphere, and it took me a while to figure some of that out, actualIy, I don't think I've figured out most of it, perhaps I never will, so for the meantime I'm just doing and dressing how makes me happy, those adults probably don't even know themselves I would bet, and I think it's probably one of the reasons as to why many teenagers have identity crises. And my maths grades, ur, well.

My monomaniac tendencies for clothes, aesthetics and fashion, I think, stem from my childhood love of escapism. I read Harry Potter like real life and went to every midnight book release, dressed up as hermione, since I can remember the books existing, which is forever really. I was in year six when deathly hallows came out and I bought it at the midnight release, returned and at school the next day knew the entire plot, as I had finished it at around dawn having read under my covers with my beloved reading lamp into the following day, the same lamp that accompanied me during the entirety of key stage three and saw me immersed in incomprehensible amounts of stories.

As I got older I began to replace this, fashion itself is sort of like fantasy in a way, with every respect there is no literal point to it, yet I place my sanity in the realms of make believe as I have always done. The attraction of fantasy and any way of escaping really is boundless and I still love the doctrine of magic and bewitched-ness, which inspired the zine I started last night I suppose. I doubt it will be finished until 2309 but I have constructed the front cover which I will dispense.

Said zine.

Was that a rant? If so, I apologise but I wanted to write something other than daily ramblings that have no significance to any entity apart from my own self. Hopefully one other person out of the other 7 billion in the world will resonate?

Thank you for reading!

Proprietar of pity

I had today off of school because the exams we've been doing over the past two weeks, for me, have finished, which is marvellous.

However to tell you the truth, I am in a very pensive, somewhat morose mood and I was so tired yesterday i actually fell asleep after school, and after faffing around after my art exam and organising dofe stuff, this resulted in me doing my paper round late and waking up this morning to a lovely answer message from the paper round company saying they've had two complaints (due to the lateness), which is oh so fantastic and i've been feeling awful all day because i hate to disappoint people but that's another story that you have no interest in.

Today I wore a broderie anglaise ensemble, believe it or not I'm wearing a top and a skirt (it looks like a dress), they just match well. The top, my mum gave me last week and the skirt I made in textiles and is made of panels of material from the 19th century or something (you see my textiles teacher tends to just give me stuff nobody else wants which is absolutely fab in my eyes) it isn't even finished and has threads hanging down but I wanted to wear it and so I did. The bag was from a car boot sale for 20p about three years ago and I was having a lengthy debate in my head as whether to buy it at the time, i was like 11 so money was scarce, he reduced it from £1.50 and I did invest, ecstatic i did in the end- it reminds me of a celtic swedish person, if they exist,- so the entire outfit came to 20p, extortionate, wouldn't you agree? My dad called me a nurse from 1902 when he saw me so I deem my outfit a success. Oh and I saw this corrugated green iron a few weeks ago in my garden and I've wanted to take pictures in front of it since so here we are.

I would have put my hair in milkmaid braids as I wore it to school like that for a couple of days about a month ago, but all of those kirby grips and hairbands stress me out to the nth degree.

I felt awkward because well I'm an awkward person and that's why I am biting my nails which is a disgusting habit that I must stop.

You can't really see but I have worn two watches since summer last year and it feels odd with one now so yes, I actually want a third because I prefer odd numbers to even but that may be pushing my watch wearing capacities to the limit.

So now I'm off to write an apology letter to the houses on my paper round, weep in the process, write and collage in my journal (yes I am one of those people) which I have neglected recently, and attempt to finish my cross stitch of a silhouette, something I've been learning to do that has led me to believe that I am now a dignified domestic goddess.

Have a wondrous weekend!

Would you care to sit with me, for a cup of English tea?

That lyric is from the song english tea incase you didn't know which is in the playlist I listen to while doing art homework (to prevent me from going COMPLETELY insane) which I have been doing for the entirety of today. Hurrah for school work!

So when I awoke from my slumber this morning and eventually stumbled out of bed, I faced the daily challenge of choosing what to wear, and this process can take anything from a few minutes to multiple hours.

Although, I found a remnant of a lace curtain in our fabric chest downstairs and hacked it into two separate pieces, one of which I am wearing as a shawl and the other as a skirt, with an emerald green velvet dress from the 1960s that I bought a year and a half ago and a rosary necklace from Ebay that has already required fixing three times. Never trust cheap jewellery children.

And alas, I did do one other thing today except the art homework, however it isn't yet finished and I will blog about that on Wednesday night! Thank You for reading!

The trees, like lungs, filling with air. My sister - the mean one,pulling my hair

I returned from Iceland two weeks ago, and I haven't blogged since my arrival, for a few reasons; the first being I have no sense of commitment, whatsoever, and the second is that I haven't even gotten all of my pictures developed yet, and possibly, a third being that I would probably cry in the process of writing because I want to go back. Iceland is a great country and everyone should experience the eggy air, glorious geysers and sporadic rain (slight sarcasm intended).  So in the meantime I'm just going to gush to the world about flowers crowns and spring, and gingham.

So I was meant to be revising and well, I didn't really feel inclined to do so and began, armed with a glue gun and bunches upon bunches of fake flowers that I have somehow accumulated over the years and crafted two flower crowns.

IT IS FLOWER CROWN SEASON! And i hope to wear them with flowing lace dresses, carrying wicker baskets and cycling round my town minding my own petty business.

Oh, and gingham, I am adoring gingham at this present moment in time (and houndstooth/dogtooth/checkered things). My love stemmed from seeing a skirt in 'What Alice Found' in Boscombe a few weeks ago, it reminded me of Grease and how much I would have liked to have been a pink lady but that is a separate matter, and for the rest of my trip round Boscombe I was thinking about it, saying every ten minutes something related to it's beauty - but unfortunately it was too big, a size 54 (exaggeration) or something like that as all good vintage clothes obviously have to be, it's like a rule, and I'm a size 4.. so since then I've been sporadically searching Etsy for some gingham garment of some description, along with plenty of other fabulous outfit components I am longing for, including,

Saddle/Bowling shoes
Ringer T-Shirts
Mary Quant Tights
Gothic skirts
Tennis skirts
Awkward 70s platforms
Astronomical instruments
Tacky 80s gold jewellery
Witchy boots
Twin peaks style skirts
AND
Duckie style tweed trousers

If only money weren't such a hindrance but oh well.

Apologies about the ink stain on my hand, my numerous fountain pens are very precariously explosive.

 

So from this, I hope you decide for yourself to make flower headbands and other crafts as such, and that Etsy is an utter minefield for great clothes. Good day!

Bedazzling Denim

Double denim, patches, permed hair and sequins, isn't the picture below just the epitome of the 1980s? Well since December I've thought double denim would emerge as a trend this year, I keep notes on my phone about fashion and outfits because i'm just odd like that and my first note was on christmas day when I got my new phone (which i love by the way), and I 'noted' double denim as something I definitely want to wear so in January I bought acid wash Jeans from Etsy and I went to London in February and bought lots of clothes including an acid wash jacket.

These jackets are just fantastic, I have no idea what the picture is from but GAH i'm in love with it.. I've put some patches on my jacket and i've got these from Etsy also, to add:

but this picture above inspires me to go even further and bedazzle the darn thing.

So this is what I wore the other day, embarrassing picture I'm aware.

I'm on the right here^

And a picture on a film camera my sister took.

Coincidentally, I also watched the Meadham Kirchhoff show at London Fashion Week for Autumn 2012, and there was a lot of patched and badged denim. I love Meadham Kirchhoff ok, if you haven't heard of them heard straight to google my sir.

Thanks for reading, and there won't be such a large gap between this and my next post, I've been making a new journal out of a science book and I'm really enjoying making it, and I'll post about it probably next Thursday because I get back from Iceland then (I'm leaving on Saturday- It's a school trip) and post pictures and things the If I can get them developed during Thursday because I'm taking my new Adox Polo camera that I bought for £4, two disposable cameras and a Canon film camera as well as a digital dslr. I'm really excited and I have all my Icelandic Krona sorted because I'm organised in that way. (two days before she says).

Have a nice Easter!