Runways and Birthdays

Just sitting on my couch watching Project Runway right now (while brain-storming for my Sewvivor project!). Do you guys watch it? Who do you want to win/think will win? Personally, my favorite is Mondo. I have loved him ever since he was in Project Runway the first time. And as crazy as Austin is, I really would like him to make it to the top 3. I think he's a talented designer. It'll definitely be a tough decision tonight deciding who makes it to the final three because the four designers there are all pretty good. If I had to choose three though..it'd be Mondo, Austin, and Kenley. I didn't love Kenley a ton at first but she's really grown on me and she keeps coming through each week. Also she's a girl and it wouldn't be nearly as fun have three guys in the finale (although some of them act more feminine than actual girls do hahaha). Guess we'll see! I cannot WAIT for the finale! This season feels like it's gone by incredibly fast so it seems crazy it's already here.

Guess what?! Tomorrow is Barbie's birthday (like the doll)!! In case you don't know me, I collect Barbies and love them so much. I get the Barbie Collector magazine as well, so it's pretty great. And Saturday is Carrie Underwood's birthday! The only thing better than her birthday...is my birthday. Seriously. I told you I love barbies, but I LOVE Carrie Underwood. Let me stop before I you see how crazy I get about CU. So expect a barbie inspired fashion post tomorrow and a Carrie Underwood one on Saturday! After all, it's only customary. :)

Giddy-ness

I love how sometimes the little things just make life so much happier. I've had a pretty normal week but it upped the scale a ton from things like...

-an announcement that Carrie Underwood is coming out with her new single, "Good Girl" on February 23rd! Eeee! I can't wait to hear it! The title sounds good, I wonder what the song will be about? Here's the picture for the single:

She looks gorgeous of course, but it's a little scandalous, no? Not very "good girl-esque"..

-I got a Barbie catalog in the mail today and it just made me so happy! Barbies are just as important to fashion as any couture designer and I love poring over the pictures and admiring the beautiful Barbie clothes. One of these days when I find time, I want to make more barbie clothes but design really pretty ones, kind of like the couture Barbie clothes. But unfortunately, the main ingredient to all of that is time, something I have very little of. :(

-I finally ordered this book on Amazon. I've wanted it for like a year ever since Jessica Quirk recommended it for anyone wanting to do fashion design. They apparently have it at the BYU library, but it turns out the book is lost and has been for about 4 months because that's when I requested it. I was just illustrating some clothes in my sketchbook and looking up some fashion illustration stuff online and decided that I really wanted to learn some good skills, and what better way from a Fashion Design textbook? It was like $50, but I think it will be well worth the $$.

-(This is quickly becoming a fashion obsessed post, but obviously that stuff makes me happy!) Fashionary. I'm so ordering one of these when I get money! It has everything you need for fashion design/illustration. Yes, please, and thank you! It really is pretty cool..I'd go look at the website if I were you.

-I'm going to Sundance Film Festival on Saturday! Can't wait, I hope I see some celebs (maybe even Taylor Swift, because I know she's been there...that would be SO cool).

-Also, I've just been loving this song currently:

There have been a few other songs that I keep playing on repeat lately, maybe I'll do a post to share my current favorite playlist. :)

Anyways, those are the little things that make me happy...what about you? We all love our own little things, so what makes you giddy with happiness?

Christmas Day 2011

This year, Christmas was on Sunday, which made for a different turn of events. We had church at 9 am, so there was really just no possible way we’d be able to get up early enough (we were already lacking on sleep) to see what Santa brought us and actually enjoy it and then get ready for church all before 9. So “Santa” conveniently brought us our presents in Christmas bags so that we wouldn’t see what was inside until after church. We went to church that morning and my mom, dad, Cee Ryle, and Carina sang in the choir while Sidney, Gracie, and I listened and watched the program (and also doodled, because it’s so hard for me to pay attention without doodling), which was really nice, because they’d have a mini speaking part in between each of the choir’s songs.

Church was only sacrament meeting so after that we went home, put our pajamas back on and got to see what Santa brought us.

 

And what did yours truly get? A serger (and a Tiana barbie and makeup)!!! This is probably the best present ever after my sewing machine I got last year. Now I can finish all my edges neatly and do a lot of my extra sewing at home for my class. I’ve really been wanting and needing a serger for a while so it was an exciting thing to get one.

I love Gracie! She was definitely the most excited for her present—every time she saw something she loved, she’d give a high pitched scream. She got a pink nutcracker and a bunch of Littlest Pet Shop stuff. Cee Ryle got a nook, Sidney got a new flute, Carina got a movie popcorn making machine, and my parents got tablets. Everyone loved their Santa gifts.

After that we went downstairs and opened family presents: from each other, from our parents, and from our grandparents in Wyoming. It’s become a tradition for the longest time for my mom to replace our names on the gifts with made up names. When we were little it was mainly so that we wouldn’t peek at our gifts but now she does it because we like it and to maintain the tradition. The names this year were Dumbledore’s Army names in Harry Potter, like Luna Lovegood, Ernie MacMillan, Neville Longbottom, Dean Thomas, etc. I was Hannah Abbott (my mom just picked the names by random). Some fun presents I got during that were two new barbies, a fashionista one and a collector’s one called the Rose Splendor barbie, some cute brown boots, lots of clothes, a super cute pink and purple sewing box, and a few other random stuff. I loved all my gifts, they were wonderful!

At around 3ish we went to Zildy and Jonas’s house to enjoy some Shrimp Etouffee, which is what they make every year. Jonas is from Louisiana and he makes the best cajun food! I love his gumbo too.

Every year we grandkids throw on a Christmas program for everyone. Usually we try to plan it out a little more but this time we just kind of threw it together the day of. It still turned out great though, we had some talents from everyone and we showed the premiere of our video (which everyone loved btw).

Then after that we had our usual white elephant exchanges. We did one for just the grandkids that was a candy exchange (last year we did gifts but then some kids were crying because they didn’t get what they wanted, so we figured candy was a hard one not to please) using this story. Then the older kids and adults got to participate in the actual white elephant exchange. I ended up with a huge red filing thing haha.

By the end of the night we were all tired and then we drove home, our hearts happily filled from a wonderful, merry Christmas. J

Pre-Christmas 2011

I got a little behind on posting what when on last week because of all the craziness of Christmas! It's kind of late tonight but I figured I better do a post. So this is documenting the week before Christmas, the 19-23.

Monday, December 19: I went to work from 7:45-2 and then I went home and chilled and sewed some barbie clothes. Thankfully my roommate Heidi was there all 3 days that I worked so I didn't feel scared or like an insane person all alone haha. We went over to a guy named Ben's apartment in our ward that night for our own little "Family Home Evening." It was just me, Heidi, Ben, and then two other people in our ward named Stephanie and Parker. Heidi left a little early to go with a friend to see the lights at the Riverwoods. Anyways, every year, Ben makes an awesome gingerbread house and so that's what we worked on that whole night. He'd baked the gingerbread the day before and then spent Monday just putting it together. It was soooo fun and way cool! I took a ton of pictures but here are just a few. We put it on a huge square of wood and then made icing with powdered sugar and sutff and Ben had other little things to stick on there. We made a river and waterfall by melting sugar (kind of like a rocky candy type thing) to a way high temperature and then pouring it onto the surface and watching it harden super fast.  We did that for a few hours and it was a lot of fun :)

Tuesday, December 20: I went to work at the same time and then sewed a little more and chilled a little more. I could have gone to the men's basketball game that night but didn't really feel like it. Instead I just had some me time and stayed home watching episodes of Hannah Montana, packing for home, and sewing more. That night after the basketball game, Heidi got back from it and then a few other people in our ward came over and we watched Tarzan (I had it from Netflix--I know, random).

Wednesday, December 21: Work, same time. Then I got to go to my apartment to finish up packing and go home! YAY! It made me so happy to see my family, as I hadn't seen them in about over a month. I played with Gracie right away when I got home and we just had a blast. It's so cute because she loves having me home, and I promise I'm not trying to brag or anything when saying that. It just makes me happy because I love her a ton so when I'm back she wants to do everything with me and sit by me and have lots of fun. And without much convincing I got the idea into her head that she should move to college with me and be my roommate...haha oops! It was kind of sad to try to convince her out of that one.. Anyways, I just love that little girl to pieces. I'm dreading leaving her on Tuesday. I secretly wish she could be my roommate! The rest of the day was just spent at home relaxing and watching episodes of Friends (my sister has all 10 seasons and she got me addicted by lending me Season 1....needless to say, I'm on Season 4 now).

Thursday, December 22: I slept in super late and was lazy and got ready late. Yes, bad me for being lazy but it felt so amazing! For Christmas I was giving Gracie barbie clothes I made for her barbies so I decorated the little box that I got her and worked on organizing that. All of it turned out SO cute! I also might have gone shopping with my mom this day but I can't remember. It wasn't a super eventful day though.

I'll show more barbie fashion and some of the clothes I made in a later post :)

Friday, December 23: This day my siblings and I planned to go to SLC to shoot a Christmas music video. We had a lot of fun. We filmed in the Salt Palace, Temple Square, the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, and the state Capitol building. By the end we were pretty tired and glad to be done.We got home and just spent the rest of the night with our family having dinner and I think we watched a movie, though I can't remember. (Oh and we got some planking pictures in the Salt Palace haha, escalator planking!!)

And here is the video! Hopefully tomorrow or one of these next days I'll be able to post about Christmas Eve, Christmas day, and all the rest of my break! There is much to tell, but for now enjoy!

Christmas Break in Pictures

Once again, I'm behind on my blog.. :( I'm tempted to just give up on it, but I've been writing in here for so long that there's no way I can just leave it behind. Someone just needs to tell me to get off facebook and write a blog post! haha..Anyways, it will take too long to say everything that has happened, but a picture equals a thousand words right? So here are thousands of words for you detailing my Christmas break. More to come about the rest of my life! :D


Cute cousins...

Sisters. That's all I'm gonna say...

Sledding with some high school friends...


Making our yearly meal of paches...

The annual Christmas program that gets a little more crazy every year...



Christmas morning!!! Waiting on the stairs to go see what Santa brought us...

Santa brought me the prettiest barbie EVER! And a barbie book to replace the old one my mother got rid of! Yay!

All of our Christmas presents...

Playing Pictureka! with sibs and cousins (I won!)...


Celebrating my lil' sis's 3rd birthday...

Having a reunion with friends from my old ward...

New Years party with all my home town friends...

Yay!!! Happy New Year!!!

Mmm...i love Christmas. And Christmas break. And this year it was especially appreciated because I don't get to see these friends or my family nearly as much as I do now. Another Chrismas gone..except it seems to come faster every year. Is this what happens when you get older?! Don't make me grow up!!! :(

My Life (from the past few weeks) in Pictures

My 18th birthday! I got to home and spend it with my fam. We watched Fame (one of the best movies ever!), went to Chuck E Cheese's, went to the Sunday morning session of general conference, and celebrated and opened presents at my grandparents' house. I had a high school musical cake which was awesome! It was such a fun birthday and I had a blast. Some presents I got were: a purple digital camera (i will have better pictures on here now!), High School Musical barbies :), the Fame soundtrack, and cute clothes. Also, I got lots of birthday money that I spent shopping at the mall. It was great! :)











Brooke and I went shopping at the mall (this was when I spent my birthday money)! We decided to go the Disney store and take a picture with our friends Tinkerbell and Minnie Mouse.


I posted a while back about how Brooke and I went to take pictures of each other so we decided to it again! We went to this cute stream/waterfall near our dorms. And we wore matching clothes. hehe