DIY Spray Paint Tee

My roommates and I love making spray paint shirts whether it be for fun or as a lucky testing center shirt to wear for finals.

This was a year ago during finals

For the Hunger Games midnight showing we decided we wanted to make cool shirts. We could have dressed up, but we already did for the party, and it would have been really uncomfortable waiting in line in costumes, so we opted for the shirt making idea instead.

If you want to make a spray paint shirt yourself, here's how we did it (super easy):

We went to Walmart Wednesday night to pick up gold spray paint and black v-neck tees (we thought the v-neck looked cooler). We bought some $5 Danskin black t-shirts and just some normal gold spray paint. There were lots of different kinds but we just bought the kind that looked the coolest/shiniest ha. I made some templates for the shirts using this picture for the front and this picture for the back. I glued the pictures on some posterboard and then cut out the negative space to make a template. These were our templates (although they weren't gold when we started out and we did add the arrow to the mockingjay afterwards, realizing it didn't have one):

Then after you cut out the templates comes the easy part! All you have to do is place them where you want them on your shirt and then spray.

I'd recommend spray painting your shirts outside and/or probably on newspaper too. We did it outside in the parking lot across the street from us. If you want to make different designs like we did above, we used masking tape and just ripped it up and taped it on the shirts to make whatever designs we wanted.

My roommate Talya (below) put some masking tape on her shirt to make it look like flames. That's the best thing about spray painting shirts, is that the possibilities are endless!

If you are spraying both sides, do one side of the shirt, wait about five minutes and then turn it over and spray the other side. Then you can let them dry inside or outside, wherever you want, for about fifteen minutes to half-an-hour at the most and they'll definitely be dry by then. The shirts kind of smell like spray paint a little too, so we washed ours that night so they smelled nice and clean for the premiere. They faded a tiny bit in the washer (we washed them in cold water) but it worked out fine.

Once your shirt is done, you can wear it anywhere and everywhere! Obviously we wore them to the midnight showing, and they looked super cool and everyone was jealous. ;)

Front...

...and the back!

And of course a Hunger Games fighting/jumping pose! These shirts pretty much made us automatically cool :)

Have fun making your shirts!

Simple Joys

You know what is happy in life?

  -spending time with best friends
  -thrifting trips
  -getting letters in the mail
  -playing the guitar
  -roommates
  -dessert
  -cute places to eat dessert such as The Chocolate
  -amazing classes with teachers that really teach you not only about the subject of class but also teach you things that are applicable in your life--my human development teacher has this great quality
  -the prophet coming to give a devotional at my school!
  -finding Sperry shoes at DI (a thrift store)
  -not wearing any makeup but still feeling okay about it
  -writing meaningful posts

These are some of the simple joys in my life that I experienced yesterday. I didn't even look at yesterday as an awesome day, just a day, but now looking back on it, it was an incredible day! I think if we look for that every day we will find that every single day we live is truly incredible and something worth living for. :)

On Days of Birth

Blouse: Gap; Skirt: Target; Shoes: TJ Maxx

I wore this a while ago at home (parent's house) during Labor Day weekend I believe. That was the last time I went home and I'm going back this weekend! Yippee, I cannot wait. :) I'll be watching conference and also celebrating my birthday with my fam. Because guess what else: it's my birthday next week! I'm gonna be 20 years old in a week and it's freakin me out a little. To be honest, I'm a little scared for my birthday to come and here's why:

1. I don't want to have a sad birthday where no one remembers and it's just lame.
2. I'm not 20, nor do I want to be 20! I feel 19. I am 19. I will stay 19. I am NOT 20. My mom got married when she was 20 and I thought she was old. And now I will be 20. So as long as my birthday doesn't come I won't turn 20. (Too many 20s at one time, sorry, I will try to not burden you with that terrible number)
3. Once a birthday comes, it's over so fast and then you have to wait again until the next year. :( I like looking forward to it and looking forward to a happy day. And it's fun when it's here (unless it's not--see #1) but then it's gone and life is normal again.

But some good things about birthdays?

1. Well...I will be 20, which means people might consider me an adult. Might being the key word here. And being 20 means I will finally be the same age as all of the people in my grade, which will be nice.
2. Presents and cake and celebrations!
3. I really do love my birthday and it's such a happy day when it comes. A day that would have been completely normal becomes magical and special and a day of your own. I love the magic of birthdays and am grateful to live in a society that celebrates them.
4. My roommate (her birthday is the day after mine) and I will be throwing a Harry Potter party and it's gonna be the bomb. I mean it. :D

So..I'm torn. Either way though, it's going to come and I'll have to live with it, so I might as well be happy. :)

What's your favorite part about birthdays?

Also, thank you for the helpful comments about helping me feel better! I really appreciate them so much! I'm still a little sick (almost two weeks later!!) but am feeling almost all better. My voice just has a tiny bit of rasp to it but I can finally sing to the music in my car! I have to admit that not being able to sing at the top of my lungs was killing me. Goodness.

Look Mom, I Made a Shirt!

See that pretty purple flowery skirt in the above photos? Do you like it? Well, I hope so, because whether you like it or love it or hate it, I made it! Sooo great, huh? I guess it just feels great to me to make my own clothes. The wonderful thing is that my grandma gave me a ton of fabric that she wasn't going to use, so this shirt was also FREE! Life doesn't get much better than this.

Storytime: When I was younger (aka junior high/high school) I hated sewing. I really did not like it at all. I was just pretty darn terrible at it, or so I thought. Like for Personal Progress (a goal program thing for girls 12-18 in the LDS church) I sewed a skirt as one of my projects and I am pretty sure that I needed help on that thing every step of the way. My mom probably did more work on it than I did (sorry, Mami!). And it wasn't a super enjoyable process for me because I just did not like sewing and I thought I was awful at it. The most enjoyable part was wearing it. And in sophomore year of high school my friends Courtney and Laura and I decided to sew matching cute bags to take to school. Well, they probably did a lot of the work on that bag because I was so clueless. I didn't even know one bit how to use a sewing machine! The funny thing is that I still use that bag all the time today and when people say "Oh that's so cute, where did you get it?!" I say "I made it," and they say, "Oh of course you did," because a lot of people know how much I love to sew. But I just smile because that bag is a remnant of my sewing-hatred days.

I'm not really sure what changed inside of me, but I have always been very crafty. I used to make cards and stuff all the time, I made pen pals (see below), then I moved on to fabric flowers (also see below) and eventually I just wanted to sew clothes and my love of sewing has blossomed since.

Pen Pals! I still love these. I got the idea from an American Girl magazine forever ago!

Fabric flowers--I apologize, these aren't the best flowers I've made, but they work

The funny thing with me is that I am a very obsessive person, so I really love some things (sewing, Carrie Underwood, purple, wearing coral, etc.) and I really hate others (vegetables, spiders, heights, any talk of blood or gross bodily stuff, and back when I hated sewing). So I am like super obsessive with something (sometimes more than one thing) at a time. I used to be a very avid reader. I'd take a book everywhere. My parents would come downstairs and tell me to go to bed so I'd turn off my light, and then when they were gone I'd turn the light on again and finish the book that night. I'd read during school while teachers were lecturing (and still get a good grade in the class! ha!). I'd take my book in the car or I'd take a book into a restaurant and read while waiting for my food or while I was eating my food (my parents got annoyed by that one) and all the time I would read. I was reading at a college level by 8th grade.

And now...I sew. People will ask me to hang out, and if I'm the middle of a sewing project, I always decline. My motivation to get my homework done during the week is so that I can sew on the weekend. I have to keep going until I finish and I will lock myself up in my room until I'm done. Basically, I'll see people in my ward and they say, "Where have you been? I haven't seen you for a while, did you go on vacation?" And my answer is always, "I've been sewing." Gah, I am sooo pathetic! But I'm a sewing hermit and I don't mind at all.

So that's my super long schpeel about my process of sewing going from a hatred to an obsession. It just goes to show that we really could probably love anything if we just let ourselves. :) Have a fab Tuesday!!

La Dee Dum Fa La Ta Ta

 Well hi.

Yesterday was Monday. Today is Tuesday. The week is slowly coming. I stayed the weekend at home sweet home with my family because I had two receptions and I'm going back on Thursday night for Memorial Day weekend and another reception. And So You Think You Can Dance starts Thursday night! Soooo psyched!!! Remember this day when I got to watch the live auditions? Almost the best day of my life (the best day of my life was seeing Carrie Underwood in concert for the first time--and the second time too ha--it was so amazing). Sorry if I obsessively talk about CU way too much. Honestly, I can never talk about her too much and I really do think she is SO incredible and deserves all the fame and credibility that she has. Biggest fan right here, peeps.

So I realized that I wear a cardigan with everything. Ok, well this wasn't really realized, it was already known.  haha. But I took a picture of my outfit without the cardigan on and thought I'd share so you can see that I can pull off outfits without cardigans too! Be proud. :)

Hehe..something else random is that the shift key on the left side of the keyboard came completely off and not even my dad, the computer awesome genius whiz, couldn't fix it. So I've now been learning how to use the right shift key for all the capital letters. I'm gonna turn into a weird typist! At work today, I was only using the right shift key even though all the keys work perfectly on the keyboard. Goodness gracious, the things I get myself into.

One more random note. I found out today that this belt is Liz Claiborne from 1990! Cool, huh? It came out before I was even born. That is definitely considered vintage to me. Before I was born=old.

Anywho. Have a good day. Are you watching the Glee Season 2 finale tonight? You can bet I am and I can't WAIT!!!

An Outfit A Day...
Cardigan? Thrifted
Blouse? J.C. Penney, gifted
Belt? Thrifted
Jeans? Ross
Necklace? F21

...Keeps the Fashion Police Away
Comfort? 7
Original? 6
Did I like it? 8
Overall? 7

P.S. The title's a bit random too. Sorry.

All I Know is that I'm Tired Right Now

As I'm writing this I'm falling asleep but I know it will only come back to bite me if I don't finish this post.

Ah! I'm sosoooo glad its Sunday! Finally a day of the week when I don't work. :D I've had work every day this week working for 5-8 hours a day and it being super busy. I walked into work yesterday and felt way too comfortable there and I felt like it was my second home or something. Yeah, that's when you know you've been at work too long ha. It's a good thing I like the place, because it's all that I really have scheduled daily this summer. I like it because I like what I do (help customers, fold clothes, change mannequins, etc.) and I love the benefits (free textbook rentals, 20% discount), but I think my favorite part is just all the people that work there. I've made tons of really great friends and I have a lot of fun at work. And it's cool because last year I was a lot shyer I think and now I've made more friends and I'm more talkative. It's just a lot of fun and I think bookstore employees are the BOMB. :)

While I was on campus today I couldn't help but notice how beautiful it was. A little cold, yes. (It's May and it still snows..and can you believe it's already May?!?!) But it was gorgeous! See for yourself and tell me that I don't live in a terrific world. You can't. The end.

An Outfit A Day...

Black Blouse? Walmart

Cardigan? Thrifted

Necklace? F21 (sidenote: AH this necklace drove me bonkers because it kept switching to the wrong side of the owl for no darn reason! Soooo annoying. Sorry just need to vent that.)

Skirt? Secondhand (and may I just comment and say that I can't believe that I haven't worn this skirt before! Cuz it is dang cute.)

Shoes? Thrifted (since I'm commenting on all my clothing items I thought I'd say that I finally looked up my shoe brand online to find them because people are always asking about them and they're extremely comfortable. Best shoes I've ever owned! So if you want some like them...go to Grasshoppers Shoes)

...Keeps the Fashion Police Away

Comfort? 9 (it was super comfy except for the fact that the stupid owl--see above--kept bugging me)

Original? 6

Did I like it? 10

Overall? 9

Miss Photographer

Sorry there are so many pictures! Okay, let's be honest, I'm not really sorry, because I had SO MUCH FUN taking these pictures! I found the railroad tracks and once I got started taking pictures I couldn't stop. It was super fun! I will never be a photographer, but I do love taking pictures and doing photography, so this blog is a great outlet for me to let that out every once in a while. I love the vintage feel of these pictures along with kind of the preppy look of the outfit. {Oh, the cardigan is black, although it may appear blue.}

The weather has been so perfect the past few days! Yesterday it didn't rain and there was a slight breeze but I felt fine in this outfit. And guess what?! If it's even possible, the weather is going to get perfect-er! Cuz it's going to be above 60 degrees today and tomorrow. And that is just simply amazing I tell you.

I've been into finding different artists than what I usually listen to (ahem, Carrie Underwood, cough cough) so that I can become more "musically cultured" and have more a range of music so that there will always be something for me to listen to for my mood. I just feel like I find genres and artists I like and then stick with just them. But there is so much music out there that I feel like I'm missing out on! Anyways, Mindy Gledhill has become one of my recent finds in artists. I particularly like the song called, "Whole Wide World" (I've been listening to it all day and it's still in my head!). I like songs that are inspirational and about dreams, because they just, well, inspire me! I want to go do something great after listening to them. This song does that to me, so I thought I'd share it with you. :) {Pssst....the family featured in here and the two little girls running in the front are Stephanie Nielson's family from NieNie Dialogues! Cool!!}

Oh and guess who has 102 FOLLOWERS?!! Yep, this girl right here! You peeps are the best. Really truly. In celebration, I'm thinking of having another giveaway soon. What do you think? Yes? (Btw to April Showers, the package got returned because the wrong address was on there but your package is on the way! ) I love you guys!

An Outfit A Day...

Cardigan? Lauren Conrad, secondhand

Plaid Button-Up? Gifted

Belt? Thrifted

Jeans? Paris Blues

Shoes? Thrifted

...Keeps the Fashion Police Away

Comfort? 9

Original? 7.5

Did I like it? 8.5

Overall? 8