The Journey is the Destination

Big Fashions Without a Skinny Wallet

2010-03-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

I'm in college, so my clothing budget is currently severely limited as to what I can spend on clothes right now. (See: nothing!) I like wearing more classic then trendy styles, and I love, love, love wearing black, so most of what I've found is based around those two criteria, haha. I went around to several popular online websites of brick and mortar based companies, and looked only in their 'sales' and 'clearance' sections. These are all current as of yesterday, and the main purpose of this post is to show that cute dressing with both limited resources and cash isn't impossible.

Miley Cyrus dress, Wal-Mart. $16 (!!!)

Susie Rose, Wal-Mart, $16

Old Navy, $16.99-$24.99

Old Navy, $19.99

Old Navy, $12.99

Old Navy, $24.99

(Surprise, surprise) Old Navy, $19.99

Miley Cyrus, Wal-Mart, $6 (Yes please!)

(The sparkle-holic in me had to post this.) Forever 21, $4.99!!

Delia's, $14.99

Old Navy, $16.99

Forever 21, $6.99

(This jacket is on the higher-end of prices here, okay, highest, but it's so pretty!) Delia's, $69.99

Delia's, $39.99

Forever 21, $14.99

Delia's, $9.99

American Eagle, $19.95

American Eagle, $14.95

(Again, my sparkle-holic-ness...) American Eagle, $11.95

American Eagle, $11.95

Girl Props, $8.99

Girl Props, $6.99

(LOVE.) Girl Props, $6.99

Girl Props, $19.99

"Flintstones. Meet the Flintstones. They're the modern stone age family..."

Sites used:

I love love :)

2010-03-01T15:05:00.000-08:00

Heart-shaped food, Paris, and kisses. :]
Via the lovely seablanket.

"The Journey is the destination"

2010-02-26T16:03:00.001-08:00

I forgot that. I got caught up in what my future would be like, what I wanted it to be like. Got lost in planning it. That's wrong and I need to start over...one day at a time instead of focusing on things years away, if ever. I'm nervous I'll screw it up. I'm sure I will. :)

Picture found here.

shoes :]

2010-02-10T20:01:00.000-08:00

Can't remember who the top picture is by, but all the others are from The Selby. :)

England

2010-01-29T06:39:00.000-08:00

Can't remember who these are by. I want to move to England as soon as I graduate, please.

and we're back!//think pink

2010-01-15T11:35:00.000-08:00

All pictures from here.

Star Light, Star Bright

2009-09-11T10:16:00.001-07:00

Sources: 1, 2, 3

Feeling Restless

2009-09-09T12:28:00.001-07:00

1&2, 3.

I want to go on an adventure.

Hope

2009-09-03T08:04:00.000-07:00

Via: <3

Ooh La La...

2009-02-18T08:12:00.000-08:00

I love the idea of an all-white "background'-white walls,ceiling, floors, and then adding black and vibrant splashes of colors. Can't wait to own a house!! (Click photo for larger images, none of the pictures are mine.)

2009-02-12T16:43:00.000-08:00

I've been working on Valentine cards for my friends and family the past few days, and I'll be sure to post pictures of them tomorrow. :)

Closet Envy

2009-02-10T16:40:00.000-08:00

I'm OCD about organizing, and crazy about fashion, so that explains my obsession with beautiful filled, well organized closets.

Photos from Here and Here

Photo Credit
Bonus points! Nicole of Making it Lovely's lush closet.

A Question

2009-02-10T12:58:00.000-08:00

I've been struggling with trust in my relationship with God lately. Mainly in the area of finances, and what I'm going to be doing with my life in these next few years.

I'm either trusting Him to take care of me, and not saving money AT ALL, or I'm totally determined to stick to my budget and worrying about how little money I do have, and then being stingy and not wanting to bless others with it. I can't seem to find a middle ground. I want to work this out, because I do NOT want to be worrying my entire life about whether or not I'll have enough to do what God wants me to do.

Has this ever been a struggle for you (not necessarily confined to college-related things)? How did did work out?

I want to know. :) Any other thoughts you might have are awesome as well.

Amazed

2009-02-08T10:08:00.001-08:00

2009-02-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

Photo via Black*Eiffel
I want to be her. Who's up for a road trip?!

2009-02-06T09:28:00.001-08:00

People I Admire...

2009-02-05T17:55:00.000-08:00

Lavanna Martin is an oil painter who paints people "on the go", many times at coffee shops or places where they linger just for a few minutes. Lavanna paints her selected subject in as little as a minute, and usually tries to paint them without being noticed. This first picture is my favorite. These paintings and all of here other ones can be found at her blog.

Valentine's Day!

2009-02-05T15:26:00.000-08:00

Photo Credit
I am so crazy-excited for Valentine's Day this year! I love love love hearts, I doodle them on
anything, and have finally embraced my girly love of the color pink, so I'm doubly excited. I
also can't wait to write letters and send Valentines to all the people I care about, but, like
many other people, I'm not loaded with money right now. So I came with with a list of
creative gift ideas to show some of my favorite people that I care, without spending tons of
money. (I'm not going to be doing all of these things! I'm still brainstorming.)Since I'm also working on getting the focus off of myself and showing love to others, Valentine's Day will be a perfect time for me to practice that.

My Beautiful Momma-Breakfast in bed is always awesomely sweet, and Martha Stewart makes it sweeter. I think I'm going to follow her lead and buy some of those cheap heart-shaped cookie cutters in all different sizes. I could expand on the breakfast idea, and make it for my entire family. Or cook dinner, then bake a cake, or a chocolate dessert. Decorate my house with pink and white for the day.

Photos from here.

The Siblings-Brothers:Candy; heart-shaped cookies I baked myself; taking them out for
coffee; writing them a note telling them how awesome they are...all good way to love
them.
My baby sisters- putting together a "beauty pack" from things purchased at
the dollar store always makes them feel very grown-up. Small bouquets of flowers are great
for my sisters, and if I keep an eye out at Kroger and Wal-Mart, they heavily discount
their fresh flowers when the get close to passing their purchase date.

Photo Credit
Friends-I'm hand-making my Valentines this year (hopefully!), and mailing them out, because it's always awesome to get a card mixed in with all the junk-mail. Guy-friends love food, and it'd be sweet to send each of my girl-friends a flower, I think. Last year for Valentine's day, a friend of mine threw an Valentine's day party, for girls only. It was incredibly fun, and since she scheduled it for a few days after Valentine's Day, she was able to get all the decorations and such half-off. I'd love to do the same this year, but don't see it happening so far.

Picture Here.

Bonus Points:
Martha Stewart has a whole page of heart-shaped goodies (I think everything I cook will be heart-shaped from now on, if possible!); home-made cards; and flowers.

2009-02-04T13:53:00.000-08:00

“Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly. But the bumble bee doesn’t know it, so it goes on flying anyway.“ - Mary Kay Ash

Inspiring Photographs

2009-02-04T10:40:00.000-08:00

All photos from here.

2009-02-02T09:17:00.000-08:00

"I don't know where I'm going,
but I promise it won't be boring."

-David Bowie

Pretty Pretty Pictures

2009-02-02T07:53:00.000-08:00

All pictures from foto_decaden t.

I'm tempted to run around outside with my camera taking B&W pictures now...but oh, wait. It's still winter. Also, I want the convertible.

Sugar Sugar Sugar!

2009-01-31T17:50:00.000-08:00

1. J'adore les bonbons, 2. Brigadeiro Decorado, 3. Cupcake Heaven., 4. Cupcake Heaven <3

For part of my iCiNG Transformation Challenge, I'm cutting out sugar this month, not counting Valentine's Day. This is probably going to be the hardest part for me, (as I love my Sprite and Lemonheads!) so I'm thinking of some ways to be sure I don't 'cheat'.

-Check in with D, daily. He's Mr. Nutrition, so if I scarf sugar at some point and he catches me, it won't be pretty. (He enjoys merciless teasing and practices daily.)

-Budget all my money out for other things. This is something I've already been trying to do, I need to save more for school, so if I have set amounts for tithe, savings, that sort of thing it'll be harder to come up with the money to cheat!

-Avoid Wal-Mart and Kroger. I live next to to a Kroger store (literally!) and I can walk there in 15 seconds, which is good when I'm out of milk, but really bad when I'm wanting to cut down my sugar intake. -Come up with good alternatives! I love fruit, so I'll be eating tons of it; I can buy cranberry juice that has Splenda instead of sugar (yes, Splenda is bad. I know.); and chocolate rice cakes are really sweet but have only 4 grams of sugar in them. (Awesome!)

Now I only need to figure out a way to drink sugarless coffee without gagging, and I'll be set...

If I Lived in an Antique Shop...

2009-01-31T07:43:00.000-08:00

I would decorate for Christmas with bulbs like these...

And eat sundaes out of pink Depression glasses...

Run around baking while wearing cute aprons...

Eat my lunches and dinners using MORE pink dishes...

And drink Espresso out of child's tea sets.

Love?

2009-01-29T11:37:00.000-08:00

1. ما بقالي قـلب يشفع لك خطيّه, 2. أنزل القلب وآمـر مابـه إلاَّ حلالـك, 3. أنا حبَّيتك وحبَّي لِـك حقيقـه, 4. ان قلت احبــــك

This is a subject I've given bunches of thought to in the past few days. While I'm great at receiving love from family and friends, I'm much more stingy on how I give love back to people. I also stink at knowing and understanding what love really is. I tend to lean towards Hollywood's 'chick-flick' version of love-flowers, candy, hug 'n' kisses, people telling me how beautiful/talented/fill-in-the-black I am...my definition of love also tends to center around ME.

Kick in the pants time: "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, and it is not proud. Love is not is not rude, is not selfish, and does not get upset with others. Love does not count up wrongs that have been done. Love takes no pleasure in evil but rejoices over the truth. Love patiently accepts all things. It always trusts, always hopes, and always endures. Love never ends." -1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

Wow. Beautiful, and terrifying at the same time.

"My children, we should love people not only with works and talk, but by our actions and true caring." -1 John 3:18

I want to love people the way I was created to. The past few days of attempting to walk in love have not gone incredibly well, to put it nicely. "I don't WANT to wash the dishes!" and "I really don't WANT to watch you chew your food with your mouth open!!!" Sigh. I've been able to keep my mouth shut most of the time, but I'm not crazy about the fact that I still react selfishly to people and situations, whether they see it or not.

As I'm the Princess of List-making, I've come up with different ways I can work to walk in love more. Maybe you'll get ideas from some of them.

My Mom-Ever since dad passed away last year, she's had her work cut out for her. I'm the oldest of five, and I know first-hand how things get around here sometimes. (Especially right now, with two feet of snow outside!)
-Buy her flowers more often, for no reason
-Help around the house more, when I see something that needs done, do it.
-Write her more encouraging notes and letters (I did this all the time when I was little.)
-Make dinner more often
-Take her out for coffee

My Siblings!-
My brothers, Z and A
-Hang out with them more, like going out for coffee and playing card games, or killing zombies on the Xbox
-Encourage them! A has a gift for architecture, and math, and Z is awesome at everything construction-wise. They're both great snowboarders, too.
-Take them out to eat, or go hiking with them.
My sisters, E and C
I've always had to work on getting along with E. She's very dramatic, and could care less about cleaning her room, and we share one. (Only 6 1/2 more months, though. !!!) So she's probably the hardest person for me to love in my family. It's always been like that, and I've never known why. =/
-Hang out with them more-play games with C, talk to E and goof-off with the both of them.
-Buy them both flowers!
-Take them out to eat, or shopping, or to the zoo.

The boy-D.
I'm guilty of "why doesn't he buy me flowers more often or tell me how pretty I am 24/7?" in my thinking at times, which is really backwards and selfish. (Total honesty day, yikes)
-Ask about his day first, and more often.
-Make more of an effort to "look pretty"
-Cook dinner for him. :)
-Say more positive things about him. There are so many I think of, but don't always voice.
-Make him peanut-butter-chocolate things, when he acknowledges that sugar is AWESOME again.
-Two words: Gooey E-mails. :}

Friends!-
-Write someone a short "Hiya" note and drop it in the mail.
-Send a best-girl-friend chocolate, or flowers just as a thank you for putting up with me.
-Meet them for coffee, or food, or shopping, or tennis, or whatever.
-Write on their Facebook wall just to say hi.
-Just LISTEN.

Hard-to-Love-People: I currently struggle with this. Angry people at work, or people I just don't get along with!
-Be nice.
-Smile.
-Shut up.

2009-01-29T08:46:00.000-08:00

I forget where I first found this, but it's adorable. :)

2009-01-28T10:26:00.000-08:00

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye." - Miss Piggy

iCiNG Transformation Challenge!

2009-01-28T09:15:00.000-08:00

Photo Credit

The iCiNG Transformation Challenge is the brainchild of Miss Gala Darling, blogger extraordinaire.

"You asked for it, you got it! The second annual (wow!) iCiNG Transformation Challenge starts at the end of the week — on Sunday 1st February, & will run for 28 days.

GET PUMPED, BABY!

For those of you who weren’t here for it last year, the iCiNG Transformation Challenge is an opportunity to achieve something you’ve wanted to do for a while but as yet, haven’t quite managed to hit out of the park. Last year, my personal challenge was to exercise in some form every day & eat 100% raw. Other people changed bad habits, revamped relationships, made steps towards doing more fulfilling work, transitioned their diet, worked on artistic projects, stopped smoking or taking drugs, etc. There is no limit as to what you can or can’t do within the challenge — it’s totally up to you." -Gala Darling

I think it'll be a great way to keep me accountable, as there are some things I want to give up that I don't like the idea of giving up, haha. Anyway, my list is as follows-

-Give up extra sugar for the month (wince!). This will probably be the most challenging goal for me, as I love me some sugar. This means no pop, candy, cakes...junk like that. The one exception will be Valentine's Day, of course.

Photo Credit

-Keep exercising! Every day. Dance, yoga, jogging, sit-ups, push-ups, whatever. Between 15-30 minutes a day.

Photo Credit

-Be more creative. Try one new and creative thing a day, be it wearing bright blue eyeshadow; trying a new hair-style; using a different medium for my sketches; or cooking Thai food for dinner.

-Open a shop on Etsy! I want to start selling my sketches. This will force me to keep sketching and coming up with new designs, as an added bonus. I'm going to have to get a PayPal card, finish registering, invest in better paper and materials, and START SKETCHING!

Photoshoot with E!

2009-01-28T08:41:00.000-08:00

My baby sister E is a very good model, no?

Candy Colored Hair <3

2009-01-23T13:46:00.001-08:00

Photo Credits: foto_decadent

I can't tell you how much I love the last picture! <3

xoxo,
Ney

Song I Love

2009-01-23T09:29:00.000-08:00

- Yo-Yo Ma plays the prelude from Bach´s Cello Suite No. 1

xoxo,
Ney

Productive Creativity, Part Two

2009-01-22T18:02:00.000-08:00

(Awesome to-do list photo credit HERE)

In part one, I covered ways to be more creative, and get out of your normal routine. Part two is going to have
suggestions and ideas to make more time for your creativity. One of the biggest things I struggle with time-wise
is procrastinating...I've done it constantly. I need to organize my days so that I can get chores, work, and
everyday boring things done and out of the way so that I can focus on increasing my creativity.
Currently, my day goes something like this- Wake up at 9:30 or 10, stumble downstairs, start devotions, eat
breakfast...junk; get on laptop, eat junk for lunch, think about being productive, stay on laptop, meet a friend, eat
more junk for dinner, get on lappy, go to bed around 11ish,take forever to fall asleep...continue.

ICK!! I also left out the part where I get annoyed with myself for not getting things done.

Now this is what I'd like my day to look like: Wake up around 7:30 or 8; do my devotions; stretch and exercise;
shower; clean or help around the house; update blog; work on letters for the Celtic Ball; eat something healthy for lunch; then read (good, not cheesy) books, sketch, update things for sale on Etsy, sew, photography...; spend time with friends, family and the boy; good dinner; veg/get ideas for future blog posts before bed around 10.

Here are some of my biggest time wasters, and ideas on how to steal your time back.

-Internet! I love my laptop, it is my child, but it keeps me from getting things done. Try cutting your time way down on e-mail, MySpace, Facebook, IMing...whatever your biggest time-waster(s) online are. Or try giving yourself a set amount of time to be online, or choose to stay away from your computer until after a certain time. I've totally cut out several different website that were MAJOR time-wasters for me, and I plan to cut back on other sites further. While e-mailing is not a big time-waster for me, I plan to use Leon's advice and limit myself to two pointless website checks though the day. (I also want to read that book he recommended!)

-Bad Organizational Skills-both with Things and Time-I plan to work on becoming more organized, and staying that way. It's a habit I really need to learn! To work on integrating more positive habits in my life, I love Steve Pavlina's idea of "30 Days to Success". The theory is that it takes between 30-40 days to really get set in a habit, and if you can start a habit with a set 'end' in mind, it's not as hard to get to the end, and then push yourself farther. It's a mind game, but it really works! Gala Darling also has a great article on how to get into a productive daily routine.

-Plain Lazyness. Sometimes the best way to combat this is to just get up and start moving. I find that if I start the hardest or biggest project first, I gain momentum and am able to keep going. Taking breaks every so often helps as well. (This does NOT mean every five minutes, sorry!) Work for 45 minutes, then take a 15 minute break; work for 2 hours and take a half-hour break. Figure out what works for you and STICK TO IT! When the break is over, get right back to work.

So what do you do to motivate yourself and scare away the lazy monster?

xoxo,
Ney

2009-01-21T19:23:00.000-08:00

“It is unforgiveable to do what one doesn’t love especially if one succeeds.”
-Christian Dior

Behind the Scenes @ Martha Stewart

2009-01-21T18:58:00.000-08:00

(Photo Credits)
I want to work at Martha's now just for the offices. All the color! And so organized. Is that weird?

)

Productive Creativity, Part 1

2009-01-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

Photo Taken by the Lovely Kris Atomic!

My personality is such that I need places with creative, well-designed atmospheres for me and my creativity to really flourish. (AKA, working at Wal-Mart would drive me insane.) I also need to keep being productive in the creativity department, creativity begets creativity sort of thing, and I've felt like I've been stuck in a rut lately with that. I could be cranking stuff out constantly, with my VERY lean work schedule, but I've not spending my free time as wisely as I really should and want to. I want to be more creative, while being more productive as well, and as I'm Miss Plan-Things-to-Death and a crazy list making fiend, I'm going to list ways to be more creative//productive here. Hopefully this will give you ideas as well!

-Start Project 365. The premise behind taking a picture a day for a year is that you'll view things around you with a more creative eye, as well as improving your photography skills.

-Learn one new (creative) skill a month, whether it's quilting, water-color painting, or decorating tiny cupcakes.

-Cook something new for dinner. Indian, Thai, something healthy...(gasp)

-Along that line, grab a random fruit/ethnic spice you've never tried and make a recipe with it! (The Taste of Home website has thousands of recipes on it, and you can search their entire collection by food ingredient!)

-Try doing something new and creative everyday for 30 days. They don't have to be major things, just things like sketching; learning to say something in French; trying a new type of exercise, like ballet; baking cookies and giving them to a neighbor(bonus points); switching up your hairstyle (I have double braids today!); wearing pink lipstick or navy nail polish... and so on.

-When ordering from your favorite local coffee shop or Starbucks, try asking the barista what his favorite drink is, then order it! I've started doing this, and it's pretty sweet. White-chocolate mochas with soy are actually really good.

-Switch up your normal dressing routine...wear something out of the ordinary for you. If you lean towards jeans and pants most of the time, try wearing a skirt or dress. If you tend to wear darker, more somber colors, try wearing a sequined pink dress! (I have one, and love it.)

-Look around to see what your city or town has to offer in the way of creativity. I just found out that my town offers yoga classes downtown, and has just opened an art gallery and a indie coffeehouse (which I have yet to visit!) There's also an art studio I plan to take classes at.

-Grab your camera, and some comfy shoes, and do a color study. Walk around shooting anything you see of a certain color, pink, blue, green...try doing this with different shapes, and make sure to switch up your locations.