geek style

When the Clock Strikes 12

I never thought I’d ever need a petticoat (or crinoline), but since I’ve been more inspired by vintage/pinup girl fashion thanks to Pinup Girl Clothing I’ve found that petticoats are essential for making the circle skirts that I own look nice ‘n pouffy. After I scored one by Tatyana on Zulily, I’ve also found that they make me feel like an effing Disney princess! If I can’t be an actual Disney princess, I’d like to at least look or feel like one… this is what most women in their late 20s want, right?

Speaking of Disney princesses, have any of you seen the new Cinderella movie starring Lady Rose Lily James yet?! I watched it last Friday and I am OBSESSED. It’s sooo magical! The movie made me feel like a little girl full of hopes and dreams while watching it. 🙂 I thought it was a great adaptation of the animated version, and I’m really pleased with all the changes that were made, such as Cinderella meeting the prince (played by a beardless Robb Stark Richard Madden) before the ball. The story and the characters just felt a lot fuller to me than the animated version. Then again, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen it, so I could be wrong. Oh, Cate Blanchett was fabulous as Lady Tremaine! I hated her and admired her all at once. I don’t know how to explain that, but I’m sure if you see the movie you’ll understand.

I don’t really have anything in closet to do an actual Cinderella Disneybound, but I knew I wanted to put together something Cinderella-ish. The skirt with the clocks is something I got on ModCloth ages ago. It seemed more Doctor Who-ish to me at first, but when I happened upon it while trying to find pieces for a Cinderella outfit I thought it tied in with the clock at the ball.  And I don’t own any flats that resemble glass slippers, but my vintage lucite clutch seemed like a good alternative. 🙂

 cheers

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skirt & glasses: ModCloth (buy glasses here) // top: Kate Spade
purse: Pinup Girl Clothing (buy here) // petticoat: Tatyana Boutique (buy here)
necklace: Le Fancy Geek Boutique (buy here) // ring: made by me
lucite clutch: vintage //watch: Casio x Disney
shoes: White Mountain (buy here)

geek style · pup life

Huckleberry Blues

outfit details – skirt/shirt/belt: Mossimo (buy skirt here) // horse brooch: vintage // straw hat: H&M // backpack: don’t recall, but it’s actually for kids! // shoes: Blowfish // glasses: Derek Cardigan // Duffy Bear keychain: Disneyland (buy here)

Hello kitties!

Summer school started up at the junior college I tutor at, so I’ve been adjusting to waking up at the ass crack of dawn to make sure I get there by 8 am Monday-Thursday. So far my body has taken a liking to passing out as soon as possible once it realizes it’s at home. I forgot how amazing naps are! Except I hate when I doze off well after the sunset because I feel all kinds of discombobulated. Like, “OMG, it’s 8:15! Am I late for work?” Also, where the hell did June come from? Wasn’t it just January? What is happening? How are we at the halfpoint of 2013 already? I haven’t accomplished many the of the goals I set out for myself to achieve this year, but I figure I still have 6 more months to change a few things.

Anywho, let’s talk about my outfit! I wore this last week when I hung out with my bestest friend, Shanice. We went out for a long walk with Rory by a levy, had ice cream, and did some shopping (at Target of course. Where else would we go?). And speaking of Shanice, she’s graduating today! YAAAY!!! Unfortunately I have to work during the ceremony, so I can’t witness her workin’ the cap and gown, but we shall meet up later for ice cream. We love ice cream, okay?

I was in a bit of a Mumford & Sons mood when I threw this outfit together. Not sure if you can tell considering the fact that my backpack has Hello Kitty buttons representing my initials on them. And yes, N.P.H. are my actual initials. That’s not there for Neil Patrick Harris (even though I do love him). When I think of Mumford & Sons, I think of old, rustic, antique items. Not really sure why. So I put this newish-but-old-looking straw hat on my noggin to protect me from the sun, but it was crazy windy that day and kept flying off my head. And my skirt has engineer stripes on them, which says “old timey” and “Mumford & Sons-y” to me. I think my outfit would’ve looked cuter with a pair of brown cowboy boots, but since we were going on a walk I opted for something more practical.

The horse pin I’m wearing on my shirt is a flea market find. I remember digging through a bag full of vintage costume jewelry and had to stop myself from doing a happy dance when I found it. Gotta keep it cool at the flea market, y’know? If a seller can see you like it, they’ll most likely try to get top dollar from you! I don’t remember how much I paid for it, but I recall it was a pretty good deal considering that I got a few other things from the seller too.

Alright, enough blabbering from me. I gotta go get ready for work! I hope you kitties have a lovely weekend ahead of you >^__^<

Cheers,
Nina

PS: Here’s some Mumford & Sons for your listening and viewing pleasure 🙂

geek style · the reel world

Moonrise Kingdom

Mod Cloth is currently having a contest to put together an outfit inspired by Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, which happens to be one of my favorite movies of the year! The winner gets a gift certificate to Mod Cloth and a BluRay copy of the movie. Since I loved Moonrise Kingdom soooo much, I thought I’d enter the contest. 😀

Here’s what I came up with:

Moonrise Kingdom

The contest ends tomorrow (Friday, 19 Oct), so if you’re interested in entering, go HERE for more details.

And if you’re not familiar with Moonrise Kingdom, it was written by Anderson and Roman Coppola, and the film is set off the coast of New England during the 1960s, and follows Sam and Suzy, pair of 12-year olds who have fallen in love with each other. They make a secret pact to meet up and run away into the wilderness together. Shenanigans occur as a search party consisting of the local sheriff, Suzy’s parents, and a troop of Khaki Scouts look for them, and the oncoming storm doesn’t help them much either. It’s hilarious, adorable, witty, and happens to be out on DVD/Blu Ray right now, so you should totally check it out!

I absolutely loved Suzy’s outfits, with her knee high socks and saddle shoes and cute dresses. Who knew women all over would be looking to a 12-year old for fashion inspiration? I sure as hell didn’t dress as well as Suzy when I was her age. Then again, I grew up in the 90s. o__0

[photos courtesy of Focus Features]

geek style

DIY Binge

When I was little, my Auntie Nelly brought home a box of beads from a craft store for my sister and I to make stuff with. I made a tiny wreath with pink plastic beads and silver roses, and I think I even added some teal and purple beads in there too (what did I know?!). And for my 9th birthday I got a super rad Pocahontas jewelry making kit! When I went to school with my new creations, some of the girls in my class asked me to make them stuff — even the ones that bullied me. The nerve, right?! I made one of them earrings anyway to make her leave me alone. That worked out in my favor. 😀

Making jewelry has always been a hobby of mine. In the last few years I’ve made necklaces with the intention of selling them, but I always found myself becoming attached to them, so I just kept them for myself. In short, I have never sold any of my creations. x___x

It’s been awhile since I’ve made anything, but this week I managed to crank out a few items! When I got my bosun whistle last weekend, I also bought a few loose pendants, one of them was a gold teddy bear that opens up and contains some waxy smelly granny perfume. I must get rid of that stuff! Anyway, I took a gold chain necklace I’ve had for years and made an uber fancy one with the bear pendant and a few other baubles (pictured above). Here’s a close-up of the teddy bear:

Sorry, the macro on my camera is a bit meh.

I’m trying not to get too attached to this piece, but it’s kind of hard because I really like the way it turned out, and I totally slaved away in the garage (which is hotter than Satan’s bumhole) for HOURS until I finally felt that it looked right. RUGH.

Anywho, I made a few other things this week too (I apologize for the craptastic quality of the following pictures):

Mozart pendant made out of chandelier crystal/teardrop crystal pendant. Whatever you wanna call it. Last year when Auntie Nelly went to Austria she brought back some chocolate with this Mozart design and I kept them because I thought, “Hey, I can do something with this someday.” And voila! I plan on adding a brass chain a some Swarovski baubles to it. I shall post the finished product here when it’s… well, done.

White Rabbit chandelier crystal pendant attached to brass necklace chain. I made the pendant last March out of boredom but could never find the right chain to go with it. I finally found one last week and I’m uber happy with the way it turned out. The White Rabbit image came from one of my tear-away desk calendars.

I made these earrings with these plastic pendants I found in a some randomly put together packets at some bead store in Berkeley (can’t remember the name of it though). I wanted to add little crystals beads to dangle at the bottom, but I think they look fine the way they are. I have a yellow pendant like this too, but since there’s only one I’m gonna have to settle on just making a necklace with it.

It’s nice to have this sort of creative outlet as writing stories is at a bit of a standstill for me. However, I recently came up with an idea for a zombie story and have been jotting down notes and doing a bit of research (I’m really not into zombies, but this idea came out of nowhere and I felt the need to run with it) so hopefully that’ll eventually come along. Plus Tim and I made a *high five promise — he has to write more songs, and I have to write more stories. I’m just having a hard time trying to figure out the direction I want to go in for the story — third person, first person, serious or campy, etc. AH! I think it’s time for me to bust out my old Creative Writing class’ writing exercises.

*high five promise is the new pinky swear.

__

outfit details:

  • beret: H&M
  • sweater: GAP
bloop · geek style

Meep.

Today was exhausting and I feel like I didn’t even really do anything. Is that weird?

This afternoon I went to have my picture taken in my cap and gown at a photography studio. It was a bit awkward, and the photographer was not a fan of my no-tooth-smile. Other than that, he was a pretty silly dude. I’ve had my picture taken by him many moons ago when I was in high school. Remember when it was cool to get professional photos done with your friends (or in my case my sister and cousins)? Yep. That’s what we did. We didn’t take the proofs home, so I can’t show y’all how they turned out. I ended up only really like one out of 14  or so poses I did.

Once I got home my boss called and asked me to take care of something if I could (I’ve been telecommuting), and I said sure. I actually tried doing the task last night, but it was one of those things that seem simple, but the steps in doing it were actually quite complicated. I ended up working from 2:30 to 6:40. Oi! It had to do with setting up autoresponders on Kick Start Cart. I’ll eventually get it.

Somehow I managed to slip reading back into my life. The last book I read was One Day by Harvy Nicholls and I think that was in March. If you haven’t read it yet, run like your ass is on fire to the nearest bookstore. That book broke my heart and haunted me for days after reading it — in a good way. It even made me want to start writing fiction again! I have a story idea that was inspired from One Day, I just need to sit down and tweak with it a bit more. All I have are notes so far.  As of late I’m juggling between Tina Fey’s memoir Bossypants and Barbara Comyns’ novel Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead. Comyn’s book is a lot darker than I originally thought it would be — it’s about the Willoweed family and the English village they live in. The story starts off in the middle of a flood and ducks are swimming around the Willoweed house, dead animals are strewn about, Grandmother Willoweed is concerned about her rose bed, and a slew of unfortunate deaths occur with the village folk. AH! Good stuff so far though.

outfit details:

  • cardigan: H&M
  • brooch: from the flea market
  • ring: from a vendor at SFSU
  • top: I don’t know, but it’s from Ross
  • pants: some off brand from TJ Maxx
  • shoes: Bearpaw
geek style · out & about

Chateau Cronie

Yesterday was quite eventful as I FINALLY got to see Agent Ribbons live at Harlow’s in Sacramento! I even dolled up a bit for the occasion; I usually like doing the jeans-n-cardigan thing for shows, but not for this one! I totally forgot to put nylons on though, so my legs were like fleshy popsicles by the end of the night. Also, the photo above marks my first legit self-portrait. Huzzah for tripods and my mother’s fancy SLR with the self-timer button! They make life so much easier.

In case you’re wondering who the frak Agent Ribbons are, I shall give you a primer: they’re an indie duo-turned trio-turned duo again from Sacramento, but are now based in Austin, TX ,whose sound has been described as [from what I’ve read in random reviews] a mix of vaudeville, baroque, 60’s garage rock, and cabaret. One of the songs off their album Chateau Crone was featured on The Vampire Diaries not too long ago, and it’s actually available on Amazon for FREE. Mod Cloth even sells a dress that’s named after them.

About 4 years ago, my late friend Jim told me about them because he had recorded and mixed most of the songs on On Time Travel and Romance, which is brilliant by the way. “Call Me Margaret” was the default song on his MySpace page and he said to check it out. So I did, and I fell in love. Whenever I make mix CDs for friends, I include at least one or two of their songs on them. Just trying to spread the gospel of Agent Ribbons, y’know? I actually got to talk to Natalie (lead singer/guitarist) for a bit before the show and she was so effing sweet despite the fact that I was awkward. I hate meeting people I admire, any sort of social skills I have (and I don’t have a whole lot to begin with) completely go away. Other people who have experienced my awkwardness: Sara Bareilles, Greg Laswell, and Nathan Fillion. I hope I never meet John Krasinski.

I shall leave you all with a video I took at last night’s show:

PS: Check out On Time Travel and Romance and Chateau Crone and thank me later. 😉

outfit details:

  • cardigan: H&M
  • dress/belt: Target
  • shoes: Charles Albert
  • necklace: thrifted
  • glasses: Tilly’s