This year, I designed a photo book to give my mom for Mother’s Day. I’ve already made her too many pillows & got her too many flowers…the occasion begged for something more permanent. I slowly gathered all of the digital photos I had of her and I, family, and later took some photos of flowers during Easter. Check out little me with skinned knees holding my pet rabbit…I swear she wasn’t that big when I was younger.

After going through the photo archives on my computer, I still needed some more good images. I sneakily dug through the old photo albums in our house, finding a lot of gems. The picture on the cover was one of the gems–my dad, mom, and I on our old swingset.

One of the more recent photos– around 3 years ago?

Here’s another photo album gem I found–I didn’t include this in the book but I had to scan it! One of my parents took this years ago, maybe before I was born–I need to ask them about it. Not sure what happened to the film, but I’m diggin’ this happy accident. The light leaks in the photo are gorgeous, as well as the composition. It’s of Montauk point here in Long Island.

Sunday was spent with the fam of course…shopping around for a new outdoor furniture set, eating italian food, and playing with a puppy we’re currently taking care of. I am now definitely on a mission to take more pictures of my family! Have you made any photo books?

I’m super excited about finishing the first print that will be featured in my new shop sometime this year. On Friday I started adding fill color to the design in Illustrator, and it all came together at the coffee shop. Thank you change of scenery for the kick of inspiration. Also, a big shout out to my recently new Macbook that allows me to get more work done!

I was totally giggling over the mug that I received my chai latte in…How great is that?! After spending some time relaxing and enjoying our drinks the boyfriend & I headed downtown. I had an urge to just look at the apartment stuff at Urban Outfitters, but we actually ended up with a few things. I got a Scooby Doo drinking glass & a lovely photo album that was only 5 dollars. The boy got a discounted canvas print. After the unexpected shopping venture we went out for Indian food–It was an awesome day.

How was your weekend?

Vintage plaid shirt- thrifted
Belt- Forever21
Skirt- Ebay, forever21
Blue tights- ?

Well, I didn’t make this outfit totally work–if I had a plain black or teal pencil skirt I would have worn that instead. That would have definitely worked better than the red skirt; I am now on the hunt for new pencil skirts. Have any T.V. shows inspired your fashion lately? ♥

I’ve been a terrible blogger.
My favorite weekends are the ones that include mini road trips.
Tattoos on the brain like woah.
Removing myself from my comfort zone.
Trying to forget about financial woes.
I always say that receiving flowers is so cliche,
But I have to admit that it’s a really sweet feeling when you get some.
Loving minimalism and organizing my life.
Doing a raw food cleanse this week is just what I needed.
Lots and lots of brainstorming.
Need to stop leaving my camera behind.

-Amie

I recently finished up this design I created for Misfit, the winner of my blog design giveaway. I had so many ideas for her layout! You can see some of the initial ones over on her blog. She requested library related things, pink and white, ribbons, dots, and a typewriter font. My favorite part is the date with a gray background & short format to mimic a date stamp. I’ve been waiting for the chance to use that typewriter key font and it ended up working perfectly in the header. Check her out!

There’s been a lot of derby focus in my life lately–I got my shirts with my newly acquired name on them AND i’ll be playing in my first bout next week! I’ve learned so much from this sport already..so much about myself, and that a big portion of playing sports is psychological.

What have I learned from the daunting task of picking an alter ego name? 1. It’s hard to come up with an original name that’s not taken 2. It made me think about my identity. Who I am. What I want to be known as/for. I realized that I have a lot of hobbies & that I don’t have one particular thing that sticks out about me, one thing i’m good at. One thing that I could put into my roller derby name. And you know what? that’s okay. Heck, that’s even more than okay. I could have picked a name that was crafty related; I was also toying with name that had to do with veganism. I was actually stressing out about it a bit, for some reason! It reminded me of picking an online identity, an email address, or a domain name. You want the perfect name that feels right, that’s totally you. And you know what else I realized? Sometimes, it’s not that serious.

So there you have it–what I came up with is punny, kind of geeky, makes me smile, and the number is a little reference to my career.

The weather was not in our favor, but we made the best of wearing hoodies every day. You can see in a couple picture how cloudy the sky was! I had to Photoshop in a bit of blue sky to make it look less sad out :) We hung out in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, and Hollywood. All of the vegan food was eaten, and honestly I was a little bummed to go back home to NY and eat ‘normal’ food! heh.

The little vacation made me realize how dearly I want to change my environment. I’m not sure where to, but i’ll figure that out.

[attempt at a double exposure]

My first roll shot with the Diana Mini came out pretty okay! Most of the second half of the roll was overexposed–I think it’s because I put the camera on the cloudy setting at that point. It was cloudy out but still bright, so i’m guessing I should have left it on the sunny setting. I’m happy with the ones that did come out properly exposed so it’s all good! After researching what kind of film to use I was afraid that regular 35mm from a convenience store wouldn’t give me the neat effects that the Diana is capable of. So I hunted around for something else. I ended up finding & using Kodak 400 speed film that was expired by a year.

I loved all of the beautiful retro signs in Los Angeles, I also took some more of them with my SLR. Next up, more California pictures from my digital camera.

Hello! It’s been quiet over here while i’ve been away on vacation in California. I gotta say, the break from the internet & life has been beyond nice. I found myself getting frustrated often so I knew I really needed a vacation–I feel ten times better & pretty refreshed and re-focused. One more day then back to the grind.

Right before I left I bought a Diana Mini camera–I was so stoked it came in time for the trip! On Monday i’ll probably drop off the first roll I shot with the Diana, of course i’m anxious to see how the film came out. I’ll surely be sharing those and the rest of the photos from the week after i’m finished obsessively editing them :] How was your week?

On Sunday I went on a Starbucks date with the boy to catch up on some computer work. Before heading for coffee & discussing plane tickets we spent a little time enjoying the sun in a nearby park. It was a bit too cold for my outfit–it looked a lot warmer out then it actually was! Also, I am a wimp when it comes to the cold…so who knows maybe it actually was ‘warm’ out.

» The Clash t-shirt- H&M
» Skirt- Handmade by me
» Leggings- Marshalls
» Legwarmers- Received in a trade
» Shoes- Converse
» Faux leather Jacket- H&M
» Bag- Vintage from Ebay
» Green zebra heart necklace- From Italy, gift from friends

I adore the red bag–I just got it a week ago. Recently i’ve been lugging around a shoulder bag that I sewed in high school, after finding it buried in my closet. I’m proud of it & it’s a great bag and everything but I felt it was time for a change and to get a “grown up” bag. I knew exactly what I wanted–I searched around for vinyl/vegan vintage bags [so many V's!] and scored this baby.

I have one more post I didn’t get to finish during February– A DIY that took longer than I thought. I’m going to finish that up this weekend before I leave for vacation…mark my word! P.S–If you know of any rad things to do/see in Los Angeles send them my way :)