friendship

There are actually very few photos of Carly and I together, so I'm glad that this one exists.

a big zine post

It's been ages since we've talked about ZINES on this blog, which is silly and so that ends right now.

I got a zine & sticker pack from Grace Miceli ages ago, and I had high expectations for fun, but I was still impressed by the sheer volume of zines (The Official Digital Valley Girl Coloring Book, We Would Be Sisters, and Hey Net Girl Hey), stickers, and temporary tats that she stuffed into that 5 x 7 envelope.

I used to have one of her Pawnee Goddesses stickers that had been a gift from Caroline, but I put it on my car and that car was totaled. I was sad about the whole thing...you know, being in a scary situation that resulted in months of inconvenience and pain, but also losing the sticker, so I when I placed my order, I requested Miss Knope as one of my stickers if it were at all possible. She was all out, but included a Pawnee Goddess print which was super nice of her and totally unnecessary  But I guess us glorious female warriors have gotta look out for each other!

Not even close to fitting everything in.

I have not played this game of MASH, because if I didn't get Drake as my husband, I would probably kill myself.

Cat Haikus and Art and Stuff is a zine my friend Melissa recently put together that is, of course, exactly what is advertised by the title. It features an illustration based on one of my photos and some pretty excellent cat Tweet screenshots.  I proposed that we put together an entire zine of Tweets about cats, so look out for that if I ever decide that doing something I would enjoy and could accomplish easily would be better than not doing anything. You can check it out Melissa's cat blog and Etsy shop, both called A Cat in the Window.

Beaker being the best little zine model in my house.  

Sad Girls Issue 1, which features work by some pretty cool contributors , is available now! I've been looking forward to it ever since Leah let me check out a PDF of the zine when I stopped by her apartment a couple months ago on my fittingly sad vacation, but I didn't give it a proper look through because I thought it would be really antisocial to just show up and hang out on her computer.  The physical copy is super nice and its coffee table presence has already (really unexpectedly) led to my favorite kind of argument (basically the only kind I'm ever in) where everyone's a little drunk and talking over each other and I'm just sitting on the couch laughing really hard.

 Sad Girls and some other fun Leah Goren things! It is just a fact that zine girls are nice and want to give you stickers. I'm especially into the compact mirror with a girl putting on makeup.  

Yelena Bryksenkova's work in Sad Girls and a stack of other zines I dig.  I don't think Megan McIsaac's Excerpts from 2011 is still available, but I'm just gonna take a second to say that she's still killin' it, so go look at her photos.  

And, finally, a little throwback to my zinester beginnings! I initially got into zines when I was in jr high and posted on message boards about punk rock.  I loved reading scans from old fanzines and eventually that led to exchanging personal art zines with like minded individuals, one of which I came across recently.

I never made a fanzine myself, just a lot of featuring my photography and creative writing, and I'm starting to think that maybe since I've been into all this for a decade now, it's about time, but who will the lucky subject be?

summertime sadness

Earlier this month, I snuck away to visit Boston & New York for the first time since moving back to Texas for a much needed visit with everyone I've been missing too much.  I feel like to adequately describe how important it was to me would inevitably end up in mega cheesball territory, so I'll just say this - nothing quite like staying up 'til dawn with people who know and love you right down to your rotten core to peel a few layers of cynicism right off of you!

I also got to spend time with folks I don't know nearly well enough and meet a slew of good new ones!  However, one downside of going above and beyond my normal level of social interaction was that I went through spells of complete brain death. To the lovely people who I could only respond to with blank stares and jumbled thoughts that sounded bad in my head and worse when said aloud, my apologies.  Here's to a next time if you'll have me?

Anyway, here are my disposable camera pix!   Initially I wanted to have an entire roll of sad faces, but I slipped up and got some smiles.  Angst typically is not a challenge for me, but I guess having fun sometimes gets in the way.  I'll let it slide.

Life is pain. The beach is pain.

\

Time spent with Noelle and Alanna is like having a devil on top of each of your shoulders and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Wistful porch culture forever.

Squeezing fresh lime juice onto flaming hot Cheetos before checking out some art, obviously.

Michelle, Pam, and Venice are not pleased. 

Pam, Matt, and I all desperately need to live in cities so we can spend all our time talking about how great nature is and venture out into nature-y settings in clothing that is not appropriate for outdoor activity, so we're a natural team.  

Pam and Dana slurpin' slurpees.  Dana is one of those people who I had only met once before moving, but became tight with after we lived very far away from each other and now I feel very comfortable reaching out to her if I need fashion advice or someone to text about my feelings (important things.)  Getting to bring our friendship's newfound slumber party vibes to real life was a treat!  

Noelle, Anna, and Alanna being treated to my professional portraiture skills.  

 Finally, a person I am not friends with being angsty without my explicit direction!  The last night of my trip, Noelle, Alanna, and I saw Dirty Beaches & Ice Age and it was excellent and the events that followed turned into quite the send off.  Noelle and I initially met when she recognized me from the internet at a Best Coast show, which I maintain is the most hilarious and stereotypically me way I have ever met any of my friends.  She became one of my very favorite people quite quickly and music has been a big part of that, so going to a show together again was exactly what my nostalgic heart needed.

I'm (slowly getting around to) putting up the last of my phone shots from the trip on my Instagram, too, so let's be friends there! 

everything goes wrong

I had hoped for a super chill birthday last month, but even simple things always get stressful and I ended having to postpone plans so I could search desperately for my cat for two hours because he thought it would be cute to go missing.  

I still think it was a birthday success once it got started, though!  Nature + people I like + a dog I love + Bouldin Creek with their heavenly chipotle pecan pesto and $2 glasses of flavored champagne is kinda foolproof.  

kitten around

I had a very stupid day yesterday, so I'm glad that I already had some kitten/friend time scheduled to take the edge off. Melissa, who is actually helping out on the new cat zine (forever making cat zines), is fostering a mom and her kittens for Austin Pets Alive right now!  I love APA - I've had a few friends foster with them and I adopted my little love Beaker from them last year and they were the best, so if you're in Austin, I definitely recommend supporting them in any way you can! Of course, these guys will be up for adoption eventually, too, and I plead for you all to snatch them up before I do something irresponsible, like adopt all three.

I initially met these tiny, tiny creatures last weekend when they were even tinier, but got a lot more quality time with them today and had my camera handy, so naturally I snapped away furiously.  Xylophone, the littlest kitten with the pink nose, took a particular liking to my hair, and when it was time to leave, she would not let go of me and I obviously wasn't feeling too good about leaving her, either. 

Overall, a pretty great Caturday. 

baby, my head's full of pictures

Sometimes, when you are very exhausted from the combination of an especially nasty sinus infection and a lot of exciting things, what makes the most sense is photographing everything new that you don't think you will ever get around to showing anyone in real life because when you're pretty damn sure that when you fall asleep tonight, you might just decide to finally commit to eternal slumber.

I bought this little terrarium at Renegade from Simply Planted.   My bedroom is teeny tiny, and the wall I face when I'm in my bed only has room for this window without much of a scenic view (mostly a wooden fence) and a mirror that wouldn't quite make sense anywhere else, so I'm thrilled to have something nicer to look at. 

 This little print clothesline is another new-ish addition to my bedroom. It features work by Caroline, Kensey, Stephen Eichorn, and The Disaster Life. 

Beaker looking pensive next to a couple old & new things.  The shirt was a thrifted cream silk blouse that I spent $2 on and wore about a hundred times before the various tiny stains all over it seemed to be a bit much and I decided it would make a good tie-dye experiment.  I like how it came out, and the fact that it's a shirt in the style I wear most frequently (a soft, collared button-down) means that it might get worn quite a bit despite being out of my normal, very limited comfort zone.   The necklace is my Little Pancakes collab, and I'm happy to (finally) have one of my own!  My friends Maggie and Joyce both purchased one over the weekend, which is really awesome because obviously cool girls matching each other is my favorite thing ever.  Dana, Ana, and Venice all have this necklace, and I like to think (and maybe have confirmed????) that they're able to send good cosmic vibes to each other whenever the necklaces are being worn. 

Melissa and I each made ourselves a couple one-of-a-kind necklaces together to commemorate her visit.  Hers features a mint green bear accompanied by dangling brass triangles and mine this cool crystal & chevron thing that I was really bad at photographing on myself because I forgot how hard it is to take pictures of yourself with a 35mm lens when you hate self timer. 

Finally, new reading/oogling material!  The stack on the left came arrived all the way from Dublin today...tons of independently published goodness courtesy of my pal Liz!  The next two were purchased today when Caroline and I took Melissa to a few of our favorite spots around town before she caught her flight back to Boston.  Apartamento via Spartan & Becca Stadtlander's volume of Living Things via Domy. 

introducing CUT PATH

If you follow me on other corners of the internet, you might already know this, but I'm making and selling jewelry now!  I had initially hoped to launch my Etsy shop, Cut Path, in a more organized fashion...but I don't anyone who knows me will be surprised in the least to find that it didn't quite go down that way.  

The cool thing is that at this point, my shop has only been open for a couple days and I've already sold most of what I have in stock & have a couple custom orders in the works....and for that, I want to extend a gigantic thank you to everyone who has bought something or simply mentioned it to a friend.  That was way cool of you! I'm sure your radness will be rewarded when the universe decides to distribute the next wave of good vibes or something.  Or maybe you'll just really like your jewelry!  

Thanks to the sales I've made, I will be able to make more & I will have a shop update Wednesday and can show you a more complete selection of my current range of products.  Until then, here are some photos of my beautiful friend Joyce wearing my wares and Caroline's flawless wardrobe.   Thanks, ladies!

this will be our year

2011 was very bad for me.  Bad enough that I'll remember all the wonderful things that happened (and there were so many great things and, better still, great people) as what helped me scrape by, barely, through the loss and stress of it all.  So I guess I can't help but be thrilled to attach a foolish level of sentiment to this new year...it really is going to be a better one, y'all!!!!!

With that in mind, I guess what I've learned so far is that the secret to a good New Year's Eve is adaptation.  My plans to spend a relaxing evening at home with my closest friends here in Austin, as unambitious as they were, fell through, and we ended up only hanging out at the house for a bit of the evening. Long enough, though, to construct a (wimpy and not entirely functional)  champagne pyramid.  

We were informed that the party was moving elsewhere after one of our only non-sick or out of town friends, Matt, had been roped into a DJ shift ending at midnight, so we packed up the Sofia and headed out.  

 

I still have twinges of nostalgia for my time spent working at my college's radio station, so it was nice to relive that part of my life for a bit.  But nothing lasts forever, and we really wanted pizza, so we headed to Will's apartment for the final phase of the evening before.

Overall, I can't complain about 2012 so far, so that's something!

crowns clothing illustrated

Morgan from Crowns Clothing teamed up with a bunch of talented young illustrators (including our own Caroline!) to create a set of prints inspired by her latest collection, available now on Etsy. I love how the project turned out - each piece is the perfect combination of the artist's individual style while being recognizably Crowns Clothing.  Way to pander to my fondness for illustrations of fashionable girls! 

Naomi Elliot

Caitlin Shearer

The Disaster Life

Caroline Knowles