2013 Design Inspiration

Yeah, so it's the first of the year and guess what?  Time for new inspiration!
With Avid in my face and 3D-capable After Effects, it seems like there's NO stopping me, right?  Well, I've hit a few walls (which you can read about here) and I was feeling a little discouraged BUT - I didn't fret.  I just let my brain rest.  And in that resting time, I was going to start watching The Borgias on my iPad.

I didn't get very far.  Why?  Because the opening title sequence was totally wonderful!  It had elements from the True Blood opener that felt familiar but it also reminded me of the ink bleed from my ultimate favorite end title sequence EVER - Sherlock Holmes.  Granted, The Borgias sequence is unique on its own and I had to find out the design studio behind it.

Nail Art Inspiration: Candy Paint

Well, I battled my "Nail Art ADD".  After some web surfing around some nail blogs, I stopped on one of my favourite pages: Candy Paint.  Her designs are always wonderful!  Her page is where I got the idea for my ring finger on this mani




Sweet right?!  Totally.  So when I saw these, you know I HAD to try it!


Mesmerized, I got out my newest, prettiest neon pink (Orly's La Vida Loca), my favourite blue (Sally Hansen's Blue Me Away), gold (Sally Hansen nail art pen brush thing) and black (China glaze Liquid Leather). As with all my nail art, the best representation is always my left hand (since I am right-handed). After a few splotchy mistakes on my thumb, I was pretty pleased with how my index finger turned out.



And after more messing around with my sewing pin and makeup sponge, I was pretty proud of my left hand



My right hand isn't as pretty but it still looks cute. I definitely love Candy Paint's way better than my version but at least I tried, right?!  I was getting lots of compliments (especially from the Big Boss' little ones).  Now that I feel confident in my animal prints (again) I might try another all-over animal print with a technique Christian shared with me.  Or I could go to her but I need a plan first.  I think I'll make my appointment with her before my trip.  Where am I going?  I won't say right now but know this: I am very excited!

Filming shenanigans and experimentations

During the craziness that was OCT12 filming, Jeremiah, Brad and I did some experiments based on photographer Natsumi Hayashi.


I had never seen these photos before so it was really fun trying out this levitating technique. Since I couldn't partake in all the jumping (because of my knee injury), I got behind Jeremiah's lens and yelled a bunch of jumping cues to Brad and Jeremiah.


Why they were wearing their jackets, I have NO idea because it was freakin' hot outside!

I couldn't begin to tell you what was happening in this photo but here it is anyways:





Once were were all nice and sweaty, we moved the party indoors and I had this great idea to shoot for a gif.  While I'm having technical difficulties uploading the Photoshop gif (of course I am), here are two Gif Shop gifs we made on my phone:





And when everyone was tired with me yelling at them to jump at just the right time, we switched over to fashion / silly / muse mode - which was basically me laying all over the stage and take extreme closeups of Jeremiah and Brad.

I especially enjoy this photo of Brad


And I got Jeremiah to channel his inner Josh Hutcherson via this pose:


I also got Jeremiah to channel his inner director by testing out his "Director's Point".


Hopefully I'll get my other gifs to cooperate and in the mean time, I'll think of more shenanigans to try out. Heck - we might even take it on the road! Like, say, to a certain skate park since it's warm enough. We'll see...

Workplace Hero

This past Monday the resident super-fast runner at the office, Tara, ran in the Boston Marathon!  I managed to keep my enthusiasm down - even  when we found out she was running it at her bridal shower, I was ecstatic!  I was so excited when I found out we could track her on the website too!  Too bad work got in the way and I ended up being so busy I could only pull up her finishing stats.  I ended up missing the entire race!  Oh well.  There were other co-workers that were able to multitask tracking her and working better than I could so they gave me a breakdown afterwards.  I was still very overcome with joy at the fact that she actually did it that I started asking her boss if she was going to do anything for her, like make a poster or decorate her desk or something.  It turns out she was going to decorate Tara's desk but she liked the poster / banner idea.  I told her to email me what she wanted the poster to say and I would take care of the rest.
After the banner was signed off on, I printed it on our plotting printer and as I was pulling it off, Heather said that we should probably all sign it.  I was all "Damn girl, why you gonna write all over my Photoshoppin'".  Just kidding.  We all signed it and it looked amazing!  And after some decorating, Tara's cube was ready for her triumphant return!


If I were here, I would've stayed home and rested the rest of the week after a race like that but she came in with her medal for us to admire.

How bad ass is that?! It has a freaking UNICORN on it!! Maybe I should train for the Boston Marathon so that I can have a unicorn medal too! HA! I've never even dreamed of doing even a 5K... so I'll just have to settle for an Oscar®.

Congratulations Tara!  You really are my hero and you keep giving me push I need to keep with my own *secret* training (but that's another story).

Inspiration: Game of Thrones

Along with important shows like Glee and The Killing, Game of Thrones has come back and I'm very VERY excited about it.  I tried not to get into it since it was one of the reasons Camelot was cancelled BUT I knew the old man would be into it and I knew it was going to be awesome.  I just couldn't escape it any longer and now, I've given in.  Sean Bean was a major selling point but we all know that didn't last long...Oh well.  He still got the job done AND there's Kit Harington (who looks like a dark-haired Orlando Bloom sorta kinda)


Oh, and this badass - Baelish

He owns a brothel! And there's just something about this character that I really enjoy. Let's hope he doesn't go rogue and turn out to be a different kind of bad guy.
Aaaaaaanyways...
My favourite part of the show (besides the hot guys losing their clothes from time to time) is the fashion.  I love that Medieval style of long dresses, tunics and our idea of their heavily conceptualized jewelry.
 
Yes, these are all photos of the Red Priestess Melisandre and so far, she has the BEST jewelry on the whole show - and we're only 2 episodes in, folks!  Imagine what she'll be wearing later on in the season!!  I can't wait!

What really started my infatuation was Gogo Blackwater's obsession with it when she posted these photos on her Instagram a while back:


GORGEOUS!!  And then she posted HQ ones on her Flickr here and here! So beautiful and inspiring!  I LOVE IT!!  It makes me wish I had long hair again to have a base for those intricate braided pieces.
And then I remembered - I don't really need long hair - I can just buy it!  In fact, I had bought a black synthetic braided hair headband forever ago that I had never worn.  I originally planned to use it with my pink hair as a nice accent but I could never really figure out what to do with it.  Enter this post by Kate at Scathingly Brilliant. Finally! Something I could do with my short hair and the braided headband! That's a win win right there.
Cut to: me in my bathroom getting for work yesterday morning with my black braid and some bobby pins.  What was I humming?  The Game of Thrones theme song, of course!  I know, I know - it wasn't exactly part of my original outfit and I don't really have the fantasy aspect down just yet but I felt as though I was channeling a little bit of Gogo Blackwater's interpretation of Arya Stark.  No, I'm not as pretty as her or have long hair like her or have access to hair falls and extra braids like she probably did for that shoot but I think I did a good enough job.

Not too bad. And I got lots of compliments at work. Now that I'm familiar with this tutorial for tucking hair into a headband, I'll be sure to incorporate my hair braid a lot more - and I might buy some different colour extensions to mess around with since I'm in desperate need of come colour.  Maybe if the Red Priestess updates her schoolmarm-ish hair do, I might start channeling her.  But I think I'll need to make her badass hexagon neck piece...I hope it's a lot easier to make than the Satine.


I will now leave you with this


Happy Thursday!

Work inspiration

I'm doing my favourite part of my job - research.  Why is it my favourite?  Because I get to watch lots and lots of videos!  Normally I would get pretty bored very early but I'm enjoying this.
Here are some gems from on of my inspiration sources: Nylon TV

Once you watch the first 15 seconds of this video, you'll know why Elijah Wood and I are meant to be together

Still the dreamboat...

I can't get enough of these videos of Josh Hutcherson.  I swoon EVERY.  SINGLE.  TIME.




This was a GREAT making of for the "Do Ya Thing" video by Gorillaz on the Converse page


(Here's the finished video)


I LOVE this video for "My Drive Thru" for Converse that Pharrell and friends put together


Let's not forget Nathan Williams...

I remember buying this issue (with Drew Barrymore on the cover, I think) and I was hoping for a video to accompany his photos at Coney Island.  Good thing it exists!  Yowza!

Here's one that my boss sent to me and I love it

I think it's very stylish and I think it could definitely lighten up our current looks.

All I need to do now is run around with a camera and see what comes from it.  Nothing like some good ol' experimentation - which is what I love to do!

Rodarte star bursts

As we all know, I've been very inspired by the star cluster look from Rodarte's Fall2012 show

And on my quest to make them, I've done some pretty wacky stuff...

This is the only one I can bear to share with you - the others were not so great...

Luckily for all of us, Refinery 29 has figured out how to make them with this handy dandy video tutorial!


I went to check out M and J Trimming's website since we don't have one of those here in Georgia and so my surprise, they don't have those cute studded stars listed in their nailheads section! *GASP* Luckily, trusty Studs and Spikes has them and I put my order in yesterday!  WHAT WHAT
A little later, I think I might order some bullets to make the bullet cuff I saw on, where else, Pinterest!  The tutorial originally came from Stripes and Sequins and I think it's pretty bad ass.  Especially since I'm trying to figure out what to do with my two keepsake bullets

I finally decided (just two days ago as a matter of fact) that I would take my bullets to a local shooting range and have them deactivated without having to fire them off so that I can drill a hole through them and turn them into a two-tiered necklace.  I think Nate would enjoy that!

More NYFW Inspiration: Tavi Gevinson

In keeping with the NYFW inspiration, I saw the prettiest picture of Rookie Magazine's Tavi Gevinson posted on Rodarte's Instagram

I instantly fell in love with her rose crown/headband! I loved it so much I made one!

I bought some cheap roses with fake dew drops on them (on sale, son!) for my trial run and I really like the way it turned out!


They remind me of some roses that Oni painted and put on ribbons for me years ago and I thought about doing that but I like the stability of the headband base - which I noticed when I made my Rodarte inspired foam stars.


And even though I enjoy the stability of the headband for the roses, I think I'll move the stars to some ribbon.  They're not as angled as I had wanted them to be for the Rodarte piece.  I mean, the way they are now reminds me more of the Giant Dwarf piece - which is fine but I'll fix that this weekend.  Since the glitter foam turned out okay, I think I'll move on to using what I wanted to use instead: glitter vinyl.  I bought some wires to make the starbursts from the original look and I can't wait!  The purple stars were a huge hit at work!  Especially since I paired it with my black and silver Mondo Guerra sugar skull shirt!

The stars definitely helped pick up my mood as well.  I feel like I'm recovering pretty quickly but I'm still tired and my throat feels like there's a desert in there.  Not pleasant at all.

I think with this new inspiration and Lauren's new hairdo (which she revealed during the Project Runway All-Stars live-blog), I'll make her a custom hair accessory!  I also bought some cherry blossom sprigs to pin in my hair tomorrow to keep my mood up.  Maybe I'll keep the flower theme going and make hair pins for Heather (a co-worker)!  She has pretty, long blonde hair that I want to make pins for.  We'll see what kind of mood I'm in. I'm hoping to catch up on some rest so that I can be fully recovered by the time I'm off my medications.  Only a few more days!

EDITOR'S NOTE:
Here is a tutorial from Rookie Magazine on how to make various crown/headbands

More collars? Yes, please!

This post had me thinking about collars. Since I have a new glittery collars in my jewelry arsenal, I got to thinking...What kind other glittery things could I *try* to replicate? Hmmm...

One article pointed me to this lovely beauty

My version would be without the tie-thing that resembles something else...
 
And that necklace got me thinking about another collar piece that I've been in love with FOREVER: The Satine.


Though The Satine is based more in filigree and bigger diamond pieces, I think I'd like to attempt this in vinyl first and then see if I can try it with stiff felt for the neck piece and incorporate some wire work for the open work on the chest part - or vice versa: stiff felt first then vinyl?  Or I could keep with the stiff felt and use a dressmakers pencil to trace out my shapes and then glue rhinestones in the filigree open work?

That is a BIG project!  It's also a project I've been talking about doing FOREVER.  A few years ago, I bought some wires and cheap plastic beads for my mock up and I didn't get too far.  I even thought about taking a metalsmithing class just so I could recreate this in silver.  Oy. 
This necklace haunts me.  I love it more than any other jewelry piece I've ever seen in my entire life.  It comes to me in my dreams (I swear), it pops up randomly in my head, I even reference it for when I'm talking about extravagant pieces.  I mean, how could I not?

Let's see if my collar-making skills are up for the task this year.  If not, there's always next year!

366 Project - The First 15 Days...

So this 366 project is underway and I feel like I'm having more fun with it than the last one I did.  Why?  I don't know.  I guess because I'm more comfortable with my iPhone camera?  More comfortable with the Hipstamatic perhaps?  Let's see...

              This year                                               2010
      

      
         
         
         
         
         
         
                           
         
         
         
         
         
         

I have to keep in mind that I didn't start the last 365 project on the 1st, so the dates aren't lining up but that's not the point.

I feel like with the addition of apps like Instagram and the Hipstamatic Disposable, not to mention all the other film packs for the original Hipstamatic, the possibilities are endless for this year's 366 project!  I'm really looking forward to finishing it!  The last one I did started feeling like a little bit of a chore on the harder days but I feel like I've been becoming more and more ambitious lately and I think that this 366 project will be streets ahead of the last one.

So...now that we've compared the first 15 days, let's see how the rest of the 351 days stack up this year!  I can't wait!

Katzi
S.L.Y.A.S.D.I.

To see the last 365 project click here
 
To see the latest 366 project, click here