Guest Posting For Lauren of Prefer 2B Demure

Happy Saturday! I'm guest blogging for Lauren of "Prefer 2B Demure" today. I'll be talking about how I got into fashion and sharing a few pictures from one of my outfit shoots earlier this year :). I met Lauren through Instagram a few months ago and we quickly became fashion buddies since we share so much in common style-wise. She is such an awesome, funny, and stylish lady and I'm super grateful for the opportunity to guest-post for her! Please check out my post here and also be sure to check out the rest of her blog!

(Getting Back Into) Oil Painting!

Hi there, and happy Wednesday! I'm into my second week of school now. I'm taking a human anatomy course as well as working full-time so things have been crazy, but so far I think I'm managing okay. We had our first test yesterday and I think I did pretty well so I rewarded myself afterwards by none other than writing this blog post :). Instead of an outfit post, today I decided to share some of my paintings from my childhood as well as two that I have recently done (after finally motivating myself to get back into it).

So where my love for painting began. When I was a kid about 8 years old, my mom enrolled my sister and me in private art classes. My teacher was awesome; she would come over to our home for lessons and over the years she became more of a friend than a teacher. I ended up having her as my teacher until I started middle school (I hadn't seen her since then until recently, when we reconnected after more than 10 years!). She was really good with exposing us to a lot of different types of art; water colors, oil paints, sculpture, pointillism, scratchboard-- we always had something new to look forward to. She was (and still is) big on allowing kids to express themselves through art. After a few basic pointers, she would allow us to create art in the way we wanted to without too many "rules", and personally that's what made art classes so fun for us. During those years, I took a special interest in painting with oil colors, for some reason it was my favorite out of all the other art projects we did.

Here are a few of my favorite oil paintings that I painted when I was about 11 years old (with some help from my teacher too, of course!). My favorite themes have always been animals and nature, especially birds. My sister and I grew up with pet lovebirds so my fascination with drawing them might come from there :). I used photographs from the 5th volume - Animals - of the Children's Encyclopedia Series Childcraft as a reference for all three paintings. I read that volume so many times as a kid, it was my favorite one of the whole set!

May 2001

Sometime in summer of 2001, I painted this to give to my pediatric
orthopedics doctor as a thank-you gift but never got a chance to give to her :(.

February 2001... more birds!

It'd been over 10 years since I had picked up a paintbrush, until a few months ago. To be honest, I've wanted to get back into painting on my own for a long time (after I stopped art classes, I stopped painting too). I would see paintings in hallways of friends' homes or on hospital floors during my volunteer shifts and would start thinking about the details of the scene, or I would feel inspired from the painting's theme to paint something similar. However I was never motivated to get started myself and I think a part of it had to do with a sense of insecurity; I feared I wouldn't be able to paint the "right" way or my paintings wouldn't come out the way I imagined, after all it had been so long and I never took any classes as an adult.

But in the past year I started to think to myself, if not now, when? If I don't try it, I'll never know what I can come up with. When my parents got me a gift card to the local Swain's Art Store for my birthday last year, I finally got the push I needed, and one day in February I was on my way there to buy painting supplies. I had the essentials in mind and silly me thought it would be a quick trip, but when I got there I was overwhelmed! As a kid my teacher would always have all the necessary supplies ready for us, so I'd been naive to the sheer variety. Student grade vs. professional grade paints, choosing between different brands, brushes made from different types of fibers, brushes with different shapes. I ended up spending a few hours at the store researching on my phone to find materials that would be both cost-effective and of good quality for a beginner like me. I walked out with around ten tubes of different colored oil paints, a variety of different sized brushes, thinner solution, disposable palate paper, an easel, and of course a canvas. 

Once I got home, I was so excited I started right away. Here is the painting from that weekend. I definitely would need to take classes or buy some books to learn actual techniques but my intentions right now are purely painting for leisure. I guess this is a start! As you can tell, I STILL love to paint nature and animals, and yes... more birds! (I painted these by looking at real photographs I found online for reference.)

This second one I painted recently, during the Labor Day Weekend a few weeks ago. I'm not too happy with it but I had fun. I learned a few things to keep in mind for next time, like adding some ripple effects in the water and maybe fixing the shadows a bit. It's funny because at first I had painted a sailboat but then I thought, nope! Need to paint those birds again! Seriously though, I need to move on to something else. Something on land maybe, like a giraffe or a cheetah.

Unfortunately I don't have too much time these days to paint often, as much as I'd love to, but when I do I'll be sure to post about it :). Thanks for reading my post! Oh and- if you live in the Southern California area, here's more information on my former art teacher's classes- she teaches all ages! Also, check out her very own paintings and sculptures, she is super talented!

Getting Nautical

As a lover of novelty prints, it's no surprise that this boats print dress by UK designer Emily and Fin is a part of my wardrobe. Unfortunately the top part of this cut has a tendency to billow out a little and sit weird, but I loved the print so much that I had the top altered to fit better. For this reason though I'm hesitant to buy more dresses from them, as cute as they are! I got this dress sometime last year and I decided to take pictures wearing it at a local hiking trail (these pictures aren't recent). Anytime my hair is its true dark brown color you know the pictures are older since I'm currently a lighter brown/caramel ;).

By the Lakeside

This past weekend I was down in San Diego visiting my boyfriend and we discovered this really pretty lake close to his place. I can't believe we hadn't been there before! It's definitely our new picnic (and outfit-photoshoot) spot ;). There seem to be so many pretty places in San Diego and I love finding somewhere new. I love taking pictures in nature because the background is always so pretty, but I couldn't help feeling a bit out of place being this dressed up at the lake. Maybe it's just me, but I felt like people in their workout or otherwise casual clothes were looking at me all weird! I hope some good pictures came out of it at least :). 

The dress I'm wearing is by the brand Taylor. I joined a clothing swap group on Facebook last year and a few months ago I was lucky enough to score this dress in exchange for a dress I don't wear anymore. It's the best feeling to swap out "old" clothes for new ones!

Details of the belt, necklace, and print of the dress.

I love the back cut-out of this dress. It's shows some skin but in a totally classy way! I think this dress is better suited for more formal events. I wore it for my sister's graduation in June and I can't wait for an occasion to wear it again :).

Dress: ModCloth (similar here). 

Necklace: ModCloth (similar here).

Heels: ALDO Frited Heel (similar here).

Belt: Sidecca

Colors of Summer

I have accumulated so many outfit pictures on my computer from the past year, and I'm so excited to eventually feature all of them! Today I'm sharing one of my favorite color combinations for clothing; red, yellow, and green. Knowing yellow is my favorite color, last Christmas my boyfriend got me this polka-dot skirt and chose a green top to go with it. I thought it was really sweet that he put time into putting an outfit together for me. I'd never worn yellow and green together before, and I loved how this outfit ended up turning out. I feel like the front bow-tie gives an otherwise plain top a little character and the solid color goes well with the polka-dot pattern of the skirt. I added red shoes and accessories to complete the look. The bright colors remind me of summertime, and Skittles candy (without the purples)! :)

These pictures were taken at the lovely Balboa Park in San Diego, California. The park is so big, and there are so many pretty spots! I just had to include so many of the ones we took. Hope you enjoy!

Bernie Dexter: Cafés & Boutiques!

For the past few months I’ve had my eyes on Bernie Dexter dresses. I adore the pinup/retro look of her clothing line and find her dresses to be so fun, feminine, and flattering at the same time. I’d seen other girls styling her dresses, and having heard amazing things about the quality and fit, I felt like I was long overdue for owning a Bernie myself.

With the price tag being on the higher end of my usual limit, I was hoping for a sale opportunity to come by so I could finally make my purchase. Last week, thanks to a clothing swap group that I’m a part of on Facebook, I was finally able to score the lovely dress I’m featuring today (thanks Katie!). I never felt more excited waiting for a dress to come in the mail than I did for this one! It fits me like an absolute dream. The cut of the dress is super flattering, and I love the shoulders and the neckline. The details of the print are simply to die for. A child can probably play “house” on the fabric of this dress for hours. There is a boutique, a florist, a chocolate shop, a bakery, and a café. It makes me wish I was in Paris!

I had the perfect occasion to wear it this past weekend too. On Sunday, my boyfriend’s family had me over for BBQ at their house, and knowing their backyard is a perfect place for pictures, I was super excited to put an outfit together. Taking pictures there only meant one thing for my boyfriend, that he would have the pleasure of being the photographer! He doesn’t necessarily mind, and he’s been so supportive of my evolving style and my utter need to have pictures taken of every outfit. He and my sister are usually the ones subjected to taking pictures, and even though they're good sports about it, I should really look into investing in a tripod and a wireless remote!

I decided to style my Veronique Dress in High Street Print with coral accessories. I wore a handmade orange flower in my hair and my coral BAITs (same style in red here). I added my own black belt from Sidecca and decided on my new favorite Sourpuss Floozy purse in black and white. I'm also wearing a black knee-length petticoat from Leg Avenue under my dress for fullness. I hope you enjoy the pictures! :)

P.S. This definitely isn't my last Bernie purchase!

Featuring My Green Fit-and-Flare Dress

I’m so excited to finally start posting! I’d been waiting to have my blog design all done before I made any posts. Thanks to Joyce of Joyful Outfits, I have a new layout that I absolutely love!

As my first outfit post I am going to choose one of the first dresses I ordered from ModCloth.com. Funny story how I discovered ModCloth, by the way. About a year and half ago, my boyfriend and I were celebrating our third-year-dating anniversary at The Penthouse, which is the restaurant at the very top of the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica. As the hostess was walking us to our table, she took one glance at my outfit and said, “Your style is so vintage! Do you shop from ModCloth?” This is what I was wearing that night at the Huntley: 

At home later that night, I checked out the site and browsing through I loved so many of the items I was seeing. In the past it’d been so hard to find circle skirts, fit-and-flare dresses, or clothing with novelty prints at my usual go-to stores. My style has evolved ever since I became part of the ModCloth community!

Since graduating college and being out of school for two years now (sheesh time flies), I have had more time to focus on my interests (meanwhile secretly hoping to find my calling in life). I was lucky to have gotten a full-time job shortly after graduating which has helped support my expenditures. Outside of work I like to shop (of course), paint (which I need to make more time for), and really just do anything fun that I hadn’t had time to do while in school.

Anyway, onto today’s outfit post! Around Thanksgiving last year, I bought this lovely green dress by the UK-based brand Closet Clothing. This dress was my first fit-and-flare and I loved it so much I told my boyfriend that we just had to find somewhere really nice to go for pictures. He suggested the Cleveland National Forest (he joked and said I would match the greenery) and we made a road trip out of it! We drove through the forest's twisty roads and stopped a few times to take pictures. By the end of the day we got to the little town of Julian. One of their local stores was selling farmer's market type goods so we bought some honey, coconut oil, and a variety of nuts to take home. The photos I’ll be sharing are from that day. Hope you enjoy! :)

Dress: Luck Be A Lady Dress in Green

Necklace: ModCloth

Shoes: ModCloth