It All Started With the Nail Polish...

I was standing in a makeup aisle, staring down the Essie nail polishes.
"Eight dollars.... but I need a new dark nail polish. I miss the way I feel in darker colors..."
I thought. I thought.... I grabbed a deep, gunmetal-y, metallic black.

I was excited. But then I stopped at the New York Color section. The same polish, literally, the EXACT same color. $1. I switched. I was even more excited.

The dark polish made me want dark eye makeup. I watched NY Ink.
My brain started thinking once more. "Megan has the most amazing style... and the best makeup and hair..."

I was sick. Hadn't worn makeup in more than a few days. Hair was in a permanent ballet bun.
Everything was too clean. My face too one-dimensional. My hair too...unmyself.
I was on the edge of just throwing myself into a sea of inky blackness. I looked down at my hands...
The polish pushed me.

My eyes were a shimmery pink in the inside lid, a lavender in the middle, and a gray-blue covered the rest. Black went into the creases, black drenched the waterline, black winged up and out.

My sister was inspired by the makeup. "Can I do your hair??" she asked.
It was as if the polish answered for me. "Yes!"

She worked on my hair while I worked on my lips. Not red. I needed maroon. That maroon I've searched years for. Not a brown red, or a deep raspberry. I needed the lovechild hue of black and red.
The obviousness of the answer was in the question all along.

I grabbed an old Smashbox palette and emptied it of it's champagne pink contents, and replaced it with a black and a blood red. My perfect maroon lipstick was born with the first swipe of the lip brush.

My sister finished with my hair. Megan would have been proud.

My sister exclaimed in giddiness, "You look so pretty! Lets take pictures!"

I looked down. My grey tank top and house shorts didn't belong. My sister and I eyed the corset top in the closet at the same time. It was only fitting that the skirt I normally wear as a mini-petticoat was to be paired along with it. The seamed fishnets and black satin prom gloves went along for the ride.

I was quite a sight. By the time I had gotten in front of the camera, it was obvious I wasn't sure what I had gotten myself into. My sister assured me when it was over she'd have them edited beautifully and that we should do this more often.

The results made me look down, not in embarrassment, but so as to say to the beautiful shade at the tips of my fingers, "Thanks for the inspiration."

No.15 Shoes and Summer

 While I was making a page for all of my Shoe Challenge posts, I realized I counted one of my pairs twice! So this is actually my 15th pair saved. I actually thought I saved these already too, but I realized I never posted those pics. Oh well, this outfit is alot cuter than the other one anyway. :)

(Top-Wet Seal, Skirt-Thrifted and Altered, Shoes-Piper and Blue, Nacklace-Gift)

 It's been soo hot lately (It was at least 101 degrees when I took these) so I'm having a hard time adjusting my outfits. (There's only so much you can do with shorts and a tee...)

Despite that fact however, I really do love how hot it gets here.

Yesterday it was 110.

And I had a 101 fever.

And I still had to go to summer school.

And yea, it sucked.

It sucked alot.

But for some crazy, strange reason, I still love it. I think it just reminds me of being a little kid, being driven around in a car with black leather seats and no air conditioning, being slathered in sunblock, randomly running through the neighbor's sprinklers.

You just can't do that when it's cold.

I wait all year to sit on these front steps while the sun sets. I wait all year to be able to watch my mom or dad water the thirsty lawn. I wait all year to let the last few dying rays of the June day play with the shadows of my bare legs. Yes, it's hot. Very hot. Sometimes, too hot.

But I wait all year for this sunshine. Why not make the most of it?

No.15 Home

I kept putting off writing this post, and at first I honestly couldn't understand why. I want to share my adventures, and this one was spectacular! This trip was something that I had waited months and months for! But I kept saying to myself, "no.. not today.. write it tomorrow, when you have more time. No, not yet, not yet..."

I didn't realize it until now that I wanted it to be this really personal post about being home and how it all makes me feel. Santa Maria, that trip, all of those feelings of being home and belonging, they are my most personal types of feelings. When I'm there, I have no internet, I turn my phone off, I isolate myself because I want it all to myself. I let the sunshine be my best friend, and cold my only worry. Its all just too much for a post that's supposed to be about a car show! Haha, so I'm going to go ahead and share my trip experience, instead of a novel about how much I loved being there. :)

(Heads up: This is going to be a picture heavy post. )

We stopped at dad's work to say hi to everybody and take pictures in the furniture showroom. Haha.

Then it was off to the car show!

When we got there, we went into the buildings first (I was on my shorts-hunt after all) when I saw my dad making a bee-line for this man. He was like, "OH MY GOSH TRISHA TAKE A PICTURE OF HIM AND ME!!!" Thinking he was just a random man, I was like, "uumm... okaay?"

Turns out he's from my dad's favorite show Car Warriors on the speed channel! and upon further investigation I realized why my dad was acting like me if I had ever run into Dita Von Teese:

"Known as 'The King of the Customizers,' the legendary George Barris and his world-renowned Barris Kustom Industries has built some of the most famous automobiles of all time, including the original Batmobile, The Munster Koach, the original Green Hornet and The Beverly Hillbillies jalopy."

Um yea, COOL! He was a really sweet man, and took a picture of my dad, me and my sister for fan pictures. Really glad I got to meet him!

You'll notice most of the pictures I took of cars are either black or red. I just can't help myself, every time I see a classic car I think, "Ooooo it's so pretty but it imagine if it was black!" I love the classic aquas and pinks and creams, but I feel like I've seen those a MILLION times. The ones with a deep green, deep red, or super shiny black just get my heart racing every time.

My sister got her first pin striping brush and she's really excited to learn some new techniques. This one was her favorite.

Look this one isn't black or red! Ok I have to admit, I saw this car and immediately thought, "Hey! I wanna make a dress like this! A black bodice, plum belt and aqua skirt!" Haha, inspiration comes from everywhere I guess :)

It took a couples hours of being there before I felt comfortable enough to take pics by the cars.

(My friend once asked me, "How are you gonna be a pinup girl if you don't like when people take pictures of you??" I think I said something stupid and random like, "Shutup, I don't trust people!" but I really meant,

"I'm SHY! D:" haha)

If there's anything I learned from my parents growing up it's this: DO NOT TOUCH THE CARS.

I grew up in a family of car people, and the one thing they cannot stand is when they spend all weekend washing and waxing their cars and people go and put their grubby little fingerprints all over it. I'm 19 and my dad still makes this crazy face when it looks like I'm going to lean on it or I'm getting to close. So now I only pose by cars where I can put my wrist on the window sill, or hold the handle.

(I make that awkward pucker/fish/parrot face when people stop to look at me and I get uncomfortable.. lol)

But then I found the car I'd been waiting all day to see! I caught a glimpse of it the night before at the hotel and I knew it was going to look gorgeous in the sunlight.

I was in love.

(Theres that stupid face again, this time it was because the owner of the car was staring at me, he probably thought I was going to touch it... haha)

Want. Want. Want. Want.Want.

Lunch consisted of strawberries and brownies with whipped cream. :))

(I just noticed the woman sitting behind me, snood and cheetah print coat!?! Awesome!!)

Hey! I haven't saved these shoes yet! Woo-hoo, saved pair No. 15! (From Payless)

(The rest of the outfit: Top, seashell necklace and Flower Clip-Made by Me, Skirt-Thrifted and Altered, Cardigan-WetSeal, Black Leather chain purse-Froever21, Octopus bangle-HotTopic)

Yay for always having a pretty car in the background!!

 

This was my favorite pin striping art from that day. Ha.

Then it was back to the hotel to enjoy some silliness our last night there.

Because who DOESN'T jump on the hotel beds???

The first year or so that my dad's work transferred him to Santa Maria he lived here at the Travelodge, and we stayed here with im an entire summer once. It's really like another home to me. While dad was checking out I couldn't help but take a few pics.  

My sister got in on the picture action. Haha.

Someday I'll be back in this beautiful town for good. That sunshine and chilling coastal air. It'll be mine. Someday I'll be home not just for a weekend, but for forever.

With that amazing red car of course.

No.14 Hippo-Sized Fail

I was not planning on doing an outfit post today because I have SO many others I need to do, (and I didn't do my hair) but a girl came up to me at school today and told me she really liked my outfit and I thought, well what the heck, might as well!

So when I got home I figured I'd quickly take some pics and it'd be easy as pie!

Wrong. My sister didn't want to take pics for me, so I opted for the self-timer setting and my front porch.

If you're allergic to fail please stop reading now.

My thoughts: "Ok this one should work...

 "oh except it cut off my shoes, which I need to save for the challenge..."

"Maybe if I stand on my tip toes and lift myself up!"

"...um... still no...."

"Oh! I'll use the porch railing and the chair!" 

 "...and cut off my head... cool..."

Ok I honestly don't know what my thought process was here, I was just getting desperate to get my whole body in one frame...

"....are my legs really that freakishly long and crazy looking?!?!"

"Ok one more railing and chair pic..." 

"...which would have been perfect had I not chopped off my head again..."

 "RAWR!" 

(Black T-Wet Seal, Skirt-Thrifted and Altered, Belt and Shoes-Forever 21, Necklace-Santa Maria state fair) 

So while you recover from the amount of fail I have just inflicted upon your poor eyes, I'll post a quick teaser of my outfit from my upcoming post!

It's inspired by this (already sold) outfit from Fab Gabs Vintage.

I had a skirt almost like the pink one that I wanted to shorten and I knew I could make a top for it using that extra material. So I cut 8 inches off and got to work. (This wasn't remotely recent, I started this a REALLY long time ago)

 I never had anywhere to wear it in mind so I never rushed it, but when my Santa Maria trip got closer, I knew it was time to finish it. So when I do my recap of that trip in my next post, you'll know exactly how it was born :)

And if you feel like cheating and want to see more, I blogged about it quickly once in this post.

Thanks so much for reading!!

(Side-note, anyone else having difficulties commenting on blogs? I really love getting comments and I know other people must too, and it totally sucks that I haven't been able to comment on anything for like, EVER, and it's making me extra frustrated. *see frustrated face above^*)

Adventures, Adventures

I have had so many lovely adventures these last few weeks, I'm astounded at how lucky I've been. Many amazing concerts and shows, festivals, family gatherings and overall beautiful chaos.

These are the kinds of experiences I hoped to be blogging about when I started this whole thing, and now that they've all been happening I'm just itching with anticipation because I want to share them all. But alot of these posts I have written in my mind, stored away in my memory, until I finally get a chance to actually sit down and write them.

I go through my pictures and I can feel myself get anxious and impatient because I just want to spit them all out onto this page, but I know that that won't do my memories any real justice, and probably won't translate well to you, the reader, because you will have no idea what the heck it is I'm talking about.  :)

Blogging has become an adventure of it's own, and I just want to say a really huge THANK YOU to my new and old followers, for being on this adventure with me.

A Hippo's Home Haul

I feel like after all of the adventures I had this past weekend I have a TON of things to blog about, but I just don't have the time to talk about it all at this very moment. It really deserves a well written post and I know if I write it now it won't do it much justice. However! I am WAAAY too excited about some of the things I purchased, I HAVE to share them with you.

First of all, I went out of town for a car show/mini-family vacation, but I went on a very tight budget.

The only things I was letting myself purchase were:

*Cuffed Denim High Waisted Shorts.

*Santa Maria License Plates

*Vinyl.

Well, I mostly stuck to my list, but because we were on vacation dad let me spend a little more than I had planned. First thing I had to try were these sodas we found at a booth at the car show. The small company was family owned and the two daughters of the man who makes them were running the booth, it was like buying from a bad-ass lemonade stand. haha.

While we were at the car show I was becoming frustrated, I thought surely with all of this vintage repro clothing I could find the perfect high waisted shorts... but no luck. I actually almost bought this gorgeous sailor dress at the last minute because everything was 50% off, but I stuck to my guns and thought, the shorts will be worth it!! We decided to hit up the mall after the show and look in a vintage repro store they had there called Lady Luck. Except, they had moved locations and I had no idea where they were now. Sadness consumed me.

So I bought a top, a makeup brush and black liner to make me feel better. (only spent $17 on those three things, even when I'm shopping for therapy I'm cheap)

My dad called around and found out that the store had moved to the Pier-side mall at Pismo Beach, which we were headed to the very next day! Excitement consumed me.

Dad knew how much I wanted new plates so the next day we drove to the town's auto mall but couldn't find the Ford dealership. :/ booooo. So we went to Pep Boys and they couldn't help either so I just bought Hildy some pinup air freshener. (Hildy is my car by the way, named after the journalist in "His Girl Friday", one of my favorite movies of all time)

On our way to the beach we saw a billboard for the Ford Dealership, it wasn't in the auto mall, but about a block or two from where our old apartment had been. Whoops. :P

Well there I was, feeling slightly defeated that nothing on my list had been mine yet, when we finally got to the beach. I walked into the store and there was no denim in sight. I asked a sales woman, she knew exactly the type of shorts I was looking for, but they didn't sell them. However, she did point out these sailor shorts by Rocksteady that I quickly fell in love with. They were the perfect shade of Navy, and once I tried them on I knew there was no way I would be leaving without them. I really just want to wear them every day for the rest of my life, but that would make my outfit posts really boring I think...

After that I was really excited, I could get my plates next time (now that I knew were to get them,) I got my shorts, and now it was onto the next town to get my records! If you are ever in San Luis Obispo California and love records, or music or collectibles in general, you HAVE to go to Cheap Thrills on Higuera street.
I got a Big Band collection with 6(!!!) records inside, in perfect condition, as well as a ballet record for when I practice at home :)

I'm really proud of myself for pretty much sticking to my budget and not going crazy over the vacation.

That being said I bought more shoes when I was back in town went I went shopping with a friend. :P
Embarrassment has consumed me.
These were only $25 and they're 6 inches of absolute fantasticness. Because sometimes you just got to live a little...