Long Hair

So this is the post in which I make it clear how obsessed I am by my hair, and putting weird things on it. First of all, this is my hair sometime last month, freshly brushed but not washed for about a week. I probably last henna-ed it in... I don't even know, over a year.

Then I started washing with some sample sizes of John Frieda "Go Blonder" Lightening Shampoo, because I'm trying to lighten the darker henna-ed parts and bring it all closer to my natural dark blond color. This product gets some majorly mixed reviews, but I figured I would try it since I wash my hair so infrequently, it can't do that much damage. So the next picture is a couple days later, after having my hair up all day. I tried to be scientific and take the photos with the same lighting, in my bathroom.

But then I wasn't home at the right time after a shower, and took this after what looks like a rough day, in the daylight. No wait, this was on a Sunday. Anyway, this is what it usually looks like. And this is probably after 2 washes with the lightening shampoo.  But I only wash my hair once a week, so change is slow.

Then I decided to try curling it, and I was really pleased with the results! This hair is the second day after sleeping on foam rollers, pulling them out in a fit at 3 am, touching them up with a curling iron the next night, and wearing that another day. The amount of hairspray I put in was ridiculous, so I washed them out.

This is what my hair looks like when I braid it at work. The layers don't like to stay in a braid. I think my hair looks like this 50% of the time. Not really the cutest look.

Oh my god, this is my best hair. It's so shiny! In this picture it's clean, and I put some Josie Maran Argan Oil which I got as a free sample from Sephora.

But this is what it usually looks like. I took this picture right after getting home from work on Thursday. This was taken with some natural light coming in the window, so I really don't think my hair has lightened at all... although compared to the last natural light picture, it looks like the red is really faded.

So far, I am not impressed by this John Frieda business. I don't think its particularly damaging, given that the shiny hair picture was after 3 or 4 uses, but it doesn't seem to really be lightening my hair either. I'll try a few more pictures later.

Famous on Instagram

My friend took a couple pictures of my apartment and put them on instagram/facebook awhile ago, I thought I'd put one up here:

haha the best thing here I didn't notice before -- her foot!

DIY: potato prints

I was visiting my grandma this past weekend and she wanted to do some crafts. Gma has always been a master crafter. She can sew entire outfits from scratch in a few hours. She has made countless quilts, including one she made for my parents wedding that I now use in the warmer months. She was the one who taught me to sew and instilled my love for DIY.

Gma had a stroke about a year ago and her physical limitations have really frustrated her, she can no longer create and craft and garden and cook the way she used to. I was hoping that a stamping project would be something she could participate in. I thought about a book my mom gave me for Christmas a few years ago, Lotta Jansdotter's Lotta Prints. I think I had done potato printing before, but Lotta makes it an art. Anyway, we got some potatoes and dug up the acrylic paint from the basement where I also found some simple canvas. I drew a mushroom outline on some paper, cut it out, and stuck it to the halved potato, and carved out the negative space with an exacto knife (you could totally use a kitchen knife). Then I put some acrylic paint in a plastic plate and brushed it on the stamp with a paintbrush. I tried dipping it in the paint but that picked up too much paint and produced a messy outline. Then I just went to town stamping the borders of the canvas. I used the shorter length and sewed it up into a simple tote bag, using thick shoelaces for the handle, and used the long length as a table runner. Gma provided technical assistance on using her sewing machine and emotional support. We were all (me, mom, gma) very pleased with the results! 

Post-Christmas Decoration

In my house, Christmas isn't over til it's over, and by over, I mean May. So early in January I made this cute wreath (I think it's cute) out of random evergreen clippings which I likely found on the ground. The wire frame is leftover wire from the IKEA curtain hanging project, and I tied it on with dental floss. The rocks are from Lake Michigan, either the dunes or maybe from the Upper Peninsula, and I learned on a recent trip to the Field Museum that the holes are actually caused by small crustaceans slowly burrowing through! I strung them on library cord when I had that library job where I spent hours in chilly stacks shelving forgotten European dissertations and re-wrapping Indian books from the 70s.

Studio Life: A Tour of My Stuff

So I did move into my own studio -- first time living alone, etc. I now camp out at boyfriend's house a lot and use the internet, because (gasp) I don't have it at home. No internet, no smart phone (that is now a lie because I got a blackberry from work), and no TV. But really, my sweet little baby apartment is too small for a TV.  

I feel like my windowsills are too cluttered with random stuff. But I like it all! My plants are loving all the sunlight, and I can display all the glass and lantern-like things that I own. You can't really see, but I made hanging vases out of old lightbulbs like the Pinterest-addict that I am. And yeah, I have Christmas lights around the windows. I put them up during the first snow fall in November and I think I'll keep them up forever.

My wee kitchen! It fits in the closet. After much delay and frustration, and with the help of boyfriend who almost gave up, I installed a curtain wire from IKEA and put up these IKEA-via-Craigslist curtains so that when I'm not using the kitchen (aka almost always, basically all I do is use the water kettle I got for Christmas, thanks mom & dad!) I can close it away and not look at it. I think boyfriend worries about the potential fire threat of curtain near the burners but I tell him I move it out of the way (and then I don't, good thing he doesn't read this.) You can also see so many other things I like in this photo-- the great sunlight, the dishtowel I bought at the Appalachian crafts center, the green & blue painting I got at STOP thrift store, and the perfectly-sized wall-mounted dishrack I got at IKEA. We went nutz at IKEA this last trip. Oh, and the keffiya that I use to cover up the random stuff in the bottom shelves of my little kitchen storage/counter furniture PIECE. (What are those things called?) (Relatedly I think its funny to call things a "piece" like they're a piece of art. It's like when the friend of my old hipster roommates said she wanted to open a "space" for artists or performances or whatever and I made fun of her to her face, or certain old hierarchicly-superior coworkers constantly saying "utilize" instead of "use" and I died inside constantly, or basically whenever most people talk about "culture." I am a terrible snob.)

Me, the snob, picking at the broken zipper of an old (vintage. ok, it's vintage) dress I want to sell on etsy. My apartment is tiny, but not too tiny for an ORB and a vase full of Christmas tree branches that I picked up from the ground outside of Big Star. Folding chair and stool: IKEA, blue chair and plaid blanket: grandma's house, bookshelf: left from previous tenant at previous apartment. On the bookshelves are my small collections of cookbooks, journals, fashion magazines I should stop reading, thermoses, and glassware with shiny rims.