73; Bewitched (featuring ramblings)

Velvet overshirt: Thrifted • Bralette: Pins and Needles (Urban Outfitters) • Biker shorts: DIY • Stripped tights: Romwe • Docs: Ebay • Coyote vertebrae necklace: DIY • Amethyst necklace: SOULMATES (coming soon)

As I type this, I actually have blueish-now-turning-a-little-greenish-hair (trimmed and without roots!) so it's weird to see myself blonde again. But you'll see that soon enough.

Does anyone here remember this cat? Maybe from this shoot? (Oh my god, looking that far back into my blog gives me crazy nostalgia; I feel like I'm looking at a photo of myself from YEARS ago. What is with that? What's summer like, again?) Yup, it's Gypsy again! She was apparently trying to say, "Oh hey guys, you obviously came outside to love me and pay attention to me, right?" Which is cool, I always love having felines in my photos. If only I could incorporate my cat Jasmine, but she can't sit still for the life of her.

So, does the fact that I wore this velvet shirt for two outfits in a row suggest how obsessed I've been in wearing it?

Ugh, I have no idea what else I can contribute to this post. Erm, I made those biker shorts in two minutes.

Oh, well, I suppose I can supplement with some insight as to why I've turned into the most unaccomplishing creature you've ever set your eyes on: I have been ridiculously overwhelmed with so many things lately, and I've fallen behind on a LOT of things I planned to do (translation: SOULMATES). Even while this current winter has been, without a doubt, FAR more bearable than the last, I still have been affected by its cold atmosphere, its common depression/complacency/stress (though not a constant thing for me, but fairly frequent) and the difficulties it brings to a person who works five days a week and has to embark on a 20-25 minute walk to said workplace, and the same amount of time back home. Might not sound like much, but when you walk that far only to stand for five to eight hours straight, having to wake up at five in the morning for three of those shifts (and some days, standing at the drive-thru window cashier, having the window open every few minutes to assault you with 30 degree breezes) the only way to put it is this: it SUUUUUCKS. This is not me looking for pity -- I'm just trying to summarise what's been draining me physically and emotionally, and painting you readers a small picture of what goes on outside of the blog, the outfits, the promised jewelry making, et cetera...which has everything to do with the outfits themselves, I feel. 99% of my errands are done on foot, walking around for hours in the cold, so by time I get home, I pretty much avoid doing any work like making jewelry or designing graphics for the shop.

If it makes you readers feel better, I finished a necklace this afternoon, and ordered some custom stickers for jewelry box designing. I would have ordered the stickers like, a month and a half ago, but Kathryn suggested it might not be the best idea, since I'll be pouring $15 into 25 stickers that I'll be stuck with if my shop goes nowhere. Good point, really. That money could buy the cat her expensive but necessary high-protein canned food, y'know?

So my plan was to print out the logo and turn it into a stencil to paint onto the jewelry boxes -- and I did an extremely embarrassing job. On two boxes. Thus, I caved and ordered the stickers. Even if I don't make a lot of money through this, I'm not going to cut corners and make a sloppy job of it.

I think that's the other thing that's been keeping me from churning out jewelry at the pace I'd been wanting: the fear of failing at the whole scheme. So upon launch, the inventory will be VERY small; I can't really risk spending tons of money on jewelry and other supplies if it doesn't sell. But...we'll see what happens! And I'll do my best to network so that that fear doesn't become a reality.

...Man, I really did not plan on typing this much. Er, sorry guys.