Inspiration from a blog!

So my mother's birthday was September 23rd which happens to be the first day of Autumn {yay} and while pondering ideas, I remember that I had seen this blog post on "A Beautiful Mess" 1. I like this blog because Elsie has cute craft ideas a lot of the time and 2. her name is Elsie and some people call me Elsie. Ok anyways, ever since Fall weather started to come around, I had been wanting to make that leaf garland and amongst pondering what to make my mom for her birthday (home made things can be so much cooler than store bought items occasionally) I thought what better present than the leaf garland?? It's pretty and it's autumn themed. So I headed to Hobby Lobby (a.k.a. crafting heaven) and bought everything I needed. It was really fun to make and she loved it!

you need big open floor crafting space. it helps a lot :) 

 I bought this big bouquet of flowers while I was there and individually cut them to make it look nice in the mason jar I had also picked up. I randomly came up with this myself and thought she would like it. And they're fake so they'll last forever! or at least until the cat gets to them.

clearly up to no good.

 

the garland is delicately hanging on tapestry hooks in our living room. Brings the feeling of Autumn into the house quite nicely :) I'm really happy with how it turned out and I think I'm going to make some for my bedroom as well!

Tomorrow I'm heading to south side to get some black and white engagement shots of my friends Joe and Laura. I'm very excited, I love them. And my camera. Happy weekend!

I often speak of what I hope to come, but not what is. And my intentions rarely line up with my actions.

Treehouse of champions

parlez-vous le francais?

Got my hands on French rosetta stone. Could not be happier. I haven't been able to take French since Junior year because I made it up to French 4 when I was at WA and that's all that they offer and John Tyler only has French 1&2 which would probably be a waste of money so annnnyway....I've been craving to learn more French and keep up with it because I really don't want to forget any and since I am aspiring to live in Montreal within the next year or two if everything goes well with school then French will become even more important in my life. So I have all levels of rosetta stone and I'm starting from the beginning because it will be a good review/fresh start. I talked to Elliott Shaw on Tuesday night about life and such and we started talking about French because he lived in France for a semester when he was in high school and he is pretty much fluent, can speak extremely fast, and has a perfect French accent. And while talking to him I found out that French is his major even though he's not entirely sure what he wants to do with it, and I'm sort of in the same boat because I plan on making it my minor. And then we ended up having a mildly lengthy conversation on facebook in French which made me very happy cause I understood pretty much everything he was saying :) I'm still extremely far from being fluent buuuut rosetta stone will take me a lot farther, I believe. I'm pretty much at that point where if you were to ask me on the spot "how do you say ____ ___ _____" then I may not necessarily know the answer, but if I see French written then I get the gist of what it is saying. This whole thing just excites me and I'm not sure why :)

Just showing some soy lovin'

My mother's parting gift before she went to Utah

Give my friends a listen!

They are called Shy, Low. Their music is the bees knees, makes you feel magical, and they are lovely boys! They're doin' post-rock the right way. I personally love "Heavy Hands". You can like their facebook page here!! *plug* Ok good day friends.

DIY wedding

My dear friends Laura and Joe are getting married in November. They live extremely simplistic lives relying on God every day because they tour in a band for a living. Soo, in order to make a good budget (and have fun) Laura is doing a ton of stuff herself for the wedding instead of spending thousands of dollars on flowers, caterers, decorations, etc. Sunday afternoon I went over to their house and helped her make some things for the wedding because I love crafting and she said she wanted my creative input. I'm also going to help her set up for the wedding the night before and it's all so very exciting. We made paper flowers from an old book and wired them to sticks from the yard with wine bottles, which will serve as center pieces for the reception tables. And also brainstormed for some garland ideas. It's all so fun, I love this stuff...it makes me happy :)

 the forest of center pieces we made 

(they look really cool in person, my low grade mobile picture doesn't do them justice)

 This is Lilly, Zak's cat. She kept us company and made us laugh by chasing all the little paper pieces that were falling on the floor.

 Laura wrapping yarn around bottles

Pretty darling

if I do say so myself ;)

Happy about:

my new book

discovering this setting on my vintage camera app

 this octopus sketch I did a couple of weeks ago

Forever listening to classical music. But not so much the Beethoven kind but more the forests and fairies and bird chirping kind. With pretty violins. Yes, definitely pretty violins. Pandora this: Jonathan Elias

Sometimes

I just genuinely don't know what is going on in my life. The past few days I keep encountering tiny bursts of emotions for no apparent reason. Listening to music and thinking about art makes me want to cry. And last night when I was with a couple of friends, I all of  sudden felt the overwhelming need to tell them how much I love them. Most days I find myself feeling happy and incredibly empty all at the same time. I've realized that I'm depressed in the absence of people and in my opinion that is a very dangerous place to be. I don't like that dependence, because you can't rely on people for your own happiness and it makes me especially scared when I think about leaving for college and being thrown into this unfamiliar environment where I literally have no one. But deep down that's all I want to do. But on the other hand, I've been "finding myself" lately, so to say. They say that happens when you enter the college years. I suppose it's true. I'm excited for the different ways I've been interacting with God and learning of his grace and challenging myself to be a person who looks more like Jesus. It's not always easy {in fact, most of the time it isn't} but it feels really, really wonderful. Maybe the reason I'm getting so overwhelmed with my life is because it is MY life and I'm thinking about myself far too much. I've been listening to a lot of lies lately when the truth is I just want to live life for little malnutritioned African darlings.

Dear adorable little dress,

why must you be $150??