This Is Not Art!

Charles and I drove all the way up to Newcastle today to perform in the This Is Not Art - Electrofringe festival. We took my car and I drove for 2 hours! First time I've driven so far.

We arrived at 6:15 and had to be at an opening party by 7! So I put on my skates and got ready super quick. I invented a hairstyle which I call the "put it up and pin it all around".




It's hard to see but I'm wearing purple tights and short socks that are lack with pink spots just lime the dress!

We got to the huge pub where the party is and there are all sorts of interesting folk around everywhere. So many arty types! It's crazy and loud and pubby here.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I spend too much.

It seems like as soon as I get my pay, it's already gone.

Back when I first was saving up to go to Japan, the money seemed to accumulate at a normal rate, going up every pay. I earned much less then than I do now, and yet now I'm poorer! Why is this?

Some of these expenses are not evil OR necessary. That's okay. It's interesting to work out where it all went!

1. Lolita. I found it after I went to Japan. Or rather, it found me. The wand chooses the wizard.


Just a picture of my most recent purchase. Not arrived yet!

The thing with this fashion is, you don't have to buy much to be much poorer. I love all the clothes I have bought, probably because I think so hard before I buy. It's a big purchase all in one go. So even though I hardly go out to civic and buy three tops for $50 all up, my clothes bill is probably as high as normals who do! I'm quite stingy with normal clothes and generally only look at buying specials. I'm a bit of a sucker for shoes though.

2. New expenses.
This year I've started paying board to my parents, and even though it's not a big amount, it certainly takes a toll on my purse!
I've also had to buy public liability insurance twice this year for teaching. Gotta be liable! Publicly!
Since I bought an iPad (expensive but worth every penny) I also need to buy data credit. iPads are great. I use mine all the time!

3. I'm too generous.
I keep finding myself buying lunch or concert tickets for friends when they are strapped for cash. I think "at least I'll have a friend with me!" without realizing that I am also strapped for cash! Sometimes it comes around and I get a free meal or whatever, but sometimes it doesn't! Once $100 was not repaid because they had no money, so I just dealt with it. Then they bought a new computer or something the next week. Inconsistent! Oh well, better to have friends right? Right?
I also bought expensive presents for my parents for mum's birthday and Fathers day. Also worth it.

4. Petrol.
My goodness. Recently I've had to drive lot because of teaching and work and stuff. No excuse here, it's just a punch in the guts to have to pay so much. Not whining though - petrol should be expensive because it is finite. It would be wonderful to run a car on renewable energy!

5. Charles has been here. I'm not blaming him. It's good really! It just means I do a lot more and go out a lot more. When I say "go out" I don't mean we hit the clubs, but we go to concerts, get takeaway, go to town etc. Little food stuffs and parking add up. That said, I'd rather Charles than money. He's my world.

6. Coffees and hot chocolates and caramel tarts!
Self explanatory really. I love cafe treats! The other week my friend and I went to a trendy cafe and got two hot chocolates (requested marshmallows and didn't get any!) and one biscuit. The lot cost $14! What? I paid for the lot because I'm stupid (see above).

Next time I want to write about how to make the most of what you've got and save money. It'll be mostly for me because as demonstrated, I suck at this so far!

Cutieful Snippets

I have started a new blog!  I won't be shutting this one down, of course, but this new blog is for snippets and pictures from everyday life! 

Here it is: Cutieful Snippets! Feel free to follow that blog too!

I was totally inspired by Violet's Cuties blog to start this.  I love looking at her cute photos and cute outfits even when they're pretty poor quality pictures - unlike her normal blog where the photos are really great but the posts aren't so frequent.

I'll be taking the photos for Cutieful Snippets with my iPad 2.  Pretty lame quality photos but oh well!  I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with the world via this new frequently-updated blog!

Cutieful Snippets!

Rehearsing!

Rehearsing with Charles for our set at Electrofringe next weekend!! Yay a trip up to Newcastle!





Cutie!



Charles is the master of cords.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Growing out a fringe - with JJ magazine!

Growing out a fringe is hard work.  You want it to look like you're not growing out your fringe, like you just got it styled like this yesterday.  However, hair goes through stupid and annoying phases where it's hard not to give up and chop it off again.  I've given up quite a few times, and as a result have never grown out my fringe since 2008.  I'm trying again!

I got a JJ magazine from Kinokuniya the other day.  It's my favourite Japanese magazine, because the models are relatively normal-looking (compared to all those bizarre Lolita and Gyaru magazines), and they have beautiful clothes.  So I've looked at all of their hairstyles and it looks like they're growing out their fringes too!

You get your hair cut in a straight fringe.  It's gorgeous!  So cute!  You look youthful and sweet!

Unfortunately, you also have to straighten and blow-dry it every day.  If it gets greasy it ruins the whole look, and because it's so short it gets greasy much quicker than the rest of your hair.  So, gorgeous but impractical.

Start sweeping it to the side.  Just use your round brush to blow-dry it with a curl, and then sweep it to one side.  At first it won't look much different...

And then all of a sudden you have a side parting.  Isn't she sweet!  She has the nicest hair.

As the fringe gets longer the side part gets deeper:

A styling option is to pin it back.  It can look very chic and also hide greasy roots or stupid hair.

Pinned to the side can look very sweet, but you have to have the right kind of face, I think.

This girl has french braided her fringe to the side to join with the rest of her hair.  A huge hair accessory does wonders...

Finally long enough to part closer to the middle, pinned back on both sides.  Very cute!!

Not my favourite look, I think your hair needs to be longer for this to work well.  Centre parted with soft waves:

Just pin the whole thing to the side!

Is it this long yet?

I feel like my fringe will never grow out.

Conditioner only experiments.

Recently I found a forum called the Long Hair Community, which was a great website with a lot of haircare tips, hairstyle tips, and tips on how to grow your hair.

There was a lot of talk about "Conditioner Only" washing. Lots of people claimed that conditioner actually cleanses your hair, and you don't need the nasty chemicals that are in shampoo. Shampoo is basically detergent with nice smells!

Importantly, you need to have conditioner with no silicones in it. That was so hard to find! The silicones in the conditioner coat your hair, and that's what makes it feel silky. It also leaves a build up, which doesn't matter if you use shampoo because it just washes out. I think I found one, a Garnier one, without "cones". Anyhow I gave it a go.

First time I washed my hair with conditioner, it was pretty good. Hard to dry, but cleanish. I actually thought the length of my hair felt very soft and lovely. But the next day it became really greasy and stiff. I washed it with Shampoo to get all the gunge out of my hair.

Next time I washed, I tried conditioner only again, but left it in longer, thinking that time is what was needed. Turns out it doesn't work for me at all. My hair was greasy still. Not only greasy, but very flat and boring. I dried my hair upside-down to get the most volume but it was really useless.

I think what happens on me, is that the conditioner just spreads out the grease from root to tip, so your roots will be less greasy than before, but the hair is difficult and generally gross. Perhaps if you used conditioner twice in one shower, it would manage to rinse out more of the grease. But that would take ages. I try to keep my showers short to save money (since the drought water is really expensive... even though the drought is over, prices stayed high!).

I've heard that "conditioner only" works better on curly-haired people. What I want to know is, what works best for me? So far, I shampoo my hair every four days, and try to use as little heat to style as possible. But the split ends are ridiculous. It's like a jungle in there!

What works for you?

Modcloth dress!

Oh my goodness, could someone please buy me this dress? I am sure that the XS will fit me!!  I am totes adding this to my wishlist.

Modcloth.com, Fair and Square Lemon Dress.

Don't go buying it for yourselves now!!!

Jacket done!

I finished this jacket finally! I think it turned out really cute!

I cut everything out super precisely and was so careful sewing! I wanted the tartan to line up but it doesn't really. My seam allowance turned out to be bigger than I thought and it ended up not lining up properly. But it looks okay regardless!
I also used press studs instead of button holes because I didn't want to muck it up. I sewed buttons on top to complete the look!

I wore this out the other night with a black dress and it worked really well.













Somehow this photo is upside down...

















- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Gig for the Music Council of Australia

Last night, I got a wonderful opportunity to play in front of the Music Council of Australia for their cocktail party.  They're having their annual assembly here in Canberra.

The DRUMatiX Percussion Ensemble came together and we played Music for Pieces of Wood (Reich) and my ragtime recital piece, Fluffy Ruffles, with my friend Krystle singing.  It was great!  We got so many compliments, and spoke to the local arts minister, and it was pretty good fun!  Free nibblies!

I wore my dress from Melche Shutilforc, with my ruby slippers and a cute blouse underneath. A bit like this!

Why I don't wear dresses so much now.

Don't worry, I still love dresses a lot and wear them as often as I can. This seems like a bit of a sad post, but it's not really! I'm just trying to sort out my thoughts so that I can start dressing well again.

I think it comes down to three reasons why I don't try so hard now.

1. My work colleagues. Just over a year ago, my supervisor moved away. She was also pretty much my best friend, just a couple of years older than me. We had all three weekly shifts together. We used to browse dress websites, and we both bought this dress from modcloth.com - mine is purple and hers black.



We also both got a robot necklace!








We wore them to work together. So cute! I used to dress up for her a bit. She also used to look at lolita websites with me and tell me what not to get. When she left, I was promoted to supervisor and my friend Yvonne was hired in my place. She's super fashionable, and we used to dress up together. We even started an outfit blog called Professors in Dresses! But then she quit and now I work with two men, one my age and one a lot older than me. I'm not comfortable wearing my frills around them! They're both nice people, but I don't want to draw so much attention to myself when we can't have a dialogue about the fashion. Once I wore boots to work and the older man said I looked like a rock star. Boots! Boots and jeans!

2. I don't go to church as much. Last year there was a bit of a schism at my church and I was so unfortunate to be on the losing side, so there were a lot of hurt feelings and as a result I don't go much anymore. I used to wear my "Sunday best" and enjoy getting compliments from all the lovely old ladies. Now if I do go (and that's like once in a month), I'll probably dress down so that I don't attract so much attention.

3. I got used to Charles not being here. While he was away I didn't dress up as much because I felt like there was no point if he wasn't going to see me. It's just so easy to put on a pair of jeans and a cute blouse or t-shirt! It turns into a habit and you forget how to wear dresses and things. Anyhow Charles has been back for a while now and I'm beginning to wear dresses again. But he's going again in like a month! Sad face!

So what can I do about it? Maybe I'll try a bit harder on a daily basis to wear nice interesting outfits without being over the top. Maybe I should dress up and take outfit photos for Charles even when he's away.

Things have been going really well for me! The other day I did my ragtime recital and I got a high distinction! Thank goodness! I'll write a blog post about it soon!

So I had two of the weirdest dreams last night.

Dream 1.

I came home to find that my mother was having afternoon tea with April Winchell, who is a reasonably famous American lady who I would love to be friends with.  You kind of have to be an internet nerd to know who she is, so I played it cool and pretended I didn't know.  She was very pleasant.  After the meal she went to the toilet and then started to leave.  I saw her out and said "CF4L" or something and she was all excited about me knowing who she was.  As she got into her car to leave I noticed she was wearing my handmade hairbow that was in my room.  She must have nicked it when she went to the toilet!

"YOU STOLE MY HAIRBOW!!!"

"IT WOULD SELL WELL ON ETSYYYYYYYYYYYYY" as she drove off.

Dream 2.

Charles and I were in Tokyo at some kind of goth club, and we were all wearing awesome goth outfits.  It was intense.  Then someone came up to me and said "All the goth boys like you the best, Chrissy".  How flattering!  I was such an awesome goth they all liked me best.  Then Charles got all jealous and told them all, "She wears pink underwear with hearts and stars and ponies on them!!".  All the goth boys retreated in disgust.  I'm not a real goth after all.