Benchmarks III

I know I promised some DIYs, but the past couple days have been a roller coaster of domestic disputes between my mom and I, and now, to let the stress out.

 I could really use a break right now. I wish this was actually made of chocolate and sitting with me on my sofa. Scratch that, next to my sofa. Nigel's sleeping next to me and I wouldn't want to squish him!

 I think this isn't really a picture of a bench making a mark, as much as a tree root, but still, this picture would be nothing without the bench. Gotta admit. None of these pictures would be anything.

 Oh, well hello there. I like your hair. Stop staring at me.

 How could I turn down kitties?

Or a squirrel???

DIY-inspo/Male Style icons

Okay, so I found a picture of it. To relate back to my last post, I am in love with the tank top that Project Runway's Christopher Palu is wearing in this picture, and I strongly suspect that he made it himself, because a great deal of his wardrobe has bleachwork done to it.
I think it would be done by splattering bleach onto a shirt or tank, and then make a skull stencil and paint it in with white fabric paint.

This isn't the first time that I've drooled over something in Chris's wardrobe. Also notice Gunnar Deatherage in this picture, in the hat. He is another one of my male style icons. This outfit of his isn't spectacular, but if I try to find a better one....

The jacket, the scarf, the shorts--love love love! And there's another thing that he does a lot that I really like, where he ties a sweater over his shoulders. It's like a quirky take on old-school preppy...

Love the print of the shirt! Love the jacket trick! And I absolutely adore that man's glasses. The shirt's print reminds me of the wallpaper in 221B Baker street on the TV show Sherlock. NOT A BAD THING. I freaking love that wallpaper. 

While we're on the subject of the men of style, there's another that I love, another Project Runway diva....

Wait for it...

Wait for it.....waiiiiit....

MONDO GUERRA! 

How can anyone not look at his style and smile? I remember back when he was on the show, and every week he had his short shorts and a bow-tie, and to celebrate that it was Mondo night, I would dress exactly like him! I hope that some of you are getting some amazing mental images....here's a blast from the past to help you out...

Ha ha, I hope you weren't expecting a picture of ME! 

The design to the side is one of his from Project Runway's fashion week. I want it. From head to toe I want it!

The "I wanted to post a playlist" playlist

So right now I'm sitting with this year's first handful of Now-And-Laters, while the wind blows the barren branches of our lilac bush against the windows, with Project Runway blaring on my TV. I look up at it from time to time, it's not the new episode yet, but I can't help sneaking peaks at what Christopher is wearing. I absolutely love the bleached skull tank top he's wearing, and I'm thinking I might try to make it myself out of a black t-shirt I've been harboring for a while.
I've done more than a few DIYs in the past few days, so expect some, soon. I'll probably post most of them tomorrow.
Recently, I've downloaded a lot of new music, and I just needed to post a playlist to show it off! So...no huge story behind this one. What's been going on in my life recently: I turned 19 this Monday, discovered a love of Matt Smith, and accidentally turned the language on my MP3 player to Turkish while telling a story about how I accidentally turned the language on my MP3 player to Turkish and have no idea how to turn it back.

1. "Me and You" Slow Club

2. "Gravity" The Dresden Dolls

3. "Across the Universe" Fiona Apple (aka, the only song she's ever done that I actually enjoy)

4. "Cherry Red" Ida Maria

5. "All I Want Is You" The Moldy Peaches

6. "Anchor" Tu Fawning

7. "MIA" Emmy The Great

All this and much love I give you. Here's a picture for you, of some heart shaped candies that I found inside a Hello Kitty keychain someone gave to me.

Have happy times this week and all those ahead of you! I'm off to go vintage shopping with my mom tomorrow, and if I don't take the entire store home with me, it'll be a miracle.

Benchmarks II

Some more bench love, straight from my heart. 

 They're always there for you.

 They are just as much spectators as you are.

 Dreams can be hatched on them.

 Sometimes, they're hidden away. (This picture was one that I took on my trip to Mackinac Island last year. It was locked between trees off of an old beaten path, and though this picture sucks because I took it with my phone, I hope you can imagine its desperate beauty.)

They see so much love. 

(May or may not have already posted this as vintage erotica, either way, it's such a lovely picture, it's worth seeing twice!)

I'm working on a DIY right now, post it when it's finished!

My mother versus the barking dogs

I felt the intense need to post today, due to it being the unofficial end of summer. So farewell summer...you were a good old friend.
Last night, I got absolutely no sleep. Our neighbors built their dog coop right outside my mother, brother, and I's bedroom windows (who builds a house with all the bedrooms on one side anyway?? All it would take is a poorly placed falling tree, and we could all be taken out!!!). We've called the police several times, because they only let the dogs out at midnight or afterwards, so they keep us up all night. Or, rather, they keep my mother up all night, and my mother keeps the rest of us up.
My brother and I are both sound sleepers, and we can pretty much fall asleep during any sort of recurring noise. My mother, however, finds it her mission that whenever anything inconveniences her, it has to inconvenience the rest of the house as well, even if our inconvenience is actually caused by HER. She was up, banging on Sam's door and dragging him out of bed, making him call the police. I was already on the sofa, sleeping with the windows open, so I just turned on the TV and watched Iron Man until 2 in the morning, as she vented in the background. We've tried getting her ear plugs so that she can sleep through the night, but she insists that even on the sofa, with ear plugs, she can still hear them as if they were in the room.
Being as that I'm completely deaf in one ear, I don't think that I'm the right person to argue this claim.
Here's some vintage erotica for the road:

 (I really want her dress, I love the collar so much)

The "New Blog Layout" Playlist

Yes....in case you haven't noticed (I don't quite see how) Fist Fights and Fairy Lights is now The Wayfarer Chronicles. The reason for the name and layout change was simple: I just felt the need to change things up a bit to fit my personality more. So I hope that you like the changes around here!
Some tunes I was listening to while I changed things around...my professors recommended that we listen to more instrumental music, so that's what I've been indulging in for the past week or so. Hope you like as much as I do!

1. "A Cage Went In Search of A Bird" Aesthesys

2. "The Way Home" Sleep Dealer

3. "Rue's Farewell" The Hunger Games Film Score

4. "The Gravel Road" James Newton Howard

5. "Nothing Has to Happen" Hungry Ghosts

6. "I Feel Life is Sorrowful and Unbearable, Though I Can't Flee Away, For I am Not A Bird" Aesthesys

7. "My Sorrow" Sleep Dealer

8. "I Don't Think About You Anymore, But I Don't Think About You Anyless" Hungry Ghosts

9. "Falling Rain" Sleep Dealer

(Picture found on Tumblr)

Benchmarks I

 Some are forgotten or taken advantage of.

 Some are so fashionable, they're always in season.

 They take care of you, even when no one else will.

 At times, they're where dreams reveal themselves.

And they always have time to watch a sunset, or just stare at the ocean. Even when you don't. 

I love college.

So far, my popular literature class is my favorite. It's like AP Literature, the hard as shit class that I had in my senior year of high school, but much more relaxed, much more interesting, and I actually enjoy the teacher. Not to knock my high school Lit teacher, I liked her as a person, but she had too much of an insane desire for control and picked too many favorites to be a good teacher. The only people who enjoyed her class were the ones who got A's on every single assignment, simply because she liked them. I was a B to C student in her class, which is considered to be good for not being one of her favorites. There were a few students who got D's on their assignments no matter how much work they put into them, and it was these students who in turn started skipping essays near the end of the year. Because, after all, they figured, if they weren't going to get a good grade anyway, why even try?
Personally I disagree with that mindset. Even if you don't think you're going to do well, you should always try. Even a bad grade is better than a big, fat ZERO.
Buuuuttt.....back to my suitcase!!!

This is a wicker picnic suitcase. It came with it's own dinnerware, which is what all of the faux leather straps are for. You can see I've got it all packed with my textbooks, notebooks, folders, and even a book for some light reading. I also added some pens and my mp3 player, Hello Kitty thermos and mirror and my "Life isn't that hard" bandaids, all of which have rude messages on them, like "Emotional wound," "kitty scratch," etc. I also tossed in my 50's clutch purse, which contains my wallet and a little mint tin full of headache medicine, just in case. 

The book buckled in happens to be Charlotte Bronte's Villette, which intrigued me from the moment that I saw it had received many poor reviews in its time. It's merely a rental, picked up from the library, but I really love it so far. There were a few beginning scenes that I haven't seen the point of yet, but I'm only one hundred pages in, I'm sure it'll be revealed soon. 

Here's another picture for you, for the road:

When life gives you lemons, garnish your iced tea.

Two posts in one day! I know it, I'm getting insistent. So far, I've turned three situations that were EUUUGh completely on their heads. No, no, make that four. I forgot the one that wasn't fashion related. I needed to create an account online, for my community college that I go to, but it kept telling me my information was incorrect when I was entering it all in perfectly. Turns out, I was using the wrong browser. GRCC doesn't take Google Chrome. So I was forced to add a stupid Internet Explorer icon on my desktop, but it was all worth it, because now I can submit and have access to assignments online, not to mention get the instructions for how to write a reading journal, the first of which is due tomorrow. I just hope that my brother hasn't gotten rid of his printer, or else I'm screwed.
Now for my more interesting scenarios. The first one was a dress that I overpaid for on Ebay, and to add to that, it arrived damaged with a no returns policy. And the buttons turned out to be cheap and plastic, topped with rhinestones. I'm really not a fan of rhinestones on clothing. I don't hate them as much as I hate sequins, but I don't like them either. As if this wasn't enough, the contrast of black and white that looked cute in the picture turned out to look maid-like on me. Here's what I did:
1. I sewed up the large hole where the seam had split. By hand, because I still haven't learned how to use my sewing machine (online sewing lessons are on my To-Do list once I get my next paycheck).
2. I bought Rit dye and dyed the white trim purple.
3. I snipped off the horrid buttons (I might make them into earrings though, they would look cute and vintage-y).
The end result:

It still needs a little bit of work. I'm probably going to snip off the lace trim going vertically on the chest (it's uneven and coming loose anyway), and change the belt into a bow or something, because I don't really like the buckle. Still, it's a dress that I like now, and I wore it out to get my mail today. 

And SPEAKING of mail...and of Ebay....remember a few posts back when I talked about my Ebay addiction and how financially drained I am? To recap, spent 1,000 dollars in a month, ended up (thank God) with 180 dollars left over. The last dress that I purchased on Ebay just came today, and I think that it's my favorite purchase so far. 

It fits perfectly, it's comfy, and it's perfect for my dress-loving personality and for winter. 

It's a sweater dress!

I tried it on as soon as I got home, hence the same tights and shoes as the last picture. I'm definitely going to have to wear some tights with it (probably double layered or heavier or both!), and I don't know yet if I'm going to wear it to school. I have to do a test run of the school's heating system yet, by stealthily bringing a cardigan with me to class. If I end up not needing it, then odds are a sweater or sweater dress would make me overheat. Either way, this is a great dress to go to the mall in. And it's not tight or short!!! 

The last one is a DIY idea I got today for a piece of my jewelry which I'd wanted for a long time, only to have it break the day I bought it. You see, for a while, a few of the goth/emo girls at my school had come to school with octopus lockets, and I absolutely DROOLED over them, but I'm painfully and incurably shy, so I never plucked up the courage to ask these lovely ladies where they'd gotten them. One day, Leah, one of my friends, comes to school wearing the same one, and I get it out of her that these lockets can be purchased inexpensively at Walmart or Meijer (I don't remember which one she said). I found them, at Walmart, on sale for 50 cents each. I was ecstatic, bought one, and as soon as I opened it at home, it broke. 

That was a few months ago. No, more than a few months ago, because I was still dating my asshole of an ex-boyfriend. I don't believe I discovered how much of an asshole he really was until I found out what he was doing behind my back the entire time we were together. But that's an angry rant for another time. 

So, around February or before, the locket breaks. You'd think it wouldn't have taken me so long to figure out a solution. But today I realized that I could just superglue the octopus part to a ring base, and use Modge Podge (that might be spelled wrong, I haven't looked at the bottle in a while) on the back of it, with some of my heart fabric,  to make this little creation....

This plus I'm currently working on a ring for a friend and fellow crafter! I'm really excited about it, and I'll post pictures once it's finished!

I should probably work on my novel (all three of them)

Today, I'm off from college. I have taken advantage of this day to sleep in until 1 and watch movies about Nazis. I find that the reason I don't watch a lot of movies is the fact that I don't know when actors that I love are in them. For instance, nobody ever told me that Matt Damon starred in The Bourne series. Right now I'm watching Valkyrie, which no one ever told me Tom Cruise starred in.
I should probably find something better to do, like continue my writing. I have a habit of starting writing projects and not finishing them. The most current one is about a post-apocalyptic world from all views. It's told via numerous short stories, and it's going to be fairly expansive if I ever finish it. It also might be a bit to all over the place for anyone to actually publish, so I'm just writing it for the love of writing it. That's really why I write everything.