Monthly Archives: June 2011

Jun 21

Etsy Obsessions

So I’ve been on the biggest ETSY.com kick of my life.  The site is comparable to an eBay of artistic proportions.  I just can’t get enough.

I picked up these two vintage prints for my Dad as part of his Father’s day present.  They took old vintage dictionary pages and printed a bike and a motorcycle overtop of the words.
I went to Michael’s and bought a black matte with a thin black frame. It was hard to find an 8.5 x 12.5 frame without going the uber expensive custom route, so they will look something like the picture below.  I just really love them.  So unique.  Check it out:

And from the last blog, you know I’m obsessed with the feather hair extentions.  Well these came in the mail today too!  They turned out to be just as beautiful as I had hoped!!  I assumed it would be a gamble because all feather’s are different and the dyes etc could have varied, but this was pretty spot on.

I watched youtube videos in an attempt to figure this out on my own.  Most videos feature this hook tool, but my kit came with something a little different.  At first, I emailed Laura to be all like “what the hey,” but she told me she likes these tools better.  I played around with it, and it was fairly simply to figure out.  It’s a piece of bent wire that basically loops your hair to attach the bead, and then pliers to clamp the bead once you find a place in your hair that you like (which took a few tries).

Special thanks to Jillian and her sweet photog skills for taking and editing the pictures for me on her new iPhone!  She may not be able to text without typos, but she can take one heck of a picture, ha!

They say these last anywhere from 1-6 months depending on the quality of the feather and the care provided.  I can tell these feathers are of a higher quality than most you will find on the internet.  If I decide I really like them (which I do), I might buy in bulk to cut back on the costs overall.

Today’s music comes from a band called The Weepies.  Name of the song is World Spins Madly On.  It’s the kind of song that appears in movies.

“World Spins Madly On” by The Weepies (http://bit.ly/jzRnPD) #pandora

Enjoy,

xoxo

shu

Jun 14

Feathered Hair, Brother Support, and Chubby Balboa’s

I read a lot of magazines and admire all these fashion trends with nail polish colors and accessories.  I started panicking a little yesterday thinking to myself “Ashley, you are 26 years old.  At what point do you have to chop off all of your hair and start preparing for menopause?”  But alas, I impulsively bought these from Laura Price on Etsy.  They are feather hair extensions.  Before you throw up in your mouth — just look at the pictures of Laura wearing them.  The pack only comes with 6 feathers and they are very thin and subtle.   A lot of websites offer highlighted feathers meant to look like…well, highlights.  Strawberry blonde, black feathers for blondes and so on.  But obviously, I’m going bold or going home with turquoise.  These feather’s can stay in hair while being washed, curled etc etc!

Look, you can even put them on dogs HAHA!

She is a trained hair stylist, but is currently working in the fashion industry.  If you are interested in purchasing from her, check out her Etsy site.  I just love her personal style and her DIY youtube videos to help teach you how to apply the feathers!  This will be a fun summer thing for me.  I’m sure my co-workers will take me so seriously with teal feathers in my hair.  You can call me a dork, but I’m pretty stoked about it!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/zeezoes

Now, it’s time for my second RUN ON RESTAURANT REVIEW!  This week’s restaurant: Chubby Balboa’s on route 1.

So Tory and I went to Chubby Balboa’s last night, which is a bar and grille with an E which just means its fancy, huh, and they have all you can eat crab legs on Monday nights on the patio or inside for that matter, but the inside kind of smells like crab legs if I’m being honest, but really what else can you really think to do on a Monday, over eat? sure!  and I just added punctuation to this ramble, which sorta defeats my agenda of making this just one big run on sentence, but anyway, it was glorious and I will go back for sure at some point when I’m hungry, if that ever happens again.

Phew.

Here is a little plug for my brother.  He is doing a ride called the California Coast Classic this September.  Our Dad is participating in this ride as well, and all the proceeds go towards Arthritis research and awareness.  I know what people think about Arthritis.  They see the Bayer Aspirin commercials on TV and think, oh, I just pop two orange pills and I can pick up my grandkids and swing them around.  Well, in a more realistic portrayal of the disease, my Grandmother suffered from spinal stenosis, which left her wheel chair bound and unable to participate in the arts and crafts she so loved doing in her later years.  The disease even affects children!  If my brother does not raise the $3,000 minimum donation, he cannot ride.  He is still in need of around $1,600. This is something he’s been training for, and his way of supporting my Dad and helping to preserve the memory of our Grandmother.  So if you have $5 to spare, please put it towards a great cause!  I’ve included the link to donate below.  I’ve also included the link to the ride’s page in case you are interested in the upcoming race!

http://cccsocal.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=451161&lis=0&kntae451161=C4BB19387F124D8B982BEE877980058F&supId=322547360

http://www.californiacoastclassic.org/

Today’s music comes from a band called Forest Sun.  Their song is No Regrets.  Pandora suggested this song for me from my “Ray LaMontagne” radio.  It’s got a folk/country twang to it, in a singer/songwriter type of way.  I love it.

“No Regrets” by Forest Sun (http://bit.ly/jMgUbu)

Enjoy,

xoxo

shu

Jun 13

Cute Baby Alert, New Apps and Gleeks

So it’s been a long time since my last blog.  I’m really trying to be better about blogging more often, but these things take time.  It’s summer and life is so great.  Summer concerts, pool time, walks in the park, car washes, and outdoor drinking. 

But it’s been an exciting couple of weeks.  I went to the GLEE concert last Wednesday.  Admittedly this is not the most embarrassing concert I’ve been to.  Concerts are my joy in life.  I will pretty much “never say never” to any and all concerts.  I’ve seen Justin Bieber (who by the way also owns a law firm in Philly, who knew?  Laurie sent me this picture from the subway, and for that, I thank her).

Also Britney Spears, N’Sync, and then on a more age appropriate scale, I’ve been to Bonnaroo, Warped Tour, Kings of Leon, Maroon 5, and many others!  Best Christmas present yet: A ticket stub diary from my friend Gillian.  This way I can go back and re-view all my ridiculous concert accomplishments.

But back to Glee.  It. Was. Amazing.  I felt like a 12-year-old girl all over again.  Yea our seats were in the nose bleeds, and I didn’t drink any liquids for the fear that I would tumble-down the stairs while trying to exit our row.  BUT, it was so worth it.  I took a picture on my phone with like 3x zoom just to capture some sort of memory from the show.  I won’t even bother sharing, we’ll wait until Nick’s pictures come out.  He had floor seats and danced on stage with the Cheerios and was rewarded a barf bag from Sue Sylvester.

But the “opener” was this group called the LXD.  The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers.  They describe themselves as a dancing web series kind of deal.  They have a ton of videos on youtube and hulu.  They’ve appeared on Jay Leno, Conan, and now they are on tour with Glee!

Here is their website if you want to check out — it’s very cool stuff:

http://thelxd.com/

This episode is their latest –It’s a western theme dance off.  Enjoy!

http://thelxd.com/episodes/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ra-part-2/

Another exciting part of my week was finding two new apps.  I love myself a good iPhone app.  On Saturday, I spent the night at a grad party for one of my friends who has recently become Dr. Joe.  We were sitting in the backyard drinking a few beers, and one of the fellow partiers brought out this app that takes music from your iPod/smart phone and creates a power hour.  I was blown away that I had not seen this app before and immediately spent 99 cents of my hard-earned money to download it (it’s free on the Droid).

It’s called: Music Hour and has a music note wrapped in a clock/is blue.  It is seriously wonderful.  You can create a 30, 60, 100 or 120 minute mix from the music right on your iPod!  Are you as excited as I am?!  Hope so.  You’ll never be power-hour-less ever again.

Second app comes from the geniuses behind Words With Friends.  It’s called Hanging with Friends.  There are balloons, tiki torches, lava, hangman.  It’s just plain greatness.  Shuey28, holla at me.

This weekend spared me no weird people, that’s for sure.  Check out this dude that found us at Fox and Hound in KOP on Friday.  I was trying to be discrete and couldn’t capture his size 15 Nike white sneaks, or the fact that he was talking to himself, but check it out.  Your eyes are not deceiving you, that is indeed a leather vest with an American flag on the back topped with black leather pants to boot.

This weekend I got to meet baby Sophia!!!!  Nick and Sarah are two of my most favorite people.  Their personalities surely rubbed off on their 3 month old baby, because she is a peach.  Smiles all the time, doesn’t cry, sleeps thru the night.  She was an absolute pleasure to be around, and I just wanna squeeze her.  She sorta fell asleep mid-picture, so this is what I’m working with — but I just love her and thought I’d share!!!!

Today’s music comes from a band called Fun.  with the period like that.  The song is called Walking the Dog, which I can only hope is a cat’s cradle reference.  Aim and Ignite is the album.  Check it out:

http://tinysong.com/w40C 

Enjoy,

xoxo

shu

Jun 2

Bank Tubes and Detags

HAPPY SUMMER!  With the passing of Memorial Day weekend, it is official in my eyes.  Pools are open, weather is spicy, bees are stingin’, toes are painted, margheritas are blended, Country music suddenly seems appropriate, and the livin’ is easy.

I was wondering about these banking….tubes.  You always think, ok there is a vacuum or something and it sucks the tube up the pipe and then it lands in the bank tellers area ready to be filled with lollipops and cashed checks?  But then I really looked at it today, and the pipe doesn’t go up, it goes down.  So how does the vacuum take it down, underground, and then back up to the window.  It blew my mind a little.

 I looked them up to see if I could understand this process.  Turns out that tubey things cost like $50 bucks a pop!  And come in all of the colors of the rainbow.  Now that my research is complete, this item has been added to the list of necessities for my future million dollar mansion for paper transport amongst my employees.

To think, when the world ends next December, we are going to invent these things all over again. 

I was thinking about Facebook today.  I was thinking about how it has really become a part of my every day life since my sophomore year of college, when it was first introduced.  Started out a small stupid website, and now with smart phones and all these gadgets around, it is very easily accessible on a daily basis.  The picture feature of FB is relatively new in comparison to the site itself, and it has created a whole new world of social problems.

I know the names of the kids of people I went to high school with and haven’t seen in five years.  I know that so and so went down the beach with herrrrr and so and so might be mad about it.  Person Y got engaged and had yellow bridesmaid dresses, Person X got fat, and Person Z is gay now, or finally admitting it.  I had to block Person W because they have a Farmville problem and Person V is soooo voting for Scotty McCreery.

The “remove-tag”  button is so hilarious/unfortunate.  Sometimes, I’ll see someone post a picture of me and panick to get online and detag it before anyone sees it.  Sometimes I’ll send the occasional text saying “what were you thinking, that was my bad side.” 

It makes picture posting a nerve-wracking experience for friends.  You don’t want to post what you think is a cute picture, only to find the person is devastated by the way they have been captured and angry that you don’ think so.  It really is so funny how a person sees themselves vs how others view them.

Am I losing you?  Making no sense?

Here is an example.  The picture below was posted by a friend.

You may think, ew….that picture is so unfortunate.  It looks like she only has one tooth. Did I de-tag it? Hell no, that is hilarious.  In fact, it was my profile picture until my mother complained haha!

Get my point?  FB pictures can never really please everyone.  Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder and the beholder is often critical of themselves.

Today’s music comes from an oldie from Kings.

Kings of Leon Seventeen — http://tinysong.com/ARZV

Enjoy!

xoxo

shu

leavin’ you with a killer sunset on the way to Harrisburg