Patches and Progress: May Life Recap

Not gonna get too personal. But the boyfriend is off away in the army. So I've had a lot more time to do other things on my own. Almost like I'm picking back up where I left off. Doing patches again. Making art. Listening to music. So lets get into it!

Art:

I haven't so much as been making art as I've been inspired by other peoples art. I know when I get a real kick to make something I'll have a lot to look at and get a good idea of what my style is going to change into. 

So the number one change in what I've been taking a gander at is tattoos. I've been really interested in more feminine tattoos. My hair color has made me fall in love with anything pink and dainty-which for some reason wasn't the case before. I've been following a lot of tattoo artists on instagram. It started out with Alex Strangler though. (The turquoise-haired girl is Rachel Baldwin.)

Tv/Movies:

To make me a bit happier with the position I've been in recently I've been watching as many light-hearted things as possible. (This is also the reason why I'm not sure if I want to see The Fault In Our Stars. That shit made me depressed for days after I finished the book.) So other than watching Disney movies on Netflix, I've been getting intensely obsessed with Sailor Moon.

I know its some sort of sin to prefer the dubbed version of animes/anything like that over the subtitled versions. But I grew up hearing Serena and not Usagi. Serena's annoying voice brings back my childhood, man. So instead of watching Sailor Moon on hulu like everyone else is doing, I've been on this website watching as many episodes until I fall asleep.

Music:

Well, obviously I've been listening to all kinds of music since Febuary. But lately I've been listening to Florence + the Machine more than usual. More specifically Heartlines and Howl. Damn those songs are amazing. The lyrics in both of them have enough imagery for me to get back into painting. "And I’ve seen it in the flights of birds/I’ve seen it in you/The entrails of the animals/The blood running through/But in order to get to the heart/I think sometimes you'll have to cut through" LIKE YASSS. Or in Howl: "The fabric of your flesh, pure as a wedding dress/Until I wrap myself inside your arms I cannot rest/The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound/I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallow'd ground/And howl" Goddamn she's amazing.

I also made a depressing playlist. Fun!

Don't Leave This World To Me

For very sad long distance relationships where the only form of communication is a letter ever few weeks. Fun.

1. Please Mr. Postman-The Marvelettes

"There must be some word today/ From my boyfriend so far away/ 

Please Mr Postman look and see/ Is there a letter, a letter for me"

2.Georgia On My Mind-Ray Charles

"Just an old sweet song/Keeps Georgia on my mind"

"Other arms reach out to me/Other eyes smile tenderly/

Still in peaceful dreams I see/The road leads back to you"

3.I'll Be Seeing You-Billie Holiday

"I'll be seeing you/In all the old familiar places/

That this heart of mine embraces/All day through"

4. Rivers and Roads-The Head and The Heart

"Nothing is as it has been/And I miss your face like hell"

"Rivers and roads/Rivers and roads/Rivers til I reach you"

5. Samson-Regina Spektor

"You are my sweetest downfall/I loved you first/I loved you first/

Beneath the stars came falling on our heads/But they're just old light/They're just old light/

Your hair was long when we first met"

"Oh we couldn't bring the columns down/We couldn't destroy a single one/

And the history books forgot about us/And the bible didn't mention us, not even once"

6.Winter Is All Over You-First Aid Kit

"I just hope you don't stay gone/Don't leave this world to me"

"Since you've been gone nothings been the same/The wind don't sing and the sky's so dim"

7. Blue Jeans (Cover)-Vindicated Mess

"You were sorta punk rock/I grew up on hip hop/But you fit me better than my favorite sweater/

And I know that love is mean/And love hurts/

But I still remember that day we met in December"

"I will love you til the end of time/I would wait a million years/

Promise you'll remember that you're mine/Baby can you see through the tears?"

8. Summertime Sadness-Lana Del Rey

"Kiss me hard before you go/Summertime sadness"

"Think I'll miss you forever/Like the stars miss the sun in the morning sky"

Put those tissues down and pull yourself together! I've also been listening to some upbeat stuff to lighten my spirits when I'm alone. Other than listening to music I know my boyfriend likes, I've been jamming out to the Bikini Kill station on my Pandora account. Which lead me to find this song. New Resolution by Heartless Bastards. "MY NEW RESOLUTION IS TO BE, SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT TAKE EVERYTHING SO SERIOUSLY!" It's very uplifting when the chorus hits. Their other stuff is good too! I just haven't taken to the time to really listen to it. The song is way too short for being so good but thats why God made the replay button.

The next song that makes me happy and want to scream and laugh and bounce around is some real crusty punk band Days N' Daze. Their whole album Rogue Taxidermy is great, though it makes me want to give these guys a Ricola after. My favorite song--which is probably a lot of people's favorite song--is Fuck It! It really captures their attitude about...everything. "Do what you like and then like what you do when you do it. And if they don't that's fine. Fuck 'em." 

Patches:

My orginal goal with the Game of Thrones patches was to make a shit ton of 'em and make like six or seven studded out jackets and a music video and an etsy account and all that good shit. But that's pretty impossible if you think about it. Punk jackets are usually a one-at-a-time task. They're supposed to represent the individual and that said individual spends a lot of time and effort into that one jacket. Making a bunch of them like that would take years probably unless I had help from other people. So I've just decided to stick to my Stark jacket and add to that until I'm satisfied. Then maybe after that I'll go back to my Tyrell vest or my Bolton flannel. If you wanna see those just look into my blogposts from a year ago.

So I started out with just a Hand of the King patch on the front pocket and the Stark back pieces, but I added two floral panels and a bit from a shirt that didn't fit that says "Thou shalt not kill my vibe"

Now I wanna add a bunch of little cute things. I don't feel like I have loyalty or credibility to put band names on my jacket. But maybe some cute feminism things I find on tumblr. I'm not as much of a badass as I want to be but I've been getting really inspired and have been getting a lot of help from http://fuckyeahpunkjackets.tumblr.com/. Not only do they post pictures and submission of people's jackets and vests but there is the occasional post an ask telling everyone little tips and tricks. Like using dental floss instead of thread or ducktaping a large back patch before sewing it on so it sticks longer. Also if you want to buy a start up kit for studding your jacket go to http://www.studsandspikes.com/. They have everything you'll need when it comes to that. 

My next purchase when I have money--which won't be in forever dear lord--will definitely be some patches from PosionApplePrintshop on esty. It's all witchy and dark. Everything is good quality and made with great detail. Can't wait to add it to my jacket and give it some edge. (I can pretend to be badass okay?)

And to jump to the complete opposite of PosionApple, I want to get a cute Sailor Moon patch. The sailor scout I've always identified most with (since kindergarten I believe) was Sailor Chibi Moon or as I just called her Mini Moon. This is probably where my love for pink hair stemmed from (that and Gwen Stefani). The only Mini Moon patch that is a reasonable price and a design I like is from FenyxDesignShop on etsy. They have all of the main sailor scouts I believe so if you're more of a Jupiter girl/guy yourself theres a patch for you (and the others obviously)!

That's pretty much it, if anyone ends up actually reading this and has questions about my jacket or just adding to jackets in general go ask me on my tumblr! I'll see you soon!

Sing A Song Little Bird (Sansa Stark Playlist)

Sing A Song Little Bird

Sansa's Trapped In King's Landing And Is Losing Hope

Link

1.Violet-Hole

"And the sky was made of amethyst/ And all the stars were just like little fish"

"When they get what they want/ They never want it again"

"Go on take everything, take everything I dare you to"

2.The Love Club-Lorde

"My mother's love is choking me/ I'm sick of the words that hang above my head/ What about? It's time the kid got free"

"The other day I forgot my old address/ I'm sitting pretty on the throne/ There's nothing more that I want/ Except to be alone"

"The only problem that I got with club/ Is how you're severed from the people who watched you grow up"

3.Fantasy-MS MR

"Force myself into a dimension/ Lost sight of myself"

"Let myself down each time"

"How could you be what I wanna see?/And my reality could never live up to the fantasy"

4.Home-Daughter

"Oh you're not a friend/ You're nothing/ I think I should be a little more confident/ In myself, in my skin"

"Take me home/ Cause I don't stand a chance in these four walls"

"Keep the nightmares out/ Give me mouth to mouth./ I can't live without ya"

5.The Flowers-Regina Spektor

"The flowers you gave me are rotting and still I refuse to throw them away"

"Things I have loved I'm allowed to keep/ I'll never know if I go to sleep"

6.Pompeii-Bastille

"I was left to my own devices/ Many days fell with nothing to show"

"But if you close your eyes/ Does it feel like nothing's changed at all?"

"How am I gonna be an optimist about this?"

7.Pretty Face-Soley

"I throw my hands to you/ I runaway/ Its so cold so dangerous I can't stay"

"They want to take me but I will hide from them/ I use my pretty face to find my way..."

"Will you be my friend in my dream? Take that pretty face off surely"

8.Missing-The xx

"My heart is beating in a different way/ Been gone such a long time and I feel the same"

"Tell me, how did this come to be?/ And now there's no hope for you and me"

9.MS-alt-j

"All the vowels to hold your name, keep your estate clean of me"

"The nights of all my youth pressed into one glass of water"

"Scattered truths, bewildered beast boohoos, we have our weight: ten thousand ladybirds"

10.Suffocation-Crystal Castles

"I suffocate/ And promise me you won't resuscitate/ and if I change my mind it's far too late" 

"I'm wasting my days as I've wasted my nights and I've wasted my youth/ You're waiting for something you've waited in vain because there's nothing for you"

"Humility yet to be seen/ Models made of plasticene/ Morality disgrace us now/ Entertain and take a bow"

11.Ballad of a Politician-Regina Spektor

"A man inside a room is shaking hands with other men/ This is how it happens/ Our carefully made plans"

"But I am/ Not a number, not a name/ But I am/ A carefully laid plan"

12.Nobodys Daughter-Hole

"I'm not that stupid/ I just need a lot of help"

"Down at the bottom/ Of the ocean, I lay down/ Nobody's coming/ Just continue to drown"

"I know I've got a lot to fear/ You'll get me out/ Oh, God, just get me out"

"Nobody's daughter/ She never was/ She never will/ Be beholden"

"Anesthetize all our horrors away/ We live inside this black web you have spun"

"The world's broken doll/ The world's shattered whore/ And you, you can't walk/ But you, you can crawl"

"And I will dig my own grave, yeah/ I'm misbegotten/ I am the last one you will save/ It's all gone rotten"

July Recap

It was about halfway through this month that I decided to compile everything I've done in the last 30 days and put it all into one post. If we're gonna be looking at an entire month of my life I gotta break this shit down into four categories: Music, Personal Life, Books, and Art. Awesome! Okay, lets get started.

Music

If you've been following me on 8tracks (shameless self promotion) then you'd see I've made a few playlists this month. One about the boys of the Ouran High School Host Club (I'll be making a post about that show in the future), one made up of my favorite female rappers called Watch The Queen Conquer, and this one about the obsession Jay Gatsby has for Daisy Buchanan that borderlines creepy and stalker-ish. Which leads me to the song I have been listening to on repeat almost everyday:

Breezeblocks by alt-j 

My super artsy awesome friend, Chantal, tried to get me into alt-j when we had Painting class together last semester, but it wasn't until my other friend Sabrina was helping me with my Gatsby playlist that I really got hooked. Usually when I start listening to new bands I listen to one song constantly and then once I become tired of it, I start to expand and listen to their other works. I haven't seemed to move on from the first phase yet, cause this song is so goddamn amazing. 

Next on the list of my constant repeat list is the newest song by M.I.A.

Bring The Noize by M.I.A.

 A large chunk of it was taken from her amazing eight minute masterpiece Matangi Mix For Kenzo (that was on repeat in April for me). I can never get over how original and talented this woman is, how she incorporates her culture and style into her music in a way that no one else has. While we're on the subject, there's also a trailer for her documentary released on Vimeo which you should look at. It's all about her music, and her politics, and just her badassery. Just read this article that has the video attached.

Black Skinhead by Kanye West

Okay, if you haven't experienced what's happening on kanyewest.com just go, leave this post and go. (But then come back pleasethankyou).

Personal Life

The fourth of July has got to be one of my least favorite holidays, but this one wasn't too bad. I wish I had taken a picture of the Union Jack shirt I decided to wear ironically (my sister took the Canadian one). But here's a picture of my friends' selfies on my phone when I wasn't aware. We climbed up my friend Nemo's roof and watched the fireworks for a while. And one girl was hellbent on eating a hotdog and being American so got a shit ton of those. I got sort of drunk and annoying and kept saying the lines to Inglorious Bastards before they were said on the television. I think I pissed everyone off a little but I'm not sure. "That's a bingo!"

On the 11th of July I got to see my friend Elizabeth and her cousin Kabrina and we went to the Sawdust Festival, which was pretty awesome! The only downside was that I took one step on the wood chips and the shoes I got second hand from Sabrina fell apart. I'm not kidding. The entire bottom half fell off as I tripped and I had to MacGuyver that shit with scotch tape that I found at the information booth. C'est la vie! It was worth it though. I got to see amazing artwork, I got to talk to other artists, and it got me really inspired to continue on with a project that I'll tell you about in a sec.

And I was planning on going to the Getty with them the next day, but I had to get my hair done, my roots were growing out to over an inch and it was getting bad. For some reason, though, when I got to the salon, I decided I wanted to be a brunette. I went up to my hair dresser and told her and she sighed in frustration. "Seriously?" she asked. "Okay, lets see pictures." When I told her I didn't have any reference pictures, she decided to wing it, and she did a great job if I can say so myself. Though I will always feel like a blonde Luna Lovegood at heart, I think I look better with dark hair. (Ignore the outfit repeating, I just really like my polka-dot dress okay.)

Sabrina's birthday was also this month, and it still amazes me that I can have hours of fun with her even if we're doing nothing in particular. She was really sick and decided to cancel all of her birthday plans, but I kept thinking what a horrible friend I'd be if I didn't do anything for her 19th. So I bought her some last minute flowers and my mom made some chicken soup. When I dropped them off at her house, her family insisted that I should stay for pizza (how could I refuse my one true love that is pizza!). I finally got to meet her boo-thang, and I made her parents laugh at my vast knowledge of 80's music. 

This month has been a real challenge for me to balance friends, school, and work, so it was always nice to know that my friends still wanted to hang out with my after I'd blow them off three times in a row for math homework. (Sadly, I can slowly feel them getting more and more pissed off, but I think I can hold that off until the summer semester ends in the beginning of August.) 

Fortunately I have done a few things with them! Like I went to see Caravan Palace in Hollywood. It was seriously one of the best shows I have been to-I hope that's saying something cause I haven't been to many shows and two of them were at a library to see Harry and the Potters (one of which had the Potter Puppet Pals, I know I'm a badass it's cool). If you haven't dabbled into the music genre of electro-swing, now is the time! Caravan Palace is definitely where you should start. Each musician in the band played at least two instruments during the show. And the dancing! And the crowd! And the feels! A part of me thinks I would have had an even greater time if I had gone with another group of people, cause I didn't know most of them, but I'd rather just try to focus on the positive. And Caravan Palace was positively amazing!

A week later, I went drunk bowling with everyone! It was nice to see some faces that I hadn't seen in almost a month. It's so weird remembering when we all went to high school over a year ago and saw each other everyday and hung out every weekend. I missed them a lot and I missed doing our usual hang-out-in-the-parking-lot-til-midnight thing that we'd always do.
On the 29th, I went mini golfing at night with a few friends because it was one of the first days I've had that I didn't have homework due in the morning. I can't remember the last time I went mini golfing but I must have at some point. Of course we were all terrible and discovered that we'd get more accuracy if we squatted and grunted in a sexual manner (if we missed the hole we would say that the grunt wasn't sexy enough). There were many photobooths in the arcade on the way out of Boomers, but the biggest and shiniest was a photobooth that had a doe-eyed girl on the front, and a sign by the token slot that said 400 yen/26 tokens. Apparently the photobooth gives you extra mascara and bigger eyes, making you look super kawaii! We decided to act as cute as possible and after picked out the girliest backgrounds and poses.  What a nice way to end July. 

Books

I don't have much to say about these books cause I haven't gotten around to reading them, I found the first two books at goodwill.I spent a good twenty minutes eyeing every spine on those bookshelves, and I'm glad with what I found. The first book, The Death of Feminism by Phyllis Chesler, was written after 9/11 so it's a lot about the opression of women, the dwindling and changing of what feminism used to be, and the racism towards all people of the Middle East that sparked in 2001. It's a tough read for me, mostly because I rarely read anything other than fiction. I haven't read Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons, but I know that it's about girl-on-girl agression and where that stems from. I can't wait to read it!

Later that day I also went to a comic book store for the first time, I felt really intimidated by the entire subculture but I left with some cheap Doctor Who comics, one of which includes the Eleventh Doctor seeing the cat burglar from an earlier episode with the Tenth Doctor so that was cool. 

I'm currently reading Feminism Is For Everybody by Bell Hooks, which I think will be a great introduction to feminist literature and help me get the hang of all the terminology and ideals so I don't sound like a complete ass when I'm explaining feminism to other people. 

Art

I was worried that not taking any art classes this semester would ruin all the progress I've made, and that I'd be really rusty when I started taking Figure Drawing in the Fall. To my surprise, I've never been more inspired! It seems that my number one means of inspiration comes from boredom, and boy do I get bored in my math class! And at work, we aren't allowed to read books, or walk around the facility unless someone has peed or vomited (I work at a kids place, like Chuck E Cheese or a giant indoor playplace). So it's been very easy for me to get crazy ideas in my head and put them on paper. 

I guess I've always been obsessed with the idea of religious figures since I took a Bible Literature class my senior year of high school. My old sketchbook is full of halos and third eyes, but I don't think I've been more obsessed until now. I've started collecting those Catholic candles with saints on them, and I've been really into interpreting The Virgin Mary and baby Jesus into different things. 

God Bless Fast Food
Done on a styrofoam cup at work using Crayola Makers and a Sharpie

The one project I've been doing that has been consuming what little free time I have and has always been in the back of my head are the biker gang-styled Game of Thrones patches I decided to create. I have never really ventured into the D.I.Y. field but I was in math class doodling Sailor Jerry styled house sigils for all the families on my favorite show ever, and it just clicked. And I usually never go through with big projects but this one has made me more determined than I ever have about...anything really. Sabrina drove me to a bunch of craft stores to get fabric and iron on paper, my sister helped me pick out jackets to sew the patches on for when I take pictures and put them online (also I just want to wear my own patches cause I think they're awesome), and my mother re-taught me how to sew by hand cause my five year old machine that I've never used was broken. The patches are all I think about at school, work, and when I get home all I want to do is work on them, make new designs, sew into new jackets, and I love it so much. I guess I've developed a hobby because its more than just drawing and painting, there's even more work that I have to put into it. 

I want to make these patches and open an Etsy shop. All this has to happen before Thanksgiving, that's my deadline, hopefully people will want to buy it. Even if I only sell five patches, all the work would have been worth it. All the days of sewing, all the fuck ups, all the frustration. I've come to realize how much support and money someone needs to start something like this. I keep trying to save up money to buy studs and more jackets, but it's been hard. 

I've also been listening to more hip-hop then like any other genre of music this month, and that has played some part in my art too! Just a small part...just me thinking that Beyonce and Kanye West are like worthy of worship and praise and a religious following.

(I'm sorry if that doesn't look like Beyonce enough, she's just too perfect I couldn't)

Well, there's my month! I really like the idea of just doing recaps instead of updating every time something new comes along, but I don't know how August is going to play out so I'm not going to say that this is going to be a thing. Please don't take any of my pictures, enjoy the music and artwork, and see you next time!