*Gasps* BRAINCHILD! What if I crochet a whole slew of various doilies in crazy-dark blue, and semi-knock-off Kate’s famous Erdem dress? Oh, how I have longed for that dress, and have searched and scoured for the perfect lace to recreate it. To no avail! But I feel it will be even MORE fantastic as a collage of doilies!
For the love of god, I must learn to crochet!
I’m having a doily-induced meltdown. No letter, card, package, or cupcake is going un-doilied ever again!
Guys…. I think I want to live in a shipping container. It’s like the grand apex of green living + salvage building + (potential) micro living. Three things I’m terribly fond of.
After a certain number of drops and dings, shipping containers no longer meet international standards, but they’re still water tight and practically a building waiting to happen! It’s an automatic shelter at a fraction on the “standard home cost”.
Still need more convincing? The photo’s above are quite a prettied-up collection of five shipping containers.
Homes like these can be built off-site, all at once, or a stage at a time. It can be built at your pace, as you can afford it. The best part? It’s still completely livable while you’re broke, and it only looks like this:
This is lovely.
I have a raging girl-crush on Jennifer Lawrence because she’s real, and unbelievably quirky, and hilarious. Truth is, most days, she’s the closest thing I have to an idol, in the same way teenage girls worship Taylor Swift, or the Spice Girls. I didn’t even know who she was before the media storm of interviews, even though I coincidentally own 3 of her movies, and she was being hilarious.
All that being said: this picture made me stop dieting. She looks better before the photoshopping slims her down. She wasn’t that thin in Winter’s Bone, and she was supposed to be a starving teen. She wasn’t that thin in X-Men: First Class, and she spent a scene or two practically naked, painted up as Mystique.
Girls of the world: picture #2 is not attractive. Picture #2 is unrealistic, and frankly, looks like she survives on lettuce and diet coke (and I say that as a vegan). Don’t ever let yourself think that being a twig is the way to be attractive. Confidence is the only thing you’ll ever need. Trust me.
XOXO, Nora
I think the main, horrifying thing about these airbrushed pictures being distributed, is there has been a lot of media hype calling this beautiful girl fat. It’s like, the media refuses to let her be proud of her body. They’ve even changed her face shape, making her almost unrecognisable. We always rant about how airbrushed photos affect us, but imagine how they must affect the people being airbrushed. Imagine feeling super confident and good about yourself after a photo shoot, and then seeing the end result and realising you weren’t good enough for the magazine. It must be crushing.
I remember, when my friend was practising photo shopping, she took a photo of my face and airbrushed it without my permission or even warning me. Personally, I found the un-airbrushed photo of myself more attractive, since it looked like me, but the airbrushed version was so disheartening. She’d changed the shape of my nose, elongated my face and taken out the scars by my eyes and the scar on my chest from my operation. She only did it as light hearted practice for her art exam, but it crushed me. She didn’t realise, and perhaps the photo-editors don’t realise, that by airbrushing out all the little imperfections on my face she made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. The little scars and freckles and the bump in my nose were all things that made me, me, and she took them away.
Similarly, by changing Jennifer Lawrence’s body, they’re telling her that no matter how successful she is, no matter how talented she is, she will not be good enough because of the things about her that make her who she is.
And I just find that sad.Why are people so afraid of curves? Ugh, this is disgusting, but I can’t say I’m surprised.
(Source: day47)
Whether you’re new to this planet, or you’ve been here your whole life, you’ve probably heard of a few terms:
DEFORESTATION. The truth is, we’re cutting down trees faster than we can grow them, and it’s doing a few things… mass deforestation leads to soil erosion. It heats up the planet. And it greatly affects the quality of our air.
INVASIVE SPECIES. Invasive species is when a species comes to an area and irreversibly changes the ecosystem in the area, either by being a dominant species with no natural preditors, introduction of new diseases to the indigenous lifeforms, or literally altering the map.
MONOCULTURE. Monoculture is the practice of growing a single crop, over a large area, for many years. Two main things… it leeches nutrients from the soil, eventually making the soil barren, and it destroys biodiversity.
GAEA THEORY. The main concept of the gaea theory is that the Earth is a self-regulating macrocosm, in the same way that our bodies self-regulate. Long story short, we’re like a bad case of the fleas, and eventually the Earth is going to shake us off.
TECHNO INDIGENOUS. Unfortunately this is a term that is rather new, and still not really supported as a term, but the basic idea is that we, globally, need to become aware of the earth and its need in a way that we once were. We’re not going to abandon our technologies, but we need to pursue renewable, and less obstructive energy sources, and find a balance so we can enter a symbiotic relationship—where we both benefit—with the earth.
I, admittedly, spend a lot of time thinking about how we can become “techno indigenous” without losing a lot of what we’ve grown accustomed to—I’m willing to lose some niceties, but that doesn’t really mean everybody else is… but here’s something I came across that I think could be a big step in the right direction. Our cities are already built. There’s nothing we can do to return that land to its natural forest, but we can still grow things in it. Patrick Blanc, of France, is creating these fantastic and whimsical “living walls” around the world. We can do this here! No, it’s not a natural forest, but it’s “greening-up” space we didn’t previously understand we had—without losing any city space. It survives off of rain water, cleans the air and keeps our summer highs a little cooler.
Studies have shown that being outdoors, in the forest, is a natural stress reliever. In fact, in Japan, it’s nationally recognized as a form or stress relief and management, and they call it “shinrinyoku”. In Germany, they call it the “volksmarch”. No matter what you call it, it;s good for you. So what’s to say we can’t bring this little form of the forest into the city with us? Would it relax us a little? I think so. If nothing else, it would help treat inner-city breathing problems. And isn’t our health alone worth it?
We can redefine the idea of an “urban jungle” with these beautiful and healthy living walls.
Who’s with me?
Anyone who knows me IRL can tell you that I am meticulously planned and coordinated, to the point that there’s not much spontaneity in my life. I plan, it’s what I do. I also like to be creative, but because I plan so much, I don’t really get much art done.
So, I went ahead and bought one of these “Wreck this Journal” books, hoping that it would help me loosen up and let go of planning just enough to get stuff done. Honestly, I spent quite a long time thinking about it in the book store, contemplating the entire idea of buying something just to destroy it. I bought it anyways.
When I got home, that “planning” thing of mine kicked in again, and I ran a search on the pages people came up with, just to see how wrecked “wreck this journal” meant. Some are quite artful. These are some of the ones I found. And some are down-right wrecked. I found them much less appealing. But I’m finding myself quite excited to go on this adventure and wreck this, and get down to the gritty things. My only rule is going to be as follows: it has to be artful.
I’m looking forward to uploading what I come up with.
Stay tuned.
