5 More Minutes

More Baby Product Ideas

2015-01-23T15:32:00.000-06:00

My mom had a brilliant idea of how to use the fabric left over from the baby blankets: burp cloths. Think people would be interested in buying a matching flannel blanket/burp cloth set? Or do you think it would be better to sell everything separately?

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Etsy Baby

2015-01-21T16:36:00.001-06:00

Having crafty skills -- along with that deliciously compelling Catholic guilt -- means that whenever an acquaintance is with child, I feel the need to offer the new little one a homemade gift. Sort of a welcome-to-earth-it's-really-not-so-bad present for Baby's Big Entrance.

After spending hours on single knitting projects for baby toys, I was relieved when my Fairy Godmother taught me a fast, easy blanket pattern. I've made three so far, and I love picking alternative, boho fabric combos, because I absolutely detest the cutesy "baby" patterns. After enjoying the completed projects, I am now pondering selling these on Etsy. Which is your favorite? And how much money would sound reasonable to you for these?

The farm one induced much wailing and gnashing of teeth. My geometry skills temporarily failed me, and I cut the corners wrong.

Notice the patched corners. Still cute though!

I'd love your feedback as I ponder setting up an Etsy shop! What works, what doesn't? Ideas, bitte!

A Midsummer Night's Dream

2013-06-20T16:28:00.002-05:00

Since cast as the lead role in an original fairy tale in 2nd grade, I have loved theater. For the past 12 years, it has been a relatively constant hobby of mine, as I try to dabble in at least one show each year. A Midsummer Night's Dream has been in that rotation three times in the last eight years, to my immense delight. In the first iteration for the Ohio Shakespeare Festival, I designed only two costumes, as I also performed, sang, and played violin. The second iteration was my very first time as a show's costume designer -- a shockingly stressful position, at times. This last time, I was the costume designer for St. Augustine's HEP, and it was, bar none, my most successful costume venture thus far.

The Hilarious Rustics

Oberon & Titania

Grumpy Egeus

The Fairies (& assorted ladies of the court)

Lysander and Demetrius

Curtain Call with our brilliant director

After the show

Toy Whale from Old Jeans

2013-05-23T18:13:00.001-05:00

My thriftiness is delighted at reusing and repurposing old material but many are the hours I have spent upcycling only to end up with something which turned out looking like a stray cat used it as a dumpster-bed.

This whale pattern from old jeans (preferably jeans with a bit of stretch) is adorable! It only took a couple of hours to complete, and I love how it looks. It also seems to have the kind of durability you want for a children's toy.

Pattern

Stitched together

Stuff the tail and fins and stitch for detail

Discovered on Pinterest.

Owl Love You Forever

2012-06-02T15:55:00.001-05:00

My second Knitted Owl (same Ravelry pattern as the brown owl) is quite a bit bigger...his eyes also ended up a bit asymmetrical so I named him Dizzy.

Owl Always Love You

2012-06-02T00:25:00.002-05:00

This latest knitting pattern I saw on Ravelry, and thought it would be a perfect baby gift for a friend who just had a baby girl. I have never tried knitting stuffed animals, but now I am a huge fan! Super cute pattern, right?

I actually made another stuffed owl for another friend-baby, which I will post tomorrow.

Knitting Project #1

2012-05-01T17:35:00.003-05:00

Since I began teaching grade school this past year, I have been inspired to get back into creative endeavors, though of course, I have also been very worn out. Having a classroomful of young energy to direct constructively for seven hours a day is demanding, but incredibly fun. Anyway, during spring break I started knitting again, and I finally finished my latest successful project!

This is from some lovely yarn from Fredericksburg, Texas. If you like the pattern, you can find it here on ravelry.com.

Botanical Easter Eggs

2012-04-22T21:19:00.000-05:00

I made Botanical Easter eggs this year (I know this post is a bit late, but it is only the third Sunday of Easter), and I wanted to show how we did it. There are several posts on how to do these, but I found the Martha Stewart post the most helpful.

First, gather the material:

We went with the Pysanka hollow egg method, which was actually much easier than I remember:

Pop Culture Clothing

2011-04-20T13:24:00.001-05:00

This is a mediocre print, and $54.99 is kind of ridiculous for what looks like an iron-on image on a small mens undershirt.

Ruche

However...if I am honest, I think I still kinda want it. Because it's Audrey. I think something might be wrong with me. Fortunately, the price is so off-putting and the fit looks so iffy, this one isn't too tough to dissuade myself but...

The root of the problem is also the same reason I am strongly compelled to buy myself the T-shirt version of the Pride and Prejudice book cover even though my awesome in-laws bought me the coveted purple P&P sweatshirt as a gift, which I love and wear almost every weekend.

OutofPrintClothing

And the 1984 sweatshirt:

OutofPrintClothing

I never got wearing a T-shirt with a band much less a gigantic logo, but book cover T-shirts? Yes, please!

I feel I genuinely need these book cover clothing articles on some deep level. Does anyone else find themselves helplessly compulsive about random material items? Please share, because I'm starting to feel like I have a mental disorder.

Dolls, Etc.

2011-02-16T03:39:00.003-06:00

GiltGroup emails have long been ignored in my gmail inbox. With tight funds, the last thing I need is more excuses to explain a $100 purchase with, “But look, honey! It was 70% off! Think how much we saved!”

However, when I saw a Madame Alexandre sale in GiltGroup, my usually thrifty brain went:"…they’re so pretty which is unusual since most dolls tend to be creepy...my niece-goddaughter loves dolls…if it’s not a purchase for me it’s like I’m saving even more money…I win!"

Dorothy and Toto!

I love having nieces and a nephew.

I knew I was going too far though when I saw a Funny Face doll and almost managed to convince myself that as the fatal combination of my favorite style icon and totally the best fashion movie ever made (that I’ve seen, anyway), I should own this. Fortunately, I managed to talk myself out of it, perhaps influenced most by the crushing weight of my Very Grown-Up Job in An Office, since in most similar cases, my adulthood actually works out as a justification for a purchase like that: the preservation of my childish whimsy. Here’s a picture so you understand how compelling the argument was:

Funny Face

Right?! Audrey is lovely. There are certain movie icons who remain as the Unbeaten Ultimates in American Cinema. Sofia Loren remains the reigning queen of impossibly voluptuous Roman goddesses in human form (although Sofia Vergara is representing our era pretty well). Marilyn Monroe is the American girl-next-door, the hardy and sumptuous farm-girl who is knowing in some ways and vulnerably naive in others; though she may have been the beginning of the cliché held by some American men that the more beautiful a girl is, the more mentally unstable she is. Audrey is, of course, the Hollywood Princess, so convincing not from exceptional acting skill, but because of the success of type-casting. As the daughter of an actual Dutch baroness and originally a disciplined ballerina struggling to make money after immigrating from impoverished post-WWII Holland, she more stumbled into acting than pursued it, and had all the charm and sweetness expected from a Cinderella story.

P.S. I just perused the Madame Alexander website and: a) a lot of their dolls are actually very creepy looking, so hooray me for finding cute ones; b) what is the deal with a doll company that insists that plastic dolls are age 14+?; and c) they have a Henry VIII and Wives collection, supposedly part of their Showtime Collection, but still weird. Sadly, Anne Boleyn's and Catherine Howard's heads do not pop off.

Heels: My Epic Struggle Against Pointy Inanimate Objects

2011-02-04T21:34:00.002-06:00

My Piperlime gift card fashion victory has thus far afforded me hours of entertainment. (Yes, I am crowing over my victory. It's not often I win stuff, so just let me run a victory lap for this one, and I'll be done with it.) I have ordered several thing from dear Piperlime, -- fyi: Piperlime's customer service really is top-notch, despite my criticisms of their product selection -- and I got the chance to play around with many brands. My primary focus was finding heels I actually wanted to wear. Being just shy of 5'9 and a teensy bit gangly does present a certain challenge in professional and sexy footwear. You just cannot wear flats with everything, and I would like to branch out into things other than fancy Diesels and Doc Martens' menswear. So I did order the Pour la Victoire black heels as pictured below:

They were pretty, if not really up to the quality I thought should be present in $200 black leather heels. The crux is, that heels may make me an Amazon, but they improve outfits and make you feel sexy, yes? I may be the exception to the rule but I cannot feel sexy in shoes that make me feel as though I am mere seconds away from either snapping the heels off my twig-like support or collapsing into a very unflattering pile of fashion shame. Literal stability is necessary in making me feel confident, and without actual stable foundations I feel more like this:

In case you can't tell, which is entirely possible since drawing is a skill that proves to be beyond me, this is a cartoon of a cat stranded on a box in a tempestuous sea, because, of course, cats are notorious for being sticklers for texture, dryness, and proper stability, though I'm not sure how effective my cartoon is if I feel the need to spell it out. Whatever, I'm not trying to make a living as a cartoonist, so judge me kindly. The point being that the little black patent shoes made me feel like this cat looks...so a big fat no to those.

Anyhoodle, I did manage to find these wonderful shoes by Seychelles:

I have worn these, in real life, three times so far because whatever genius designed these shoes realized that setting the heels closer in toward the center increases feeling of stability, so I can stalk around feeling like I am not about to buckle in on myself in a magnificent architectural failure, but instead feel as though I am as spindly and delicate as the Eiffel Tower. So yeah, Seychelles.

P.S. I need chocolate leggings to go with a shorter dress, and I have no idea where to get good ones. Leggings horrify me a bit, so I need advice. Give it up and I will be eternally grateful.

On the 10th Day of January...

2011-01-10T23:52:00.001-06:00

This print is by artist Justin Van Genderen who has a little collection of comic book cities done as vintage travel posters, two totally unrelated things mashed together with suburb success.

On the 2nd Day of Christmas:

2010-12-27T00:35:00.004-06:00

I have written a personality quiz for you! Yes, me, my own self, I tirelessly studied the intricacies of human interaction in order to present you with this quiz about you. You're welcome. I actually wrote it as an excuse to make use of an observation I found terribly funny, and I meant to post it directly on the blog, but the site is being terribly wenchy so I have been unable to embed it properly, but here is the link to it in the meantime: 4 Temperaments Quiz.

The 4 Temperaments is very limited, however, and honestly the Myers-Briggs is so much more satisfyingly in depth, so I recommend checking that one out too.

Anyway, if you do take the test, leave a comment and tell me if it seemed accurate.

Merry Christmas, all!

Anti-dis-in-no-nonsense

2010-12-19T20:43:00.002-06:00

The evolution of language is mostly pretty cool. Also, pretty cool is the English language. I have a passing acquaintanceship with Italian (minimal), a forced working relationship with Latin (Try as I might, I couldn't get away from Latin. I attended insane schools that insisted on Great Books curriculum, and Latin was a requirement to get through the core. My interaction with Latin was like a co-worker you don't like but always get scheduled with and you don't realize you actually have begun to like until they quit the position), and also a wee bit of German (a pathetically wee bit. I learned how to order food and ask for directions in German and that was it. I relied very heavily on the panicked, flailing gestures and Deutsch-lish to get by...when my fluent friend was not nearby.) Anyway, while the romance languages are incredibly musical and pretty, their regularity gets....boring. English pretty much rocks because more often than not the words actually sound like what they describe, which is ever so much better, for poetry and musical lyrics and just making yourself generally understood. It is a language of extreme onomatopoeia. As is German, English's linguistic cousin. For instance, merde could be anything really, whereas scheiße! most certainly sounds like a frustrated, but mild swear word with scatological roots.

Anyway, why am even talking about this? I'm not really sure. I haven't posted in a bit, and I thought I should do something, and I recently experienced a wordsmith revelation. "Nonsense" is a cute word. There are things that make sense, and there are things so ridiculous that they are a total absence of sense: nonsense. What bothers me is the existence of the word no-nonsense. A double negative that, if anything, obscures the actual meaning of the word and sounds very silly when you think about it. No-nonsense basically means sensible, but the word is terribly gangly, and sounds made up when you say it 5 times.

The motivation of this post is obscure even to me. This weekend has been extremely successful in catching up on sleep and not much besides. After a couple of beers, pondering in the corporate mire in which I spend my daily hours, this is what I came up with to discuss. Cheers.

Blog of the Day!

2010-12-16T22:19:00.000-06:00

I would like to have some kind of organized theme for this blog because my mind adores categories. Something like favorite styles on Mondays, featured products with photographs on Tuesdays, featured artists/designers on Wednesdays, nothing particular for Thursdays because Thursday doesn't count as a day, and movie recommendations on Fridays. Unfortunately, while my analytic mind adores categories and likes to imagine sleek organization, I am easily distracted and my ambition holds no follow-through so it's more like transporting water in a sieve. If you could read the blog in my head, you would be amazed I tell you.

That was an attempt at explaining the slightly illogical post title. I can't really have a blog of the day if I've never featured another blog before. It's more like blog of the blog. The gist is my dear friend Monica sent me a blog post and I have been reading the blog, Hyperbole and a Half almost ever since. This blogger is hilarious, and reminds me of the startling witty, over-the-top and somehow still amusingly understated humor of my friend Mel and the manic intensity of my friend Elizabeth. And she illustrates her posts which is darling. I recommend you check her out.

Thursday out.

Featured Designer: Carri Perani of Iridescence Jewelry

2010-12-14T23:00:00.004-06:00

I have been so excited to share this with you guys for ages. OK, intro: my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Randy stalk garage sales, vintage stores, and estate sales for random treasures, and the stuff that they manage to pick up is kind of amazing. I really need to make a weekend visit just to join them on scavenger hunts, and they will be the masters and I shall be the pupil. Which reminds of that time when I was like 6 and was dead-set on ditching my family and just living with Kathy and Randy, even though Uncle Randy tickled me so much I think I stopped breathing long enough to do brain damage, and Aunt Kathy was kind of sarcastic, but I could totally tell she was cool with me and that made me feel very urbane. Anyways, during a scavenging adventure, they found a jeweler that Aunt Kathy told me about, and I want to share with you.

Carri Perani began Iridescence Jewelry in West Virginia at the end of 2007, making the transition from a job in a corporate office. Though she has not had any formal art training in jewelry design, she learns techniques from local goldsmith, Gene Conley of Touchstone Designs, in something akin to an apprenticeship. Carri tells me that she is currently studying silversmithing with Gene. (And I just need to break off for a moment to say that it makes me really happy to know that there are still apprenticeships. Apprenticing needs to come back in a big way.)

She generally works with sterling and 14k gold, but she also has a line of jewelry called the Rabbit Hole Collection which is what got me so fanatical about her jewelry that I bought two pieces right away. Carri said, "The Rabbit Hole Collection is about recycling/repurposing & using what's already available. I've traveled all over the continental US, to Hawaii, New Zealand, and to several islands in the Caribbean. Traveling is so inspiring to me because it makes me realize just how much beauty there is in the world." She actually named her jewelry line during a walk on the beach in St. Augustine, Florida, inspired by the beauty of thin iridescent shells. She collaborates with close friend, Cara, who started a buy, sell, trade clothing company called Journe Wear in Steubenville, Ohio. Together they shop thrift stores, flea markets, garage sales & buy odds and ends from people like Aunt Kathy & Uncle Randy.

The Rabbit Hole Collection

Gold Scalloped Earrings

"I think the beauty of these pieces is that it is open to interpretation, you can write & rewrite their story because every piece has it's own long lost history. You look at a piece and wonder, who did this belong to? where has this been? It all has so much character & mystery attached to it. That's what I think really draws people to it. I also think people find the rabbit hole collection intriguing because we are using found objects in very creative, unthought of ways," Carri says.

Soaring Swallow

Vintage Teapot Necklace

The Steam Punk Collection

"Steampunk places great importance on the value of beauty that reflects unusual or antiquated ideals. The steampunk culture takes its cues from the Victorian era, and speculates on how our world would be different if steam power had become the driving force behind our culture."

Nerdly Couture

2010-12-09T23:18:00.001-06:00

Hello lambs! It's been a long sabbatical, mostly because this clinging, lung-bruising sickness is stalking me like a gollum, but I have too many things to share to wait any more.

First, one of my friends (the friend I need to live nearby again eventually because, among many, many other reasons, I miss borrowing her clothes like I did when we lived together while we rambled on and on about film and art and love, and whatever else happened to catch our education-expanded minds. Sigh, college: where you meet people to love for their wonderful minds and better fashion sense) sent me an email alerting me about these clutches by French designer Olympia Le-Tan.

Natalie Portman had one during a Black Swan (wanna see it) junket:

It's a shame she looks so hungry and cranky.

I think I love these, but I also think I'd be a little irked when I absentmindedly opened the clutch during a lull to read a few pages of Nineteen Eighty-Four and just found my keys and lip gloss. And, yes, I bring books with me almost everywhere, so I could totally see myself doing that. I squeezed my gigantic copy of The Brothers Karamazov into the precious little space I had in my book bag for my trip to Berlin. I read like 150 pages of that sucker on the train, and I would have been really bummed out if my copy had morphed into a clutch halfway through. But still! Books! Books as fashion accessories! I just don't know. What are your thoughts?

The Faces of Autumn

2010-12-02T09:10:00.000-06:00

The blog title doesn't make much sense, but I'm still groggy from the creeping death so I'm not going to be too hard on myself. We explored the gorgeous campus of SMU during our glorious Thanksgiving weekend to more fully enjoy the autumnimity.

The photo above makes me laugh. I was just talking with a friend of mine about the awkwardness of posing for pictures because generally you forget what to do with your face. She still looks pretty in her pictures, if wearing maybe an expression slightly different from her usual one. I somehow end up with cartoonish expressions of exaggerated emotion. The one above is "actor in an 80s television drama portraying a spy playing it cool". Anyway, it was a gorgeous day.

Sweater: Gap

Scarf: Mossimo

Necklace: Thursday Island

Pants: Gap

Shoes: Converse

Jacket: Priorities

Being

2010-11-30T15:34:00.000-06:00

I am currently ill with a something or other and my mind is about as sharp and focused as an undercooked pancake, so I won't inflict the results of my addled brain-matter on you too much. (I assume most people are like me and are mentally flat-lining/easily distracted whilst sick, on top of being irrationally cranky. I have been trying to motivate myself to make chicken soup out of our Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner and just realized that instead I have spent almost the past six hours lumbering through the internet. I need to make tea and go to bed with a Wodehouse novel before I implode with frustrated intentions.) (Omg, I just realized my apartment complex shut off the water, because I needed something else to make me feel gross and deprived.) (This can make me a better person. Calmete.)

Regardless of my current health conditions, I wanted to share some lovely things with you on this final day of November. When I met my friend Maggie, one of the first things I noticed looking around her dorm room was that she has killer taste, sort of an effortless barometer for chic while mixing it up with modern and otherwise. She also had the coolest vintage Guinness ad I have seen to this date, apropos of nothing. Anyway, this preface is to explain why it is that I keep filching from neat things she sends me. Observe: Wrist Worms, also featured on Sacramento Street weird name, cool product. Hand-crocheted by Sandra Juto in Sweden of 100% wool, and her website is full of lovely photography!

Wrist Worms by Sandra Juto

Thanks! #2: Literature Nerds Designing Clothes

2010-11-24T23:48:00.002-06:00

I <3 Out of Print Clothing, for real. Guess what I spotted on their site today:

Out of Print Clothing.

This sweatshirt makes me what to jump up and down and whine "but I want it". Seriously, I want this, like a lot. It is awesome on at least three different levels. Actually, for every shirt bought at Out of Print, a book is donated to people who need it, so make that four levels.

Thanks! #1: Tweed Rides

2010-11-24T17:03:00.000-06:00

The First Tweed Run, 2009

My lovely friend Maggie sent me a link to ReadysetDC's post on D.C.'s 2010 Tweed Ride (fair warning, there are some inexplicable near-nudey pictures towards the end, so nsfw, and shield the children's eyes). I had first heard of a Tweed Ride on RidingPretty's blog during the Essence of Autumn contest, and, you all know I love my tweed so I looked into this Tweed Ride thing. The very first Tweed Run was held in London in 2009, an organized group bike ride through the city with participants dressed in tweedy cycling attire, specifically from 1920s England. Since then, Tweed Rides have become something of a minor global explosion with Tweed Rides popping up in cities like Sacramento, San Francisco, Dallas, Philadelphia, D.C., Boston, Chicago, Portland, as well as Toronto, Sydney, New York, and Tokyo to name a few (here is another of Riding Pretty's posts of various Tweed Ride posters). A few of these rides also overlap with a some pretty sweet Cycling Fashion Shows.

image via dustinj, sfwiggle.com, SF Tweed Ride

image via sftweed.com

Jeans Shopping Angst Makes Me Philosophical

2010-11-23T13:26:00.002-06:00

No matter how much women may differ in terms of belief structure, background, etc., the one thing that I think almost everyone of us can agree on is we all hating shopping for jeans. Yes, I am bridging the gap of prejudice using a shared hatred of jeans shopping. It works. Anyway, I realized that I have not had a good, flattering pair of jeans since I lived with a roommate my size and height who has better shopping instincts than me. My Achilles heel with jeans and boots is that, slender and willowy though I be, I am thick of limb. Like, seriously stocky. I wish I was my height with long, slender gams, because I'd be stalking around in dresses and skirts that are as they say "fierce", but no, I have the sturdy, muscular stems of peasant stock. If I lived in a 19th century novel, some handsome, pretentious baron would make a sneering comment about me being built for hard labor, and then after several months of acquaintanceship my saucy wit and mildly Bohemian Pre-Raphaelite beauty would bewitch him into falling hopelessly in love with me. Then it would go in one of two ways depending on the type of novel: if written by say, Thomas Hardy, then the baron’s love grows too late, and only narrowly misses the opportunity to marry me and live happier lives than anyone in existence. As it stands, he missed his chance by mere days because of his character flaw of pride, because life sucks, and due to some cataclysmic combination of tragedies, I have been reduced to a wretched life of prostitution, forever barred from a decent life in the rigid societal confines of Victorian England, and I don’t know, something about murder or whatever. If it be written by Jane Austen, then a few hijinks and misunderstandings would ensue before the baron and I finally settled into a marriage of mutual respect and passion, after I showed him the importance of valuing people for their own worth. Basically, no one should ever be stuck in a Hardy novel. Jane Austen is way more fun. That’s what British Victorianism does to you.

What was I even talking about? Jeans! Yes, so it’s tough for me to find jeans that I like, because my limbs are just too damn muscular (yeah, we'll say "muscular"...I'm lying shamelessly, btw). But then I start to ponder this: American women have this pathologically stupid idea that if you do not fit into off-the-rack clothes, that means that you fall short of the correct womanly shape. (I limit myself to my own culture since I’m not really equipped to talk about any others, but when I lived in Europe six years ago, most of the women definitely had a better grip on playing up their natural beauty rather than chasing fads. Input on other country stereotypes welcome.) I have had so many of these conversations with girlfriends and if you sit back and listen we sound completely neurotic and/or insane: “you see, my femurs are disproportionately longer than the rest of me”, “my arms are too skinny”, “my fingernails are so unattractive” etc., ad nauseum, and I have an unusually good looking bunch of friends. A few of my friends are genuine stunners, and even these girls have their own litany, “my shoulders are rounded”, “I have no curves”, “my nose is too big” and they are objectively gorgeous. It is amazing to me that American women have no idea how to appreciate feminine beauty and instead make themselves miserable over a vague ideal they couldn't even really define. Sure, there does exist a tiny percentage of goddess-like women, like Heidi Klum, and it's nice that she became a model so we can all look at her, but why should women fall into the insanity of thinking they should possessed the beauty of Helen of Troy or they are an epic fail? Why do we do that? I’m really asking; I don’t have an adequate answer. In the blog Single Dad Laughing, Dan writes in “Worthless Women and the Men Who Make Them” about the responsibility men have which I agree is a significant factor, but I don’t think that’s everything. The source is not Hollywood, it’s not the runway, it’s not misogyny, it’s not peer pressure. All those things may play a small part but they are more symptomatic rather than causal.

There is a supposed “movement” to curvy, but the people in this curvy movement sometimes end up shrilly berating the thin body type as ugly/anorexic or criticizing a heavier model if she loses weight (one example is covered nicely by Kristy in "Crystal Renn Admits to Losing Weight, World Forgets to Mind Its Own Business", so they end up being part of the disease themselves, topped off with an obnoxious amount of self-righteousness. They are doing the same thing by still insisting on only one shape being attractive, to hell with everyone else. Excuse me, but wtf? Why the rigidity? Feminine beauty is amazingly diverse. The unfortunate thing is, you often have beautiful girls looking significantly less lovely because they keep trying to conform to a type that is simply not their own, which only creates awkwardness stylistically. A lot of girls outright spoil their looks by tanning themselves into oblivion, doing horrible things to their hair, and plastering on pounds of makeup, not to mention wearing ridiculous trends that work against their body type. People look so much more lovely when they accentuate their natural looks. And everyone looks better when they stop harping on about the imagined imperfections of themselves or others.

2nd Letter to Piperlime: The Black Heel

2010-11-22T10:15:00.001-06:00

Dear Piperlime,

Now I don't want to bite the hand that gives me gift cards, but I am trying to heal our relationship and I hear that communication is key. I see you going down a dark path, and I want to help out before it's too late.

Here's the deal: I want to get a more professional wardrobe but one that actually looks like me and not like I'm an extra in Working Girl, and step number one is heels. I am very flexible with colors and patterns even, since I like shoes that pop. I have only three caveats for heels:

Heel height. I am already 5'9 so high heels are not my friend: they throw me off balance like a drunk stilt-walker and I have no particular desire to be 6'1, thank you.
Chunky heels or platforms also are an absolute no; the whole point of heels is to look delicate and to push out the right curves in the right direction, so clomping around on hoofs would defeat the whole purpose and sacrifice of making myself even more Amazonian.
...1/2, leather and good quality. I want my feet to have sensation left in them at the end of the day, and I wear shoes for years if I like them.

Piperlime, that's not asking too much, right? I'm a pretty easy customer, aren't I? Why, then, in your selection of 78 low to mid heels, almost all of them are bland neutrals? I see you are in denial, you can't believe you could have allowed that to happen to your product selection. Allow me to present my case: out of that 78, only 9 are something other than neutral colors. And do you need me to tell you what those 9 shoes are like? Stop being childish, I don't like this any more than you do, so you can quit rolling your eyes. You need to face the truth if this is going to change. 2 shoes are very underwhelming heels of actual color (red and yellow if you are curious), 5 are animal print (yes, I know, animal print heels are adorable, but I cannot wear animal print anything without looking like I'm dressing up as a hooker for Halloween. How about some variety?), and 2 look like what you would see when you close your eyes after spinning around way too fast in a room with blue 80s era floral print wallpaper.

Bandolino Berry...Wallpaper

You see the problem, right? These are boring, like furniture in a nursing home boring, and most of them are dated and not in a cute Madmen kind of way. Do you have any concept of how delighted I would be at a vintage inspired, low-heel pump like any of these?

ModCloth: Seychelles "Watching the Clock"

How delighted, you ask? - picture a rusty Autumn evening, the first evening of a long holiday weekend off, in which I mildly indulge in pyrotechnics by enjoying a bonfire with hot toddies, heavy on the whiskey: in a word, euphoric. Well, even shoes like the ones above would not accomplish this level of euphoria. But your low-heeled pumps inspire something more like this: after planning a holiday for two weeks I get a creeping death sickness the very evening before my scheduled time off, my husband is stranded away from home due to weather conditions, and an over-sharing neighbor who will not take a hint invites themselves in to "help take care of" me, i.e. I am utterly annoyed by your selection and want to be left alone.

So, in the effort to salvage our relationship even after such a blow to my basic footwear needs, I turned to the most basic of the basic: black heels. Amoung 31 pairs of low-heeled black pumps only one peked my interest even a little bit:

Salina

These got one mediocre review, but I want to check out the Pour la Victoire brand, (it's a Brazilian company inspired by French couture, so that sounds wild) so I am going to go ahead and give these a shot, Piperlime. And while I am waiting to get these in the mail, and appreciate your awesome free shipping, which promises to be even faster than before, I really want you to think about the direction you are currently going: do you want to keep the current Piperlime woman you are appealing to, or do you want me...and every last one of my friends, as customers (if I guess their aesthetic correctly).

Love,

Meghan

Piperlime: Style?

2010-11-19T16:27:00.001-06:00

Dear Piperlime,

I like you a lot. Your free shipping, your customer service, the fact that you carry brands like Frye, Hunter, Clarks, Diesel, Sperrys, Pink Studio, Puma, and that you gave a $500 gift card as a contest prize. You have a good heart, you do. Also, ever since I began watching Project Runway, I have my own Tim Gunn in my head who says, "Use your wall of Piperlime accessories, people," whenever I shop on your site, which is fun. But...listen,...now that I have my own Project Runway budget, I've taken a step back from the trees to take a look at the forest, and I am having second thoughts about our relationship. Like, what is your style aesthetic, exactly? I spent ages shopping around Piperlime and, I don't mean to harsh the buzz on our blooming relationship, but most of your products are, well, haphazard. Did you ever notice that you have, like, 17 very slightly different versions of the same item? Now, don't look at this as a heartless criticism. Look at this as me trying to make this relationship work, and since I was not accepted for the hour long Dallas "chat" about how to make Piperlime better, this is the only way.

Essentially, to get to the root of the problem, I've been trying to figure out who the Piperlime Woman is because if that woman is not me, we can call this is a mutual break-up. I know what the J.Crew woman is, the Anthropologie woman, the Gap and Banana Republic women, the Abercombie and Fitch (and I'll stop here before I start to pretend I have any familiarity with high end designers), but tell me, who is the Piperlime Woman? I mean, it's almost all bland neutrals, droopy shapes, and seems to have the style sensibility of a woman in dire need of some sleep and maybe a gin and tonic who nonetheless has a lots of money she wants to spend on looking schlumpy. Actually, at the moment, Piperlime seems to be in the style version of the Bog of Discouragement and ran out of Prozac several weeks back. I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it: it looks like your only directed demographic is...Season 8 Project Runway winner, Gretchen. And look I don't mean to mindlessly join the rabid dog pile of Gretchen critics since she's beat my favorite, Mondo. Her style does have some value, and she's a good designer, sure but her look is mostly avoidant of shape, allergic to color, and sort of, well, frowny face-ish and Piperlime's current selection is likewise. The aesthetic just befuddles me. Unrelated words and phrases just jostle each other to attempt a full, coherent sentence, and all that's happened so far is: Camo-Drab, Pretentiously Inaccurate Attempt at "Granola", here comes Current Global Economy Chic: Depressed!, But Still Mystifyingly Expensive. Example:

This is ugly and synthetic. Why does this cost $132?

This says: "I'm trying to save money, so I dug up my old toddler clothes to see what would work and look how great this still is on me! Would you guess I haven't worn this since Kindergarten?" Even for a busty girl, this is flattening and it has a little dust ruffle for your hips because everyone wants to add another ten pounds there. Plus, there are tons more clothes like this. The Liberty Bell shape has never been widely desired in Fashion for a reason. Just because our economy sucks, and our country is growing more antagonistically polarized by the day doesn't mean we should wear nothing but sackcloth to reflect our sombre mood...unless you're doing an Old Testament inspired sacrifice for the sake of our country and the world, in which case, OK, but you shouldn't spend $400 for your sackcloth outfit as that sort of defeats the purpose.

I am firmly of the mind that when you buy something, buy nice somethings or nothing at all, and when I can find really good quality somethings for a bit cheaper, I'm in retail nirvana. You are so close to this, Piperlime! I bought Frye sandals for like $45 + a rewards card which I will wear for the next decade or until they fall apart, but lately you have had pricey items made of synthetics and just :-(. I know how we can solve this: I will let you hire me as an assistant buyer to help you out, because I care. Until then (or until I spend my gift card) I will continue doing this, but with more illustrations and possibly charts, because this is fun.

Love,
Meghan

The Return of Blogger Girl

2010-11-19T12:14:00.000-06:00

Hello, lambs.

First, I am so sorry that I abandoned you webinetically. I'll make it up to you somehow.  I've had a weird month - I know, if excuses were horses then highschoolers would ride them to school or something - but here they are anyway even though they have nothing to do with the subject matter of this blog: in the first week of November I spent 6 1/2 hours at the dentist in two days getting work done which was exhausting. It's not that I am terrifed of dentists. My dentist here is awesome and The Little Shop of Horrors or the final torture scene in Brazil never even cross my mind while in The Chair, except ironically. It's just that for things that require a stiff upper lip like dentist visits, fixing broken bones, removing splinters, piercing one's own ear cartilage with a straight pin, etc., I am very detached which is great since I remain very chill about the whole thing, but it's more like a robotic power-down and it's surprisingly tiring to get back to normal afterwards.

After the dentist marathon, I went to a nutritionist who confirmed, after various types of tests - blood and neurotransmitters and whatnot - that in all likelihood my chronic exhaustion, skin problems, and attention issues are entirely symptoms of IgG food allergies.
Which makes me go: Awesome! That sounds like an easy fix! Which foods should I cut out?
Yogurt, egg whites...
Oh, that's kind of a bummer. I make the best scrambled eggs in existence and roommates have sung songs of praise for them worldwide--
Cow's milk, pistachios, onions...
Seriously? I love pistachios, and I put onions in everything--
Brewer's yeast, glutin, wheat...
What? Like, as in bread, and....and beer? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I decided I needed to conduct my own research on the reliability of these finding over five beers and a couple whiskeys. Seriously though, if there was some way I could work out a deal where one meal per day was some delectable, fluffy bread slathered in butter and I could get 100% of my hydration from varities of alcohol (maybe mixed in with some juices for breakfast), that would be great. What cruel irony is this? I am Scottish/Polish.  Half of my diet has always been wheat, alcohol and onions. At least I can still eat potatoes, or I think I would just starve to death. Or maybe I don't care that I never feel actually awake at any point during the day. Who needs full consciousness and the ability to concentrate on a thought until it's been thought through? I don't, clearly.  As for the eczema, I'll tell people I'm a burn victim and remain heavily swathed in layers of fabric. *sigh* Also there's like 75 more foods that "aren't good for me" on top of that, and I figure I should at least try the diet, but I would like to go on a serious week long bender first.