Messy Drawings and Messy Bun Tutorial

This is the ultimate summer bun because it requires no hair brushing and is speedy quick! I have been sporting this due everywhere, everyday since I figured it out. I was going to post pictures to demonstrate this style but I decided to spice things up with some crappy mouse pad paint drawings! Hope you enjoy!

To start, all you need is some generally long hair,  a hair tie and three bobby pins

Flip your head forward and let your hair hang down in front of you. Use your fingers like a comb to collect all of your hair into a ponytail high on your head. Make sure you like where the ponytail is because this is where the bun will be. I like to make mine right above the back of my head, so the bun is visible from the front. Don't hair tie your ponytail just yet. And don't worry if there are some bumps in your hair, they add to the messy look!

Flip your head back up holding your ponytail. Make sure everything is fine and dandy and then grab your hair tie.

Next you're gonna want to twist your hair tie around about *twice and make a regular ponytail. Then twist your hair tie one more time and pull your hair through, but not all the way, so you have a tall bun and the ends of your hair lay behind the bun. Make sure the bun is tied tight enough that it will not fall down or move. (*the times you twist your tie will vary for different people so find an amount of twists that leave you with enough space for one more twist)

Now separate the bun and pull the sides gently to make the bun bigger. Don't pull too much or else the ends will come through and you'll end up with a ponytail. Adjust the sides to your liking. You can leave the bun like this if you like or you can continue to the next step.

Next take your three pins and pull the two sections together in the center and pin them together at the base of the bun to give the bun a more round shape. Also since the bun is probably not attached to your scalp on the sides take the other two pins and pin the bun down to your head on both sides. You can leave the back how it is.

ALMOST DONE! Now just pull down a few strands of hair! That's it!

DONE!

Hope you liked it!

xoxo Mae

July Movie Playlist

The summer is off to a good start for me so far. I have managed to find the right balance of movies and swimming so I thought I would share a few of my favorite films. I chose these movies without a theme in mind, only to realize that they all featured the same thing! Teen lust. Everyone of these films have teenager people (mostly girls) exploring love, sex and lust. I think this is a superb movie theme for summer, especially July when the days are full of daydreaming and possibilities.

Enjoy these whimsical and passionate movies.

Lolita (1997) directed byAdrian Lyne

The Virgin Suicides directed by Sofia Coppola

My Summer of Love directed by Pawel Pawlikowski

Heavenly Creatures directed by Peter Jackson

All I Wanna Do directed by Sarah Kernochan

Moonrise Kingdom directed by Wes Anderson

xoxo Mae

Mae's Youtube Recommendations To Help You Waste Time!

Here are some good youtube channels I’ve been lurking about on recently!

1) http://www.youtube.com/user/PeachieAngelPrincess (she’s a super cute gal who wears Lolita fashion)

2) http://www.youtube.com/user/JacksGap My latest obsession...

3)http://www.youtube.com/user/charlieissocoollike For funny/intelligent videos

4)http://www.youtube.com/user/deerstalkerpictures These are some really great short films

5) http://www.youtube.com/user/Nanalew and http://www.youtube.com/user/meekakitty are both lovely ladies

6) http://www.youtube.com/user/albinwonderland Is an absolute pleasure to watch. Possibly my favorite feminist/quirky person on youtube. Also her tumblr http://albinwonderland.tumblr.com/ is worth checking out as well..

That’s it for now! I hope this helps you waste time!
xoxo Mae

Mom Interview: Deirdre Edition

Shana: Is there anything that happened a while ago that seemed horrible at the time that now seems really funny?

Deirdre: My dad used to always walk me to school through Central Park. I really wanted to take the bus, but I had to walk, because he insisted. I guess I’m a good walker now because of that. One day, I don’t even remember getting stung, but my foot started swelling up as we was on our way to school. It was in first grade, and I’m probably remembering this wrong, but this is how I remember it: I was on my way to school, and my foot started hurting and swelling up, and by the time I was in school my father was having to practically carry me. He didn’t like dealing with these kinds of things. If somebody got hurt he always left it to my mother, but he was alone with me. When we got to the school,  he kept shouting “She got a stee bing! She got a stee bing!” And he could just not say bee sting! He was frantic. They dealt with it at the school, and actually I had to wear a slipper for a few days because my whole leg swelled up, but I’ve never had much of an allergy since then. My father and I still laugh about that.

Shana: Okay. If there was an object, like something you used to own, but you don’t own it anymore, ‘cause you threw it out or had to give it away or something, and you could get it back again, what do you think that would be?

Deirdre: Stacy, my pet stuffed rabbit. She was brown and fluffy and had a white tail once upon a time. By the time I was done with her, she was this sort of brown, bedraggled thing with just a hint of white on her tail. She was just my favorite stuffed animal in the world. My cousin Edward had a stuffed bunny too. His stuffed bunny was also called Stacy -- because he used to copy me. Anyway, we used to have these wild crazy times with our stuffed bunnies named Stacy. I miss Stacy a lot.

Shana: Okay. I don’t know if you’d be able to remember this, but do you remember what the first album you bought is?

Deirdre: Oh gosh. Can I say the one that I’m proud of? I bought two at the same time.

Shana: Okay. Yeah, it can be a few.

Deirdre: It was Ghost in the Machine by The Police.

Shana: Okay. What’s the other one?

Deirdre I’m not telling.

Shana: Are you embarrassed?

Deirdre: [laughs]

Shana: Please tell me! You can tell me you didn’t know what it was like--

Deirdre: I didn’t know what it was like, and I didn’t even like it once I got it home much, but... Air Supply. I don’t remember the name of the album. They weren’t records, they were cassette tapes.

Shana: Okay.

Deirdre: [laughs]

Shana: And why is it so embarrassing? ‘Cause I don’t know them.

Deirdre: Because they’re horrible in my opinion. You can try listening.

Shana: [laughs] Okay. What is the place, that you’ve been that’s the farthest from home.

Deirdre: Probably... Israel? Jerusalem?

Shana: Why did you go to Israel?

Deirdre: At the time we were religious... orthodox Jewish. We had been given a little money, and we had just had a new baby (you!), and we were feeling like, “oh goodness, we’re going to be parents for the rest of our lives, let’s do something crazy while we have some money and this little baby who we can take anywhere. Let’s go to Israel.” So we went and had a good time. I’ve been all over Europe, but Jerusalem was the farthest place.

Shana: Are there any risks or chances that you took that you were worried about at the time but then it ended up really good and you’re really happy about?

Deirdre: Here’s one that I’m not sure that it was a better thing, but it was a good thing at the time.

Shana: What?

Deirdre: I left college because I wasn’t doing very well and I was having a hard time concentrating and focusing. I took all the money that had been set aside for college and travelled around Europe for a year. I have amazing memories, and I learned a lot. I got a lot out of that trip, but I still don’t have a college degree. I came home with no money and ended up working as a secretary. I do regret that I didn’t finish college, but I do not regret going to Europe and spending that time there. I could have found another way to finish college.

Shana: Okay. What was college like?

Deirdre: I don’t know if I could have done well in college right after high school. I believe now that I needed some time to figure out what I wanted in life. At the time I picked a college that looked like it was very liberal and fun. I didn’t look that much at the academics and how much help I’d get with them.  College turned out to be a big social experience. I lived in a dorm that was known as the hippie dorm on campus. It was pretty wild and I didn’t do a whole lot of work. I did a lot more partying. I met your father there.

Shana: What books have you read over and over and over?

Deirdre: When I was a kid I read Pride and Prejudice at least thirteen times. I read it over and over and I read everything else by Jane Austen over and over and over and over. I read Pride and Prejudice the first time in, I think, third grade? The last time I tried reading it was when you were younger. I still like it but it doesn’t speak to me in the same way.

Shana: Okay. Do you want to talk about playing the flute?

Deirdre: The reason I started to play the flute is I went to a Waldorf school. It’s like the Hawthorne Valley school up here but in New York City, and everybody there had to learn to play an instrument, and I wanted to play the flute because one of my teachers was a flute player, and I remember that her flute case had this gorgeous silk scarf in it, and I guess that was what she cleaned her flute with. I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world to be able to clean your flute with this gorgeous silk scarf, and that’s what I wanted. It had much more to do with the silk scarf than the flute. So, I waited and waited and finally got started and I think it was third grade. I remember being a little bit surprised and disappointed that the silk scarf didn’t somehow function more into my playing and I actually never got a silk scarf for cleaning my flute (I probably should now). But I took to it anyway. I was pretty good at it and it allowed me to go to a different high school-- to Music and Art, which is kind of an exciting place to go and memories of it are pretty fun ‘cause I realize had a little bit of a different sort of high school experience than a lot of people.

Shana: Why was your high school experience different?

Deirdre: Well, living in New York City, people were more open, and there were  more artsy people. There was a lot more acceptance of people being different. Actually in my school, the more normal you were, the more people looked down on you. It was actually encouraged to attract attention in kind of crazy ways. When you look through my high school yearbook, there were a lot of people with crazy clothes and hair, but there were a lot of people also with normal clothes who did other things. They were incredible artists and musicians and dancers and a lot of them have gone on to do great things.

Shana: Why do you want to be a photographer?

Deirdre: The funny thing is that when I was younger I didn’t actually like to take photos much, partly because my father, who was the photographer in the house, made a lot of rules about photography and I didn’t like rules so much. And when I would go on vacation I often felt like the camera would get between me and the vacation. When I travelled around Europe, I felt like a camera got between me and the experiences and buying film and developing film was too much of a pain. So when you girls were young, I didn’t even have a camera, until at some point digital cameras were a little more affordable and my parents gave me a digital point and shoot. I was glad to have something to take photos of you girls, just capture life. I enjoyed taking photos, and I started getting compliments, and that made me feel good. I started paying more attention to composition and lighting, and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed trying new things and then I started a 365 project where I tried to take a photo and post it everyday, and that challenged me to look at things in new ways. Digital photography made a lot of sense to me, because I’m much more comfortable with storing things on a computer and being able to see my photos right away than I ever was with film. It was just too much time between taking my photo and getting my photo back with film, and I felt too restricted by the 36 or 24 exposures, and it was expensive too. I just always felt worried about using shots and making mistakes. Digital meant I didn’t have to worry about any of that. Eventually I started craving a better camera. I saved up for it and I got some help from my parents and bought my first digital SLR. I taught myself. I did a lot of learning on the internet,  and slowly I got better. What I really love about photography is how even when maybe I’m not having a great day, or I’m in a difficult situation, like maybe at a party or something where I don’t know anyone very well and I don’t know what to say, I try to find something beautiful with the camera or something interesting or enjoyable with the camera .It helps me to find the interesting and beautiful things in life.

Neck Candy

So there’s this totally cool, creative, unique, DIY that’s been floating around this year, that I like to call art collars. They are practically impractical, but they are also so so so cute. or classy. or romantic. or crazy. That’s the awesome part about them! You can customize them however you want! They look fabitty fab with chunky sweaters or just a causal shirt, and they are very eye catching. They’re a new breed of accessory.

Check some step by step tutorials for more info at:
ulookhaute.com
hercampus.com
refinery29.com
rookiemag.com

There are SO many decorating options for these snazzy accessories. Here are some ideas of how to decorate them: 

pins or badges (make sure they don’t poke your neck)

beads (sewed or glued)

small dice (glued)

ribbons

pompoms 

faux fur

fun trim

broken CD pieces (glued)

googley eyes

rhinestones

studs

small fake flowers

buttons

fabric paint

lace

safety pins (make sure they don’t poke your neck)

vintage stickers (sewed or glued)

pretty cloth

and if you really have a lot of time on your hands you could even embroider something!

Go crazy with it kids! 

xoxo Mae

Autumnal Outfits

*three outfits that I wore this week*
                     

XXO -Fi

Taking Slightly Better Photos

By Shana  

I’m not going to pretend I’m an amazing photographer. I’m no Annie Leibovitz or Ansel Adams. Also, you may already know this stuff, but in case you don’t, here are some things you should know about photography that you can use with pretty much any camera:

ISO
Changing the ISO on your camera (and I can’t tell you how to change it because it’s different on every camera) will make the photo lighter or darker. The numbers are in hundreds, and the higher the number, the lighter the photo, as you would expect. However, if you raise the ISO, the photo becomes noisier (or grainier if you are using film). If you are using a film camera, you can change the ISO by using certain rolls of film.

Shutter Speed
The shutter is the part on the camera that opens up to let the light in when you take a photo. The higher the shutter speed, the faster the shutter opens and closes. This means you can take photos without them being blurry. Unfortunately, when the shutter speed is faster, it lets in less light so the photo is darker, and this can often be a problem. You can also purposefully make the photo blurry by using a slow shutter speed.

Aperture
Adjusting the aperture changes how much the shutter opens when you take a photo, so that more or less light is let into the camera. This makes the photos lighter or darker, and changes the depth of field so you can add blur in the background. Aperture is a little bit more confusing than the others, because when the aperture is higher, the photo is actually darker, because the shutter doesn’t open as wide. A lower aperture (or a brighter photo) is more likely to have a blurred background.

Rule of Thirds
Imagine there are four lines on your photo: two are horizontal and two are vertical, dividing the image into nine equal parts. When you are using the rule of thirds, you try to line up the objects or scenery in the photo with the lines. This is somehow often more visually pleasing than a random or centered picture, though that is not always the case and this rule can be broken with good results. On some digital cameras, you can change the settings so that there is a grid on the screen which makes it easy to follow the rule of thirds.

(rule of thirds)

Keeping the Camera Still

This may seem obvious, but keeping your camera still can make a big difference if you don’t want a blurry photo. You can hold the camera still against your body or you can set the camera on a flat, sturdy surface. You can use a timer so you don’t move the camera at all while hitting the button. You can also get hold of a tripod or monopod if you’re willing to lug it around with you.

Lastly, don’t forget to focus. Or you could forget everything I just said and keep your camera on auto.