Shop Stuff

It's been a long time since I posted, but I guess that's my usual story.  Lately I've been working on a lot of stuff for my etsy shop, so I thought I'd do a post showing what I've been up to. I've been making mostly headbands and hair clips with vintage millinery flowers and glitter. Also, my velvet obsession has come into play, too! If I had to pick a theme for these items, I'd say it'd be Oktoberfest meets Swan Lake. Anyway, here are some pics! Shop link will be down below.

The Grey Owl Etsy Shop

-Katie

Waiting for Godot

Shirt: Vintage
Skirt: Vintage
Belt: Vintage
Shoes:Tic Tac Toes

Welp, it's been a while since I've posted an outfit. I wasn't meaning to wait this long, but I got busy and lazy! I'm going to try to do better!
I took pictures of my outfit in my sister's new apartment while waiting for her couch to be delivered. I didn't get very good pictures of it in these photos, but it's the most beautiful 1920s craftsman style apartment with distressed wood floors and fireplace that takes up an entire wall. One day I will take better pics!
This is one of my better casual outfits, but I don't wear it too often because I have a problem with wearing all my fanciest things all at once every single day. I don't ever mean to overdress by that much, but somehow it just spirals out of control every morning when I'm trying to decide what to wear and pretty soon I'm covered in glitter and shiny things. Anyway, back to the outfit! I think my skirt was possibly an old square dancing skirt. The tag said it was part of some costume, but it looks like a square dance skirt to me! It's perfect for twirling, and I love the shape and length. I wish I had one in every color! The sweater is a nice light cotton, and probably better suited for the fall, but I couldn't resist!
Lately I've been doing a lot of crafting, reading, and hanging around.  I've got big plans for my crafts, but we'll see if they actually come to fruition.  I'm really bad about starting things and then burning out part way through! I'm hoping that I'll get some of my plans finished so I can put them up on etsy!
Also, as of late, I've developed a ping pong obsession.  My friend has a table down in his basement, so I've been playing at least a few times a week. A couple of weeks ago, Erin and I went to a ping pong tournament, and although we didn't play, we won best costume for her cousin's roomate's team! The goal is to practice all year long, then enter the tournament and destroy everyone.

The Arts

 I said I would share some of the things I've been working on lately in the last post, so here they are!  This first piece is one of my favorite things I've started, and it took me FOREVER, but it was worth it.  Earlier in the fall, I became kinda obsessed with Ulyana Sergenko's embroidered holly head pieces. Since those are pretty much unattainable to me,  I do what I always do when I can't afford fancy things I want; I try to reproduce them! I made the hollies out of wooden beads and embroidery floss, and the leaves out of wire and floss.  It's definitely not as neat looking as hers, but I think it's not too bad for a first attempt!

This headband was inspired by one of Martha Stewart's crafts on costume jewelry makeovers.  I got the velvet ribbon from the holiday wrapping section in Anthropologie, and the bracelet was my great-grandmother's.  We had a ton of costume jewelry hanging around from my great-aunt and grandma, but now I can't find most of it.  I went on a hunt for more last weekend, but I was unaware how dang expensive that stuff is!

These tights were inspired by my sweater that I made last year, which was inspired by a modcloth sweater.  I like them because they remind me of a party! On my legs! Anyway, those are a few highlights of some of the things I've been making.  I hope to make more soon!

-Katie

Natural Thing

 

Dress:Vintage

Belt: Vintage

Bag: Vintage

Shoes: Forever 21, color diy by me

Heart pin: diy

This is the first sleeveless piece of clothing I've owned in probably 10 years, mostly because I don't like to show off my rippling, yet flabby man biceps.  However, I found this dress acceptable enough as far as the sleeveless department goes, and lately I've been on a white dress kick.  My heart pin was inspired by this painting of a lady fencer wearing a heart on her dress.  I'm not sure of the significance of the heart worn by lady fencers back in olden times (I was inspired to look for more pictures of lady fencers and noticed that they all seemed to be wearing them). Could it be a target (stab me right here)? Whatever the significance, I thought they looked fancy and decided to make one of my own! 

Lately, all I've been wanting to do is read, but I keep getting interrupted by the desire to go out and see people, so the result is a giant stack of half read books next to my bed.  I hate half read books, even ones I'm not all that interested in! It's as annoying as a messy room that I just can't seem to clean. Case in point, one of the half read books I'm reading right now is called Home Fires by Gene Wolfe.  It's all sci-fiey with aliens, intergalactic wars, and a cruise hijacked by pirates! It sounds amazing, but I find it kind of boring so far. However, the expectation that it's going to really pick up and get amazing keeps me reading, even though I'm on page 100 and it feels like nothing happened.  I should just put it down and finish my other books, but I can't seem to throw in the towel yet, so my stack of books keeps getting higher.  It doesn't help that I work in a library! Anyway, have any of you read anything good lately?

-Katie