1 com

Have you met Frankie?

Hi there Sparrow and Urchin readers, it is I, your friendly guest blogger Ebony. Mwuhahaha! For those who didn’t get the Sesame Street reference, shame on you, or me, either way - let’s move on. Lauren is an amazing artist. I don’t have an arty bone in my body… Yeah.. I was the kid that doodled the flower, not ‘sketched’ persay. I like to fancy myself as an art appreciator (it’s a reputable profession, trust me.) And when I say art, I mean arty magazines and prints off Etsy. But enough about me, we’re here to talk about Frankie.

Frankie is an amazing Australian publication that showcases art, craft, music, fashion, food and current events. It has a huge focus on indie stores and has the amazing ability to make you tear up on one page and be cackling the next. I like to think of it as an old friend… although you only get a chance to meet up once every two months, the warm feeling you get from conversing lasts until you meet again. How could you resist a publication that showcases...

Wearable fashion photographed in a fun, quirky way.

Cute (and useful!) comparisons of products in every issue. This issue tried out different soups.


Interviews with local artists and store-keepers.

And if that wasn’t enough, each issue contains a bi-monthly pull out calendar that features amazing art on the other side! And no, I don’t still have my March/April calendar up.. it was just for the shoot. Promise.

It’s easy to see why it’s my favourite magazine. I just can’t get enough… I’ve bought both their cookbooks and put in a Christmas request for their 2011 diary and SPACES book.

Unfortunately the international subscription prices are a little pricey - but as of December I’ll be living near a number of newsagents, so if you ever wanna copy (we could work out a yearly rate if you’re super keen!) just swing by my blog and drop me a line. Or for a free weekly dosage of Frankie lovin, just head to their website and sign up for their newsletter. Easy! Thanks for letting me share this obsession of mine, and no, they didn’t pay me to write this post… it is my dream to be paid to write for them though, so feel free to bombard them with emails about how good an advocate I am :p Hope you had an amazing Thursday!

3 com

Old Town & New Town

Hello, I'm guest posting for Lauren today all the way from Edinburgh, Scotland where I'm studying abroad for the entire year! Since I have the whole year here, I haven't put too much pressure on myself to hike up every hill and hustle through all the history museums. However I have two friends from home visiting this week so stomping all over the city is a priority.

Our first touristy stop was the swift steep ten minute hike up Calton Hill. When you reach the top, not only do you get a good view of the city, but some lovely if somewhat misplaced Grecian columns. I went up there on my first day here, when I was jetlagged out of my mind, so I failed to look over the other half the hill to New Town. Edinburgh is divided into two parts, Old and New Town. New Town (developed in the 18th Century, a misnomer today) was built to assuage the growing population. Although I would claim New Town's architecture isn't as stunning as Old Town, it was where the rich preferred to reside. When my friend and I came down the hill we finally learned the charms of its residential streets.


While I found it fun for taking some repeating line photos, I appreciate the coziness of Old Town, pictured below. So here's some juxtaposition (oo, snobby art word!) of construction vs. "nature." I can't exactly call it nature because this park was also man made, oh well. These photos are from the Meadows, an adorable quintessentially British park. I walk through it every day. Considering I used to pass a hospital and a construction site while walking to class back at college in DC, a park with puppies and children playing is much better.







If you would like to hear and see more of Edinburgh, stop by my blog Quintessentially Quirky.

Thanks,

TESS
6 com

Ohio Weekend & Bon Voyage

Well this will be an epic post. Here are some image from this past weekend and Monday's outfit.















These pictures are from Glen Helen Nature Preserve. Its located in Yellow Springs and is incredibly beautiful. I first went to Glen Helen in 5th grade with my class, it was so much fun. I've been going back ever since but mainly only to the Yellow Spring. It's actually orange colored because of the high iron content, but the water is so refreshing tasting! This time Kevin and I decided to hike the entire glen mainly the pine tree forest. This was my favorite place in 5th grade and I haven't been back. I was surprised. It looked nothing like it did. There was so much under brush and so many trees had fallen from the hurricane winds Dayton got two years ago. It was so upsetting, I cried. I have carried this memory in my head for so long, and it was crushing. I of course had dreams for this place. Other than that the place was beautiful, a little run down (since Antioch College, who ran the place, went belly up. But they are reopening!) but we managed to walk the entire place which took around 4 hours.... When I went home to my mom's house I found my old 5th grade pictures from Glen Helen.:)











On Sunday Kevin and I lounged around until 4ish when we went down to Carillon Park to ride the bike path along the Miami River (little do people know the Miami are from Ohio and midwest states, why Florida named a city that, I don't know). We rode down to Miamisburg around 11 miles, ate some food, then rode back. On the way down we rode it in a little under an hour, the way back we rode it in 40min. I feel pretty good about that, there were even hills! So yeah we didn't get home to Michigan until 12:30a... Man we were tired.

And now for Monday's outfit, I'm showing it in this post because starting tomorrow I'm taking a blogger vacation. Kevin and I are off on our own adventure, and I STILL don't have a computer... So I guess perfect timing.




} Outfit
  Hat } My mom's
  Sweater } Gift from Mom
  Blouse } Original Penguin
  Skirt } Zara
  Tights } Kohls
  Socks } UO
  Boots } Frye

Huggles,
Lauren
3 com

Erg

Well these pictures are from Friday, for some reason I wasn't able to load them on Kevin's computer so here they are late.



Friday started out to be an ok day and then it just got worse and worse. I was informed my external harddrive isn't able to be fixed the usual way with computers and programs and whatnot. Nope, how WesternDigital redesigned their hds, the drive would have to completely take apart and rebuilt to maybe retrieve data... maybe, no guarentess. And this would cost anywhere from $699 to $2000. So you can imagine I'm cutting my losses and demanding my money back and not wasting a single penny on this brand new hard drive that died in one month. Luckily I still have artwork data on my old harddrive, so I most likely only lost newer stuff, like pictures from this year, movie/music, etc. I think I have all my artwork files, which is really what matters. I'm looking at starting to store a lot of my important files on my web server since I have alot of room and it can't corrupt and die.



So if this wasn't bad enough, towards the end of the day an artist came in fuming angry at the gallery. He was cussing and screaming that we owed him money and we knew nothing of the business. He was upset about how little money he got from renting a piece to a movie, but we told him from the begining all the figures. See, the movie industry has been big here so we've been able to provide artwork for set dressings because it's easier to get artist releases through us because we feature local talent. Well we contacted this artist and told look rental is only 5% of the pieces retail value and we then split it. So you can image you don't get much but you get your piece in a movie. I don't think that people realize that movies have really tight budgets, especially for art and accessories for sets. So people assume oh movies, I'm going to make tons of money... Nope. And we've always been upfront with our artists. But most movies filmed here have $500-1000 for artwork and accessories for the entire movie... yeah. Not a money maker but great for your resume, and just that can increase your artworks value.

But nope, he wanted nothing to do with us. I offered to show him paperwork from the film studios, what we were paid, but nope he just wanted to cuss me out and storm out with the rest of his work, leaving me standing dumbfounded. But oh well, it happens. Thank god that April, one of our glass artists, was there to write him off for me, I know if I was along in the gallery I would've been more upset. It sucks getting yelled at even when you know the person is wrong. I know that we didn't do anything wrong, and as a gallery we have always put our artists first. I mean we've been in business since '89 which is really good in this area. I think my boss know what he's doing.



So that was friday, it ended well with me going down to ohio for an Amazing weekend. More on that tomorrow. Here's the last of me styling Chloe's crop top, and here is how it's been styled so far.


} Outift
  Sweater } H&M
  Button Down } Heritage 1981
  Crop Top } Chloe via Here to There
  Jeggings } Target
  Boots } Frye
  Vintage Skis } Kevin's

Huggles,
Lauren
8 com

Give Me a Head of Hair

Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen
Give me down to there, hair, shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there, momma, everywhere, daddy, daddy

Hair, flow it, show it
Long as God can grow, my hair

Let it fly in the breeze and get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas, in my hair
A home for fleas, a hive for the buzzing bees
A nest for birds, there ain't no words
For the beauty, splendor, the wonder of my hair

Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow, my hair

I want long, straight, curly, fuzzy, snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy, shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka dotted, twisted, beaded, braided
Powered, flowered and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled and spahettied

Oh say, can you see my eyes if you can
Then my hair's too short
Down with here, down to there
Down till there, down to where it's stuck by itself

They'll be ga-ga at the go-go, when they see me in my toga
My toga made of blond, brilliantined, biblical hair
My hair like Jesus wore it, Hallelujah I adore it
Hallelujah Mary loved her son, why don't my mother love me?

Hair, flow it, show it
Long as God can grow
My hair, flow it, show it
Long as God can grow
My hair, flow it, show it
Long as God can grow
My hair!!!!

Ah I love that song and I love my hair. You might remember me whining about how short my hair is so I thought I'd give you a run down Hair memory lane.

Highschool and Brazil
Um... I look very very young this was highschool in Brasil, but as you can see I always wore my hair back in a ponytail, little do you know that pony tail is super looong.

At a Formula 1 race showing my support! And there you see my everyday look, very very long ponytail.

This was from a modeling thing for school in Brazil, can you find me? Guilherme said I was unrecognizable... Everyone loved my hair in Brazil, I was an exotic blond, hahah.

Back in Ohio, Prom senior year... Oh I love that dress it was made for me when I was in Brazil, it has hand made lace and is super flowy. This was our silly face picture, and gosh I can't believe how big Guilherme's hair was.

College Years 2004-2008
Freshman year started with my ole timey hair, straight and no bangs. For christmas I flew down to Brazil to visit Guilherme and my friends and when I was down there I took the plunge and side swipe cut bangs... this was in the end of 2004, yep I've had bangs for that long now.

End of Freshman year, bangs and long hair, also I was extremely thin, I had really bad mono that year, got down to 110-115lbs... geez.

Right after my Freshman year of college I got dumped and lived at home, my last time living at home. I decided one night to chop of my hair, and I had to keep cutting it until it was straight. This was the result, the shortest hair I've ever had.

Sophmore year in college my hair was finally growing out and I started dating this really nice boy named Kevin... I wonder what he's up to now.

Junior year I had fun with temporary dye (I actually had pink hair most of sophmore year in highschool) and cut my bangs straight across, I know major changes. Haha

At a family function with my sisters, we all have straight thick hair, but other than that we look nothing alike, haha. So yeah my hair in it's natural form, dirty blond.

2008 - My hair at graduation. Bleached blond, straight bangs, and of course long! That was the first time I had ever permenantly dyed my hair. Eeek.

Beyond College 2008-Now
After college I continued my bleached blond hair. Gah my hair is sooo long!

In Alaska, summer 2009, I got my first haircut by a professional and got it dyed to fade into into my natural color, I was tired of bleached hair.

And then the big mistake. In december I applied for this major job and went through countless interviews to not get the job. I was really upset and decided to chop my hair. I'm still pissed off at myself. And I got a job as a Gallery Director so in the end it worked out, there was no need to cut my hair in anger. (Oh and in that picture, from February, you can see that if I braided my hair it stuck straight out.)

To try to counter act my anger of cut hair I dyed my hair red, in March, to see what I'd look like, my family is usally blonds or redheads.

And now here is my hair, slowly growing out. I'm tired of bangs... All I want is pretty, nice hair that compliments me. So what do you think, should I keep these 6 year old bangs or let it hang out? What else is good hair care advice, I seriously do nothing with my hair. I wash it everyday, and hardly use conditioner, and sometimes brush it. It's only been colored a few times, thick, doesn't hold a curl, and pretty flat... My hair grows pretty fast (or used to, for some reason it slowed down this year) and is pretty healthy, never use hair dryers, straightners, etc; never really had split ends.

So my lovelies, Help me on my next hair-venture! Well not really cause you can see I'm pretty boring when it comes to hair. Oh and this is probably bad, but I love having wet hair in the winter and it freezes, it's so fun to have it make crunching noises when you play with it... haha.

Huggles,
Lauren