NaCl + Pepper

(too cute kitsch from fuzzy memories at etsy)

i have this small problem with wanting to collect vintage salt and pepper shakers, they are cute and small and usually cheap enough for me to afford, however i don't really have a place to put them, still i can't help but want to start my collection right away when i see cute little ones like these

(playful blocks from scandapanda at etsy)

(scientific shakers for the nerd in you)

apparently my grandmother used to collect them and would give each person their own set when she had get-togethers, personally i think i just want to collect them so i can choose which ones i'm in the mood for, but still having enough for everyone to have their own at a dinner party seems like a fantastic idea...

(cute hugging kittens from jenscloset at etsy)

diy: leg warmers and recent finds

after getting out of classes Wednesday i decided that i would make some leg warmers, i have been wanting some for awhile but they are too expensive in stores or on ebay, so, i have been thinking about making my own using an old sweater, the thing is though, i had trouble choosing a sweater in thrift stores to chop up

that day, however, i remembered this old sweater my great grandfather gave me, i loved the quirky feel of it but couldn't find a way for me to comfortably wear it, but if i cut off the sleeves and turned them into leg warmers i thought it would just be perfect for me without out being too over the top

the first thing i did is took the sweater and cut off both sleeves using fabric scissors

next, i turned the sleeves inside out, frayed checked the chopped off edges and then, using my sewing machine, i hemmed the edges of both sleeves (i suggest you sew them under so the unfinished edges do not show)

after that i tried them on and determined how much extra fabric there was around my leg, then using my sewing machine i sewed a line down where i thought i needed to cut off the fabric

after sewing the line i then chopped off the excess fabric and fray checked the edges (do this for both sleeves)

i turned my sleeves inside out again and then put them on so i could show off my new, original leg warmers!

also, here are a few things i found recently, i got both tops at a local vintage and used clothing store, the purse and pant hangers at an antique store, and the briefcase style bag at a local thrift store

i am so in love with the tops, i'm a sucker for plaid and the white one is so bohemian and just perfect for summer, the purse is gorgeous too and i'm going to use the pant hangers to display art, i think i may sell the briefcase on ebay over the summer if i don't end up using it, but it was too cute (and cheap) to pass up


best wishes <3

you and me babe, how about it?

(image found at the fashion spot)

whenever i listen to music it's always in moods and for a indeterminable period of time i can only listen to a certain band or bands and everything else just bores me, it's not that i don't like other music i just can't really listen to other music for a long time other than my current default

i noticed that lately i've been getting into the latest albums of some bands that when the album first came out i maybe listened to it for a few times then dropped it, but lately i've been obsessed with Okkervil River's and Of Montreal's latest album and The Killers latest one can be more recently be added to that list as well

i really don't know why i just can't stop listening to them, they are all just so good, so you should defiantly check them out! ^_^



some of my favorite songs off of each...
Okkervil River, The Stand Ins: On Tour With Zykos, Calling and Not Calling My Ex, Blue Tulip, Pop Lie, Bruce Wayne Campbell Interview
Of Montreal, Skeletal Lamping: Id Engager, Touched Something's Hollow, Gallery Piece, Death is not a Parallel Move
The Killers, Day & Age: Losing Touch, Goodnight Travel Well, Human, The World We Live In (you should also check out their cover of Dire Strait's Romeo and Juliet, it's really good)




<3

the freest man

(conor oberst of bright eyes, desaparecidos, commander venus, park ave., etc.)

happy birthday conor! it's so hard to believe that he's already 29, i hope he makes it to 30 though, because even if i don't listen to his music as much as i used to i am still looking forward to hear what he comes out with next, plus i haven't got to see him play live yet and i really want to!

well i still have a lot of work to get done for tomorrow and i need to stop slacking off today, although, i actually worked a lot yesterday so i am not as far behind as i expected i would be but i still doubt i'll be getting much sleep tonight...


<3

pop lie

"This is respectfully dedicated

To the woman who concentrated
All of her love to find
That she'd wasted it on
The liar who lied in this song"

i was planning on writing a really good post today but now i'm not in the mood, yes i feel better and no it's not because it's valentine's day, i just don't really feel up to it and i truthfully have many things to get done although i'll probably end up just going and buying some tea and visiting this antique store i discovered but haven't been to yet, well anyways hope your day is wonderful and here are some more lovely random images i have saved

(from ffffound!)

(i think this is from design*sponge)

(perhaps from d*s as well)

(d*s)

our life is not a movie or maybe

i'm not feeling really good today so my sister told me earlier to do something for myself, like take a nap, but i am having trouble falling asleep so instead i'm listening to CSI: NY on the television and Okkervil River on my computer (yes, at the same time), anyways, i thought it might be a good time to write about my favorite actor/model/sketch artist/director... i don't think that there is anyone else with all those attributes so i am comfortable saying he is my favorite ^_^


matthew gray gubler, matthew as Dr. Spencer Reid in Criminal Minds

i discovered Matthew Gray Gubler when my mother told me that i might like the television show Criminal Minds and i ended up getting addicted but maybe a small reason of that was that i kind of got really attached to MGG's character dr. spencer reid, then i ended up looking up a bunch of information about MGG himself and discovered all these interesting things about him and well, then i couldn't help but like him even more

matthew being a sexy model

first of all MGG is really gorgeous (if you could see me watching criminal minds alone you might find me gushing every time he is shown on screen), which makes sense that he actually modeled for a short period of time even though he doesn't really understand why (but i do!) he actually went to NYU to study directing and ended up getting to work with Wes Anderson (so jealous! Wes is one of my favorite directors), Wes Anderson even gave him a small role in his film The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, also, MGG claims that him getting the role on criminal minds was a complete accident (but what a wonderful accident it was!)


one of matthew's watercolor sketches

some more interesting things about MGG is that during filming of criminal minds he made these self-deprecating mockumentaries that i find hilarious and i think he has such an endearing sense of humor, he also makes these watercolor sketches that you can find on his website that are fantastic, he was never trained in art and i just love his artwork because the fact that he wasn't trained makes his work appear reminiscent of outsider art and, well, i just love it


the first of matthew's "documentaries"

so maybe this blog might have been just an excuse for me to google pics of matthew gray gubler but i still think if you like what you read in this blog about him that you should definitely check him out, you may end up liking him too

<3





p.s. another cute thing about MGG is that he doesn't ever wear socks that match, apparently his grandmother told him it was bad luck and the one time he actually remembers wearing matching socks recently he ended up spraining his ankle, isn't that just adorable? ^_^

ebay woes

i always get really sad when things i am completely in love with on ebay end up going above prices i am willing to pay (even though it is love for me) this beautiful dress in the liebemarlene vintage store ends tonight in about 4 and a half hours, the auction is currently at $41 but with all the art supplies i will (and do) need to buy this semester i really shouldn't be buying any piece of clothing that expensive though i will be sad it won't be making its way into my closet

hard times

(taken from this post)
princess coat: goodwill ($8!!!)
riding boots: goodwill
tights and socks: value village
arm warmers: gift (target)
avant-garde scarf: gift
tapestry purse: gift (ebay)
high wasted pencil skirt: from my grandmother's shed, shortened by me



the lovely boys at app-ropos just posted this picture of me standing in the snow last tuesday, gabriel and i went to high school together and him and his friend zach recently started their blog, i suggest you check it out if you want a wonderful glimpse of the stylish people who reside in the town where i go to college

ninjas prove it

in the mists of procrastination, here is one awesome song by Of Montreal

magic dance

i should be studying for my biology test or completing my graphic design 1 project, but instead i am posting a few random but lovely pieces i have saved and listening to david bowie

Henry Darger=amazing

so pretty and simple, i love the use of book pages (i'm sorry, i don't remember where this is from)

beautiful silent film star photo, from somewhere on flickr

simple and elegant illustration by Alyson Fox

the humor in this is fantastic, i got the image from design*sponge i believe



much love <3

time reveals everything

okay, so this is going to seem incredibly nerdy but pretty much anyone who knows me knows that i am a big fan of the British television show Doctor Who (i have a bad habit of making references to it often) anyways, the guy who is going to play the new doctor after David Tennant was announced recently and, although i was unsure at first, after watching him interviewed i couldn't be more excited because he happens to have a adorable voice and this great energy that is kind of awkward and nervous so i think he is going to be wonderful to watch (and he's very young, like 28)


so here's the video of the interview i was mentioning if you care to check it out:

novelistic

most people would probably call it being idealistic or a romanticist but personally i believe i am pretty novelistic, and in the mood i am right now (i just got the bell jar from the library yesterday and it has me wanting to write and be philosophic) i have decided to write about one of, if not my favorite novel


about a year ago i finally read the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, who is a Czechoslovakian author, and in just the first few pages i was in total and complete love with how he wrote and it all seemed so beautiful and amazing to me

the novel is set in Prague in 1968 during the time of the Prague Spring and the subsequent invasion by the USSR, it focuses mainly around the characters of Tomas, Tereza, Sabina and Franz but also centers on Nietzsche's idea of eternal return

Kundera plays with this idea, offering an alternate interpretation that each of us has only one life to live, and what happens once will never occur again. He calls this idea "lightness", and refers to the concept of eternal return as "heaviness" or "weight". In describing the effect his idea of "lightness" has on a person's life, Kundera says Einmal ist keinmal ("what happens but once, might as well not have happened at all").

By this logic life is, ultimately, insignificant; in an ultimate sense, no single decision matters. Since decisions do not matter, they are light - that is, they don't cause us suffering. Yet simultaneously, the insignificance of our decisions — our lives, our being — causes us great suffering. Hence the phenomenon Kundera terms the unbearable lightness of being: because life occurs only once and never returns, no one's actions have any universal significance. This idea is deemed unbearable because as humans, we want our lives to mean something, for their importance to extend beyond just our immediate surroundings.

Kundera's musings on this subject continues throughout the novel and using his main characters he illustrates a few of the effects of this lightness and weight

the character of Tomas is someone i immediately fell in in love with, i guess like Tereza he is someone i had been searching for before i ever knew he existed, most women would condemn this love but i just find this character as someone that i could not help but care about and truthfully he is a wonderful, intriguing and interesting character

in the novel Tomas is an internationally known surgeon and is stripped of his career because he refuses to renounce an anti-Czech Communist article he wrote. Ideally, Tomas would like to avoid political parties and society altogether in favor of being a free agent and independent thinker who acts as he chooses. Tomas attempts to practice a philosophy of lightness. He considers sex and love two separate and unrelated entities; he sleeps with many women, and loves one woman (Tereza), and sees no problem with the simultaneous existence of these two activities.

Although Tomas is an intellectual and a thinker, he is no romantic idealist and his lover Sabina calls him the complete opposite of the shiny, perfect ideals of politics and love. Tomas cannot take seriously the laws on which politics and romantic fidelity are based. His pragmatism, experience, and individualism make him unwilling to identify himself as a political liberal or as a faithful husband.

Tomas's character does not fundamentally change over the course of the novel. Instead, Tomas gains a modicum of heaviness. He also grows a little more cynical, as he becomes uncertain of his once firm views on life and being. His love for Tereza and eventual exile to the countryside curb his erotic adventures, but he never necessarily loses the desire for sex with many anonymous partners, or the conviction that such a desire is no crime.

with the character of Tereza i also have a distinct attachment to, i find her similar to me in so many ways but i am also disgusted by a few actions or characteristics she has. nevertheless, tereza has made an incredible impact on me in the ways of self understanding

in the novel Tereza represents purity and innocence that lead Tomas to see her as "child put in a basket and sent downstream" for him to find. Tereza is waiting for someone like Tomas to appear even before she meets him; even after she meets him, his constant betrayals mean she must frequently wait for him to return. The two love each other deeply, but make each other miserable. Tereza is not vulgar or kitsch in any easily recognizable sense; however, where Tomas and Sabina are light, she is heavy. Tereza does not damn Tomas for his infidelities, and instead characterizes herself as weaker than him. Precisely because of her intelligence and compassion, Tereza presents a kind of heaviness Tomas cannot easily dismiss.

Tereza changes considerably during the course of the novel, as she is increasingly forced to recognize the impossibility of her youthful dreams. Nothing remains as black and white as she feels it should be; Tereza even comes to admire her archrival Sabina and feels Sabina's powerful sensuality, although she knows Sabina is Tomas's beloved mistress. Just as Tomas must question his lightness, Tereza must question her heaviness.

the characters of Sabina and Franz also have a great importance in the novel and i shockingly see a bit of myself in both of them, however, i do not have as great of an attachment to them as i do to Tereza and Tomas, not that haven't made any impact on me i just adore Tereza and Tomas more

anyways, this novel had such a wonderful effect on me and i adore it so much more than i think i can describe here, i would just love to own a first edition of the novel, not as a collectors item but because of the personal meaning it has to me

if you would like to learn more about the novel feel free to visit its wikipedia and sparknotes page where i also took some of my information because, well, to be frank i'm lazy and didn't feel like typing as much as i have ended up doing



so with all my love, to everyone, best wishes for your future

do it to julia

i haven't decided whether i am going to go or not but tonight in Boone, NC the local band Do it to Julia is playing, they are kind of a folk rock band and you can check out their myspace here to listen to their music and get the show details

i'm kind of in love with the songs walking in shoes and welcome home, so if i do end up going it will be such a wonderful start to my weekend ^_^

a little bit about me

welcome to underwater starshine! my name is actually Katherine but most people just call me Kat and i go to college for graphic design in a small mountain town in north carolina

i adore music, art, film and perusing through thrift and antique stores to find either vintage clothing or other little treasures that have been forgotten (i end up swooning each time i enter a beautiful antique store i have never been to)

i decided to to start this blog to post many of my favorite graphic and interior design inspirations, DIY tutorials, street fashion images, favorite books or films (i love to read) and to just overall give me a place to write about a lot of different things i discovered that i think are interesting (i may end up gushing about some of my favorite finds too, so beware ^_^)


i also love knowing about people and their inputs and interests so feel free to comment, i'd love to know what you think or what inspires or interests you as well!