giveaway winner and an outfit

The winner of the sweater and purse giveaway is Magali of Style Criminal and Life etc.! Congrats!

Today, I wanted to wear the awesome new black jeans I bought this week. I somehow ended up not wearing a single vintage or thrifted item, which almost never happens.


jeans: Levi's -- shirt: ModCloth -- shoes: Target -- jacket: BP Nordstrom -- scarf: made by my mom


This jumping photo made me crack up :)







Two of my dear friends came over and we went for manicures and donuts.


Kendra!

I love this donut shop. It feels straight out of the 70s.


Lexi really wanted donuts.


I am all about the frosting+sprinkle donut.


This place seriously has The BEST donuts, and they're only 80 cents.

swinging down the street so fancy free

Just a reminder that today (Tuesday) is the last day to enter the cardigan and purse giveaway!

Alex took these shots of me in downtown Los Altos, a little suburban town that borders my own little (less-charming) suburban town. It was a beautiful sunny winter day. We had fun wandering around and stopping into a few shops as we went. Everything there is quite old-timey feeling. Very Main Street, USA.


skirt: thrift -- bodysuit: thrift -- shoes: thrift -- bag: thrift -- coat: vintage, present from my sister like six years ago -- earrings: Target, present from Alex

This skirt is actually my sister Molly's, technically. We were once at Goodwill together like five years ago, and I walked in, saw this on the rack, and then got distracted by something else before I picked it up. In the intervening minute, Molly also saw it and picked it up. So I just stole it out of her closet last year...which she will now realize when she reads this! Sorry! You can have it back if you want :)







I don't often wear this skirt because I find that it's quite hard to style. Is it black? is it white? floral? graphic? I know not! I gave up on trying to do something that followed my usual matching instincts and just threw in some plaid checks and hoped that would work out okay. I like it! I think it's kinda funky but also classic.






Can't get enough of these shoes!

And now a photo from today showcasing the super rad shirt I bought Alex for Christmas!


I wish it were some cool vintage thing, but it's actually just from Out of Print, a company that makes shirts with cool early-edition book covers on them. The shirt is of great quality and is perfectly weathered. I'd recommend it to anyone! They also donate one book for each shirt sold to Books for Africa so you can feel good about your consumerism ;)

As it happens, that's the same cover my edition of Slaughterhouse-Five has!


Made all cool and vintage-looking to compensate for the horrible flash photo on my point and shoot.

Tomorrow, the de Young museum with my grandmother! We're going to see the Impressionists exhibit featuring paintings from the d'Orsay, which should be great.

Today's title comes from The Seekers -- Georgy Girl. Fun fact! The lyrics to that song were written by Jim Dale, the guy who does the seriously amazing audiobooks for Harry Potter. Random, eh?

Photo Sunday: Todd Hido

source

Todd Hido is one of the photographers whose work I always come back to. In his series of houses and apartments at night, Todd Hido manages to capture that uneasy calm that settles over suburbia after the sun goes down. Even his shots taken in the daytime seem to somehow convey that same unease.


source

Photography literally means "light writing," and Todd Hido exemplifies the possibilities of that meaning. He doesn't use lights or flashes. He works with the light already in a space. The light itself is essentially the subject of the photograph in many of his images.


source


source


source

Movies and literature have embedded within us the notion that a lone light in a dark landscape promises something. Alien landings, clandestine affairs, and other nocturnal goings-on. That tension and suspense colors all of Hido's work even as it fails to offer up any sort of strange happening. That is why I love it. It isn't about dramatic incidents. To me, it's about the strangeness of the mundane.


source


source

We hardly ever notice light until there is an absence of it.


source


P.S. Don't forget to enter the giveaway if you haven't yet! Extra entries if you tweet or re-blog :)

the angels wanna wear my red shoes

Alex and I woke up to sunshine coming through my window, so we decided to eat our breakfast outside. We had oatmeal, toast, and tea :) Delight in my still-wet hair and makeup-less face!


sweater: thrift (Alex came across this one in the store <3) -- skirt: thrift -- boots: thrift -- tights: Marshall's


Hippo orgy Taylor & Ng mug my mom gave me! I use this thing like five times a day. I'm obsessed with tea.


This is Alex's "Sophi, I've been up for half an hour, get that camera out of my face" expression.


Alex and I finally managed to take a halfway decent photo of us. We have a tendency to be the ones taking photos at parties, so even when we aren't by ourselves, there never ends up being any photos of us. Bah!

I went to go see Harry Potter (again, even better this time!) with my family and our family friends. Afterwards we had the best Indian meal I've had in my life. And you're talking to a girl who has had a lot of Indian food.

Here is a photo of me and my sisters! This is quite an event, you see. One of my sisters lives in Mexico, the other lives in Massachusetts, and I live here in the Bay Area. There were two cameras out, which means that we're looking in different, weird directions in all the photos. Oops. I liked how this one turned out, even though we're not looking at the right camera :P


Rachel (oldest), Molly (middle), and me (youngest). This looks like a Starbucks ad.

I hope you're all having a lovely, festive time! I think I won't post again until Boxing Day, so all my warmest holiday wishes your way :)

Today's title comes from Elvis Costello -- The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes.

And a little shoutout to remind you to enter my sweater and purse giveaway!

i'm on another planet with you

First things first, thank you so much to all of my new followers! I hope that you find my blog interesting and entertaining :)


sweater: Gap clearance -- skirt: thrift -- tights: Urban Outfitters -- shoes: thrift -- headscarf: thrift

I actually wore this outfit a few days ago, but I had on the wrong bra and it was all bad. So, prisoner to my blog that I am, I put the whole thing on again and took photos tonight instead. It's been a really wet and cloudy week, and, to be honest, I've spent a lot of it sitting around the house in jeans and a sweater and have no better/other outfits to show you instead!

I figured since I had to take indoor outfit photos that I might as well show you all my closet! It's pretty organized right now, but you can't tell because it's so overstuffed. I took home all of my clothes that I had at college so that I could kind of take stock, regroup, and figure out what I actually own.


Face of defeat. I was looking forward to watching It's a Wonderful Life tonight, but then I realized that the actual DVD is in my DVD wallet at school. Nooooooooo :(


Since you can't actually see the shoes in any of the other photos...

And, randomly, I was scanning some negatives the other night. This was one of them. It's from a trip that I took in September. I just took it with my SLR on the self-timer.

Anyway, I like how it turned out a lot. I feel like it could potentially make a good banner image. What do you guys think? I've been playing around with my layout and header recently. I don't know what I want though! I like minimalism a lot, you see. What do you guys think?

Tomorrow, thrifting with Alex and dinner with his family friends! I'm so excited.

Today's title is from The Only Ones -- Another Girl, Another Planet, which is one of the greatest pop songs ever.

Photo Sunday: Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman's work amazes me. Looking at it today, it might be easy to dismiss it as hackneyed, angsty, self-indulgent Project365 work, but that reading forgets one really important fact: Francesca Woodman practically invented the moody, surreal female self-portrait. All of her work was created between 1972 and 1980. Forbearers like Claude Cahun and contemporaries like Cindy Sherman are certainly important figures in the birth of the female self-portrait, but it's Woodman who really brought in the personal, emotional edge.



Unfortunately, Woodman's angsty work was the product of a very troubled life. After a hugely successful undergraduate career at RISD, Woodman committed suicide. She was only 22.



As a young female art student, it's easy to identify with Woodman. Almost all of her work was created while she was still an undergraduate. It makes me feel pretty inadequate to realize that, but it's also inspiring. Being a young woman is an experience that doesn't often get a fair treatment. Just think of how few coming-of-age novels there are about young women in the realm of what's accepted as literature. Francesca Woodman captures something about being a young woman in a way that is both accurate and abstract.


Woodman had an amazing eye for detail. The angle of the fish bones repeats perfectly in the wood of the wall.


source
To my eyes, her work has a lot in common with the photography of Ralph Eugene Meatyard. Both of them use the simple trick of a long exposure to create a ghostly, ethereal atmosphere.


source


source


source
Woodman took this photograph at the age of thirteen. Pretty unbelievable, isn't it? The lighting couldn't be more gorgeous.

I love how Francesca Woodman's photographs are mysterious but resonant. Her imagery is alien but still familiar.

postcards from pigeon point

Here are the promised photos from Alex and my trip to Pescadero and Pigeon Point! It was a really relaxing, easygoing little getaway :) I wore my kneesocks+shorts look again since I figure that it's only getting colder at this point, and I might as well take advantage of the weather while I can.


The Pigeon Point Lighthouse to the left and the hostel to the right! It was quite a gloomy-looking afternoon, as you can see... Definitely that moody, cloudy coastal thing.


When we first got to Pescadero, Alex and I practiced our intense faces...


...and poked around the little thrift shop


They had a lot of Christmas stuff. The store was quite small, but I found a folding table that's just the right size for me to use in front of my couch in my room at school (I don't have a desk there).


Everywhere we went had lots of quaint, coastal charm. Peeling paint, rust...


Alex looking out at the moody ocean in the late afternoon.


This was the view off of the cliff the hostel and Lighthouse are on. At night, Alex and I partook in the hostel's hot tub (pretty cool hostel, eh?), which is on the edge of the cliff and looks out onto this very view. Sooo pretty.


At the beach! It was really dark so it was hard to take good photos :\


Alex was quite pleased with this photo that he took, so I thought I'd post it on here :) There was a pay phone because cell phones don't work out there. The parking lot is currently under construction, hence the caution tape and the orange mesh.


This was the view out of our room's window. Even though it's a hostel, we were able to book a private room, which was quite nice. Pescadero is definitely a small town. There were literally two places we could have dinner, and one of them had closed early. That was okay though because we ended up eating awesome food at the taqueria/convenience store/gas station.

Yesterday evening, we headed over to Ashley of Fancy Fine's holiday pop-up vintage store party! I got to meet all kinds of stylish bloggers and their friends and partners. It was such a wonderful time! I really enjoyed myself. I took some photos there on my film camera, but I haven't finished the roll yet. I'll be sure to post 'em up here when I have them processed. Ashely put some photos up on her blog today, if you want to take a look.

Don't forget to enter the sweater and purse giveaway!