For the Love of Contests

One of my goals for this year is to participate in a contest each month. Contests are a wonderful way to give yourself a deadline, and push your limits to learn something new. Now that I am out of school, and  somewhere in between free-lance designer and employee for my parents' business, I find that I need to push myself more than I did when I was in school.

For the month of January, I failed miserably. I had intended to design a fabric for one of Spoonflower.com's weekly contests. If you have never had the opportunity to check out Spoonflower, I highly recommend doing so. They are a fantastic website that gives you the opportunity to design your own fabric and actually get it printed! There is also a wide range of beautiful designs available to chose from that other artists have already uploaded. My favorite part is the contests though, and at some point this year, I will enter one!

Because of my failure at making it into any contests for the month of January, I decided that I would just have to enter two contests in February. To my surprise, there is a wide range of contests on DeviantArt.com. I found two different fashion illustration contest groups to join, and designed something for each one. 

This dress was for the "Greek Mythology" theme for the "Fashion Illustrators" group.
My dress design is based on Heracles fighting the Hydra. If you want more of a description, go check it out on my Deviant Art account.

This dress design was for the "Ugly by Design" contest in the group "Catwalk Challenge" on DeviantArt.
There were several ugly patterns given for this contest, and the challenge was to use at least two in one design.  This was what came of my design, which I had to do all of the rendering on Photoshop to keep the patterns.

Back in January, I did some surfing on the web to see if I could find some design contests that required sewing and fashion shows and the like. I found a really cool one involving the "International Talent Support", which is located in Italy and has design labels that come to watch the show! I had to create a collection of 5 to 8 looks with a specific inspiration.

I have been quite obsessed with Ancient Egyptian Mythology lately, and after purchasing a book about it on my birthday, I found plenty of interesting topics to inspire a collection. I chose "the Book of Gates," which is a work that describes the passage of Ra (the sun god) through the Tuat (the Underworld). There are 12 divisions of the underworld, each with a gate and large serpent guarding it. Each of these serpents have a name, and in order for the deceased person to get to Amenti (sort of a heaven), they must have the names of the snakes to get through the gates. For Ra, he has to pass through all of the divisions to get through the other end. The 12 divisions represent the 12 hours of night, so when Ra emerges at the end, it is morning.

I designed a menswear collection inspired by the different divisions of the Tuat.

My collection for the ITS Fashion Show.

I mailed my package at the end of last week, and will hear in mid-April if I am a selected finalist. If I get in, that means I get to actually make all of these garments by July (when the actual show is), and the really awesome part is, ITS will fly me and my collection to Italy for the show! So send me all of your good energy so that I make it as a finalist!!

For next months contest, I am thinking I might try for a t-shirt design contest.

Anyone of my readers a crazy contest person like me?

Let Me Introduce You...

Have you been formally introduced to my assistants? This is Cleopatra, my skinny super-model dress form.

Cleopatra- a Christmas/Birthday Gift 3 years ago

This is Nina, my very efficient sewing machine. I have plans to get more acquainted with her shoe collection and her brother, Sergio.

Nina- My College Graduation Gift!

Nina's Accessories!

Sergio

I am taking the time to introduce you to these important assistants of mine, because they will be aiding me with substance for future posts!! So now that you have met everyone, you should get re-acquainted with my blog. I have added tabs at the top of the page that link to my deviant art account and my online portfolio. Coming soon will be a tab for my Etsy store and more consistent blog posts. Look around, and check back often!!

Bagheera- My Collar Model

My Dream Job

It's very difficult to get anywhere if you don't know where you want to go. When I decided to pursue a degree in apparel design, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and that was to design disc golf wear for women. As I went through the program and was introduced to more areas of fashion and design, I wasn't so sure of what I wanted to do anymore. Now, coming to the end of the program and closer to graduation I know what I want to do again. The funny thing is, it hasn't really changed much, it's just including different things than I originally planned.

So, my dream job now is to design outer wear in Asia. I would love to come back and start my disc golf clothing company, but I feel so much more complete knowing I can combine the love of functional design with amazingly different Asian designs. This epiphany came about by watching this video: Big Bang & The North Face

Please give it a watch! It's great! And here's some photos in case you are too lazy:

And my favorite from Big Bang:

New Year Blog ideas....

Since I've started writing on this blog so much, it has got me to thinking about why I write. For my small audience, I have heard that some enjoy hearing about what's going on in my life because they don't get to see me all the time, and hopefully for others they get some random bits of information that they might not have otherwise heard about.

On my side of things, writing is very therapeutic. I am fairly consistent at keeping a journal, it's nice to rant to the empty pages than to a friend or family member, while remaining sane. For this blog, I have found it to be therapeutic in a different way. When I am consistently writing, I think a lot about things I might want to post a blog about. Sometimes that can be annoying, but right now I'm trying to re-wire my mind to stop thinking about some stupid guy and think about things that matter to me. I am happy to report that this blog helps with that!

So now onto my real reason for this post! One of the blog's I read now, Chic Steals, recently did a 30 day outfit challenge. At first I thought she was just posting her outfits, which is cool, but not something I would ever want to do. After reading her post summarizing the 30 Day Challenge, I learned that each day she was incorporating something DIY and pulling out stuff from the back of her closet. I was really impressed with this idea!

Now it has me thinking. I have lots of clothing and accessories that I do not wear very often, perhaps a challenge would be fun! I have a couple ideas for a challenge for the month of January, please read through the ideas and vote on which one you think I should do :)

Accessories Challenge: I have lots of hats, scarves and jewelry that I seldom wear. My idea for this one is to pick one of the above mentioned items (hat, scarf or jewelry) and be sure to incorporate a different one every day for the month of January. For hats, I have so many! And a lot of different styles, so it would not become a post featuring all my different baseball caps :)
For scarves, I also have many. I think this idea would challenge me in discovering new ways to wear scarves because I wouldn't want to go to school wearing it the same way every single day.
And then there is jewelry. This would probably be the least challenging of the accessories, but my plan would be to pick out whatever jewelry I have to wear that day and design my outfit around it. Could be interesting.

Clubwear to Everyday wear Challenge: This challenge is simply taking any of my clubwear clothing and finding a way to wear it as everyday clothing. I have this problem where I like to buy fun and flashy clothes to go out in, but then my everyday wardrobe is lacking. I think this one would be fun, and I promise I won't come to school looking like a hooker, Madonna, star trek whore, or anything else I have been accused of while out!

Alright readers! Let me know what you think I should do! Please vote on the poll to the right!!

I have decided!

Hello!

So my writing everyday of break didn't go as plan, but I'm sure you readers of mine don't mind, right? I just wanted to let everyone know that I decided to add a blog about my bartending experiences:) It will include drink recipes, alcohol research, and probably many other things. Don't worry though, I still plan on keeping this blog going too!

Check it out:

Blog Ideas

I decided to give myself a day to think of the possibilities I could write about in a blog. If I do go with one of these, it will probably become it's own blog....here are some ideas:

1. Going right along with the movie Julie & Julia I could go through The Complete Home Bartender's Guide. The only problem is setting a time frame, there is no way I'm making drinks every night! Not to mention how expensive that could get.... but it would go along with me wanting to be a bartender.

2. I could write music reviews. This is probably coming mostly from my need to write a review on the new Lady Gaga cd, which will come soon. I have a huge variety of music I listen to, and I wouldn't mind an excuse to keep expanding my collection...

3. Being a fashion design major, I could write about fashion. I would probably use this blog as a tool, so I could better understand what designers are out there and what the fashion world is doing or has done. There'd probably be some room for some fashion tips too, not to mention any projects I happen to be working on.


And there you have it, my top 3 ideas for a blog project. I'm still unsure I want to tackle one of these, because I could use that time for a lot of other valuable things that I want to do. Like learning french, drawing, practicing karate for my next belt test, and the list goes on. For now, I am going to commit to write more often, everyday during break, and at least once a week after the term starts. Still, these ideas intrigue me. What do you think?

Purpose

So I just finished watching the movie Julie & Julia. If you don't know anything about this movie, it is about the beginnings of Julia Childs, the famous TV cook, and of a woman named Julie Powell who writes a blog committing herself to get through Julia's book of 524 recipes in one year. I really enjoyed the movie and definitely recommend it. It's very inspiring.

It's things like this that get me thinking about what I'm doing. I find it interesting how people can take something simple like a blog and turn it into something that really affect people. Not only does it affect other people but it gives the person doing it a real sense of purpose. I brought up Michelle Phan in an earlier post, and I think she is another one of these inspiring people. She has taken Youtube videos on make up tutorials and I believe, has companies sponsoring her to do what she does.

I don't think that every persons blog or youtube channel should live up to these standards, but it is an interesting concept to consider. Wouldn't it be neat to have a purpose with all of these rants? I would like to commend a friend Miss Jennifer M. She has her own project of teaching herself photography and shares her lovely photos with the readers of her blog.

I am not sure if I want to create a specific purpose for my blog, but it has got me to thinking... if I did, what would be the purpose? I think for now, I might just set a goal of posting every week... or something like that. Maybe I will get some great inspiration. Do any of you have some ideas? I think I remember another one of my friends having this question.... :)