Three States of Mind

This is a three piece series I created for a final in my drawing class last year. I wanted to illustrate three distinct emotions and states of mind. 

Overwhelmed

I have already dealt with a decent amount of anxiety and depression throughout my life. It's merely a chemical imbalance, I try to be aware of that and be kind to myself when it gets bad. In very rare occasions though, it does get the best of me. In those times I get overwhelmed, over taken, and somewhat helpless. That is this image. The feeling of being overtaken, washed over, almost drowning in the troubles of life. She looks out, in a plea for help, all the while knowing it is too late.

At Peace

When I think of a place of peace, I think of home. Somewhere where you feel safest to be yourself . Where you can relax and be revitalized. The trees loom in longingly. The home sits welcoming and warm. Here I reference the "yellow brick road", for there is no place like home. When I feel overwhelmed, this is where I long to be.

Enthralled in Joy

One of my absolute favorite places to be is in a field of flowers during a warm summer evening. In my mind, this is the eternal place of summer. I associate summer with joy because I have so many wonderful memories attached to the summertime. Growing up I lived across the street from a park, and during the summertime all of the children would come out to play. I remember countless evenings catching butterflies, searching for four leaf clovers, and weaving daisy and dandelion crowns with my friends. We stayed there til the sun set.

Summertime was also when I fell in love with John. We had so much fun together spending days bike riding throughout the city, adventuring about the town, enjoying each other's company. Summertime has always been my little piece of heaven.

To My Valentine

Today I thought it would be fun to devote an outfit to valentines day! So I grabbed my cup-cake dress and heart tights and went to town. 

Aren't these shoes just fantastic?! This fall I was looking for Mary-Jane T-straps, and I couldn't believe it when I came across these. To top it off they were only 8 dollars!

I wore my pink bow to balance the colors a bit, without it the tights took too much focus away from the ensemble as a whole. Gotta love bows!

Also I would like to take a moment to thank my husband John, he's the sweetie who puts up with taking photos of me for this blog. Thank you handsome!

Detail shot! With how detailed the dress is I chose to wear just a simple heart pendant as not to overwhelm my neckline. The lattice like laced pattern that hems the top and bottom of the dress is just precious. Not to mention what a lovely color palette and pattern! This dress won over my heart at first glance!

Dress: ModCloth

Tights: Charlotte Russe

Shoes: Goodwill

Bow: Handmade

The Invites

There was a lot to think about when planning our wedding, and with our modest budget we knew we had a bit of do it yourself projects ahead of us. With that, one of the details we decided to do ourselves was the invites. 

First, I came up with the cover design. I wanted to capture the look and feel of our wedding, somewhat homemade and intimate. I intertwined the woodland theme by including silhouettes of the owl and deer, as well as hinted to the outdoor setting by the morphing of the deer's antlers into foliage and flowers surrounding us.  

This is kind of a nerdy moment, so prepare yourself. The "always" at the top of the invitation is a reference to one of mine and John's favorite series, Harry Potter. In the story a character confides to a dear friend about his love for someone he had lost many years ago. He merely states "always", revealing his continual devotion and care for her, that even through death his love for her is ever alive. So we included that small statement, in devotion to one another and our nerdy lifestyles hehe. 

Together, John and I formatted the details of the wedding in the invitation. We used some reference material, viewed a few different templates and styles of invites, and went from there. We had a lot of fun designing it together, and I feel it was quite a success!

Til Kingdom Come

As some of you know, I was married this last summer. It has been a little over 6 months now, and after looking over some of the photos today, I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorites with you! I figure it's an appropriate topic with Valentines day coming up. 

I'll start off with the decorations. We were being married on a farm near the woods, so we chose to go with a woodland theme. Our colors were mint green and coral (if you can't tell I kind of have a thing for those colors hehe). On the tables we set begonias as the center pieces, dappling about little white woodland ceramic animals, and succulents. One of my favorite details was that we planted each succulent in colored depression glasses. I have always been attracted to colored glass, something about it is so beautiful, especially how light reflects off it and through it. They are not pictured here, but I also hand cut out framed animal silhouette and hung those in the trees that framed our ceremony.

Here is our awesome cake topper, I was so excited when I found this little beauty!

Before I go any further, I would like to thank my photographer and friend Jenny Fisk! She captured one of the most important days of my life in the best of ways! Her works are the photos with the watermarks on them. 

Time to talk about the dress! This was such an amazing find. I am very particular when it comes to style and clothing, and while I had a very small budget for my wedding I really didn't want to compromise on what I was looking for in a dress. After months of searching with no luck (at least nothing at all close to my price range) I was beginning to get quite discouraged. Anything that I could afford seemed to be a cookie cutter dress that was cheaply put together. It was a magical moment when I stumbled upon this beauty. That day I had accidentally missed my bus, and just happened to be near my favorite vintage shop, so I figured I'd drop by to fill my time waiting for the next bus. The lovely lace overlay, soft and elegant waist, and vintage feel was the exact look I wanted. And to top it off it was just a little under 50 dollars! It also came with this exquisite cover top, again a bit of lace overlay filled with detail. I was a little hesitant to wear that piece of the ensemble, it had a lot of character, but as the evening got a bit cooler I decided to go with it and I am glad I did.

 

I made just one small alteration to the dress myself, adding the scalloped lace on the top lining. I never like to wear strapless dresses alone, so I went ahead and shopped around and ended up finding a lovely scarf at Old Navy of all places.

I also incorporated roses into much of my attire and the ceremony decor. It started with the ring John had made for me. A white gold rose with a single diamond in the middle. The rose is the promise we have to one another, and represents the joy and life that we share together. Something about its symbolism is almost supernatural to me.

That day was beautiful. There were so many moments then that I will cherish forever. My most favorite was when John read aloud his vows to me. There was an intense sincerity and earnestness in his voice that I had never heard from him before that moment. And the humor he added throughout his vows was hilarious, I could not stop laughing, it was so him.