"Let them eat Cake"

Local artist/designer/cartoon character, Miss Cake just keeps getting cuter. Saturday night, she showed her fashion designs, that are currently sold at the Black Market in Lincoln and Scout, in the first ever Loom Weaves Fashion event. 

The monthly Loom parties are usually held at Espana Tapas Bar in Benson, and are focused on bringing different cultures together, "weaving the social fabric through dance." 

Fashion Loom allowed local designers to showcase their designs on models during the party.

Multi-faceted Miss Cake is not only a seamstress, but a painter and graphic designer. She has an Etsy site where she sells stationary, underwear bowls, barrettes, and tongue-adorned canvas tote bags.

I describe her style as one part Dr. Seuss, one part Fafi mixed with one part candy-coated japlepeno baked to perfection at 350 degrees. 

Here am I wearing one of her custom dresses. Note the "Let Them Eat Cake" writing on my arms.

Let's just say I should have eaten the cake before I hit the vodka. 

Who wasn't an English major?

I was eating dinner at a friend's house the other night, and the topic of college majors came up. One man asked the group, "Well who wasn't an english major?" As it turned out, only me (journalism) and another friend (philosophy) were the only two non-English majors in the room. The group was made up of teachers, musicians, and staff from the Bemis Center and Saddle Creek Records. It was then that I knew my parents were wrong.

I had always wanted to be an English major. I came to Creighton because I won a creative writing scholarship. I had big dreams of becoming a poet, being published in the New Yorker (like Dan from Gossip Girl) before I graduated college. 

My sophomore year came around and it was time to declare a major. I was going for English, but my parents said I couldn't be an English major without becoming a teacher. I didn't want to teach, it wouldn't be fair to students having a teacher straight out of college. I wanted to experience the world first. So I chose the next best thing, journalism. 

I've been overall very happy with my major. I've learned design programs, how to write stories that I don't especially care for, and how to work as a part of an editorial team, among other valuable things. 

That didn't stop my heart from freezing when I saw the annual New Voices event for Creighton and UNO English majors, hanging on a campus bulletin board. 

One of the writers featured was a boy that was in the English class that changed my life back in my sophomore year. I had to go to the reading, not for him, but for myself.

I had to see what I could have been up against, who I could have been friends with, what kind of progress a creative writer makes in two years. 

The first two women that read were dewy-faced, never leave the library bookish types that spoke of family vacations in Montana and a mother's touch. You can imagine my disgust when one of them announced that she became engaged the night before. 

The next woman was a bit older, with kids of her own, that read an excerpt from her novel about her first love and his eventual death in Iraq. She was funny and created images that even a young child-less girl like me can relate to.

Finally was my friend from English class, we'll call him Max. Max read a story about a sixth grade boy who couldn't pass the grade despite his extensive knowledge of scalene triangles and Aristotle. Max made me wonder what kind of philosophy and science classes he has been taking over his four years, it was a well-researched story.

The reading left me feeling out of place and kind of relieved.

I hate to admit it, but maybe my parents were right?

Sooo you wanna work at a magazine...

Stylista, Wednesday nights on the CW, is my new reality obsession. The show follows 11 aspiring fashionistas all competing for an editorial job with Elle magazine under the scrutiny of Elle's fashion news director Anne Slowey. Each episode includes an assistant task like picking out Anne's breakfast, dressing mannequins, or picking a theme for a demanding 10-year-old's birthday party, followed by an editorial challenge of styling and laying out a fashion spread.

Since right now my dream job is, and has been for awhile, to work at a magazine I watch this show like I am one of the competitors, trying to decide who I would want to work with and who would be my biggest competition, while furiously biting my nails.

I know one of the most important  working in the fashion industry is to not let anyone break you. In the second episode Jason had a panic attack, had to be taken away to the hospital, came back for the editorial critique but still got eliminated. I mean honestly if you have to be taken to the hospital while you're competing for an assistant position, you're not right for the job. I can't help but feel for him though, because in the past, I have let my emotions take over my cool.

In the third episode DyShaun, who says the funniest things ("No one, hopefully is dying over a pair of shoes"), really hit home when he said, "In this business you can be sweet, but you have to have some sort of bite to you." He was referring to Cologne, who I think was the bigger person, when she "gave up" the mother-daughter team that team two and three were fighting over in the third episode. 

I think that sometimes I can be too sweet and just do the extra work because it's easier than asking someone else to do it. Not that I'm a pushover by any means, because I will definitely let you know if I'm upset, but I just think I'd rather get things done quickly and correctly rather than have to fix someone else's work or painfully coax the person to even do the work. That is definitely something I need to work on. It's just hard to know what the right balance is.

Which brings me to the contestant, Kate, who was criticized immediately for her disgusting, exhibitionist tendencies of showcasing her cleavage. Kate is whiney b*tch and unfortunately a poor representation of a leo when she said, "I'm a leo, I don't work in teams." She's made excuses for every team she's worked on and has cried several times on the show, which is in the fashion world, is a sign of weakness. 

All I have to say is that I'm in for the long run and will do (almost) anything I have to not to hear the words, "You're not the right fit." 

 

OMJ...little J that is

So far I've avoided posting about Gossip Girl, my favorite guilty pleasure TV show, because well that would be too predictable. But after watching little Jenny Humphrey's transformation from quitting her job with prominent designer Eleanor Waldorf, who was stealing her designs, to launching her line J Humphrey Designs via a "guerilla" fashion show...I couldn't not mention it. The collection is very hipster chic...with a lot of plaids, bold colors and plenty of attitude. If it was a real line, NYLON would eat it up. Check out the video here. Do you think Jenny's on to something?

Show me your guns...

I usually don't give up my Sunday yoga afternoons for just anything, but yesterday I opted out to demolish pumpkins at my friend's farm in Griswold, IA...with a 20-gauge shotgun. 

Not as swank as the Versace Machine gun shown left (photo courtesy of www.rotoevil.com), but it still had enough kick to leave bruises on the inside of my right shoulder.

I'd never shot a gun before; I never even let the boys I babysit play or pretend to play with guns.

The gun was a lot heavier than I thought, and I had to be shown how to load and shoot it. I also had a hard time hitting my target because the gun kicked back so hard...honestly I had never felt more like a girl in my entire life, but the day was so beautiful and the opportunity so beckoning I couldn't pass up an afternoon of shooting pumpkins and cans.

Not that I would ever wish for a situation to use these weapons, but they make me want to have my own graphic novel.