Graffiti'd Damsel in Distress + Back to School DIY

Hello lovelies! I am finally all settled into my dorm and my closet is organized (that's the most important thing, right? haha) and my room is HUGE! I am so pumped because there is a lot of pretty natural lighting that floods in through the windows in the mornings and I have giant mirrors on my closet doors and my own armchair sofa. I pasted some inspiring tear-outs from Vogue onto my blank white walls and hope to fill up the "canvas" by the end of the semester.

Tomorrow is my first day of class. I should be more excited but it's 9 hours of a single class T__T Haha I suppose I did sign up for it when I decided to be a Neuroscience major so I will be in lab all day tomorrow. Is there a way to dress fashionably while you're poking rats? Haha only one way to find out :D

Today my boyfriend and I went onto main campus to run some errands and hit the bookstore. I wasn't able to find any of the books I needed for prices I wanted to dole out, but we did have a nice lunch at Subway, which is nicely situated on ground level instead of stuck away in a dark basement. We shared a footlong Turkey Jalapeno melt and I nearly burned my tongue off. I am usually pretty good with spicy things but I suppose I took a double dose of HOT and ended up gulping refills upon refills of sweetened tea, soda, iced tea, anything trying to put out the flames. Drinking sweet liquids does not help - only a packet of sugar desperately patted onto my tongue saved me. Whew. I'm not overdoing the capsaicin ever again xD

I am slowly transitioning to a life of high(er) fashion on campus, pulling out the big guns like my sparkly ruby Dorothy flats. I do enjoy compliments and the "hey, you woke up this morning and tried to wear something other than sweatpants; I commend you for your effort" looks - it makes me feel more cheerful, awake, and happy to be back at college. However, I don't want to draw the attention of crowds with my huge tripod and hour-long photoshoots so I am slowly but surely trying to find photoshoot locations that are more private and have good scenery. I am shy, too! It's a lot easier to do crazy poses in front of your neighbors than in front of people who isolate crystals during chemistry lab with you, trust me. I figured out that people aren't really awake between 7-8 AM on weekends but neither is the sunshine or me hahaha so I guess I will have to brave some probing eyes. There is a tempting nice hillside near my dorm that is just screaming "floral skirt outfit!" : )

Today's outfit started out with a nice loose button-up that is slightly reminiscent of the military trend that is going full-throttle into the fall. It comes with a nice super-adjustable weave belt in a dark brown that I can detach and wear with something else. I picked up this shirt in a grey-khaki colour at Forever 21 for $13.50 when I went to the Galleria earlier this weekend. This mall trip disappointed me - Urban Outfitters did not even know what scallop hem shorts were (quote sales associate that should not be working there: "You mean, with ruffles? Or folded over ...?) Forever 21 didn't have any jumpsuits or the peacock belt and trench that sold out on the website and no oxford shoes in stock. I did score a beauty at H&M - a size 2 floral skirt that could probably make the smallest of the petite blogosphere cry with tears of joy. For me, I need to do a lot of treadmill work before I can comfortably eat dinner with that thing on hahaha! It has the TINIEST waist I have ever felt - probably a legitimate XXS. I'm just impressed I can even manage to tuck a shirt in without making a nasty belly fat roll.

Little did I expect that my button-up would make me sweat an ocean today. St. Louis has been absolutely muggy and humid and hot this past week with moody weather. Today it even sprinkled a tiny bit and the sun came and went. Lesson learned: don't wear quarter sleeves with tights at the end of summer if you don't want to die a slow and painful death. I took out my proud DIY ripped denim shorts and layered some black footless leggings underneath so that it looks like I'm wearing some kind of pants. For comfortable school shoes, I slipped on my DIY checkered black Converse and headed off to campus.

I really like customizability (a word I invented today), so DIY projects perfectly satisfy my craving for creating and for fashion. I want to do a lot more than just tear up jeans and paint on my shoes, but here are my two DIY projects of late summer: Converse and denim shorts. For the Converse, I just used my faded black sneakers I bought in high school and a $1 bottle of fabric paint from Walmart and squeezed out a bit at a time and sculpted the paint blobs into squares. I messed up plenty of times but from far away the pattern looks quite nice. I did this over several days because I wanted the paint to dry but I usually painted for about 15 minutes at a time for each face of the shoe, so all together less than an hour of work. For my shorts, I didn't want to spend money on cutoff denim when I could easily remake some of my old unwanted pieces. I bought this pair in junior high and didn't really ever like them until now. I used one of those razors that you cut cardboard or anything with (it has a slide-up blade) and slashed horizontally a few times until I could tear a rip. I pulled out any white strings carefully and made many slashes close together. I cut off little tiny bits of the hemming to create more tattering and on one side even cut open the hemming completely. It honestly took only about 30 minutes of playing cautiously and ta-da! I really like getting my hands dirty and making boring pieces into little works of art that I will be proud of :D

Wearing:

Khaki-grey button up quarter-sleeve shirt w/ brown weave belt, F21 (size S)

DIY ripped denim shorts, UnionBay (size 3 juniors)

Black footless lace trim leggings, Claire's

DIY black checkered Converse All-Stars (size 4)

Silver metallic foldover clutch, BCBG Generation (thanks ReallyPetite!)

Orange multi-coloured bead string bracelet, gift from Mrow Mii

Photography in Bowles Plaza by my boyfriend, most pictures using Vibrant Colors mode

People were quite amused with my clutch today haha. A lot didn't know that a clutch is a purse and of course this shiny metallic thing drew a lot of attention :D

Crazy wind. In case you're wondering, that huge pile of papers attached to the circular column on the right side of the picture is a classic advertising place at my university. Of course there's so many ads it's very difficult to read them xD

 Details: This purse reflects so much light my camera can't even handle it hahaha

Adjustable weave belts are every small-waisted girl's best friend

A gift from my boyfriend : ) Isn't it pretty?

Here comes the DIY picspam :D

Shorts: BEFORE

Shorts: AFTER (I forgot to throw bleach on it but that's okay. Ripped and tattered is distressed enough for me. I left the bum untouched too for my sake of propriety haha)

Converse: BEFORE (fading from Oklahoma sun exposure)

Converse: AFTER

Right shoe, outward side: I tried to make the squares get progressively smaller but I failed xD

Right shoe, inward facing side

Right shoe, back

Left shoe, outward side

Left shoe, inward facing side: my absolute favourite

Left shoe, back

Slurping up iced tea to save my suffering tongue. Never again am I eating that many jalapenos at one time hahaha (I must have had about 15-20 slices in there)

Suggestive picture of bread at Subway

I hope everyone has/had a great first day of class! Enjoy your back-to-school outfits and add some personal flair to your pieces. Rip them up, paint on them, add little chains, studs, sew on patches. I know some school dress codes can be completely lame like mine were but you can always make a simple common outfit your own. I need to cuddle my pillow soon and catch some zzz's or I will be crazy tired for my 9-hour first day tomorrow. My goal is to dress fashionably every day and to snap some pictures to show you guys :D I will get busier and busier so I probably won't have as many pictures and poses as I did during summer but 30 minutes a day isn't too much to sacrifice for fashion, right? ^__^