Until The Sun Goes Down

On Thursday, Nadia and I spent the day together shopping. Afterwards, we headed to a park to take some pictures and later on we went to the beach to take pictures while the sun went down. Our mission: to take some nice silhouette shots.

When we got to the beach, the sun was getting ready to set.

We spent about two hours trying to find the perfect lighting and spots for the pictures, but it was definitely worth it. It seems that the more the sun went down, the better the pictures. These first couple were taken closer to the time we arrived.



The sun continued to set...


Still setting...


And we continued with our photoshoot:

[My favorite of her!]

[Her favorite of me!]

We also spent about an hour and a half of the 2 hours leaping and jumping around to try to get shots of us in the air.



After many failed attempts, we managed to get a couple airborne silhouette shots:



My favorite picture from the whole night came near the end. The lighting was perfect and we had finally found a really good spot on top of a small block that I think was some sort of little monument.


I'm really glad I have someone who is as enthusiastic and completely into taking pictures like this. She actually enjoyed running back and forth from the camera to the spot where we were standing for hours and she didn't care who was looking at us either. haha. I can't wait until our next shoot! :)

Seasoned To Summer

Lately when I have no idea what to wear, but I don't feel like settling for shorts and a t-shirt, I opt for this dress. I never fail to go back to it when I don't have an outfit picked out. It's simple, comfortable and easy to just throw on. I love the polka-dots and the ruffled tiers! It's a great summer dress.

Dress: H&M
Shoes: Payless
Hair Clip: Claire's

The daisy hair clip is my new favorite accessory. They came in a pack of two and I love wearing them, especially with navy. White daisies are one of my favorite flowers so when I saw these hair clips in Claire's, I had to have them.


I love floral hair accessories. I really want one of those flower chain headbands, not unlike this:

Source

Robyn of Twitch Vintage has a bunch of really pretty pictures of them in a post from a couple of months ago. I love how dainty and romantic they look. I must learn how to make them, especially since there are some white daisies that grow right in back of where I work! :)

Chasing Waterfalls

Hello! It seems I'm still on my not-blogging-that-often-kick... The good news is that I just went through a lot of my fellow bloggers' blogs and became completely inspired to blog more. Hopefully this inspiration lasts! I have so many ideas that I just never get around to doing. This needs to change.
My problem is that I tend to picture an idea and envision it a certain way in my mind and then get discouraged when I know the pictures aren't going to come out the way I want them to. :\ Do any of you ever feel that way? I need to find some pretty and secluded places to take photos. So many of you all take such amazing photos with beautiful scenery. I lust after big open fields, abandoned barns, railroad tracks and the like. I need a tripod and to not feel awkward if people see me posing and taking pictures of myself. This is why the word 'secluded' is important.


So a couple of weeks ago, my cousin Ashley told me we should go on a picnic at a waterfall that is near her house. I am always up for a picnic in a scenic location, so of course I agreed! For some reason I imagined the waterfall being small and along a stream somewhere, so I was surprised and excited to find this:


It's apparently part of a state park. I never even knew it was there! I like that it's like a secret. Where we parked, it was just a small parking lot on the side of the road with a grassy field in front of the woods. Then you head into the woods and there is a set of stairs that go down and it opens up to a river with this magnificent waterfall! There is also a walkway that overlooks the waterfall. I was so excited that I must've took about 80 pictures of just the waterfall. haha.

We climbed the rocks near the waterfall and took some pictures, then sat down on a bench and ate peanut butter sandwiches on cinnamon bread (my second favorite sandwich next to grilled cheese).

[Ashley went under the waterfall!]

The lighting was pretty bad since it was so shady, so a lot of the pictures came out too dark. :\ Anywho...we eventually walked out into the river. It was super rocky on the bottom and every step pretty much hurt, but it gave us a slightly better angle for taking pictures of the waterfall.

Tank Top: Forever 21
Shorts: Old Navy, thrifted
Belt: Thrifted
Sunglasses: H&M
Shoes: Gap

[She caught me mid hair-fix or head-scratch...not sure which one]

Afterwards, we ended up laying out a blanket in the grass near the parking lot and making up silly songs on the guitar. It was a lovely day that ended with a trip to the mall and the purchase of a very cute lacey dress that you all will see soon enough! :)

Thoughts on Blogging...and a Random Outfit

Yes, I've disappeared for a couple of weeks again. No, I am not happy about it. Where did I go?, you may ask. Well...I didn't really GO anywhere. I could have easily blogged, but I just didn't. My cousin who moved to North Carolina came back home for a week and Chris came home from school last weekend and left yesterday so I've been busy spending time with them.

My blockage of inspiration has continued as well. I just don't feel that a lot of my outfits are post-worthy. Right now I am wearing jeans and a t-shirt with cartoon giraffes on it. While it's one of my favorite shirts, the outfit is nothing special. I've been wearing shorts a lot lately since I got a really good pair from Forever 21 for $11.50.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a lot of bloggers were discussing the pressure to dress amazingly every day for their blogs. I give praise to those bloggers who actually do post every day with gorgeous outfits and photos. But for me, I just wear what I feel like wearing and sometimes it's thought out, but sometimes I just pull something on quick so I can get out the door. I'm such a procrastinator so if I tell myself I'm going to put together an outfit the night before, it usually ends with me putting it off until it's 3 in the morning and I just want to go to bed.

Anyway...my point is that I'm ok with not wearing something spectacular every day and not posting daily. Not that I enjoy when I end up neglecting my blog for two whole weeks either... But sometimes I get busy or during the only time I have to take pictures, the lighting is bad or my parents are home early and I feel awkward taking pictures of myself in the backyard with them home.

My blog is important to me, but there are more important things in my life. I don't get to see Chris a lot since he is away at school so when he comes home, I pretty much spend all my time with him and don't really worry about anything else. He comes home a lot more often and I'm 99.9% sure it's because of me, so that's why I tend to frequently disappear for chunks of time. Putting outfits together, taking pictures, editing pictures, writing a blog entry, and uploading pictures...that all takes a lot of time. When he's home, I just like to be with him as much as I can. If I can blog about something we did together, great. If not, then I can worry about blogging later. I've also been spending a lot of time with friends. This is something I've never really done. When I was with my ex-boyfriend, I pretty much just hung out with him and that was it. I missed out on the whole hanging out with friends all the time thing and lost touch with some of my friends. It's nice to be a part of the group again.

There's nothing worse for a writer than feeling like you HAVE to write something. It makes you not want to. The same goes for outfits. Don't get me wrong, I love creating fun outfits but I usually just open my closet, get impatient and frustrated that I can't seem to put things together and then just settle on shorts and a shirt. I'm not going to agonize over putting outfits together when I am just not in the mood or if it's going to make me frustrated and bent out of shape. This blog is supposed to be fun and enjoyable for me and I'm not going to pressure myself into a schedule for it. What makes it fun is that I don't have to go by a schedule. I can blog whenever I want! Maybe I just have poor time management skills. I usually try to pick out something as I'm getting ready to go somewhere. I feel good when I'm blogging often and consistently and I would like to blog more often, but sometimes other things just come first.

Now that I got all that out, here is an outfit from somewhere within the past two weeks. The lighting was weird, so I didn't get too many pictures of it.

Shirt: Kohls
Skirt: Forever 21
Shoes: Payless
Belt: Unknown

Usually, I forget about t-shirts that I have because I have so many. Every once and a while, I'll go through the cubbies in my wardrobe and see what I'm missing out on. This shirt was one of them. I stopped wearing it because I thought it looked kind of baggy on me but I realized that's easily fixed by wearing it under a high-waisted skirt! I also paired this shirt with the skirt from my last post at some point as well. My hair is in the way, but the shirt says "Have A G'Day!". I'm glad I can wear it again because it's really adorable. :)