Pure Cowboy Boot Bliss

Today we spent the day in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We slept in and ate homemade carnitas & tamales from a street vendor in the plaza for breakfast. HR had a little bit of work to do after so I wandered the streets of the old city to do some window shopping. I stumbled upon a pretty sizable vintage store and was easily caught up in a dozen or so old cowboy boots in a dusty corner. They were all nicely priced but none were the right size. I meandered some more and followed a sign to the "Western/Ranch" section. I rounded the corner & this is what I saw:












I was in awe; I love cowboy boots. I have a plethora of pairs and wear them with almost everything and as much as possible. There was nothing I could remotely justify buying as we are 6 days from purchasing our house & all the boots were $300 - $1000, but I was in heaven to say the least. Just to be in a room with hundreds of vintage cowboy boots was an experience in itself. They were amazing to look, touch, and in sometimes imagine how fantastic it would be to wear certain pairs out on the town. If we were already in the house I would have taken out my visa in a flash & purchased the green & yellow pair in the top photo without second thought.

Later on as HR & I walked through a shopping complex to escape from the rain, we encountered yet another store filled with boots. These were all brand new and boots were priced $1000+ on average. In this store there was an incredible pair of black boots with colorful peacock feathers stitched down the sides and over the toe. I didn't take a photo unfortunately, but I did realize something from those boots.

Today I acquired a new appreciation for Cowboy Boots as an art form. There are so many designs, colors, stitching, heel styles and such that variance of Cowboy Boots out there is spectacular. They are a canvas and an amazing canvas at that.

Next time I'm in Santa Fe I vow to leave with a new & amazingly beautiful pair of cowboy boots on my feet.

xoxx

The Nerd Gown.

i have a very large collection of sleepwear. Most are vintage, whispy nightdresses that I've found at thrift stores and estate sales. They are all unique in style and color. They litter the doornobs of our bathrooms and the underspace of our bed pillows. I take a lot of pride in my sleepwear collection and probably have enough to reserve one piece for every week of the year. I have a few favorites and a handful I have only slept in once. I might even venture to suggest that some nights I agonize over which nightdress to wear as much as I would over what clothes to wear for the day. Sometimes I smile for a whole day at a unique nightdress that I've found. This type of find leaves me feeling so much anticipation to put it on when I go to bed that sometimes I'm tempted to go to bed hours early.
When it gets cold those whispy nightdresses just don't cut it. it's time to take out my Cuddleduds: a thick, cotton nightgown complete with polo collar and long sleeves. It's ankle length, white with blue flowers all over it. The Nerd Gown. A Christmas gift from my mother one year. I unwrapped it and politely noted how warm it would be to sleep in, "Thank you SO much." I brought it home and put it in my drawer with no intention to ever take it out again, let alone wear it.
Then January arrived and changed that. January is the coldest month in Minnesota. So cold that sometimes it seems no matter how many blankets you pile on your bed you still wake in the middle of the night FREEZING which prohibits any kind of useful sleep. It was this cold that moved me to abandon my cute, colorful nightdresses & throw on the Nerd Gown. I get through the shock of the cold damp of October and the aforementioned unfathomably cold January with the embrace and warmth of my lovely Nerd Gown. No middle of the night FREEZING, no way, in The Nerd Gown I always sleep through the night quite productively. xoxx

Hard Work Pays off

Even with a little bit of procrastination all of my work was done on time for Voltage Fashion Amplified 2007. The show was last night & went off without a hitch to a sold out crowd.




The above photo is of the Minneapolis band, The Plastic Constellations. Designing for them was my purpose in Voltage this year. Just in case you can't read their tees from L to R: I heart The Goods, I heart Danger, I Heart Dragons, I heart Spreadsheets.




In this photo are the Limited Edition Tees I designed & created to be sold as part of Fashion Weekend in conjunction with Voltage. From L to R: I heart Vinyl, I heart Sound, I Heart My Bike, I Heart Danger. To you Minneapolitans, the Tees are for sale at Cliche on 24th & Lyndale in Uptown. (Handsome models can be spotted at Fifth Element record store in Uptown.) xoxx

p.s. not enough visuals? go to myspace.com/reinvintaged & see a quick little video of the reinvintaged/TPC segment at Voltage 2007.

P is for Procrastination.

The first time heard of the word procrastinate I was about 9 or 10. My mom joking called me a procrastinator. I asked her what that meant & she said "It means that you put things off until the very last second." This was so very true of me at time & still is to this day.
At this moment, I have a plethora of things to do as my work is in a pretty big deal fashion show this coming wednesday. I feel good about where i'm at, but I'd feel better if I was working on it all right now.
But instead, I'm blogging.
If I wasn't blogging, I'd be surfing the internet.
If I wasn't surfing the internet, I'd be watching a movie I've seen a million & one times.
If I weren't doing that, well, I'd find something else that is not working on my designs to occupy me while I stress out in the back of my mind.
i'm good at it. Really good at justifying too. "I need to have a clean house in order to be productive," & then I'll spend 3 hours deep cleaning our kitchen. Or, "I do need to run to Target & get that one thing, I should do that first so it's out of the way" so i do that, but I also stop at my grandpa's, my aunt's, my mom's & maybe a high school friend, just cause I was in the neighborhood & it is a nice gesture to stop by and visit once in a while.
Try as I might, procrastinating is just a part of who I am & in many instances I do my best work in the wee hours of the morn' before a big deal event. So, i suppose it's better to embrace & laugh about it that to fight it.
In the meantime, there is some laundry to be done before I get back to work. xoxx.


P.S. For information on the "Big Deal Event" I've referenced in this post, go to http://www.voltagefashionamplified.com