Many of us in internetsland/girlworld/fashionblogvoyeurville are already familiar with Tavi Gevinson. I never felt really connected to her as a teenage fashion blogger, but after she started Rookie, a website for teenage girls, I kinda had my eureka moment about her and just bought my copy of her/their book, Rookie: Yearbook One.

I haven’t had time to really sit down with it yet, as it just arrived today, but just flipping through the pages already fills me with that special girl-magic.

Like I mentioned on Instagram, this book just feels like a secret treasure, and even comes with a paper crown, a little floppy record with music on it, and stickers!

The Rookie girls went on a summer cross-country road trip and had meet-ups with all their readers. Here are a few neat slide shows from their trip:

Summer of Love, Part One

And There Were Stars in Our Eyes

Strange Magic

There is also a funny recurring video segment called, “Ask a Grown Man,” where they ask a celeb, like Paul Rudd , a question about the Boy Mind, Guy Stuff, or bits of DudeWisdom.

AgentLover writes for the site as well. If you’ve never checked out her blog before, it is a MUST! She is hilarious and is also the goddess of pop culture.

I can’t decide yet if it’s sad or awesome that I connect so much with all of this teen business, considering I am 36. I have always loved the aesthetics of nostalgia, and that uncomfortable but neat feeling of things being new and weird. In her TED talk, Tavi talks about how she’s still figuring it out. I think I still am, too.  One the one hand, there’s the hope that your world settles down at some point, so you can finally feel comfortable in your own shoes. On the other hand, I like the idea that I’m always evolving, wondering, and growing.

Hey, L.A., Stan Lee’s Comikaze Expo is this weekend, Saturday and Sunday at the L.A. Convention Center. The Brands Boutique will be selling some of my items there as well, so check out their booth #1112! They’ll have my new gummy bear hair clips, which I don’t even carry in my own Etsy shop yet (soon!), and also some fun new product displays I made for the pizza brooches and rocket popsicle brooches.

My buddies from Chubby Bunny and BubblePunch will also be on a panel on Saturday about how to “Organize Geek Culture” with “events, parties, and online activities to develop community within the Nerd realm!” Go check it out and tell me what it’s like!

cute photo by Brands Boutique!

I’ll be crocheting the weekend away, working on a reaaaally neat potential collab project for Yummy You! that would hopefully be available before the holidays. Fingers and crochet hooks crossed! Also on Sunday, my studio space will be featured on somebody’s blog. I’ll tell you more then, and you can check out my HQ!

In my search to find a readymade, awesome looking Jawbreaker nail polish, I came across Hard Candy by PrettyPolishnThings.  I know there is also a polish actually called Jawbreaker by Pretty & Polished (these company names are a bit similar eh…?), but from looking at swatches, I wanted my glitter to come out a bit brighter and less milky.

If you click on the Etsy listing for Hard Candy, I would say that the first/main photo is a bit misleading and the other photos are more realistic, as far as how milky the glitter goes underneath the white polish. This was about 3 coats. I liked the result, and it reminded me of marshmallow cereal in milk, but it seemed a bit difficult for me catch the bigger glitter on my brush. Perhaps more aggressive shaking is necessary!

The blue and pink polishes (also 3 coats) are GLITTER PACKED. They are both by Rainbow Honey from the Equestria collection. Blue = 20% Cooler. Pink = Pinkie Promise.  I was really impressed with the density of glitter in both bottles, plus I really like that Rainbow Honey offers mini bottles if you just want to try a color. I wish the site would show swatches on nails, though. That would be cool! The blue in 20% Cooler isn’t quite as BLUE as I’d hoped from the photo on their site, but I guess that’s what keeps the glitter so … glittery. Next time I might do a base layer of blue or white underneath first.

All in all, I am feeling very glitter-tastic, and I do not look forward to having to remove the glitter crust from my nails!

I took some photos the other day for my pal Darling Stewie. Her Etsy shop is Word To Your Unicorn, and she describes it as “Your source for god damned delightful whimsy! At Word to your Unicorn, you’ll find the kawaii, the geeky, and the super adorable.”

I’ve been feeling a bit dumpy lately, so it was nice to have an excuse to clean up a little bit!

Plus, I found out, I look great with a moustache! Rawr!!

Here are a few shots with her stickers:

The melty bow is by Sparkle Galaxy, the dress is from Target girls’ section (XL!), and my trusty necklace is Cicely Margo.

I ended up laying pretty low the past week, recovering from my crochet painting. I made a lot of custom cupcake slouchy hats, one of which is 2-color, which I really like! I know it doesn’t seem like that much more work than a 1-color, but you kinda have to pay attention to maintaining the right tension on both yarns and trying to hide the alternate color as much as possible, slowing down the work. I may start to offer 2-color hats in the shop, but it will unfortunately have to be priced differently to reflect the extra time put into it. It’s cute, though, right?

Last week I also made this custom birthday cake tissue box cozy for a friend of a friend to give to her friend. Her friend doesn’t like fruit, so I used frosting roses to go with the candles. I plan to add birthday cakes to the shop, and also mini bday cake hair clips, bday candle pins, and maybe a hat? I dunno. I just love bday-themed stuff! (Sorry for the crappy photo. I really didn’t have enough time to shoot nicer photos of it before having to pack it up and send it off!)

My immediate goal is to get some new Halloween-themed designs in. More on that soon in the coming week!