Tag: Central Valley California

Finding Your Happy Place; Letting the Creative Juices Flow

Published on by hellosamanthadear11 Comments

Above are the creations I made this past week!! I’m over-the-moon happy with how they turned out. I’ve been on a roll lately cranking out new jewelry designs. I realized how much I truly enjoy making jewelry, and it’s definitely one of my many happy places!

See that necklace with the pumpkin and Starbucks cup on it? Yep, it’s a pumpkin spice-themed cameo necklace! I made the cameo last fall and didn’t do anything with it, so I made it into a necklace. I’m sure someone who loves anything having to do with pumpkins and coffee will love it when autumn rolls around! (Thankfully though, it’s nowhere near fall yet…I’m not ready for that, as I love summer!! ☀️ )

It’s nice to create stuff and feel really good about it. There’s a sense of satisfaction when you wear something you made yourself! Even more so when you know someone else is wearing your creations (two weeks ago, I had someone buy several items from my Etsy shop, which was a total happy surprise!)

On a last note, here’s me rocking one of my new necklaces in sunny yellow plaid!!! 💖

See ya next time!! 💖

Suspenders, Summer and Bling

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I’ve been obsessed with suspenders lately! I purchased this suspender dress from Amazon and I’m totally in love with it. It’s super comfortable, to boot! I love the fabric. 😌

I made a new line of rings recently for my Etsy shop and I totally love how they turned out. Always wanted to make big rhinestone rings!!! 💕

Summer is officially here where I live, so I’m very happy to be enjoying the heat, just me and my iced mochas on my walks. I like to observe the plants I pass by, and the bugs, and feel like we’re all connected somehow. Friends in nature, ya know. 💗

Cheers!!! ☀️💗

It’s a Scream, Baby!

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I saw Scream the year it came out in 1996, and I was 9 years old. Ironically, my babysitter would play the movie A LOT, so that’s how I first saw the film.

Was it scary to me as a child??!! Of course! I’m actually not a scary movie person at all; I just can’t handle that genre, typically. However, since I saw Scream as a kid so many times and it’s such a classically 90’s film, I still enjoy the movie to this day because of the nostalgia factor, and the fact that it still scares me even at 33 years old! (And I admit, I have always loved Ghostface’s costume!)

My favorite character is Stu, played by Matthew Lillard. He is outrageously hilarious throughout the film and that’s a huge reason why I enjoy it!!! Honestly, the humor is a big win in this movie, and then just as swiftly as it will make me laugh, it will make me clamp my hand over my mouth in fear and insist I turn on every light on my way to my room to go to sleep once the movie’s over.

As an homage to this horror film that is forever etched into my childhood memory, I purchased a Ghostface shirt on Etsy!!! Paired with the hair clips, it’s a total 90’s throwback. And to truly capture the nostalgia, I watched the movie on the original VHS, as I still own an old VHS player!

I was watching the movie and I had to stop and pause it on a particular scene where two girls are gossiping about Sidney (Neve Campbell) in the high school bathroom. WAIT A SECOND, I thought. GIRL, I HAVE THOSE SAME HAIR CLIPS!!! I bought them at Sally Beauty many years ago.

I was ecstatic. That gave me the idea to wear them with my outfit, as it is subtly Scream! I added butterfly clips to the mix for extra flair. Because there’s something so innocently nostalgic about the colorful hair clips of the 90’s. Scream is also nostalgic, even if it’s a not-so-innocent scary movie. Ghostface is my one and only favorite scary dude, and for that, I salute him.

So cheers to the nostalgic things that transport us back to a different time, whether it be a movie or a hair clip!

As Stu would say, “It’s a scream, baby!” 💜

See ya next time!!!

Feeling Crafty: Late 80’s/Early 90’s Barbie for the Win

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I was cleaning through a junk drawer last week and found a pair of plastic Barbie earrings from my childhood…and I JUST KNEW I had to turn them into something new!!! They were far too adorable not to wear somehow, and since I don’t wear earrings, I decided to turn them into a necklace and ring set for myself. 💕

I’m not certain what year this Barbie is from, but I’d have to guess late 80’s/early 90’s!

Aren’t they cuuuuuuuuuuuuute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m in love! 💕

The second crafty thing I did recently was turn a regular skater skirt into a suspender skirt. I sewed on elastic bands and that was all it took! I wore this same suspender skirt in my last blog post but hey, I find myself wearing it a lot now. 😋

And of course, cat ears. They just make everything better! 💖 And Barbie? Now that’s the ultimate! 😉

See ya next time! 💘

Panda Expresso: The Almighty Newspaper Lives On

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Ahhh…an espresso-rich iced mocha, warm weather, and diving into old articles from The New York Times. 😌☕️💕 (Oh, and re-reading my favorite book about the Berlin Wall for the 4th time now!)

Recently, I came across an awesome offer from The New York Times: for just $4/month for a year, I could have digital access to their newspaper vault, all in its original context! (For a history nerd, this was like finding the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow). My little fingers couldn’t subscribe fast enough!

Some say that newspapers are a thing of the past. Not so! I have newspapers to thank for this new hobby of mine, which is, searching the NYT archives for articles about the Berlin Wall when it was still standing! It’s feeding my Cold War obsession and I’m actually learning a lot.

I’m finding tons of articles and little snippets about the courageous people who escaped or attempted to escape over the Wall. My favorite snippet is about the border guard who literally just walked off from his duty post and crossed the line into West Berlin without any of his fellow guards noticing…

And my other favorite article, of course, is about the night the Berlin Wall came down, pictured above! I took a screenshot of how the newspaper looks in the archive. So cool!

I was just a few weeks shy of being 2 years old when the Berlin Wall fell, so I was too busy drooling all over myself and probably drooling all over the carpet to take note of international happenings. But now? I have the whole world at my fingertips, that can take me straight to the past in one click. And for that, I’m soooo thankful for today’s technology! 😌

Secondly, I now have panda hair clips!!! 🐼💕 They were custom-made for me by a really sweet seller on Etsy, and I couldn’t be happier with them! IS IT CHEESY THAT I WENT TO GET MYSELF PANDA EXPRESS WEARING THESE? 😆

See ya next time!! 💕

Hair Bears: The Search for Life’s Little Magical Moments

Published on by hellosamanthadear19 Comments

It’s become a new thing where I find myself wearing something animal-related in my hair! Whether it be cat ears or now, teddy bear heads. I purchased these on Etsy and I absolutely love them! They’re made of felt and super squishy. 🐻💕

I don’t know about y’all, but I’m always on the lookout for fashion inspiration, because it can pop up anywhere!! I was thinking about this topic lately. I remember back when I was in high school in the early 2000’s, there was a girl at school who would use an umbrella with a panda face on it, and it had ears on top. If I recall, it looked something like this:

She used it as a parasol with her goth-like outfits, and I’d see her walking around campus during lunch hour. It was the most magical thing everrrrr, and I’ve never forgotten it. She was like a ray of sunshine on an otherwise beige-and-cement-colored campus. Even all these years later in my thirties, it inspired me to embrace cute animals for accessorizing! (Perhaps I shall try to track down some panda head hair clips…hmmmm!) 😉

Don’t you just love those little moments where someone inspires you, fashionably? I sure do. Sixteen years later, I still remember her and how she totally owned holding that panda parasol. It’s like a little flash of a moment in time where someone’s ensemble makes the world a little more magical, and in turn, you want to make the world a little more magical, too. 💖✨

Anyway, the black suspender dress I’m wearing in this first outfit is an old school uniform apron from the Soviet Union days. 😋 The second dress is from Gowntown on Amazon! (I hemmed it up to a shorter length, so it’s been altered).

Because really, doesn’t life need a little more magic? A little more quirk? I’d definitely say yes. And it starts from something as simple as an umbrella, or an outfit, or something you put on your head. From there, we can make the world a little sunnier. ☀️

See ya next time!! 💜

Denim and Daisies: An Ode to Tutar, an Unexpected Fashion/Feminist Inspiration

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I watched Borat 2 earlier this year and it made me laugh so hard!!! I genuinely enjoyed it, and what I did not expect was to find fashion and feminist inspiration in this film! But it happened.

Tutar (played by Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova) was brilliant and I totally fell in love with her character: she’s quirky, funny, and spent most of the film unlearning everything she’d been taught as a child about womanhood. Upon coming to America, she finds that women can indeed drive cars, have their own careers if they want, and can decide whom they want to marry and, heck, they can even not get married if they choose! By the end of the film, she has a whole new outlook on life and is happy to know she has choices.

Throughout most of the film, she’s sporting cute denim overalls. She inspired me to purchase this denim overalls dress some months back, and I just spotted Maria Bakalova in an interview on The View! There’s a Borat Supplemental Reportings film that will be released soon I found out, filled with unseen footage, so I’m very excited to watch it! 😎🍿

So I thought, hey, why not make a blog post about the correlation between Tutar, my denim overalls dress, and finding inspiration in a film? I learned that denim overalls are pretty darn cool and I enjoy wearing the style. It also made me appreciate being able to choose. I love that nowadays (generally speaking, I know this is certainly not the case everywhere), a gal can choose to marry someone if she wants to, have a career, or be a housewife. On the flip side, she can choose to never marry (or date) at all, have a career, and spend her nights stuffing her face with salad while watching I Love Lucy (yeah, I’m talking about myself now). The great thing? ALL of those options are totally COOL! It’s the choice.

So, cheers to choices. And cheers to my cat ears. Rather than watching I Love Lucy while stuffing my face with salad tonight, I’ll be watching Borat 2!!!

Very nice!!! 😎 See ya next time!

Samantha Goes Hawaiian and Finally Finds Her Creative Spark to Create New Jewelry

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Weeeeeee! I finally felt inspired to make some new RINGS! 💕 I’m so happy. These I made for myself, but I’ll make more in the near future to put on Etsy!

I haven’t made jewelry in at least a year; I’m not sure why I stopped, but sometimes my creativity comes to a standstill and I simply just be for a while. I’ve learned not to be too hard on myself for it either; I figure, it’s okay to just wait for creative inspiration to bloom, whenever that may be!

But I’m back at it, and it made me feel GREAT! So excited to make new stuff again.

The bunny ring is actually a cupcake topper, and I added the roses and the rhinestone eyeball! Right in time for upcoming Easter. 💖

Lastly, here’s my Hawaiian-themed look for the day. Hearing that it’s going to be in the 70’s for awhile apparently had a tropical influence over me!!! 😉 Also, I couldn’t decide between either yarn bows or butterfly clips so I wore both. *cue party music* I feel like a mildly edgier version of Gidget.

See ya next time!! 🌺

Mid-Century Vibes: My New Backyard Flamingos

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My backyard is complete with FLAMINGOS NOW!!!!! 💕 I have wanted some for a long time. I truly love my backyard, as it feels like a quirky little vacation spot for me to relax and enjoy nature!

My dress is from Jolly Vintage, and I did modify it by hemming it up shorter (it was originally past my knees). 💖

See ya next time!!

Taking a Magical Mystery Tour, Banay-Nay Frost in Hand

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Whenever I need a boost of cheer, I just reach for The Beatles’ 1967 album Magical Mystery Tour. It honestly lifts my spirits and feels like my soul went through the car wash. All sparkly clean afterwards!!

🎧 Roll uuuuuup…roll up for the Mystery Tour!!!
The Magical Mystery Tour is waiting to take you away…🎧

With such a peppy album opening as that, who wouldn’t be excited to hop on this tour bus? Also, flower-dotted fields and The Beatles in animal masks – where is this tour bus and why am I not on it?

In all seriousness, I really do love listening to this album because it feels like I’m in some kind of whimsical paradise that is both unfathomably beautiful and unsettlingly strange at the same time.

For example, my favorite song on the album is Strawberry Fields Forever. The first time I ever listened to it was in pitch-black darkness, late at night while lying in bed. I thought to myself, This is the most hauntingly beautiful song I’ve ever heard in my life…*tears fill eyes*. Then the song ended…well, I thought it ended.

There’s an end segment where the instruments gradually come back into earshot after you think the song’s over, but it sounds like it’s playing in reverse. John Lennon’s voice surfaces in the midst, but pitched lower, and he says either “Cranberry Sauce” or “I buried Paul” (it’s still debated on what he says – it kind of sounds like either phrase to me!)

Anyway, this unexpected assault on my eardrums made every hair on my arms stand up and I felt as if some invisible force was chasing me or something…I threw my headphones off and I could have PEED MY PANTS, I WAS SO TERRIFIED. I turned on all the lights in my bedroom and slept with them on, too.

See what I mean about both unfathomably beautiful and unsettlingly strange? Strawberry Fields Forever still remains one of my favorite songs of all time, because any song that can bring me to tears of pure joy and scare the pants off me deserves a standing ovation in my book!

My outfit looks like I’m ready to board the Magical Mystery Tour Bus. Also, I tried the BANAY-NAY FROST FROM DUTCH BROTHERS 🌷 …

Took that first sip and I swore I saw paradise. It is SO GOOOOOD…the flavor is banana and dark chocolate! Admittedly, I giggled when I said my order aloud. “Can I get a small Banay-nay Frost?” Tee heeeeee!

The Magical Mystery Tour album ends with All You Need Is Love, but I’d like to add, All You Need is Love and a Banay-Nay Frost. Just like the album, it’s paradise…paradise in a cup, that is.

See ya next time!!!