Dressing up for Halloween

Posted on October 31, 2015October 31, 2015 by Melissa Harrison

I like dressing up on Halloween but I don’t like wearing a costume. I think it’s so much more fun to go as your real self. It’s the one day when you can experiment with all the weird things you like but aren’t brave enough to wear on a normal day. Things like bright red tights, matching lipstick, cut crease eye shadow even though you have hooded eyelids so it always looks weird, white nail polish and a party dress.

I own these things because I like them. I don’t hide them in the back of the closet all year just counting down the days, but today is the only day I can wear them all together and not worry about the stares and smiles I’ll get.

And you know what, every year, after every experiment, I get braver. I prove to myself that I can wear something bold, something I was unsure about, and not be bothered by the girl in sweatpants and moccasins, with the birds tattooed behind her ear, looking me up and down while I wait in line at the grocery store. Every year, I find the point where the real me stands and I get to see how much farther I need to push the boundary line before I can reach her.

Dress ModCloth (old)
Tights Target
Shoes ModCloth
Earrings Claire’s (old)
– – – – –
Lipstick Rimmel Moisture Renew in Red Alert
Nail Polish Revlon Top Speed in Spirit

$Dressing up for Halloween \\$

Maybe I’m not overdressed, maybe the world is simply underdressed. What’s wrong with looking like you are always on your way to a party?

All Pictures by me and Matt Harrison.

Bloglovin’

Posted on October 30, 2015October 30, 2015 by Melissa Harrison

I’ve been trying to set aside time to get back into blogging these past weeks. I love photography, fashion, food and writing but it’s been hard to find time to get it all down on the blog when I spend most of my time sewing, designing new dresses and trying to keep a small business together. I’ve been pulling a lot of inspiration from the bloggers that I admire lately while trying to make a real effort to create authentic, honest content. I’m starting to find a good rhythm, so now it’s time to work on prettying up the blog and connecting with the people that excite, inspire and motivate me.

Over the weekend, I’ll be gussying up the look and functionality of the blog and figuring out this whole Bloglovin’ thing as I switch over to them for all my RSS needs. So… if you would like to see all the new stuff in store for Sophster-Toaster, you can Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

Thread and Pin Art DIY

Posted on October 29, 2015October 29, 2015 by Melissa Harrison

$Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$

I’m always looking for uses for leftover thread. There are a few ways to reuse it while sewing, like using it for basting stitches, but after a few years of frequent sewing, it really starts to fill up the drawers and boxes you’ve been tossing it into. I had quite a lot of thread matching fabrics that I used up years ago, so I came up with a creative way to use it up: Thread and Pin Art.

It’s also a good way to reuse old, dull pins.

The Supplies

Cork Tile – I got mine here
Leftover Thread
Pins
Ruler
Scissors

$Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$

How-to

Start by forming a geometric shape with the pins in the cork tile. When you like the shape, use a ruler to measure all of your points to make sure they are equal and symmetrical. I placed my pins 1 cm in from the edge of the tile.

Then choose a starting point and tie the end of the thread around the pin with a double knot. Trim the excess thread. Gently push the knot down the pin until it is touching the cork tile. Now you can start wrapping the thread around the pins, doing a loop around each pin you pass, to form geometric shapes as you go. I find that wrapping the thread around the outside of the shape once before crossing through the inside works best. When you have encircled the outside and made one shape in the middle, repeat your steps so that each line you made is doubled. You should finish at the same pin as you started. Tie the thread around that pin in another double knot and trim the end.

$Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$ $Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$

Next, choose a different colour of thread and start at the next pin over. You can make the same shape you did the first time or try a different one. I like to keep making the same shape until the lines start repeating. Some shapes will be redundant after two or three iterations and others can make it all the way around the shape before they lap over each other – memories of elementary school geometry will come flooding back.

$Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$ $Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$

Keep repeating this process until you’ve made it back to your starting pin a few times and you are happy with your shapes and colours.

$Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$ $Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$

When you’re done, you’ll have something that looks like this:

$Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$ $Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$ $Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$

Then you can give them to friends are hang them on your wall with Command Strips.

$Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$ $Thread and Pin Art DIY \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$

All photos by me.

Homebody

Posted on October 27, 2015October 27, 2015 by Melissa Harrison

$Homebody \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$

My mom always said that I could be perfectly content wherever I was. It didn’t matter whether I was at home, at school, or starting my new life at a campsite in the woods. Wherever I happened to be, was the place I wanted to stay forever – even if I had also decided that about the place I had just come from. She said I could make my home anywhere and be happy.

$Homebody \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$ $Homebody \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$

My habit of falling in love with wherever I am and never wanting to leave started at birth, according to my mother. She would joke that since I had been born two weeks late, after a long labour and a c-section (where they still had trouble prying me out) I was a homebody from the start. To this day, I never want to leave home but when I do, I never want to return. I’ll miss home the whole time I’m at the cottage, then miss the cottage when I’m home. I moved 200 kilometres across the province for reasons I can’t really remember, but I know I would never go back. The first thing I do when I arrive at a new location is unpack my belongings and make my bed while others are busy exploring the space. My mom used to say this was me building my nest.

$Homebody \\ Sophster-Toaster Blog$