Turning Into A Sugar Skull

Anyone who knows me or has read any of my Halloween blogs knows that I have a year-round obsession for Day of the Dead's sugar skulls. I like them so much that I decided to turn my self into one and create a fun time-lapse video of my process from start to finish. 

Unless you have the speed of a Twilight vampire, I wouldn't suggest following along with the video if you yourself would also like to turn yourself into a sugar skull.

These are all the products that I used:

Arbonne Liquid Foundation in Alabaster (the lightest shade they make)

Revlon ColorStay Liquid Liner

Wet&Wild Natural Blend Powder (use the lightest shade)

Wet&Wild FantasyMarker Black Crayon

Some really old black eye shadow that is virtually unidentifiable

And a very cheap, very dirty blush brush

For a little extra fun, try pausing the video at random parts and see if you catch goofy faces that I make. (Also try to find the part where I oh-so gracefully smear the black paint across my cheeks on accident.) Bonus points to anyone that can find the best screenshot and tag me in it.

Enjoy! And be sure to come back every day until the 31st for more Halloween related posts!

I WAS BORN TO LOOK DEAD! :)

Halloween: Origins

Last week whilst helping my boyfriend do his homework, I came across the term samhain that was also in Halloween II (1981). Samhain (pronounced sah-ween) is brought up in a couple of the Halloween movies and I was thrilled that it was what I was going to be helping him learn. Samhain is a Celtic holiday that is what Halloween as we know it is rooted from. So naturally, Halloween being my favorite holiday, I was more than eager to do the entire project for my boyfriend. So now I am happy to share with you some really cool things that I learned about how we got our holiday of costumes and candy from a very ancient ritual.

• First things first! There is a reputation for the origin of Halloween being a grotesque, pagan ritual but it's actually quite exaggerated. Samhain is a Celtic festival that was taken down and altered by Catholicism when the Romans took over. The Romans hated the Celtics very much at this time so most of the history we heard about pagans is all passed down by Romans who portrayed them as savage beasts who summoned satanic demons. 

• There indeed was animal sacrifice and huge gatherings around a bonfire with the skulls and skins of animals as costumes of sorts. I like to think of these sacrificial killings not too different from Ancient Greek sacrifices to the gods. The bonfires were a place to tell each others fortunes and the costumes were to ward off bad spirits.

• It was the Fire Festival and a celebration of the end of summer where they would have great harvests and prepare for the coming winter. It was believed that October 31st was the day the barriers between the living and the dead broke and spirits were free to roam the land and wreak havoc on the harvest. 

• When the Romans did force their Catholicism upon the Celtic culture, they created All Saint's Day as a way to cover up the pagan ritual and make it more church friendly. Instead of celebrating the harvest, it became a time to commemorated saints and martyrs. Cultures adopted versions of this and so came holidays like the Day of the Dead, All Soul's Day, All Hallows Eve, and of course our Halloween. 

Although I fully support those who don't like Halloween, I still encourage everyone do go explore further the Celtic tradition of Samhain. It think it is so cool to read about it. It seems so perfectly spooky; everyone is surrounding this huge fire dressed in carcasses and hoping that the pleasant ghosts are in their company and knowing that the evil spirits walk the earth. History is truly fascinating!

And so wraps up day two of Halloweek. Be sure to come back every day until the 31st for a new Halloween (or in today's case Samhain) related post!

THIS IS SO FUN!

Homemade Halloween Cards

Halloween usually isn't the kind of holiday that you send cards out to people, but I have a real passion for sending them to people unexpectedly. I once sent anonymous homemade valentine's day cards to a bunch of people and over a year after I did that, I went to visit one of my favorite teachers and she had saved the card and the envelope that I had sent her. It was so sweet when I told her it was me and she showed me she had kept it on her board all this time.

This Halloween I urge everyone to send a heartfelt card to people you love or people who you think need some cheering. This one is going to my Grandma (PSA: Everyone go call your grandparents after you read this blog! They miss you).

All you really need for this little project is:

1. Construction paper

2. Craft glue

3. Scissors

4. Pencils

5. Sharpie Markers

Get creative with the font. I'm no good at handwriting, but a good unique block font is easiest.

Borders make things look fancier, so google some really beautiful borders and see what you can copy. Make sure when you use a sharpie, you open up the card in case it bleeds through.

The inside is best for little characters. Ghosts, bats, pumpkins, vampires, spiders, cobwebs, etc. The list goes on and on.

Get funky with the little dudes. 

This is where craft glue comes in handy. Regular glue makes paper wavy from the moisture, so to get a clean result, invest in some good glue.

If you have any good Halloween jokes... please email me because obviously I'm hopeless.

And so Day One of Halloweek has officially kicked off the count down to Halloween! Come back everyday until the 31st for more Halloween related blogs!

I'M SO EXCITED!

Amy Winehouse Cover (Again)

This is the result of being home alone with the inability to want to sleep. Enjoy!

It Only Gets Crazier

So about a month ago, I decided that I needed to do something weird. Every so often, I get the urge to change something. These urges have led me to get piercings, tattoos, and haircuts. I could serve as a cautionary tale, but I have to admit I'm pretty pleased with my choices. I have a pact with myself that I will not regret decisions that are trivial and don't effect other people. 

There has been a surge of popularity of the undercut hair style made most famous recently by Skrillex. About a year ago, I almost decided to shave half of my hair because I was certain I would look magnificent. But as a person who is constantly on the verge of doing radical things with my appearance, I get pressured by my family to stay normal and not go completely over to the Lady Gaga side of strange (believe me, if I wasn't an average college student, I would be the weirdest looking person on the face of the planet and loving every second of it).

Back to a month ago, I sat in my room for hours looking at this picture:

I parted the section of hair to shave, then I put my hair back down, then I took a shower and paced in my room until I was ready to try again.

When I was finally brave enough to actually pick up scissors, I was watching Ellen DeGeneres (totally irrelevant to the outcome, but I'll always remember that I was watching her). Part of my brain was thinking that me holding up the scissors to my scalp was a joke, but when I finally snipped the hair away, I starred at the mirror and was mildly horrified by the fact that I had a six-inch chunk of hair in my hands, but exhilarated by the fact that I got to keep cutting.

Here is what it looks like now (I buzz it every few weeks):

Now here's why this blog exists; I think shaving a strip of hair off my head makes the top ten of my Craziest Things I've Done list (which maybe makes me really tame or boring). But I am fully aware that life is going to get way crazier than hacking off hunks of hair (alliteration, woo!). And just like the moment after I closed the scissors, I am both horrified and exhilarated by the fact that I get to keep experiencing life and all the weirdness it has to offer self-inflicted or otherwise. 

Dealing with Anxiety

As a naturally anxious person since a very young age, I have a fair amount of panic attacks under my belt. If you also suffer from anxiety you'll know that it can suck a lot. If you don't know how bad it can suck, you should know that anxiety can lead to stress dreams that can lead to wetting the bed; which I totally don't know from experience...
This post is mostly centered on some methods that I use to help keep an attack at bay or to sometimes stop one in its tracks. Now, I am not trained medically, so feel free to disagree with these methods but I have found that they really work for me. I went from not being able to go an hour without having a panic attack and constantly feeling on the edge of one to being able to sense when I might have one and stop it.

1)      Breathe. This is the most obvious method, but I do it a little differently. People tell you to practice yoga breathing, but I find that that sometimes makes me feel more anxious because it lets me think even more. I breathe in and out alongside a song that I sing in my head. It cuts the focus off of the attack and can distract your mind. You’ll find in this list I do things that require both physical and mental distractions because they work the best for me.

2)      Draw/ Color. This may be the most juvenile thing, but it is so effective for me. It could just be that I like being artistic and it may not work for people who don’t like art. But if you think it will help, I usually prefer to copy henna designs. I just pick a picture from online and I trace the lines and color in the gaps. Henna has a lot of repetitive and complex lines that distract from panic.

3)      Use your hands. This method is usually best for when you know the panic attack will probably be mild and controllable. I tap each finger one after the other on my thumb and count in my head up from one to four for each finger. And I do that until I have calmed down.

4)      Eye contact. This one is a little weird and might freak out the opposing party in the scenario, but I think it might be the best. I was on a flight one night and I just couldn’t shake my anxiety. I absolutely hate flying. I decided to take a walk down the aisle and I found out on accident that making eye contact with strangers calms me right down. It is something about being in the moment. Nothing makes you feel more present than having a strange moment with a person you’ll probably never see again. Just to look at them without knowing anything about them and think that maybe you’re on the same page. Maybe you’re both going through the same thing. It’s soothing.

5)      Panic Objects. When my anxiety was at its worse, about five years ago, my dear family friend came to my house after a very bad attack. He gave me a seashell and told me that, during an attack, I should close my eyes and put it up to my ear and visualize myself somewhere peaceful. It is a particularly good method for people who have strong imaginations. I do not go anywhere without my seashell.

6)      Chat with yourself. I usually use this method when I am alone and I think the attack is going to be a doozy. Out loud I tell myself that I am having a panic attack and I tell myself why it is happening. Usually I can get myself to realize how silly it is. Chatting to yourself lets your rational mind react and hopefully take over to stop the attack.

7)      Let it happen. Sometimes the best thing for an anxiety attack if none of these methods work is to just let it happen. Let it run its course but keep telling yourself it will end soon. They don’t last very long, and they won’t kill you, so if you can’t stop it just let it happen. 

My Weird Judgment

I am not the kind of person who lets physical appearance effect my final decision about someone, but there is one body part I will judge the crap out of you. Hands. Sure faces can be pretty and what not, but hands are the most telling part of a human being. How you use your hands says not only a lot about how you’re feeling but about what kind of person you are.  If you’re the kind of person who usually crosses your arms and tucks your hands in your pockets, maybe you’re more reserved around new people.  If you’re like me and always have their hands visible and moving when talking to people, you’re probably Italian (half kidding).

If I am bored in class, I will watch people’s hands and try to figure out what they’re like.  There’s this one person in particular that is in many of my classes and I watched them peel a sticker off a folder and meticulously fold it. Their hands are always doing something productive. They never doodle with their pens. It’s either notes or memos. And when that person speaks, they always have precise answers to questions. I have, in my totally scientific way of being creepy, proven this method of judgment to be fairly effective.

As I’ve developed this theory, it made me more aware of my hands and I’ve observed moments where I feel uncomfortable and I realize that I’m picking at my thumbs, or times when I feel really good and my hands are open at my sides. One particular moment that I was obsessing over my hands was while watching the video of me singing “Gravity” and there’s a part in the bridge where I belt at the very top of my range and I remember being horribly nervous. While I got into the note I realized I wasn’t going to crack, and that I was hitting it pretty darn well. If you go back and watch the video my right hand goes from clenched and tiny but while I hold the note, my fingers slowly spread wide open. I must have watched that single moment ten times because I was so excited that my hand-watching habit was paying off.

And on that note I shall leave you all to go watch people’s hands and see what you can read about them.