What the Art Teacher Wore #14

Floral, Gingham and Dots Monday: This photo was taken as the UPS man drove by, honking and waving at silly me and my tripod. sweater: vintage and thrifted; skirt: Anthropologie, last summer; tights: Target; shoes: Dolls by Nina

Kids, you'll have to forgive me, but I've gone a bit berzerk. Not only did I find some super groovy masterpieces that kinda-sorta coordinate with my ensemble...but I've also found The Missing Link. I'm not talking about some neanderthal-looking dude (though I'm pretty sure that guy was standing behind me in Goodwill yesterday telling his kid to, "Git over hair, nay-ow!"). I mean, The Missing Link to completing my look. I'm adding each to my Christmas, birthday and Arbor Day wishlists (what, you don't get prezzies on Arbor Day?). Thanks for indulging my silliness. Enjoy!

Red, White and Blue Cherries created by the husband and wife team at Just Plain Pix.Cherries are my absolute fave fruit. You?

I really really want a bike. Not to ride or anything. Just to look at. I promise I would look at it every single day. Can I have this one, pretty please?

Surprise! Evaluation Tuesday: Erm, yeah. My dear principal came about 30 seconds before my kids did for my surprise evaluation. No word on how it went. But there was no rolling around on the floor, crying or fit throwing, so that's good. I was on my best behavior. dress, jacket and belt: vintage, thrifted; tights: Target; shoes: Lucky, purchased on the cheap at Marti and Liz

The browns and golds in my outfit reminded me of this painting. Do you recognize it? It's kinda famous. But it's a little difficult for me to see...

Oh, that's better. I just needed my fancy smancy brown and gold cat eye glasses that coordinate with my outfit to help me see. Now I recognize her, it's Mona Lisa by "Vincent da Vinci" (a direct quote from one of my students this week).

Seeing Spots Wednesday: On this day, I just happened to be wearing an apron...which was good because I managed to pour a ton of paint all over it without even noticing. Afterward, one of my kids told me that my name should be "Mrs. Messy". dress: vintage, thrifted; sweater: thrifted; shoes: thrifted and altered by me...I had to add the blue fabric just to keep the shoes on.

Explosion, Roy Lichtenstein ... this is pretty much what my apron looked like after the paint attacked it.

Wonder what the UPS man would say if he saw me in my polka dotted ensemble on the steps of this  red spotted house with the teal blue steps?

Thursday: sweater: Paris Market Vintage for $4! ; dress: Talbots, thrifted; belt and flower: H&M; fishnets: Target; shoes: Indigo by Clarks; kid sunglasses: ebay

Love Angie Lewin's work. She's got a book out of her prints as well.

You see, I won't be riding the bike because I'll be driving this! I really want a vintage car. But hubs has had his share of old cars: a Bronco and a couple of Mustangs and says his days with the oldies are over. Sigh.

Friday, My Love: sweater: Ann Taylor, thrifted; dress: vintage, thrifted; belt: made by me; shoes: BC Shoes

My outfit reminded me of ketchup and mustard. So did this painting by Henri Matisse.

And what better way to handle one's ketchup and mustard than with these incredible gloves. I went through a phase in high school wear I wore sweet lace gloves until my giant man-hands busted out of them. Oh well. One can dream.

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What the Art Teacher Wore #6

Feelin' Girly Monday: And I'm so not girly. It just so happens that I like to wear dresses. Other than that, I'm just as gnarly and nasty as your average Tennessee Redneck. Which would explain the mustache I appear to be sporting in this photo...yikes! dress: thrifted; sweater: thrifted and repurposed with lace and new buttons by me; belt: made by me; tights: Target; shoes: John Fluevog; bird headband: Peachy Tuesday

I hope you'll accept my apologies in advance for my What I Wore This Week update. I was temporarily separated from my camera and forced to use another...one that required some sort of downloading and installing. Needless to say, I wasn't about to go to all that trouble. When tasks get hard and I am required to read, think and learn something new, well, that's where I draw the line. My head is for bump-its not thinkin's. So the photos I snapped will forever be trapped on that other camera. And this week will just be full of my funky photos and Lauren's instagrams. Oh well, better luck next week!

Have you been to visit Peachy Tuesday's shop on etsy? If you've not, shame on you! Get your head some accessories now. You can check out her wares here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/peachytuesday

Hoping for Snow Monday: We really were. So much so we just knew hanging the kids' finished mural would bring us some luck. No go. Lauren's cute outfit was put together with her Target finds. I'm never that lucky when I go there!

Happy Valentine's Day Tuesday: hearty hairclip: made by me; sweater: hand-me-down from a friend; leopard collar: made by me; skirt: thrift find from the day before; tights: either Marshall's and/or Target...I'm wearing hot pink tights with brown sparkle fishnets on top; shoes: thrift store find, diy'ed by me

Instagram snap shot: Lauren's holding a giant basket full of Valentine's and candy the kids brought us. They know us so well. Lauren went shopping in her mom's closet for this sweet look. Yeah, um, my mom's closet doesn't have cute dresses like that! (Sorry, Paula Sue, you know it's true).

The trouble with taking your own photos with a 10 second timer? Getting in front of the camera without whacking your knee on the chairs in your path. Whacking Wednesday: sweater: Ann Taylor, thrifted; dress: vintage, picked up at The Cactus Flower in college; belt: gift from a friend; shoes: Dolls by Nina

Just a little close up. I love the sweet pattern on the dress combined with the flowers.

Speaking of pattern, don't you love Lauren's? Her cute key skirt was picked up at Goodwill just days before.

I know it's February, but it might as well be spring Tuesday: This is a head-to-toe DIY I did back in October. I cut out flowers from some vintage fabric and appliqued them onto this dress from Urban Outfitters. The sweater was thrifted. I swapped out the buttons and added the appliqued flower to match the dress. boots: Seychelles; belt: made by me

Everything's Coming Up Roses Friday: sweater: vintage, thrifted; dress: vintage, thrifted; belt: made by me; tights: blue fishnets over hot pink tights from Target; shoes: thrifted, by BC

That morning I decided to hot glue a couple of broken clip-on earrings to the black circles on the shoes. I might regret that when I want to wear them with something else...or I might just have to go shoe shopping for another pair!

I love the mustard yellow and lilacy purple, don't you? And she made the belt! I need to find out how...

because it's beautiful! Enjoy the rest of your weekend, all!

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DIY: You're Such a (Soda) Jerk!

I went and did something I promised myself I wouldn't do. I painted this here Valentine's Day canvas. I knew it would take me forever and that I'd just barely finish it in time to enjoy it...and...yet... I managed to convince myself to do it anyway. Here's how the conversation between Delusional Cassie and Sane-ish Cassie went down:

D.C. : Aw, look at all of these cute vintage Valentine's that keep popping up on pinterest! I should so totally paint one for the house.

S.C. : Absolutely not. You take forever to paint anything. Besides, it's kinda cheesy. Aren't you like thirty-seven or something?

D.C. : It's not cheesy, it's cute! And I swear, it won't take me that long, I'll just sketch it out and block it in. Piece of cake for this, ahem, thirty-six year old.

S.C.: You say so, Crazy.

After perusing pinterest for the perfect vintage valentine, I found this one. I absolutely love the girl (the hair! the red bow shoes! the heart shirt!) and the fact that she's chillin' at a soda fountain...but the rest of it was kind of lacking. I mean, I had to read the bit about being a working girl a couple of times before I got it (did I mention there is a Slow Cassie as well?). She just seemed too lonely and sad for a Valentine.

So I started sketching out some ideas. Instead of a poor working girl, I wanted a man-eatin' go-getter. Hence the fishnets and box of chocolates. And I wanted the object of her affection to be some cute -n- clueless soda jerk.

So I did some google-image-searching and found a plethora of soda jerks. After I created a sketch that I was happy with, I decided to tint and texture my canvas. I mixed up a warm yellow ochre and slathered it onto the canvas. Once dry, I sketched out my scene in pencil and started blocking in the colors.

Sadly for this dude, his flesh is a little multi-colored. Too much time in the tanning booth will do that to you, I hear. By the time I noticed his flesh inconsistencies, I was too tired of working on the painting to care.

Once I had the colors blocked in, I started going detail crazy. I decided I wanted the counter top to have a formica pattern so I attempted to paint tiny boomerangs with a one-haired brush. They ended up looking like hearts...which I kind of liked. I just had to add the fishnets as they are my favorite thing to wear. And what's a diner without a checkerboard floor? All of the outlining and lettering was done with a black paintbrush pen.

I have a small collection of vintage Valentine's that I picked up from an etsy shop last month. One thing I noticed about them is that they all have a play on words. As I was plotting and planning, I came up with the "So-da one you love is me?" My only regret is that I don't actually have him making a soda but what looks to be an strawberry shake. Oh well, hopefully the idea for that and the "fountain" reference at the bottom is still clear.

One of my favorite discoveries while soda-jerk-searching online was rediscovering this Norman Rockwell painting. When I became interested in creating art in high school, I found these sweet images so repulsive. I was just entirely too cool for nostalgic Rockwell paintings. Now, having the love for all things vintage that I do, I just adore his work. Especially when I discovered a collection of photographs that he snapped to create his paintings.

This makes me smile. Great, isn't it?

Well, would ya look at that, Sane-ish Cassie? It's finished! And hung right at the foot of my stairs for me to admire...for the next two days. Oh well. It did take much longer than expected but it was pretty fun regardless. Happy Valentine's Day!

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What the Art Teacher Wore #5

Hands-On-Hips = Don't-Mess-With-Me Monday: You know you're getting a little heavy handed with the cat-eye eye-liner when one of your students says, "Are you wearing your King Tut makeup today?" (click here to see me as Tut: http://cassiestephens.blogspot.com/2012/02/walk-like-egyptian.html ) sweater and dress: thrifted; belt: gift from a friend; fishnets over mustard tights: Target; long-lost shoes: Sofft

Hey kids! It was a good week in Art Teacher Land. Weeks ago I lost a bag full of my favorite things: the shoes I'm wearing in the photo above, my gallon can of Big Sexy Hair hairspray and my makeup bag full of lipsticks. I'd given them up as gone-for-good when I just happened to be in our school's communal kitchen when what do I see? My bag o' stuff! I couldn't believe my luck...then I couldn't believe no one returned the bag to me. I mean, I know it didn't have my name on it or anything but who else in the school wears a honkin' size 10 in Funky Shoes, requires a jug of hairspray to maintain bumpit perfection and would have that many lipsticks?! Oh well. I'm just glad it's all back in the right hands. 

In other news, here's what Lauren and I wore this week. Check out her handmade belt and splatter paint shirt. Adorable! Enjoy your weekend, all.

Student Teacher Lauren perfecting her Hands-On-Hips look: she told me that she gets most of her cute clothes from Target. I love how she puts things together, don't you? Her color combos are very clever. Mint green and deep purple? Yes please and thank you!

Soldier of Love and Killer Boots Tuesday: And by killer, I mean they just about killed me. tights: Marshall's; boots: Buffalo Exchange; belt: made by me; dress: thrifted, altered by me...you can read more about that alteration here: http://cassiestephens.blogspot.com/2012/02/soldier-of-love.html

Could-She-Get-Any-Cuter Tuesday: Not only is Lauren modeling an adorable dress on loan from her sis but she's also wearing lipstick she was gifted from a student! We were both given tubes of red lipstick this week...so nice to have miniature stylists.

Evaluation Wednesday: My big day...I was being observed to make sure that I was actually educating children and not just letting them huff sharpies and roll around in finger paint. Thankfully the kids were their usual awesome selves and all went swimmingly. sweater: thrifted...it has the sweetest label inside that says "Made With Love by Ester"; dress: BCBG, a rare new-item purchase; tights: Target; shoes: John Fluevog

Look at that bow belt! Aren't you in love? Lauren whipped it up that morning with sweet little train fabric she thrifted in Holland. Gah!

Crayon Shoes Thursday: All week one of my kindergarteners asked me if I'd wear my crayon shoes on her art day. So I got all crayola-ified from head to toe only to have her say upon walking in, "No, I said I wanted you to wear your pencil shoes!" shirt and sweater: Gap and Ann Taylor, thrifted; skirt: etsy; tights: Target; shoes and crayon hair clip: made by me

Look at that shirt! Lauren made it the night before using the secondary colors so that it would aid in the color lesson she's doing with the third graders. Genius.

It's Friday, Let's do an Irish jig: When all else fails, just pose like The Lord of the Dance. dress and belt: made by me with the help of a very good friend, blogged about a couple of years ago here: http://cassiestephens.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post.html; red fishnets over blue tights: Target; shoes; Dolls by Nina

Lauren can rock a pencil shirt. She said she snagged this one at Target. And her shirt was made by her boyfriend. Happy Friday from the Art Room!

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DIY: Soldier of Love

Don't ask me what this pose is all about. I look like some sort of deodorant commercial. And this was one of the better pics in the batch. Oui.

This weekend I was struck by the sewing bug and decided to create another Valentine's Day themed dress. I like to call this little number Soldier of Love inspired both by the little guys at the bottom of my dress and these lyrics by the Beatles song of the same name:

Lay down your arms (.....soldier of love)

and surrender to me. (sha la la)
Lay down your arms (.....soldier of love)
and love me peacefully, (sha la la) yeah (sha la la).
Use your arms for loving me,
baby that's the way it's got to be. (Ooooooo)

Sorry for the linty-lo on my shoulder. These little hearts were the recipients of many a curse word as appliqueing them on was a real...well...female dog. The little bits of white showing through drive me nuts. Where's a red sharpie when you need it?

For the creation of this dress, I started with the hearts. My original idea was for the hearts to be embroidered in the same way you see the stripes in the above hearts. But the embroidery didn't work out as planned and my threads looked saggy and weird. And nobody likes saggy and weird or Rosanne Barr would be back in popularity. So, I ripped out all that work and tried a little something different.

Outfit details: dress: Goodwill; belt: one made by me; boots: Buffalo Exchange; jacket: Anthropologie, gift from a friend; tights: dunno.

I cut out two squares of the striped fabric and sewed them right sides together with a diagonal line that went from one corner of the square to the other. I cut off one half of the diagonal square and cut a heart shape out of the other half. That was then pressed open and appliqued onto the dress. That last part proving to be a real female dog but at least it was no longer Rosanne Barr, if you catch my drift.

Showing off my crazy fishnets. When I put them on, a toe popped out of each hole. I knew I wouldn't be able to do that all day so I'm actually wearing a pair of thin socks under my 'nets. And those boots...ack! I was fine until the last hour of the day. Then I wanted to cut my feets off.

I have had this adorable late 1960's curtain fabric for ages. Using a curtain to create a new version of this dress made me feel very Scarlet O'Hara but without the yards of green velvet and the hot dude who didn't give a damn. After taking 9" off the bottom of the dress, I hemmed the bottom of the curtain, sewed it into a giant hoop of fabric that was the same circumference as the bottom of the dress and sewed the two together.That part proved to be pretty painless.

The back of the dress had buttons that were the same khaki color of the dress. They were kinda lame so I picked up some of those make-em-yourself buttons at JoAnn's. I covered these buttons in the same fabric as the hearts.

Just a little close up of the buttons. And my wrinkly backside. Wait, that doesn't sound right. You know what I mean.

El Fin!

So, it was an easy DIY. It got mixed reviews today as some thought the soldiers a little weird but I love the little dudes. So much so I tried to make big hair to match their big hats. Chat with you soonish!

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