Posts Tagged ‘fashion’

Just me again :pp
Since I posted the update on the painting I’ve been playing with the bar at the bottom of this blog and found some more things to add to it. There’s a lot to choose from, but I don’t want to clutter it too much. So being a graphic designer and illustrator myself who is hunting new customers with a big axe (well, maybe not :p) I know how difficult it can be to find the next project. There are times when a steady job with monthly fixed payments is very tempting, but it would kill me. And I like to live on the edge…so to speak :pp

Anyone who’s working as a freelance knows that to get that next project you need to stay on top of things. And since this blog is almost all about graphics and art I thought I’d add a feature to the bar below that will make the hunt a bit easier.
The button where it says “Creative Jobs” is a search especially made for freelancers. It shows a lot of different kinds of jobs since creative jobs are not limited to graphic design and illustrations. Web development and any kind of entertainment is just as creative, but in their own way.

The easiest way is to take a look actually. And you can clear the search if you want to look for something that I didn’t add to the basic search too.

And if you’re looking for a freelancer, feel free to place your own ad :) New ads will automatically be posted to Twitter under my profile, @simplychrista.

We went into town today to do some grocery shopping and when we came to Tesco they had 25% on all clothing. And since I’ve been thinking about buying a dress I decided to do one of my very rare clothes shopping’s.
Most of the time I hate buying clothes no matter what, but lately since I’ve gained all that weight from nowhere, the fun is completely gone. However, I had my mind set on finding something new to wear. It’s been a nice and sunny day today and I was in the mood for something other than winter wear since it’s been a loooooong winter.

So I found this dress in jeans fabric, grabbed what I hoped was my size and joined the line of other customers outside the fitting rooms. Ahead of me was a couple of women and a dad together with his daughter, so the wait was rather short.
When I finally had my number tag from the woman at the door who later took care of the clothes I just tried on, I found my way to an empty fitting room. And you know, there’s something peculiar about fitting rooms and light. I mean, if I was doing the interior at any clothes store and was installing mirrors on two or three walls, and then a light source, all in the name of selling clothes, I would do it differently.

It’s the year of 2010 and still as soon as you strip down a bit and try on a piece of clothing in a fitting room, you are penetrated by this horrible light they used since the 60′s. For heaven’s sake! Sure, it should be bright enough so you can see what you look like, but does that really mean that it has to be fluorescent light? It leaves nothing to the imagination, and at least in my size and position it’s nice if you have a bit of your illusions intact when you leave the store :p

The dress was too small, but that light surely didn’t make it any better. I felt like an elephant when I handed over the dress and the tag to the woman at the door before I left. And only an hour or so earlier before we left home it felt as if I lost a few pounds.

It’s not a good thing to humiliate your customers with their own mirror image and the truth so brutally presented as it can be in a brand new shiny fitting room. The size tags on the clothes you’re trying on says it all and there’s really no need to magnify that bit any further.
I don’t mind Tesco Extra otherwise. It’s great since they sell almost anything you need and don’t need. And I did find something in the end, but it was not a dress and I never tried it on. Instead I came out with a pair of camo pants (camouflage pants) that ends a bit under the knee. And I found them at the male section. It’s always like that :p

Maybe I’ll try something on in a few years from now on or so to see if they fixed the lights in those fitting rooms. It’s not an expensive thing to invest in and I shouldn’t have to go to a fancy boutique to keep my self-esteem intact when I try something on :p

My hair has grown a lot this winter and a few weeks ago I bought a pack of barrettes to keep it all together in the back. I’m not sure why I saved all this hair because now it’s in my way no matter what I do :p So usually it’s in a braid or a tail in the back.

I wanted a barrette that had a unique look…something for special occasions that I knew would stand out, but that would still have a bit of style. So I made what you see above.
The base is a leather barrette and the round silver piece in the middle is a lid from an old pocket watch that once belonged to my dad. It still got his initials engraved in the middle – G.E – and I’ve saved it for something like this. Something that I could keep and use :)

I made this fairly easy since I believe that less is more in most cases. There’s no gears or anything that interrupts the roundness, except from the black gem at the top, which is square. I also have barrettes that are brown, but I picked the black one on purpose since it went together with that silver lid better than what brown leather would have done.

There’s a larger image if you click the one above :)

I was born a redhead and I began to dye my hair when I was a teenager, mainly because I really hated what nature had provided me with. My mom was a natural blond and my dad had brown hair, and the end result was that me and my sister ended up like two stoplights.

A lot of things changes since I was a teenager though and these days I stick to my own haircolor as much as I can. But I’ve been a brunette, I’ve had black hair (the horror) and I’ve been a blond. In a lot of shades.
The main reason I use hair dye these days is to cover those stubborn greys by the ears and to add some shine into my hair. It’s rare that I try to change the color itself. However, it’s really difficult to find the red shade I have, so most of the time it ends up in another red shade…or something similar.

A few weeks ago I decided it was time to add some chemicals to my fading mane again, and I couldn’t believe my luck when I found Clairol’s Nice’n'Easy at Tesco for 97 pence. I grabbed two packs, one in some deep auburn and another that was dark blond since the length of my hair requires two packs. A couple of days later I mixed them and went to work.

Now…since I’ve done this a lot of times and had only a couple of incidents when it all turned into a fiasco, I know how to dye my hair. It’s nothing new at all. And this went just as smooth as it usually do. With one exception.
I was rinsing for what seemed to be hours, and the water was still red. After gallons of red water going down the drain I had to stop and dry it. The towel was also redish from the water, but there was no visible dye left.
The towel went straight into some water and washing soap and I dried my hair.

Since then I don’t know how many times I’ve washed my hair, but more than enough for any leftover dye to be gone, that’s for sure. And still….the water is slightly red every time I shower and wash the hair. I don’t even have to add any shampoo for the water to turn red. Yes, it’s more transparent than before, but it shouldn’t have any color at all by now. Heck, it should have been transparent the first time I rinsed it.

So that’s what you get when you turn cheap and pay less than a quid instead of going for the real stuff and pay an additional £5 :p Lesson learned.

And oh…the grey’s that I wanted to hide. No matter what it says on the package, they are still there in the end of the day anyway. The coverage they promise is nothing but bull and the next time I won’t even expect it. However, there won’t be a next time with this particular dye anyway. I’ve got better things to do than to rinse my hair for hours and hours :p

Right now I’m waiting for Robin to come back so we can go into town. I’m hungry and lunch would be nice. He took off a couple of hours ago to help his mom to leave a prescription at the pharmacy for her. Nothing ever goes as planned around here.
But, I should get ready anyway.

Hope your weather is more stable than ours today. I think we had every season there is since this morning and it’s loads of fun. Dressing should be interesting :pp

It’s a grey and chilly day today, which means that this country is back to it’s normal self again :p

A while back I put up a portfolio with both digital and traditional art included. And some of my photography.
Today I’ve expanded it again and added some of the Steampunk designs I’ve made during the past couple of years. Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to bring out my watch parts and tools all that often lately, but I still have it within reach if necessary. It’s a fun to do since there’s no real rules involved in that sort of design. You’re pretty much free to twist it in any way possible as long as you can put it together.

I don’t have a lot of items for sale any more, which isn’t a bad thing really. 99% of what I’ve made was also sold within days in most of the cases, so I can’t complain. And the items are spread all over the globe.

The portfolio can be found at http://portfolio.christastjean.co.uk if you want to take a peek. I was hoping I could create sub categories for the Steampunk designs, but obviously that’s not an option. So instead I had to add a category for what otherwise would have been a subcategory. I guess that works too.

Hope your day is a good one :)