I’ve been blogging now for five years – FIVE YEARS. I can’t believe it but I’ve gone from the Art of Accessories to I AM DWJ and have had a million adventures and experiences in that five year period. It has been great. It started as a class project and a way to share my love of makeup and accessories, things I’ve always been obsessed about. As I’ve gotten older I’ve fallen in love with even more things and have found ways to explore my creativity and find what I really love to do in life. The biggest thing I’ve learned about myself is that I thrive off of creating things.
I read this post the other week about finding out what you want to do in life, what brings you joy. I’ve always been jealous of the fact that my husband loves being an engineer – he LOVES his work. Even when he is frustrated and tired, I still have to say ‘let’s go home, it’s quitting time,’ knowing he’s fully ready to get up and do it all over again the next day. He designs building structures and loves seeing the finished product – I realize I love knitting. Odd but true.
For my day job I work in websites for an association in DC. I like seeing the finished product, I enjoy figuring out a bit of code that was tricky or helping to create a new development tool for our site but if I didn’t have this job tomorrow I honestly wouldn’t miss it. I have always been able to move on to the next project or job with ease and use that experience to help me move forward. Don’t get me wrong, I like my job but I don’t LOVE work the way my husband does. What I do love is having a set of knitting needles in my hands on a daily basis. Since I learned to knit two years ago (something I wanted to learn for ages but was too intimidated to learn) I haven’t stopped knitting. I have bins with yarns, full sets of needles and a running list of patterns, projects and ideas I want to create. I knit in the car in the morning or on lunch breaks at work. It brings me joy to finish a blanket for a baby, a hat for a friend, a scarf for a sister – it calms me after a long and crazy day in the office. My hands seem to crave the clicking of the needles and at first I thought it was weird but I’ve slowly started to realize it’s what I love to do.
I don’t know if I will ever fully be able to turn this knitting “thing” into a full time or even part time job but I definitely know this isn’t a phase and it’s definitely something that feeds my creative soul. I’ve got an Etsy shop up (I was having issues with my in-blog shop). I hope to share my love of baby blankets, hats, scarves and accessories beyond my little inner circle.
I still love makeup and accessories and will share that as well but my knitting adventures will be on this blog more and more as I expand more in the store. So thanks for being supportive and thanks for reading!
Posts from the “Blue” Category
If you’ve been reading this blog for a long time or you know me in real life you are quite aware that I’m very colorful. I pride myself on the fact that sometimes in a sea of grey and black coats I’m the one wearing hot pink, or apple green, or orange. My collection of tights is like a rainbow. My home is full of color and the artwork that I love is also colorful.
Yesterday we went to a celebration with friends in the afternoon and everyone kept commenting on how colorful I was. I had on a colorblocked dress with shades of pink, dark orange and purple, pink tights and a bright pink coat. That was just my normal work attire, nothing special but sometimes I forget that my normal isn’t everyone else’s standard of normal – and I’m totally okay with that.
This morning in the car with my husband we were discussing colors. He has mid range colorblindness, he knows colors but has difficulty deciphering them when they’re close together or too similar in tone. He saw something as black and I told him it was navy blue. His response to me, “the world you see must be really vivid, huh?” I laughed, realized it really is a vivid world I see and had to smile. I hope I always see the world in bright vivid color, it makes it so much happier to me that way.
Since Thursday was 3.14 (Pi Day) and since my husband and I are kind of nerdy I decided to make pie to celebrate being nerds. I mean, when else do I have a random reason to make pie?! I bought a premade deep dish pie shell at the grocery store and made a chocolate chip and hazelnut pie. It was delicious.
I also made a great discovery on Thursday, apparently I come in pillow form! My favorite sale site is Fab.com and I found the My Name is Simone pillow in Josephine but realized she bares a very close resemblance to ME!! How hilarious is that? I decided since this might only happen once in a blue moon I should just order the pillow. I’m eagerly awaiting its arrival.
bareMinerals has a limited edition Remix Collection that hit the shelves in January and I hadn’t posted anything about it. They sent me pieces of the collection a while back and I’ve just been holding on to them and telling folks everything I love without actually sharing it with you. I’m sorry.
First, can I say that I love the blue packaging? It stands out in my makeup drawers and I just love color. the Remix collection is about bright bold color but in sheer, high gloss and wearable form.
There are two new Read Eyeshadow 4.0 palettes. This one is The Next Big Thing and has a gold, copper, peach and a smokey plum color. This isn’t my kind of color combo but I think it appeals to a lot of other folks senses.
Of course you know I love the more vivid color palette that comes with The Wild Thing! A shimmery aqua, a bright chartreuse green, a shimmery bronze and a deep blue – I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE this color palette.
They’ve also added three Loud & Clear Lip Sheers in Berry Remix (a sheer purple), Amped Pink (my favorite) and Tangerine Trance (a sheer orange). I can actually see myself swiping these on all summer long. I love the texture, smooth and creamy with a great glossy finish.
One of the stars of this collection for me is the Ready Blush in the Natural High and it’s already sold out online. You NEED to go to the store to pick this one up, why? You know how normal people only have one blush? Well I have about 25 in my beauty arsenal and I’ve never understood how people could just wear one blush until I tried Natural High. This is a gorgeous, universally flattering shade for a variety of skin tones that has the right balance of shimmer and color. It’s a mix between pink and orange and that just leaves my cheeks glowing and I can’t seem to stop picking this one up. There are two other items in this collection that I tried and didn’t take pictures of but definitely think are also the stars of this collection: the Bronzing Mineral Veil has been a favorite of mine since it was in another limited edition collection. I had gotten down to the bottom of the container of it and then this arrived on my doorsteps. I love this stuff. I also love any mascara from the Bare Escentuals folks (hello, Buxom!) and they have a limited edition Flawless Definition Mascara in Aqua (and in black for those that aren’t as obsessed with blue mascara as I am). I love this stuff and need to take pictures so you can see the vivid color. This remix collection is the bee’s knees. It’s definitely a favorite release of mine and I think you will love it too. Have you tried it? Picked anything up? Drooling over it now? Tell me!
Since I’ve been on the mend for the last week I’ve been attempting to not be bored. I’ve read a lot of magazines, watched a lot of TV and then decided I needed to paint my nails. Since I’ve been so bored I thought sparkles were in order. I did do an hour long outing (that wore me out) and stopped by Ulta to pick up a mini pack of the Mariah Carey for OPI nail polish minis. I picked up the liquid sand colors because I read about them giving off such a great finish.
I haven’t been able to stop looking at my nails since I painted them on Friday night. The liquid sand polish don’t require a top coat and it’s a sparkly matte finish. It looks like you have sparkling sand on your tips, I love it. I was surprised at how quickly it dried and it’s lasting beautifully. Now how long it will take me to remove this is the next question but I guess I’ll find out in a few days. Have you tried any of the liquid sand finishes yet? How are you loving them?
