Michael Kors Metaphors

Episode 8 (What Women Want)
This challenge asked the designers to create dresses for regular women instead of models, with their boyfriends and husbands describing to the designers things they think their gals would wear. Hilarity.

Thankfully Michael Kors was not shy with his metaphors just because regular people were on the runway.

Anthony Ryan's

It almost looks like superhero ice skater. Ooh she's got a cape and she's gonna fly around the house!

She's dressed up as a, I don't know, a cheerleader, sailor, a child.

Bryce's, featuring Most Hated Pockets

To me it looks like you're going to the buffet table and you walk by the bar and you put like a lamb chop in one pocket. Oh look, there's a piece of cake! I'll put it in there.

Keys?! You could put a dog in there!

Michael Kors Simile

Episode 7 (Can't We Just All Get Along?)

Am I mistaken, or was the only simile from Michael Kors about a person and not an outfit?!

Indeed, Josh M.'s catty attitude earned him a simile:

He is like a little dictator here, which I think is troublesome. He's a bit of a bully.


Michael Kors also disliked the print Josh M. designed, earning him my favorite quote of the night:

Maybe Kimberly was smart to realize that not a lot of women want to have "Canceled" on their crotch.

P.S. The tiny tiny giraffe is by ploop26. Obviously not a little dictator.

Google it!

This month at From Screen 2 Scrap! the challenge is to use the movie poster from Rio as your inspiration. As an additional challenge you can include a one word title, use blue, yellow and red cardstock, and add a bird.


Blue, yellow, and red made me think of my recent tour of Google! This page was pretty easy and cheap to complete, since I used cardstock scraps and stamps, plus one sticker from the sheet of Google stickers I bought in the gift shop. I've been trying to use white cardstock on a page for awhile and never liked it, but the bright cardstock and inspiration from the Google logo made it possible.

I was originally just going to use "Google" as my one word title, but it seemed redundant with a giant Google sign right underneath it. Once I added the wise owl I decided he's done asking, "Who?!" and now knows where to find the answer, creating a 2 word title instead.

happy day

At last, one of my favorite challenge blogs is up and running again: Scrapjacked! Their first month back they challenged us to use this layout by Jen Jockisch as inspiration:


I used a general sketch and the title as my inspiration. The pictures are from our hike last summer. One of my favorite things about our National Monuments: free maps full of information which can be used in scrapbooks!

Happy Banned Books Week!

Another year, another week to piss off the people who went out of their way to have books banned by going out of our way to read them.

Right now I'm reading The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement by David Brooks with my book club. It has not been banned, but it does contain scientific findings so maybe some day it will be! I have a little over 100 pages to go, and then I will begin my banned book selection, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I can't wait to find out why it could have possibly been banned.

What is your banned book selection for this week? If you need a list go here.

P.S. I don't know where I got the picture from, but clearly you can see how dangerous books are.

Happy 1st Day of Fall!

Today's high, 107.

P.S. Thank you Thompson Family-Life for the lovely photo.

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Yo ho ho, etc. etc.

P.S. Hunters Princess is by the dread pirate Anne-Julie Aubry.

Just like a star across my sky

It's Scrapping the Music's 4th Anniversary so their challenge is to kick it old school and use the song they used for their very first challenge, Like a Star by Corinne Bailey Rae.

The opening line in the song is, "Just like a star across my sky," which made me think of these pictures of Trent from our trip to Chuck E. Cheese's. He's got stars covering one ride he went on, and he's in the sky on another ride. This super cool solar system patterned paper came in a pack and I always hoped I could somehow use it some day!


I wrote the lyric in colored pencil on my layout so it would blend in, which also makes it hard for you to see in my photograph...

the getaway car

At last, the companion page to Have you ever dreamed a night like this?.
I chose the patterned paper because the texture makes me think of the barn their reception was in, and the font reminds me of the car graffiti.

The Train of Small Mercies by David Rowell

Thank you, David Rowell, for transporting me to a time before I was born and giving me a glimpse of what Senator Robert Kennedy truly meant to our nation in 1968. My generation will always remember where we were on September 11th. Your work of fiction provided me with another generation's "Where Were You" the day Robert Kennedy's funeral train crossed the east coast to bury a man who could have changed our country through presidency.

Glimpsing just one day in your characters lives left me craving more.

It's so windy

...and we have a full moon. Lovely. I wish it would rain!

P.S. September Wind is by ploop26.

Michael Kors Metaphors

The 6th episode of Project Runway, The Art of Matter, was all about taking a child artist's painting and making it into an Avant Garde outfit. Avant Garde is code for excessive similes and metaphors from Michael Kors! Yay!

Before we get to Michael Kors though I want to point out my favorite moment of the show, Tim Gunn chasing Swatch around Mood. I love Tim Gunn more and more every episode.


Michael Kors' liked this dress but disliked the styling. "But with the sleeve and the make-up and, you know, it's a little Tim Burton-y."

"She looks like a victorian cocktail waitress in Las Vegas."
"Joshua C. had this incredible painting of this wolf. Powerful, dimensional, interesting, and instead she's a hostess slash hooker."

So bad he came up with 4 similes and a metaphor!
"Unfortunately she just looks like a girl with a misshapen body with some stuff glued on her."
"It looks like something a Teletubbie would wear to a party."
"Heidi, I know you've been craving a very stiff jumpsuit that will make your ass look that long and it looks like you're having baby number five when you wear it."
"They were sponges. It's like, 'Oh I'm cleaning my kitchen! Beep! Oh I'm cleaning the floor! Boop!'"

"But then the rest of the dress looks like Mood exploded on her."
"His clothes, they're like Valium clothes. They just make you kind of fall asleep."
"Valium Fashion."

P.S. I got the picture of Tim & Swatch from Just a Biddy which has awesome Project Runway episode summaries. Here's the website since I can't get a link to work anymore: http://unemployedbiddy.blogspot.com/2011/09/i-like-real-depressing-music.html

5 books I would take to a desert island

Lost in Books asked: what 5 books would you take to a desert island?
And: what 5 non-fiction books that you've never read would you select (and NO selecting books on how to build a raft from sand or cooking coconuts 345 different ways, you cheaters. Something different than survival books!)

First I would build this tree house to live in:


Then I would begin reading:

1. Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey - so I could consider the environment while deserted

2. A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman - since I'm sure my senses will be heightened in a life or death situation

3. A Woman Alone: Travel Tales from Around the Globe by Faith Conlon - for empowerment

4. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer - to help me find myself

5. The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West by Lesley Poling-Kempes - another moral boost

Which books would you take?

P.S. The tree house came from here: http://nomadicway.tumblr.com/

P.P.S. Today I'm starting a non-fiction book with my book club, The Social Animal by David Brooks, even though we're just in the desert instead of a desert island.

P.P.P.S. Anyone else using Blogger having trouble with the links lately?

good luck finding a lady friend

You look very handsome.

The Eighty-Dollar Champion by Elizabeth Letts

Within the covers of this book lies the true story of a horse that was saved from the slaughterhouse by an immigrant from Holland. I loved reading the accounts of Snowman and Harry DeLeyer's amazing jumping career, and reading snippets of World War II/post-World War II American history, but the author's repetition kept it from becoming a favorite. Over and over the reader is reminded that the amazing duo were underdogs, which is obvious from the title of the book alone.

If you don't mind the writing style you will be treated to a feel-good animal story.

Michael Kors Similes

On the fifth episode of Project Runway, Off the Track, designers were challenged to create an outfit to go with Heidi's line of New Balance shoes.

I say BOO! to Josh M. who bullied Becky during the challenge while forcing her to make this not so flattering outfit:

Michael Kors said, "The t-shirt looks like you hacked up a dress."

Some more similes from Michael Kors:

"This is very Sound of Music. Maybe it's for Heidi's German kind of background. It's very dirndl, pretzels, and the beer garden."


"The blouse is just like a souflée that flopped. She's chiffon addicted."

A rarity! Michael Kors uses a simile as a compliment!

"...it looks like a million bucks."

I liked it too, but I think my favorite this week was Josh C.'s t-shirt. It makes it look as though the model is wearing a backpack, although she's not.

I'm not sure why I would want people to think I was wearing a backpack if I wasn't, but for some reason it appeals to me.

Also one of my favorite parts of the show was when Bert's teammates spent a fair amount of time in front of the judges hating on his outfit, only to have the judges tell them his was the best of the bunch. I'm not a big fan of Bert's but it was funny nonetheless.