Outfits, videos and a threadless design

Exciting news guys and gals, my latest design for Threadless is up for scoring! Be a dear and vote for it here <3

Astro Basketball

Growing up, I remember watching a lot of basketball games with my father on our small tv and cheering with him even if I had no idea what was going on, seeing him play in his former company's league (I think he was an MVP a couple of times too? I need to verify this, though, but I'm pretty sure that despite the height disadvantage, he was a great player :) ), and in later years seeing him transition into coaching teams in my youth group, Youth For Christ. That was his other passion, aside from serving in Couples For Christ and jamming on his guitar during lazy Saturdays. Which is maybe the reason why, as "un-sporty" as I am (soccer and wall climbing being the only ones that I really like), I can tolerate watching basketball a lot more than watching football, and thus understand all the hype surrounding that particular game. The design above is a wink to my dad's love for basketball and a nod to one of my many childhood obsessions (I used to reread one particular book on Space during summer vacations). I hope you like it enough to give it a five :) And oh, an interesting tidbit: I asked my older brother to sketch it for me after describing in detail how I wanted it to look like, and he got it 100%! Awesome :D

Here's my outfit for today, in celebration of the uncannily warm weather we're having. Huzzah! I am so ready to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom on Wednesday ^_^

Button-down shirt: Halogen (similar shirt from Jones New York here)

Pants with belt: H&M (I will start collecting these, they're easily one of my dressiest and comfiest pair of pants!)

Leather bag: Cole Haan's Daisy Triangle Tote

Dressing room: Nordstrom Rack (I was returning an item that I intended to use for a contest and saw an opportunity to take an outfit picture hehehe)

Flats: Calvin Klein (my favorite pair, previously mentioned here)

Necklace: Burlington

Here's a closeup of the necklace, which I absolutely adore:

It's a chain of five pearl flowers, each with a rhinestone cluster in the middle - perfect for spring!

Happy Day!

Sometimes when you're down, you just want to be left alone to sulk and immerse yourself in it until you're over it, but more often than not it just aggravates that feeling instead of making it go away. The best remedy, I think, would be to look back at the blessings you've recently received and see that there is more reason to celebrate than sulk! Take a deep breath, and do a countdown of list down these blessings - they can be small, like getting a chocolate chip cookie from your friend during lunch, or big like a promotion at work or a long, heartwarming call from a long-lost friend! Here are my blessings and some things that made me smile:

1. 3 out of 4 of my submissions to Threadless got through! Whoop whoop! And now you have the opportunity to vote for it so it would get printed hehehe. I would be so happy if you give them all a $5! :D Thanks in advance!

Click here to score "Nature <3 Bikes"

Click here to score "Breakdancing Earth"

Click here to score "The World Wants You to be Awesome" 

2. We have a new pope! I have been reading articles on Pope Francis and I liked what I found, one of them being the fact that he has a master's degree in Chemistry (a man after my own heart? haha). May God continue to guide him in shepherding the Church and hopefully he'll leave a great legacy behind. In all seriousness though, he's what we need -a humble yet wise man who cares about the poor and truly tries to live as Christ lived. Habemus Papam! (The pope, formerly known as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina, chose the name "Francis" in honor of St. Francis of Assisi)

Weekend Workout

Photoshop skill workout, that is! I barely got out of the house despite the beautiful weather outside because I was on a roll regarding my threadless submissions and I was able to watch some shows at the same time (I just finished all the episodes of Futurama, and am almost done with watching The IT Crowd, both of which are hilarious!) thru my tablet. So all in all, a pretty productive weekend for me :) Here are the things I submitted, I hope they'll all get through!

1. This one is for a bike-themed contest :) I was portraying the environment-friendly aspect of using bikes as opposed to cars. Those flowers took a while to finish, as did the bike, but I think it worked out pretty well.

I'm pretty proud of these flowers, they were hard to make without Illustrator

Random things

1. The making of "The Kiss" starring Superman and Wonderwoman: muddycolors.blogspot.com

2. The Boar Rider (Oil on Gessoed Panel) by Justin Gerard: Original post here