#instalife

Yay! I have finally gotten to the more recent instas! And when I say recent I actually mean that these are from almost two months ago.

-> Several of these pictures are from my vacation to California. I love the one taken from the end of the Santa Monica pier. I just can't get over how beautiful the west coast is. The beaches are stunning. Growing up 10 minutes away from the beach in Texas has always been the best, but Padre Island is like the ghetto of beaches when compared to the few I visited when I was in Cali.

-> Another one of my favorite pictures in this group is the one of the abandoned church. It is located in the middle of nowhere New Mexico and literally every time we make the drive to and from Utah we stop there to snap a couple shots. It is stunning.

-> It makes me a little sad to look at the pictures of me and my Provo friends because I miss them sooo much. Only two more weeks!

-> The picture in the bottom right corner is of me wearing the first shirt I made this summer. I made it for the 4th of July. Sadly, after a series of unfortunate events I didn't really get to wear it for any cool festivities on the 4th... but we won't get into that story because it is long and sad.

Love,

@carlifries84

Clothing Revival

I have always had this terrible habit of going thrift shopping and walking out of the store with items that I would't wear without a little to a lot of alteration. Maybe it is because when I thrift shop I try EVERYTHING on. OK, no... not everything... but I grab anything that has at least one good quality (shape, fabric, fit, length, collar, etc.) and then I try it on. Then I buy those things because they have potential. It makes me sad to see something ugly that could be beautiful and unique with just a little TLC.
Once I get home I throw that ugly item into a huge box that is my "To Fix" box. Those clothes sit in there for days, weeks, months, and sadly... even years until one day I dig through the box, try some of them on, remember why I bought them, and then come up with a way to revive them. This dress I bought a year and a half ago. I forgot to take a picture of it before I ripped this nasty ricrac and ruffle monster that was on the bottom. You probably don't even want to see it anyways... After I took that crap off it was a little too short for my liking. I spent some time pinning different laces to the bottom trying to find something that I liked. I really didn't want to have to go to Joanns and buy something since I have such a huge collection of lace at home. As I was digging through my enormous pile of fabric I found a white scalloped table runner that my mom gave me last year. Basically it was perfect! I sliced it in half and sewed it onto the bottom. Then I shortened the sleeves. This project literally took me an hour (if you don't count the removal of the ruffles... that took forever) and most of that time was spent looking for something to add to the bottom.
I just love how easy it is to take something that costs so little, something that no one else saw the potential in, and turn it into something beautiful and not to mention unique.

Carli

Insta-life.

Most of these pictures are from the little over a month that I stayed in Utah after school ended before heading home to Texas. Basically all I did that month was work and play.

• I spent a lot of time at my old roommates apartments since I had no new friends at my new apartment besides my engaged roommate. Later, I moved into an apartment all by myself after Jessica got married. I wont be alone in the apartment when I get back but I lived alone for 2 weeks. It was super weird/surprisingly awesome. 
• At my old rommies apartments, people that actually lived there thought that I lived there too since I was there so much. We did some pretty cool stuff: One day we all took turns blowing fire. Pretty dang awesome I must say.
• We also rented a puppy. Yeah, you read that right... we RENTED it. There is a local business in Provo that rents out puppies to college students for an hourly rate. After the puppy gets to be a certain age they put them up for adoption. Basically this is genius since us college students don't get to have pets. When I first moved to Provo I had some animal love withdrawals. Any time I would see an animal I would get all excited and emotional and probably freaked out the owner when I ran up to see if they would let me pet it. We rented Rodney and spent 2 bliss filled hours playing with him.
• Another huge event of that month was the birth of my besties baby boy Lincoln. The little (or should I say huge) guy was 10 pounds 9 ounces!!!! He literally looked like a 3 month old. That picture of him sprawled on his bed still gets me. This was literally an hour and a half after birth! I was so excited to hold him a couple days later. So cute. Can't wait to get back up to Utah and snuggle with him.

Basically that was a great month. Looking at these pictures makes me miss all of my Provo friends even more than I already do. Can;t wait to be back in less than a month!!!!

Carli

P.S. I Made This: Retro.

This week I made Butterick Pattern 4790 out of a vintage bed sheet that I think came from my grandmother. The dress is a wrap dress and really confused me for a while while I was making it. "Um... what?!" I ended up not really following the instructions very much and then getting really frustrated. I am the "look at the pictures and not read anything" kind of person so often I mess up, get really mad, and then have to go back and read and fix everything. Overall the dress was pretty easy to make. I don't know if you can tell, but shhh.... I haven't finished hemming it yet. I literally have spent hours hemming it by hand, but since the skirt is so full I am barely to the halfway mark. My only complaint is that I am not a big fan of how the dress shifts when you wear it. I constantly have to make sure that everything is in place or I look frumpy and/or not modest.

Happy Sewing!
Carli

P.S. I love the Monkees. Especially on vinyl.

Beaching.

Today Tabby and I went to the beach. Tabs is not as big of a beach fan as I am, but said that she really wanted to go at least once this summer before we head back up to Utah. I jumped at the chance since none of my friends are here in Texas anymore so when I come back home I get REALLY bored. and worst of all... I have no one to go to the beach with, so I don't end up going as much as I want to. Today was perfect. We brought a blanket, some drinks, and some sandwiches and had a good time talking, eating, and getting a little scared in the water. Haha. I love the beach, but the water freaks me out a little especially when other people are outwardly scared I get more scared. Since Tabs and I were both a little nervous about going to far, we ended up spending a lot of time being pushed around in the shallow as the waves rolled in. We liked it.
I also loved how I was able to continue some of my old beach traditions. Back in the good ole days my friends and I would come have picnics at the beach. During the day we would go to swim and sunbathe. I don't really know how this got started, but it was always my thing to bring a big bottle of chocolate milk to the beach with me. I know what your thinking... why would you want to drink chocolate milk on a blazing hot day at the beach? I honestly do not even know why. It just was my thing and I kinda liked it. Also, Texas has the best chocolate milk. I have tried chocolate milk other places and it doesn't even compare. BYU Creamery milk comes pretty close but no dice. Anyways... I just had to have my chocolate milk on the beach today. It brought back so many memories. I even got Tabby into it. Now I just need to come back to the beach at night with some friends, a blanket to sit on, a guitar, and a pizza. There is not a lot to do in Corpus other than the beach. So we would often spend hours and hours trying to think of something cool to do, but somehow we would always end up at the beach really late at night. We called it nighttiming (you know... like the Coconut Records song?!). We always talked about our future and our big dreams. It is so crazy to think that we are living that time we always talked about, but even more crazy how different reality is from our expectations. We aren't where we thought we would be, but somehow it has worked out for the better. Since I have been home I just haven't been able to get over thinking about growing up here. I miss all the friends, the good times we had, the memories. It's hard to be here without it. All we wanted was to get away and follow our dreams, but sometimes I just want to be back in the good ole days. That line that Andy said in the last episode of The Office is so true and so fitting.

"I wish there was a way to know that you're in the good old days before you've actually left them."

Carli

P.S. A little too much nostalgia going on over here.