Monday, November 30, 2009

Catching Up on Life

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. To catch up (and explain why I have been away)....


I volunteered at Model United Nations two weekends ago. It was tons of fun. I help out with the print press which put out 6 or 7 8 page issues over 2.5 days. AWESOME.


Then came Thanksgiving with my beautiful family and friends. I don't have tons and tons of photos, but this is one of my favorites of my grandmother. Isn't she gorgeous?!


And I've been working on my surreal project a bit. For now, final papers and exams are consuming me so I may continue to struggle with the infrequent posting. Hopefully I will be able to post lots over Christmas break! Hope you enjoyed the holidays!

Saturday, November 21, 2009

And the winner is....

Congratulations to the winner of the Susan B. Komen Travel Mug mrs. c.

mrs. c said...I love coffee and I would love this mug!


Mrs. C send me an e-mail with your address and info so I can get you your mug. adove87@gmail.com.

Be looking out for another giveaway and if you are interested in advertising through my blog by giving away something through my blog, please contact me at adove87@gmail.com

Hopefully we will have another giveaway soon!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Another Giveaway: Eco-Friendly Susan B. Komen Travel Mug

Breast Cancer Awareness Month may have passed, but the issue is no less pressing. This week the giveaway is an eco-friendly Susan B. Komen Travel Mug provided by cookware.com. Proceeds from this mug help the Susan B. Komen foundation which seeks to find a cure for breast cancer. This mug will also raise awareness as you use it and show off the pink ribbon pride! It is also an environmentally-friendly mug (yay preserving the earth's resources!). (I love gifts that give back!)

To enter into the giveaway, please leave a comment below on this post. You can gain extra entries by 1) Facebooking about my blog (with a link) and the giveaway 2) Blogging about my blog (with link) and giveaway and 3) Tweeting about my blog (with link) and the giveaway. 4) Subscribe to my blog (for the first time). Be sure to leave an extra comment for each one! The drawing will take place on Saturday at 5pm so leave your comments till then! Good Luck!!!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Final Simple Living Class

My final Simple Living class met Monday night. We had a fabulous time eating RAW portabello mushroom burgers topped with avocados, lettuce, and tomatoes on sprout bread (recipe posted soon). We also heard from my awesome cousin, Jessica (see her blog here), about some awesome sustainable food options, including "sprouting," which I am now thoroughly interested in and want to do here in the apartment. I will have to read up on it a bit and learn some more. It was a really great end to the class with most people requesting more meetings. I think I will make it a once a month event. Thanks Jessica for an awesome chat and great recipes and ideas on sustainable, tasty, inexpensive food choices!!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Multi-Faith Prayers for Peace


This past Sunday I helped coordinate an event hosted by Rhodes called "Multi-Faith Prayers for Peace." The event brought together members of several faith communities in Memphis for a time of prayer, reflection, inspiration, and discussion. I thought it was a huge success. We had a great turn-out and some really cool people came to talk including this awesome Buddhist named Khenpo. In this picture a Buddhist talks with a member of the Baha'i community and a Catholic. It is really great to see such discussions taking place. The event was in the Memphis newspaper this morning. I was quoted! Check it out here.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

First Photo for my Surrealism Project

Our new photo class project is focusing on surrealism. I bought little model train people and will be putting them in comical positions. What do you think of this one? Not close enough? Good? Hope you enjoyed your weekends!

Friday, November 13, 2009

And the winner is...

Congratulations to Shannon for winning the clutch!

shannon
said... Shannon F. - I love this!
It's on twitter: http://twitter.com/ShannonFuller

Shannon, please e-mail me at adove87@gmail.com to receive your prize. Thanks to all who participated! Please check in next Thursday for another giveaway.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

First Ever Giveaway


Today I am hosting my FIRST EVER GIVEAWAY with this darling clutch by Thomas Paul from allmodern.com. The same company also has a collection of modern decor and furniture called Vitra. It has so many wonderful items for sprucing up your space. To enter into the giveaway, please leave a comment below on this post. You can gain extra entries by 1) Facebooking about my blog (with a link) and the giveaway 2) Blogging about my blog (with link) and giveaway and 3) Tweeting about my blog (with link) and the giveaway. Be sure to leave an extra comment for each one! The drawing will take place on Friday at 5pm so leave your comments till then! Good luck!

Monday, November 9, 2009

Self Portrait Project- Pre Photoshop

Here's my newest photography project. pre-touch-ups. I probably won't do much with them, but some straightening and such needs to happen. They were inspired by a photographer that came to speak at Rhodes named Leslie Hewitt. She would set up still lifes with significant objects from the 70s and photograph them. I was intrigued by her desire to capture these sculptures in photograph form. She really wanted to study the items as how they affected the one moment of time in which the photograph was taken. I thought the same way for my project as many of my objects had stories behind them that captured at least where I was at particular points in my life. The project theme is "Self Portraits." I opted for a very minimalist view on some of the objects in my life. I think it's funny that I ended up using objects to define myself since I'm not all that into stuff, but I liked how these photos ended up more so than my other shots. Enjoy!
This is a pitcher that I found thrifting when I was getting my first apartment and needed some decor. It also holds some of my first kitchen utensils. I will straighten it and lighten it.
I bought this purse in Milan, Italy during my time abroad last semester. I will probably crop out the bottom for congruency.


Some wilted flowers snagged (pre-wilting) from the trash after Homecoming here at Rhodes. Will crop the bottom.


An elephant I bought in Tunisia during my time abroad.


A hat that I received for Christmas one year.


A coin purse I bought in the weekly antique market in Catania, Sicily.


A pile of scarfs that I have gathered over the years because I love scarves! They are from Catania, Sicily, Barcelona, Spain, thrifting, and Christmas.


A teacup I dumpster dived for while I was interning at Harvest Hands during the summer. I got the whole set of china.

Some shoes that I have always loved and have carried me through several important events in my life.


Another pair of shoes that I wore almost every day in Sicily. They are also very dirty because of my drawing class.

This is a box that my grandmother gave me years ago. I don't know that she would even remember giving it to me. It is just a random antique box she got for me when we went antiquing with her one weekend. It has always lived on my dresser wherever I have lived (in the US at least) and has never held more than some pens and pencils and probably a few pennies, but I just love it's character.

I have a couple more to shoot and I might not even end up using these, but here's a taste at least of what I'm up to in photographyland.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Loving these


Flower vases and vases courtesy of one my favorite blogs Daydream Lily. Maybe a bit reminiscent of what the vases might look like in our reception....

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Birthday Goodies



Andrew got me this fabulous book (see above and follow link) for my birthday along with a couple of awesome photography gadgets, and I love it so I wanted to share. It has some great ideas for making your own "green" art supplies and also some great art projects with recycled materials. I have spent the last three nights sifting through this book over and over again for good ideas and avoiding sleep. One of my personal favorite projects was the idea for making journals out of recycled materials, which I already do for myself and did for my sustainability class, but this book had some great ideas for new and more creative designs!

The same people have the another book, "Rebound" that delves into this journal/book-making so I ordered it today. I am so pumped!! I love journaling and love books and creative outlets and these ideas combine all three loves. I'm thinking it may be such a great project that I may start making them and selling some?! etsy store maybe? I'll keep you posted, but until then, check these books out yourself for some great ideas.

Sorry for the random "look inside" text, I borrowed/stole these photos off of amazon.com. You can't actually click on the books and look inside, but you can follow the links in the text below to see inside them on amazon.com.

Also, I'm going to have my first "giveaway" soon where you can win free stuff from my blog! Stay posted!

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

So last week was my birthday






and I have pretty fabulous friends that baked me this cake and took me out to dinner to a new-to-me mexican restaurant. yummmm!



Then we all hit up the campus-wide Halloween party. I went as a genie.