Foxy Tip #5: Shitty Labels = Quality Products

Whenever I go grocery shopping, I always look for the shittiest labels* I can find. And no, I don't mean shitty as in cheap and poorly designed, I mean shitty as in looks like they made the labels on their own printer without any glossy paper before slapping them on the jars themselves. Consistently these have always been much tastier than any "big name" brands. I'd say breads, jams, peanut butter, fudge, maple syrup, honey, and those sorts of homemade kinds of foods are the ones that this works best with. And of course it goes without saying that these smaller companies are usually more local, so it's a nice thing to support.

*My boyfriend and I love that company's jams. They taste like real fruit.

Foxy Tip #4: Taming Crazy Hair

My hair all throughout middle school, high school, and college was this. A crazy, curly, wiry, frizzy, puffball. I was so fed up I decided to chop it all off. Despite rarely using a straightener on it, apparently, it was just really damaged! So if you've got long hair that doesn't want to cooperate with you, you might just want to try cutting it all. It might just be damage, rather than the actual structure of your hair that is causing the problem. (and yes, I know I make silly faces)

Before... 

After... 

I also started using a deep conditioner, this one to be exact, once every few weeks. (I apply after shower to wet hair, put it in bun on top of head, put on a shower cap, then let a heat pad sit on my head for about an hour or so before washing it out) And that's also been helping with my wiry hair a lot, it's much smoother and softer now. Anyways, hope this helps anyone with similar hair problems!

Foxy Tip #3: Flavored Coffee To Go

Bored with the usual cream and sugar? Here's a few easy things you can drop in your coffee before you run out the door. They'll melt quickly and give your coffee a little kick, just be sure to give it a stir once melted!

• Hard candies
• Werther's Originals
• Peppermints (or candy canes!)
• Red Hot Cinnamon
• Tic Tacs
• Lemon Drops
• Rock Candy (it even comes with it's own stirrer!)
• Root Beer
• (or any others you have laying around)
• Syrups
• Honey
• Caramel Topping
• Vanilla Topping
• Chocolate Topping
• Maple Syrup
• A spoonful of cocoa powder
• A scoop of ICE CREAM :D
• Instead of your usual creamer, use the leftover milk from your cereal (if it's something sweet like Honey Nut Cheerios)

Recipe: Esther's Linguine with Clams

This is my boyfriend's mother's recipe, and it is both tasty and easy. If you like light, garlic-ee dishes, then here's one for you. Now mind you, the sauce you're making isn't a thick sauce, it's very fluid. If you want to thicken it up, you might look into adding some cream cheese (I haven't tried it yet, but I plan to in the future). I'd also say the serving size is two, but that might be because my boyfriend and I are very hungry individuals. :] If you think you can split an entire pack of pasta with someone, then I'd say it's a meal for two. If not, maybe it's for more. You'll have to gauge it yourself on that, sorry.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 tablespoon butter
1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 diced onion
3-4 cloves minced garlic (depending on how much you like)
Two 6.5oz canned clams
Two 8oz bottles of clam juice
1 1/2 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon oregano
1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
One 16oz pack of linguine


Steps:

1. First, chop up the onion and garlic. 
   
2. Before you forget, put a salted pot of water on the stove.
3. Heat up the butter and olive oil in a medium-large pan. Once it's warm, add the chopped onions and garlic. Stirring often over low heat, sauté those until the onion is soft, but don't let them burn! This should take a little under ten minutes. 
   
4. Then add the two bottles of clam juice, and just the juice from the two cans of clams. Don't put the actual clams in yet.
   
5. Add the basil, oregano, and garlic powder and stir occasionally, uncovered, for 20 minutes on low heat. Don't let it boil. As it stews taste it every now and then and adjust your herbs accordingly, the original measurements are just a guideline, you can add more of any of them as you see fit.
   
6. The water in your pot should be boiling by now, so go ahead and add the linguine.
7. After 20 minutes on the stove, add the clams and let those cook for another 5 minutes.
8. Serve the sauce over the pasta and enjoy!
   

Recommendations:

This meal goes really well with peas, even mixed in with them. I'd also recommend having some tasty bread to dip in the sauce that will be leftover on your plate. If you have any leftovers be sure to store the noodles and sauce separately, or the noodles will soak all the juice up.

If you have any alterations or suggestions, please let me know in the comments below!

You Probably Have No Idea How Art Affects You (and that's okay, because learning how is fun)

I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone bash artists for choosing a hobby as a career. Now joking is one thing, I do it myself, but there have been completely serious comments made by many of my own (non-art) professors, telling us that being an art major is a waste of time. Now for the time being I'm going to ignore the financial aspects to this argument and focus on one that I think goes relatively unacknowledged. The reason people bash the arts is because they don't understand just how much art is a part of their day to day life.

Art isn't just a painting in a museum, or a sculpture in a hotel lobby. It is literally everywhere. It affects you constantly. Do you own clothes? I'm going to assume the answer is yes. Where do you think they came from? I can assure you that though they may have been constructed by machines, they were not thought up by them. Those clothes you own were all designed by people. And those people were all more than likely discouraged from becoming designers. They were told time and time again not to pursue an art career. Okay, maybe you don't care much about clothes, how about the furniture in your house? That was all designed by people too, people who again, were probably told not to go into that field. Do you like movies? TV shows? What's your favorite one? Well it doesn't matter because regardless of if you watch Game of Thrones or Modern Family, without artists, that show wouldn't exist. Costume design, set design, script writing, those are all done by artists. Look around you. Literally everything has some element of design to it. The label on your bottle of coke. The design on your shower curtains. Even the way your tea kettle looks. These were not just flippant choices made by the manufacturers. These were all carefully created by artists.

Do you know what the world would look like without art? I can tell you, it wouldn't look good. If everything was created purely for function, we'd have a pretty crummy time of it. We might as well just wear Star Trek onesies, because who needs form when you can just have function? Every font you see is Helvetica. Every. Single. One. Because again, it's the most functional, why have anything else? The design on your couch, rug, guitar strap, lampshade, even your napkins... those wouldn't exist. It would all just be blank. And all those things that you live for? The things that you do with friends, that help you relax after a long day? Movies, plays, TV shows, books, video games, music... hope you can learn to do without. Are you seeing what I'm getting at here? Art and design, it's literally everywhere.

So you might be wondering what the point of that little rant was. Sure art is everywhere and we need it, but that still doesn't mean that having a career in art is actually a good idea, the market is totally risky. And you're right, the field isn't easy, but it's important. And keep in mind I'm not trying to undermine any of the non-creative fields. We obviously need engineers, accountants, lawyers, doctors, etc. But here's the deal. Those folks are what keep us alive, but it's the artists that make us want to live. You can't have one without the other, so please, let's stop treating that other half like shit. If you have kids or know someone who is creatively talented, don't discourage them from the arts. Support them. Because they are important. And support the art around you. The field wouldn't be so damn hard to get a job in if people valued the arts a little more. Go to your local museum, visit art shows. In fact, why spend money on decorations for your home at Target when you can have a one of a kind piece that was hand made? Yes, you might spend a little less at Target, but remember, you get what you pay for. And for gods sake, don't let your schools cut their art programs! I can't reiterate this enough! I was lucky enough to attend schools that had great art programs, but when I was in college I met kids who had never even had an art program in their high schools. That's absurd.

Unless you want to live in some horrid art-less dystopia where everyone miserably attends work then goes home in their box-cars to sit on their dull gray furniture and stare at a blank wall then you better damn appreciate the arts. Okay maybe I was a little dramatic there but seriously, this shits important. Here, go find some art and appreciate it. :]

Using Simple Psychology to Make Yourself Better at ANYTHING

Disclaimer: Some people are more affected by this technique than others. Some of you may find these to only help a tiny amount, while others might see a tremendous change.

Tell me, do you often find yourself in need of focusing on a project but somehow end up on facebook instead? Do you lie awake at night, waiting to fall asleep?* Maybe you have a hard time getting in the mood to go out with friends? Well I have the solution to all of these problems! Sounds too good to be true? Well it's not. Untrue I mean, it really does work. Or for me at least.

Let's start at the beginning shall we? I am a lover of both psychology and sociology. (and since I have a hobby as a career, it's only fitting that I have a career as a hobby, right? :] ) I looooove learning about how the mind works, all the weird quirks it has, and I especially love learning how to take advantage of them. What I'm about to talk about can basically all be related back to Pavlov's Dog, but it is essentially conditioning yourself to respond to certain "cues" in certain ways. For example, during one of my college semesters, every time I needed to work on an illustration project I'd sit myself down in our library's Starbucks and work all day on it. And I mean all day. Like from noon until 9pm. Now normally if I were to be working on that at home, I'd probably take a break, get distracted, and eventually end up doing something else instead of my work. But without fail, every time I worked at the library I was in the zone, and completely engulfed in my art. The reason being of course, because it's what I had conditioned myself into doing. Because the very first time I went there, I was behind on a project and had to get it all done. So I really had no alternative but to work on it all day. And because I stuck with that routine, I made it easy for myself to fall into. Starbucks = work.

And here's the great part, this can be used to your advantage in a million different ways. Even so much as sitting in one chair of your house as opposed to the couch can change the way you act. You don't necessarily need an entirely separate location for this to work. What you do need though, is to make sure that the first few times, you stick to your plan. If you want a certain location to be where you get work done, you need to force yourself into staying the course. Because if you slip up and somehow end up on Pinterest, it's not gonna work. It's the first few times that are the hardest, but after that, your head will be in the zone, it will be stuck to your schedule and you'll find distractions... well... far less distracting.

But wait, there's more!

Scents. I first noticed just how easily influenced I am by them this last Christmas. I put on a perfume that I hadn't worn since high school, and suddenly, my mood changed. For some strange reason, I very specifically... felt like people should start complimenting me for no reason at all. Yeah. That's only slightly bizarre right? Well I thought about it for a second and realized that I only ever wore that perfume to my high school dances. And what's the first thing you do before you go to the dance, when the smell of your perfume is still fresh? You get a million pictures of yourself taken by your parents and they ooh and aah over your dress. Wow. Four years later, four whole years later, and the smell sent me right back to my senior prom.

Okay, one last thing! I promise!

You can literally do this with anything. You wanna workout more? Wear specific clothes just for getting fit. You need to focus on studying? How about always drinking a certain flavor of tea? The idea here is that you make whatever you want your trigger to be exclusive to whatever you want to accomplish. (and that part is very important. the key to this is the exclusiveness of the trigger) And here's where those opening remarks come in. This isn't new information either, but studies have shown that spending a lot of time in your bedroom doing things other than sleep isn't so good for you. I've had that problem in the past, where spending too much time in bed while on my laptop or doing homework will make falling asleep harder. So if you have trouble sleeping, condition yourself for it. Limit the time you spend in bed to actual sleep, not browsing facebook on your phone. And if you really have sleep issues, try some lavender scents as well. They sell a specific sleep scent at Bath & Body Works, but really any lavender scented things work. The point is, if you want to help yourself get into the mood of something, there are plenty of easy ways to do it. For me, I like to specialize my perfumes, a few for just any day, one for special dinners or guests (it gets me in my most polite, chipper mood), another for going out with friends (which helps me be a little more talkative and friendly), and yet another for getting things done (I used it if I'm going to clean house, do laundry, get work out of the way, etc.).

So yes, that was a longer post of mine, but I hope it helped! Because seriously, this shit is cool. You could be better at something just by giving yourself a trigger. And it's super easy, and flexible! Your triggers could be as drastic as being in a different town, to as simple and tiny as popping a mint on your tongue. It's completely up to you! So go get better at stuff.

*if you have a serious sleeping condition i'm obviously not talking about you. go to a doctor. of course that doesn't mean you can't try what im saying, but i cant guarantee anything.

DIY: Legwarmers and Boot Socks!

So the local thrift shop was having an awesome sale today. I showed up bright and early, and so did apparently half of the town. Fit as much as you can into a paper bag and pay $4, what a fricking steal! So I thought what better time than now to score some groovy sweaters to finally make some boot socks out of? So I grabbed a bunch (along with some picture frames and fluffy loose fabric) and checked out.

This is again, a pretty simple DIY, but here's the pictures and step by step anyways. 

One thing to make sure of is that the sweater arms are large enough to fit your legs through. If the arms are teensy tiny, you might be able to make ankle cuffs and that's about it! Go large.

Fold your sweater in half on a flat surface.

Cut along the upper arm as evenly as you can.

Remember the cuff is going to be sticking out from your boots, so pick sweaters with cute designs there.

Now the reason I cut so high up on the arm for this one, leaving all that extra fabric, is so I could use those as slouchy boot socks.

see?

Note the snowflakes on the white one. That was just a shirt, not a thick sweater, but the cuffs were perfect for this project. 

Happy DIYing!

DIYish: Cheapo Medical Kit

So when I went to college, I very quickly realized it was smart to have a medical kit nearby. Perhaps my friends were just a bunch of hoodlums, but regardless, time and time again that kit came in handy. I've been slowly building it up with cheap and sometimes free medicines, bandages, etc. So here's a DIY (sort of?) medical kit.

I used a Legend of Zelda lunchbox because it makes me feel like the Hero of Time. And Band-Aids.

disclaimer: it should be obvious but i'll say it anyways, pay attention to expiration dates on medicine.

So from the top left, that's Ibuprofen, Align (for digestion), Prilosec, vapo rub, Tums, cough drops, antacid tablets, alcohol (for cleaning wounds), Breathe Right strips, adhesive tape, Band-aides, elastic bandage, gauze pads, Biofreeze, Theraflu, Gluten Relief pills, more gauze, Clariten, antibiotic ointment, and a forehead reader thermometer.

Now the great thing is that I got a few of these for free. The Align, Prilosec, Gluten Relief, and Breathe Right strips were all samples I signed up for online. (And I have multiples of each!) And using samples is a great way to fill up a medical kit. I don't get heartburn, but chances are someone around me at some point in time will. Well I don't need a whole pack of Prilosec, but a few samples just in case someone needs one? Hell yeah that's a good idea. 

A lot of the other items in here I got rather cheaply as well. Now there are some things that you shouldn't buy at the dollar store, things like pens always run dry, and batteries never last, but there are other things that it's great for. The gauze pads, elastic bandage, and band-aides for example are pretty hard to mess up, so it's safe to buy those there.

Anyways, I hope this gave you some ideas for a medical kit of your own. They're good to have around, just in case. And I'm actually expecting another sample to arrive in the mail soon, they're 3M doggy bandages, just in case any furry friends hurt themselves.

Foxy Frugality: Samples

Samples are fucking awesome. My boyfriend thinks it's funny that I'm always getting free samples in the mail, but let me tell you that it is completely worth the teasing. I only started sampling hardcore about five months ago, but it's kind of been awesome. It's like I get presents everyday in the mail :D And no, it's not just a bunch of crap, there's some quality things in there. Don't believe me? Let me just list a few things I've gotten off the top of my head...

• 1 year subscription to Popular Photography, Martha Stewart Weddings, Wine Spectator, and Brides. (and no I'm not engaged but when I am I'll be prepared. :] )
• (speaking of engagements) A nifty ring sizing chart, little plastic punch outs to determine what size all your fingers are. How handy!
• Tons of tea bags, k-cups, and other coffee samples.
• Some very nice personalized labels.
• 500 business cards. (say whaaat?)
• Medicines and medical supplies. (that you can view here!)
• Herbs and seasonings for cooking.
• Granola bars. Yum.
• Shampoo and conditioner. SO MUCH SHAMPOO AND CONDITIONER. I actually had enough samples to make an entire bottle of each.
• Pads and tampons, lots of them.
• Child locks for cabinets and doors.
• Oh and duh, all sorts of perfumes and cologne.

And it's real easy. There are plenty of websites solely dedicated to free samples, but you definitely want the one that updates most frequently. Some of them require you to create an account with them, but I'm way too lazy so I never use those. My favorite is Hunt 4 Freebies  but Freeflys is okay too. Be sure to create an alternate email address to use on them though, sometimes the websites will spam you with offers for other things after you've signed up for your samples.

Happy sampling!

Design For The Non-Designer

In my opinion, it's good to have a basic knowledge of a variety of fields, regardless of what your interests or career is in. And for the most part, we do try to educate ourselves in many different ways. I'm no doctor, but I try to know the basics on health and nutrition; I'm also no woodworker, but I know my way around tools and simple building constructs. Well here's something that I see most people ignore when it comes to basic knowledge, design. We assume that being artistic is just something you're born with, and there's not much you can do if you don't got the gene. Well I've never been convinced about that argument anyways, but regardless, these are tips for anyone to utilize. Just because you don't plan on being the next Picasso, doesn't mean your party invitations or classroom newsletters can't look a little better.

Color

The worst, though not most common mistake I see is "vibration" in design. Vibration occurs when two colors clash (usually two bright colors) and create an afterimage effect that interferes with what you're seeing. Basically, it's a pain to read. Here's some examples. 

These are not good color combinations. See how hard it is to read? The letters all seem to interfere with each other! 

The best way to avoid accidentally creating vibration is by refraining from using two bright colors. Simply put, adding a light (pastel) color with a dark color usually has the best results.

Isn't this much easier to read? The colors don't compete with each other. These non-vibrating color mixtures work much better.

Font

As said by Massimo Vignelli in the film Helvetica, "I can write the word dog with any typeface and it doesn't have to look like a dog, but there are people that when they write dog it should bark!" Now I'm not saying you can't have fun with fonts, but tone it down a notch. Again, are you more concerned with having a "fun" newsletter or having a legible one? The reason you're typing something up is to convey information, so make it easy on the reader. Choose your fonts wisely. Now this is a pretty subjective topic, but I'm going to lay out some of the basic information that most designers would agree with. 

For the header of what you're writing, you can get a little creative. I would never use this text for the body paragraphs of a letter, but for a large header, it's fine. Again, graphic designers might throw a hissy fit at even going near some of the more expressive fonts, but screw that. A little is okay if you ask me. Just don't go nuts.

These are some examples of what you don't want to use for a 12pt body paragraph. (But I think would be okay for a simple, 24pt header of a birthday invitation/themed newsletter/etc.)

And here are some examples of fonts that do work for the main text.

(All these fonts either came with my laptop or were downloaded for free off of Google if you want them!)

Basically, you want your font to be as close to Helvetica or Times New Roman as possible. You can spice up the title of the page with something fun (as long as it's legible), but keep the rest of the body simple for the reader. (An example would be the title of this blog vs. the body text!)

Oh and Comic Sans. I should probably talk about that. If you don't already know, the font Comic Sans is considered by the design community to be the worst font ever created. Not kidding. But here's the thing, grade school teachers go nuts for it. I've seen it all over everything aimed at children basically my whole life. So here's my rule, you can use Comic Sans. But only if you're writing something to be read by 8 year olds. If this is to be read by anyone over the age of 12, then back the eff off and find some other font to use because anyone who knows the stigma associated with it will find the document completely unprofessional.

Images

I remember opening my high school yearbook and being horribly disappointed at how poorly done it was. Pixelated photos of our soccer team, mixed with in focus close ups looked awful. Don't make that mistake. Here is the basic rule of resizing pictures. You can make it smaller, but you can't make it bigger. If you grab a picture and resize it to be much larger, the image will get blurry. It will look bad. So if that means not using something because it won't fit the area, so be it. Trust me, giant pixelated images are much worse than empty space.

I might do more tips later, but I hope these help for now!

Foxy Finds: Thriftin

Thrift shops, they are undoubtedly one of my favorite places ever. Some people get squeamish about the thought of using something that someone else once owned, I like it better than buying something new though. There's just something kind of fun about buying something that had an entire history before you picked it up. Well for me it's fun at least. Anyways, I've heard a lot of people talk shit about thrift shops for the "crap" that they are filled with. So if you're in doubt, let me show off a few not crap finds that have come exclusively from thrifting. :]

This adorable little cabbage soup bowl. $2 

Nifty chinese tea cups. Or mugs. Not sure what to call them, but they're niiice. $5 for the pair

Gah I love this one!! I think he's a Sanrio character or something, but I just think he looks like a blob of pudding wearing an acorn on its head. Anyways, it's for setting your ladles or spatulas on. Whatever those things are called. $.50

Little woodland bears holding raccoons. And they're salt/pepper shakers. Trucking adorable. $2

My favorite find... and I broke him. Yep, you can see the little cracks that I tried to repair on the top left, but anyways, my owl mug is undoubtedly my favorite find ever. $2

Check this groovy-ass casserole dish out. I love it. $3

Another soup bowl, my friend was with me and she has a matching one in avocado green. $3

ps~ sorry for the crummy photo quality, it was dark :P

Foxy Tip #2: Fragrant Undies

You know those little perfume samples that come in magazines? Rip them out, open them up, then lay them down in your underwear drawer, smelly side up. It gives all your bras, undies, or socks a subtle fragrance; which is nice if you don't often put any sprays on yourself (or if like me, you just forget to).

Foxy Tip #1: Easy Peasy Air Freshner

Don't buy sprays for a smelly house, this is way easier and way cheaper. Take a pot, fill it with water, and put it on the stove. It'll humidify your house (which is great for winter), and depending on what you put in the water, will also make it smell lovely. Some of my favorite things to add to the water are...

• Vanilla extract (or any other extract you might have)
• Cinnamon/nutmeg/cloves
• Orange/lemon/grapefruit/etc. peels
• Coffee grinds
• Any leafy herbs you like

Post any tasty smelling add ons of your own in the comments!

DIY: From Too Small Leggings To Just Right Stockings (and shorts!)

So a new little clothing resale shop opened up in town, "Phat Closet" and I thought I'd try to sell off some old things I had. Well they took a decent amount of my old clothes, but unfortunately, not my teeny tiny leggings. I've had these two pairs for some time now and I've been trying my best to sell them off, but to no avail. They're the kind that are too small on you now so the crotch is like a full foot lower than it should be but the legs won't stretch up any higher, totally useless! After getting home, defeated by the fashionistas at the shop, a spark of inspiration hit. It was so simple, so obvious, yet for whatever reason it took me this long to figure it out. So I grabbed my leggings and a pair of scissors and in a matter of minutes had two pairs of thigh high socks and comfy shorts. This is one hella easy DIY, so here's what you'll need.

• Pair of scissors.
• Leggings, the kind that go up to your waist. The ones I used were also mostly made of COTTON, not spandex. You could always try it with those super stretchy ones, but I can't guarantee the results will work very well. (if you do try though, let me know in the comments how it turned out!)

Lay your leggings out on a table or flat surface, smooth out that top leg-crotch part.

Cut the legs off at whatever length you like.

Bam! You now have cute shorts. Mind you, my other pair is a little see-through, so I'd say these are just for wearing around the house. But hey, they're super comfy so I'm not complaining.

Depending on the fabric, some might fray more than others. You can hem them if you like, I'm lazy though and just rolled the tops down on the stockings to make little cuffs. Also depending on the fabric they might slouch or stay up, in which case you'll get a pair of legwarmers instead of stockings. Either way, you'll look adorable!