Friday, February 26, 2010

Natural Beauty


Last week a friend mentioned about using vineger as an skin peeler. I got excited and researched more, since I am always on the lookout for all natural remedies. I don't like taking Advil or going to the docs unless I really have to. And I really don't want to use prescription cream to control my monthly outbreaks since there are downsides to using them.
I had very stressful/ tired skin during my wedding, because I was too busy at work to see my dermatologist. The below easy recipes consist of household ingredients, so you don't have freak next time you need to look fab, but too busy to take a lunchbreak to see the doc.
I tried it( skin peel, scrub and acne) and was really amazed.. see if it works for you.

The All Natural way



Skin Peel:
1 tablespoon of Organic Apple Cider Vineger
2 tablesppons of distilled water
1 table spoon of grind Oatmeal (you want to grind this so that it will go down the drain)
1 teaspoon of dripping honey

Mix all together and apply to clean face in circular motion using a facial pad,
wait about 5minutes and wash off. Can use every other day, but I used everyday since I have oily skin.
** Just like a skin peel, there may be red sensitive spots for about 5minutes. Can apply cold towel to calm skin.
** I grind a whole big bowl of oatmeal at a time and just store dry in a plastic bag so I don't have to grind everytime.

Exfoliating Scrub:
1 tablespoon of Honey
1 tablespoon of salt or grind almonds

Apply to face or body. Do not scrub too hard with the salt.

Acne:
1 Garlic Clove

Just cut it and apply to affected area 2x a day. Visibly smaller in just 1 day. Works well, but of course not everyone can handle the garlic smell.

Pore Tightening
1 egg white
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Dark Eyebags
1 tablespoon to shredded potatoe for each eye

Bag in cheesecloth or I just use bouty towel and apply to eyes for 15minutes.

**There's already many products out there that has brown suger, honey, green tea, milk...etc, so in a way,they are using the same idea "natural products", but selling to you for $25-90 for a small jar which cost only pennies since you already use these items daily.

Do you have any other natural beauty secrets to share??

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Window of Opportunity

I love photography!!! I know how I want an image to look like before I take it, but I can honestly say that I have no idea what Im doing 1/2 the time when I am behind the camera. I just take it and know I can do whatever I want in photoshop to get it closer to the images I have in my head. What I love about photography is that no matter where and when, one can capture the most interesting images through a tiny view finder, the window of opportunity.

What makes a photograph great/interesting to me is the composition ..the angle. Most great photos are taken by accident or coincidence, so just about anyone can take a few good photos in their lifetime. What makes a great photographer is one who can combine and crop or zoom into details we normally don't think of to make a pic more interesting; to actually want to look at it for a few seconds longer. My photography 101 professor had once said " a great image is one that can be viewed from all four sides and still look amazing".

Here are a few great photographers in NYC area I stumbled upon.

http://www.autumnlin.com/

http://www.karenwise.com/

http://www.photopinknyc.com/
http://www.4eyesphotography.com/index2.php
Who is your favorite photographer??


Monday, February 22, 2010

Home- Made Baby Bump

I received an order for a dress, sweet lady from Denver, who is 7 months pregnant. It was an urgent order, so I didn't have time to order a maternity size mannequin, so.....................

Using tape and a cushion, my mannequin is now prego.haha Sometimes, using items around the house is more than enough to get the job done. I think not to shabby...? looks like a pregnant tummy, no? This is just so I can drape on top. Not the prettiest, but not everything has to be.

The dress is in this very pretty pale blue silk chiffon fabric.
Making a dress for a pregnant women can be difficult, because have to keep the growing belly in mind. If one wears just a regular dress, and not a maternity, the front will hike up a lot. Front is usually 2- 3 inches longer to accomodate for the bump.
I love that I get all different types of women that comes to me for a dress. Definitely not as challenging if all I dress are skinny model types. It's the reason why I started this business; to cater to those, like me, who need custom sizing, custom attention.




Wednesday, February 17, 2010

SPRING into Action!

What is brewing in that workroom of mine you ask?

Yea, it's kinda hard to not be able to show my work, but for client's privacy, I must be keep quiet.hush!
You wouldn't want your wedding dresses to be shown before your wedding day either. So just make sense.

Which of course doesn't leave me much time for any other creativity. So sorry it's been slow on that part. Would love to be able to spit out every design I have running around my mind, but just doesn't work that way, since it does take much time to make a dress...especially from scratch. Oh raatts!

Just ordered rolls of fabric for Spring. So nice to see pretty soft & bright colors. Makes me want to start wearing pretty dresses..like NOW!!

Yup...this is my workroom(otherwise knwon as my basement, the dungeon, the space)
It's a mess..I know. Those of you who have been here knows.haha I figure why clean up the place for pictures..for show. You should see me EXACTLY as I am, the way I work.

I like to lay everything out. And I mean EVERYTHING. Silly, but I do think this helps with my creative process. I want to be able to eye everything, so I can create and not have to go opening my draws to hunt for what might or not be there. JUst would be wasting so much time if I have to do that.

I also bought extra mannequins. I have 6 so far, but still just doesn't seem like it's enough since I can be working on 6-7 projects at the same time. Plus, think about how many different sizes of women there are. So guys I have a size 0, 2, 4, 8,12 and one dispaly size 4.

NEW styles for SPRING!!


Pics of the weaving process.....seems endless, but I enjoyed it a lot. It's like making a sculpture, a little at a time. Remind me of my fine art days at LaGuardia H.S.

hehe this one below is the abandon skirt portion to the pshotoshoot dress. This is too tame for the shoot. You'll see why when you see what the theme is. I love all my babies, so will get back to it soon.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Basket Weaving

One of the most difficult dresses to drape... well weave actually.
Fitting- Manhattan Office with Tracy and Adrienne.
Tracy showing off the short dress tuck underneath.
Just a little more work and I can breathe.....
Me trying to get out of the picture.
Where's Tracy?? She's the photographer for today.

Just had fitting today with Tracy, the new model for the photoshoot to be shot this Sunday.yay! Scary actually since the dress is not done yet. BUT of course, it's all part of the business. Model change, style change..all the time until the model is presented to the public and then... just hope for a big& loud applauses.

Why the constant changes?
I always tell people that as designers, we always like looking at new things. So therefore, change is inevitable. There's a big problem if we don't like change.lol...imagine that!

Tracy looked beautiful. Just loved it!! So photogenic. Just lovely in it which made me quite relieved actually considering the dress was fitted to another model's body.

I do get the jiggly bugs all the time, worrying if my creations will look right. But I do like that feeling...being nervous about every dress..worrying if there's more I should do to make it even better. That feeling is....well ..Fantastic,SUPER and just WONDERFUL!!!
Dress will be stunning once it's finished. Can't wait for all the hair, makeup, flowers and Danny Weiss's magic touch to make it all come a live. Woohoo!! Almost there........
You'll be surprise how it'll end up with styling, hair and makeup!! STAY TUNED.






Wednesday, February 10, 2010

WHITE HEAVEN







2010 East Coast Blizzard
I love playing around with my camera even though I am not very good at it. I like taking pictures of images anywhere, anytime, because hey, you never know when the next inspirational piece will "pop" up.
-As a designer, we're often asked "What inpires you?"...There's never an answer to this easy question..frankly, because just about anything can inspire. My husband will tell you that I often space out..always in my own little world: mind, speech..anything. It's hard to expalin how my mind just sometimes zones in(or out) and all these ideas can float around, too fast for me to even explain. Of course, the other problem would be , me not too eloquent in my speech. My mom had told me stories of me as a toddler: always just studying, not much talking and her always mistaken my needs. I guess I am still the same. A lot goes on in my mind, but I can't seem to explain it fast enough to people around me, making a lot of people very confused. I guess that is me... being JUST ME. So do not get offended the next time you don't quite understand what I am conveying. Simply as me to rewind..lol it is correct when they say, we are more visual people.
** Never interupt an artist at work until he/she is 100% done, because you never know what he/she intends to do. When interupted, it's like being waken up from a dream, a vision, hard to get back into**

Monday, February 1, 2010

Hand SEWN






Hand sewing is really an art.
I loved looking at museum pieces of early garment constructions while studing at F.I.T. Just about everything used to be sewn by hand. Imagine that!! There's just something very alluring about that...maybe because 90% of things are mass-produced nowadays. Finding a vintage dress with such special details is such a gem.
There's nothing like hand sewn because:
- You know it took 20x longer than by machine. Which means they took extra time and care to make that garment.
- When a garment is sewn by hand, if you happen to need to take out the stitches, there's no holes. Try taking the stitches out of your machine sewn garments, there will def. be holes. The reason is because the needles used for hand sewing is much finer than those for the heavy duty machines. I like using a size 9 beading needles to hand sew. It's flexible and I can achieve the finest details. You try for yourself and see what works best for you.
I like to hand sew, because I can control the fabric better. You can see that I will always add some hand sewing techniques whenever possible. When I do make garments for myself, it's usually 50% done by hand. Hand sewing is like sketching or knitting, very soothing and relaxing.