Help!

Dear Bloggers,
I am need of some help! I need input, questions, concerns, ideas! I have what they call, a writers block. Do you enjoy my blogs on my sketches? I love sharing my ideas and creative inspirations, but I want to also please the reader. As you can tell me and the other authors of this blog have kind of hit a road block. Even though there are endless pretty things at Purdue, I have come to a point where I can no longer search for them. The pretty things in life will come to you or stand out to you. I feel as though me writting about the pretty sculpture by my class is boring and unenthused. I myself find sculpture and art work to be pleasing and interesting, but I don't want to force that upon my readers. What one person may think is crap, another my find very beautiful. It's like the saying, "One man's trash, is another man's treasure." I hope that from this blog I can accomplish two things. One being, a better feeling that I am going in the right direction with my focus on fashion. I love fashion and my sketches but I want something you the readers can enjoy and be inspired from. I would even love feed back on ideas for sketches! Favorite, food, movies, cities, seasons, animals... you name it I need the inspiration! And the second thing I would like to accomplish goes back the quote about trash and treasure. I just would like to encourage my readers to think about what are their treasures. What pleases you? Visually, emmotionally? Just something to stimulate your brain. I guess my treasure would be found in fashion and in my designs! ... AH treasure.. I just thought about pirates.. maybe a new inpsiration?!

A Slightly Different Route

Can you believe it is already the middle of the semester? We are currently in week 7 and I feel like time is passing in a dead sprint. Getting this far in the semester, I have found myself in a bit of a predicament. The original "common interest" (of pretty or visually interesting things on Purdue's campus) that myself and the other members of my group first decided on has left me a little bored and quite at a loss to find things to talk about. Don't get me wrong, I had some fun with it at first, and really enjoy reading what the other members of the blog come up with to write. But now it seems like all the ideas I come up with are a little cliche. I am the kind of person who, when they get too bored or distracted, can be impossible to set back on track. So to keep this from happening I have decided to broaden my horizons a little. Instead of talking about things that are strictly "pretty at Purdue," I will also discuss general student life such as some of my (or other's) favorite places to eat, things you may get involved in, or other things that i find generally interesting (not just strictly beautiful). I am hoping that by doing this I will not only keep myself interested and excited about writing and what I have to say, but will also keep you, the audience, interested as well.

Boiler Apartments

Sure, dorms are cool and all, but have you ever thought about staying in an actual apartment while you're getting your higher education? There are many apartment places around campus if you prefer to stay close to your classes or you could go just outside of campus and still be within walking distance. Personally, I live in Purdue Village Undergraduate apartments and while it may not be the ideal situation… having two roommates in a one bedroom place, and being almost a mile from the academic buildings… its certainly much better than a dorm, in my opinion. Its really nice to know that if one of my roommates is listening to music at her desk in the kitchen/study/dining room/living room area, I can always go into the bedroom and get a little peace and quiet. The only problem with that is the other roomie might be in the bedroom talking on her phone. Sometimes its super difficult to get any privacy. For instance, the other day, I mentioned to the girls that my date and I were going to watch a movie tonight (hinting that I might hope they have somewhere to be or something) and ten minutes into the movie they were going in and out, doing laundry, talking on the phone, flipping lights on and off and such. No one wants to cuddle with two other people walking about and making noise!!

When you get an apartment and you don’t just live by yourself, it may get a little frustrating when it comes time to do the dishes, take out the trash, clean the bathroom and so on. My roommates and I just had a “meeting” about who would take out which trash bag whenever it got full. That kind of thing is necessary if you don’t want to live like a bunch of slobs. When living with multiple people, respect is a MUST if you don’t want to go crazy. I got very lucky when I got roommates who are very respectful when it comes to all of our things and belongings. Different people have different ways of living. One of my roomies has a bit of an organization issue. Her stuff is EVERYWHERE! And the other has a major phobia of germs so she’s cleaning allllll the time (which doesn’t quite explain why I’m the one doing the dishes everytime….. hm……we might have to have another “meeting” about that...).

An apartment complex just off campus that seems to be pretty popular is the River Market Apartments. Just a short walk down Chauncy Hill from campus and you’ll be home! River Market Apartments has a number of shops in the ground floor such as The Silver Dipper ice cream parlor or Marco’s Pizza (as seen below) with three floors of apartments on top.

This isn’t the only place around either. By clicking here you can go to a website that will help you find exactly what you are looking for just by entering in a bit of information. Let them know your price range, and preferences such as a pool, game room, club house, if you want pets etc. and it will spit out a lengthy list of possible apartments for you!

My Apologies

Dear Pretty at Purdue Bloggers,
I would like to take the time to apologize for my lack of images! I realized I wrote a whole blog entry on how the beginning process of creating a garment are the initial sketches. I also began to tell you I was working on a few sketches.. and I failed to include them for you to see!
Here are a few that I am working on. For the first sketches you will see, the inspirations was Twislers candy, and A Gatorade bottle I found.



The next two sketches the inspiration came from modes of transportation. One came from a taxi which you will see is pretty obvious. The other comes from a picture of a jet. The sketches I created reminded me of a modern day flight attendent.







I hope this gives you a better idea of what I am talking about when I refer to sketches! If you have an ideas or inspirations PLEASE let me know! I am always looking for new ideas. The crazier and out there the better! Thanks for looking at my rough copies! More art and sketches to come!

My favorite pit stop

Dear Readers,
Many of you may find this post out of place and a little random but today when I was walking on campus I spotted a bright colored tee shirt sporting the words, "I love the Den!" Wear this shirt at IU or any other campus and they will never know what greatness the Den brings to Chauncey and our Purdue University Campus.
I myself am one of the many who make a stop to the Den a part of their daily routine. For only 60 cents you can indulge in almost every kind of soda pop that you can imagine. If you are tired of being original you can try one of their signature mixes. A hand written list on the wall reads mixtures such as "The Sorostitue" which consist of Cherry Coke, Diet Coke, and Dr. Pepper. Or my favorite, Diet Mt. Dew and Blue Powerade, named "Mr. Popular".
One of my favorite features of Discount Den is you pre buy a den pop for your friends. This is really popular for birthdays, congrats, or thank yous! You will find the fountain machines decorated with note cards reading "Great Job Jenny! Go Get your free den pop up front!" Or "Happy Birthday Brooke! Love your sisters!" As cheesy as it sounds I always love reading the note cards. To me they read community. I know its a silly note card for a 60 cent coke, but I think it is something that makes Purdue so special to me, community!
To me the den is like how the on the OC the spoiled teenagers all hang out at the same coffee shop. Or on Saved by the Bell you could always find them after a hard day of classes hanging out at the Max. If I have had a rough day I can always count on a friend or one of my sisters to walk with me to the den. It is one of the things I most look forward to, den pop runs! I hope that the den pop run tradition continues and becomes a classic pit stop at Purdue University!

Not a French Sandwich!

What is a croqui? I have heard many interpretations of this word. No it’s not flakey bread that you enjoy with your lunch salad. Nor is it an outdoor game where you hit large balls through little fences with wooden mallets. Although I enjoy both croissants and croquet, a croqui has become part of my everyday life.
According to Webster dictionary a croqui comes from the French word croquer, which means to sketch, rough out, literally, to crunch. As a fashion designer, I define croqui as my little best friend. A croqui is the basic starting point or building block for all my designs. It is where I first layout the form of my garment. Before coming to Purdue I used to sketch outfits out all the time. My bodies were always so un proportional. Either the model was too top heavy or her arms were somehow drawn out longer than her legs. This posed a major problem. Then after a few weeks in the college of Consumer and Family Sciences studying Apparel Design, I was introduced to the term croqui and my sketches were forever changed!
I have included a few examples of what a croqui is. As you can see the sketch can be drawn in different poses or movement. I like to mix it up a bit depending on what type of garment I am sketching. Each week I have to create 10 croquis with my inspired ideas. I feel as though my little croqui has become like my little side kick.
Check out these images and see if you are inspired from these sketched human forms!

Fall Has Arrived!

It’s finally here and you can feel it as soon as you step outside. It has grown increasingly chilly over the last few days, and when I walked to class today a common sweatshirt was barely enough. I found myself frustrated that my hoodie wasn’t just a little bit thicker—you know how you can feel the wind coming through a few specific gaps in the stitching… no bueno. Huddling in closer on yourself isn’t much help either; it just causes other parts to get cold. Let’s face it people… fall has arrived!

Aside from half way freezing to death (and I say only half way because the temperature right now is blistering compared to what we will be experiencing in just a few months) fall is one of my favorite seasons. I love when it gets a bit chilly because that says to me that Halloween is coming! And that is by far my favorite non-religious holiday. I love the eerie feeling that this time of year brings. I don’t know what it is, but something about it makes me feel slightly… nostalgic? It could be from the memories of trick-or-treating when I was younger. Or it could be the anticipation of being able to jump into a giant pile of raked together leaves, which yes, I still do. It’s as the leaves start to change into beautiful hues of red, yellow, and orange that the memories start to become reality again. They act as a reminder of how beautiful things can get here right before everything dies and all hope of a bearable winter go right out the window. It’s time to throw on that scarf and face the elements head on.

To me this is one of the most colorful seasons also. Not only does nature change its colors, and very rapidly might I add, but people change their colors too. I find it fun to watch how people start to mimic the colors that nature has chosen. We see more reds and oranges at this time I think than at any other time in the year. Browns too become increasingly predominant as the season progresses. Being in an art major here at Purdue I feel that I notice things like this maybe more than your everyday engineer walking down the sidewalk. One thing I have found myself doing while walking on campus is squint so all the colors blend together; sort of like a painting. Autumn is my favorite time to do this, because as I said people’s clothing start to blend in with the trees and other plants around them. It makes for a very entertaining walk to class.

In the end, even though it’s annoying to have to deal with the weather starting to get more and more frigid by the day, I still find myself really enjoying fall each year. Yes it signals that school is officially here to stay, but there are so many other fun aspects to brighten back up your day!