Photography and Home Life

     Hey! Long time no see! Sorry for the inadvertent months-long hiatus....
In order to get back into the swing of things, I'll show you some of my favorite photographs I've taken/edited since I last posted.

This is my partner, his name is Danny.

"Nice to meet you." -Danny

This is my living room.

More living room:

     I basically went around the house one day documenting my life as it was in that moment---I took pictures of Danny (who was growing out his facial hair at the time), my house, and even my messy bedroom. Then I edited them so that they were kind of romanticized and felt like... nostalgic, or something. Anyway, I took a bunch of these photos and put them up in a Google+ photo album, if you are interested in checking out the rest from this set. 

     So, welcome to my little life! I'll be seeing you soon :)

                Love, 

                   Maya

The First Dress I Ever Made

    Finally... I'm posting about a Maya wardrobe staple, and the first dress I ever made myself. My beautiful friend Sarah borrowed it the day after an impromptu sleepover, and I managed to take these pictures of her wearing it out. (Isn't she just the cutest?)

     I made this dress out of a too-short tank top and a lot of pink/salmon-colored fabric! I made the pattern for the skirt part myself, though it took a few tried before I got it right. Circle skirts are tricky, but well worth the effort! There's something wonderfully girly about a circle skirt that you just can't get from a rectangular one... and this dress is perfect for the hot Texan summer, because the lightweight fabric and circle shape leaves plenty of room for breeze underneath it. 

     However inexpertly I made this dress (and how much better I could make it if I replicated it now) I still wear it all the time and I'm very proud of it. So, for my unsolicited advice of the day: take a risk and do something you've never done before! You might be surprised how much you like the result. :)

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Thanks to Sarah for letting me post her adorableness. 

P.P.S. I took and edited these photos! Do you like them? I am really enjoying photo editing these days! Maybe I'll post some more of my photography here...?

Check out my boyfriend's blog! Click through!

Gay Bears T-shirt Alteration

     So, I just finished my semester and my goal for the summer is to CREATE things and post them up on this here blog. So, to kick things off, I'll post some pictures of my friend Lauren wearing her new t-shirt after I took it in. It was very large and hung off her body before (although I don't have a picture) and afterwards, it fits quite nicely!

Do you like?

FINALS

Why, yes. That is me hitting myself in the head with a Macbook. How astute of you.

Sorry for not posting... I've been bogged down with school and work, etc. When summer is here (next week!!!) we'll be seeing a lot more of each other. :) 

I haven't given up on you yet, blog!

<3 Maya

More Photography, Mini Life Update

     In the past, I have FAILED EPICLY at blogging. I talked about this before, so I wont go into it in too much detail, but the point is that I do not plan on failing any longer. I got my boyfriend into blogging (he posts his art here) and I made a friend who is also an internet person (Casssandra, I've mentioned her before) and all of that put together really made me motivated to get back on the blogging train and try my best to be consistent about it.
     So, I'm trying. But it's hard.
     Another thing that makes it hard to update consistently is, unsurprisingly, the rest of my life! At the moment, I am studying (or trying to study) as much as possible for my last round of tests and finals for my classes I'm taking this semester. Which is making it difficult to find time for anything else. But I promise that, as soon as school is over, I'll make more posts about crafting and sewing and stuff. I want to! I will.

In the meantime, you wanna see some more pictures I took and edited? Okay, here ya go!
All of these pictures were taken by me while I was swinging on a playground in my neighborhood park.

 My feet mid-swing:

     So, I hope you like the pictures! I like them. But it's possible that I only like them because it's my view from my swings at my neighborhood park. And, of course, my feet. I hope they don't gross you out or anything. I like them. :)

     I realize these photos look highly edited, but I think they're pretty, and at this point all my editing is still very experimental so I can learn how to use Lightroom. What do you think of these pictures?

    Hope you're well!

       Maya

Learning Photography

     One reason why I have been unsuccessful in blogging in the past has been because I didn't have an easy way of taking good photographs of the things I make (especially clothing and crafty things). So, this time around I consulted an expert on the matter! This weekend I was fortunate enough to have the help of my friend Cassandra in the photography department.

This is a picture of me and Cassandra:

     She helped me decipher what all those dang buttons do on my camera (okay, fine... my boyfriend's camera). She is also a Photoshop expert, and though she had never used the program before this weekend, she successfully taught me how to use Adobe Lightroom to edit my photos! Which is so awesome and useful and fun! And, yea, I am kinda addicted to photo editing now....

I took some pictures outside and then edited them, including these three pictures of pretty litter, the aftermath of Easter celebrations: 

 Do you like the pictures? Which is your favorite?

     We are using a bartering system; she taught me how to take good pictures and next time we hang out I'm going to teach her how to use her sewing machine and help her alter some of her clothes. Yay for trading useful knowledge! Yay for learning new things! And yay for blogging!

         I'll see seein' ya soon with lots of pictures!
              -Maya

I made my First Hoodie!

     Another re-post! This project is from just about one year ago... I made this hoodie last April 2010. This is probably my favorite project I've ever done. I followed directions from this old Threadbanger video and changed up the pattern quite a bit.

     Pictured is my friend Lauren Zakes, who graciously modeled for me when I made it.

Loitering Never Looked So Fly, originally uploaded by B1ueCadet3.

     This hoodie was made out of two thrifted sweatshirts that I used for fabric to cut out my pattern pieces. Because of necessity, I had to use two different hoodies to have enough materials to cut out the pieces, which is the reason it is intentionally two-toned.

Watch Out!, originally uploaded by B1ueCadet3.

A view of the back:

Knock Knock, originally uploaded by B1ueCadet3.

Close Up of Hood, originally uploaded by B1ueCadet3.

Behind the hood you can see my MG<3 logo as well as the original logo on the black sweatshirt, as a reminder of its thrift store past.

Close Up of Hood, originally uploaded by B1ueCadet3.

     Do you love it? I love it. I wear it all the time! I don't have any pictures of me wearing it, but I really like how the diagonal color block design slims me down, especially in the bust area. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to model my own clothes... :)

Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment if you want to!

The Most Inspiring Video on YouTube

     In addition to being a wannabe seamstress, I am also kind of an internet nerd. And when I say "kind of" I mean absolutely and completely. So, yea I tend to spend a great deal of time on the web, doing various things, like watch YouTube videos for example.
     Well the other day one of my favorite YouTubers, Craig aka WheezyWaiter posted this video, and I think you should watch it:


     Not only is this guy funny and a witty and a good film maker/video editor/etc, he's also pretty dang wise. Usually, he makes me laugh for a few minutes everyday and maybe teaches me a fun fact in the process. But this video really meant a lot to me, because his upload happened to coincide with my efforts to start blogging here, and I really relate to what he's talking about in this video. I definitely struggle with frequent bouts of "lack of inspiration," or laziness, or depression, or whatever you want to call it... and it's kept me from reaching my goals in the past. Although I've always been a really creative person, I have always failed in pushing myself to be consistent about my creative projects and interests, including blogging about them!
     So, thanks Craig. I'm really taking your advice to heart, and no matter how depressed or distracted or hung over or busy or uninspired I feel, I'm still gonna try to create stuff. And I hope it helps me!

And I hope you've enjoyed reading this, and watching the video.
   See you next time!
          -Maya

P.S. Happy birthday to my partner, Danny, who is 22 Today! If you don't know him, you should. He has a blog, too! He does art.

The Becca Dress

     To start things off, here are some photos of a project I did quite a while ago, in December of 2009 to be exact. This T-shirt dress was one of my very first sewing projects, and I was really proud of it at the time. Don't get me wrong, I'm still proud of it! With the amount of experience and equipment I had at the time, it is quite an achievement! Anyway, enough explanation, here it is!

This is my friend Becca. She is power raking.

T-shirt Dress top detail, originally uploaded by B1ueCadet3.

     The dress was made out of two recycled T-shirts, and the design/pattern was custom made for Becca, the model and owner of the dress.

T-shirt Dress top detail, originally uploaded by B1ueCadet3.

T-shirt Dress top detail, originally uploaded by B1ueCadet3.

I even put my little logo on the inside the pocket of the dress:

T-shirt Dress top detail, originally uploaded by B1ueCadet3.

T-shirt Dress top detail, originally uploaded by B1ueCadet3.

     Reposting these old pictures has made me nostalgic—we had so much fun doing this photo shoot!

     I'll try to post more recent projects as soon as I can, but I'll probably be posting some older projects as well, just to get my blog up and running.

So, stay tuned!

Greetings!

Welcome to my first post on my new and improved blog!

     In case you don't know me, my name is Maya Gaster and I am 21 years old. I am currently a student majoring in indecisiveness, working as a nanny of small children, and spending as much of my free time as possible being creative. I've made this blog in an effort to share some of these creative projects with family, friends, and like-minded people on the internet. I plan on posting photos of my sewing projects, needlework crafts, drawings, and any other creative-type projects I try out. I also would love to try doing a tutorial one day, so keep a look out for those!
     My hope is that this blog will be a way to share my creativity with others, get advice/criticism from those more skilled than me, and find motivation to keep my creative juices flowing (even during the lazy seasons).

     So welcome to my blog, please feel free to leave comments and share this blog with anyone you think might like it! I certainly hope you do. :)

     Love,
       Maya

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