Editing Experiments

I just was playing around on an online editing website to see how I could retouch a photo. Look at the difference:

I was able to change my hair, eyes, skin, and lip color! I also whitened my teeth, airbrushed my skin, brightened the picture, enhanced my bust and changed the neckline of my dress. 

If I can do this much, imagine what professionals do to actual models! Believe nothing in magazines and don't compare yourself to models. You are beautiful just how you wear fearfully and wonderfully made by God.

Here's an example of a real model Nicole Wieder who shows her retouched pictures on her website. You can see the flattened out the wrinkles, changed the shirt color, darkened the jeans, made her hair fuller, and fingers skinnier.

Don't use magazines, celebrities or other media as your goal. Being healthy should be your goal.  

                      

Prom dress

I had a great time at prom!! Here's the finished dress:

Here's how I made my dress.

It started out with my mom's bridesmaid dress. I didn't like the top but loved the color and flow of the bottom.

Then came the Taylor Swift inspiration.

I found this fabric that was perfect for what I had in mind for the belt.

I searched for black sequin fabric and didn't find one I liked. I did find a dress on overstock.com for $25. It was a few sizes too big but I knew I could take it in. I originally planned on cutting the top off and using it. But, when it came in the mail and I tried it on I liked it as a dress. I ended up being able to keep the dress tucked under the skirt of the bridesmaid dress. Yay!

I also can use the bottom portion of the dress as another dress when pulled up and belted. 3 dresses in one! For less than $30!

Prom jewelry

Here's a couple tutorials on my prom jewelry. 

For my earrings,

I found this tutorial on evie s. blog:

“All you need is a hole punch, some pretty paper (the thicker the better, as long as your hole punch will go through it), hot glue, really thin wire (I used 32 gauge) and some earring hooks.

Step 1: Punch out your circles. I used 9-10 circles for mine. (A friend of mine suggested using shellac or spray varnish on the dots to make them for longer wear.)

Step 2: Using just tiny dabs of hot glue, start arranging and gluing your dots together in a random, but linear fashion. You want them to look like they are falling.

Step 3: Clip a small piece of wire and hot glue onto your bottom circle. This is what will connect the final dangling circle to give it the illusion of falling.

Step 4: Hot glue the final dot to the other end of the wire.

Step 5: Attach your earring hooks by punching a tiny hole in your finished piece with a straight pin. I’m not a jeweler, so there may be a better way to do it, but I just latched mine directly onto the hook.”

My notes:

I used scrapbook paper (black sparkly and purple) and that worked great. The only this is that since the undersides of the paper were white and I didn’t lay them on perfectly I went over the white parts with sharpie marker.

Also, I didn’t use wire because it didn’t lie right for me. Instead, I just used thicker thread which worked just as well.

One more note, I tried using super glue but that got very messy and sticky. Stay with using hot glue but itty bitty amounts.

The necklace:

A couple girls I babysat made this necklace. My hair will be up and I don’t want the clasp exposed, so I put the black ribbon on. All I did was hot glue the ribbon on the fishing line. This way I can still clasp it in case the bow comes undone.

Hope you like them! I have fun making them :)

DIY shoe bow

My ribbon+prom obsession continues...

I started with this shoe. I got a few years ago at payless. I then "promafied it". 

Here's how:

You need: Ribbon, thread, needle, pin, scissors, button or bead

Cut about a 6 inch piece of ribbon, fold in half and pin.

Pile on the ribbon!

Sew on the button or bead. A trick is to wrap the end of the thread around your finger and roll to tie a knot. 

To tie on the shoe, I wrapped the thread around the shoe and knotted it. This way I can easily take it off.

So there you have it. My prom shoes recreated!

Prom preparations

I'd thought I wouldn't get so into prom but I guess I am. I'm on the prom committee so I helped to come up with the theme... Enchanted. It's a forest inspired theme. We just met with the designers and it will look pretty similar to the desperate housewives wedding (so I'm told, I don't watch the show)
Here's a picture of that wedding:

I'm excited to see it all come together! I am also currently remaking my mom's old bridesmaid dress into my prom dress. I'll post pictures and tutorials later. Basically, it will have a dark teal A-line skirt with a leopard print belt and black sequin top. For my shoes, I will be adding some pizzazz to some old black pumps. I'll also show you those. I'm going to Charming Charlie to find earrings and possibly a clutch or else I'll make those too. Lots of tutorials coming up I hope!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! I hope everyone is having a blessed day full of time with family. I am thankful to be able to praise Jesus through singing; listen to Matt Maher sing Christ is Risen and think about how wonderful God is to us to give his Son to die and take away all of our grief and suffering. Christ paid the price of death because He loves us.
Fear God and be fearless in Christ!

Video Link

DIY hair bow

It's a rainy day here which means a craft day for me.

So, I thought I'd share a new (FREE) DIY I came up with. 

You need fabric (mine I found laying around my house), 

scissors, any string/thread, and a bobby pin or clip.

First, Cut the fabric to however big you want your bow to be. Mine was around 3 by 5 inches.

Next, Scrunch the fabric by folding inch by inch.

After that, tie the string around the middle of the scrunched fabric.

Finally, slide the bobby pin or clip through the string and put in hair!

Hosea Love Story

This is an amazing, short, 6-part film made by Irving Bible Church takes a modern view on the story in Hosea.
It's a very powerful video with no talking, only music. I didn't know much about the Hosea Love Story before I saw this video. I hope this speaks to you during this Holy Week.

Waiting to date

I have written a couple of articles for Project Inspired which is one of my favorite blogs. It's started by an amazing women, Nicole. She is a model in LA and wants to encourage young girls to be proud Christians. You can read her full bio here.
Anyways, I mentioned earlier that I decided not to date in high school and so here's a little more why. I originally wrote this article for the website (found here).

Should you wait to date?

This is always an important question to ask yourself and God. Does He want you to be dating right now? Or should you be waiting?

I made a promise to myself and God at the beginning of high school that I would not date at all during my high school years. I’m a junior now and have survived! 

Here is a little guideline of things that I’m personally keeping in mind while I ‘wait to date’ that I’d like to share with you all:

THE ‘WAIT’ LIST

What to wait for: An amazing guy who will love and cherish every part of you! He should know and respect that Jesus is always your number one man in your life.

Just remember this scripture: “For your Maker is your husband – the Lord Almighty is His name—the holy one of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.” – Isaiah 54:5

Anticipate the hard part: While waiting, I’m often tempted to date in these scenarios: A guy will like me but I can’t date him; my friends (who are dating) talking about their dates; a cute guy at the mall, etc. Crushes are okay as long as they don’t take over and you find yourself trying to get the guy to talk to you and tempt you too much.

Another hard thing (even though really you know the guy’s not right): When one of your guy friends starts being interested in you as more than a friend. You need to remind him you’re not dating. He may decide not to be your friend anymore — which means he’s not the guy for you!

Pray, pray, pray!! Pray for your future husband! Pray for the qualities you seek in the man you want to love forever. Listen to God’s plan for you. He knows who you’ll be with: “For I know the plans I have for you…plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” – Jeremiah 29:11

When you think you’ve found a wonderful guy: Pray some more about him and listen to God! Talk to your parents to see what they think. Talk to your friends to get an outside opinion on this guy. Talk to your youth leader or pastor for guidance. Maybe bring him to youth group with you. Be his friend first!

Here’s a quote from the book I kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris.

“Every relationship for a Christian is an opportunity to love another person like God has loved us. To lay down our desires and do what is best in his or her best interest. To care for him or her even when there is nothing in it for us, to honor that person’s purity and holiness because it pleases God and protects him or her.”

picture source

The beginning of a story

Welcome to my small blog. I have been wanting to start one for awhile and always have loved writing about my life, faith and projects. So that's what you'll find here and I'll try to have something for everyone. 

My story starts with my birth. I was born into a loving, Christian family and baptized two months later at my second home, Mount Olive Lutheran Church. Jump forward about twelve years and you would be sitting in my church listening to my faith statement at my confirmation.

Music is a huge part of my life, especially in worship and praise. I sing in my church’s choir as well as my high school’s concert choir. I am a servant at my church through reading scripture and being the assisting minister during services. I always strive to have a servant’s heart. The story in Luke 10:30-37 comes to mind. Neither the priest nor the Levite helped out the poor, hurt man on the side of the road. It was the compassionate Samaritan with the servant’s heart that helped the man. 
My faith started to grow even stronger my freshman year of high school. I made a vow not to date anyone in my years of high school. I was inspired by a strong, Christian role model at the camp I work at in the summers. Even though it may be difficult, I know it will be worth is and it has brought me so much closer to God.
My home church did not have a strong youth community so I turned to Grace Point Church and was welcomed immediately. I have made many good, lasting friendships with the youth leaders and students at youth group. Fellowship is such a necessary aspect of faith. 
I am a junior now and am really involved in my school. I play tennis and lacrosse. I sing and play piano as well. I love creating art through drawing, painting, design and any other way! I am planning on being an art major in college. I have a few really good friends along with others I like to hang out with on the few nights we're all free. I babysit ever so often and love kids! Other than that, I don't have a job and am blessed that I have great parents that can provide for me.
That's only the beginning of my story. I can't wait for the rest.
I hope you enjoy reading my blog!
Blessings,
Jessinia