America's Next Top Model: College Edition Episode 3 Recap

From the very beginning of the episode, I could tell that Darian was probably going home from the way she was hating on Leila for getting best picture even though Darian had experience walking in New Orleans Fashion Week.

But who cares because it's MAKEOVER WEEK! The happiest week of an ANTM cycle. Did anyone notice how freakishly tan Cristophe, the owner of the salon was?

So. Tan. (Source)

With another twist to the norm, they announced that for the first time, the girls could decide whether they wanted to receive a makeover or not. Not surprisingly, Maria turned down the makeover, as did Victoria. The difference was, Victoria felt horrible about it afterwards and left her hair wavy as a change. I couldn't help but notice Victoria said "simular" instead of "similar." Sorry, that grated on my eardrums a little.

Here's how the other makeovers went:

Nastasia and Laura (Source)

• Darian went from braids to a long layered bob.
• Krisitin got bangs and shoulder-length hair.
• Nastasia's hair was about the same but even fuller and curlier than before.
• Kiara lost part of her eyebrows (???) and now has super long hair.
• Destiny was crying because she didn't feel pretty with her short hair. There's always gotta be one girl who hates her makeover.
• Brittany got a short auburn bob.
• Leila got light brown, blondish hair.
• Yvonne is basically the same.
• Laura is the bleach blonde chick of this cycle. There' always one of those, too.
• Allyssa got long layers.

A little more drama involving Kiara broke out in the house when she told Darian not to be loud and all hell broke loose.

And then, we got to the photo shoot! The girls were told that they would be modeling nude with Rob Evans! Right off the bat, we saw Darian struggle, another sure sign that she was out this week. Then, no shocker here, Maria decided that modeling wasn't what she wanted to do and left the competition. And Destiny still had a hard time accepting her makeover.

Souce

In panel I noticed that Tyra was giving everyone surprisingly generous scores. Maybe she's being good cop to Kelly Cutrone's bad cop? Most of the photos did turn out well, though. Victoria's wavy hair is a big improvement even though she said no to the makeover, and she ended up getting the best photo of the week. Rob commented about how much he loves Nastasia's hair and how he's never seen anything like it in the modeling world although I thought of Nik from Cycle 5 when I saw her hair. It looks great on both of them, though. Speaking of Nik, I just learned from Googling her that her real name is Erika and she was born in Milwaukee. Crazy!

The callout order was:

1. Victoria
2. Brittany
3. Allyssa
4. Leila
5. Laura
6. Nastasia
7. Kristin
8. Destiny
9. Kiara
10. Yvonne

Eliminated for now: Darian

The previews showed an acting challenge with Tyler Perry next week, and we'll see some drama between Destiny and Kristin. I knew Kristin would cause some trouble eventually.

Predictions:
For the win: Leila
Eliminated next week: Maybe Destiny. Her hair is just going to keep bugging her. I believe Tyra said she wanted to change it a little, or was that someone else? So we'll see what happens there.

What I Wore to FNO

We had a little situation this morning with Bridget, so now I'm sitting at home doing this post. She got sick in the car, but I'm hoping she'll feel well enough for me to take her to daycare this afternoon. She sure isn't acting sick at the moment.

Here's what I wore to work and then Fashion's Night Out last week.

Blazer: Gap; Pants: NY&Co; Tee and Tank: Old Navy; Sunglasses: Target; Watch: Michael Kors; Shoes: Mr. Shoe

I wore the blazer for work and then changed into the vest afterwards for some shopping and for Inspiration Monday.

Vest: Old Navy; Bag: Michael Kors

At the end of the night, I had bought two pencil skirts, two belts, a blouse, and a few things for Bridget. My more retrained friend bought herself a top at H&M. I haven't rubbed off on her completely shopping-wise, but the two of us tend to be a bad influence on each other food-wise, though, as we ended up eating frozen yogurt for dinner. When we used to live together, cereal was a normal meal for us, and I seem to recall her having Oreos for dinner a time or two. But now we're both responsible adults and parents, so that never happens anymore...yeah right.

Inspiration Monday

The Great Purge Part One

I've spent most of the weekend cleaning the house and making piles of keep, donate, and discard, so that has sucked up most of my energy and creativity for now. We're calling this cleanup "The Great Purge," and part two is happening next weekend. That's about all I have to say about that right now other than the house is starting to look pretty good, and it's making me want to host a party to show it off.

Here's the inspiration artwork for Style Imitating Art:

And my interpretation:

Dress: NY&Co; Scarf: Boston Store; Shoes: Poetic License via shoo; Bracelet: Kohl's

Fashion's Night Out at Bayshore Mall

Last night, a friend and I attended the Fashion's Night Out event at Bayshore Mall. In addition to food, music, and discounts, another draw of the evening was the fashion show. The first half of the show featured styles you could purchase from stores in the mall. The second half was the fun part.

As a preview to their September 21 re-purposed runway competition show, fashion designers from RedLine Milwaukee presented looks that were created using recycled materials. It reminded us of the unconventional challenge episodes from Project Runway, and it was really impressive to hear how long the designers spent on some of these looks. A couple of them took over 100 hours to make!

Here are each of the looks from that portion of the show:

Is it wrong that I kind of want that wine cork dress? Haha.

This one with the daisies was my favorite dress of the show,
but it probably doesn't hurt that the model's gorgeous.

America's Next Top Model: College Edition Episode 2 Recap

Since I was on vacay when the episode aired, I didn't end up watching it until last night. But I wanted to get a recap up in the hopes that I'll actually keep it up the entire season. We'll see about that.

Source

Friday's episode began with Tyra revealing a new aspect of the show - the Tyra Suite! The suite is furnished with a bigger bed and a fashion closet that the best photo winner that week can enjoy with another person of her choice. Not only that, challenge winners now earn $10,000 scholarship money for each challenge they win, but they can only collect if they are deemed America's Next Top Model in the end. Those are some pretty sweet incentives!

Victoria is a character, isn't she? I know Tyra loves oddness in a model, so Victoria could actually go pretty far. She seems to have some natural modeling talent although she's so socially awkward. "I was a groundbreaker tonight. I broke the ground." So yeah, besides being obsessed with her mom, she may be delusional, too. Being a mom myself, while I like the idea of being best friends with my daughter in theory, I'm hoping Bridget stays independent and wants to have a boyfriend someday.

Anyway, we are...moving on! I may have just quoted an attraction at Universal Studios, but I digress.

Hottie Rob Evans came in with a bunch of dancing fellas (random) and announced that the girls were headed to Hollywood. When they arrived at the club, the girls met Jonte (pronounced Jon-Tee), their movement coach/Miss J replacement?, and learned that they would be doing a runway show. Normally, at least in past cycles, the point is not to be too hoochie. That rule has apparently gone out the window completely. Yvonne ended up winning by kicking her leg up to her head a couple times. At least Leila ran into the ring that was hanging in the middle of the runway. Running into things mid-catwalk always makes for good television. (Anyone remember the pendulum from Cycle 14?)

After the runway show, P'Trique, made famous by Sh*t Fashion Girls Say, gave the girls a hint about their photo shoot.

Cut to the girls in the house, where some drama is erupting. It was inevitable, but surprisingly, it was Destiny and Kiara duking it out. I was sure Kristin was going to start something. Maybe in time. Destiny got offended and thought Kiara insinuated that Destiny was a stripper. I thought she was being too sensitive, but I'm sure I'd get upset about everything if I were living in a house with that many girls I didn't know.

Source

Next up was the taxidermy photo shoot where the girls posed like animal heads on a wall. It was kind of a cool concept in that they had to learn how to portray the desired effect just using their faces. Most of the girls did pretty well, but the few that struggled were Destiny, Jessie (because she couldn't put her best asset through the hole instead...her booty), and Maria. Is it just me, or do the highly intellectual girls tend to struggle? Maria reminded me of Victoria from Cycle 9, who just seemed to think she was above the whole competition. Now Elyse from Cycle 1...she's a different story - an intellectual with actual modeling chops. By the way, this is what happens whenever I watch ANTM. Current girls always end up reminding me of past girls.

Cray (source)

As much as I miss Mr. Jay, I don't hate Johnny Wujek. He's nice to look at, and he seems to be pretty positive during photo shoots. I'm not sure he's quite as fierce and funny as Mr. Jay, but maybe we just haven't seen all sides of Johnny yet.

Source

As for blogger Bryan Boy, we found out his role during judging. He appeared to deliver the fan vote totals, give the girls feedback from the public, and show some videos submitted by viewers. So far, I could take or leave him.

Tyra explained that eliminations would be based on the judges' scores (each judge gave the girls' pictures a score from 1 to 10) + the challenge score + the fan vote. The girl with the lowest score would go home. Or would they?? The eliminated will actually participate in the rest of the photo shoots, which we already knew, and have the opportunity to win a spot back into the house if they received the highest social media score. I'm not exactly sure how that will all work, but it'll be interesting if it happens.

Here was the callout order:

1. Leila 
2. Nastasia 
3. Brittany 
4. Laura 
5. Kristin 
6. Kiara 
7. Yvonne 
8. Allyssa 
9. Victoria 
10. Darian 
11. Maria 
12. Destiny

Eliminated for now: Jessie

Tomorrow's show should be highly entertaining. The previews showed that for the first time, the girls get to choose if they want to get a makeover or not. Not surprisingly, it looks like Maria thinks she knows best and is resisting. As for the dynamic in the house, Kiara continues to get into arguments and stir up more drama. And if that's not enough draw, for the photo shoot the models are posing topless with Rob Evans.

I guess I should make some predictions.
For the win: Leila. It's too early in the cycle. At this point, I'm just stealing other people's predictions.
Eliminated next: Maria. This may be too obvious and thus not true based on the previews, but there's no way she's going to last too much longer.

Orlando Vacation Recap 2012

Before we left, my friends and I (mostly them because I hadn't been to Disney since I was like 7) created an itinerary for all four days to make sure we hit everything that everyone wanted to see and do. I think I'm going to post the itinerary for each day, then do a summary of the highlights after each park, in case you want to skip the list and move right to the paragraphs, or vice versa.

OK, here we go.


Disney Day #1 - Friday, August 31




MAGIC KINGDOM
8:15 AM - arrive at Magic Kingdom
9 am - rope drop!!
-get FastPass for Splash Mountain
-meet back at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and ride
-Peter Pan
-Haunted Mansion
-Pirates
-Jungle Cruise
-meet Peter Pan and Tiana
-get a Dole Whip
-use Splash Mountain FastPass
-grab Space Mtn FastPass
-Buzz Lightyear
-Monsters Inc.
-Carousel of Progress
-Dumbo
-Winnie the Pooh
-Philharmagic
-use Space Mountain FastPass
-Columbia Harbour House for lunch
-Hall of Presidents

Thanks to Disney's FastPass system, we accomplished a lot right away the first morning. We were able to get on all the rides we wanted without much of a wait except for Winnie the Pooh. That wait was one of our longer waits, and it was only 20 minutes although it felt like longer. While the rides were run extremely efficiently, the food service was consistently slow throughout the trip. Can't win 'em all, I guess!

I love animatronics or any attraction that makes you feel like you're actually there, which means I loved pretty much everything. The highlight was probably eating/drinking the pineapple Dole Whip float. This link describes them perfectly. These are not over hyped. They are amazingly delicious and refreshing on a hot day. Not only that, but they're also a pretty yellow color that I now want to match paint to and paint a bathroom in my house that color.

Space Mountain was probably the thing I was least looking forward to. The last time I had gone on this ride I was 7 or 8, and I HATED it. But I wanted to avenge my 7-year-old self, and I did! It wasn't so bad now, but I could see how it would be really scary for a kid.

I didn't know what I'd think about meeting the characters, but it was actually kind of fun. Peter Pan was just eh, but Tiana was really sweet.

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
-grab Tower of Terror FastPass
-ride Rock n Roller Coaster
-Great Movie Ride
-Little Mermaid
-Animation Building for characters
-Tower of Terror
-eat Mac and cheese hot dog
-Star Tours
-Muppetvision
-Beauty and the Beast?
-Toy Story Mania?
-Fantasmic?
-Head to Epcot?
-do Whatever

After I was brave enough to conquer Space Mountain, I felt like I could take on the world, which is why I finally agreed to try Tower of Terror. The girls had been trying to convince me for MONTHS to do this ride, but I had refused stubbornly the whole time. Finally, I figured, how bad could it be? And I actually had fun!

The other highlight was when a group of people leaving the park offered us their Toy Story Mania FastPasses. That ride is super popular, and the FastPasses tend to run out right away, so this was some awesome luck we had. As for the low point, I pretty much hated Star Tours. It was a Star Wars themed simulator ride, and it made me nauseous, even after taking anti-nausea pills.

Oh, and I personally wouldn't recommend the mac and cheese hot dog. It's fine; it's just a little much. OK, it's a lot much.

Disney Day #2 - Saturday, September 1  

ANIMAL KINGDOM
-arrive at 8:30-9 am
-Kilimanjaro Safari
-get Expedition Everest FastPass
-ride Expedition Everest
-ride Dinosaur
-see Finding Nemo: The Musical
-Expedition Everest
-Flame Tree BBQ for lunch
-meet Carl and Dug
-It's Tough to be a Bug
-Camp Minnie Mickey for characters (and lion king show if time)
-Kali River Rapids?

This was super hot day #1. I don't like zoos (which Animal Kingdom is not but close enough), so I was kind of dragging my feet through Animal Kingdom. Expedition Everest and Dinosaur were a lot of fun, though, and It's Tough to Be a Bug made me jump a couple times.

Talking to Prince Naveen and Dr. Facilier
from The Princess and the Frog

EPCOT
Move to Epcot NO LATER THAN 3 PM
-Soarin (FP or ride)
-Spaceship Earth
-Dinner Reservation at Coral Reef at 4:40 PM
-Finding Nemo The Ride
-Captain EO
-Mission: Space
-Club Cool
-drink lots and dick around world showcase/future world/whatever
-Illuminations prob at 9:30

Epcot is just huge. Since it was such a hot day, it wore us out pretty quickly, but we did get to meet a couple characters like Naveen and Dr. Facilier and Mary Poppins. We also saw a lot of Finding Nemo that day between the musical at Animal Kingdom and the ride at Epcot.

Dinner at Coral Reef was definitely the highlight. Everything was so good - the drinks, the cheesy lobster pasta, and the chocolate wave dessert.

As you can see, we skipped a few things at Epcot and Animal Kingdom. Although our plan was to hang out in the countries and enjoy some adult beverages and gorge on food, we ended up calling it an early night instead and got some much-needed sleep.


Universal/Disney Day #3 - Sunday, September 2

ISLANDS OF ADVENTURE
Begin at Islands of Adventure at Rope Drop
-head to Harry Potter right away
-Forbidden Journey
-Dueling Dragons
-Hippogriff
-Butterbeer when we feel like it
-eat at some point
-Jurassic Park
-Spiderman
-both water rides
-Hulk

We were all nice and well rested for our longest day. I began the day by excitedly speed-walking to Katie's and my home - The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! (Katie lives in Hagrid's hut, and I live in the bedroom in the Dragon Challenge theming. By the way, does anyone know why there's a bed there? Because I don't.) It was good to be back.

The water rides here are some of my favorites. The two in Toon Lagoon get you so drenched that they would be more appropriate at a water park instead. I loved it, but my friends donned ponchos for both of those. Had it been either the day before or the day after, I would've dried right away, but Sunday ended up being the coolest day out of the four I believe.

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
-Rip Ride Rockit
-Twister
-Shrek
-Despicable Me
-Mummy
-Disaster
-Simpsons
-Makeup show
-ET
-MIB
-Terminator II
-Movie/Cinema show???
-back to ISLANDS OF ADVENTURE for wand show/anything else we need to do again

After Islands, we walked next door to Universal Studios and started off with Rip Ride Rockit. That roller coaster is probably one of my favorites since you get to pick your own song to listen to while you ride. Even cooler than that, I spotted Kaley Cuoco (Penny from Big Bang Theory) getting on the ride! I couldn't tell if it was her at first, and I didn't have my phone with me, so I researched it afterwards and then told my friends about it. It was definitely her, though. Unfortunately, that was the only time I saw her; and from her Twitter, it looked like she left shortly after that.

Even though we didn't have fast passes for Universal, none of the waits were too terribly long, and I got to try the ET ride for the first time, which was cute. Erin decided that would be her home. The only one I skipped was Simpsons, which is another simulator ride that makes me want to ralph.

When we had hit all the Universal Studios attractions, we went back to the Harry Potter part of Islands to do a little shopping before heading back to Disney to finish off the night.

MAGIC KINGDOM
Head over to Magic Kingdom for Wishes/whatever else (MK now open until 11 PM...or 2 AM extra magic hours)

We were soooooo tired at this point, and I kept vacillating between having a good time and wanting to get out of there, go to bed, and never hear the phrase "it's a thing" again. ("It's a thing" was the theme of the trip.) But we saw the Wishes show from the side of the castle and also got on Splash Mountain (Theresa's home) after waiting nearly an hour in line (worth it!).

Disney Day #4 - Monday, September 3   

There's us four in the back row on the left (I'm in yellow)!

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
ARRIVE AT HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AT 8:30 AM
- STAMPEDE FOR TOY STORY MANIA
-grab fp first
-ride standby
-Tower of Terror
-Tower of Terror
-Tower of Terror
-Rock n Roller Coaster x 3 (haha jk....whatever we feel like doing really...)
-once Katie and Erin leave for their flight, Bek and I will head to MK (We did Animal Kingdom instead.)
-Eat dole whip
-Pirates
-Haunted Mansion
-BTMRR
-Splash

The original plan was to stampede for Toy Story Mania FastPasses first thing in the morning. Luckily, we didn't have to do that anymore since we got on the ride on Saturday. We ended up arriving at 11ish and started off the day with Tower of Terror, followed by Rock n Roller Coaster.

Then we grabbed a snack, said goodbye to Katie and Erin, and Theresa and I headed to Animal Kingdom to hit up Everest and Dinosaur again.

EPCOT
-buy Bek some drinks
-Soarin
-America Pavilion
-France
-Airport
-Rebekah for death.
(also...DIE DIE DIE.....I can't) (quote from Forgetting Sarah Marshall)

For our third and final park of the day, we went back to Epcot to walk around and chill. Except we didn't chill because it was the hottest day of the trip, so we tried to stay cool by walking into air-conditioned buildings and staying hydrated. We did some souvenir shopping, ate in America and France, and got to meet Belle and the Beast together. All throughout this, I was surprisingly chipper and not wanting to die, as we suspected might happen and documented in the itinerary.

All in all, it was a really fun but exhausting trip. The only thing I can really complain about is my luggage getting lost on the way home. Apparently, it's in Atlanta and will be back here shortly, but that made for a bummer end of the trip at 1 AM on Tuesday. Somewhere along the way, I also lost my keys (that was probably my fault), and Nate and Bridget ended up picking me up at the airport. I felt bad for waking them up, but at least I got to see them sooner. Gotta look on the bright side, right? Sure.

Photos: Some are mine, and some I grabbed from my friends' facebook albums.

Harry Potter Themed Manicure and Pedicure

A couple of the girls I'm going to Orlando with and I decided to get themed pedicures for our trip. One of the girls did Minnie Mouse (red polish with white polka dots and a Minnie head silhouette on her big toes), one did princess (glittery pale pink with rhinestones on her big toes), and I did Harry Potter.

I knew I wanted to represented Slytherin mostly, but I also wanted it to be more obvious that these were Harry Potter nails. I ended up having my friend do green with gray tips on the small toes and red with a yellow lightning bolt on the big toes. They looked pretty Christmas-y until the yellow and gray details were added, but I really like how they turned out.

Eventually, I decided to do my nails, too. I wanted to try putting the Hufflepuff (apparently my house according to Pottermore, ugh) and Ravenclaw colors on my fingernails and adding a stripe.

Tuesday night, I did Phase 1 of my manicure and painted my nails yellow and blue.

Since I wanted to make sure they were completely dry before I continued, I waited until Wednesday night to do the hard part - Phase 2: The Stripes.

To create the desired stripe, I used two small pieces of Scotch tape on each nail to cover the parts I didn't want to paint.

That's about all there is to tell you from a step-by-step process besides my lessons learned below, but here's how they turned out:

They turned out too messy to justify a closeup picture, but they look kind of neat from far away.

Lessons Learned

• Remove the tape very shortly after painting. Don't wait until the polish is at the tacky stage or some of the tape will stay painted on.
• It's probably best to do one hand at a time. It was harder to navigate the brush with ten taped fingers, and I didn't get the tape off in time.
• I used jewelry pliers to remove the tape so that I didn't mess up my nails. I wanted to use Tweezers, but the tiny pliers were closer. Either way, they were essential to this process since I did all ten stripes at once.
• I might try painter's tape next time. The Scotch tape was stickier than I anticipated.
• I used a top coat for the first time pretty much ever, so that should help my messy manicure stay in place for awhile.
• Not surprisingly, my left hand turned out a lot better than my right hand, but that's unavoidable unless I have someone else do my nails.
• On a few of my nails, the polish ended up bubbly after it dried. I have no idea what this means, but if anyone does, I'd love to know how to prevent that next time.