This weekend, my dad helped me hang a gallery wall in my bedroom at home. I wanted a place to store some of the many, many pieces of art I've created and accumulated since high school. I also wanted to display a few gifts/souvenirs(rose print, sunset print, and Bob Dylan poster) that I've gotten over the years in a way that seemed intentional and thoughtful. I love the way it turned out. It's definitely NOT a traditional gallery wall with matching frames and synchronized pieces, but it feels very "Liz" to me. At a single glance, I can see years of memories and better yet, years of practice and improvement within my own art.

Some quick tips for hanging your own gallery wall:

• Plan it out on your floor or a big table before putting it up on the wall. This final format you see here is probably the twelfth combination I actually tried.
• Use pieces you already have and/or accumulate more pieces over the years. Buying a ton of pieces all at once from discount places can make your gallery wall seem kinda forced and stiff, rather than homey and personal.
• If you find yourself stressing about positioning each piece, keep it super simple like I did and create two rows of prints, aligning the bottoms of the first row and the tops of the second row.
• Consult Pinterest. (Duh.) There are pretty much billion resources available online for creating your own gallery wall. It's kind of a thing now.

bedroom update.

I'm sharing a few tiny corners that I have finished in my new room to better show how the new color looks. I still need to hang a gallery wall above the bed, figure out the space above my desk, and get a new TV and desk chair before I feel ready to share the full effect. After living with the color for a few days, I've grown to love it even more. My room feels both lighter and calmer, and it's becoming a place I can see myself truly relaxing in after exams over Winter Break or after an 8 hour shift at my current summer job.

from the weekend.

This weekend, my dad helped me paint my old bedroom at home. The room looks so different without the orange walls, and I'm beyond happy with the result. I decided to go with Valspar's Channel Seal Gray, which is a warm purpleish tone of gray. My sister describes it as a "chic gray," which is exactly what I was going for. Today I'm sharing just a quick preview of the progress and will be back Wednesday with a look into the (mostly) finished result.

home.

I'm home on Thanksgiving Break. I don't have to be back at school until Thursday, so I'm staying home a little longer than most.

Since being home, I have celebrated my birthday with my family. This includes eating a fantastic coconut cake my dad made and receiving my first new lens(!!!!!!!!). The lens is this one. These pictures are some test shots I took around the house. So far, I really love it.

I have also been eating (a lot), relaxing by the fire, shopping (and wishing), and spending time with family. I have not been preparing for finals. However, the next 3 days are completely dedicated to projects with deadlines that are swiftly approaching. It's surreal that this semester is already almost over. It's surreal how fast this year has flown. I am already looking forward to next semester and, more importantly, Winter Break(which starts just 6 days after I'm back at school on Thursday. Crazy.).

renaissance.

I talked about my love for the Renaissance Festival in the post I wrote after I went last year, so I won't go in to it again. Just know that I love it.

And actually, I didn't even expect to go this year, but it happened to be opening weekend when I was home for fall break, so I went with my brother, his girlfriend, and his best friend from high school, Blaker. It was unseasonably hot. I mean like HOT hot. Like summertime hot. Upon coming back to Asheville, I have been grateful for the traditional autumn-like temperatures we've been having so far.

Going home was good as always. I spent the entire time running around my hometown trying to catch up with old friends and spending time with family. The two day long break was not nearly long enough, though. Luckily for me, my school workload seems to be slowing down before it picks back up for finals, so I've been having some extra breathing room in my free time. (Literally room for breathing. WHEW.)

sophomore year goals.

As the start of the new school year is swiftly approaching and the task of packing is becoming increasingly more daunting with every box filled, I am striving to keep calm and soak up the feeling of "home."

I took these few pictures before the chaos, and I'm glad I did. They represent a feeling of home which is peaceful, neat, and comforting, and I could use all of those kinds of feelings I can conjure up right now.

Along with the craziness of packing, I am also looking forward to a fresh start that comes along with a new year. I cannot begin to describe the feeling of gratitude I have to be doing this for the second go-round instead of the first time again. I already feel less intimidated and more confidently prepared for what's ahead. All that being said, I hope to do things better than I did last year in an attempt to constantly improve myself, so I'm making a list of goals for my second year of college:

• Continue to try to eat as cleanly as possible; real food. Stuff that goes bad. Stuff without labels.
• Not freak out so much. More importantly, not freak out and take it out on the people I'm surrounded by.
• Take advantage of free on-campus yoga by going regularly to reduce stress and gain back some flexibility.
• Make Mondays the best day of the week. I know this sounds crazy, but my class schedule on Mondays goes like this: Spanish from 1:45 to 2:35 pm. Annnnd....that's it. Therefore, I am dedicating Mondays to gym time, coffee time, planning time, goal-setting time, catching up time, yoga time. I like the sound of starting my week on that kind of note.
• Really step up my design game. I feel like I know who I am as an artist, but I'm not quite sure who I am as a designer. There is sooo much I want to learn this year obtaining to my major which is New Media, and I feel like I can't get my hands on all of it quick enough.
• Incorporate more art and creative living inspiration into this space. :)

may flowers.

A few quick updates:

Lonnie showed up to my house on Mother's Day with gorgeous yellow tulips and roses for my mom and I. They're making me smile.

It's finally warm and staying warm. This is hopefully the last time I will have to repeat that sentence this year.

I've been keeping myself busy while waiting on a call to confirm my summer job orientation schedule. I've spent a lot of time with old friends going to old places, while having new experiences and new conversations with some new friends added in. It can be a tough act to balance, but I think I'm doing fairly well at it. I'm having fun, at least.

I have been eating so much fruit lately. Pineapples, strawberries, and bananas are my ultimate favorites, especially when mixed together.

One of my first days back was spent rafting on the river which flows all around my hometown. I even jumped off a rope swing for the first time. I have some high hopes that this summer will be drenched in water. Lake trips and beach trips are already being planned. 

breaking.

I am home on Spring Break! I literally just finished a last couple of assignments for school an hour ago, so my doing-absolutely-nothing break officially starts now.

The weather is perfect. I arrived just in time for the warmer weather to finally hit. It was so nice today, I pranced around in a dress without a cardigan or leggings. Bare skin exposed to the sun feels so good. (My poor pale legs could use it, too!)

The pictures used in this post are just some things that made me smile when I paused to look at them.

I got that tealight holder over the summer from Target.

I laughed out of joy when I saw my kitty sleeping in the basket of warm laundry. It just makes me giddy.

This weekend I have been getting settled back into the flow of being home. This week, I should have plenty of free time to play catch up. Catching up on some blog posts that I have floating around in my drafts. Getting ahead with school work. Catching up with old friends. Doing some much needed sketching, journaling, and creative dumping. Catching up on various television shows like GIRLS and Kourtney and Kim take Miami(I know, I know. Trash TV. But hey, it's Spring Break! I'm young! Give me a break). 

a snow day.

I went home for the weekend and it snowed for the first time in a long time.
I ate way too many Girl Scout cookies and got completely caught up on the second season of GIRLS.
It was wonderful.

a christmas post.

i guess this is growing up.

This may not look like much of a post, but trust me, it is. Tonight is my last night in my room before I leave for college. It's funny seeing all the happy facebook posts of kids in their new dorm rooms while I sob my life away at the thought of leaving behind my home.

Don't get me wrong, I am excited to go to college. I'm so excited. And I'm also ready. 

But I will miss my best friend Katie Calabro. I will miss her apartment and her cat and her sock bun and watching scary movies with her and eating too much chocolate and drinking too much coffee and doing old school work-out videos.

I will miss my dad. But I can't talk about that because I turn into mush. I will miss my mom and her doing everything for me and being my personal assistant. I will even miss my brother and sister. I will miss my dog and my cat and my bed.

It's just funny that as soon as I finally felt at home here in Concord, as soon as I have figured out where to get the best burger in town and the exact time that the soft serve ice cream place closes, it's time for me to leave. I believe that's a good thing though. In my heart, I don't want to stick to the same place. I don't want to just be comfortable somewhere. I want to explore and discover new things, places, and people and I'm so excited to do that in such a beautiful place like Asheville.

I will try my best to keep updating through this whole process, but tomorrow is promised to be a crazy day. I'm just going to take everything step by step and enjoy as much as I can.