Guest Post from Chantilly of Chantilly Songs

Hello, readers of Beautifully Pure!

 My name is Chantilly- crazy cat lady, singer-songwriter, and brooklyn-dweller. I'm really happy to be able to guest post in Katie's space today :) Creativity has led me down several paths. Sometimes I wish I were a girl that were happy working a square 9-5 job, but I'm just not. I've had several jobs in the past, and always end up getting that sparkle in my soul that says I need to seek something else.

I recently was lucky enough to have made a new set of recordings. This was one of the most intensely creative situations I've ever been in. I was around someone who is not only a writer, but producer, engineer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist. It can be intimidating to be around someone who knows so much more than you do. But at the same time, such an amazing experience, which I wouldn't trade for anything!

I've found an outlet in creativity, and it is such a big part of my life. I happen to think most people NEED it to nourish their soul, no matter in what capacity. I also think that if you're creative in one area, you can certainly find it in another. For example- I love blogging, writing, singing, photography, design, doing crafts... and more!

 Thank you so much Katie, for giving me the chance to introduce myself to your readers! You're a gem :) xoxo

Friday Favorites

This abandoned amusement park on the Clothes Horse.

This gorgeous renaissance outfit from Faire Finery. (I would love to be able to wear this to the Bristol Renaissance Faire this year!)

This lovely satchel from Ruche. It's totally my color!

This adorable, polka-dotty outfit of Laruen's.

♥ I got the gallery of my senior portraits yesterday, and am working on picking 10 with my mom.
♥ I started making my graduation party invitations. Four down, twenty-six to go! (roughly)
♥ Owl City finally released that the next album will be called The Midsummer Station and will be released in the US August 14th.
♥ My friend Christina gets home from college for ten days today. I can't wait to do some photo shoots with her!

Wish List Wednesday

1. Belle in Bronze Dress
2. Avengers - Doth Mother Know You Weareth Her Drapes 2" Pinback Button
3. Dotted Line Signature Top
4. A Flair for the Operatic Dress
5. Sweet Sorbet Bangle Set
6. Forget Me Not Necklace
7. Red High Top Shoe Stud Earrings - Made To Order
8. Skinny Belt: Turquoise
9.  Skinny Belt: Coral
10. Bunting - Colourful Hand Drawn Necklace - Made To Order
11. Catwalk in the Sky Heel

If You Plan to Motor Dress-t // Daily Outift

If this dress was sold by ModCloth, I think it would be called the "If You Plan to Motor Dress-t" dress. Only it's not sold by them. It was made by my sweet cousin, Molly as an early graduation present - since she knows how much I was wanting a car printed dress. Isn't it lovely? You can't tell in the photos, but I wore my Gettin' Hot Rod in Here Necklace with it. Corney, maybe, but I just couldn't resist!

And as odd as it is, I love that this jacket reminds me of a 1950's thug. lol!

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dress: a handmade gift from Molly of The Dahl House

headband: made by me

jacket: TopShop

sandals: Merona

necklace: ModCloth

Shine No Matter Where You Are // Daily Outfit

This is what I wore on Mother's day. This dress is one of my favorites, but the material is so silky that I'm often stumped at how I can dress it down - especially when pairing it with such bold shoes! I figured that a denim jacket dressed everything down, so that's what I did. I have to admit, I really love the way it turned out.

Tomorrow I am going to get my hair cut - just a few inches off the bottom and trim up my layers and bangs. I'm getting my senior portraits taken on Monday and I decided that my hair is a bit too "bushman" to get them taken like this. lol!

Speaking of my graduation photos, would "y'all" mind helping me with something? I need to decide on 5-6 outfits to bring to the photo shoot - so we'll have options - and so far I only two that I for sure bringing. Eep! So if you all wouldn't mind commenting and tell me your favorite dress/outfit you've seen here on le blog it would be much appreciated!

Hope you all are having a lovely day! ♥

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dress: ModCloth

shoes: Urbanog

jacket: Ebay

bag: Etsy

flowerclip: H&M

sun glasses: Delia*s

Wish List Wednesday

1. 80's Does 50's Red Plaid Rockabilly Dress
2. Walk with Me Dress
3. Basically Blissful Flat
4. Mr. Mustachio Key Cap
5. Primrose Picnic Dress
6. Golden Feather Indie Hairpin
7. Toadstool Their Hearts Dress
8. Charmed Ways Floral Belt in Mint
9. Author Interview Top

Close Your Tired Eyes // Daily Outfit

"Close your tired eyes, relaxing them.

Count from one to ten and open them. 

All these heavy thoughts will try to weigh you down. But not this time."

~ Shooting Star by Owl City

Lately I feel like the whole world is resting on my shoulders. My life hasn't always been easy, and I can testify to the saying that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I'm not the happy-go-lucky optimist most people think I am. I'm an optimist by choice because it was either that or be a cynical pessimist for the rest of my life and I didn't want that.

The thing is, I'm a fighter. I always have been and I always will be. That's not going to change. I'm also incredibly protective of those I live. My attitude is "say whatever you want about me - I'll just laugh it off and then go prove you wrong - but if you hurt those I love, then you'll pay." I feel the need to take care of everyone and I run myself into the ground trying to.

Because the truth is, I don't always have the answers. I don't always have the strength to go on - but I feel like I should. Sometimes I just want to be sad, or be alone, or just take care of me but I feel guilty about that. I'm the one who is supposed to take care of everyone else. Who am I not to have the answers? Who am I to want to take care of myself when everyone else needs me so badly?

Sometimes I forget that I'm just one girl barely out of high school. I'm my own worst enemy because I demand stuff of myself that one one else would dare to expect from me. I place burdens on myself that aren't mine and shouldn't be mine to bare. But I don't know how not to. I don't know how to say "right now I need to take care of myself, and I'll help you later" without feeling like a terrible sister and friend.

I don't know how to just be me.

Edit: This dress was part of another swap with Lauren of Someone Like You. You can see how she styled it here.

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dress: borrowed from Lauren of Someone Like You

belt: H&M

jacket: Ebay

flats: c/o Blowfish Shoes

jeans: Old Navy

cardigan: ModCloth

necklace: Target

Take it All Away by Owl City // Music Monday

This is a remix of one of the brand new songs by Owl City. The original song can be heard here (I couldn't find a video with it to embed) and will be included on Owl City's new EP, Shooting Stars, which will be released tomorrow. Yay!!!!

So far Adam has released three songs from the new EP: Take it All Away, Dementia, and Gold. Dementia is the most like his last two albums, but Take it All Away, and Gold are very different. A new style for Owl City. And I know that a lot of people don't like it, but I just love it! It's totally different, and I'm not going to say I like it more than the other three albums, but I like it just as much! Honestly, it seems that no matter what Adam Young does I like it. From the simple, acoustic sounds of An Airplane Carried Me to Bed, to the techno sounds of Ocean Eyes and All things Bright and Beautiful, to the more traditional pop sounds (from what I can tell so far) of Shooting Stars - I love it all! Adam Young has yet to disappoint me and I seriously cannot wait to get Shooting Stars loaded onto my iPod! ♥

So, to sum up this incredibly long Music Monday post: I love Owl City and I'm an Adam Young fan for life!

In other news, I'm really sorry I've not been around much the past couple weeks. A lot has been going on, and I've been stressed out. Obviously my body doesn't deal well with stress because I've been tired, not sleeping well, and extremely moody. I've been really depressed and not wanting to do much of anything, but I'm finally starting to get out of it, and excited to blog again. Woohoo! I have a bunch of backlogged outfits to post this week!

 

Instagram

Once upon a time I was on Instagram quite often. Then I dropped my iPod touch about six inches onto the cement floor in the basement of my house and the screen shattered into a million pieces. *facepalm* Nowadays I can only get on once in a while when I comandeer my mom's phone. Boo!

Anyway, last week I was able to get it long enough to take some of my favorite instagram photos ever (of the ones I've taken, that is), so I thought I'd share them with you all.

I also have a couple outfit posts from last week that I'm planning on getting around to posting this week, along with a post on my party planning progress, so stay tuned for that. I'm trying to pull myself out of this rut. :-P

On Negativity // Honest to Blog

Hi, everyone. I know I haven't been around much the past week. I've been really - well, sort of just blah! I haven't felt like blogging. I don't want to be all "I'm so sick of the blogsphere" but lately, I kinda am, and I just really, really need to get this off my chest, so please bare with me...

I've noticed a tend among bloggers lately (and no, it has nothing to do with mason jars, mustaches, or "weird" colored hair) it has to do with a loss of inspiration, a feeling of being lost, etc. I know that Elizabeth has already posted on this subject, and I feel like I've seen at least one other post on it, but I might just be thinking of all the tweets I've seen echoing the same feelings.

And I think Elizabeth put it perfectly when she said "Maybe this is just blogger burnout on my part, or maybe the climate online really is shifting, I'm not sure." It's something that keeps popping up in my mind. Is the climate online really changing? Is it just a coincidence that so many bloggers are feeling the same way all at once?

I'm inclined to think that it really is changing. When I look around at all the bullying, competition, and self worth issues going around the world today, I'm sort of surprised it's taken this long to migrate into the blogosphere. The question I'm really wrestling with is what to do about it. I'm not a quitter - I'm a fighter. I always have been and I always will be. I'm not going to let a bunch of nastiest scare me away from something I love, but sitting back and taking it isn't exactly the way to deal with it, either. And just not looking can only work for so long - unless I were to disable commenting, stop giving out my email address, and quit Twitter; which isn't going to happen any time soon. But something has to change.

I think the fault partly lies with the bloggers. I think we've forgotten to laugh and the ridiculousness of people who feel the need to tear us down to build themselves up. I remember several months ago when a friend of mine tweeting about a nasty comment she received from someone ripping on her for being "boring" and other such things. I remember laughing at the ridiculousness of it all with her. But lately, I see bloggers complaining about the trolls, and how the blogosphere isn't a positive place anymore. But isn't complaining about the trolls and loss of positivity only adding the negativity? Isn't it just giving into the haters? To be honest, the trolls don't bother me all that much. I occasionally read GOMI (occasionally meaning quite often) and usually walk away from it with a good laugh. What bothers me is seeing girls I know giving into the trolls by talking about it. Complaining about it. Adding to the negativity by going on Twitter and being like "oh I'm so tired of these haters."

Maybe I'm way off base here, but in my experience the best way to fight negativity and cynicism is with positivity. That's what I used to love about the blogsphere. I used to see girls lifting each other up and laughing with each other when random trolls came around complaining. But lately, I don't see that anymore.

It's not the trolls and haters that make me tired of the blogsphere - it's the bloggers who go around complaining about them. 

What do you think? Do you agree with me or think I'm a crack pot? Comment and let me know. 
I would absolutely love to hear your opinions/thoughts on this matter.

Disclaimer: I wrote this post with extremely little editing. It's basically just my thoughts spilling out on this subject, so some of it may be very rough/sound weird. Also I borrowed this idea from Kaehla Bee who has a regular feature called "Honest to Blog."

Chasing Daydreams Away

Maddie and I had so much fun making our last outfit video, that we decided to do another! My little sis is a total YouTube junkie, and does a great job with these videos. Plus she sometimes vlogs, so you should totally check out her channel because she's hilarious. ♥

Song: Dazzling by Design by Summertime's End

Wish List Wednesday

1. Beachshide Beauty Hat
2. Scarlet Lapel Knit Top
3. Espresso Yourself Sunglasses
4. Graceful Waves Strapless Dress
5. All Smiles Lip Balm Set
6. Annie Hall Skirt: Blue Floral
7. Through the Wire Headband in Deer
8. Swish and Spin Skirt in Pink

How to Take Your Own Outfit Photos

I made this video several months ago. I know that lots of bloggers have already done "how to take outfit photos" posts, but I thought I'd add my two cents in - and also try doing something besides just a normal post. For more tips, keep reading.

Not going to lie. This is the thing I struggle with the most when it comesto outfit posts. It sems like all the best locations are a) on private property or b) extremely hard to get to. My best tip is just to keep your eye out when you're out and about, and if you're shy about going, try taking a friend with you. If all else fails, a simple brick wall never fails!

If possible I recommend using a DSLR camera. They provide clearer photos, and make the background blurrier, which is great because the outfit stands out better! I usually take my big, black purse with me and use that as a marker to focus on. If you don't bring something with to use as a marker, try using a stick or a flower or a tree or something.

This is another tricky part. The biggest tip I have, is to just try to be yourself. Just try to be confident - stand tall and try lots of different poses till you find a few that look good. Then when you're in a hurry you'll know what to do without having to spend a lot of time messing about.

Props are a great way to loosen up and get some good shots. I usually bring my purse, and use my accessories + whatever I can find around where I'm taking pictures. I hold flowers, grasp tree branches, hold my necklace, sunglasses, etc. Whatever you can make work!




I hope this helps! If you have any additional tips or tricks go ahead and leave a comment. I'd love to hear 'em!