Things I Love Thursday: Hipster Photography Edition

I've had an insanely busy past couple of weeks. I'm in talks for a couple of different jobs, I've been putting in some volunteer hours, and I went on a couple of dates - in addition to painting the porch and getting some of my May goals finished before the end of the month and working my usual internship. Most of my free time, which only comes after 10pm, has been spent on the couch trying to relax/frantically hem pants and repair split seams on dresses. I haven't been able to check into my social media all too often, but a few days ago I hopped on Facebook to find my friend Irv Briscoe had sent me some film scans that we took several weeks ago. As a lot of the recent links into the blog have been on a Reddit thread for ~hipster girls~ I thought it would be appropriate to share these ~hipster film scans~ taken with a ~lomography~ camera (so many tildes you guys). There're a lot of funny faces, a lot of me being confused about what I'm supposed to be doing in order to get a ~cool hipster photo~ because I'm not naturally ~hipster~, but I think they turned out awesome. I got a good laugh over seeing the finished product and some of the ridiculous faces I make. I'll be back this weekend with more normal blog updates! I love you all xxxxx

Things I Love Thursday

I'm obsessed with this snap of Veronica at Les Tuileries in Paris. It's so fun - black, white, and red is timeless, but the proportions, the mix of large & small polka dots, and the funky hat & shades make this infinitely interesting & playful - all while staying classic.

I love this look by Ella Catliff of La Petite Anglaise. It's young & funky while keeping a classic silhouette, and who doesn't love a good in-your-face graphic tee?

This look by Marina of Young, Gifted, & Black popped up in my Pinterest feed and immediately grabbed my attention. The skirt & bow tie match. Come on, how cool is that! This is totally the type of thing I'd wear to work.

I'm okay at sewing, but stretchy knits have always been too daunting without a serger. Annika of The Pineneedle Collective whipped up a quick little tutorial on how to craft a crop top from an old tee shirt. Crop top season is upon us and I have so many over-sized tees to do this with!

 This collection of macro photos of snails by photographer Vyacheslav Mishchenko makes me smile all over. I've always thought snails were cute, but these photos just give me a whole new respect & curiosity for the creatures. Meow!

 A friend posted this Buzzfeed article of 16 Ridiculous Lines from "Law & Order: SVU" and it's hilarious. I don't watch SVU because of the nature of the content (I'm die-hard for the original Law & Order though), but even so, these one-liners are unbelievably funny.

 I've been re-designing the blog a little bit. The current header was only supposed to be temporary while I waited on an illustrated one, but my designer disappeared on me & the temp one has been up long enough. A new header & more design changes are coming, but in the meantime, let me know what you think so far!

 I've also changed my Twitter handle as part of the re-branding. Make sure you're following me at @of__north (quite frankly, you should be following me on Twitter already, & if you're not then you're missing out on my endless wit)

Things I Love Thursday

Audrey of Frassy looks fab on the Spanish coast in her beach ensemble. I can't pretend that I love swimming or the whole bikini-beach culture, but I miss the feeling of sand between my toes. This is definitely my idea of the perfect summer day at the beach outfit.

I'm in love with this incredible crop top by ElmaShop. You must go take a look at the cross back detailing. In awe!

Cut Out + Keep (where I recently guest posted!) featured this tutorial for making toggle branch buttons. Wah! I'm definitely going to have to make these. SO COOL, and tugging at my Minnesotan roots.

I need this on my wall! via Olivia of Phantograms

I originally skipped over this post at The Merrythought when it popped up on my Bloglovin' feed simply because children don't really apply to my life at the moment. But I went back to see the photos and this little girl immediately brightened my day. It's good to see such simple, free, childish joy. That's not something that's in my life as much as I wish it were. Plus, look how chic her outfit is with the suede moccasins & the lace kimono!

 A friend directed me to this article at Bustle about personal style blogging & narcissism. I'm often a bit embarrassed about my blog for the simple fact that I don't want people to think I'm narcissistic & completely full of myself & nothing else. The author, Olivia, pretty much hit the nail on the head with this explanation.

 This is a little old, but I only just stumbled upon it. A wealthy woman who fled France during Hitler's reign & never returned (but continued to pay rent on her flat there) died, and her apartment in France was opened up for the first time since 1942. Everything was preserved beautifully. Take a look at the photos for yourself.

Things I Love Thursday

I have been having a rather stressful last few days - my allergies are through the roof and my head feels like it's about to implode, I'm hemorrhaging money by staying at this severely underpaid job that I love so much, and I'm presenting at a research conference tomorrow & am completely unprepared for it! This weekend will be better, but in the meantime, for this "Things I Love Thursday", I just want to share some nice things to make you smile and feel fuzzy.


Disney's The Aristocats (1970)


Hand-lettering by Nicolas Fredrickson


Source Unknown


Hand-lettering by Lisa Nicole


Charles Schultz's Charlie Brown & Snoopy


"You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving."
by Ann Whitaker


Illustration by Sam Larson of Steel Bison


Tintin & Snowy by Hergé

Things I Love Thursday: Parenthood Edition

I completely forgot to do "Things I Love Thursday" last week on account of I-forgot-it-was-Thursday, but that's okay because a) these are probably a bit repetitive anyways and b) I'm back this week with a special Parenthood edition! 
I don't know many young people who watch Parenthood, which is a total shame, as it's a beautiful, true show that I think a lot of young people would be more the wiser for watching. I've talked briefly about Parenthood on the blog before - a quick blurb raving about how good it is. While everyone else is busy watching...well, whatever people watch on TV these days (I'll admit, my TV usually stays on PBS), I've been pledging my non-public-television allegiance to NBC's Parenthood. And lemme tell you why: the women. Parenthood is full of strong female characters, which is not something you see on TV very often. And when I say strong females, I don't mean in the scary ball-busting way that you see so many "strong" women on TV portrayed as. These women are mothers, sisters, daughters - but they take on those otherwise feminine sounding roles with great strength, character, and courage. Let me tell you about my four favourite female characters - and yes, there will be spoilers.


(All photos belong to NBC)

Amber Braverman (Mae Whitman) was one of my favourite characters from the get go for the simple reason that she's my age and I could relate to her. She's always been rebellious, but as the show grew, so did she. She skipped the whole college thing, got a shitty apartment, and worked as a barista. But her relationship with Ryan has been, perhaps, the best part of her character's growth in the show. It showed a new side of Amber, and it was one that I could relate to over the past few months. She gave her entire heart to another person, her entire self into her relationship, and in the end, Ryan took it and crushed her with it. My last relationship was very difficult, muddled with my ex's drug abuse issues, and I found myself crying along with Amber through so many of the episodes, being able to relate entirely to the pain she felt. She gave herself to another person so selflessly and with so much love, and it was beautiful. It was in a very empowering, healing way that she cared for Ryan - it wasn't like the type of relationship that you usually see from women in movies and TV. It wasn't fake, it wasn't out of desperate need for a man - it was out of this very pure caring for another human being. And it was refreshing to see a young woman in such a relationship.



Julia Braverman-Graham (Erika Christensen) has always been a very strong, forward woman, throughout the entire show. When Parenthood began, Julia was a lawyer devoted to her work, with a husband who stayed home with their young daughter. Right away, this was a new dynamic that you really do not see in movies and TV. Her struggle to have another child - and the failure to adopt a newborn baby - presented a new side of Julia, but it's been seeing her as a mother to her adopted son Victor that has been the most empowering (surprisingly!). When she left her workaholic ways and quit her job in order to foster a better family life, I wanted to hate it. I thought it was taking a progressive character and placing her back where most female-characters on TV are - in the home, with the family. But, I was pleasantly surprised. While her marriage fell apart, she fought hard for her son (and daughter). There was nothing soft and gentle about her role as a mother - she's fierce, she fights hard, and she takes takes great pride in her children. Motherhood is all too often portrayed as a very simple task, something that comes naturally to women. Julia's storyline - though set in an upper-class lifestyle that would already supply cushion to so many struggles facing single mothers - demonstrates the extreme emotional toll it takes to be a mother, and especially a mother to an adopted son.



Kristina Braverman (Monica Potter) - how can I not touch on her? She beat cancer's butt, she had a child later in her life, she ran for mayor, she's trying to start a charter school, and her son has Asperger's Syndrome, which presents a daily struggle. I feel like it's impossible to touch base on all that her character has done, but it's not impossible to imagine Kristina as a real person. She navigates through and conquers all that life hands her, and she takes it all a step further to follow her convictions. It's so empowering to see a woman who has strong convictions about what she believes - especially about education and the treatment of disabled children - and take those convictions, and make action on them. I'm pretty sure Monica Potter has won a lot of awards for her part on the show, and it's well deserved. It's not everyday that you see a woman on TV fighting so hard for what she believes, so hard that she takes it into the political realm and the realm of public education.



I should have started this off with Sarah Braverman (Lauren Graham), as she is the reason I began watching Parenthood! I am, of course, a hard core Gilmore Girls fan, and I was excited to see Lauren on TV once again. Her character is pretty much Lorelai - a single mom with a lot of quirk - except less selfish and less headstrong. Sarah has bounced around during the show, going from a bar keep to a playwright to an apartment supervisor to a photographer, but she's always remained a tremendously caring character who is still trying to figure out how to follow her heart and how to pursue her dreams - whatever they may be. She's finally in a stage in her life where she can think about herself - her kids are out of the house and she's left her alcoholic husband - and audiences get to see her floundering in this newly found freedom. It's really beautiful and it's something that a lot of women can understand. We're all unsure of ourselves sometimes, and Sarah embraces that with such a beautiful amount of dignity and grace.
These four ladies aren't the only strong female characters in the show. Camille Braverman stepped out of her shell this season and spoke her mind, getting what she wants (at last!). In the series, we've seen Jasmine's character as vulnerable, but also as fierce and taking charge. And Haddie Braverman, who unfortunately hasn't been in the show very often in the past couple of years, beautifully found her way through teenage romances, into college, and came back for the season finale with Tavi Gevinson and a big life change in tow. I have my fingers crossed that the show is renewed and we get to see Haddie flourish with her new life - along with all the other characters. Parenthood is easily the most loving, down-to-earth show on TV (or as Buzzfeed called it, "The Realest Show on TV"). I find so much inspiration in its female characters, something that I hope other young women find, and that we can continue to find in our media. It's so extremely rare that women characters are so 3D, so real, and so relatable, and it makes me incredibly happy that Parenthood boasts a whole cast of these wonderful women.

p.s. Parenthood was created by Jason Katims, who also worked on My So-Called Life, so obviously he has a history of bringing totally rad women onto the screen.

Things I Love Thursday

Mandi of Making Nice in the Midwest posted this stunning tutorial on A Beautiful Mess about making your own geometric stencil to create a wallpaper effect. My brain lacks the proper functions (math! angles!) to ever execute something like this, but a girl can dream - and maybe one day when I'm feeling brave & cocky about my abilities, I will try it even!

Isabella of Views of Now shared this rad outfit. (I've been seeing people wearing that skort everywhere and I neeeeeed one!) This girl is seriously adorable and mature, putting my 16-year-old self to absolutely shame.

I'm obsessed with this mod two piece set that Carrie of WishWishWish styled here. I'm in the midst of re-watching the last season of Mad Men and I'm getting some serious Megan Draper vibes from Carrie's ensemble (and general being - she is seriously stunning).

Someone I follow on Pinterest pinned this fantastically dream-inducing art print by Elise Mahan. I'm not buying any wall art until I get my own place, but this one is definitely on the list. Don't you just want to be up on that mountain, close enough to the night sky that you could just reach up and stir around the Big Dipper?

 Have you heard of the androgynous early Twentieth century artist Claude Cahun? If you have or if you haven't, take a look at some of her portraits and read about how she fostered the avant-garde community and fought Nazis.

 I'm about to go have my sixth meal of the day (I'm feeling awesome by eating so much more often, by the way!) and watch the new episode of Parenthood. I originally began watching the show because I love Lauren Graham, but now I'm really involved with all of the characters and the beautiful dynamic of the whole family. Parenthood is easily the most underrated show on television right now.

Things I Love Thursday: Call the Midwife Edition

(All photos belong to Neal Street Productions/BBC)

This "Things I Love Thursday" post is all about one thing that I'm totally loving: Call the Midwife! PBS began airing the BBC One show a couple of years ago, shortly after Downton Abbey took off, and season 3 begins on Sunday, so obviously I'm very excited. Call the Midwife is based off the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, a British nurse who worked as a midwife in poverty-stricken East End London in the 1950s, shortly after WWII ravaged Europe and soon after the workhouses closed. I won't lie, I prefer Call the Midwife over Downton Abbey in a heartbeat. Not only are the characters more genuine and engaging, but every episode has a strong moral to it. I gain perspective with each episode - valuable insight into a life which I am thankful to not be living, while still being able to have tremendous respect for those characters in the show who do have to go through such hardship.

I don't know anyone else who watches Call the Midwife - I don't think it's really caught on here in the States like Downton Abbey has - so I'm not able to talk about it with anyone. Instead, I always spend quite a bit of time after each episode thinking very deeply about what I just saw. Although the show is witty and sweet, I mostly love it for being so hard-hitting and very, very much filled with heart and wisdom.

One of the most poignant episodes was in season 2. It was the story of a woman who had had several children and couldn't afford to have anymore. Yet, she was pregnant again (no access to birth control!). The episode depicts her struggle to find a way to abort the baby, fearful of bringing it into a world where it would have no chance of a good life. In her struggle, she herself almost loses her life. I remember watching it with my boyfriend at the time and giving him a long lecture afterwards about why every woman (and person, really) should be so thankful to live in a country with access to inexpensive birth control and legal abortion - because those are the alternatives, and those are the huge risks that are taken in the desperate struggle to terminate a pregnancy. I was so pleased that Call the Midwife chose to highlight such an important story - especially in a show which is entirely about giving birth, not about terminating birth. It's incredibly important to show every side of the struggle of childbearing, as well as the obvious pain-filled child birth scenes.

I love any show with well-rounded female characters of course, but I love Call the Midwife because it is driven entirely by what makes women different from men - our ability to bear children - and celebrates what the means to a woman. There are feminists who say that until the day when babies can be created and born in incubating machines, there is no way that women will be seen as equal to men. This notion has always made me rather queasy, but so has childbirth. I'm caught between this feeling of wanting to celebrate the special gift that women have, but also being uncertain of just how to honour that because it's an extremely terrifying gift. That's where Call the Midwife gets it right. They present childbearing not only as a great gift, but also as an intense struggle which reveals how truly strong and empowered women are. All women. Not just those giving birth, but those nurses delivering the babies as well.

The show follows Jenny Lee most closely (of course, as that is who the memoirs are written by). She's a fantastically well-developed character and I enjoy seeing her struggles because they are so relatable to the struggles that many young women face. I think that I especially relate well to Jenny because she is only just starting out her career. In season one you see her as the new girl, very much uneasy with her new work. As someone who is also just starting my own career - and who is often the "new girl" as I do short internships here & there - her doubt was something that I definitely felt in myself, but seeing her flourish gave me so much inspiration. It's funny because she's a midwife and I just work in an office, but seeing a woman with work ethic like that as a main character on a popular TV show was eye-opening. There are not many shows or movies, not that I watch at least, where you see women working that hard, overcoming barriers, and using their minds to go above & beyond in their career. Jenny Lee is definitely a unique character in that respect, and it is also in that respect that draws me so much into the show.

If you're in the States & haven't had a chance to catch Call the Midwife, the first two seasons are available on Netflix - and the third premieres on Sunday on PBS! I highly recommend this show to all women. As someone who is extremely squeamish about childbirth and highly doubts that I will ever have children, the show still has huge appeal to me because it is so uniquely about women and honouring women. Call the Midwife has already been picked up for a fourth season & a 2014 Christmas special. What is it about British TV programs? They always have Christmas specials, which is perfect and magical and obviously I love.

Also, as a side note because I love period pieces in large part for the fashion: I completely dork over the scenes when they go out on the town, out of uniform. There were so many fab cigarette pants in season two. I'm sure season three won't disappoint in that respect, either!

Do you watch Call the Midwife? What is your favourite thing about the show? (And to you British readers, no season 3 spoilers please!)

Things I Love Thursday

I'm loving this look by Adriana of Fashion Avenue - a chic take on the 1940s, plus those leopard print heels? Uh, yes please.

I'm mega-excited to have ANTHOM back partnering with Of North! They have some amazing stuff in stock right now that has been really wishing for a fresh spring wardrobe (and adult-sized feet).

These succulents planted in neon pink rocks for Jen's baby shower fill me with smiles and a weird sense of whimsy and joy - yes, over succulents!

I got my copy of Frozen in the mail today so I'm going to settle down and watch that with my cat Gogo. I saw Frozen when it was out in theatres and completely loved it. It's smart writing with lovable characters (Olaf!) and it's a Disney princess story that I can actually stand behind. At the center of it is sisterly love & loyalty (something I know nothing about, quite frankly), and that's much more positive of a message than pretty much all other Disney princess movies give (change yourself for a man, leave your family for a man, sit around and wait for a man, instinctively do housework for a bunch of men, etc ya da ya da ya da....) (I love Disney movies, I'm just extremely critical of them and of the media we feed our children)

72 Truths "Friends" Taught You About Life in Your Twenties - I'm still learning these things but just reading this list makes me want to binge-watch Friends again - even though I just did in December

The other day I was watching my favourite Hollywood dance routines on YouTube (because I'm a spinster cat lady) and this video of Fred Astaire tearing it up at the 1970 Academy Awards popped up on the sidebar. Goodness gracious - he was 70 years old and still had incredible flexibility and rhythm - and was adorable as ever! Fred Astaire was the first actor from the golden ages of Hollywood that I fell in love with, and he will always remain my true love.