Ice Cream DIY Headband for Scathingly Brilliant

Hello darlings, I just wanted to pop by and tell you I did a guest post for the incredible Kate Gabrielle at Scathingly Brilliant, where I show you how to make an ice cream headband!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway, and I'll be back with a new post soon!
♡,
Kailey
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Giveaway: Win a Custom Illustrated Blog Header!

In honor of the new Mermaidens header and our birthday this month, I am offering one lucky winner a custom, illustrated blog header from yours truly! This giveaway is open to international readers as well as those based in the United States. If you don't want to wait to see who won, you can now purchase custom illustrated blog headers in my shop!

How To Enter:
1. Follow Mermaidens
2. Leave a comment with a way for me to reach you in case you win!

For additional entries: (leave a separate comment for each entry)
- Follow Mermaidens on Twitter
- Tweet about this giveaway (be sure to use "@mermaidensblog" so I will be notified of the tweet!)
- Like us on Facebook
- Follow us on Bloglovin'

Giveaway ends August 31st, 2012! Good luck!

UPDATE: This giveaway is now closed. The winner is commenter number 11... aka Ms. Jade! Congratulations honey ♡

♡,
Kailey
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Style Icon: Judy Jetson

I figured it was about time I revamped my Style Icon series, and who better to usher in a new era than Judy Jetson?! If you've been on my tumblr lately you will know I have completely fallen in love with the adorable white-haired, music-loving teenage daughter in The Jetsons (1962)! I adore her fluorescent, geometric, all-pink outfit that the people in the 60s must have imagined teenagers in this time period would be wearing!

01 Weekday Amelia Blouse €40. 02 ASOS Round Color Block Sunglasses, sold out. 03 ROMWE Shirt Dress, $42. 04 Pizzazz You Wish Modcloth Bag, $72. 05 Debenhams Pink Wedges, £13. 06 Shop with Romi Acid Galaxy Tights, $20. 07 Sock Dreams Pink Tights, $14. 08 LouLou Loves You Collar, £39. NOT PICTURED Petite Mesh Insert Skater Topshop Dress, $90. OASAP Transparent Candy Shoulder Bag, $43. ROMWE Pink Belt, $19.

When I'm obsessed with something, I see it everywhere - and these pieces just scream Judy Jetson to me! I also made a Judy Jetson Pinterest board just for the occasion! Who is inspiring you right now?

♡,
Kailey
(background image credit)

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One Year of Mermaidens

This month marks the year anniversary since I made my first post on Mermaidens! Well actually, I registered the name in 2009 - but unsure of what kind of blog I wanted to have, I made a few throw away posts and promptly forgot about it. In August of last year I was going through a rough patch and needed an outlet for my creative endeavors - and decided to try blogging again! Still unsure of what my blog's concept was and my own voice, the first few months were a mish-mash of my collages and screencaps from movies I love. But as you can see, this blog has evolved into much more than that!

Mermaidens has grown into such a supportive and passionate community, and I feel so so lucky to have formed the relationships I have as a direct result of blogging! I struggle with issues of self-confidence, and I am absolutely blown away by the sheer amount of positive and supportive feedback I have received. Thank you thank you thank you to each and every one of you for being a part of Mermaidens, and here's to another year of creating, (hopefully) inspiring, and be inspired by you!

In honor of our birthday, I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane and share with you my own top 5 favorite posts at Mermaidens!

David Lynch Inspired Nails Wanting to do something special with my nails, I came up with the concept using iconic elements from David Lynch's films! They were posted on Rookie Mag's tumblr and won Modcloth's Marvelous Manicure contest (STILL CAN'T BELIEVE IT TBH)!

Candy
I was very pleased with how this look came together - with the beautiful full skirt and nipped waist I couldn't help but feel like I was in a technicolor musical ♥

Pistachio Zine
Pistachio began as a simple project that quickly ballooned into one of the most ambitious projects I have ever attempted - and also one that I am the most proud of!

I'm a Mermaid ^_~
Inspired by sewing blogs, I repurposed an old Disney dress into a mermaid shirt and skirt! This is still one of my very favorite things to wear and opened my eyes to all sorts of diy possibilities!

Interview: Marlena from Self-Constructed Freak
I was utterly over the moon when after just a few months of blogging, my favorite blogger (MARLENA ♡♡♡) agreed to be interviewed for Mermaidens! I would also recommend going through my community tag for more interviews and guest posts!

Now, which Mermaidens post do you love the most? And more importantly, which post of your own are you the most proud of? I wanna see! ♥

♡,
Kailey

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How To Make a Zine

OR HOW I MADE PISTACHIO

It's been almost three months since I debuted Pistachio, and I'm still over the moon with what an incredible experience it was! I have been asked several times to help out with other people's zines and how I made my own, and since I've begun the beginning processes of creating the second issue, I thought now would be the perfect time to share with you How I Made Pistachio:

NO 1: FIND INSPIRATION Regardless of whether it is a child's painting or the Mona Lisa, you need to be inspired by something and have a clear picture of what kind of theme, tone, and overall color scheme you want for the zine. I went through images and clippings I had saved to help shape the tone and theme I wanted.

NO 2: PUT PEN TO PAPER Write the articles you want to write, draw the drawings you want to include, and take the pictures you want to take for the zine. Also, if you have started getting ideas for how you want the zine to look, sketch out layout ideas - this helped me figure out how I wanted arrange a series of pictures and text on a page.

NO 3: ASK FOR SUBMISSIONS Now this isn't mandatory, but I cannot recommend it highly enough! I felt so honored when people I really admired consented to being a part of the zine, and when I posted a call for submissions here I received some really incredible submissions by people I didn't even know read my blog! Of course, there was some entries I had to turn down - they were great, but just didn't fit the aesthetic of my zine. Turning them down was hard, but this is *your* vision and you should not be obligated to include anything you don't want to. Just be kind when you tell them you can't use their piece!

NO 4: PUT IT ALL TOGETHER Compile all of the illustrations, submissions, and articles and begin designing your zine! This was the most difficult part - there were so many possibilities! Using Photoshop CS4 and a design inspiration Pinterest board to help me, I designed and put together all the different elements into a page. One thing I noticed was I could spend hours and hours arranging all the pieces in the slightest different ways - and it got to the point where I was just wasting time. Unless you want a super sleek, professional quality zine, do not sweat the small stuff - for my specific case, what I was making was just supposed to be a fun, personal side project!

NO 5: FORMAT FOR PRINTING AND ISSUU Another part I struggled with was the actual process of printing and figuring out how to upload it to Issuu, a site I really love because it allows you to flip through the zine as if it was a real magazine! I made two different versions of the zine, one formatted like the standard half-size zine (a great diagram for this can be found here) and the other as a pdf file to upload to Issuu. For more about uploading documents to Issuu, visit here.

NO 6: UNVEIL YOUR ZINE, PRINT OUT A COPY,
AND CRY OVER HOW PERFECT IT IS

Pretty self-explanatory! By the time I completely Pistachio, it was completely different from what I imagined and nowhere near perfect - but that didn't matter! I had created something I felt truly proud of and couldn't wait to share it with you all. As I said to my friend who expressed doubt over her artistic skills and thus felt like she couldn't make one herself, one of the best aspects of zines is that you are in control and can do anything you want with the zine - it doesn't matter if you aren't the world's greatest writer or artist, just write or illustrate what you feel and that will be good enough.

Feel free to email or comment asking questions, and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability! Also please let me know about any zines you have created or are planning to make! I wanna hear about them ^^

Floral background is courtesy of Pugly Pixel

♡,
Kailey

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Momentos

After months of planning the move, I'm finally in my new temporary home - my grandparents' house! From packing to trying to help my cats stay cool in the 8+ hour car drive up to their house, the journey here was unbelievably stressful but we were welcomed with open arms into their comfy home - which is stuffed to the brim with mementos from my grandparents' 50+ years together, two adorable dogs, and surrounded by lush greenery and beautifully painted walls (the latter two being elements that have been sorely lacking in the past three or so houses I've lived in)!

And now, here are some pictures I took within the first five days of living here:

This Judy Jetson watch was waiting for me after I won it on eBay & had it go directly to their house - HEARTS IN MY EYES.

I found these biographies forgotten in their shed *_*

Some of my grandmother's treasures

Their adorable half chihuahua/half pekingese!

Just one example of the incredible food I've been stuffing myself with over here @_@

What are your grandparents like?

Also ModCloth posted my winning nail design over at their blog - check it out! I want to cry it's so beautiful *_*

♥,
Kailey

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