Tag:

Archive

Bradstreet’s Landing

by Kaylah Stroup August 17, 2015

my !

I know I’m always blogging about beach trash, and what I find is no exaggeration but I would really hate for anyone to think that’s what all of Cleveland’s beaches look like. My favorite trash beach is a mess. I have no idea what it is about that spot. It must just be the location, that’s where the tide brings in the most garbage. That little spot aside, we have some really nice beaches!

One of the very first spots I fell in love with here was Bradstreet’s Landing. Mickey and I actually discovered it shortly before I moved to Lakewood. It is my absolute favorite spot to look for beach glass. Although it’s not a secret spot by any means for the longest time I refused to name it because I wanted it all to myself. When I was living in Lakewood I was there at least twice a week. Sometimes Jeff and I would even grab donuts, coffee, and chocolate milk and spend the morning there. I haven’t been picking up beach glass as often lately and had kind of forgotten just how much I love this little beach. I’ve been meaning to share more about the things I love in Cleveland and although this one is a tiny bit outside the city (around twenty minutes) it definitely deserves to be named!

Coming from Geneva beaches I was used to finding maybe three or four pieces of beach glass per trip. Bradstreet’s Landing blew my mind. You can sit down in one spot, run your hand over the small pebbles, and expose five to ten glistening pieces of glass. There’s barely any trash, it’s rare that more than a handful of people are there, and there’s almost always a big log to sit down and relax on.

Bradstreet’s Landing should probably be on your itinerary if you’re in the area and like looking for beach glass! Make sure to say hi if you see me and my obnoxiously bright hair hunkered down looking for treasure!
xoxo

Bradstreet’s Landing
22400 Lake Rd
Rocky River, OH 44116

Wigwam Village #7

by Kaylah Stroup August 13, 2015

One of my greatest joys in life is crossing off goals. That sounds weird, but stay with me here, I just find such great pleasure in making goals and accomplishing them. It doesn’t matter how silly the goal it is or how insignificant it may seem to someone else, I just love accomplishing things. Some days on my to-do list along with work related things I’ll write “shower”, “make bed”, etc just because I love crossing things off.

Since the second I learned about Wigwam Village a few years back I knew I needed to stay there. I love tacky roadside attractions, and tourist traps. It’s just so kitsch, how could you not love it!? For the longest time I couldn’t find anyone to go with. The only one I knew of at the time was in seven hours away in Kentucky. No one saw the point except me.

Fast forward a few years to June of 2014, Jeff and I are getting ready to head out west on our first big road trip together. While looking up things in the area I realized there was another Wigwam Village in Holbrook, Arizona. We stayed, and it was just awesome as I had made it out to be in my mind. It was in no way luxurious but it was awesome!

When I got home I did a bunch of research on the history of Wigwam Village. Originally built in the 1930s + 40s, there were seven Wigwam Village locations. Now only three remain, each of which has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. Holbrook, Arizona, Cave City, Kentucky, and San Bernardino, California. I had to visit the other two!

A few months later, for our six month anniversary Jeff and I took a trip down to Cave City and stayed at that Wigwam Village. Then in June, while on our most recent road trip, we finally crossed number three off the list, San Bernardino – number seven of the original seven! I say finally but we managed to stay at all three of the remaining Wigwam Villages in a span of just a few days over a year which is pretty darn awesome, right?!

Of the three Wigwam Villages I think this one was the nicest inside. It might have even been bit bigger than the others as well. That’s not to put the others down though, all three were clean, had friendly staff, and made for super cool photo opportunities.

I celebrated crossing off my goal of staying at the three remaining Wigwam Villages by getting a permanent souvenir. While shoving my face with a delicious burger from In-N-Out I searched for tattoo artists in the area. I wasn’t able to find one in San Bernardino on such short notice but found Mikey Sarratt at High Noon Tattoo in Phoenix. He not only responded to my email super quickly, but came in on his day off just to do this little tattoo. I was SO nervous but I seriously could not be happier with the finished result!
xoxo

Special thanks to Jeff for being more than willing to make all my silly little dreams come true. That guy hates staying anywhere but really nice hotels but made the exception because he understood how much it meant to me. You da best! I love you!

Save

The Dainty Squid hair master post

by Kaylah Stroup August 12, 2015

punky alpine green + punky spring green hair dye

Punky Colour in Spring Green + Alpine Green.

For over fifteen years I’ve been dying my hair bright, unnatural colors. Over this time I’ve written numerous posts about hair. I thought it might be beneficial to finally create a master post of sorts where I can link to all the important posts involving hair that I’ve published. I plan on keeping this post updated with links to any future hair posts I write as well.

quick FAQ about my hair

What is your natural hair color? Dirty blonde.
How often do you wash your hair? Every other day.
Do you bleach your hair every time you change colors? Nope. I rarely ever apply bleach to the entire length of my hair. I normally only apply it to my roots.
How often do you bleach your hair? I bleach my hair only when my roots are bad. With some colors my roots don’t really bother me so much and I can go long periods without touching them up. I’d say average is a little less than once a month.
How do you change colors so easily? Since I don’t bleach my hair completely when changing colors I rely on letting it fade. Extra conditioning treatments, soaking in the tub, and the like so the current color is as light as possible. I just deal with the faded hair as long as possible. A lot of smoothly transitioning colors is knowing how colors work with each other. Underlying pigments effect what color your hair will end up so there are certain shades I’m not able to go to easily from some colors since I don’t strip my hair completely each time. You can read more about switching hair colors in this post.

Manic Panic in Sunshine, Hot Hot Pink, Pillarbox Red, and Pretty Flamingo. Color Jamz in Yellin Yellow. Punky Colour in Fire.

FAQ about products

What bleach do you use? I swear by the Beyond the Zone Radical Bleach Kit. I’ve been using it since I started bleaching my hair. I do not follow the timing instructions though. After about seven minutes my hair is normally light enough to rinse. I definitely recommend keeping a close eye on how quickly it’s processing your hair. You can read more about my bleaching process here.
What brand of hair dye do you use? The majority of my dye jobs are done with Punky Colours, which I either purchase at Ulta or on Amazon. I’m also a fan of Special Effects dyes. If I’m in a hurry, or can’t find the color I’m looking at the store I’ll pick up Manic Panic but in general, it’s not my first choice. I’ve had the worst luck with Ion Color Brilliance and probably wouldn’t recommend them at all. That’s not to say I haven’t seen some gorgeous dye jobs with that dye. Everyone’s hair is different so your experiences with brands might not be the same as mine.
My hair color bleeds on everything / it’s all over my hands. How do you deal with this? I don’t. My hair color does not bleed. I don’t leave stains on anything other than my hands when my hair is wet and that’s only for the first day or so. If you’re dealing with a lot of staining it could be one of two things (possibly both): You didn’t rinse well enough or you’re not using a high quality color. As mentioned above, I recommend Punky Colours.

Punky Color in alpine green, turquoise, and plum as well as electric lizard from Manic Panic

Borrego Springs Sky Art

by Kaylah Stroup August 10, 2015

Before leaving to head out on our road trip a very kind reader, who gave us the awesome suggestion of hitting up Noah’s Art last year, recommended visiting Borrego Springs. It looked and sounded awesome. Like I mentioned in my previous post about the trip, we had the whole day after Bottle Tree Ranch to do whatever we’d like before checking in to our room for the night. So despite it being a little bit out of the way we decided to venture down to Borrego Springs and see what it was all about.

The product of Dennis Avery’s imagination and Ricardo A Breceda’s hard work the land surround Borrego Springs is filled with giant metal sculptures collectively known as “Sky Art”. There are over 130 of these babies scattered around. All sorts of different animals too! There are horses, dinosaurs, camels, and even a sea serpent emerging from the sand.

Jeff wasn’t feeling too well so visiting Borrego Springs was basically just him driving me from animal to animal and me saying “Are you sure you’re okay with this? Do you want me to drive? Can we at least go see the ______ and then we can leave?” There are so many sculptures we didn’t even get to see a quarter of them! Although we found a few crude maps on the internet it was still a lot more like a scavenger hunt finding them which was kind of fun.

Looking back I so badly wish I had some photos of Jeff and I beside these sculptures so you could get an idea of just how large they are. Something I really enjoyed about being here was that you could walk right up the animals. Nothing stopping you from getting as close you wanted. Some of them were a bit of a hike in the heat from the road but worth it regardless!
xoxo

You can find more posts from our road trip under the “travel” tag.

Bottle Tree Ranch

by Kaylah Stroup August 6, 2015

After Death Valley National Park we made our way over to Bartstow where we got a hotel room for the night. Death Valley was our last big stop of the trip. We didn’t have any destinations planned but we had places already booked to stay for our last two nights of the trip so we had time to just wander around. We woke up the next morning and started heading toward Bottle Tree Ranch which I had found on Roadside America while cuddled up in bed watching the Food Network in the hotel. That’s only worth noting because the Food Network and hotels go hand and hand for me. I can’t stand to watch it at home but because it’s what Jeff always turns on in hotel rooms I’ve come to love it and somehow it makes hotels feel more like home to me.

So! Bottle Tree Ranch. What to say about this place? First of all, WOW, it’s incredible. It is literally a forest made from large metal pipes with bottles on them. Elmer Long has been interested in collecting bottles since he was a kid. He and his father would go on trips where they would bring home old bottles found at dump sites. When his father died he inherited his collection of bottles and that’s when the ranch began. In 2002, at age 55, he quit his job to dedicate his time to the ranch. There are over two hundred trees and thousands of bottles!

It is definitely a sight to behold. While the property isn’t all that large, it’s absolutely overwhelming standing in the middle of it all. I had no idea how to shoot it. The whole time I was just thinking “I hope some of these pictures look okay…“. I’m pretty pumped about my shots but definitely feel that there is nothing that compares to seeing the trees in person.

I know when I blogged about Jerry’s Junk I briefly touched on how much I love collectors, and their collections. I just really really love passionate people. I’m the biggest weenie in the book but I’m seriously sitting here all teary eyed about this place. It’s so awesome to see people doing something they love, even if that thing is seen as a bit crazy by the general public.

Bottle Tree Ranch is nothing short of amazing. When we visited Elmer was outside. He was so friendly and so kind. I’m so happy people like him exist! If you’re anywhere near Oro Grande, CA or are just out cruising Route 66, Bottle Tree Ranch is a must.
xoxo

You can find more posts from our road trip under the “travel” tag.

my camera equipment

by Kaylah Stroup August 5, 2015

Photography has always been something I loved but for the longest time I never really saw any reason to upgrade my equipment. I stand by the notion that a good photographer can take a great photo no matter the equipment but y’all having awesome equipment sure does help!

The very first non-kit lens I bought many moons ago was the Canon 50mm f/1.8 II which I had actually read about on someone’s blog. I liked their pictures, and their FAQ included a link to that lens along with a few sentences about how much they loved it. I bought it same day. The internet is full of recommendations on camera equipment – and just about everything else but hearing that someone I know, whether that be online or in person, loves something and reading what the practical application for me is is what is most important to me when choosing what to spend my money on.

It’s been a while since I updated my equipment list here on the blog and since my last update I’ve found a handful of new things that I just can’t imagine myself not shooting with!

1. This shutter release is seriously one of the best things I’ve ever bought. You can either push+hold the button to take a single picture or set the timer to for it to shoot a few seconds (or minutes) later. If you put your camera in sports/ high speed continuous mode, and set the timer for a few seconds long it will take a series of photos for you. It’s a thousand times better than just a remote and an absolute must have if you take outfit pictures! It also makes taking long exposures easier since using the shutter release minimizes the possibility of camera shake.

2. The Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 was something that as soon as I got it I wondered how I had shot all these years without it. I just never realized how often I could benefit from having a wide angle lens. I find it most useful when shooting photos of abandoned building, landscapes, rooms in my home, etc. The whole room photos in my apartment tour are a great example of what this lens can capture.

3. Canon 100mm f/2.8, my macro lens! Perfect for shooting insects, and close ups of plants. It might be one of my least used lenses but when I do find a use for it I am so happy to have it. Here are two posts featuring examples of what the lens can do – 1 + 2. The photos of elephant seals I shot along the coast were taken with this lens as well.

If you’re not one hundred perfect sold on putting out the money for a macro lens I recommend macro filters. For under fifteen bucks you can take some pretty awesome close up shots!

4. Canon 35mm f/1.4L. So it’s technically not my lens, it’s Jeffs, but this was the lens that made me realize L-series lenses were no joke. This was one of the first outfit photo set I shot with that lens and I just remember being blown away. Before purchasing the 50mm 1.2, this was basically my every day lens. It just takes some seriously gorgeous photos! Good glass is worth the money.

5. I recently upgraded to the Canon 70D. I did a ton of research before pulling the trigger just to make sure it was the right camera for me – I’m pumped! It was important to me to buy another camera with a flip out screen since a lot of the photos I take for the blog involve me shooting photos of myself. It’s an excellent way to make sure I’m in the frame. It’s also useful for shooting things low to the ground while not getting your knees dirty.

6. The 50mm 1.2, ooooh boy. This lens is what dreams are made of. I splurged and bought this puppy for my birthday and haven’t looked back since. It rarely leaves my camera now. The plant photos in this post were taken with this lens. I’m sure after having it for a little while longer I’ll have more articulate things to say about it but right now I’m just feeling very “wooooow” about it.

My top two film cameras are the Pentax K1000 and the Canon T2. I love them both equally but have figured out which works best for me in certain situations. The Pentax K1000 is a manual camera, you have to focus and adjust the settings properly yourself. It’s an excellent camera to learn to shoot film on. I use it most for landscapes, and subjects that don’t move too quickly. The Canon T2, on the other hand, does have auto focus. It’s my camera of choice when I know I’ll be shooting animals (like at the deer park) and children since I’m still not that quick at focusing on my own.

As far as 35mm film goes, I’m not that picky. I will shoot with anything I can get my hands on. I tend to most frequently purchase Fuji 35mm Superia X-TRA 400 because Amazon has it for a decent price.

My pride and joy, the land camera. This is my absolute FAVORITE camera. I bought mine from Film Photography Project on ebay a few years ago or so when they were having a sale. They do currently have a few in their webstore. They’re slightly pricey compared to what you’d find at a thrift store or estate sale but they have been tested and come with batteries. Plus they have really great service that I can attest to! When I first got the camera I had no idea what to do with but it actually came with an instructional DVD to help you out.

Film for land cameras can be found on amazon, black and white or color. The black and white film was recently discontinued, hence the major price difference, so if you’d like some I’d stock up while you still can.

I own a handful of camera bags, it’s kind of my thing. Some people collect shoes or purses, I have camera bags. I very rarely leave my house without a camera so it’s important to me to have something safe to tote them around in. My current favorites are the Bellbrook Backpack and a cross body leather bag called Siena, both of which are from Jo Totes. I own more of her bags than any other brand. They’re stylish, and functional! You can find lots of photos of my camera bags, and how they look on by browsing through my What I Wore archives.

Those are my favorite, and most commonly used photography related things. I also have a list of just for fun cameras that I love, you can read more here! Or if you’re interested in instant photography (with easily accessible film!) you can read more here.
xoxo

found on the beach // balls

by Kaylah Stroup August 4, 2015

For as long as I can remember I’ve suffered from chronic headaches. I’ve been to the doctor, had CT scans, and tried just about everything. Last year I started having vision problems too so I visited the optometrist who was actually the first person to give me some helpful hints. My vision problems, and subsequently my headaches, were being caused by some overworked muscles in my eyes. Basically I stare at my computer too much. When I’m not on my computer I’m reading, playing video games, or some other task that strains my eyes. I got reading glasses (which look pretty darn cute!), and began paying a lot more what I was doing the days I got headaches.

Last week my head and eyes just felt off. I wasn’t able to look at my computer for very long at all without starting to feel a headache coming on. My house was clean, and it seemed like no matter what I did I’d somehow end up back at my computer desk to check emails, or edit “just a few” photos so I had to get out. All that just to say I spent a lot of time at the beach last week.

It wasn’t long after arriving to the beach this day before noticing I was finding a lot of balls. It was just one after another. All different shapes, sizes, and conditions. There was even a soccer ball but didn’t fit in my little framed area.

I am constantly amazed at the things that wash up. The balls are really interesting to me (uhhh, phrasing) because unlike the other things I find on the beach I would presume most of these are lost as opposed to being intentional litter. Not that I think people throw lighters on the ground, I’m guessing those are lost most of the time too. I just imagine dogs whose owners have thrown the tennis ball just a haaaaair too far and they get lost out in the water for a while before finally washing back to the shore.

You can find previous sets under my “found on the beach” tag.
xoxo

what I wore : birthday attire

by Kaylah Stroup August 3, 2015

Yesterday I turned twenty five! Eeep! But I’ve been celebrating for a few days now and I’ll probably keep celebrating this week because that’s just how I roll.

Jeff took me to Oglebay over the weekend to celebrate. I cried over how cute tamarins are, ate the best burger of my life, devoured chocolate that was too good for words, took a bath in a massive bath tub, rode an aqua cycle, and we had a stinken fire place in our hotel room! (We cranked the air up so we could at least turn on the fire place for a little bit!) I’ve been feeling more than a bit worn down by the city so it was SO nice to escape if only for a few days. I’m back home feeling refreshed, and ready to get down to business – an excellent way to start my twenty sixth year!

Here’s to making this year even better than the last!
xoxo

Just because I love silly traditions here’s a peek back at previous year’s birthday outfit posts ft. balloons! 2013 + 2014

my succulents + tips for healthy plants

by Kaylah Stroup July 30, 2015

After realizing how great my plants were doing on my deck I decided to move everything out there for the summer. I’m no expert, everything I know about plants has been from scouring the internet or personal experience, and believe me I have killed my fair share of plants. I think I’m finally getting the hang of really growing things though. For the first time ever I’m actually confident I’m raising healthy succulents that are taking root and growing!

Something I kept reading about over and over was that plants have a growing season and a resting season. In the winter they should get less light but I had no idea how to do that because by moving them anywhere away from the window it just wouldn’t be enough light. It took seeing some of my plants outside thriving for that little bell in my head to finally go off and realize that putting them outside to get the most sunlight might be the best option for healthy plants. Despite getting what I would consider a great deal of light in my office nothing really compares to being outside.

I get so many requests for posts on how to grow cacti and succulents but it’s really all trial and error for me. My best advice is make sure they get lots of sunlight and to water them when the soil is completely dry. I don’t have a regular watering schedule because some weeks they dry out quicker than other weeks and each plant is different. I recently read about how watering them a little bit less will help grow better roots since the roots will search for water. I’m not quite sure how true that is but I have been playing around with watering certain plants only a little bit instead of the full amount I would normally give them. So far so good!

Another thing I’ve noticed really seems to make my plants super happy is misting them. I bought a spray bottle specifically to mist the pups I was propagating. Since they were right beside all my other plants I’d end up just spraying every one of them down. I noticed fairly quickly how much more green and lively everything looked! Now it’s something I do to every one of my plants outside on a daily basis.

Basically if you didn’t feel like reading all that nonsense above, for healthier plants –
▴ Make sure they get enough light! If possible, put them outside for the summer. Just watch when the forecast calls for heavy rain, they most likely won’t love that and make sure they don’t get too much light. Plants can get sunburn too. I think there’s this idea that succulents are super easy to grow inside but it’s just not true – they need lots of light!
▴ Water them when their soil is dry. All plants are different and no one on the internet is going to be able to tell you the best schedule for yours, just keep an eye on them.
▴ Mist your plants daily – I promise it makes a huge difference!

Even if you end up killing a plant at least you go to enjoy it for some
amount of time. Think of it this way, it’s kind of like buying flowers.
You enjoy them for a week and then they die except with succulents and
cacti they live a lot longer than flowers.
xoxo

Newer Posts

Older Posts