“Check In”

After creating and running my fashion blog for a few months, I wanted to check in with you guys! I never expected to create a fashion blog, nor did it ever cross my mind. I would always view professional fashion blogs for pure entertainment and would always wonder how proficient and masterful these blogs were. For me, creating this fashion blog helped me learn and create new beneficial skills, new websites and applications, and an audience. I acquired how to write blog posts that would entertain my audience, creating a unique type of style. Creating a unique type of style was my way to connect with my audience. I wrote in an easy and fun manner so that my audience could engage easily and not have a hard time comprehending what I wrote. I also got to learn about new websites and applications that I never used; most importantly, I learned and discovered how to use WordPress, Jing, Garage Band, Know Your Meme, etc. In addition, I think when you have your own blog, there are also downsides to it like how to keep your audience entertained and having to think of new and interesting posts. However, because my blog is a personal one, it is there for me to experience and have fun with, in which I think I am doing pretty well!

Another Day, Another Blog

Most of the other websites on the web that are similar to mine are professional fashion blogs. My website fits in with all of the other websites on the web like these other fashion blogs because the other bloggers and I have a passion for fashion. As corny as it sounds, we love to follow and know what is in trend today, find steals, and give tips to others. In my opinion, all fashion blogs have a similar format and genre that we all follow. We have an about me page, contact page, categories page, and etc. However, what is different is that we have different taste and style. There are so many different tastes and styles that tell you how eccentric, independent, or free the person is. What my blog adds to the conversation is opinions and informality. In my blog posts, I try to write freely and easily so that my readers can have an effortless read and understanding. Also, my blog does not include any sponsors or ads, in which most fashion blogs are paid to review items. In addition, in the fashion world there are so many different styles like street, bohemian, chic, artsy, exotic, high end, or even glamour. In the end, fashion blogs might have similar formatting and categories, but they have different styles and tastes.

Powerpuff Myself!

Powerpuff Girls was one of my favorite shows when I was a little kid. I loved the concept of three little innocent and sweet girls turning into superheroes, who saved the day! This assignment was extremely fun and exciting for me because I got to create a character of myself. The process of creating a version of myself into a Powerpuff Girl was simple and entertaining. I basically tried to match my similar features like my skin, hair, and eye color. However, I did not want to create an exact image of myself, so I added some fun features like sunglasses, clothes, necklaces, a sidekick of a kitten, and even my tongue hanging out of my mouth. I matched my red heart sunglasses with my red sneakers, my grey shirt with black pants and my grey kitten, and topped it off with a gold chain. I think the creation of myself of a Powerpuff Girl is accurate and interesting. I wanted to create a version of myself that had fun accessories to show my cheerfulness and fun side. Overall, this process was simple and enjoyable; it was a nice assignment that made me reminisce of my childhood days of creating versions of myself into cartoon characters.

Creative Commons

The Creative Commons Search Engine helped me choose a fashion photo that related to my fashion inspired blog. The photo I chose are a group of women models on a runway, posing with  fierce and furious looks on their faces from the Western Canada Fashion Week of 2016. The models are wearing dresses, skirts, cardigans, and tops of mostly the shades grey, black, and blue. When I look at this photo, I saw independent and strong women and realized that the aesthetic of the photo also matched my black and white, minimalistic blog.

Google Advanced Search allowed me to use this photo of its’ advanced search for photos that give you the rights to use the photos for whatever purpose, in which I also provided the source on my blog. The checklist is broken down into four sections. The purpose of this photo is for favoring fair use for entertainment, not for bad intentions or behavior. The nature of it is for highly creative work, in which the photo includes high pieces of garments. The amount that I am using is a small quantity and the amount is for appropriate and reasonable for educational purposes. Lastly, for the effect, I am not making copies, selling the photo, or using it for bad intentions!

All in all, the Fair Use Checklist allows you to be aware of using photos, videos, songs, etc. the wrong or right way!

Source

Meme For Days

Click Here!!

The meme I chose was “How To Make a Cute Dress Out of Shorts.” This meme is a photo of a person wearing a pair of long gym shorts as a one sleeved shoulder dress. I chose this meme because I find it hilarious that someone actually thought of trying on a pair of gym shorts as a dress, which can somewhat relate to my fashion blog. This just helped me realize that one can make and wear something out of anything. For example, people can wear scarves as dresses, shirts, or coverups, just like how this person tried wearing gym shorts as a one shoulder dress. This meme is definitely beneficial for my blog, for it gives people to think creatively with their clothes and accessories. Even though this meme is funny, I think it gives a sense of creativity and imaginativeness! I would like for my audience to know that there are trends and styles that are being followed by many people, but that does not mean they have to follow those certain styles. This meme shows that imaginativeness can create a new way of styling clothes. In addition, this can help my audience to try and accept new ideas of fashion and styles!

#Tweet #Tweet

There are so many different ways for my readers to help promote my blog. Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram can definitely help promote my blog by sharing my content with the click of a button to my friends, families, and friends of friends; it can help broaden my audience. But specifically, my readers and I can promote my blog by using Twitter. Twitter is a social media platform where I can tweet about my blog, directly ask questions to my followers, and get feedback instantly and easily. For my benefit, Twitter has a special tool called Twitter Analytics that can “find, analyze, and optimize for social growth”, which is another perfect way to help promote my blog. Twitter Analytics gives me data and statistics to see how many followers I gained, how many people visited my profile, or when it is the best time to tweet about my blog! Twitter Analytics also has a special feature where it can advertise tweets all over the world, helping me connect to my audience.

My readers can also tweet and hashtag the name of my blog or topics, which would be extremely beneficial and easy, which can be seen around the world. Either my readers or I can tweet the link of my blog or even hashtag about my blog; my readers’ tweets and my tweets can easily be retweeted or replied to, which will give it attention to my followers and followers’ followers. Ultimately, I can gain new views and visits to my blog from a new set of audience. In addition, Twitter is where hashtags first started! Hashtags are fun and can be used to identify my blog. My followers can tweet and include hashtags, which can instantly share my blog to the world!! #share #debsstyle #fashion

New Year, New Season, New Trend!

Spring is right around the corner and New York and Paris Fashion Week have already reigned and presented looks on the runways. From the runways to the streets of New York City, Paris, and London, Athleisure wear is the new high end trend for Spring 2017, and it is certainly not going anywhere.

For those who don’t know what Athleisure wear is, it is casual and comfortable athletic wear incorporated with an aspect of fashion, that could be worn everyday. Athleisure wear is best known and worn by celebrities like Rihanna, The Kardashians, Sofia Richie, Selena Gomez, Gigi and Bella Hadid, and MORE. Athleisure wear can be worn whenever and wherever; you could pair it with heels or sneakers, a purse or gym bag, and sunglasses or a cap. Most people, including me, wear athleisure while hanging out with friends, going to the airport, or actually hitting the gym.

Pieces that include in this trend range from leggings, hoodies, sneakers, windbreakers, tracksuits, and joggers.High end fashion brands that are popular to most celebrities and fashionistas are Vetements, Alexander Wang, Dior, Chloe, Versace, and Moschino.Alternatives to those high end fashion brands are Calvin Klein, Nike, Adidas, Lululemon, Juicy Couture, Puma, and Tommy Hilfiger.

Many people love the rise and trend of Athleisure wear for it is comfortable and stylish; It is even broadening fashion brands and consumers! I hope you enjoyed my blog post and stayed tuned for more! Thanks for visiting!

Screencasting Thrifts and Threads

To view my screen cast click here!

My screen cast was on a fashion blog called Thrifts and Threads. 

I have never heard of Jing, so it was my first using this application and my first time as a screencaster. Jing was very easy to use. I did not really need to watch or look up any tutorials on how to use or make a screencast video; I simply just had to play around with the few buttons and familiarize myself with it. The only annoying part of using Jing, was having to download the most updated version of the Flash Player, which was ironic because I already had the latest version. Every time, I tried to finish my recording, it would say that I needed to download the Flash Player, at least three times. I finally got to finish recording myself and uploading it, when I restarted my laptop. Other than that, Jing was extremely easy and fun in making a screencast and even uploading it, despite, having to download the Flash Player. Making a screencast was just like making the commercial. I really did not like replaying the screencast and listening to it after; I am still not used to hearing my voice!! I kept messing up in explaining the blog’s theme and design, that I had to write down everything I was going to say. To be honest, making a screencast was easy, but actually speaking and explaining the blog was what was difficult.

I think this skill could come in handy when I am in a group project. This would be really convenient if group members cannot meet, in which Jing would come in extremely handy. Students have a hard time meeting up for group projects because of their different schedules, but with screencasting, you can talk and explain your work without having to physically meet up.

In addition, I think many people will value this skill and benefit from it. Classmates, teachers, business directors, etc. will value screencasting for its convenience and easiness. People can literally teach, explain, or have a meeting online, with a computer and a mic.

Overall, this was a fun and interesting experience. This is another skill to be added onto my list!

My Commercial

To listen to my commercial Click Here!

This was my first time ever constructing a commercial while using Garageband. To be completely honest, I had a difficult time because I was not used to all of these new terms and techniques like splice, crossfade, and music bed. The Garageband Tutorial Videos were very helpful, but because it was made in 2012, the formatting of my Garageband was a bit different.

The two songs I chose were from one of my favorite fashion icons and singer, Rihanna; the songs are called Work and Love on the Brain. I began my commercial with an entertaining, up beat pop song, so that my audience would be interested, and ended it with a more calm, contemporary R&B song. While making this commercial, I felt awkward speaking into the mic and then listening to my voice after recording. I always surprise myself after listening to my voice, because that is not how I hear myself!

The most difficult parts in constructing this commercial was adjusting the volume for each song and then layering it with my narration. Because the songs I chose were songs where you can hear the lyrics, I did not know if my narration and the songs would flow together; I ended up just lowering the volume when Rihanna was singing and elevating the parts where Rihanna was not singing. In addition, I also had a hard time crossfading the two songs. I know that the two songs do not flow and connect together, but I tried my best to let them fade into each other.

To upload my commercial, I shared the song to my ITunes and used Soundcloud to upload it. It was really easy for me to do this and I had no problem at all! Overall, my experience in creating this commercial was interesting and enjoyable; I felt like I was a music producer while using Garageband and Soundcloud (lol). I have had a MacBook for three years now and this was my first time opening and actually using Garageband and I am definitely going to start utilizing this application for entertainment and pleasure!

New Blog, New Header

Other than editing my Instagram pictures, designing the header for the blog was my first time using the software Pixlr. I have never heard of Pixlr and surprisingly, editing the pictures was much easier than setting up the blog on Word Press. I thought choosing two images, one as a background and another as a portion, would be difficult in doing so because I have never used a software to photoshop and edit pictures. Nonetheless, choosing a picture and cropping out a portion to juxtapose on top of the background came easily and naturally than imagined; of course, “The Photo Editing Tutorials” definitely helped me manage to edit the photos. For my background, I chose a fashion runway and cropped out a picture of a single model and juxtaposed it on to the runway. For someone who has never used an editing software, I think it was straightforward and easily formatted; Instagram definitely helped with adjusting the brightness and contrast tools (haha).

However, the dimensions were what were difficult; I struggled with choosing the photos that would fit into my theme’s dimensions. The photos would either be too small or too big, in which I had to choose different photos, several times. Even when I did crop and have the photos to my dimensions, only half of the header displayed, leaving the photos not meshing well and awkward looking. The model I cropped out came out extremely blurry and when I searched for other sizes of models, they all came out blurry.

Ultimately, I think I can apply my newfound skills with Pixlr to my everyday life when I need to edit and photoshop images for events at Rutgers. I am involved in the Diabetes and Circle K clubs, and with my newfound skills with Pixlr, I can volunteer and contribute into making flyers to advertise events, to my taste. Furthermore, it is an addition to my technological and photo shopping skills and to develop and advance these skills in Pixlr, playing around and familiarizing myself with it would be enjoyable.