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Ashlee Craft / Assemblage – Issue 5

Issue 5 of Ashlee Craft’s life-is-a-playground art & poetry zine, Ashlee Craft / Assemblage.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

be a friend 4 / what he said 5 / colorful polka dots 7 / kindness is free 8 / don’t be too quick to judge 9 / diary entry 10 / tell him (maybe it will be great) 11 / fundraising 12 / how can I be happier? 13 / personality 14 / buy flowers for myself 15 / how can you be free? 16 / feeling better emotionally 17 / numbers (of course you’re a champion) 18 / songs to learn 19 / spunky 20 / don’t be scared 21 / assertiveness 22 / ass kicking music 23 / my name is… 24 / be chill 25 / shopping list 26 / Fibonacci 27 / I will teach you 28 / I can do this 29 / to do on break 30 / shared moments 31 / two pained souls 32 / comfort each other 33 / good things happen 34 / the greatest person 36 / change my life 37 / advice for the day 38 / to do 39 / not fake 40 / names I like 41 / from the shadows 42 / why must we be so sad? (there’s really not a reason) 43 / your phone number 44 / I want you back 45 / how you act towards me 46 / sunlight to grow 47 / saying to me 48 / love, in a few syllables 49 / we danced in the rain 50 / again 51 / owls 52

Publish Date // September 29, 2015
Paperback 52 pages
Genre // Magazines

Kindle Edition

October 2, 2015
Playlist // Fierce & Looking for Respect

Listen to playlist on YouTube

From Issue 5 of Ashlee Craft / Assemblage

1. Hold Your Head Up – Argent

2. Respect – Aretha Franklin

3. My Life – Billy Joel

4. F**k You – CeeLo Green

5. I Really Don’t Care – Demi Lovato

6. Shake it Off – Taylor Swift

7. This is Gospel – Panic! At the Disco

8. Already Gone – The Eagles

9. Another Day – Whigfield

10. Fly By Night – Rush

11. I’m Still Standing – Elton John

12. Mean – Taylor Swift

13. I Will Survive – Gloria Gaynor

14. Take the Long Way Home – Supertramp

Note: this is a live version & not the original unfortunately, because I couldn’t find the original on YouTube.

15. Let It Go – Idina Menzel

16. You Don’t Own Me – Lesley Gore

17. Invisible – U2

October 2, 2015
New Book // Document Your Life : A Journal

The Rules? There are no rules. None here. The concept? Write down five things every day that happened to you or that you thought or decided or felt. You don’t have to write five things if you don’t want to. Write one thing. Write outside the lines & write twenty things. Tape pieces of paper inside & write a whole novel about a day. Scribble on the pages & color outside the lines. Keep track of the awesome adventure that is your life, as it unfolds, with all of its confusing beauty & evocative nuances & small lovable moments. Look back on your past & research what you did today a year ago & write about that. Start where you are in the year or start over. Backtrack, go forward. Start where you are. Your story is important & your unique & awesome adventure is unfolding exactly as it should.

Publish Date // September 8, 2015
Paperback 180 Pages
Genre // Non-Fiction – Journals

Paperback

September 20, 2015
Playlist // 10 Most Underrated Queen Songs

Listen to playlist on YouTube

I discovered Queen’s music when I was 17. I saw the song Bohemian Rhapsody on a list of best classic rock songs & I’d remembered hearing it years prior, so I decided to give it a listen (I listened to the live version at Wembley, then the album version). I fell in love with Queen right then & there. Then I listened to Somebody To Love, & watched the music video, & heard all their soaring harmonies, & I was hooked. I began listening to as much Queen music as possible. I’ve probably heard all their albums in their entireties at least a few times each, & listened to some individual songs about a million times. I’m not quite as obsessed with Queen as I used to be, but they are definitely still one of my very favorite bands.

One thing I noticed was that there are lots of Queen songs that are very much a part of popular culture, songs that people hear on the radio or in supermarkets or in movies & commercials when they’re growing up but maybe never know who the artist is. Songs like Bohemian Rhapsody, Somebody To Love, We Will Rock You, & Another Bites the Dust. Songs that everybody knows.

But hidden among their awesome popular songs are an incredible number of awesome lesser-known gems. These songs are seriously fantastic & just as good, if not better, in some cases, than their popular songs, & are filled with brilliant & moving harmonies, Brian May’s soaring & evocative guitar solos, epic instrumentation, Freddie Mercury’s unique & expressive voice, & let’s not forget about the perfect textbook examples of fantastic rhythm instrumentation by John Deacon & Roger Taylor.

Note : it’s admittedly really hard to narrow it down to only 10 songs, so at some point I will inevitably end up making ANOTHER list of more awesome-but-more-obscure Queen songs.

Here are the songs :

1. Spread Your Wings (News of the World, 1977)

2. March of the Black Queen (Queen II, 1974)

3. You & I (A Day at the Races, 1976)

4. Doing Alright (Queen, 1973)

5. Liar (Queen, 1973)

6. Brighton Rock (Sheer Heart Attack, 1974)

7. Long Away (A Day at the Races, 1976)

8. The Hero (Flash Gordon Soundtrack, 1980)

9. Breakthru (The Miracle, 1989)

10. Cool Cat (Hot Space, 1982)

September 20, 2015
My Favorite Things : September 3, 2015

Awesome things from September 2015.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links to products that I recommend. When you click on an affiliate link to a product on an external website, I will recieve compensation if you buy something. Thank you for your support.

LISTEN

★ You And I – Queen. I’ve always loved this song & recently rediscovered it. The feel of this song is really great, & it’s one of the most underrated Queen songs. I remember walking around my house a few years back, listening to this song loudly through earbuds.

★ End Of The Line – Traveling Wilburys. It’s alright. It’s all alright. Whatever you want to do, it’s alright.

★ Just What I Needed – The Cars. Perfect song feel + great harmonies + evocative lyrics + reminds me of good times. For when you find what you’ve been looking for all along, for when you finally know you’re in the right place.

EAT

★ Lays Dill Pickle potato chips. They are probably my favorite flavor of chip right now. My dad thinks they taste weird but I personally find them good & interesting. Now thinking about it, next time I buy some, I’d love to dip them in ranch.

★ Emerald Dill Pickle cashews. Are you seeing a theme of my current obsession with pickle flavored snacks? Good, because there is. That, along with my love of putting mayonnaise & hot sauce on a variety of foods, & anything chili lime flavored. Back to the dill pickle cashews, they have enough pickle flavor but not to the point that you can’t taste the cashews, or that it’s overpowering. I definitely want to try more flavors of Emerald nuts.

★ Granny Smith apples. A lot of kinds of apples taste similar to me, & while I enjoy them, Granny Smiths have a super-great flavor & don’t cost too much per pound. When I buy apples, I always buy apples individually as opposed to in a bag, because I find the apples to be fresher & less bruised, & generally taste better. Apples are great because they’re so easy to wash off & throw in a sandwich bag for a nice addition to lunch at work.

READ

★ Popular Mechanics Magazine. I just subscribed to this because I wanted a good magazine about cars & technology & fixing stuff, etc, & when I saw it on Amazon for a $5 one year subscription, I was thrilled. I got the first issue the other day & haven’t really got a chance to read much of it, but from what I’ve read so far, IT IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR. I am only a few pages into it & I’ve already learned so much. It seems to have information on so many interesting topics.

★ To be honest, I’ve probably read less books this year than any other year of my life. This is a fact that I’m ashamed of, & really am going to change in the near future. I used to always have my library card maxed out with books on pretty much every topic, & would read several books (depending on length) per week, or at the very least, there was always something I was reading. Unfortunately, as my schedule got busier, I spent less & less time reading. But the thing is, I really really love reading, & love learning / hearing interesting ideas + stories even more. So, my goal? Get back into reading (at least) one book a week, EVERY SINGLE WEEK. I want to get back into that habit, because it feels good to read a lot.

WATCH

★ This video of BABY SLOTHS IN A BUCKET. I REALLY REALLY WANT A BUCKET OF BABY SLOTHS TO HUG NOW.

WEAR

★ Clear heeled sparkly jelly shoes. I bought these on Amazon. They are very comfortable, I can actually run in them pretty well (!), & they were a great price. I love them & they’re versatile & make any outfit a little more sparkly. The size I bought was what I expected it to be, maybe a tiny bit on the loose side, but still fit well. The first day I wore them I did a lot of shopping & the shoes didn’t rub my feet at all. Also, they’re sparkly.

★ Dip-dyed red hair. I love how this looks on me, & I love the boldness of red hair. You can read about how I did it here.

★ Pearl earrings, because they’re probably the most versatile design of earring. They can look elegant & bold or simple & understated, depending on what you wear along with them. Because I have double piercings in each ear lobe, I like wearing two different sizes of pearl earrings at the same time, or wearing pearl earrings in one piercing & something more colorful & bold in the second.

TO DO

★ Making a goal list at the beginning of each week & highlighting each thing when I accomplish it. I will write an article detailing my process soon, but making a weekly goal list & putting whatever I don’t accomplish one week onto next week’s list until I accomplish it has been helpful for me!

THINGS

★ “You are not stuck where you are unless you decide to be.” – Wayne Dyer. Comfort. No matter how deep the trench you fell into or dug yourself into or thought was where you wanted to be might seem, it is up to you how free you are. Only up to you, all up to you. You are not stuck anywhere.

September 4, 2015
How to Get Dip-Dyed Red Hair

I wanted dip-dyed hair for a long time. Here’s how I did it at home.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links to products that I recommend. When you click on an affiliate link to a product on an external website, I will receive compensation if you buy something. Thank you for your support.

For a long time, I was super-inspired by photos & people I saw throughout the day who had ombre hair. I absolutely loved the way it looked & knew that I wanted my hair to look that way.

A few months ago, I tried doing this look with a light reddish brown color, but as the dye I used wasn’t a high-lift variety & the color was somewhat similar to my natural color, the color didn’t show up very well unless I was in bright sunlight. I was disappointed by the results, but decided to give my hair a break for about six weeks before dying it again so I didn’t dry it out too much. I decided to learn more about the process of dying hair ombre & which dyes would give me the results I wanted. Additionally, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to have the ombre effect done with red or blonde dye.

I eventually settled on red, & I’m so glad I did! After selecting a high-lift dye that I ended up being pretty satisfied with (Garnier Ultra-Color Nourishing Color Creme, Ultra Color R3 – Light Intense Auburn
), I followed the directions on the box & let the dye sit in my hair for about 30 minutes or so, if I’m remembering correctly. I applied the dye using the applicator in the box. I tried to concentrate most of the dye on the very tips of my hair, then blended it upwards both by using my fingers, & twisting the strands of hair to force the dye upwards in a blended manner so there wasn’t a harsh line between where I dyed it & my normal hair color. If you want to learn more about how I did it, read this article that I found incredibly helpful.

At first, when I was rinsing my hair afterwards, I didn’t see that much of a difference, as my hair looked darker when it was wet & the contrast wasn’t so great. When my hair dried, I was very impressed by the boldness of the color. It actually was a lot more red than it is in these pictures, which I took probably four or five days after I colored my hair.

Unfortunately, the color started fading pretty much immediately after I dyed it. Every time I washed my hair, despite rinsing it thoroughly after I washed it, dye still rinsed out, & when my hair was wet, it actually made light orange stains on my bedding & several shirts of mine (thankfully all the stains washed out after I treated them with stain remover). The color also faded quite fast, which was kind of a bummer.

After having this happen, I read online about dyed red hair & learned that it is notoriously challenging to maintain, & that it is completely normal for it to fade quickly, even if you get it professionally done at a salon. I read that this is because the molecules of red pigment in the dye are larger than other colors of dye & therefore, the pigments can’t penetrate the center of the hair, so it kind of just clings to the outside. Learning this made me feel better about what my hair was doing because I knew the fading had nothing to do with the dye I used, the method I used to dye it, or my hair being abnormally resistant to dye. Now I know this isn’t the case. I also found some really great products that preserve red hair color. I’ve started using the John Frieda Radiant Red Color Protecting Shampoo (& I’m going to buy the matching conditioner soon; the store I went to unfortunately was out so I have to go back & buy some next time I have a chance) & it seems to be bringing out the red highlights in my natural hair color already!

My hair dye has since faded away almost completely, & I really, really miss it, because I loved how it looked SO MUCH & I realized that red hair looks good on me. So, I decided that I want to dye it again. I want to try using red Manic Panic dye, because it’s vegetable based, contains no harmful chemicals, & because of this, I’ll be able to use it much more often than regular dye without damaging my hair. I prefer natural products when a natural, cost-effective alternative which works well is available, so Manic Panic being vegan, not tested on animals, & relatively natural is a big plus for me. Another big plus for me is the fact that as opposed to regular hair dye, which has one application which you mix in a bottle & then apply, Manic Panic comes in a tub & therefore it can be used for more than one application, or can even be diluted by conditioner for touch-ups or to adjust how bold the color is. I’ll post photos on here once I use it & explain my methods!

August 28, 2015
Playlist // Songs, #1

Classic songs that remind me of my teenage years.

Listen to the playlist on YouTube

1. In My Life – The Beatles

2. Strawberry Fields Forever – The Beatles

3. Handle With Care – The Traveling Wilburys

4. Oh! You Pretty Things – David Bowie

5. A Hard Day’s Night – The Beatles

6. Strawberry Fields Forever – The Runaways

7. Sail Away – Styx

8. Rhiannon – Fleetwood Mac

9. Dreams – Fleetwood Mac

10. Nights in White Satin – The Moody Blues

11. Life on Mars? – David Bowie

12. Beautiful Day – U2

13. Starman – David Bowie

14. Stairway to Heaven – Led Zeppelin

15. Something – The Beatles

16. California Dreamin’ – The Mamas & the Papas

17. I Will – The Beatles

18. Father of Day, Father of Night – Manfred Mann’s Earth Band

19. Don’t Worry, Be Happy – Bobby McFerrin

August 18, 2015
Pink Giraffe

Zebra print high-tops by Op // black tights // black skater skirt // floral button up from thrift store // red sparkly headband // pink studded bow // rubber band as hair scrunchie // pink giraffe earrings from dollar store // diamond earrings // royal blue eyeliner + gold eyeliner from Claire’s // sparkly pink lip gloss from Wet ‘n Wild // purple eye shadow by Wet ‘n Wild

golden ring thrifted // white diamond owl ring // bracelets made by me

August 10, 2015
Playlist // Remember

Listen to the playlist on Youtube

1. Somebody That I Used to Know – Gotye

2. Turn to Stone – Electric Light Orchestra

3. Here Comes the Sun – The Beatles

4. Your Song – Elton John

5. All Along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix

6. Heartbeat – The Runaways

7. So What – John Coltrane & Miles Davis

8. ‘Till There Was You – The Beatles

9. Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress – The Hollies

10. From Me to You – The Beatles

11. Over the Hills & Far Away – Led Zeppelin

12. Until the End of the World – U2

13. The Zoo – Scorpions

14. Hello Goodbye – The Beatles

15. Maybe I’m Amazed – Paul McCartney & Wings

16. No More Lonely Nights – Paul McCartney

17. I’m Happy Just to Dance With You – The Beatles

18. I Can Hear Music – The Beach Boys

19. Fun Fun Fun – The Beach Boys

20. Beautiful People – Melanie

21. Crazy on You – Heart

22. Sunshine of Your Love – Cream

23. Sweet Child O’ Mine – Guns ‘n Roses

24. Take Five – Dave Brubeck

25. Don’t Worry Baby – The Beach Boys

August 5, 2015
Funky + Fluer-de-lis

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links to products that I recommend. When you click on an affiliate link to a product on an external website, I will receive compensation if you buy something. Thank you for your support.

Dress from Amazon.com // owl socks from Amazon.com // combat boots by Faded Glory // white & teal bracelets from Wal-Mart // pink bracelet from thrift shop // guitar necklace from eBay.com // pink hair bow by Just Be… // rose earrings from Claire’s // cubic zircona earrings // eye shadow a combination of teal Wet ‘n Wild + light beige L.A. Colors eye shadows // emerald green eyeliner by Wet ‘n Wild // facial glitter by Wet ‘n Wild

July 31, 2015