Dance the Night Away

A few weeks ago we had my sorority's semi formal. It depends on where you go, but for my chapter girls normally wear short, fancy dresses. That really can be up to your interpretation. It can be a cute $20 dress you found from Forever21 or a couple hundred dollar dress from Nordstroms (my little wore her Jimmy Choo's that night if that tells you anything...). Either way girls love dressing up.

Since I ended up going with my ex-boyfriend I decided to buy a dress instead of borrowing one from one of my sisters closet. You've always got to look your best whenever you see an ex right? ;) So I decided to go out and search for something to wear.

My first stop was Francesca's. This is always where I go to first because of two reasons. One, I used to work there and the staff still knows me and my style and can pick out things that I would like without having to sift through all of the racks. Secondly, the shopping center where the store is located has a bunch of other boutiques in it that sell the exact same items. I'm not kidding. I remember one time I was on shift and we had this dress for sale that a customer came in and said she saw at another boutique in the center for double the price. So it is safe to say that Francesca's is one of the more wallet-friendly boutiques in the area.

I walked through the door and my old boss was working that day. I explained to her the event I was looking to find a dress for and she picked this number:

To say I instantly fell in love would be an understatement. It was just the right amount of sexy. It was a body-con dress, but it had a sheer overlay that hid the tight bottom of the dress. The overlay also had a slit that went all the way up to the waist of the dress to show the tight dress underneath. It also accentuated my favorite part of my body - my shoulders and arms. I was sold!

You can find the Benevento Maxi Dress at Francesca's for only $39.99

I decided to pair the dress with these heels. I got these for Christmas two years ago, my mom thought I was crazy to ask for them and that I would never wear them. I won't deny that they do not leave my closet that often, but they are beautiful and they do see daylight from time to time. For example, this night! It was the perfect pump. I love the thick heel because it makes the shoe easier to walk in and I always love to add something that 'pops' to my outfit. Since the dress was simple black and red, I figured I could spice it up with the heel.

  

The only place I found these Sarina Pumps from Steve Madden was on this site called Rakuten. The only size they have available is a 7. However, they appear from time to time on eBay; so if you are really in love, like I was, I would be patient and keep looking.

This picture is before the night when I got home and decided to try on the entire outfit together. You can't really tell from any of these pictures, but I decided to get some black teardrop earrings from Francesca's. I contemplated doing a necklace but decided I wanted to keep my neck clear and just accent the outfit with statement earrings.

I ended up strutting up and down the hall of my house showing everyone who was there exactly what I was going to be wearing that night. The overwhelming amount of approving declarations I received assured me that I had picked the right dress.

Here is my little and I at the venue!

And here we have my friends and I at the house before we left for the venue!

I ended up having a great night and got so many compliments on my dress! It really was worth going out and buying a new dress just for this occasion. And the great thing about this dress is that since it is State colors, I can wear it to just about anything formal I have to go to for my school.

So tell me, what is your perfect outfit for a 'night to remember'?

Until next time,

Casey Rose

Arrow Minded

Since we like to make cheesy alliterations on this blog, let's go ahead and start another one!

"Sorority Sundays"

*Gags*

So as you may or may not know I am in Pi Beta Phi sorority at my university. I posted a couple of days ago about crafting for my little and the Big/Little process but what I failed to talk about was my sorority in general!

I absolutely love Pi Phi (shortened name), ever since bid day I have fallen head over heels in love with everyone in this organization and everything about it. I am so blessed with the opportunities that it has given me thus far.

Let's start from the beginning, we were founded on April 28, 1867 as the first national secret society for women. We were originally named I.C. Sorosis but then later changed our name to Pi Beta Phi. Our colors are Wine and Silver Blue. Our symbol is the Arrow and our mascot is the angel.

Now you may understand why this blog is called "Bows and Arrows". Bows - just for the girly side of it all and Arrows - for my sorority.

"But how did you choose to become part of this organization?" - Good question! ;)

I decided to participate in rush last fall at my school. We have 9 Panhellenic sororities on campus that I 'rushed' (I can go through the whole recruitment process at a later time). Each day of rush you go to less and less houses until you are down to two houses at Pref Night. After going to both houses on Pref Night I knew which one I belonged to. There were pros and cons to each but the biggest reason that I chose Pi Phi was because I was a legacy.

A legacy is defined as someone who's mother, grandmother, or sister is affiliated with that organization. My grandmother is a Pi Phi, which I didn't learn until the summer before I decided to rush! Having her to talk with about everything related to Pi Phi has really made the experience that much more special to me and has brought us closer than we have ever been. I am so glad I get the opportunity to share this experience with her.

Now onto present times. It has been a whole school year since I rushed, so where am I now?

In January I was slated to be the Vice President of Membership for my chapter. I was beyond shocked that they slated me for this position because it is not normally a position you give to a new girl. The VPM (for short) is in charge of the biggest event for any sorority - Recruitment. That's right. I'm in charge of it all. I just went through it last year and now I am leading it. It was extremely overwhelming at first, but I have some great people on Exec who I can turn to for help. They have really been my life savers and I cannot thank them enough for all they have done.

So this summer will be filled with planning for recruitment. However, I do get the opportunity to go to San Diego for the 69th Biennial Convention where I get to meet Pi Phi's from all across the country. I was chosen as the alternate delegate and our President is our chapter delegate. I am so excited to travel to San Diego with her and I will absolutely keep this blog updated with everything from that trip!

I hope you enjoyed the first edition of 'Sorority Sunday'! Keep checking back during the week for more posts and maybe even more themed days?

Until next time,

Casey Rose

Crafting Daze

Well hello again, long time no see.

I didn't realize how difficult it would be to find things to blog about. It's been a week or two since my last post. I figured that because it was summer time and I had all these things to do that putting up blogs would be a breeze! Not the case.

Ever since I had gotten back from the beach my life started up again as normal - working, babysitting, taking a few trips here and there to visit my boyfriend and my friends in Wilmington. Other than that, it has been a lot of sitting around at home doing a lot of nothing.

However, one thing that has kept me busy is crafting!

As you may or may not know, I am in Pi Beta Phi sorority at my university. I rushed last year in the fall and have loved every second of it. For those of you who are familiar with sorority life, you understand the whole Big/Little process. For those of you aren't, I will explain...

When you rush a sorority and begin the new member process there is a point down the road where you are assigned a 'Big'. This person is supposed to be your mentor, someone who is normally a year older than you and was just in your shoes as a new member last year.

At my school the way we find out who our Big is going to be is by Big/Little week. This was probably the best week of my life, not joking. It is 4 days of getting spoiled to death. The first day is normally a card or letter from your Big (this is still anonymous by the way). The second day you receive some sort of sweet treats. Third day is tee-shirt day, my favorite; you get a bunch of hand-me-down tee shirts from your big and family. And the last day is reveal day! This is the day when you find out who your big is and you get completely spoiled with a basket full of things Pi Phi related. For example my big gave me a couple of items from the Pi Phi Lilly Pulitzer collection, wine glasses, more tee shirts, cork board, Pi Phi related canvases, etc.

This can get to be pretty expensive if you decide to go all out, however at the end of the day it is all worth it. So with all of that being said, and having one year of greek life under my belt, I get to be a Big next year! I have already started crafting for my little and I am loving every second of it. I have only started working on two canvases for her and neither are completely finished yet, however I figured I would update you on my progress as I go along as well as maybe do a tutorial as to how to do some of these.

I got inspiration for my first canvas off of a group on Facebook called The Big/Little Connection where a lot of people post different crafts they did for their littles. I thought it this one was precious, so the crafting began...

Now some of you may be asking how I got the hands for the design. Well I tried finding cartoon hands of our symbol online but I had no luck. But if you have a Mac then you are in luck. There is an effect on the Photo booth application that is called "Pop art". All I did was pose my hands in a certain way and took loads of pictures until I found one that I liked the best, here was the winner:

Then what I did was printed the picture out (I actually had to use two pieces of paper to get it the size I wanted) and on the back I shaded over the lines that were the most important for my picture (obviously the TV in the background didn't make the cut). After that I flipped it over, positioned it how i wanted and proceeded to trace the lines of my hands and it turned out like the picture shown below. This method also works very well if you were painting a cooler.

I then colored it in with neon paint, I decided to go with these colors instead of the muted colors that were from my inspiration. (sorry for it being side ways, i couldn't figure out how to get it horizontal)

After a few more coats I added the black around the edges. This is good because you don't have to completely worry about staying within the lines when originally coloring above because the black will hide any mistakes.

After that I drew the black lines in between the boxes.

And traced the lines around the hands. You also want to keep your original photo that you traced in case you have to go over any lines that may have been covered up by the paint - that blue covered up everything.

And here is the finished product! I'm obviously not completely done, I still have to add the "Throw what you know, Pi Beta Phi". But I will probably just use either silver sharpie or paint for that, it shouldn't be too difficult.

So that is my first project of the summer! I am very proud of the way that it turned out. If you have any questions about paint or brushes that I used feel free to leave a comment with any questions that you may have! I have also started on a chevron canvas so be on the look out for that, I am done with the chevron but I want to wait until it is all finished to make a post about it because it is going to be one of my favorite pieces :)

I will definitely have a post at the end of the summer with all of my finished products so also be on the look out for that. Other than that, happy crafting!

Until next time,

Casey Rose