Tattoo Research

Okay, so I'm doing this research project thing... and I need some survey responses! If you could kindly fill out my survey, I'd be ever grateful! Even if you don't have a tattoo, we need you too!

1. Please select your gender, male or female.

2. What is your age?

3. Do you have any tattoos? If so, how many? If not, please proceed to question #8

4. Are your tattoos visible when you are dressed in your normal/average work attire?

5. Where are your visible tattoos located? (if no visible tattoos, please proceed to question #8)

6. In an interview, would you feel comfortable showing any visible tattoos you may have, or would you try to cover your tattoo(s)?

7. Do you regret getting visible tattoos? Please explain.

8. Does your workplace have rules requiring employees to cover any tattoos you or your fellow coworkers may have?

9. Do you feel that companies should be allowed to require employees to cover their tattoos? Please explain why or why not.

10. Please briefly explain why you chose or chose not to get a tattoo or tattoos.


Thank you so much for your time and participation! It is greatly appreciated!


Any questions? please ask.

If you have anything else you'd like to share, you can do that too! :)

Haygood Dolls

Alright, so I made these a LONG time ago in 2005. Of my favorite performing family, the Haygoods. I shared these with the Haygood messageboard awhile ago, and they were well received, so I thought I'd put them up here too.

They wore blue suits with silver shirts and silver ties in 2005, and here they are here:


A display image I made of them in the same outfits as above, this can be made smaller and it works just as well:


They also did a beach scene and wore these outfits:


A "country" scene and wore these outfits, note the John Deere hat on Michael :) (2nd from left):


They did a portion where they wore bright yellow zoot suits for a 40s blacklight routine:


Dominic and Michael portrayed the Blues Brothers


And they did a tap routine:


That's all I have from the 2005 show, I hope you enjoy these, as much as I had fun making these 3 years ago!

Candybar's Next Top Model, what is that?

Okay, one thing that makes me extremely happy is making dolls on the computer, actually Candybar dolls to be more precise. I make them here: http://www.candybar.co.kr/?GO=shopfashion&TO=6 and then I go to town with editing them.

To edit them, I use MS Paint, you know, that painting program that comes with your computer. Some people prefer to use photoshop or some other photo-editing software, but I find that highly unnecessary, besides, as you will see below, I have come to be pretty good at what I do by just using Paint.

Now, on to the business about Candybar's Next Top Model. It is a contest that deals with editing dolls to fit a certain theme, and you have a character, or model, that you use to edit to fit the theme. It is a livejournal community and contest, actually in the first one I was a model, but it wasn't going fast enough, so we created a new community where I am a judge. I'm going to first talk about the community where I am a model.

I portrayed Alia Martin, and made it from 13 girls to being in the top 5.

We started by submitting an application telling the judges a little bit about our model and providing two pictures, one completely unedited, and one edited.

I made it into the competition, and we were assigned our first challenge and first photoshoot. Challenges were a way to practice our editing skills and not be eliminated, and photoshoots were "the shots that counted" or something like that.

The first challenge was day and night makeup

The first photoshoot was spring fashions (yes, we started in April, and we're still going with the same cycle in December... pretty bad if you ask me)

Second challenge was to give ourselves a makeover based on suggestions by the judges. They told me to get some bangs that swept across my forehead and to get rid of my eyemakeup, so that's what I did

Our next challenge was to portray a "Elegant Goth Lolita" which was something I really hadn't known about before hand, so I did some research, and this is the outfit I came up with... and my fellow models really seemed to like it, as did the judges :)

Our next challenge was kind of a flop, we were told to give the judges a tour of our model house, and that's what we did, but it was a lot of the same, and the judges were bored of our multiple showings of the same thing

(this is one of the many scenes that I did for this challenge)

The third photoshoot made us work with the ever dreaded bugs! Each model was assigned an insect and were told to portray that bug, and to create a minature version of the bug to pose with... I hated this shoot because I don't like bugs. I was assigned the jeweled scarab.

Our fourth challenge was to depict a random word that the judges assigned to us, but the catch was, we were not allowed to edit the clothing at all. My word was weepy, and my thoughts were that if you are sad, you want to be comfy, and don't want to get out of your pjs, and want a nice bear for comforting...

Fourth photoshoot was depicting the 20th Century, and each model was assigned a decade. I received "50's sock hop"

Fifth challenge was to depict a character from Shakespeare, and recreate that character in a modern way. I was given my favorite Shakespearian character, Puck, from my favorite play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. And I loved the way this turned out (not that it's really Puck-like, but kind of...)

Fifth photoshoot took forever for the judges to finally judge, leaving us in suspense for over a month. We were to create a Bond girl or secret agent of some sort. I was thinking Charlies Angels.

While the judges were away, the models assigned their own photoshoots. The first was to depict a celebrity, so Alia depicted Baby from my favorite movie, Dirty Dancing, along with her handsome boyfriend, Michael...

The next challenge in the competition was to depict an element such as earth, wind, fire, water, and then ice and lightning. Alia was given lightning, and this is what I made... (shocking, eh?)

Sixth photoshoot was to depict a cartoon character. Alia was given Lisa Simpson from the Simpsons, and although I was told I didn't have to make her yellow, I did two versions, mainly because I couldn't choose which one I liked better.

Seventh challenge was to create a natural disaster, and I was not happy with this at all... I went way too literal and gave everything a meaning, and compared with everything else, it's just bad.

Seventh photoshoot was my downfall... It was near Halloween and we were told to create a beautiful version of a monster. I was given the vampire... and I still do not see anything wrong with it, and I have no idea why I was eliminated with this picture, but I was...

I also created a story for what happened to Alia after she left the competition... but I think I'm going to stop with the story here because any one reading this is probably bored by now... however, it was a nice little trip down memory lane for me :) Love you Alia! I'll miss dolling you for the competition, but will always make you for fun (mainly because she was first created to resemble me, and has a similar name... hmm... :))

anyways, I hope you enjoyed this, though probably not as much as I did...

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

Pleased to meet ya!

What's in a name? That by which we would call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Alright, way to start my new blog by quoting some Shakespeare... But I thought it was good idea to explain some things. "Favorite State of Mind" is the name of this blog, and frankly, despite the fact that it is a great Josh Gracin song, I think it also works on other levels. I was thinking that with this blog, I will only post the good things, things that make me happy. Whether that is something that I have knitted, lyrics to a song that makes me happy, or a song that I wrote myself, photographs that I like, icons that I find, an article of clothing that I have drawn... whatever the case may be... I don't know what the future holds, but you get the idea. This blog will only hold the good things. I'll leave the other stuff out of it, or put it over in my "Random Ramblings" blog (if you don't know where that is... you don't need to).

Happiness is created one step at a time, just like a sweater is created one stitch at a time, a song is created one word at a time, a drawing is made one line at a time, and so on and so forth. So just keep stitchin' along and eventually you will have a completed sweater, ok and probably some pain in your wrists (only if like me you can't put it down and keep going for 8 or more hours at a time...) but you'll be happier because you know that the fruits of your labor paid off, and you have an awesome sweater now!

Now with that being said, I hope I haven't scared anyone off yet, and feel free to leave comments as you see fit with anything I post, comments are always welcome and encouraged (who doesn't like receiving praise for a job well done? or otherwise acknowledged for their efforts, oh you get the picture)

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!!!!