Handbag Designer Awards

Could this be you? Handbag Designer Awards Application.

Handbag Designer 101 invites you to compete in the Third Annual Independent Handbag Designer Awards, the only handbag competition of its kind in the world and now with shoes!

Win a chance to present your handbag at a high profile New York event at the New York Historical Society and compete for one of eight Awards for Handbag and Shoe Design Excellence, international recognition, a variety of coveted prizes and a chance to have your handbag (and shoes) go on marketing press tour.

To participate in the open call, you are required to upload one digital jpeg image (please read the tip sheet carefully) in any one or more of the following categories:

Best Student Made Handbag

Best Handmade Handbag

Most Socially Responsible Handbag

Best Green Handbag

Audience-Selected Handbag (based on Finalists selected)

Best Handbag in Overall Style & Design

New! Best Use of CRYSTALLIZED(™) – Swarovski Elements

New! Best Shoe in Overall Style & Design

Submissions will be accepted from January 12th, 2009 until April 15th, 2009.

If you submit a design for this award competition please let us know in a comment here so we can all be sending you good luck vibeage.

Audience Participation a Success!

Well done people! Yesterday, I asked you to post positive comments on an article about the Everybody, Every Body, Fashion Show for all Body Types.

I say love wins the day, good conquers evil and trolls have been banished. The positive comments far outnumber the negative. I recognize some of those commenter names and I know you came through the wondrous fatosphere. Well done and hip hip hurray.

Thank you for playing along.

Fashion Show for All Body Types

I just read this great article in the Seattle Times about University of Washington students. They have organized a fashion show called, Fashion Show for All Body Types. The show, set for Thursday (today), is timed to coincide with National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.

“It celebrates everyone being comfortable in their own skin,” said James Fung, a student designer majoring in architecture.

The models in the show are far from twiggy. Female models range from size 0 to 26, and from 4-feet-10-inches to 6-feet tall. And male models range from size 30 to 44 and from 5-feet-6-inches to 6-feet-3-inches.

“I would never make it as a model,” said freshman Tunny Vann, pointing out his 5-foot-8-inch height. “But this show is about loving yourself.”

Sophomore Natalie Santos said she faces the same situation.

“I told people I was in a fashion show, and they said, ‘Wha?’ ” said Santos, who wears size 18 to 20. “Not everybody is that itty bitty. I grew up in a family where big was normal. Big was what’s what. Now I go to school and everyone is like, ‘You’re overweight.’ “

Besides that last sad quote from Santos saying that she grew up thinking she was normal and then going away to college and having everyone tell her that she’s fat, the article is wonderful. This is the second year that the UW fashion students have organized this event. The fashion show is happening today.

NOW HERE IS WHERE I AM GOING TO ASK FOR AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION. The trolls own the comments. Please! Let’s fill the comments section of that article with positive vibes. I would also give unasked advice (my speciality!) that you avoid getting into any fights with trolls — you know how that goes.

These students will be reading this article online. These kids will be reading these comments and I really want there to be more positive ones than negative ones. I’m gonna go post my positive comment now. Will you join me?

Smooth Away: Does it really work?

OK ladies let’s have a conversation about body hair. I know you shave your legs. Your boyfriend/husband knows you shave your legs. And if you have a girlfriend she definitely knows. So let’s just be out in the open about it, ok?

I know that some of my female readers do not remove their body hair and that’s ok too. My sisters there is room for all of us and I am a woman who removes body hair from my legs, pits and yes I will admit it here for all the world to see – I remove hair from my upper lip. Hey, I’m half Greek and half Romanian Gypsy/Jew – the women in my tribe have moustaches. I have a moustache that Mousalini would covet. OK not really, but there is fuzz people, yes, there is fuzz.

I don’t know what your method of hair removal is, but generally I shave. I don’t like the smell of depilatory creams, and once I left that stuff on my legs for too long and I got a chemical burn. Perhaps I should say that I used to shave, because recently I received a package of Smooth Away for my review and truthfully my sisters — it really works.

I was hesitant to believe that a little pad could just magically remove hair but it did! It comes with all the stuff you see in the picture. There is a plastic pad with a band that fits over the back of your hand, then there is the hair removal pad (peel off the backing and stick it on the hand pad), then rub gently in a circular motion and voila! hair be gone.

VERY IMPORTANT FACT ABOUT THIS PRODUCT: I found that my skin was very dry after use. I think it must remove layers of skin along with the hair so be sure to use the moisturizer that comes in the box. Supposedly, it will also inhibit hair growth, so the hair you have will grow back slower.

I do still enjoy shaving my legs so I don’t know if I’ll give that up completely, but yeah this product really worked!