The Bow Belle

A fabric that I love but rarely get to wear.  Now I get a chance. This one came from VeryShine , and is the bow that was accompanied by the button I wore yesterday.  I always like it when Etsy sellers include little freebies; ball-jointed doll companies often do that too, but I get why THEY do it.  My cheapest ball-jointed doll cost a hundred thirty bucks, and she came with a free pair of shoes and some candy for me.  I don't know this for certain, but I figure the company's mindset might be "These folks are spending a ton of money, let's include a nice little incentive to make them happy and maybe draw 'em in again."  Either that or they do it just for the helluvit, like I did when a friend of mine commissioned a Barbie doll dress.  She insisted on paying me, so I threw in a necklace to say "thanks."  Either way I like it when Etsy companies do this. Now, the bow itself.  The lace is cotton eyelet and has a nice drape to it.  It would look n...

Today was another one of those days where I had absolutely nothing planned, so picking the bow for the day was a complete crap shoot.  So I picked something random. Well...it wasn't that random.  This was a freebie that came with the bow I'll wear tomorrow, from an Etsy shop called VeryShine .  I have a bunch of their bows on my Etsy favorites list, and almost all of 'em are big and fancy...stuff that wouldn't gee-haw with my standard daily attire of ill-fitting but comfortable jeans and a T-shirt/peasant top/flowy, comfy blouse.  The button, on the other hand...this bad boy will go with just about everything. I wonder where that button came from, by the way?  It looks a lot like the buttons that my family's couch had when I was young, but I can't be certain.  Usually upholstered buttons do indeed come from furniture, and that's fine.  Reduce, reuse, recycle, and repurpose. That's all I have to say for today.  It's a nice, comfortable hairpiece an...

Today is Read a Child a Book You Like Day, and since I've yet to share my Pete the Cat bow, here it is. Unfortunately, Malden Library doesn't have my favorite Pete the Cat book, Pete the Cat and the Bad Banana .  There's a scene in that book that spoofs Pepto-Bismol, a medicine that my whole family often needed and kinda, sorta, REALLY HATED. Truth be told, if I were gonna pick a book to read to a kid, it would be one of my childhood favorites like The Laughing Dragon , The Funny Little Woman , or The Monkey and the Crocodile .  My library doesn't have The Laughing Dragon , but it does have the other two and I reread them on a regular basis.  The Monkey and the Crocodile is a riot. Do any of y'all have a childhood favorite book?  Discuss. Peace out, RagingMoon1987

As I noted on September 22nd , my first Razorback bow fell apart.  I bought another one, and five days later it's here already.  Etsy seller is CraftsForAPrincessUS . I won't be going back to the shop that used such shoddy glue for that first bow  (that shop was KnottedBowtique ).  I shared a picture of that bow on August 4th, but the bow I ACTUALLY wore that day is a teeny-weeny blue and white number with an image of the TARDIS on it.  My "auxiliary" bow, as I call it, since it goes with everything I've got. But this new Razorback bow...now it feels sturdy in my hands, and in places it has...maybe a bit too much hot glue???  Better too much than not enuff, I guess.  All this and I don't even know how long Sister is gonna STAY at University of Arkansas!  She likes the work, I know that much, but she's only contracted for two years as far as I know.  I don't know what'll go down after that, but I pray it won't involve another damn cross-countr...

Khaki and purple, to be exact. I noted on Failbook that this one is kinda out of the ordinary for me, because I usually prefer my colors bright.  But this bow just happens to match a blouse that Mama recently got for me, so...yeah. Not many folks that I've talked to know that the State Farm commercial I refer to in the title has a variant.  There's the more common one where the wife is a kinda a bitch , but there's also one that deals with the Coneheads.  Yep, the Coneheads .  Prymaat Conehead catches Beldar talking to "Planet" State Farm, and while initially suspicious she warms to the idea of khakis.  Can't beat the Coneheads! Love, RagingMoon1987

I'm actually not the biggest fan of pumpkin spice anything, but I won't knock it either.  Of all my fall-themed bows, this one is my favorite by far. Mama got this one for me, as she often does.  It's dominantly orange, but it's also got blue, green, and red in the mix, so it goes with a number of my favorite shirts. Yes, fall is already moving in around here.  Wal-Mart has had the pumpkins and the chrysanthemums out for a couple'a weeks.  The pumpkins aren't huge, but they're very pretty and would make good jack o'lanterns. Here's what the mums look like.  They're not big either, but they're a lot perkier than they were last week. I love chrysanthemums!  They used to depress me because they were the last flowers my bitch of a grandmother grew before winter, but now I like 'em.  My favorites are the rust-colored ones, though it's hard to pick.  The cream-colored ones are pretty, the yellow ones are pretty, and the purple ones are pret...

Yep, I used to cheer that during March Madness.   Mama and I had a soft spot for University of Kentucky already, so imagine our delight when Sister announced she was going there for her masters studies.  Lexington, Kentucky is a good little jaunt from Malden, and we couldn't be there with Sister when their beloved pug suddenly died, or when she or Brother-in-Law were sick or lonely, but it was worth it.  Sister and BiL both loved it there, to the point that they hoped to return after Sister's doctoral studies were complete, but it didn't work out that way.  As I touched on in this post , Sister got a two-year gig with University of Arkansas, and while it's not Kentucky she and BiL do seem happy there.  Sister has spent the past two weeks helping birth calves in Batesville, by the way, and there's no end in sight as four cows are still pregnant.  Last night it was six, but two dropped overnight.  BiL says that one calf had complications and Sister ...

This one is a repeat; I first wore it on June 23rd .  Etsy shop is TincysCorner . Harvest season is beginning here in the Bootheel.  Most of the corn has already been gathered, but there's still plenty of cotton and plenty of soybeans, and undoubtedly some peanuts in the mix.  The fields are a beautiful sight to behold regardless of what's growing, but visually my favorite crop is cotton.  A healthy field of cotton looks like snowfall from a distance, especially when the bolls are opening up. Unfortunately with cotton comes the chemicals used to help the bolls open up.  We locals call it all "defoliant," but it's probably a cocktail of several chemicals.  Every year the air reeks of...y'all remember what bubble solution smells like?  If y'all are familiar with bubble solution then you know what I mean.  Defoliant smells like that, plus something else that makes my eyes and nose burn and my throat choke up.  The town is full of people who are ...

Too bad I stopped being a child eighteen years ago.  Won't stop me from wearing the bow, though!  This one is another Wrong Box bow . I never have been a huge fan of animal print, but in this case I'll back down because it's got its place here.  But prints like that were fairly popular when I was a preteen, and I thought they were ugly as sin. Now plain old brown, I like a lot.  I was Malden High School's resident free spirit, and my wardrobe consisted of just about every color under the rainbow except gray (I had a complicated relationship with gray back then).  But for some weird reason, one of my favorite colors to wear was brown.  Brown complimented my hair (it's brown), it looked nice with my skin, and it went with everything.  I could wear any accessory I wanted, and when just my shirt was brown I could wear jeans or a skirt or what have you.  I thought brown was awesome, and apparently God agrees because a lot of the things here on Earth ar...

Arrrrr, me mateys!  It be National Talk Like a Pirate Day!  Too bad for me I don't have a pirate bow.  This one came in Wal-Mart's latest shipment of JoJo Bows. Most of the rhinestone-spangled bows I've got have plain white rhinestones, so seeing these colored baubles tickled me no end. I do wonder:  is there a cutoff time in the year for wearing rainbows?  I've never been one to follow the rules of fashion, but I do wonder.  Folks always say not to wear white after Labor Day, and rainbows are kinda associated with spring and summer, but what say y'all?  Is there a cutoff time?  Not that I'll pay any attention; indeed, I wear rainbows year around. Now I'm off to help Mama decorate the library with fall stuff.  Don't wait up! Love, RagingMoon1987

Today is, among other things, National Thank a Police Officer Day.  Etsy shop is CheerBOWSIowa . Yeah, there are bad coppers out there, but there are also plenty of good ones.  I've always considered my hometown blessed to have some wonderful, helpful men and women on the beat.  LOL, indeed, I wouldn't want to monkey with our female police officer; she's willowy and well-dressed, but she's also tall and muscular.  She was one of the ones who helped Mama and me get out of a snowdrift when we tried to get to work one day. I like the sentiment and the aesthetic of this bow, but it's not one of my favorites.  The glitter is very rough and it pulls my hair.  The material itself is very stiff and doesn't lay flat against my head, and if it gets bent in a place that I don't want it to bend, it tends to stay bent.  But as I said it's got a good message.  And yes, before anyone gets all bent out of shape, I also have a BLM bow that I'll be trotting out in ...

I forget how many bows I've got with these critters on them, but I think this is the third I've shared.  <pauses to count>  Yeah, the other two posts were on May 2nd and July 25th .  This one is another Wal-Mart find. I'm not actively collecting these dolls anymore due to their price and their hovels being hard to store, but I do still keep track of what MGA Entertainment is doing with them.  This little gal is one that I don't have in my collection, named Dancebot .  She was apparently glittery, and thus would've been right up my alley. One of these others is the reason why I bought the bow in the first place.  The one with the red hair looks a lot like Can-Do Baby , a Rosie the Riveter type that I got in my first rare pod.  I like rockabilly style, so Can-Do became one of my favorites.  However, I think this doll is Stardust Queen because she has a cape (Can-Do Baby wears no such thing).  The other is Beats , a hip hop-flavored doll...

Like yesterday's bow, today's bow dates back to last year and the summer reading program.  I don't remember who the focus was that week, but she was both a Missourian and involved with rocket science.  Hence... ...oh, I'm a rocket man!  LOL, I think the Etsy seller is MoFunAccessories .  This would be about their speed.  If you want a hair dec that's over-the-top, MoFun is your place to go. I'm completing this post on the fly, so I'll talk a little bit about the night sky, which I love.  When I was a little kid my favorite thing to do was lie on my back and look at the sky, but I usually did this during daylight hours cause...well, when you're a little kid nighttime is bedtime.  When I was skygazing my favorite thing to look for was biplanes.  I'm not sure why, except maybe that biplanes are a little different from regular airplanes.  But I didn't get to do a lot of nocturnal skygazing, and thus I didn't know about airglow until I was in coll...

Today is National Peanut Day, and guess who happens to love peanuts?  <raises hand>  Etsy shop is HandmadebyRileyRose . This bow stems from the Missouri-themed summer reading program that the library did a few years ago (just like my big Minnie Mouse bow did).  We were discussing George Washington Carver that day, and to commemorate I wore this bow, an Etsy find with a peanut in the center.  I also have some PB&J earrings somewhere, and when I wear the bow again I'll dig those out. Fun fact about Newton County-born George Washington Carver:  he didn't actually invent peanut butter.  If what I read is true, peanut butter had already been invented by the time Dr. Carver started his work.  But he did a LOT of other things that were way more important than peanut butter.  Don't get me wrong, peanut butter is awesome, but rotating crops so that they don't wear out the soil is even more important.  For the uninitiated, rotating crops mean...

Seriously, I thought I'd found it.  I thought I'd found a hair bow with the Missouri state tartan. Unfortunately, if one looks close enuff, one can tell that it's NOT the Show-Me tartan.  The red bars are too thick, and there's no pale blue at all.  It's a very dark, almost black tartan and is difficult to photograph. The Show-Me tartan has pale blue lines and thin red lines in it, and no yellow.  It's a pretty, subtle tartan. Still, my bow is a pretty one in its own right.  It's a big bow, and an easy one to put in, and it matches many of my winter turtlenecks.  The shop in question is AmeliaSA22 , and they specialize in accessories that match school uniforms.  They advertise the plaid on my bow as "Madison plaid," for reasons I don't know. So the search goes on.  I do like my Madison plaid bow, but I'm still hoping to find a bow in Show-Me plaid.  If nothing else then I'll make my own! Cheers, RagingMoon1987

Today is my sister's birthday.  Don't tell anyone, but she's thirty-two.  Since purple is her favorite color I'm sporting that today. Shop is Tulazohairbows , the same place that I got this bow and this bow .  I actually got this lavender one first, mainly because I loved the huge pom-pom.  My homemade poms come out anemic and scraggly-looking, so I applaud Tulazo for their fat, fluffy poms.  This bow is unique among my bows for another reason, as it has...well, Etsy calls this "moon stitching."  I only have a handful of bows like that, but, I like the effect a lot because it's almost always done with a contrasting thread. Sister told Mama that she'll be spending her birthday birthing calves, so...yay, I guess?  She loves working with cattle, so she'll be in her element.  Happy birthday, Sis!  I wish you were here. Love, RagingMoon1987

Today is Malden High School's homecoming football game (they've already lost their first two games), and for that I present this lovely gem of a hair bow.  The Etsy shop is another one that no longer exists, TheDepotLakeviewOhio. Green and gold satin for the Green Wave.  Yep, Malden totally ripped off Tulane University .  We ripped off Alabama too, as during games the crowd is encouraged to yell "ROLL WAVE!!!"  Oh well, I doubt either Tulane or Alabama would care if they knew.  Heck, they might even be flattered! It's ironic, but I have more school spirit now than I ever did in high school.  In high school I resented the adulation that the jocks (especially the football players) got.  They weren't bad guys like teen movies would have one believe; quite the contrary, they were nice guys and many of them were my friends.  But to me it seemed that the football team got everything, and everyone else had to make do with leftovers.  I was on the ac...

The local Wal-Mart finally got a new shipment of hair bows in, complete with a few selections for Halloween, and some more springtimey selections, like this one. Like the majority of JoJo Bows, this one has a little bit of everything.  Stars, rhinestones, tough-wearing grosgrain, and a healthy dose of rainbow.  Rainbows were a big deal for JoJo even before she was out of the closet, as (I presume) they are to a lot of people, regardless of where they fall on the LGBTQ spectrum. We'll go more into my own fondness for rainbows when my birthday comes on October 6th (I have something rainbow-themed for that day).  Right now I'm gonna...well, actually, I'm not sure what else there is to say!  Sometimes I have a lot to say about a hair bow and sometimes I don't!  But if you've got a little bow enthusiast in your family, may want to give Wal-Marts bow selection a gander.  If you don't have the fall bows in yet, you probably will soon. Cheers, RagingMoon1987

As with Dalek Day , Barbie Doll Day has left me scratching my head a little.  Barbie's "birthday" is in March, and yet here it is September.  I don't guess it matters much though, since I've got bows for each day.  Here's the one for today.  Etsy shop is MadeWithLoveByAnaM .  I had a giggle when I learned that the shop is based in Malden, Massachusetts, because sometimes I get phone calls from people there.  One of them even asked me "Did they hire someone new at the library?  You sound southern!"  Then usually it clicks for me and I'll ask "Are you in Malden, Massachusetts?  You've got the right town, but the wrong state!"  Then we'll have a hearty chuckle and we'll hang up.  I like folks from Massachusetts, LOL!  Anyway, here's the bow. I think it's a shame that none of the Barbie bows I found on Etsy show a vintage Barbie.  True, the bows I have are geared towards modern children and not collectors, but still it w...

For the record, I hate the song "Wild Thing."  I like Lou Reed's work with the Velvet Underground, but his solo work?  Forget it!!!  So like yesterday's bow, this one is usually one I reserve for fall and early winter.  The colors are kinda subdued for a JoJo bow, and yet the logo is there in the center, loud and proud. Now that rust color is more in tune with chrysanthemums.  Remember yesterday that I made a slight to-do about the colors of chrysanthemums, which will soon be appearing everywhere.  Seriously, you can't throw a rock without hitting a pot of mums during fall in the Bootheel, and I'm willing to bet that's true elsewhere.  Interestingly, mums are not the flower of September, but rather of November.  September's flower can be either the morning glory or the aster.  I've seen both listed. Regarding the bow, the colors remind me a little of leopard skin , or jaguar skin , take your pick.  Jaguars tend to have rosette-shaped spo...

Yeah, I established yesterday that the equinox isn't until the 23nd, and the hot weather probably won't even end then, but for me September 1st is the time to start trotting out the orange.  The pumpkins, the leaves, the chrysanthemums...wait a minute, mums aren't orange!  That would be marigolds.  Anyway, Mama got me this bow back in March, but it's more of a fall bow than spring or summer, so I'm only now getting a chance to wear it. I absolutely LOVE this bow!  The material is soft and has a lot of drape, but I do have to take care that it doesn't wrinkle.  That makes me wonder if this bow was made from a plaid flannel shirt that had passed its useful lifespan.  It certainly feels like that kind of fabric.  But yeah, I love plaid.  During high school I used to joke to my parents that for me plaid was the winter equivalent of tie-dye.  Back then I had a tie-dyed shirt for every day of the week, but I considered those to be spring/summer wea...