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Let’s Get On With It

amber — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:22:47 +0000

…Annnnd we’re BACK, from our regularly scheduled, annual late spring “break” where I, in no particular order, have a stupidly dramatic month, go on a minor bender, cop an inspirational epiphany, and reinvent Painfully Hip. With vigor. Last month treated me like its redheaded stepchild, but I am ready to rise from the rubble in a foliage of flames. So I apologize for the pause in our regularly scheduled programming, as we are conniving to to re-launch next week – with a new look, new logo, and well yes, a new attitude.

There will be not only more photo shoots styled by yours truly, but I am taking it all to the next level. We are out to make some real art this time, no foolin’ around, by collaborating with local artists and fine art photographers. My goal is to generate some legit dumbfoundery.

First off, the lovely, and nauseatingly talented Kristin Cofer of Hiss and Hearse, has offered her next-level graphic design services to bless this page with a brand spanking new masthead for our re-launch next week! Here is my new business card, featuring the last sweet logo she made for me:

Thanks, Kristin!

I would also like to thank divine men’s fashion website, Definitive Touch for honoring me as the very first female in their holyshit! Lifestyles section alongside the likes of Allen Schwartz of ABS and Örjan Andersson of Cheap Monday. Apparently, I’ve not known humility till now.

photo by Krysta Jabczenski

Thank you for reading and see you late next week after our makeover!

Woah. Wha’ Happened?

amber — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:47:12 +0000

Wait a minute, where were we?

It appears that in the midst of some majorly transformative personal time, 2009 ended in an anticlimactic fizzle and 2010 started out with a veritable atomic kaboom. Sorry for the unplanned hiatus, but I’ve been a busy thing. As of the new year, I am About.com‘s new Budget Style Guide. Legitimately employed! I’d like to offer an obese thank you to all of you for your support.

What does this mean for Painfully Hip?

Only good things:

Daily links to my comprehensive About.com articles. DIYs, How To’s, store reviews, Lists, blog posts, its going to be mental! My new About Budget Style website will be live next month.
The Painfully Hipster of the Week. Back by popular demand, Thrift Star of the Day will be resurrected using painfully underrated thrifted outfits from Lookbook.nu, Weardrobe and Chictopia.
Phasing out corporate ads! Many thanks to the wonderful BlogHerAds and Six Apart for making the last 2.5 years of my life possible! I love you! However, my goal has always been to make Painfully Hip’s sidebars a resource for wallet-friendly independent designers, vintage boutiques and exclusive online discounts.
The Usual Hip Shit. Still pumping out Painfully Hip Design Collective photo shoots, Check Me Outs, and Painfully Trip Travel stories from much more exotic locales. Painfully Hip will be nothing but pretty pictures, fashionable resources, foreign adventures, and hardcore fun, just like it was born to be.

PS Thank you to Lucky Magazine to choosing me as one of their new Alpha Shoppers and including me in your February and March issues!

One of these things is not like the other…

amber — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:55:00 +0000

We received the following comment today:

I’m loving the hair, & I was kinda shocked I found your lovely face in one of my town’s local bar’s flyers
other than that I love reading your blog.
keep it painfully hip <3<3

-Denisse

We, of course, knew nothing about this. And, Denisse, we’d really like to know the name of your town so we can, perhaps, have a go at the “sexual piñata.” This is the best day ever.
The image is below. Let me prepare you… I am never going to stop laughing at this. Ever

The following post is Rory’s reaction (he’s the handsome devil with the thumb on the right). Who was the other guy, you ask? No idea. Another victim of bad photoshopping… which was also inflicted on my formerly 2D digital boobs (I mean, you can’t pull off a Hooters shirt ironicly if you own actual boobs. C’mon).

via AwesomeAllDay.
-Amber

Original post where our Fayetteville souvenirs go wrong on our Painfully Hip Roadtrip.

Wow… this gives me the cold dead feeling in my insides previously reserved for films by Todd Solondz.The photo is taken from the Awesome All Day Good Will Tour outside of Fayetteville. I’m not sure who the hispanic stubbly guy is but, I’m choosing to believe that he is Diana’s new boyfriend Lorenzo Lamas.

My Spanish is wonky, but I’m pretty sure the flyer roughly translates into:

October 23rd

“NIGHT OF SOLIDARITY”

For tornadoes and people suffering from tuberculosis

LIVE BOOZE of 8-11

And yes a Tornado can coincide with a tuberculosis, they are the two love lives in the Jungle at night!

Discuss this with your sexual Piñatas!

And yes a Tornado can coincide with a tuberculosis, they are the two love lives in the Jungle at night!

Discuss this with your sexual Piñatas!

ummmm…… wow.

Painfully Hip: This is How We Do.

amber — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 23:29:54 +0000

So.
I know it. There have been exactly 4 updates in the last two weeks. Things are, um, just a bit complicated (read: simultaneously ass-kickingly traumatic and glorious) in our sphere at the moment. Curious??

The last two weeks since we got back from the Painfully Hip Roadtrip have been INSANE-O-RAMA.
I got a new nephew, became single, moved out, went on a last minute roadtrip to Canada and back, started writing an in-depth emergency article on current hairstyles for the News & Review, found my photo in a glossy magazine (Lucky, September 2009), and planned 5 photoshoots, a yard sale and a solo move to Arizona.

… if you think that’s a bit much, you should see the list I sent to Diana, who, by the way, has an eerily similar list of her own. For instance, swap “Canada” with “Mexico” and change “to Arizona” to “in with Amber.”
Yeah, we were exclusively internet friends only 3 months ago and now we’re practically married (just don’t tell Diana that Arizona is actually a red state). But one thing we have in common is that we take bullshit and turn it to gold. This is how we do.

Therefore? Hang in there, folks. This is going to be a whole new beginning for Painfully Hip, because Diana and I have realized: once we get our heads together, we tend to get a little, ahem, obsessed.

I have created “The Most Stupidly Half-Assed Animated Gif Ever Made” in celebration.

ROCKIT!

In case you haven’t noticed, I am getting REALLY EXCITED about winter for once! And not just because I’ll be able to wear short shorts for most of the year.
Take THAT, pants!

Check out WellWornRoad for more details, including photos of our NEW HOT WATER HEATER!!

Painfully Hip Roadtrip: 4th of July Fun in Fayetteville

amber — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:37:46 +0000

Photo party! You get the hint…

Photos by our beautiful, generous, fun and friend-forever Fayetteville hostess, Jeanette Belleza.

Sarah, Jeanette, Amber, Diana

Diana was wearing a thrifted hiked-up skirt which I covet to this day and I am sporting my trusty ModCloth romper.

Pre-tequila shot

Hola Amigo! I like my tequila dressed to the nines

Post tequila shot

We love Jeannette!

Photos by Train:

Thank you for having us, Fayetteville! You rock!

We arrived in Austin, TX last night (thanks, Cary!) and are about to go swimming and then thrifting!!

thrift star of the day: “change happen”

amber — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:27:00 +0000

photo taken by me from Grant Park in Chicago on a momentous Election Night 2008

i heart bad grammar.

today we are all winners. i Hope.

amber — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:04:29 +0000

Election Day. Obviously. Vote. Just goddamn do it. No excuses. Learn where to go here. Ok done.

NOW for the really important decision (Kidding. Obviously.)! This was an onerous task, but here are my 3 picks from the Lucky Style Spotter Denim Transformation Contest! You three win a $250 gift bag from Lucky Magazine!

(By the way,

are offering $35 off purchases of $100 or more!
This offer is good on Election Day only, so if you need amazing jeans, today is the day to CHOOSE.)

Here are the winners in no particular order. Thanks so much to everyone for their entries!

Postlapsaria!

Jessica!

Christina!

And the runners up (I dunno if this is cold comfort – SO CLOSE – but these were just too awesome not to post!):

Emily!

Punky!

Voting today should be much easier because the choice is CLEAR.
I love you guys. On my knees, please do the right thing.

Slip on your hottest jeans and get Lucky

amber — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:22:09 +0000

Everybody loves contest time!

Do you ever wear jeans? Or maybe go out on the town? Do you ever do those two things simultaneously?
Then you TOTALLY QUALIFY to enter to win.
Win what, you ask? Oh nothing… just the chance to be featured in Lucky effing Magazine AND maybe even style a photoshoot for Lucky Brand Jeans!

I know, RIGHT?

If that prize isn’t good enough for you, Ms. Fancypants, then the deal’s about to get sweeter. Take your insulin shots now, because if you enter the contest at Lucky Style Spotter and then paste the URL of your entry into the comments of this post, voila, you are also entered to win this lavish cornucopia of goodies worth $250!
Click to zoom.

Holy hell, are those TIC TACS??

TAKE NOTE: This part of the contest is only for the legion of the Painfully Hip (US residents only), and after we vote on Tuesday November 4th, we’re going to feel empowered enough to choose the 3 best outfits! Each one will win $250 worth of awesome, so your chances to win are seriously colossal.

To Enter:

Lucky Style Spotter

Easy Peasy.

Remember, you must paste the URL of your Lucky Style Spotter “My Denim Transformation” contest entry into the comments of this post to be entered to win the gift bag from Painfully Hip!

So hurry up and show us yer denim. Make us proud. Blow those previous entrants out of the proverbial water. They wouldn’t know hip if they broke one. Oh wait, I’m totally one of those entrants (you expect me to pass this up??). I take it back.

Good Lucky to you.

Winners will be announced on Election Day Tuesday, November 4th 2008!

EDIT: Ok, its been 24 hours and only two entries?? We have THREE PRIZES to give away. C’mon guys, I know you have a photo of yourself wearing some futhermucking jeans! Git ‘er dun.

only a coupla spots left at Forkably Hip, Chicago!

amber — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:28:56 +0000

Here’s the final menu for to tempt your soon-to-be-tantalized tastebuds.

YUM.
Bring your favorite cheap wine! Wear your best cheap semi-formalwear! The best outfit as deemed by the judges (yours truly and the fashion editor of Time Out Chicago) will win awesome prizes, including LadyLanguage gift certificates totalling $200.

If you want to join us Sunday at 6, make sure you RSVP by 6pm Saturday to forkable.blog@gmail.com.

Forkably Hip!

amber — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:07:21 +0000

So I’m in Chicago and two of my best friends in the whole world are putting me up (putting up with me?) for a whole month. So Andrea, of the mouth-watering Forkable Blog, is going to collaborate with me on an fashionably forkable event for highly-hip Midwesterners. Forkable really is sort of the food-centric version of Painfully Hip in that it’s all about creating captivating concoctions on the cheap. Oh man, you have no idea what you’re in for with Andrea’s droolicious cooking.

If you’re in Chicago and you’re painfully hip, you best be up in there! Any excuse to don your favorite cocktail dress, right?

(click for more info)

RSVP or request more info here!