I wish I were still a small child, so that on Easter morning I could wake up to a basket full of candy. Alas, now I’m an adult, and I have to buy my own Easter candy. But that’s ok, because I can still enjoy the adorable animals that have somehow become the mascots of the holiday. To help you get ready for Easter this weekend, here are some adorable pictures of baby animals.

[Lead image via gabczi/Shutterstock]

It seems ex-flames Ryan Gosling and Sandra Bullock are having some fun fun fun again in Austin this weekend.  The  couple was spotted making the rounds in Sandy’s home town at the annual Fun Fun Fun Fest on Auditorium Shores.  There’s no doubt the two make a cute couple, but we gotta say, seriously Ryan?!? You could do better. And by better I mean me. Yes, me. Choose me Ryan!

Update:  Turns out, the girl in the photo is not Sandra Bullock, but rather The Girl With The Dragon Tattoos’ Rooney Mara.  Ryan is in Austin filming with legendary director Terrence Malick.

]]> http://collegecandy.com/2011/11/05/ryan-gosling-sandra-bullock-fun-fun-fun-fest-austin/feed/ 7 ccandystaff Ryan Gossling Sandra Bullock http://collegecandy.com/2011/08/17/pick-the-perfect-profile-picture/ http://collegecandy.com/2011/08/17/pick-the-perfect-profile-picture/#comments Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:00:29 +0000 Clara – Drake University http://collegecandy.com/?p=117641 ]]> Consider your profile picture your viral handshake. Why, you ask? Let’s just say that, like a firm grip, the little image leaves a lasting impression. See the following scenarios to be sure you select the most flattering photo for you.

1. So… You party

Like most people, you enjoy a nice night out. The question is: How much of your party-animal personality should be reflected in your profile picture? To narrow your choices, rule out any photos with red cups and wasted faces. And, before you upload, ask yourself: What would Mom think of this? If it would make her stomach roll, pick a different one.

2. So… You’re in a relationship

We get it: You’re in love. But as cute as you two are, no one wants to see your personal pictures. Make people say “aw”—not “ew”—when viewing your page. This means no profile pictures of you making out with your boyfriend. Keep bedroom play in the bedroom instead of at your friends’ fingertips.

3. So… You’ve got a banging body

Trust me, people have probably noticed. Unless your main goal is to garner more creepers, be clothed in your profile picture. Leave a little to the imagination by being classy, not trashy. Because let’s face it: Strutting your stuff in a bikini is only appealing for some professions.

4. So… You have Photoshop

Congrats, so do I. But owning the software doesn’t give you the go-ahead to airbrush the shit out of your pictures. The same goes for adding quotes, decorative frames and clipart. You want to be recognizable to people when you meet them in person.

5. So… You own a ____________

We know you love your convertible, beach house, new Nikes, Pomeranian puppy—the list goes on and on. Just remember: No one likes a showoff. Please, stop posting Photo Booth pictures of you and your kitty. As much as you might think everyone cares, they don’t.

This is it, my last shot, my final semester. So I better to do it, right. With that thought in mind, I’ve come up with a few resolutions to guide me through my last semester as an undergrad. Some of these make a lot of sense; some of them are completely ridiculous. But I do intend to follow through with all of them.

1. Document my life via digital camera. I have never been the girl with the camera. Not because I don’t like tagging myself in massive amounts of Facebook photos, but more because I just don’t like the idea of having to carry a camera around everywhere I go. But this year, I’m going to make an effort to take more pictures, or at least make someone else take them for me. I’m gradating in less than five months. This is the end of the end. And these moments, the big and the small deserve not only to be savored, documented, in Facebook albums named for inside jokes no one even remembers. This way, years from now, when I’m super famous and my Facebook has been hacked to find out the minute details of my life, people can oh and ah over my cute outfits, love of mango margaritas, and inability to take a decent photo.

2. Skip a class and not feel guilty about it. I’ve taken plenty of “mental health days” in the last four years, but I’ve never managed to avoid that twinge of guilt that accompanies skipping class. Curled up on the couch, watching The Real Housewives catching up on my homework, I can’t ever help but think, should I have gone to class? What if there’s a pop quiz? What if my friend skipped too and I can’t get the notes? What if I misread the attendance policy on the syllabus and now I’m doomed to failure? This semester, I’m going to skip a class and I’m not going to feel guilty about it. So I’m a nerd. So what. Shut up about it, okay?

3. Invest in a work wardrobe. I love my skinny jeans just as much as the next girl, but I’ve begun to realize that pretty soon I’m going to have to start looking for some work wear. Dress pants. Pencil skirts. Button down tops that aren’t plaid and from American Eagle. Pumps that aren’t sequined. If nothing else I need a really great interview outfit. Something that says, “Yes I know I’m not even out of college yet and have little to no experience in this field, but you should hire me, anyway, pretty please?” Where does one go for an outfit like that? Probably not Forever 21, right?

4. Take things less seriously. So apparently I’m not the only person going through this whole senior year thing. What comes next? Why do I have to go? What am I supposed to do? Supposedly I’m not the only one who has these questions. People have graduated before me, and people will graduate after me, and they’ve all somehow managed to figure it out. (Haven’t they?) So I’ll figure it out too. Eventually…

5. Prepare really ridiculous answers for those questions about post college plans. Yes, the questions have started already. And no, I’m not any closer to having a legitimate answer. (Unless well I’ve been writing for some…and I applied to a few…no, I don’t have any definite plans yet…counts as legitimate.) So instead I’m going to come up with a few ridiculous answers.  So far I’ve got (1) “I’m moving to Hollywood to become a hooker and live out my Pretty Woman fantasy.” (2) “I met this guy on my last trip to Vegas. We got married. So I’m all set.” (3) “I’m pregnant. I’ll be staring on MTV’s new show, Pregnant Post Grads.”

… I’ll work on it. Any suggestions?

While perusing (and by “perusing” I mean obsessively checking and re-checking) Facebook for the fourth time yesterday, I noticed that no one had done anything since the last time I logged in (an hour before). In a fit of never ending boredom that made signing off impossible, I decided to look at pictures of me.

Of the 300ish photos of me, 250 involved drinking and 249 of those involved me making some sort of awful face. Not like “I wasn’t ready for the camera” awful; more like, “I am going to make the ugliest face I can think of” awful. The sad part is that I can distinctly remember taking most of those pictures and consciously making the faces that are now staring back at (and horrifying) me.

I even giggled as I made one of my uglier faces and poked my head into what would have been a cute picture of friends. Why did I ever think that was a good idea?

Self Reflective Beer Goggles, that’s why.

It’s like the minute the beer hits my lips, I am somehow unable to take a picture without doing something completely stupid. Whether it is an awful face, mimicking oral sex with a beer bottle or thinking of a ridiculous scenario (“Your boyfriend just asked you to pee on him”) before snapping a selfie, I always look horribly, terrifyingly, bad.

You know you’ve been there. Go ahead; log onto Facebook right now and take a look at drunken pictures of you and your friends. I guarantee Self-Reflective Beer Goggles make an appearance. Many appearances, in fact.

I have been a victim of beer goggles many times in my life — I even once sported them for an entire 10-day cruise — but I never realized that they affect more than the way I see men. They affect the way people (like everyone on Facebook – hi mom!) see me!

At least, unlike kicking an ugly/short/hairy stranger out of your bed in the morning, this is easy to remedy; a simple un-tagging will do it.

Do you have SR Beer Google issues? What do you think about the druken Facebook picture epidemic?

There are over 100 million sites on the Internet. 100 million! You might think you know about all the important ones (CollegeCandy, Gmail, Google, Zappos, Kaboodle…), but there are thousands of other sweet sites out there. And more showing up every day! We get it – it’s not easy or fun sifting through the crap and porn to find those gems, so we’re gonna bring the gems to you. Just sit back, kick up those feet and allow us to introduce you to the diamonds in the internet rough.

Santa photos are a holiday tradition in many families, including mine.  And I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t remember ever liking the process of getting my picture taken with that weird old guy.  Most of my memories of those experiences fall into one of two categories: when I was younger, fear, because I thought it was the real Santa and I was afraid he knew all the bad things I’d done; and when I was a little older, complete paranoia that someone I know might be walking though the mall and see me standing in line. And every Christmas, I’m forced to re-live those memories when my mom unpacks her collection of framed Santa portraits from her boxes of Christmas decorations and displays them proudly on the wall of our living room.

I bet she wouldn’t be so nostalgic if she remembered she practically forced my sister and I into those matching outfits and dragged us to the minivan to go take those terrible pictures.  In fact, it wasn’t until my sister and I were old enough to fight back and actually run away from the van that the Santa pictures ended.

So when somebody told me about the website SketchySantas.com, a blog showcasing terrible Santa portraits, specifically those with creepy-looking Santas, I wasn’t sure what to think about it. The mere thought of the Santa photo brought back painful memories of corduroy, giant bows and waiting for an hour to sit on some man’s lap. But then I looked. And I laughed so hard I cried.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was living someone else’s painful memories instead of my own, but I couldn’t stop. And then I couldn’t breathe.

I mean, really, how does this not make you pee your pants a little?

To top it all off, the site also sells “Sketchy Greetings” holiday cards that I’m seriously considering buying for next year.

If you’re burnt out from all that studying for finals and holiday stress, Sketchy Santas is definitely the perfect dose of humor you need to soothe your over-worked and over-shopped brain. I imagine it will also come in handy after you’ve opened your gifts on Friday and there is nothing else to do. All day. And your annoying cousins are running around the house pulling people’s hair.

Enjoy!

So cute. So easy. So the perfect way to personalize that 10X10 cell.

I’m obsessed with taking pictures, absolutely obsessed. I have approximately 44 albums on Facebook and that’s after I consolidated and cut down about 300 pictures. I can’t help it.

The digital camera changed my life. I love taking pictures of everything and anything, and capturing every drunken moment of friends passed out over toilets or park benches, of every group pic in the sorority pose, and every picture of birthdays and holidays.

My room has always been covered with the pictures I’ve taken, a visual documentary of my life displayed around my room on a cork board and on the walls. But instead of tacking photos to the wall or searching for the perfect picture frames (which happen to be really pricey), here’s a creative, easy, and cheap way to make a hanging frame of your own.

Whether your room decor is classy or flashy, this custom DIY picture frame will be the perfect wall decor to decorate your life, display your photos, and showcase your memories with some style! It is also the perfect gift to give a friend for the holidays if you’re low on cash but got lots of love.

What You’ll Need:
Picture: Whatever moment or event you want to display!
Cardboard: Use cardboard from an old shoe box, packing box, or even an old pizza box (mmm Domino’s, yummmmmm)
Glue: Superglue and a glue stick. The most essential of all craft tools. You’ll need this a lot during the constructing process.
Ribbon: Any color and any design of your choice. The ribbon will be how you hang your photo frame and can also be used to add accents like bows.
Scrapbook Paper: You’ll need two sheets of different paper per frame (for 4×6 and 5×7 photos). You can use construction paper, but scrapbook paper is the best as it comes in a wide variety of colors, designs, and textures. Buy a stock of paper sheets or buy by the sheet. Usually you can buy 4 sheets per dollar.
Decorative Extras: Buttons, jewels, rhinestones, or bows! Any extras you may want to add to your frame for accents!

What You’ll Do:
1. Cut your cardboard, leaving a border of 2-3 inches of extra cardboard around the size of the picture itself. For example, for a 5×7 picture, cut a piece of cardboard that is 7×9. Use scissors or a razor cutter for a straight edge, but you don’t have to cut it perfectly as you won’t be able to see the cardboard itself anyway. This will be the base of your picture frame.

2. Save your scraps of cardboard! Cut 4 thin pieces (about an inch thick) of cardboard that are about a half inch shorter than the size of your picture. So, if you’re framing a 5X7, cut 2 4.5 inch long strips and 2 6.5 inch strips. Make sense? You’ll use these in step 5.

3. Use the glue stick to glue scrapbook paper to the cardboard base of your frame, completely covering the cardboard. Use a solid color design for classier frames, or a bright and crazy pattern to really add some spunk to your frame! Also, glue a different pattern/color of scrapbook paper to the four thin pieces of cardboard (you can glue these all onto one sheet and then cut off all the excess).
4. Using the glue stick, glue your picture in the center of the cardboard frame base.

5. Using superglue, glue the four border pieces of cardboard a few centimeters away from the actual picture, creating a 3-dimensional border to your frame. These pieces won’t surround your entire picture, but instead create an unconnected border and some pizazz.

6. Cut a strip of ribbon (depending on how long you want your frame to dangle) for the hanging portion of your frame and super glue the ribbon ends to the top left and top right sides of your frame (on the back!).

7. Superglue any extra buttons, jewels, fake flowers, or rhinestones to random spots on your new frame for that extra bit of glam. Or, to make your frame extra special, add additional layers of frames and attach them to your original frame using ribbon (so it looks like a laddder). Or make a frame within a big frame by using a larger piece of cardboard and displaying multiple pictures!

The possibilities are endless for this project, giving you the opportunity to let your creative side out. And after all that studying, there’s nothing you need more than a little creative outlet.

Every week I make a list. Not a grocery list or a to-do list…or that list, because I don’t really do groceries (there is a reason why they deliver pizza) and to-do lists are totally not my scene (if such a scene even exists) and, unfortunately, I haven’t added to that list in quite awhile.

No, this list is a top ten-style countdown about the hard-hitting issues, like which mash-ups are the best ever or which apps rock my world.

This week I’m focusing on the “click click flash” that consumes your weekend. You go out, someone inevitably breaks out the camera (every 4 minutes) and you start posing like you’re ready for the cover of Nylon. Great idea, but these pictures are going to end up on Facebook for the world to see the next day when you’re sober. Oof. And with today’s technology, you might be even caught in real time.

Who’s guilty?
Actually, who isn’t?

10. Self indulgent “Take one of just meeeee!”

You always think this one is a great idea. I’ll tell you something your friends (especially the one taking this photo) never will: it’s not a good idea. I promise you, it never is.

9. Drinking game picture

Congrats bro, you won a binge drinking game. Super rad!

8. Drunken girl-on-girl makeout

Your boyfriend? Not gonna be thrilled. Ok, so maybe he will, but did you forget that your great Aunt Frances is your FB friend?

7. Mirror Myspace look

Looking good with a giant flash obscuring you. Classic.

6. Obscene gesture… or action.

That’ll help you land your dream job.
Oh, and not looking at the camera does not make this photo look more natural or classy.

5. Passed out with Sharpie in your face

If you have one of these, your friends are jerks. If you have more than one of these, you seriously need help.

4. Drunken Photobooth?

Just, why? Was there really nothing better to do while you were buzzin’?

3. Nonfunctional drunkenness

Another big, fat “why?” How is this attractive? And who was the jerk who took this picture? And freaking sent it to all your friends? But, seriously, why did you decide to lay right there?

2. Pregaming

Since when is drinking in a tiny dorm room scrapbook material?

1. Pouty face, Peace sign

Overplayed.
ENOUGH SAID.

We all know that painting the walls in your dorm room is a giant no-no. Hell, you can’t even hammer a nail into those things! But that doesn’t mean you have to settle for some BS Animal House poster for your wall decor; there is another way to show off your creativity and create a space that is both cool and easy to remove at the end of the year so you can get your security deposit back. Because that is a lot of money.

Enter: Paint Chip Art.

Paint chips – or paint samples, rather – are those little cards you can pick up from your neighborhood hardware/paint store. They’re out there for the taking so people can test out colors at home. But they’re good for more than just sampling colors; these free color palettes are perfect for decorating on a college budget.

I stumbled upon this eco-friendly decorating idea during class on Greenwala.com and was immediately inspired. I have big plans for the weekend (starting with a very important trip to Home Depot) and thought I’d share some of this inspiration with you. Decorating has never been easier!

What You Need:

- Paint chips/color cards
- Glue stick or other adhesive (like that blue sticky goo that is approved in dorms)

How You Do:

1) Be super creative! All you have to do is come up with a design, and just layer the paint chips on to create that image. And the possibilities are endless! You could do a single wall in a single color, stripes of solid colors, or get totally into it and create a mural.

Here is some inspiration:
Greenwala

2) If you’re not gifted in the creativity area, then simply pick a few colors that work well together and glue them onto a sheet of paper in a square fashion. Stick that piece of paper into a wooden frame, and you’ve got yourself a cute homemade picture to hang up.

The weather is getting cold, which means we’ll all be spending more time indoors. Why not take a day to express your creative side while also creating a space that you won’t mind hibernating in for the next 4 months.

We’ve all been there: that rowdy Friday/Saturday/Tuesday night when the liquor bottles come out and the shots glasses clink. All those nights we’d like to forget and we hope no one else remembers either. All the shots that didn’t go down too well – or missed our mouths completely.

But, lo and behold, the next morning we discover these little beauties lingering on our Facebook wall for the world to see.

Welcome to The Post-Shot Picture. The picture you didn’t realize was being taken because you were too busy keeping the vomit down. The pictures that makes you wonder why you’d ever accept a shot (let alone insist on them night after night) as you clearly do not enjoy them. The pictures that totally make all of us laugh…when we aren’t the ones being photographed.

Need a good LOL? Here you go:

Honestly, does anyone really like these things?