Style Star
Holly Draper loves making piñatas and wearing sparkly socks.
She is sitting on her rickety front porch, long limbs draped effortlessly across a distressed denim couch. Resting on her shoulders is a slouchy sweater in muted tones with big, round buttons, and the pattern on her dress is of dragonflies.
"Ultimate dream? I would love to be a scholar on piñata history," Holly said without skipping a beat. She is a senior at Baylor University and executive assistant at Buttoned Bears, a local fashion and lifestyle blog.
On campus, Holly is a striking figure. She is tall and slender, with wild dark hair and porcelain skin. Her beauty is old-school, but her careful, ethereal mannerisms are what distinguish her from a sea of slouching college students. She exudes an unassuming grace and confidence well beyond her years, and has a natural penchant for dressing. On Valentine's day she wore a cropped sweater with red buttons and bold hearts in black, white, and red, and she can be spotted in flowing, pastel dresses in the spring. When asked to describe her style, Holly cites patterns and layering as everyday favorites.
"I love to think about what Nancy Drew would wear," Holly said. She keeps her outfits fresh by "switching it up," and often makes her own alterations to clothes she has had since high school. How does Holly know when she's wearing the perfect outfit? When she is bummed to have to put on her pajamas.
My second interview with Holly gives me a glimpse inside her vintage home. The living room where we chat is a mismatched array of couches, blankets, and colorfully embroidered pillows. To call it eclectic would be a vast understatement. Dispersed along the white walls are underexposed polaroid squares, strings of pom-poms made by Holly, and various other whimsical knick-knacks. Fanciful, faded photos of Holly in pink-lens sunglasses look like images from a magazine or a daydream. A golden cattle skull sits on her mantle, and a sketch of a llama is taped amongst antique-store finds. Evening light streaming through the windows gives the home an enchanted, dreamy quality, not unlike Holly herself.
Buttoned Bears
With her quirky style and love of aesthetics, it is only fitting that Holly works at Buttoned Bears. Buttoned, a Waco-based fashion blog, was started in a dorm in 2014 by three Baylor students. Now, the blog employs around twenty student writers, photographers, and editors who showcase Baylor's campus style through articles accompanied by hip photographs. The blog is sleek and refined- a creative triumph for the Baylor and Waco arts community. Holly is currently in her fourth year as a member of its team.
Her first position at Buttoned was as their freshman representative, and her job was largely to increase the blog's freshman audience. Now, as executive assistant, she is one of three people who organize content and ideas to keep the blog moving forward.
"It is a lot of idea-play, planning, and team encouragement," Holly said.
Samantha Caldwell, a writer for Buttoned, noted that Holly's years of experience at the blog make her a valuable resource for their team.
"She wants to know everybody's opinion, and she uses that to learn as well," Caldwell said. She spoke highly of Holly and her welcoming demeanor, commitment to building friendships, and openness to new ideas.
Holly though, is not short of ideas herself. One of her successful projects for Buttoned is their pop-up shop. The pop-up is an event where Baylor students sell their own creations as vendors.
"It is hard work, but it is really cool to see it come together," Holly said. Buttoned Bears is now about to hold their fourth of these events.
As for the impact Holly hopes Buttoned has on the Waco community, Holly said she hopes Buttoned allows Wacoans and Baylor students to discover what interests them, and pursue it.
"I want people to be able to have a spark of interest in something that excited them because Buttoned does that for me," Holly said. She said she wants Buttoned's readers to find the passion and excitement to "go and create things that inspire them, and that can inspire others."
Piñata Mastermind
Holly is sitting on her bed, a shopping bag full of crafting supplies to her right. In the tattered bag is a variety of colorful tissue paper, cardboard cutouts, pom-poms, and glue. This is Holly's piñata-making bag.
Holly's love for piñatas was a happy accident. Her first home in Waco had a bare front porch in desperate need of decoration, so Holly decided to go on the hunt for vibrant piñatas to jazz it up.
"I Googled where to buy Waco piñatas," Holly said. She toured Waco searching for funky piñatas, but was unsuccessful. Always willing to create something new, she headed to Hobby Lobby to gather the supplies to make one herself.
"At first I was really meticulous about it," Holly said of the piñata-making process.
The first piñatas she made were shaped like diamonds, and she, as planned, used them to decorate her porch.
"They were really fun, but the elements got them," Holly said with a laugh and an unconcerned shrug.
For Buttoned Bears's pop-up shop, she made miniature piñatas for decoration, as well as to sell to readers and customers. Soon, friends began to request Holly's piñatas for birthdays and other celebrations.
"I like creating stuff, but I don't like rules," Holly said.
As for the process of actually building the piñatas, Holly said a miniature one takes around two hours, but she has spent up to a week working on a grander piñata shaped like a blue whale. In her piñata-making bag are cardboard cutouts for future creations: one which will be shaped like a cloud, and another she hopes to make into an owl.
For her next project, Holly wants to use the techniques she has learned from piñata-building to create a portrait of her mom using piñata fringe. She said she will have to dye white tissue paper in various skin tones in order to accomplish this- not an easy feat. But Holly loves getting to work with her hands, and this kind of art is her passion.
What does the future hold for Holly and her band of piñatas? After graduation, anything is possible. Because she wants to better understand the heritage of her creations, Holly may eventually get a masters degree in Latin American art. She discussed moving away to Mexico City to work at a piñatoria, or maybe starting a company that sells piñatas as well as DIY piñata kits.
Holly said she hopes her passion for piñata-building will inspire others to make their own unique ideas "bigger and better" and develop them "start to finish."
For people who do not know how to begin pursuing their own creative ideas, Holly has advice. "You just have to try it- with the means that you have," Holly said. She added that she made her first piñata with cardboard from the trash.
When asked why she loves making piñatas, Holly spends several moments contemplating the root of her enjoyment. In the end, though, she has a simple answer.
"All I know is I enjoy it," Holly said- a reminder that it doesn't matter what you do or why you do what you do, as long as you are passionate about it.
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| A shrine to Heath Ledger Holly made for her roommate. |
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| Holly's diary where she includes things which remind her what it feels like to be young. |
