Guest Post on Coffee + Honeycomb // Valentine's Day Nails

Hello Hello! I'm just popping in to let you all know that this morning I'm over on Jennifer's blog, Coffee + Honeycomb with some (last minute) Valentine's day nail art inspiration! These ideas are super simple, and perfect to do this morning/tonight before Valentine's day festivities begin! Go take a look!

Free Valentine's Day Card Printables!

I'm all for homemade cards, but sometimes I just don't have the time and need a quick (but still thoughtful) fix...I was playing around with a few Valentine's Day card designs and thought it would be fun to put together a couple of printables for my lovely readers (that's you!). I printed these out on white card stock for a couple of bucks at Fed Ex and they came out really well!

 This little bee one also looks good printed in color, so you can get a little more creative with it :)

You can download any of these designs by clicking the links below! (If you have any problems downloading or would like another size, feel free to shoot me an email!)

"You Are So Effing Cute"

"Will You Bee My Valentine?"

"You + Me"

DIY Gold Heart Headband

I've had the materials for this DIY headband sitting around for ages, but not being able to work outside due to cold weather has made me reluctant to pull out the glitter...it always somehow ends up in my bed (It's true what they say: glitter is the herpes of craft supplies). BUT, I decided Valentine's day would be the perfect time to suck it up and do this project...Because what's better than a gold, glittery, heart shaped accessory to wear on February 14th? (Well, maybe a red, glittery headband, but I'll leave that one up to you).

Here's what you will need: sheets of felt, glitter, glue/some sort of adhesive (the less gooey the better), a needle & thread to match your felt (or a sewing machine), elastic, clear spray paint, and scissors.

If you would like to skip a step and avoid drying time/lots of mess you can do what I did and use felt sheets that have adhesive already on one side. If you do this, you may not want to use a sewing machine because it gets the needle a little sticky. But hand sewing it was super quick and easy.

First, cut out a bunch of hearts. Use a piece of string (or whatever you have lying around) to measure how long your strand of hearts needs to be to wrap most of the way around your head and line the hearts up along it as you cut (mine goes from just below the tops of my ears).

Next, sew your hearts together. If you are using a sewing machine, I would probably pin the hearts to a strip of fabric and sew one line horizontally across all of the hearts, and then cut off the visible fabric. If you are hand sewing, just use a couple of small stitches to attach each of your hearts, like I did with mine. When you are done, sew on your elastic. Measure the headband on your head to figure out how long you will need it to be.

Now, glitter-ize your hearts. If you have adhesive felt, take off the backing papers (carefully) one at a time, and pour on the glitter. Press down a little on the glitter to make sure it really sticks before you shake it off.

Last, spray the hearts with a few coats of clear spray paint. This will stop the glitter from getting all over everything (glittery hair isn't cute...it just looks like dandruff. So this is essential!).

That's it! Enjoy your new super cute, super cheap accessory. If you'd rather avoid all the sewing, you could just attach a glitter heart to a hair clip for a more subtle accessory :)

A Book of Love // Valentine's Day Inspiration

Here's a fun little gift idea for someone special on Valentine's Day! This is actually something that I do for Taylor each year on our anniversary, but it also works for Valentine's Day (or any other special day for that matter). This project is pretty cheesy but, hey, you knew what you were getting into when you clicked on a post about Valentine's Day ;)

Each year I put together a little book that tells the story of that year...I write about any special things (or mundane things that were still meaningful) that happened and create pictures to go with each page. Then, each page has a song that goes with it - either a song that goes with whatever I wrote, or a song that was meaningful to us during that time. Taylor and I are the kind of people who remember exactly what we were listening to during certain events, so it's fun to have little mixes that remind us of each year of our relationship. I usually burn the mix for him and create a little pocket for it in the back of each book. If music isn't so much your thing, think of something that is meaningful to you and your special someone and see if there is a way to incorporate that into your book...maybe you're long distance and write a lot of letters - create little pockets for copies of special letters...maybe you bond over books - include your favorite passages...get creative!

Thoughtful and homemade is always better than store bought, right? What do you like to do for your Valentine?

Hope your week has been wonderful! xx

Gift Wrapping Idea: A Paper Flower!

Happy Monday, friends! Hope you all had a great start to your week - I am finally starting to feel better and Winter Break is in sight so I'm pretty excited :) Here is a little project I did to dress up the gift I got for our Secret Santa gift swap at work. Last year I made lots of little tags like this to put on all of my gifts, so I will hopefully be back later this week with a couple more ideas for you!

To make the flower, first cut out five petals (make sure they are wider at the top like the ones below). Next, make the little ripples in each of the petals - I used the end of one of my smallest makeup brushes (while you are doing this start heating up your hot glue gun!). Skewers also work well (better, actually). It helps if you have two. Put one on each side of the paper and shape the petal around the skewers. It's confusing at first, but you'll figure it out! Next, cut a slit at the bottom of the petal, and overlap the two sides so your petal becomes 3D...glue it together with a little dot of hot glue! (Look at the picture and it will all make sense). Now, glue each of the petals together.

To create the middle of the flower, cut two small circles. One should be a bit bigger than the other. Cut the edges of each of them like I did in the picture above. Then use your fingers to curl the edges in. Glue them to the middle of your flower (little one on top of bigger one). Cut out a couple of leaves and glue them to the bottom of the flower.

For this one I created a band of white paper to wrap around my present, and glued the flower to this and used it as my label. In the past I have also made smaller flowers and cut out little labels to attach them to. It's up to you!

Do you have any creative ways you like to embellish your presents? Or do you like to keep it simple? Today I just wrapped a present in craft paper and tied it up with neon string - sometimes simple is great too. I love coming up with different ways to wrap presents, so I'm excited to finish wrapping everything once I get to my parent's house for Christmas!

Twinkle Light Christmas Tree

Raise your hand if there is a dead tomato/basil/blueberry plant freezing in your yard! Mine has a nice little plant cemetery going...The other day as I was admiring my collection of plant skeletons, I realized that the cages that used to hold up my plants were the perfect shape to use for a Christmas tree craft project! I have been brainstorming ways to create a tree/something that could stand in for a real Christmas tree for our house. There isn't a lot of room in this itsy bitsy house, and none of us will actually be home for Christmas, so it just didn't make sense to get a tree...but I still wanted something that felt festive and cozy. 

To make this little tree light I started by attaching lights to the cage vertically, securing them with washi tape as I went. This fills in the gaps so you can wrap the next string of lights around the cage horizontally. Mess around with the lights until you like they way they are distributed. Just make sure all plugs are in the back. Next, attach decorations! We don't have any tree decorations so I just made some gold and white stars and taped them to the cage. That's it! My house mate just came home with pine scented cleaning supplies and we may or may not be considering spraying the tree with them to trick our senses into thinking it's real...

I'm excited to curl up on the couch next to our little tree and watch Christmas movies this weekend :) It's not quite a real tree, but it'll do! (it case you're wondering, the tree is about 3 ft tall)

Last Minute Halloween Costumes (For My Fellow Procrastinators)

If you're anything like me (most years), you've put off your halloween costume up until now...despite the fact that you've been brainstorming an awesome, crafty project all year long. It's ok, life just happens...I can't even remember the last time I put together a real costume :( This year I'm more on top of it...some friends and I are being lost boys (from Peter Pan) and I have all the materials and part of it made...but I will definitely be scrambling to finish it before we go out tomorrow night!

Anyway, if you still have no idea what you are doing and need something to wear to a halloween party this weekend (or maybe you are a super slacker and still need something for tonight), here are a few fun, quick, simple ideas I found around the internets so you don't have to be that guy that shows up in a white sheet (unless you are going as a sexy ghost in which case I'm all for it). Hope these give you some ideas!

A Beautiful Mess has some adorable last minute couple costume ideas...love the Fantastic Mr. Fox ones! You can definitely also use these ideas as inspiration for costumes for one person. Studio DIY has all sorts of quick costume ideas. I love these ideas for simple halloween "toppers." Want to be a ballerina but don't have a tutu? Check out this tutorial for a bubble wrap ballerina costume! Aaaand last but not least, you could always throw on some ears, paint on some whiskers and call it a night. I love that these animal ears have a little edge!

If you're not into the whole costume deal but want to be a little festive, here are some fun (and relatively easy if you use a small brush) halloween nail art ideas! (one//two//three//four)

Hope you all have a great halloween/halloween weekend! I'm sure I'll be sharing some pictures from mine next week :) Stay safe!

Skull Inspiration for You, and You, and You Too!

Aaaaand here is part 2 of my simple (not-so-spooky) halloween decor ideas...skull edition! Growing up we often attended dia de los muertos events with some of our family friends who celebrated...this was always one of my favorite events - I love the beautiful, colorful and even festive way of honoring the dead. Although dia de los muertos is an event entirely separate from Halloween (let's not get them confused!), I was inspired to use some of the bright colors you often see there and integrate them in with more typical halloween decor...black and orange, pumpkins, spider web, etc. To me, it makes the halloween season much more beautiful! So, I made this little skull to put with some other bits of decor we already had out (sorry there are no pictures of that...the lighting in my kitchen is SO BAD).

I got this little cardboard skull from Michael's. I really wanted to get one of the big plaster ones they have been selling but they only had one left that was already painted. Sad day. I probably didn't need a life sized skull lying around anyway...

So, all I did was paint it white, paint on some bright designs (using some pictures I found online for inspiration), and hot glue on some fake flowers! Done!

 Hope this gets you inspired to add some fun colors to your Fall/Halloween decor!

Simple Fall Decor Inspiration: Part I

I'm back with more pumpkin related goodness! This time I have some easy fall/halloween decor inspiration for you! As I mentioned yesterday, I'm not so into the usual halloween decor...orange and black is one of my least favorite color combinations (too bad they were my school colors in college!)...BUT what about orange, white and gold? Those are close enough to halloween colors, right? I can get with that. 

To make these little decorative pumpkins I painted a layer of modpodge all over the stems, poured on lots of gold glitter, let it dry, and cleaned off the excess glitter. Then I decided it would be fun to add some white to the pumpkins, so I painted on some polka dots with acrylic paint (this required a couple coats). 

You could do lots of fun things with the white paint! You could paint triangles, stripes, you could do a dipped look...I was also thinking it would be cool to do a spider web-esque design by criss-crossing thin strips of tape on the pumpkin and then spray painting over it (let dry and then carefully remove the tape). The gold would also look really nice on a white pumpkin!

Off to the Pumpkin Patch We Go

This past weekend was full of lots of fun Fall activities, despite freakishly warm and un-fall-like weather (you're probably wondering why we're wearing shorts and dresses in the pictures below...go home Portland weather, you're drunk). After a big brunch Saturday morning a group of friends and I made the trek to Sauvie Island to pick out our pumpkins! Sauvie was crazy busy...it felt almost like a big fall festival. We wandered the fields, saw some animals (and resisted buying the cutest black piglets that were for sale), and came home with more pumpkins than were probably necessary...

When we got home, my housemates and I (plus Taylor) all made spiked cedar, put on some Beach House Pandora (the best) and set up a carving party on the porch. Below is my best attempt at a picture of all of our pumpkins (minus Sydney's which wasn't finished because of her perfectionist tendencies ;) )...it really doesn't do them justice!

Aaaand, here is my pumpkin! I'm not super into the usual spooky/corny halloween decorations, but I can get with all the skulls. Those who know me can tell you I have a small obsession...not with creepy skulls, but pretty dia-de-los-muertos-esque skulls. Know what I'm talking about? Anyway, naturally I decided to carve a skull. I found some inspiration online, drew on my pattern and got to cutting. I did a combination of cutting and scraping so the light would shine out differently in different spots. When I was done I cut holes at the top and stuck in some fresh flowers! I am thinking about maybe painting on it as well so it looks extra pretty during the day...but we'll see if I get around to that! Hope this gives you some inspiration for your pumpkins if you haven't gotten around to carving yet! If you already have, what did you carve? I would love to see!

I will be back tomorrow with the first of two super easy (and cute, not spooky) halloween decor ideas...If you haven't guessed already, one involves skulls :)

(belated) easter carrot cake

This year I had grand plans to make cute carrot cake cupcakes dressed up like rabbits for Easter for everyone in my house...Lucky thing no one really pays much attention to such holidays around my house because my plans got delayed by a few days.  This weekend was beautiful, and since I had workshops both days I wanted to soak up the sun when I got out, not stay inside and bake.  The sun has since left to hide behind the clouds again, so I finally made some time to make this cake.  This is a recipe from my all time favorite cookbook, Vegan With a Vengeance.  I'm not vegan (I'm just a very undisciplined pescetarian) and I used to stay away from vegan food--especially baked goods (love me some cheese/butter/eggs/etc)...BUT, every recipe I have tried from this book has been amazing.  Also, the recipes are super easy to un-veganize if you want to do that, but that really isn't necessary.  Anyways, this is the best carrot cake I've ever had. So. Good. Click here for the recipe (or go buy the book). The only note I would make is that if you use sweetened shredded coconut (I've found it's near impossible to find unsweetened here) use a tiny bit less sugar than the recipe calls for.

Enjoy!

easy valentine's day gifts

Usually I spend a lot of time making personalized Valentine's day cards for all of my close friends...but this year I'm a little carded-out so I decided to try something else.  Here are a couple of easy projects that I've done that I hope will inspire you! 

My friends and I are a little bit tea-obsessed--we spend so much time at a local tea house that they all know us (and how we like our tea), and some of us may have tea hoarding problems.  So, I thought something tea related would be perfect.  This project can be a little bit meticulous/time consuming if you don't have a sewing machine, but it's easy enough that you could post yourself in front of the TV tomorrow night and finish them in time for Thursday.  Here's what you need for this project: Coffee filters, embroidery thread, a thick needle, card stock, a pen, scissors, and loose leaf tea (you can also always cut open tea bags and take the tea out).

 Steps // 1: Cut heart shapes out of your coffee filters // 2: Line them up and carefully sew the edges with your embroidery thread (or, if you're lucky, complete this step with a sewing machine and some colored thread) // 3: Before you close up the heart, fill the bag with loose leaf tea // 4:  Thread a short piece of embroidery thread through the top of your tea bag.  Thread the opposite end through your tag, which you will make out of card stock // 5: Write a sweet message to your Valentine on one side of your tag and write the type of tea in the bag on the other side // 6:  Put the tea bags in a pretty bag or tin (see this tutorial for some ideas) and give them to your friends to enjoy!

Another super easy idea is to use embroidery thread to decorate a craft paper bag filled with treats.  Here is a tutorial for making these little baggies. I just filled this one with conversation hearts, but if you have more time you could fill it with these home-made heart gum drops, or you could make a larger bag and give your Valentines delicious heart-shaped baked goods, like these Nutella treats.

Two years ago my roommate and I made a bunch of pink cupcakes and put these little heart labels on them for our friends.  This is a great idea if you have a lot of people that you want to give something to, but don't have much time.  Just cut out heart shapes, write names/messages on them, glue two heart pieces together with a toothpick between them, and stick them in your cupcakes! (credit for this picture goes to my lovely housemate Caroline).

What are you making for your Valentines this year?