DIY Quilted Nails

Hey ladies,
Peep these quilted nails that we did for the LuLus blog! Click on the photos below to go to the full tutorial. We're channeling a little Chanel here. Let us know if you give it a try :)

diy plaid nails

Hey ladies,
Check out this festive manicure that's perfect for wearing on Christmas morning with your pyjamas or with an LBD on your big New Years night out! Click on the pic for the full tutorial on the LuLu*s blog!

Sponsor Highlight - Luxxor Vintage

Hey guys,

Just wanted to take a moment during our winter holidays to introduce you to our newest sponsor! Take a look at the sidebar & you'll see that at the top, we've got Luxxor Vintage! Sarah sells gorgeous vintage jewelry and handbags in her shop.



The beautiful Art Deco and Victorian pieces are so hauntingly beautiful that I had to show off a few of my faves:



Top row (L-R): Antique Locket / Victorian Book Locket c.1880s, Antique Art Deco Ring With Amethyst Glass Stone c.1920s, Antique Edwardian Locket With Monogram and Original Photos c.1900

Bottom Row (L-R): Antique Art Nouveau Enamel Orchid Flower Earrings, Vintage Locket /WW2 Sweetheart Locket with Green Rhinestone c.1940, Vintage Pocket Knife Necklace / Mother Of Pearl Pocket Knife c.1920s

Sarah of Luxxor Vintage was kind enough to offer readers of Syl and Sam a special coupon code.
*** Use SYLSAM15 for 15% off your entire purchase! ***
She even offers free shipping worldwide! So if you don't get what you want this Christmas... you know exactly where to go. Go take a look at her lovely collection and let us know what you think!

DIY Givenchy Inspired Cat Hat

Want to learn how to make your own Cat Hat right meow? Check out our latest tutorial for making your own Givenchy F/W 2011 inspired hat. It's super simple yet quite adorable!

DIY Balmain Dress

I'm a ridiculous person. Ever since I was young, I remember becoming very obsessive with meticulously time-consuming crafts. I would become addicted to completing overwhelming cross-stitch pieces or multi-row friendship bracelets. I would spend hours devoting time to my projects and whenever I was doing other things... I'd be thinking about finishing my work.

I took on this project knowing that it would be ridiculously long and tedious, but I loved every moment of it and finishing was SO satisfying.

I think that some DIY posts are successful because readers feel like they can achieve the same results, while others are great because of the wow factor. I'm really hoping for the wow-factor here. Check out my DIY Balmain by clicking on any of the pics below! Hope you like it!

aldo beanie, DIY balmain dress, aldo "peake" shoes, DIY gorilla arms jacket

wedding weekends

So here are the last of my wedding weekend posts. I know it went by quickly, but it's already over! I originally started writing for Precious Invitations as a freelance guest-blogger-- I was going to write for them twice weekly for 8 weeks and then we would discuss how they would like me to continue posting. They invited me to continue but to increase my posting to thrice weekly!

Lemme tell you, writing these posts was so fun for me and I would have continued but another huge opportunity came up for me unexpectedly. These are my last posts with Precious Invitations but I promise, it's not the end of my wedding-related posts.

I know this is cryptic, but I'll have more news for you all very soon! For now, click through each of the photos to read my articles:


DIY Ring Pillow - Make a cute personalized pillow with the date of your wedding on it! Pretty easy & so meaningful :)


What to Wear to your Bachelorette - From the crazy party night out to a spa weekend. Here are my outfit picks!


DIY Jam Jar Favours - I love fruit preserves and sharing all the deliciousness from my yearly garden. This is just a simple cover idea to make your jam jars match your wedding theme.


DIY Fruit Escort Cards - Keeping with a cute rustic theme, these escort cards aren't just cute-- they'll stay put if you've got an outdoor wedding & a breeze risks blowing away any little pieces of paper.

Enjoy!

DIY Lace Flares

This week Sam teaches you how to make a pair of lace flares! Basically, you can learn how to make a pattern by cutting up some old leggings, which is a pretty good primer for learning to make any pants! Take notes dudes, this is useful stuff.

Click on the photos below to go to the full tutorial!


derek cardigan cat eye glasses, zara blazer, ub velvet dress, diy lace flares, aldo pumps

diy outlined nails

Wow guys. I am super behind on blog posts! I've had some crazy busy things happening in my life that I'll surely update you on soon... for now, check out our latest mani on Lulu*s by clicking on the photo :)

DIY Dolce and Gabbana Purse Chain

Dat D&G FW2012 show.
I talk about it a lot. A lot, a lot. I'm so obsessed with it! So obviously, this week's DIY is inspired by the pretty bauble-y chains on all the handbags. Go check out the step-by-step on Chictopia by clicking on the photos below:








Beads Direct was kind enough to have sent us all of the supplies for this project! Their shop has tons of great beading supplies and shipping from the UK was super fast. Thanks for your patience with us Claire! We really appreciate your great customer service :)

DIY Polka Dot Nails

We've done some dotting on nails before but it was a randomized rainbow look-- this time we went for the simplest design and the most basic coulours for a high impact polka dot manicure. Click on the photo below to head to the LuLu*s blog to see our step-by-step instructional :)

DIY Baroque Fitted Cap

Baseball caps. I'm obsessed. When fall comes, I'm constantly sporting headwear & right now I've been alternating between my fitted cap and my trusty floppy beanie. Anyway, this week's DIY is a really easy fix up of a boring hat-- change a blank into a designer inspired one with some appliques! Check out the full tutorial on Chictopia by clicking the images below.



Short story: Matt's Grandma was clearing out a bunch of old clothes and wouldn't you know it-- she's pretty much my size. I grabbed a bunch of amazing vintage skirts, a cape that I wore here and this vintage fur. It's got her name embroidered on the inside pocket, so it's a piece I'll always value in my closet... I'm yet to actually wear it out though because-- what the heck do I wear it with?

DIY Studded Cross Nails

This week's Manicure Monday on Lulu*s are some studded cross nails. A little bit of military colour with some Christian symbolism-- mah fave.

Click on the image below for a step by step tutorial of how to get this look! & yes, you place the beads on one by one. Be patient, my babies.

Magazine Features

Recently, we were featured in three different UK based magazines! Good things happen in threes right? Or is that bad things? ...

We're so lucky to be able to say we have friends in so many countries around the world. We were actually able to ask our friend Hannah of Tiny Birds Did Sing to go grab these for us! She was such a sweetheart and went out right away to make sure the magazines were still on the shelves (Grazia is a weekly mag) and then shipped them to us!

We just received our mags this week:



This is our feature in Make Jewellery Magazine. A huge thanks to Rianna for reaching out to us for this feature!


And here's a brand new DIY tutorial in Grazia UK-- we made some side-panel pants, inspired by 3.1 Phillip Lim ♥. They asked for permission to publish this article in other international editions of the magazine, so let me know if any of you catch this article in another edition of Grazia.


And we don't have a hard copy of this mag, but we were also featured as the blog of the month in Sew magazine! LEGIT. A big thanks to Victoria for finding us for that one!

So things are looking pretty good right now, we had only one "real" magazine feature in Cosmogirl a while back and then in just a month, these three happened :)