Tutorial - Faux Marble Table DIY

The marble look has been having a major moment in interiors and fashion. It can get a bit pricey to invest in marble furniture or counter tops, so I've discovered a blogger secret-- everyone's been using faux marble! Here's how to get the look on a major budget (like $10!). Bonus: if you get sick of the look, it's removable! Follow along below to see how to get the marble interior look yourself and take your instagrams to the next lev.

on the table: sunglasses, happy plugs in-ear headphones, three hands antelope skull, diptyque candle, the collection candle, lady gaga x terry richardson, alexander mcqueen savage beauty


You'll need:
- Marble Contact Paper
- Scissors
- Small hand towel
- Ikea Vittsjo or any table or surface you would like to marbleize

Tutorial - Tea Advent Calendar

It's been a long time since I been around, it's been a long time but I'm back in town! haha, I'll stop now. Anyway, It's been forever since I've blogged but I've decided that I'd make my first comeback post a good one. I hope it lives up to my words...but I'm pretty excited about this project.

Most of my friends and family know that I'm a tea addict. I think there's also something that happens when Autumn rolls around, my obsession gets stronger. It must be that I feel the fall chill in the air and crave a warm drink in between my palms.

Maybe you understand how I feel? Do you start talking about tea and mention things that the average person cannot relate to? For me, my own sister doesn't get me...so I decided to make an awesome little handmade gift of tea for her to share my obsession. Then maybe by Christmas, she'll be hooked? One can hope so.

Today I'll be guiding you through the process of hand making a tea advent calendar

It's a cup of tea for 25 days counting down to Christmas!

Let's begin with discussing my inspiration:


24 days of tea from DAVIDsTEA: their yearly Advent Calendar that retails for $34.50.
I would say it's their most popular collection and usually sells out within a day of being released (both online and in-store). I was physically holding a box on the day it was released but I knew that my collection of teas was already too big. I've also tried the majority of the teas in the set already. So I talked myself out of it. Later that day, they were practically sold out everywhere. You can find yourself a set for about $70 - $100 on sites like eBay or Kijiji (a Canadian site like Craigslist)!

So why spend up to $100 on a box of 232 grams of tea when you can customize your own? I'm sure you or your giftee would much rather have a calendar that is filled with hand-picked flavours of tea. Plus, not only can you personalize the set to taste, you can customize it around allergies and dietary restrictions.

I think that's enough talking, how about we get started?


What you need:
-25 wooden Clothes Pins (plastic is fine too)
-Printed Napkins (or Wrapping Paper)
-1 sheet of Card Stock/thicker paper

-White String (25 pieces x 6 inches)
-Twine (approximately 40 inches)

-25 miniature Adhesive Labels
-25 miniature Zip Lock Bags
-Black Permanent Marker

-25 different types of Tea

-Gift Box or Bag

-Scrap Paper
-Scissors
-Stapler
-Ruler
-Pen
Optional:
-Chisel-Tipped Permanent Maker or Paint (Colour of your Choice)
-(Tag-Shaped) Paper Puncher
-Colourful Pens

Get your hero on, dude!

Yeap, another Adventure Time alteration! Love this one, Jake the Dog!


One of a kind Jake the Dog Dress by lipglossandblack


Prior to the t-shirt surgery. XL men's shirt


Psst, this dress as side seam pockets! Paired up with my Jake Hat from last Halloween and Jeffrey Campbell Gold Toe Homg.


The end result. Don't have a Halloween Costume yet? Buy it now! Shoes by Jeffrey Campbell: gold toe Homg

Who Wants to Play Video Games?

Remember my post yesterday? I was about to start altering a bunch of items...well here's the first one! Featuring Adventure Time's BMO!


One of a kind BMO Dress by lipglossandblack


The original state of the t-shirt. Pre-surgery - Men's 2XL.


Looking like PJs more than anything.


Love the back of this tee!


The end result. Don't have a Halloween Costume yet? Buy it now! Shoes by Jeffrey Campbell: gold toe Homg

More to come..

I woke up today feeling like altering a pile of Halloween themed items, why not?


Here's the pile. How exciting! Have any ideas of what I should do with these?

I'm going to start my sewing...will post results before the weekend is over!

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!

wedding weekends

Yeah, this is late... or maybe EARLY? I forgot to update you on my past two weeks of wedding blogging! Late or not, here's what I wrote about:


Fashion weeks. I think I'm finally getting a grasp on trend analysis and how they'll translate. I took a look through a billion pics of NY Bridal Week Fashion shows and broke down some quick trends.


I made a bridal sash with those little melted-edge satin flowers I've been seeing everywhere. Cute for a wedding or just to jazz up any dress.


Totes gonna do this. Matching dancing shoes for your bridal party? yes.


I hit up the ol' Polyvore account and made a couple of colages on what to wear to your wedding shower :)

Read, Pin, Enjoy!

275: diy shoeaholic christmas stocking

Check out our new tutorial on Everybody Is Ugly!





Learn how to make your own stylish shoe stocking!
Check it out, make it your own, share your art, comment, vote, and favourite!

111: diy jewelry display frames

So I've been trying my best to amp up a bit of our "presentation' at The Clothing Show because we've got a full 10x10 booth to fill this year. Other than a standard clothing rack & a 6 foot long banner, we've got NOTHING else. So I decided to throw together some frames to hang & display some of our jewelry at the show & hopefully we can also use these pieces in the future by hanging them as decor in our studio.

I'll show you how I threw together these frames from some ornate thrifted frames.


so I picked up this uglay piece of art from the thrift store


I pulled out the "art" part & extracted two gold frames!


Here's what I used:
Chicken wire, wire cutters, a staple gun & some plum spraypaint


Then I took the frames outside & sprayed them with a couple of coats of paint. (sorry grass)


ta-da!


then I cut down some of the chicken wire to the size of the frames. You can use a finer chicken wire if you're using smaller frames too, but this is what we had lying around in the garage.


& then I staple-gunned it into place, making sure to use some pliers to twist the wire ends towards the frame (so it doesn't cut us or catch onto our clothes during transport.)


DONE!


I sprayed a couple more small frames in matching purple...


and here's how the frames look laid out & holding a few pieces of merch :) We're hoping to add a few more frames to this for our display, but we'll see what we can find! (yeah, the hanging wire is showing at the left side of the large frame... I just set this up to show you our vision, haha)

These are super easy to make and an awesome way to display your own jewelry too!


Pretty right? Now to figure out how to hang these up on some pipe&drape at the clothing show ;)



& check out these gorgeous blue hydrangeas! Hope everyone has a good Easter weekend!

xoxo

099: terrariums

I'm big on DIY projects & I'm a liiiiittle bit of a green thumb, so I wanted to try out making a little diy terrarium. These are little self-contained environments that require very little care and look so gorgeous when they're in ornate apothecary jars. I was really excited to be outside this weekend & I found tons of mossy spots in my garden, so I collected a bunch of things to throw into a mason jar to test out a mini terrarium.





I put in some coarse rocks at the bottom, a layer of soil & then some moss & some hens & chicks. I know that by mixing moss (which require a moist environment) and succulents (which hardly need water at all), I might have messed up a bit... but this terrarium is just a test & we'll see if the delicate balance is maintained or if it's a fail.

Anyway, here are some tutorials I've found:
- how to make a terrarium from found objects
- home terrarium how to
Let me know if you try it out! I'll update you on my terrarium's survival.

xoxo