Tutorial - Latte Sprinkles

I've developed a latte addiction very recently and I average 2 homemade lattes a day. It's just so easy and satisfying! I have a particular obsession with tea lattes because there's just so many variations and options! I just love that fluffy cloud of frothy milk that sits on the top of my drink but I've felt like it's been lacking a bit of...decor. So today I'm going to show you how to make your own adorable latte sprinkles! Why do you need to DIY latte sprinkles? Simple. You cannot just throw full sized sprinkles on your lattes because it will fall right through your froth!

Here is what we're going to make; Toffee & Dark Chocolate sprinkles


My inspiration? I visited a DAVIDsTEA store and noticed these adorably packaged sprinkles and instantly wanted to make my own mix. They come in 75g bottles and cost $15.00 for 2 or $8.50 for one. They offer Chocolate Sugar Sprinkles as well as Golden Sugar Sprinkles (it grinds up gold flakes!). How do they work? Well, there's full-sized sprinkles in a grinder and it's as simple as that!


Here's what you will need:

-Small Grinder (must be refillable)
-Zip Lock Bag
-Dark Chocolate Chips
-Toffee Bits
-Gravy Boat
-Masking Tape
-Pencil Crayon (or any writing utensil)
-Adhesive Label

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

Black Milk Crazy Cat Lady Reversible Skater Dress

So last night and this afternoon I had the opportunity to hang out with James Lillis and Cameron Parker of Black Milk Clothing when they made the only Canadian stop, in Toronto, of their SharkieCon tour. I also got to meet a ton of amazing fellow sharkies who love BM as much as I do! If you haven't heard of Black Milk...just check out what I won last night:


An unreleased Crazy Cat Lady Reversible Skater Dress! Of course, paired with pastel lace Jeffrey Campbell Lita Heels and 3.1 Phillip Lim for Target Yellow Mini Satchel


Ribcage thigh brace by me: lipglossandblack.com


My favourite way of wearing the dress!


The back worn both ways :)


Sharkie! Also, some awesome BM bracelets from last night

I'll blog a bit more about SharkieCon Canada when I have all the photos gathered. But keep an eye out because this dress will be available on Black Milk Clothing soon!

business as usual

Hey guys,
We've been claiming to be REALLY busy for the past few weeks but we haven't really elaborated on what we've been actually up to! We've taken on a few extra projects in relation to our fashion line and we've also been trying our best to not be such home-bodies & getting outside & doing things. I hope that in the next couple of weeks we can catch you up on where we've been :)



To start, I wanted to tell you about one specific project we've been working on.
A group of students from McMaster University (my alma mater!) asked if they could focus on our business for a Master's level entrepreneurship project. We completed a quick interview over email & then they asked us if we would like to go into their class to speak about our unique business! We were so flattered but were a bit nervous about speaking to an MBA level class about business. We lack a background in business and aren't great public speakers either but after speaking on the phone with Dr. Honig, we felt much more comfortable. He reassured us that entrepreneurs are so accustomed to talking about themselves and their companies that we would surely be able to speak to the class for a full hour.

So a few weeks back, Samantha & I threw on some trendy blazers & went to speak at a university lecture :)
It went well & the students asked us lots of questions about L&B. & no one was mean to us. haha
Plus, we received two lovely leather folders as a commemorative gift. Thank you Dr. Honig!

Currently, the students are working with us to give us some form of a business consultation & recently came to our studio for a meeting, armed with a half dozen cupcakes for us!






They weren't just any cupcakes either! They're from Westdale Cupcakes in my old area when I used to live in Hamilton ♥

I just wanted to give you guys a quick primer on what we're doing right now because I'll be asking for a bit of help in our next post! In return for the favour though, we're already doing another giveaway so keep an eye out!

Thank you all so much for always reading & commenting!
and thanks to the students at Mac that are working with us right now to improve our business :)

the x-out project

We were recently contacted by Guthy-Renker to participate in a project! The makers of Proactiv have a new product called "X Out".

They've enlisted a handful of Fashion, Style and DIY bloggers to create a dress inspired by X Out. All the dresses will then be sold via eBay auction & all proceeds will be donated to Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention Center. We just received the package in the mail...




X Out stands for confidence and putting your best (breakout-free) face forward with just one simple step, like putting on a dress!


There's 3 methods for using this one-step product, as shown above!
Since I personally have SUPER sensitive skin, I'll be trying out this product as a spot treatment :)




We were also provided our choice of a white American Apparel dress to reconstruct. Using the bottle & the company's manifesto as inspiration, we're gonna start giving that blank canvas a makeover! We have a week to complete it, so look forward to the final photos soon!

xoxo
&

072: sew cute

This post is in lieu of yesterday's lack of post, hah. Seems we're bad with weekend blogging sometimes.

I just wanted to devote a post to thanking our cousin Jean! My mom gave us this little brooch yesterday & said it was from Jean. Apparently she was shopping in St. Lawrence market & it made her think of us! SO CUTE!


A little thimble filled with some pins, shears & bolts of fabric!


& of course, you know we love novelty & miniatures so this was such a sweet & thoughtful gift! oh yeah... and we're seamstresses too. lol

Jean, my mom said you read our blog all the time so THANK YOU from myself & from Sam too! Hope to see you sometime soon,

xo

070: stickers!

While we're doing our own giveaway on our blog, we were reminded of WHY we need to show our fans how much we appreciate them.

Look what came in the mail for us!!!





One of our customer/friends actually designed these customized stickers and printed this HUGE roll and sent it to us! I'm not sure the pictures are really showing how big this roll is! These stickers are 3 inches in diameter! hahaha.
THANK YOU SO MUCH LI-ANNE ♥ !

It was only about a year ago that a customer sent us beautiful customized buttons! & as we did with those, we're going to share the love & give out the stickers with all of our packages we ship out! ♥

gotta love random acts of kindness! what's the nicest thing anyone's done for you?
xox

060: a spot of tea

Sometimes when I start picking out an outfit, there's a piece that I already know I want to wear FOR SURE. I'll usually base all my other pieces around that one item, like that certain pair of new shoes or a cute new skirt. Now, it's very rare that I'll base my entire outfit around an accessory, but I just got something special. As I was saying on Saturday, my friend Candice gave Sam & I some cute gifts from her line of jewelry & I really wanted to show off what she gave me :)


vintage dress from my mom, floral cardigan from zara, straw fedora from spring, litas by jeffrey campbell, necklace from the candy shoppe

This miniature teacup necklace features the most adorable porcelain china cup & plate. The tiny classic floral design really had me thinking of english tea parties, so I wanted to dress feminine but modern & made sure to complete my look with a straw fedora :) & to maintain my edginess-- teased out hair, smoked out eyes & my litas.







What Candice gave us:

a teacup necklace for me, a teapot necklace with spoon for sam,
& two custom cupcake rings that actually smell like vanilla & chocolate!

Candice makes a lot of tea-time & coffee-time inspired jewelry, which is pretty much our jam. Sam & I are major coffee & tea addicts, so we don't just love to drink it, we love all the accessories that go along with it (we need a new loose leaf tea steeping device badly! lol). What's your caffeinated drink of choice? Coffee, tea, espresso, latte ?!

xoxo


ps, free mcdonalds coffee all day everyday this week! :)
pps, we have an awesome ~surprise~ for you tomorrow. be excited, ok?

For full disclosure - We are not affiliated with the Candy Shoppe and were not paid to write this review. The items were given to us as gifts & this post simply contains our opinion of the products :)