Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Rain, Rain...Time to Play!


So it's raining today, and it got me thinking...
What's so unique about rain in the Spring/Summer season is not only is it raining, but it's pretty warm out. Being prepared for the rain in the colder seasons seems to be pretty simple: coat/jacket/trench and whatever underneath with whatever waterproof boots you have. For the warm Spring & Summer, there is so much opportunity to have fun with your warm, rain look.
Here are a few looks, ALL outfits totaling $100 or under!
$95-Groovy Baby
Mod Rain - $95

Forever 21 retro style dress
$25 - forever21.com
Shoes
$25 - bakersshoes.com
H M magnetic clutch
£13 - hm.com
Forever 21 daisy jewelry
$4.80 - forever21.com
See through umbrella
$20 - modcloth.com
$100-Pastel Bright
Rain - $100

Top
$20 - forever21.com
Aso
$30 - asos.com
Shoes
$20 - bakersshoes.com
Forever 21 ring
$4.80 - forever21.com
Necklace
$7.90 - loveculture.com
Fulton umbrella
$17 - asos.com
$98- Edge of Rain
$98- Edge or Rain
$97- Plus Color
Plus Size Rain- $97

Forever 21 striped top
$16 - forever21.com
Forever 21 zipper jeans
$25 - forever21.com
Shoes
$20 - bakersshoes.com
Wallet
$15 - pinkice.com
Stripe Umbrella
$20 - accessorize.com



In the end, remember this: Have fun! The Spring and Summer is all about having fun with styles and colors. Choose what you love. Rainy days can feel a bit gloomy, so why not be the quirky bit of sunshine to brighten the day?!
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Monday, June 11, 2012

DIY: The Ankle-lace


Why can't your ankle get a little fancy for your night out?
This is a variation on the anklet, a little more jazzy, that's meant to be worn specifically with heels. I first got inspiration for this DIY from my fave site, Fab.com. It was priced at $30, is no longer there, and unfortunately I can't tell you the designer (but great work mystery perp!).
Cute right?!
But again, the $30 price tag did not work for me. So like many of my other craft DIY projects, I took to eBay. I knew I would need jumprings, some sort of clasp (in this case a lobster clasp), and chain. AND I FOUND THEM ALL!!!
3ft for $1.04, free shipping
50 for $1.99, free shipping
400 for $1.50, free shipping
Which brought the total cost of this DIY to $5. Less if you considered how much/many of the items were actually used.

Other tools used:
-Strong pair of scissors
-2 tweezers (not really, but if you have delicate fingers you may want them to twist the jumprings
1. Loosely wrap chain around your ankle
Make sure to flex your foot. This will simulate the space needed when walking so that the chain won't be too taught.
2. Cut where needed with the scissors.
3. Connect Jumprings to both ends of the chain. Then on one end, connect the lobster clasp to the jumpring.
Jumprings are twisted open and close. Mine were easy to do with my fingers, but if it's hard for you, pinch one side of the opening with the tweezer and twist the other side with the other tweezer.
4. Lay flat and eyeball where you want your center chain to be and connect a jumpring. Then count 5 links from that and add another. This is hard to type out, the pics should help.
Nothing is connected but the jumprings. I laid the chain out to get an idea of how it would look and exactly how long I wanted the hanging chains.
Here were MY measurements. You can change them to suit you however you'd like.
-Ankle chain: 9"
-center chain: 4"
-middle chain: 6"
-outside chain: 8"
Believe it or not, I didn't plan that. I measured only after I cut them. MAGIC! lol
5. Put on the ankle chain (it's easier, at least for me, to connect the chains) and connect the chains.
Twist the jumprings close as you attach so that the chain won't keep falling off.
6. Look cute, put on heels, and take pictures!!! 
You can change this however you like! Experiment! Add beads, other chains, pieces of old necklaces you have laying around and don't wear anymore. I was thinking of adding a portion of a locket necklace I don't wear anymore and keeping the locket on. Why someone would look at a locket on my foot, idk... but the locket is cute.
Here's the finished (basic) product:
Pardon my dirty floor, I had just gotten finished distressing some vintage flare jeans.
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Thursday, June 7, 2012

DIY: Gold-Leaf Top Coat


It seems like the nail trend for the summer is more focused on texture than all of the patterns we saw in the spring. While perusing Sephora online, I saw just a few of what I am sure to be big nail hits (like a hammer, haha). One that I felt was supper cool was the gold leaf nail.
Sephora by OPI, It's Real 18K Gold Top Coat, $30
I don't know if you noticed, but that certainly does say $30 for that top coat. If you have that kind of money to spend, then great. But I don't. What I do have is a budget of $10 to recreate the look.
So here's what I used:
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Cleary Quick, $4; Gold/Silver Leaf bought on eBay, $6 at most for both; Revlon tweezers (1 of 2 minis) $3
 I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Clearyly Quick and some gold leaf I bought on eBay for $1.29 (the silver I got for $1.05). You can use whichever you prefer, they'll work the same. You should pay no more than $3 for an ounce, especially on eBay. Otherwise you can just buy it from a craft store. I also found that I needed to use a small piece of paper rolled into a funnel and the end of a paintbrush (you can really use any pokey thing, stick like lol) to push in the gold leaf and mix it into the polish.
1. Open polish, roll piece of paper into funnel, and use tweezers to pinch gold leaf into the funnel. 
Obviously I don't care about my floor lol. Depending on how large you want the leaf to be on your nails, you may want to pull it into smaller pieces in the funnel using two tweezers. The leaf gets everywhere so avoid fans, I wasn't thinking too much about it because this was an impromptu crafting and now it's everywhere. You want to get quite a large amount in there in order to have an adequate amount come out on the brush when you're painting your nails.
2. Push in gold leaf using your chosen stick thing.
 You can use old carry-out chopsticks or the end of a paintbrush like I did. Just make sure that it can fit into the bottle and can move around in there because the next step is to
3. Leave the stick in, but remove the funnel, and stir the polish.

Once you're done, put the top back on the polish.
4. Paint your nails with your base lacquer.
I chose the 'Making Waves' color from the Sonia Kashuk 'A Powerful Punch/Mini Colour Set' that I picked up from Target for $10. I love this set because it had a lot of on-trend colors like a nude, a turquoise ^, a poppy pink, and a neon-ish orange. I love turquoise and gold together, it's very earthy and reminds me a bit of the tribal trend. Did I mention that that bold color was only from ONE COAT?!
5. Use your new gold-leaf top coat!
Oh my chubby little digis... *le sigh.* I let some pretty large pieces get into the polish as something of a surprise for when I used it. The other hand had more of the smaller size pieces.
Out of a bit of nervousness of losing this amazingly new mani, I decided to put another coat of plain clear polish. This lasted about a week. Hope you like it!
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