Plate Art

So before I found my amazing retro plates, I had this idea that I was going to thrift a bunch of mix match ones and draw on them. Then I found the plates but I still wanted to draw on some and I had this idea of a "plate wall" for a while so I combined the two! It's not quite done yet but I thought I'd give you a little preview and some of my sources of inspiration.

Hanging Cameo Plate 

 Plate Wall 

Love Plate

I know I'm kind of doing this backwards but here's a little how-to on how you hang plates.

Materials You'll Need:

Plate

Plate Hanger

Picture Hanging Thing (nail and the hook)

So you've got your materials, this is super easy. You get the plate hanger,

And you hook one side of the plate hanger to the top of the plate. Then gently pull the other side to the bottom of the plate. Make sure they are evenly place.

Nail your picture hanging thing into the wall where you want your plate to go.

Hang your plate!

Or two

I'll do another post on decorating plates soon, promise. And my soon to be, "Wall of Plates". It's going to be awesome!

 

Inspiration Monday: Summer!

So, I've decided I'm going to start doing "Inspiration Monday" posts every week! Every week it kind of takes me a day or two to get inspired and get back into the groove of work. Running your own business takes a lot of work and I think the hardest part is making yourself do it and still love it. So I always try to find inspiration everywhere I go and feed off of that to get myself to work. From here on out, I'm going to post a bunch of things that inspire me on mondays! I've recently joined Pinterest so that's probably where most will come from. If you're not a member, you should totally join because it rocks! Well, here goes nothing! Inspiration Monday numbero uno, summer edition!  

source.

source.

caramel and sea salt topped shortbread, yum! recipe.

Hanging rope shelf. source.

Frozen Strawberry Mojito, dubble yum! Recipe.

Love.

source.

source.

Rasperry Beer Cocktail; Recipe.

Color Chalboard; source.

source.

And I'll end with this awesome piece of art, I want to make one?

source.

Happy Monday everyone! Let's get this week goin'!

Daily Outfit Post: Studio

I wore this outfit to work and decided to switch things up a little! Instead of taking pictures in front of my store background I decided to take some pictures where I spend most of my time in my studio, on my makeshift couch/bench/thing! It was actually a coffee table that I spray painted white and made a cushion and pillows for. Since I run an online store, I spend a lot of time on the computer and here is where I do it! 

 Outfit Details: Grey Tank Top: Target Red Checkered Overalls: Thrifted Green Flower Pin: Thrifted Gladiator Sandals: Forever 21 

 

 

I'm so excited! In a couple days I'm going to implement a new store logo and redo my store's aesthetic! I've been kind of holding out because I still have like return address labels, tags, and other stuff with the old logo and I kind of wanted to wait till those run out but it seems like they never will! So I'm just going to go for it, I'm ready for a fresh new look! I can not wait to share. Well, have a good weekend everyone!

A Little Humor

for you Friday. Enjoy (:  

Hair Dying: Brown To Red

The original plan was letting the majority of my hair stay the natural color and dying the blonde tips blue or pink. And then one day I went to Walgreens and saw a girl with red hair and blonde tips and I just fell in love. I went straight to the hair care isle and bought myself some red hair dye! I feel like I should have been born a red-head. It goes so well with my complextion and freckles! The only drawback is that I was just starting to like wearing red lipstick and now it clashes too much with my hair! Oh well, I'd take the red hair over red lips any day. Anyways here's a little tutorial on what I did.  First, here's some pictures on what my hair looked like before. It's so weird, before I got pregnant my hair was like a light, mousy, brown but now it's super dark brown and I'm not exactly a fan. It's just soo dark and I guess I'm not used to it? Who knows, but I really like it red.  



 Here is what I used, first I had to lighten my hair (bleaching) so that the red would show up. I used about 2 ounces of 20 volume developer.  
And this violet Kaleidocolor toner (because I think I have a little red in my hair already and this kind of neutralizes it). 

 

Pour both into a non metal container and mix until some what smooth. 



I then applied it to all the brown hair about 1" away from my roots. I learned from experience that your roots will bleach faster than the rest of your hair because of your body heat so do that last.





Once you've finished that, leave on for about 5 more minutes and then go back and do your roots. Cover with plastic wrap to trap in the moisture and then blow dry on low for another 5 minutes.  

 
Rinse hair out with luke warm water. I always rinse my hair with a mild shampoo too, just to make sure it's all out.


 

You can either blow dry your hair a little or if you have the patience, let it air dry for a bit. I didn't dry it all the way but so that it wasn't too damp.

Now you are ready for color. I used this Revlon "Medium Auburn" (it was like $4 and the only color that I liked, score!)

Follow the directions on the box. Mix, apply to hair, timing, and so on.

 

I think I left mine in for like 15 minutes. And then rinse with whatever conditioner they give you.

And here is the after picture:

 I really love it. Oh and here is where I got everything:  20 Volume Peroxide, Kaleidocolors Toner- Sally's Mixing Bowl, Applicator Brush, Mixer, and Clips- Sally's Revlon Hair Dye- Walgreens



DIY Plate Stand

I've been wanting to make a plate stand forever but didn't have anywhere to put it to use! I came up with an idea to put one in the bathroom so I went out and bought plates and candle stick holders. Then, I came home and Brandon hated it. He said he liked what was there already, blah, blah, blah. So I had to come up with another idea and decided to put it on my dresser right next to my new treasure cubby thing from the last post!  Without further adieu, here's my DIY Plate Stand Tutorial:

 I chose to use three plates, of different sizes.

 
And since I have three plates, I need two candlestick holders.


 
I used this Epoxy stuff that my dad uses on everything and is super strong. I have no idea where to get it but I'm assuming any hardware store. I wanted to use something that I could trust because with Eliza wrecking havic all over my apartment, I don't want to have to worry about this thing falling down at any moment.


 
Basically all you do is take off the cap, and squeeze equal amounts of both sides onto a plate. Stir with something you can throw away (I used a plastic coffee stir/straw thing) and then apply it to your candlestick holder.


 
I decided to stick the candlestick holders to whichever plate was going to be on top first because I figure it would be easier while I can still flip it over and see the middle and all.





I attached both candlesticks and gave them about 20-30 minutes to dry.



Once the middle plate is done drying, you are going to attach the candlestick holder to the bottom plate. Give that about 30 minutes to dry and attach the top plate with the second candlestick holder on top of the middle one.

And there you have it!

 I'm in the process of decorating above my dresser but once I get it all figured out, I'll be sure to share!

 

Wood Treasure Cubby

For this project, I was inspired by this post over at Cakies.  She finds and repaints a dollhouse shadow box and I wanted one for myself! I didn't find a dollhouse one but a big square one with a ton of little cubbies! So Eliza and I painted it "Belgian Cream". A few coats too, this sucker just did not want to be painted!










 I don't have a bunch of fun things to put in there yet but soon enough!

Since this is such a short post, I'll post a few fun pictures that I dug up from my files.

 

 I think this was her first bubble bath. That smile is priceless (:

For all of these pictures, I used the action- Golden Vintage. I love actions....