Obsessed with Tassels #DIY

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Trendy, colorful and perfect for spring.  Almost everyone is selling tasseled key chains, not only for your keys, but to add a little pop to your favorite clutch or purse.  The best part about everyone selling this trendy little piece, is that gives you plenty of options in every price range.  Most of the tassels above start at only 30 dollars.   

If you are itching to make your own, the DIY Tassel Key Ring is one of the easiest DIY’s out there.  If you can cut, glue, and measure you can do this DIY.  

Supplies & Tools

Directions

Cut a strip of leather ½” x 3” piece of leather.  Fold it in half around the key ring and super glue the strips together.  Use a binder clip to hold the piece together until they dry.  While you're securing piece dries cut another piece of leather 4” x 10”.  On the backside measure ¾” down, this is your stopping line, for when you begin to cut the strips.  Next measure ¼” strips going the length of the leather, mark with your sharpie. Once you’ve made your mark, cut the strips leaving your ¾” at the top.  Don’t worry if your lines are perfectly uniform, little imperfections add a personal touch.  Once you’ve finished cutting, glue your unfringed strip and begin to roll around your leather attached to the key ring. If you want to add a cleaner look to the secured end attached two upholstery nails with a small dab of glue. To hold while drying wrap rubber bands around top.  

Perfect Your Morning With These Amazing Coffee Mugs

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Daylight Savings Time has really screwed me up.  I was just getting my sleep clock back to normal and in walks Daylight Savings to throw everything off.   Needless to say It’s Monday, I’ve had way too many cups of coffee, and all I want is a big nap. While I was drinking my third cup of coffee today, I started thinking about my coffee cup collection.  I will admit that outside of office supplies, coffee mugs are a bit of an obsession for me.  The perfect mug can really set your morning off right, and add a little flair to your desk.  I have mugs that are just for the morning, mugs for when I’m having a crappy day, a sleepy time tea mug, mugs that double as pencil cups,  and even mugs that I use for wine.  Check out of few of these mugs that will brighten even the worst of days.

DIY Gold Polka Dot Mugs

(printable instructions)

  • Step 1: Clean off your mugs and let dry.
  • Step 2: Grab a tiny bowl of rubbing alcohol, along with cotton balls and q-tips.  These will come in handy if you make mistakes.
  • Step 3: Add polka dots or any design you desire.
  • Step 4: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place mugs and/or bowls into oven for 30 min.  
  • Step 5: Let cool and enjoy!

Tip: Place your painted pieces into a cool oven, so they can heat up gradually.  It will keep your products from potentially cracking at the heat change.

Tip: Wait 72 hours before you using your painted piece.  The lady at the craft store told me to do it, so I’m telling you.  Note  I don’t always do that. 

Tip: Don’t paint anywhere that your mouth or food will touch. Feel free to grab blue painters tape to mark off areas that need to stay clean.  

Tip: When it comes to keep your mugs clean, I opt for hand washing.  Though when I’m feeling really lazy, I’ve put them in the oven, with no problems.

I Make Mornings Look Glamorous Mug  // Seize The Day Mug // Goodmorning Dollface Mug // Wonder Woman Mug // T.A.R.D.I.S. Mug // Monogrammed Mug // Colorful Monogrammed Mug //  Contrast Mug Set from Horne // Gold Polka Dot Mug //

This Weekend I...

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I got my Domestic Goddess on and baked up Lemon Cookies with a Bourbon Buttercream Frosting. 

I went wild for my two favorite things; stripes and making to do lists.  

I got better acquainted with my Bamboo Tablet and edited a few shots of green.

The weather got warm this weekend and I a little bronze to my cheeks.  I also slathered on  Jergens Natural Glow Lotion since my legs are a pasty.  

Work went wild with my zebra obsession taking over my desk. 

A quote by unknown got my through the week, Happiness is a bright and shining thing.

Friday morning started off pretty rough, with some bad news.  Thank god for Iggy Stardust and is killer cute face. We played and it took my mind off things.  

Saturday I got colored for a an upcoming client shoot.

My birthday carried over into March and I opened and obnoxiously pink package.  It put a big smile on my face.  Side note, I’m still finding pink confetti, glitter and crinkles all over the house.

How was your weekend?  Did daylight savings totally throw you off? Did you get to enjoy a sunny Sunday?  

I Just Want To Eat My Dinner In Silence And Go Home aka Let's Pretend This Never Happened

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A lot of you had the New Year's Resolution to read more books. Yep that's right, it's March and I'm still bringing up those drunken resolutions you all made.  For some of you, reading books wasn't a problem, but you did want to branch out from your usual genre.  BlogHer Book Club, or any book club is a great way to do both.  With book clubs since you aren't in change of picking the book, you often end up reading things you would've never cracked open.  Sometimes you fall in love with it, and other times you hope to never cross paths with that author again.  

For fans of Tina Fey and David Sedaris-Internet star Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, makes her literary debut.

When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father (a professional taxidermist who created dead-animal hand puppets) and a childhood of wearing winter shoes made out of used bread sacks. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it.

Lawson’s long-suffering husband and sweet daughter are the perfect comedic foils to her absurdities, and help her to uncover the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments-the ones we want to pretend never happened-are the very same moments that make us the people we are today.

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir is a poignantly disturbing, yet darkly hysterical tome for every intellectual misfit who thought they were the only ones to think the things that Lawson dares to say out loud. Like laughing at a funeral, this book is both irreverent and impossible to hold back once you get started.

AUTHOR BIO:  Known for her sardonic wit and her hysterically skewed outlook on life, Jenny Lawson has made millions of people question their own sanity, as they found themselves admitting that they, too, often wondered why Jesus wasn’t classified as a zombie, or laughed to the point of bladder failure when she accidentally forgot that she mailed herself a cobra. Her blog (www.thebloggess.com) is award-winning, extremely popular, and she is considered to be one of  the funniest women alive by at least three people.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened  by Jenny Lawson is smack dab in the middle for me.  Some parts I found really funny, but after while I was over it.  It was sort of like going to a dinner party you really didn't want to go to, and getting sat next to someone you don't know.  In a pleasant surprise that stranger has some amazing stories to tell.  At first they have you laughing out loud, and you can't get enough.  You're already planning on asking the to brunch next weekend, but then something shifts.  A lot of the stories start to feel too big to be real, or just variations of previous stories, and right around story #500 (or maybe it just feels that way) you just want to eat your dinner in silence and go home.     

A lot of people seemed to be turned off by the vulgarity and cursing int he book, but that was right up my alley.  In real life, I cuss like sailor.   My problem was the flow of the book.  Since Jenny Lawson is a blogger this book reads more like the worlds longest blog post and less like a book.  She jumps all over the place with bits and pieces of scattered thoughts.  Sort of like an excited 6 year old telling you what they did today, halfway through it's just a white noise of incoherent ramblings until you finally get to the end.  

Overall I think I might take the book titles advice and pretend this never happened.

Book Club Links:

Last Week I...

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Baked -  I went nuts in the kitchen and baked up 150 Shamrock Cookies.  A lot of you want to know why my cookies look amazing and slightly store bought.  It's because of Sweet Sugar Belle and her amazing recipes.  To bake amazing cookies like mine and get all the tips and tricks in the book check out her,  Basic Sugar Cookie, Royal Icing, Flood Icing, and Roll Out Cookie Recipes. 

Watched - Over the course of the weekend I binged on Twin Peaks.  I craved doughnuts & pie, questioned the red room, and the sanity of everyone in the town.  Fell in love with Kyle MacLachlan and solved the murder of Laura Palmer.  Netflix doesn't have Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and video stores don't really exist anymore. So, I grabbed it from Amazon and plan on soaking it in next weekend.

Bought - I did a little shopping for a upcoming client project and picked up tons of colorful lanterns from Ikea.  I can't wait to share the finished product with you.  

Sipped -  The Granny Smith Cooler is my new favorite Pre-Spring Cocktail.  It's smooth and the perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon.  Trust me when I say it's going to become your new favorite Brunch companion.   

  • 1 oz lime juice
  • 2 oz granny smith apple juice the fresher the better
  • .5 oz pear brandy (you can use fresh pear juice if you can't find the brandy)
  • 1.5 Gin
  • Top off with Seltzer

The recipe can be tweaked to suit your taste.  I make mine in a wide mouth mason jar so I have to add a lot more gin.

Worked - Friday I worked late which required a big latte and green striped pretzels that I made.  Lately I've been on a baking and candy making frenzy and the pretzels are my new favorite snack.

Went - I went wild for green and prepped this months color. #Green

Indulged - I indulged on popcorn, stripes, polka dots, Liberty of London and cocktails, while attempting to clean off my DVR.  I still have 15 episodes of Vampire Diaries, 5 episodes of Supernatural, more Lifetime Movies than I can imagine.  I did mange to get completely caught up on Scandal and just gave up on Hart of Dixie. 

Got - Things got pretty colorful in my world with new notepads and notebooks.  #WorkHappy

Opened - The best part about having super busy friends.  Is the belated birthday presents, because they forgot.  It makes it seem like your birthday is lasting all month instead of one day.