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diy sea salt spray + printable labels
remember yesterday when i said i love valentines day? well a day later and i still do. after my trip to hawaii, i picked up a bag of hawaiian sea salt (and a couple as souvenirs for my family) – and i decided to make a little valentines gift for the special ladies in my life.
i have wavy hair naturally, but unless i just got out of the shower – it usually needs a little help. so i will stick my hair in the sink and wet it, or i will use sea salt spray. i’ve been using bumble & bumble surf spray for years, but i wanted to learn how to make your own. if you don’t know about sea salt spray – it basically is supposed to replicate the way your hair looks when you come out of the ocean (all beachy and wavy and textured) the verdict so far with my formula is that it’s working and cost me like no money!
* i used these small 4 oz. spray bottles so if you’re going to use a bottle that’s larger, just increase the measurements.
INGREDIENTS
spray bottles
a little less than 4 ounces of hot water (not boiling, just get your faucet super hot)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt (adds stiffness)
1/2 teaspoon epson salt (less stiffness)
1 teaspoon of conditioning oil (coconut or almond or whatever, i used my husbands citrus beard oil because i love the scent)
a small dab of gel (you can use hair gel or aloe vera gel)
a small dab of leave in conditionerDIRECTIONS
fill your bottle with the hot water, add together the remaining ingredients. shake the bottle HARD for about 1-2 minutes (it’s fun to hear the fizzy sound at first, then it gets boring).
that’s it. that’s all you do. you can modify your recipe for your hair (less oil if you have oily hair, you can add more scent, etc) and it takes like 5 minutes to make it!
once your bottle is shaken and dry, apply the printable labels! (you can tell i’m still on my lettering kick) you can print the labels on any round label paper, or whatever shape you have or want.
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printable valentines cards
valentines day will be here before we know it – so i made some printable valentines for you guys to give your sweeties. i’m usually not very girly unless it’s valentines day and then i go all f-ing out. last year i wore a pink skirt even. and i made scrambled eggs in the shape of a heart. i guess i love valentines day, because i love love.
you know the drill : print on paper or cardstock and trim with an xacto or scissors. write your valentine a sappy or sexy message on the back.
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payday wishlist
it’s friday! after about two years of working freelance at home, my husband recently got a new job – which makes me very happy. but i’m also now reminiscing about us working from home together and i definitely have not appreciated the weekend as much as i do now. we’re going on a dinner date and i really want to see big eyes – but we never end up seeing movies in theaters, so how about i just say that i want to see it. i also want to see top five. hope you guys have a lovely weekend!
01. would this not make the best fruit bowl ever? plus it’s for a good cause.
02. i’m in love with these uncomfortable ikea chairs. DIY cushions?
03. we light a lot of incense due to a lot of cat poop, this beauty would replace our tea can holder.
04. jewelry storage is one of those things i’ll never be good at. the few things i wear are always scattered everywhere.
05. such a pretty bag. a girl can dream. also she can maybe DIY it.
06. remember when i said a girl can dream? she will dream about the scrambled egg spoon fo life.
07. last week we all agreed we couldn’t afford that copper watering can. well how about this mister instead?!
08. i eat a lot of toast. A LOT. is that enough of a reason? probably not.
09. usually i shy away from colors in our apartment, but i am sooo into this [very affordable] rug. -
almost makes mixtape ⋅ vol 13
how is it mid january already?! time is flying, and i need to remind myself to chill when i’m getting a little wound up about it. here are some songs i’m listening to to do just that.
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diy marble moon phase wall hanging
because moon phases are currently my favorite thing, i really wanted to make an easy wall hanging for our bedroom. so i created this one in about 20 minutes!
materials
- black polymer clay (2 packages)
- white polymer clay
- cookie cutters (round, oval + square)
- toothpicks
- string / needle + thread
- a rolling pin
01. soften up your clay and shape out your black balls (teehee), i used each slice of the package as a separate ball (teehee).
02. add a bunch of small pieces of white to your black and roll around in your hands to get the white to spread organically like marble. careful not to blend the white in too well or you’ll have to start over. (you may remember this technique from this post)
03. roll out each piece using your rolling pin (that you obviously don’t use with food because that would be nuts).
04. using the circular cookie cutter, shape a circle. to get the crescent moon shapes, press the circle in again lower. cut out all the shapes you’d like using the various cookie cutters.
05. let the clay cool off from your hands if necessary – then poke a hole in the top of each piece using a toothpick, and bake according to the package directions.
06. once baked and cooled, tie your pieces together. this was super hard to figure out how to do / photograph, so gideon drew this diagram for you. basically — you loop the thread through with your needle, and knot on the backside. try to space yours out better than we did.
07. tie a loop at the top of your string and hang!
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the big island, hawaii
we got back from our trip to hawaii last week – we went with my new in-laws, and had an amazing week. we’ve gone to maui with them in the past, but this time we stayed on the big island. at first, i thought maui was a little cooler – but i ended up loving the big island. we drove almost around the entire island, and there was so much different scenery and climates. it was really amazing.
unfortunately, i didn’t bring my actual camera – and found out during the trip how truly shitty my iphone camera has gotten. it seems like the camera lens just expires (way before your upgrade) – so i’m now desperate to switch providers so i can get an iphone 6. have you guys noticed your camera being horrible after a year?!
we stayed in a rental house with an amazing pool and view, so we hung around in the pool quite a bit and relaxed. we also explored a few cute towns like hilo, hawi + honokaa.
A FEW PLACES WE ATE
lava lava (right on the beach, during happy hour they have live music, which we missed)
kona brewing company (really good pizza)
grandma’s kitchen for brunch
bamboo restaurant (i loved their potstickers)
huggo’s (mai tais on the sand)
despite the shitty iphone camera, i got an underwater case for christmas – and got a LOT of use out of it. it’s now my favorite item.
we went ATVing one day, but i chickened out after having crashed a moped 9 years ago, so we took the dune buggy driven by the guide through the eucalyptus forrest – and it was amazing. i highly recommend skipping the ATVing and just riding on the buggy. you go way faster and get to look around a ton more.
we also drove hours and hours to see volcano, which was pretty amazing – but the lava was closed.
i highly recommend the big island if you’re visiting hawaii! sorry i didn’t collect more tips, but i was busy having a blast.
+ also, i realized i never did a post on our honeymoon in tulum. oops. i guess i’ll do that if you guys want?!
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payday wishlist
because it’s the first week of january – today’s wish list is all about january cliches.
also! i’m introducing a new feature to the wish lists where you can click on most items to go directly to the source. YAY. let me know if you have any issues with it.happy friday!
01. i will always say i will keep plants alive. i will never keep plants alive. i still want a fancy watering can though.
02. i’m always searching for pretty new throw pillows, this year my resolution is to buy one or two.
03. i love collecting cookbooks, but like for real. i never cook from them. and i really want to. and i want this one.
04. i tend to be sooo bad at remembering to send thank you notes. shame on me.
05. why are electric toothbrushes sooo ugly? all black makes almost all things look better.
06. writing things down is super helpful. i am a chronic list maker. i need pretty places to write said lists. -
diy guess who
my brother and i have been into board games since we were little — and we still go hard with it. we do game night with friends and play games every chance we get. so i decided for his birthday last month we’d make him his own personalized guess who with all his friends and family and his longtime man crush sam rockwell.
there were A LOT of hiccups while making what seemed to be not so difficult. like one after another. but luckily, if you want to try doing it on your own, you can learn from our mistakes.
here’s how to make your own diy guess who board game!!
materials
- craft plywood for the bases
- wood rectangles for the pieces
- dollhouse hinges and screws
- permanent double stick tape
- super glue
- craft paint (optional)
- a thin wood dowel
- muslin bag
- thick cardstock
01. start out by choosing who you’ll include in the board. you’ll have to spend a couple hours tracking down decent photos of people from their facebook pages. in photoshop, cut out everyones heads and add a colored background if you like. make the photoshop file slightly larger than the pegs so that you can trim down once attached.
*i forgot to put the names on each card like in the actual game, because i admit i forgot to google what the game looked like until we had finished the whole project. oops. if you’d like to add the names, you probably should. we chose 25 people so there were 50 pieces altogether.
02. print out three copies of each face. the third is for the bag. trim down.
03. when the birch pieces showed up, i didn’t like the way they looked on the light board piece, so after trying a different couple stains, i decided to paint them all. i think it added a more fun look to the game — so if you agree, paint the back of 50 pieces.
04. attach the faces to the pegs, we were planning on using mod podge but didn’t want to risk messing up the print outs, so we used double stick tape instead. might not be the most permanent but it won’t be used everyday so i think it’s ok.
05. measure and line up all your pegs onto the board, and using an awl, make pilot holes where the hinges will go.
*speaking of hinges, the hinges proved to be the biggest pain in the ass of all. we didn’t have time to order them online because we came up with the idea so close to my brothers birthday, so we called about 25 stores to find them. we finally found them at my favorite craft store in studio city and bought everyone that they had in stock, but a bunch of them were wonky and stuck. i hate these hinges and hopefully will never use them again.
06. once we had screw a couple pieces in with their hinges, we noticed they didn’t line up well with the other rows, so we skipped screwing the hinges in on both sides and glued each hinge to the peg directly, then screwed each hinge into the board. it saved some time as well as our sanity.
07. cut your dowel down to four identical pieces. leaving a tiny bit of space between, glue two down to the front to hold your card.
08. once you’ve peeled the super glue off your fingers for way too long, you can personalize your muslin bag. i made a simple design that i printed on iron on transfer paper, and filled the bag with the remaining cards.
and now we never have to get my brother a nice gift again because we just trumped gift giving forever.
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hi 2015
the holiday break was soooo nice. i’ve had a long break from my day job and i had nothing to do but just relax. we just got back from hawaii, so i’m now adjusting back to reality, but i still haven’t taken a lot of time to reflect on 2014 or resolutions. i usually skip resolutions because i don’t keep them and they feel like a waste of time when i should just focus on doing my best — but decided to lay out a couple really doable general life ones because i’m feeling motivated right now.
2014 was obviously a pretty important year for me. getting married really triggered the fact that i’m somewhat of a grownup now and i should at least pretend to act like it.
FOCUS ON MY MARRIAGE
we have a tendency to sit around a lot watching hulu and eating in bed. this is bad i know. on our guest book advice cards at the wedding, my brother even suggested “don’t eat in bed”. we’ve agreed we’re going to try to do a weekly date night – even if it isn’t going out to dinner, but just even taking more walks or picnics or trips to the farmers market. or going to museum exhibits before we realize it’s too late and they’ve closed. another idea we’ve had is to hire a housekeeper. we’re both pretty slobby, so we realized how much happier we’d be if our apartment was just cleaned and we didn’t have to live in shambles. i think it might be really worth the money.STOP BEING LAZY
as i just said, i sit around and watch tv a lot. i haven’t worked out since before the wedding – sorry dad. so i’d love to even just get up and walk around our cute neighborhood more. but besides being lazy with my body – i can also be super lazy with the blog. i will get on a super kick with project brainstorming, buy supplies and then sit on them. and then sometimes i’ll see a project on another blog with the same idea as mine before i had a chance to make it. this has happened a lot actually. so when i come up with an idea, i should just do it. the same goes for focusing more energy on expanding blogzilla. and to get super shallow : i also want to do laser hair removal. anyone done it before? how much does it hurt?
TRAIN THE CATS
for christmas, we got a cat toilet training kit. i cannot seem to muster up the courage or nose for cleaning the litterbox, so my husband does it. we are really hoping they can poop where we poop because never buying 15 lb litter tubs would be super nice for us. plus i’m sure photos will be hilar. wish us luck!KEEP LEARNING
i’ve been really getting into practicing lettering, while i don’t think my technique is that good – i enjoy it which is what matters. and i’m even doing my brothers wedding invites with watercolor. i also really want to get better at photography and i’d love to learn how to weave. and i want to learn how to keep plants alive. but even if i don’t do all those things in 2015 – i’ll just know that i wanted to and that’s what really matters, right?TURNING 30 AND BEING OK WITH IT
in 2015, i will turn 30. my husband always says 29 is harder because all you do is focus on how you’re 30 and then once you turn 30, you’re used to it. it’s a little daunting, but i’m hoping some things will happen this year that will make me feel like we’re on the right track to our future — mainly seeing if we can buy a house. also i need to be better at paying bills. that’s what adults do right?do you make resolutions? do you feel good about them in january and then not do them?
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diy washi tape gift wrapping
it’s my last post of 2014 before i veg out a little for xmas – and then we’re going to hawaii next week! i’ll be back after the new year, but didn’t want to leave you guys without one last really easy idea for spicing up your simple wrapping paper.
if you have some pretty washi tape laying around, here are two patterns you can add to your presents for a pretty modern and rad looking gift. just cut and stick! duh!
and don’t forget to add the printable gift tags!
i also wanted to thank all of you guys for this year, i clearly had a hard time sticking around while planning my wedding – but i came back and put all my effort back in because of the support that didn’t seem to go away. thank you for not leaving me. i don’t always have the time or memory to respond to comments, but i really wouldn’t have come back if i didn’t think there were a couple of people that really wanted me to.
getting married in 2014 made it my best year so far, but i’m looking forward to 2015 and i’m feeling super positive about everything to come. hope you guys have fun plans coming up for the holidays!!! x
