DIY Boutonniere Sneak Peak
I spent most of Saturday night making these. My fingers are sore from hours of manipulating floral wire, but I’m pleased with the end result.
I’ll be back soon with a DIY breakdown. Hope everyone had a great weekend!
I spent most of Saturday night making these. My fingers are sore from hours of manipulating floral wire, but I’m pleased with the end result.
I’ll be back soon with a DIY breakdown. Hope everyone had a great weekend!
About a month ago I came across this video for J. Crew’s new fall line.
I love everything about it, the song playing in the background, the clothes, the model’s silly-coy way with the camera, her messy up-do, and most of all her chic swipe of lip color. Watching the video you get the sense that right before she dashed out the door she pulled out her lipstick for that effortless but wondefully put together look.
Obviously this is a preview for the J.Crew fall line, so I understand that this isn’t really how it all went down. Nevertheless, I forwarded the video to my friend Caroline (who also loved her fabulous messy up-do) and we emailed back and forth about what we thought the color might be. According to Caroline, J.Crew uses a lot of Nars products on their models. A few days later I found myself at Sephora and every single Nars color was on display–except for the one that Caroline predicted she was wearing. So I wandered around until I stumbled on Laura Mercier’s Hydratint in Crimson.
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The color isn’t the same–its not nearly as orangey as the lip color on the model, but I love it. I feel like its a good transition from no lip color to full on lipstick. It gives a pop of color without feeling overly dramatic. So far everyone who has tried it has loved it too.
Peter and I returned to Austin just before our blogiversary (the 19th) and have been doing nothing but playing catch up ever since. Each day I feel like I accomplish a million things, then I look down at my to do list and I see a million more. I guess this means I’m an adult. Hopefully, it just means I’m busy.
The drive home from Chicago is one that we’ve done before (Can you believe that we bought our car exactly a year ago and have since put more than 20,000 miles on it?!), but this time Peter and I were both swearing that we will never do it again. A late night flight from New York to Chicago the night before we left added a lot of exhaustion onto the trip. Then, on the second day of driving we got a a flat tire. It was a horrible experience, but we learned a lot from it.
We pulled past the Texas border, cheering because we knew we would be home soon–when all of a sudden our tire pressure light came on. After inflating the tires and then watching the light come back on, we suspected we had hit something. Sure enough a huge nail was lodged into our back tire. Peter wanted to drive the rest of the way of the way home, but I knew it would be a better idea for us to stop at the Honda dealership and get a replacement. Luckily, it was the middle of the day and we were sure we had all the time in the world. Only, when we got to the Honda Dealership the parts guys were telling us they didn’t have a tire that would fit our car. “Okay, no problem,” we thought, “we’ll just head over to the Discount Tire.” Before this trip I thought a tire was a tire and you could get them anywhere, but apparently our 2009 Honda Fit has a very rare sized tire and after spending hours searching for one, we were desperate and didn’t know what to do. We also learned that you’re only supposed to drive 60 miles on a spare, so Peter’s original idea to drive home was out of the picture. We were pulled over at a gas station using the GPS and my iphone to search for places that might have a replacement tire. Out of ideas, we went to Target and Peter bought a bottle of green goo called Slime that was supposed to fix our tire.
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Right as he started getting out the original tire, it started pouring. The dogs and I stayed huddled in the car while Peter pulled out everything that was packed on top of the tire storage area. (I think he packed and unpacked the car 20 times that day.) The rain only added to his frustration and after a very long twenty minutes he knew the tire was destroyed beyond repair. We were out of options and somehow the afternoon had vanished and it was already 6:50 PM. We knew we weren’t going to make it home that day, so we called one of our fabulous friends and she and her boyfriend graciously let us stay at her house. In the next ten minutes we called every dealership in town and eventually located one that had a tire that could work.
The next day we arrived at the dealership, only to discover that the Slime had ruined the computer system in our car that measures the tire pressure, so it had to be replaced. A few hours later, we were finally on the road.
If and when we have to take another long journey, Peter and I will be buying another full tire before we go. Here are a few takeaways from our experience:
1.) Find out if you have a rare tire size before you go on a long car journey. If so, prepare accordingly.
2.) Don’t drive more than 60 miles on a spare.
3.) Slime destroyed the sensors in our car, use caution when using a product like this if you have pressure sensors in your tires. (It also voids the warranty on your tires, if you have one.)
4.) Good friends are hard to come by, but Peter and I are so lucky that we have some who will drop everything, go to dinner with us and drink wine and watch a movie, even on a work night. Thanks again, Caroline and Nick 
Peter and I were looking for a little something to save ourselves from hand addressing every single reply card, when I thought of this. I’ve been in love with custom stamps ever since I saw them on the Paper Cafe, but for our wedding I wanted something a bit more elegant. After searching through all of our options I fell in love with Bryn’s work from Paper Finger. Here’s a little reminder to refresh your memory.
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Interestingly enough, she was the only vendor who replied to my inquiry and she is based in Brooklyn, so I was able to cut out the hassle of shipping and walk over to her studio and pick the stamp up myself. Everything worked out really well. Within a week Peter and I had our very own custom stamp.
My only complaint is that because of the thinness of the lines, it can be a bit difficult to get an even print of the image. But overall, I think it adds to the handmade elegance that Peter and I were going for with the invitations.
What do you think?
Well, sort of–okay not really. A couple weeks ago I did something that I’ve been wanting to do for a really long time. I attended a class at the Little Flower School. Coincidently, a reporter and photographer from the New York Times happened to be covering the class. So, last Thursday I was quoted and pictured in the home and garden section of the paper. It looked a little something like this.
See this awkward looking girl right here?
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That would be me. Surprisingly enough a couple of people actually found the article on their own and contacted me about it. I think the weirdest connection was a guy who I studied abroad with read the article while he was on a train in Tokyo and then facebook messaged me about it. Crazy! Anyway, you can read the article here. Below are my feelings about the class.
I’ve been longing to take one of these classes since they started popping up everywhere in the blogosphere, so you can imagine how excited I was when there was an opening in a class during the time that I was in Brooklyn. I was a bit terrified when I arrived because I really don’t have much experience when it comes to arranging flowers. In fact, usually when Peter buys me flowers I let him put them in the vase for me—wait, does that make me a terrible woman?
Anyway, I was immediately entranced by all of the beautiful flowers.
And despite my fear of doing horribly in the class, things turned out really well. I got a lot of hands on instruction and the teachers weren’t afraid to jump in and make suggestions. Everyone’s arrangements turned out beautifully and they were all very different. We each got lost in our own little worlds for a few hours and when we looked up the room was covered in discarded stems and wild looking little bits of art. It was amazing and worth every penny.
I can’t imagine having that many flowers at my disposal any time ever again. Two fabulous things came out of the class. First, I remembered how wonderfully satisfying it is to spend time away from the computer and create something tangible. Second, I realized that as fun as it is to make flower arrangements, doing one and getting it right takes quite a bit of time. Peter and I had originally thought about doing our own flowers for the wedding, but after having a little bit of hands on experience, I’m happy to outsource this task. Plus, Sarah recommended a florist who is just starting a business in Austin! How amazing is that?! Maybe I will recommend some of the really great flowers that we got to use like this scabiosa pod:
and this one:
and this black basil:
Okay, here’s one last picture of my arrangement from the Little Flower School website. I will venture to say that its a bit more advanced than my last stint with flower arranging.
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Gush! I’m envious of this beautiful world that Nicolette and Sarah get to work in.
