DIY Glitterd Glasses

Hey Everyone! Sorry it has been a ridiculously long time since I've posted anything (last few weeks have been very hectic). But to bring everything back to reality I have my absolute favorite craft ever for y'all to enjoy...

GLITTERED GLASSES! 

I've made this for for several people as birthday gifts and they LOVE them. So I decided to share this fun project with you.

I found simple cocktail glasses as World Market for $1.99 a piece. How awesome, right?! I chose to do the typical set of four glasses. The glitter I used I actually found when I wasn't really looking for it. The brand is WOW! glitter and I found it in TJMAXX for $15 with 24 colors whereas a 24 pack of Martha Stewart glitter is $30. I also used some Modge Podge, Martha Stewart Glaze, and painters tape.

First things first, rip off a long enough strip of tape to wrap around the trim of the glass. Since these glasses are round and the tape isn't make slits every so often. This makes for an easier time getting the tape around the glass. 

 

Once all four glasses are tapped and ready to go choose the colors you would like on your glasses. I chose to do cotton candy, sunflower, cricket, and powder for mine. 

Take a glass and apply Modge Podge with a paint brush than slowly pour the glitter around the entire glass coating it evenly. To put the remaining glitter back in the tube I just used a funnel. After all four glasses were completed I went ahead and did a second coat of the Modge Podge and glitter. If you hold it up to the light one coat tends to be see through. 

Two coats of glitter 

Phase One is complete (: 

It is best to leave them alone for a few hours or overnight depending on when you do them just to make sure the Modge Podge is completely dry.

Now that you've patiently waited for them to dry, part one of making sure the glitter stays on has to be done. This is where I used the glaze. The glaze comes out kind of like a milky white, but don't worry it's clear on the glasses!

Paint a thin layer of the glaze onto each glass and let it dry. 

As you can see here the glaze makes the glitter a little dull looking compared to the picture above, but that's ok they still look good. The glaze does have to be on there in order for the glitter to stick! 

Now time for the last step...oven curing!

To really make sure the glitter sticks and doesn't wash off or come off while holding oven curing has to be done. 

Remove the tape from your glasses. Pressing down glitter along the edge if needed.  Set you glasses on a baking tray upside down and place in a cold oven. Preheat oven to 350  degrees. Leave oven on for 30 minutes than turn off and let glasses sit on oven till oven is completely cool. Since your oven and glasses are both going in cool they will not crack and brake. 

FINISHED PRODUCT!

Hope y'all enjoy your new glasses! Feel free to try on any other glass too. It is a little time consuming, but definitely well worth the time. 

Here are the first two sets I did for birthday gifts. Friends use them ALL the time! (:

xo G

Decorating Sneak Peek

With school right around the corner it's time for me to move into my new apartment & begin a new chapter in life. 

With a new place comes a new canvas to become creative with. 

Here's a sneak peek of some of the organization & design elements I'm putting into my new space!

I realized with this move I have way more shoes than I know what to do with. But I decided to display them nicely right as you walk into my closet & I have color coded the heels from dark to light. It makes an organized chaos 

Also, I am color coding the entire closet based on the type of item it is { eg.T-shirt, Dresses, Shorts etc}

It's creating a more organized effect & stresses me out less when finding something to wear to school or work!

I decided to display most of my jewelry out in the open. I purchased a silver jewelry holder from TJ Maxx for $15. It makes my jewelry look elegant & adds a decorative touch.

As for my winter clothes I am shifting them to the back for now! Holding on to summer as long as I can {but still keeping them color coded}

For my actual room I will share it in more depth later but these are just a few of my favorite design elements. Instead of painting the walls I have decided to incorporate color into all my decorations. 

My books are ordered by height and the colorful books add a pop of color.

I purchased the "pencil holder" from IKEA for $3.99 {it's actually a plant holder}.

 I added my pack of sharpies for a punch of color on my desk

 {other desk accessories soon to come}.

As for the decorative shelves I have added my favorite Lilly Pulitzer frame atop my treasured fashion/beauty books. {The Teen Vogue Handbook, Bobbi Brown Beauty and Lauren Conrad Style} 

I added some patterns with my Liberty of London from Target box & binders. Added a splash of color with chic picture frames and voila; I have a colorful bookshelf! 

Finally, a little sneak peek into the rest of the house. I am still perfecting the living areas but I color schemed the dining room placements just to spice the space up a bit.

The turquoise dinnerware is from Target for $20, I have seen them on sale for $17.

The placemats {$2.99 for 4}, napkins {$1.99}, and napkin holder {$3.99} can all be found at IKEA.

I will keep you all updated on the move in & all the decorations we end up putting together. 

For now I leave you with this sneak peek.

 Hope you enjoyed!

XO M

Saying Goodbye to the Simple Summer White.

With summer closing in upon us I want to savor what's left of my time to wear white. 
However, I have never been the one to follow the rule of not wearing white after labor day ;)
Everyone says you need a little black dress. 
I say everyone needs a little white dress.


For a summer picnic
A day at the beach
& lunch in town.


My favorite white dress was a gift from my mama.
Simple, eyelet and cotton.
I always go for cotton dresses this was the perfect pick for me.
(If you check out the website there's a little surprise cutout in the back too)


She purchased it at PacSun this past season.
& can now be found on the website for $30


I just love everything about it.

Lets add a little sass with sunglasses.

I grabbed my favorite straw bag.
Perfect for the beach or a picnic.
& keeps with the neutral tones of the outfit.
It was part of the Calypso for Target collection a few years ago and it has been my go to outing bag ever since.

Now you cant get this bag any more at target but I did have to talk myself out of a similar gold one ON SALE for $10 the other day. Run do not walk to your nearest Target. They're having HUGE sales.

A little something to add to the dress was a necklace my sister purchased for me at a boutique. I love the southern charm it has & the rustic chain to match the brown hues in the rest of the outfit.

You're probably asking why I am posting this at the end of summer with only a few weeks left before labor day?
Well I have found that my best deals are at the end of the season of course. 
Don't worry summer will come again sooner than you think & now's the time to stock up on your white dresses!


As usual these amazing photographs were taken by none other than Amy Van Epps Photography. She's running a special now for $75 portrait sessions on her FB page through August! Such a deal!


xo M

Tuna Avocado Melt

I absolutely LOVE avocados, so when I decided to make my lunch today I wanted something with avocados. I felt like I needed a healthy twist to start off my week. Family birthdays just call for way too much junk food!

Being that I love avocados so much and its the perfect season for them I buy them constantly. Sometimes they can be a bit pricey, but I've found Publix will often do 10 for 10. So stock up! 

My first thought was tuna with avocados, so I grabbed four 5oz cans of white albacore from the pantry. To add to that I used cherry tomatoes, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper, Swiss cheese, any kind of bread, and of course the avocados. Simple, right?!

First, drain the tuna and than put into a medium size bowl. Cut about a cup of the cherry tomatoes quarterly. For the avocado cut it in half and use the sharp part of the knife to jab into the seed to remove. The best way to cut the avocado is to cut it in chunks inside the skin than scoop it out with a spoon. I usually wait to put the avocado in until last because I don't want to mash it up while stirring. For the Dijon mustard use 1 tablespoon and stir lightly. Add salt and pepper to taste.

This is what it looks like all mixed together.  Delicious!

Next, is cheese time! Put as much cheese as you'd like on your bread (I prefer A LOT). Pop your bread into the toaster on a medium or high temperature to get a nice crunch. 

Finally, once your toast is done, pile on as much of the tuna avocado mix as you'd like. The mix should make two sandwiches. 

And there you have it! A delicious and healthy tuna avocado melt! 

Dig in and I hope you enjoy it!

  

xo G

{Colored Jeans} ft. Amy Van Epps Photography

I recently snagged these gorgeous lilac jeans from American Eagle on super sale.

Originally: $44.50

Sale Price: $29.99

Plus my coupon from rewards and the Extra 30% off promotion

Final Price:

$17.80

I was so happy to find these!

 Many of the stores are putting summers trends on sale to make way for fall trends. 

Now's the best time to stock up on all the trends you couldn't justify paying full price for at the beginning of the season!

I paired the jeans with a soft lace shirt from Hollister. They have all different kinds & I got this one on sale for around $20. The white keeps the look crisp and clean.

I love the delicate lace detail at the bottom. It softens up the look as it flows out around the hips. 

Who doesn't love a little lace?

You can really do anything with the shoes. I chose some leather Etienne Aginer wedges that I snatched up from TJ.Maxx for only $30. They originally had been $80!

Here's a little more detail of the wedge

Mint and Turquoise were the colors of the summer and they worked perfectly while styling the jeans.

Vintage S & T Necklace
By adding the touches of mint from the necklace you're keeping with cool pastels.  The 3 tiers add boldness and dress the outfit up keeping a chic vibe.

Mini arm party anyone?

 My favorite arm party. The 3 pieces work well with all my outfits.

Watch: Relic from Kohls 
Gold Bracelet: J.Crew $14
Turquoise Bracelet: 4th & Ocean $10


  

For a finishing touch add a nude shoulder or cross body bag. I picked this "Chanel" -esque one up from S & T for only $25!

So next time you slip into those colored jeans think about 

adding other colorful accessories, but in small amounts! A 

simple necklace, pair of earrings or a simple bag will do the trick!

Thank you so much to Amy Van Epps Photography who came out and photographed for me.  She's such a professional but so much fun to work with. I couldn't have done it without her.
Check out her Website
Follow her Blog
Like her on Facebook

Melted Rainbow Craft

Just in the past few weeks I've been seeing a lot of people melting crayons on canvas, so I figured I might as well take a shot at it too!

I found a two pack of 16in x 20in canvases at Michael's for $10 and bought a 64 pack of Crayola crayons. Crayola is the only brand that will work correctly for this craft because other brands are too oily. 

For the first step I needed to figure out what order I wanted my crayons. I didn't really want to go by wrapper color, so I found this neat website that gives you the order of colors and went from there!

http://www.colourlovers.com/web/blog/2008/04/22/all-120-crayon-names-color-codes-and-fun-facts

This is what my order looked like when I was done. Feel free to do any order you'd like to other than rainbow I just tried this one first.

 I then held the canvas up to the crayons and turns out 64 is six too many! So I took out all the brown crayons. Now onto step two...the gluing! I used super glue instead of a hot glue gun so the glue wouldn't melt in the blow drying process. It is best to make sure the flat end of the crayon is at the very edge of the board (something I didn't pay attention to) so mine were laid slightly wavy. Whoops!

Now the fun and messy part!

Do this on a lot of news paper, trash bag or outside because the wax will fly everywhere. Turn your blow dryer on a high setting and either warm or hot. Hot will take less time. Begin blow drying the first color section than make your way across. Most boards I've seen the colors ran straight down, but as you can see below I decided to blend my colors together. Just that small portion took five minutes tops.

 

After I made my way across the whole canvas I started to run the wax down the canvas and blend the colors          together more. Thirty to forty minutes later I have created an awesome "Melted Rainbow"!

And there ya have it! An awesome and really fun craft to do that takes an hour or two. Hope y'all enjoy!

xo G

Nail of the Week- Lilac & Grey

I have actually been doing the ring finger trick for quite some time now. adding a little something different to my nails was always a goal. { not to mention it helps with me being ever so indecisive}.

This week I chose to steer away from the summer corals and pinks; and ventured back to one of my all time favorites Rupples Wiggin by Opi. 

It came out forever ago with the Shrek Collection, but I have recently fell in love with lilac all over again.

I decided to also change it up a little with adding Dove by Zoya to my ring finger. The light grey compliments the lilac just perfectly don't cha think?

I found that with lighter shades by adding a base coat it makes the polish thicker and harder to layer. Try skipping the base coat with lighter shades and opt for a stronger top coat. It will take less time to dry too!

Now by no means do I claim to be a professional manicurist.

I have found that by using lighter colors my manicures look like they last longer, because you wont notice once it starts chipping!

Also by investing in a good top coat your manicure will look more polished and last longer.

The only thing about lighter shades is you usually need to add 2 to 3 coats. 

I found that Rupple's Wiggin' took about 3 coats; while Dove took about 2. 

Left : Rupples Wiggin' by OPI Right: Dove by Zoya

Whats your current fave color combination?

xo M

A smile. A handshake. A courtesy. A hello.

Almost every girl has the fantasy of finding their prince charming, living in a castle and embracing extravagant lifestyles.

{Royalty} I think they call it.

For most this dream is just that. {A dream}.  But that’s only if you let it! Why not be the princess you want to be? Embrace the lifestyle you're living and make your own fairytale.

That’s what we have done. We have convinced ourselves {and everyone around us} that we are modern day princesses. We want to help as many fellow princesses {and possibly a prince or two} realize that we can do and be whatever we want to be by embracing every single opportunity.

Whether we're talking about our royal threads, our culinary creations or our creative spunk; we hope to share as many ideas and experiences with you as we can {not to mention while being on a budget}. So we can all become our very own versions of Modern Day Princesses! 

{Enjoy and check back for new posts each week!}

xo M & G