DIY: Tassel Earrings

DIY Tassel Earrings

Today's DIY is all about a super fun gift to amok for family and friends this coming holiday, tassel earrings. These beauties are super easy to make and only require a few tools. 

Tools Needed: Ruler, Embroidered Thread in Your Choice of Color (2 per pair), Pliers, Jump Rings, Metal Wire, Earring Hooks, Credit Card or ID.

Step 1: Cut 16 inches of embroidered thread. Fold in half twice and slip a jump ring to the center.

Step 2: Take the remaining embroidery thread and wrap it around a credit card or ID. I used my school id.

Step 3: Cut Thread at one edge of ID. 

Step 4: Take thread with jump ring and tie and double knot the remaining thread in the middle.

Step 5: Cut approximately 6-8 inches of wire with wire cutters.

Step 6: Fold thread in half with jump ring at center and wrap wire to secure.

Step 7: Slide earring hook on jump ring. Cut threads on bottom of tassel to even out. And your done!

Your finished product. Enjoy!

DIY Gift: The Date Jar

For Christmas last year, I wanted to give Dan something that would give us an excuse to explore our city and do things outside the box. Hence, I came to the decision to give him a Date Jar, full of different dates and activities we could do whenever we needed some inspiration. It would allow us to mix things up with places we had always wanted to explore without all the planning.

I purchased some blue tinted mason jars, navy blue grosgrain ribbon and craft quality popsicle sticks. I first researched creative date ideas for LA and using the base list I found online, then added my own ideas, some which were little to no cost and some which were short weekend trips around the area. All in all, I came up with about 30 different ideas and transferred each idea to its own popsicle stick.

As we complete a date, we take it out of rotation until we are out of sticks and then we can start again. Have you done anything like this to share with someone you love?

Making Your Own Wedding Invitations

When Dan and I were getting married, we had a wedding budget set by my parents and when we saw what personalized wedding invitations cost, we were floored. We also knew we wanted to spend more of our budget on our photographer, location, food and DJ. In addition, I felt confident in my ability to design our own invitations with my experience using Adobe suite products and my past work in layout design in both college and high school.

We researched the style of invitation we liked and found that we both really liked the idea of vintage maps representing our childhoods and where we live today. I found inspiration online from another couple whose husband did the graphic design for their wedding and decided to get to work. I downloaded pages for my Macbook (a fraction of the cost of Adobe InDesign) and started working on layouts for invitations and response cards.

For our invitations I chose a vintage subway map of New York City from the 1930s, representing the location of the wedding and for the response cards a vintage map of Los Angeles from the 1950s. After I was satisfied with the design, I had the entire wedding party proof it for me and then brought the files to Kinkos to be printed. Then with my card stock copies at home, I cut each invitation by hand and then stuffed the envelopes over Easter with the help of my family. My Meme then addressed and sent all the invitations for me.

Here was the final result.

Photo by Courtney Dudley of Craig Paulson Photography

Photo by Courtney Dudley of Craig Paulson Photography

Recently, my friend Suzanne got married and as one of her wedding presents, I offered to design their wedding invitations for them as well as after she lamented to me the cost of invitations. I followed a similar model to my own invitations at request of the bride and am pretty stoked with how they came out.

Here was Suzanne and Mike's final result.

Photo by Reign7 Studios

I have to say if you are confident in graphic and layout design on a computer or have a friend who is, you can spend a tenth max of what personalized invites normally cost. You just have to be willing to dedicate the time to it (because it is labor intensive). Still the DIY wedding craft I am most proud of is our invitation suite.

Learning How to Knit

Over this past year I have undertaken a new hobby, knitting. I watched my grandmother knit for years. She makes the most adorable baby sweaters and beanies for all the newborn babies to family and friends. I also wanted another hobby that was relaxing and that I could do anywhere (long drives, watching TV or resting in bed). Now I know this penchant for knitting has resulted in me being called an old lady by my husband as well as strange looks from most Californians (knitting is not really popular here in Southland), but I just love it. It is peaceful and relaxing and allows me the opportunity to make some really heartfelt gifts. It also gives me a great opportunity to get away from technology for a while.

Right now I am working on a baby blanket for my friends' baby who is due in the next few months, as well as a number of gifts for this holiday. I definitely started out slow, working on scarves to start, but now have moved into hats and fancy patterns! In fact I finished a knit cap with a pom pom when we were babysitting our nephews and both immediately requested their own!

Dan and his hat.

As I have gotten more comfortable with knitting I also ventured into fancier materials. I had been keeping my yarn purchases exclusively to JoAnn's but recently ventured into this amazing yarn shop called Twist Yarns of Intrigue in Manhattan Beach and fell in love. All the yarns are hand-dyed and the owner is just the kindest and most helpful person ever!


The yarns of Twists of Intrigue

In addition, I recently joined Raverly.com, a great website that allows me to search for patterns by skill level, type and cost. A lot are even free! I got this tip from a really nice woman who I flew next to coming back from Baltimore a few weeks back. She is a native Angeleno who also knits and we struck up a conversation after I pulled out my knitting on the flight. The best news from the TSA is that you can bring your knitting on board. Flights are a great time to knock out a bunch of work. Another great option is the Lion Brand Yarn App, that my cousin Kristen suggested. It allows you to search by yarn gauge or type, difficulty level and type and all the patterns are free of cost.

Are any of you crafty? What do you do to let out your non-technological creativity!

6 Easy Halloween Costumes

I have really enjoyed Halloween more as an adult than I used to as a child. It is easy to create really clever costumes as an adult with little to no money spent. Here are just a few of my favorites. A lot of these costumes require little to no additional items to purchase. You may have everything you need around the house.

Easy Halloween Costumes by preppy-lizzy featuring salad servers

In the last few years I have been Snow White, Wonder Woman, one of 20 Mighty Ducks at a Penn State Tailgate, and Luigi with a group of 15 others as a huge Mario Kart contingency. The large group costumes have been my favorite the last few years because you get the added bonus of interacting as your characters. This year I am going to be a ballerina since I am out of town at a conference in Baltimore and need a packable costume.

What are you going as this year? I am expecting to see a lot of Mileys and Kates.

Falling in Love with Fall Polishes & Half Moon Manicures

Today it finally felt like fall in LA. After wrapping up work from home this morning (Have I said how amazing flexible work schedules are?), I headed off to my new favorite nail salon, Dipped Nails, for a signature mani-pedi. Dipped is a great little place that really takes care of you and does a great job on your nails, they even do nail art if you want which is rare to find, even with every magazine printing all these super cool mani-pedis these days.

I am mediocre at doing my nails at best. I am good with my right hand but using my left hand is a serious struggle and honestly just getting a single color done is an accomplishment. My biggest nail design I've attempted on my own is to paint my ring finger nail a complimentary color to the other four. Other than that, I'm a lost cause. Maybe I could do polka dots, but a chevron stripe or french manicure? Please.

So today I decided to go for it and got a reverse half moon mani. I have been absolutely in love with this nail style since I first saw it on Pinterest and finally decided to take the plunge today. I also decided that since today was pretty overcast, I would go for fall colors and welcome in the season.

My New Half Moon Manicure!

I try to always bring my own polishes with me to the shop, 1. because I like to be able to do touch ups at home if I need to and 2. because I don't always find a color I like at the salon. I was able to come home with a perfect mani with Essie Chinchilly as the base coat and OPI Siberian Nights as the half moon color.

Fall Mani-Pedi by preppy-lizzy featuring Essie

I am thinking I may be brave and try it again on my own next time because I am so happy with the result and I have found this great tutorial from Lauren Conrad below that I just may try. In her tutorial the base coat becomes your half moon color and your top coat, your nail color. If you let the salon do the look, they will usually hand paint on the half moons for you, like Juliet did for me today.

How To Get A Half Moon Manicure
Photo Courtesy: TheBeautyDepartment.Com

So what colors are inspiring you this fall for your nails. Here are just a few of my favorites.

The Perfect Fall Polishes by preppy-lizzy featuring a nail polish

How Do I Look?

Now that the blog is officially approaching its 1 year birthday, I figured it was time to update its look. I wanted to give it something a little more professional feel and felt the banner and logo needed some updating. I personally don't have a bunch of money to spend on professional logo designs right now, but I know I am pretty savvy with computer design programs (I designed my own wedding invitations as well as my friend Suzanne's, whose wedding I am a bridesmaid in this January), so I gave it a go.

I ordered quatrefoil digital files from etsy that can be used for small business use at a steal. It was $1.50 for 5 different color patterns, all in my favorite color palette (Navy, Hot Pink and White) and then I got to using Visio to create a banner and logo with text and decorative wallpaper backgrounds. I knew I wanted to go the font focused route, so it was not super difficult.

All in all, after about an hour of work I had three new professional brand logos I could be proud of: the banner you see at the top of the page, a new logo for my Facebook page, which I encourage  you to like if you don't already, and the banner for my Google+ page, which required a much larger banner width than what I wanted to use for the blog itself.

Our Google+ Banner

Our New Logo Anything Social Media Related

So what do you all think of Headbands & Bagels new look?

Save Some Cash - Email Save the Dates

As I realize I am quickly approaching my one year wedding anniversary (Dan and I tied the knot last September) and I have multiple weddings coming up that I am helping with, I realized it may be time to share some insights I learned during my own wedding planning process.

One of the biggest things every wedding has to deal with (with the exception of celebrities) is a budget. I was extremely lucky in that my parents threw Dan and I an amazing wedding with little cost to Dan and I, but I still had to be cognisant of the budget and make smart decisions. Did I want to spend more on flowers or photography? Did I want to splurge on my dress and scrimp on the accessories? Would it be a kick ass DJ or band? Did I want to cut the food and drink budget for great wedding invitations? There are so many little bits and pieces that start taking chunks out of a wedding budget and because I knew I wanted to throw an amazing day of party, I figured I needed to save money on some more frivolous items. The first major cut, doing any sort of fancy Save the Date.

I was amazed at how much each individual save the date costs. Not only are you worried about printing them, but postage for a big wedding adds up fast. We all currently live in the age of technology where party invites come via Evite or Facebook, not the mail and while I knew I would send out wedding invitations (I saved money there using my computer design skills to make my own - more to come on that another post), I figured Save the Dates could easily be emailed!

I quickly did a search on Etsy for Save the Dates as I had not yet undertaken designing my wedding invitations, and came across a great vendor in Australia who designed a great graphic Save the Date with our specific wedding colors and all for a total of $5. Seriously $5 is all I spent on my Save the Dates and I still think they turned out great.

Designed by Etsy Shop HermiasWishes

And the best part of all? You get to save money for something else important, like thanking your awesome wedding party....

Goodbye iPhone 4, Hello 5 - DIY Monogrammed Case

Yesterday was a sad day. I officially had to retire my iPhone 4. It had some corrupted software that could not be restored, but at least I was upgrade eligible. Also turns out that Apple has a pretty great recycling program where you can get an Apple Gift Card for your old products. I filled out the paperwork online last night and got quoted $170 for my 4. Pretty decent deal all in all.

I really liked my 4 and I have to say I am most upset about having to buy all these stupid adapters and losing my awesome cases for my 4. I had a great monogrammed case that is no longer, as well as a super cute Kate Spade iPhone wristlet and neoprene Kate Spade case. Both are headed for eBay, as I can't use them anymore. Boo.

The Apple Store did at least have some cute case options available, and since I am leaving for Vancouver tomorrow for a weekend ski trip, I knew I didn't want to risk no case on the new phone while I waited for a new monogram case. Instead I decided to make my own!

I got this super cute blue and white stripped Kate Spade hard shell case and then went on Etsy and ordered an adorable vinyl monogram sticker that is iPhone sized.

Source: Apple Store

The stickers come compliments of MEEsDesigns on Etsy and are super affordable ($3.00 each). You also get to customize your choice of style and color, which make sit super personal to you. I got a Circle Monogram in hot pink. I am looking forward to seeing it with the turquoise.

Source: MEEsDesigns

She also makes really cute monogrammed stickers for your iPhone chargers so you always know which one is yours. I could see this being super handy as chargers are always getting mixed up. And at $2.50 each, they are totally a bargain. I got one in turquoise, like the photo, to match my case.

Source: MEEsDesigns

I am so looking forward to my stickers arriving, I can't wait to personalize my case a little bit more! I particularly like monogramming tech stuff since it's too easy to get stuff mixed up. I have a monogram case for my MacBook already, but I am thinking about getting some stickers for my notebooks, iPad and MacBook as well. Who doesn't love a good monogram?

The Easiest Christmas Decoration

I love to decorate for the holidays but while we live in an apartment I try to not do anything to permanent. Besides putting up our tree (unfortunately its fake because we are with my family the week of Christmas and a live unwatered tree is a fire hazard) and the stockings on the fire place, one of my favorite decorations (and probably the easiest), is wrapping the three white doors in our living room to look like packages. Personally I just wrap the doors with ribbons, but you can also wrap them with wrapping paper if you would like, its just more labor intensive and not as reuse friendly.

Our lovely plastic tree.
Have to use Bath and Body Works Candles to fake the smell of evergreen.

I save my door ribbon from year to year which means its green as well as simple. Step one is to take a long ribbon and run it from the top of the door to the bottom of the door and attach with either staples or tape on the back of the door. Make sure your ribbon is long enough to run over and under the door. I love this plaid ribbon with gold details as my long ribbon. It really stands out.

Step 2 is to take 2 ribbons that match and attach them to the back of the door on the left and the right. Then slide the ribbon around the sides and to the front, where you tie the 2 ribbons into a bow over the long ribbon. And voila! Christmas presents for doors. The great thing is you can mix and match your ribbons if you want and you can attach the Christmas cards you receive to the long ribbons to double as a great display of your friends and family.

Here is the finished product as well as the rest of the living room all spruced up (pun intended)!

 

What great holiday decorating tips can you share?

KaraMiaSofia & DIY Emergency Kits

I received no compensation for this post, but wanted to share the company of a good family friend.
I know I have mentioned in my blog that I recently got married this past year. In planning for my wedding, I had seven wonderful bridesmaids to support me along the way. Because of all their wonderful dedication to me, I wanted to thank them for all their support and shower them with great gifts.

One of my favorite gifts to them was a custom order of cosmetic bags from one of my favorite vendors, KaraMiaSofia. Joanne, the shop owner on Etsy, is amazing and so easy to work with. She picked out custom fabrics that coincided with my wedding colors (Navy and Pink) and then made each bag an individual masterpiece. She also made matching pencil cases for my flower girls and a makeup pouch for me as well. But probably the best part of the bags were the custom notes she included sewn into each pouch. She transferred the note I wrote to each bridesmaid and flower girl to fabric. It was a great surprise for each girl and I loved seeing their faces when they found the notes. I know use my bag to hold all my small items in my purse (headphones, bluetooth, lip gloss, tech wipes and back up battery for my iPhone. Here is what the bags look like.

What the Bag looks like. Joanne selected 4 fabrics to make my bags.
4 Bags had the pink center strip and the other 4 had Navy.

The sewn in personalization that KaraMiaSofia offers. This is mine.
The flower girls and bridesmaids each had a short note from me as well. 

What I Carry These Days: Compact, Hand Cream, Headphones (both BB and iPhone),
Bluetooth, Pen, Antibacterial Gel, Tech Wipe, Lipglosses (3) and
iPhone Backup Battery & Charge Cord

To complete the gifts, I filled the bags so they would serve as emergency kits for the day of the wedding. In each bag I added: lipgloss, nail clipper, safety pins (in both silver and gold tones), clear nail polish, nail polish remover cloths, hairspray, antibacterial gel, a face mask, shea butter hand cream, nail files, a mini sewing kit, travel deodorant, compact mirror, mouthwash and floss. You can customize your emergency kit as you see fit of course.

Emergency Kit Essentials by preppy-lizzy featuring revlon

KaraMiaSofia also makes great clutches, iPhone cases, wristlets and makeup bags. I cannot recommend the products and service enough! Not to mention how great Joanne is to work with. You can find her Etsy shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/KaraMiaSofia

What I Love... KaraMiaSofia by preppy-lizzy on Polyvore