DIY

Personalized Recipe Tins for Mother’s Day

Lifestyle DIY, Family, Food + Drink, Gift Guide May 8, 2018

I wanted to do something special this year for Mother’s Day to celebrate some of the moms in my life, so I looked at two of my go-to brands (Rifle Paper Co. and Anthropologie) to come up with this extra personalized Mother’s Day gift idea. When you grow up in the South, most special events are anchored by a big meal. We have seafood gumbo every Christmas Eve, fish frys and crawfish boils on Fridays during Lent and always picked out our favorite meal for my mom to cook on each of our birthdays.

All of these meals are special to me, and I wanted to think of a way to keep these recipes together. Here are my personalized recipe tins that are perfect for your next Mother’s Day gift – and a great keepsake for yourself!

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DIY | Raw Hem Jeans

Lifestyle, Style DIY, Outfits, Spring Outfit April 24, 2017

I love to shop for spring, because my personal style includes lots of bright colors, fun accessories and sandals for days. Items that I stock up for during the springtime will be worn for months and months at a time. Spring and summer are also fun times to try out new trends, however I don’t want to spend a hefty amount on seasonal trendy items. Enter my DIY – or DI-Try – skills.

When I gave up shopping for Lent, I learned that I want to invest in classic pieces and need to focus on the actual needs of my closet and not just what fashion bloggers are wearing that look stylish at the moment. I am a big fan of jeans and want one of each of these pairs with all of these new hem styles, especially raw hem jeans, but I would rather spend my $200 on a pair of everyday, never go out of style, classic blue jeans. So I thought, this is nothing a pair of scissors can’t fix!

I am the youngest of five kids and my mom used to sew a lot of my clothes growing up. I guess I had couture before I even knew what that meant. My closet was full of one-of-a-kind Charmaine Villere originals, however I did not get the sewing bug. I needed a new pair of white jeans this spring, and I had just invested in an expensive pair of ripped jeans, so I couldn’t pull the trigger again so quickly. I picked up a pair of $40 jeans from GAP and they worked well for a little while as I cuffed them at the bottom (see here) since I need everything hemmed. I really didn’t like how I had to keep cuffing them, and I knew I wanted some raw hem jeans, so I bought some fabric scissors and just cut those hems right off!

I’m sure there is some exact fabric science when it comes to doing this, but I just chopped off the bottoms where I thought I wanted them to hit me above the ankles. These pictures are before they went through the wash, but once you throw them into the wash the hem becomes more frayed.

I was pretty proud of myself for this little DIY project. Not only did I not spend an absurd money on a pair of trendy designer jeans, but I repurposed something I already had in my closet at no extra cost! As I am spring cleaning my closet, I am looking at my clothes and jewelry a little differently to see if there is anything else I can use them for before giving them away.

You will see this color combo – blue, yellow and pink – over and over again on the blog this spring and summer, because it is my favorite bright combination. I have shoes, shirts, dresses and accessories in each of these colors. You will see the obsession soon enough! I hope you are all off to a great start this week!

DIY | Mini Easter Baskets

Lifestyle DIY, Holiday April 13, 2017

Each year I always plan in my head to get ahead on birthdays and holiday decorating, and each year I still find myself running behind. This year I gave myself ample time and planned way in advance to put together a little something for all of the ladies in my family to give them on Easter Sunday. We spend Easter in New Orleans, and this year my mom, sister, grandma and cousin will be there with me, so I wanted to do a little something special for them.

Now, I am no DIY-er. Shea likes to call me DI-Try. But, if you need a last minute easy-to-do DIY Easter present, then here you go! You can find all of these items at Target, so you can swing in and make one stop to put together these mini Easter baskets.

I wanted to stick to a palette of pastels and Easter-inspired colors, so that is what I had in mind when picking out items. First, I found these cute ceramic bowls in the dollar section and knew I could use them. They were $3, so maybe this section should be called $5 and under…maybe?! Anyway, I knew they would make perfect mini Easter baskets.

I headed straight to the beauty section, because I knew I could find some mini items or sets to split up that would be great goodies for my baskets. These que bella face masks were a good find and come in a variety of different treatments. I also found a six pack of Me! lavender bath bombs that I could break up to put one in each basket and a double pack of EOS strawberry lip balm to split up too. The light purple and pastel pink fit my color scheme perfectly. I added a pastel Goody hairbush and topped each bowl off with some light blue hershey kisses. The total cost of each basket is around $12, so it is also a budget-friendly Easter gift.

If the ladies in my family read my blog or look at my Instagram, I might be spoiling their Easter surprise, but I guess that’s blogging…whatevs. If I was going to put something cutesy together, I was for sure getting a post out of it! They are all moms and are always getting other people’s Easter baskets together. I am excited for them to get one of their own this year!

We are in New Orleans where we have a ghost tour planned for Thursday night, then a swamp tour on Friday, Crescent City Classic 10K plus a crawfish boil on Saturday and then spending Easter with my family on Sunday. I need a vacation to recover from my spring break! I hope you all have a very happy and healthy Easter!