Be inspired!

Have no fear, keep learning, and practice, practice, practice!

What inspires you to create?

Share the Love,

Chelsea

 

 

Whatever Weekend – Whimsical Weddings

Okay, so that’s a lot of alliteration in the title.

Really, though, a friend of mine is planning a wedding, and it has me all nostalgic!

Tom and I have been married nearly 5 and a half years now.

Photo by Tom Thompson

Our wedding was outdoors, with simple fall decorations (lots of plum and green,) and a laid back, picnic-style atmosphere, with a pie bar instead of wedding cake.

Photo by Tom Thompson

Mmmm pie.

It also makes me nostalgic for our friend Tiinia’s wedding. She and her husband, Kevin, were married on the haunt grounds where the work on Friday the 13th. Costumes were encouraged, and the style was a delightful combo of horror and glamorous vintage.

My friend, Tessa, is planning a simple, elegant ceremony, and an Alice in Wonderland themed reception. I’m so excited to help her with decorations for the reception! I’ve loved Alice since I was a little girl, and the possibilities are practically endless.

So, I’ve been working on some inspiration boards on Polyvore.com, a site where you can create your own boards for fashion, beauty, or just for fun.

Here’s some inspiration for her bridal and ceremony style:

Then there’s the reception:

We’ll be thrifting for tea cups, saucers, and pots, clocks, rabbits, and mushrooms, next week.

If you’re planning a wedding, here are some things to keep in mind:

1. Keep a check list, and focus on marking one thing off at a time. Here’s a great list that helps you finish each to-do in time: The Knot Wedding Checklist.

2. Create a budget. Once you’ve decided what kind of venue you want (indoor or outdoor, formal or relaxed, etc.,) the kind of food you want to serve, and your wedding style, start working on your budget. If you don’t have all the money you need right now, open a savings account that you can add to each pay period to pay for upcoming costs. Use The Knot Wedding Budget along with your checklist.

3. Ask for help. Ask reliable friends and family to help with tasks you know they can manage. If you have a crafty friend, ask them to help with decorations. If you have an aunt who loves to bake, have her make edible favors, or even the wedding cake if she’s that awesome. Delegate responsibilities to your groomsmen and bridesmaids, like tailoring and dry cleaning, and the bachelor/bachelorette parties. You might feel the need to have your hand in everything to make sure it’s perfect, but it will be worth your sanity (and your beauty sleep!) to accept others’ help.

4. Enjoy your engagement. Make it a point to date during your engagement. Take time away from planning (turn off your electronics if you need to,) and just spend time with your significant other. The engagement flies by, so treasure every second!

Married? What was your wedding like? Any inspiration photos? Any advice you’d like to give brides to be?

Share the Love,

Chelsea

Thoughtful Thursday – Last Minute Ideas To Save the (Holi)Day!

Put on that antler headband, and beat the bah-humbugs with our list of last minute holiday cheer!

Christmas is less than a week away, and yuletide is upon us. If you haven’t made your home festive (or you want to add some extra,) or if you just haven’t been able to come up with gifts for you friends, neighbors, or that relative that’s really hard to shop for, here are some last minute ideas to make your season merry and bright. (Click on the images for more info.)

Easy Decorations:

 

This has to be the prettiest, simplest tree I can imagine. Outline with lights and add paper cutouts of stars (or snowflakes!)

Speaking of snowflakes, here are some beautiful patterns to use!

 

Make an inexpensive outdoor star decoration with yard sticks.

 

Forego the can of fake snow, and break out your glue gun instead!

Free Printables:

Buddy the Elf printable.

 

 

Holiday subway art printable.

“Noel” banner printable.

 

Forget the expensive wrapping supplies. Use magazine or newspaper, plus these cute printable tags.

Quick Gifts:

An adorable gift for the women in your life!

A natural home fragrance that smells like the holidays. A great gift for the neighbors!

 

What tween or teen girl wouldn’t love some pretty lip gloss in their stocking?

 

Whip up a big batch of this manly smelling shaving cream, and divide into small containers for a great gift. Add a straight razor (and print out a good how-to) for a gift the guys will use all year!

Of course, don’t forget our giveaway to enter to win this gift-able handmade necklace:

 

Share the Love,

Chelsea

 

Make It Monday – Featuring Hearts and Home

Today I’d like to feature our friend Margaret’s blog, Hearts and Home!

She has a great holiday gift roundup today:

 

Don’t forget to follow her on Facebook here, too, to get great tips on living naturally, and nourishing your mind and body.

 

 

Share the Love,

Chelsea

Pinteresting People – 5 Pinners to Follow

It’s easy to sign onto Pinterest and quickly fall down the rabbit hole of beautiful images, yummy recipes, DIY projects, wedding planning, kid activities, crafts, fashion, funny quotes, and cute animals! Needless to say, there are plenty of interesting (or “Pinteresting”) people to follow, but if you’re looking for some new content, here’s a list of some of our favorite Pinners.

Etsy Fort Worth – Ok, so we may be a teensy bit biased here, but, really, our team pins some awesome stuff. There’s everything from member items for sale to DIY and craft projects to fun themed boards like “Sweet Nostalgia.” Who doesn’t love pictures of The Muppets and Bob Barker? While you’re there, you can follow individual members from our team by looking to see who’s pinned some of the content.

Offbeat Home & Life – Ever heard of Offbeat Bride, the awesomely wacky site for all things nuptially related? If you haven’t checked out their sister site’s pins, do not passgo! Even if you don’t think you’re “offbeat enough,” trust me – you are. You will love Ariel and her team of weirdos, and they will love you back.

Alison Erion – I have no idea who Alison is, but if you love vintage and antique fashion (among other things, like sewing, quilting, and homesteading) she is one lady to follow!

Tiinia Auler – Tiinia has become a good friend of ours, and she happens to be a fabulous makeup artist in the DFW area! She pins some of the most gorgeous makeup and fashion inspiration, and some of the most bizarre and beautiful images. I see something excited and new from her every day.

Stephanie Robot Pop – Stephanie pins some of the most colorful and geekerific things I’ve seen, and I love it! Follow her and add some sunshine and rainbows to your day.

Of course, you can also follow us, if you haven’t already! Our business account, LoveAndEyeballs, is full of Etsy fun and what inspires us, or you can follow me personally here.

Share the Love,

Chelsea

Friday’s Favorites – Summer Lovin’

So, I don’t know about you, but we haven’t had much of a spring here in North Texas. We’ve had one big storm (which brought devastating tornadoes to towns around us – you can donate to the disaster relief through Red Cross here,) and a few days in the 70’s, but mostly we’ve gotten sunshine and highs in the upper 80’s and low 90’s. That’s the beginning of summer, if you ask me.

In celebration of our early summer, this Friday’s Favorites list is full of sunbeams and bohemian loveliness.

This beautiful leg chain is a natural evolution of this year’s body chain trend!

This sparkling honeysuckle scented soap by our friend Cassie at Clover Hollow is subtly glittery, and made from the finest ingredients.

Turn the back yard into a movie theater with lots of pillows, cushions, and fairy lights.

Tiny yellow gingham print, puff sleeves, dainty trim, and collar make our vintage empire maxi dress a spring and summer dream!

This golden sunstone and chalcedony necklace by Bespangled Jewelry lets you bring the beach with you wherever you go this summer.

Share the Love,

Chelsea

Happy National Earth Month!

Happy Earth Month, everyone! I’m so glad to see that the earth-friendly living “trend” isn’t just a trend anymore, and that people are taking notice how much we affect the earth around us. A large part of our business is reusing and repurposing the old into new items to make a positive ecological impact.

The other day on my other blog, Chelsea, Like England, I wrote a post about easy upcycling projects you can do around the house as you do your spring cleaning.

I received an email today from Michaels with lists of re-useful projects, including fashion, furniture, decor, and even a block party idea to celebrate Earth Day. They’re also teaming up with American Forests to plant trees with just a simple text.

Just a few days ago, I reposted this pledge on our mission’s Facebook page, encouraging our students to pick up ten pieces of trash each Tuesday. This works anywhere, of course, not just on a college campus, and it’s a great way to celebrate Earth Month way beyond April.

Share the Love,

Chelsea

Welcome, Spring!

Finally, some warmer weather. It’s so nice to see and feel the sun. Around here, we relish in Spring, because by the time Summer gets here, it’s pretty miserable.

It’s time to list new things in the shop and sign up for any shows we’d like to participate in this season. The pop-up market in Fort Worth is coming to Arlington, so we may see what that’s all about! Things are busy here at the center where the hubs and I live, what with our new management, and all the seasonal activities coming up. The big event is our annual Spring Banquet to celebrate our students, and, to honor our new staff and all of the changes being made, I chose the theme “new beginnings.” For the past couple of years, it’s been my job to come up with a theme, buy and make all the decorations, and put them up the day of. Fortunately, we started a little sooner than we did in years past, so I have plenty of time to focus on making things look spiffy!

For our buffet table, I decided to create a display inspired by this tutorial: DollarStoreCrafts: Make A Floral Monogram. As you know, I love me some Dollar Tree, so I knew I would be able to find exactly what I needed to create what I had in mind. Here’s what I have so far:

S-R-N- What does that spell?!?

… “Nothing, Chelsea, that spells nothing. What are you talking about?”

Never fear, “PIG” is here:

For you word scramble enthusiasts, you’ve already figured out that when you alternate the floral and moss letters, that spells “spring.” The moss letters are another dollar store creation. Right now, they have tons of moss on sale of different kinds. I chose the Reindeer Moss for it’s pretty green color, which matches our color palette of grassy green, yellow, white, and pops of red and blue.

It’s not “Make It Monday,” but I thought I’d go ahead and share how to make the moss letters:

What you need

Foam board

Moss (about one Dollar Tree package will cover the front and edges of a 12″ letter)

Blade (box cutter, exacto knife, etc.)

Hot glue gun

How to make it

1. I used some leftover foam board (that I also bought from the dollar store,) to cut out letters that were relatively the same height and width of my floral letters.  They measure about 12″ tall and 5″ wide. If you’re not confident in your free-handing skills, you can always print out letters in your desired font to create stencils to trace onto your foam board.

2. Once the letters are cut out, warm up your glue gun and open your package of moss. Begin separating the moss into chunks so that it’s easier to handle.

3. Spread glue over a small section of your letter, and quickly grab a chunk of moss and press down. You’ll find that there’s probably excess moss that doesn’t attach, but that’s OK. It’s better to have that extra to keep you from burning your fingers as you press down. Continue spreading glue on small sections of the top of your letter and adding moss.

4. Once you’ve covered your letter, tilt it and shake any excess moss off of it (as if you were working with glitter.) You may see that you have a couple of “bald” spots, in which case, just add a drop or two of glue, and use that excess moss to patch it.

5. Now it’s time to cover your edges. Use the same technique, this time, laying glue down the line of the edge for several inches, then covering with moss until you’ve covered the entire edge of the letter.

6. Depending on what you’re doing with your monogram or word, you may want to cover the back of the letter in moss as well. If you’ll be hanging the letter on a door or wall, it’s not necessary, but it gives it a nice, finished look.

7. Now you decide how to display it. You can glue a ribbon to the letter to hang it, glue a dowel or two to the back of the letter to “plant” it in a pot or vase, or leave it as-is to prop against a nook in your home.

There you have it! I’ll be sure to post pictures of my finished “spring” display once it’s done, and some pictures of the rest of the decorations for the banquet.

Share the Love,

Chelsea

We’re officially on Pinterest!

Even though we’ve had personal accounts for a while now (you can find me here and mom here,) we just registered for our very own business account today!

Seeing as we have two Etsy shops, I combined our shop names (as I did on Deviantart) and went with “LoveAndEyeballs.”  We’ll pin our own creations, vintage and antique finds, DIY projects, and feature other Etsy sellers and small businesses, of course. Follow us here.

Share the Love,

Chelsea

Weird Wednesday – Morticia & More

This Halloween may be the first one in years that I won’t have an excuse to dress in costume. Will that stop me? The answer is a resounding NO, my friends.

I will, at the very least, work on my costume for next year – Morticia Addams:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I tend to go old school with the Addamses, as in the original comic strip or TV show, and I fully intend to craft Morticia’s man-eating plant, Cleopatra (pictured,) to wear around my neck like a boa. The basic costume is simple, though – v-neck black dress (I found a velvet one at a thrift store,) which you may or may not want to add “tentacles” to, or extra fabric to the sleeves, a black wig (or your actual hair, if you’re lucky!) and a few minimal accessories. Add some winged black eyeliner and a dark red lip, and you’re Tish! You just need to find a pinstriped suit and a mustache for your Gomez.

This year, Tom is running a race on the day of our church’s Trunk or Treat, so we’ll miss our chance to deck out ourselves and our trunk. Then Halloween day will be full of a family-friendly-but-creepy movie marathon at the Tri C, complete with popcorn and candy, and scary movies and dinner with my best friend and her boyfriend that night. I can’t wait to decorate her house this Saturday! We’re going with a zombie crime scene theme which will include us outlining each other in chalk and splattering fake blood, and real crime scene tape from the police station where she works.

If you’re getting in the Halloween spirit, take a look at my Every Day Is Halloween pinterest board! It’s filled with lots of unique costume ideas, props and decorations, freaky food, and other bits of spooky inspiration I’ve found. Don’t forget our weird shop, JuJu Eyeball, for fun accessories and decor. Hurry – it’s not too late to put in a custom order for your costume accessories!

Share the Love,

Chelsea