Gift wrapping is an interesting design process. It’s interesting because the gift giver wants to create a special experience for their friend and although “presentation is EVERYTHING” (and I believe it is) the presentation gets shredded in a matter of minutes. It’s not left for someone to enjoy… or hang on their wall. It’s torn open and bypassed to get to the “good stuff” on the inside. Because the presentation is only temporary, I think it’s wise to make good use of your time… while also giving a heartfelt experience. Choosing a gift wrapping technique that is pretty, easy, personal, inexpensive, and quick creates the best outcome all around.
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It has definately been a long time coming. So, I am excited to announce that the Messy Bun Hair Tutorial is finally up. This video will show you my process of how I create and wear my signature messy bun. I hope you enjoy it and maybe get to try a new look for yourself. Let me know if this was helpful at all and I will work on posting more hair tutorials.
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It’s sooo bad for you… But it’s sooooo good! How can something so good be so bad?!?! I was pretty stoked this *Thanksgiving* that I actually made something and contributed to the never ending feast of *thankfulness*. I am very *thankful* to our neighbors for sharing this amazing recipe with us. Brian and I went over for dinner one night when they made this for dessert. OH MY OH MY!! It was the talk of the night. And when I heard about how easy it was I decided to give it a try this year as one of the thanksgiving desserts at Brian’s family’s house. and AGAIN it was a hit there as well. I guess I will consider this my first holiday “dish”. So excited to be able to contribute now as a real woman. haha. Just kidding (but kinda not). Below is the recipe if you want to give it a try. I will probably making this for christmas too. So WATCH OUT!
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The house was decked with gold streamers, colorful confetti, beards, great friends, and GOOD food. I was pretty nervous considering I am not Susie Homemaker and I consider myself a terrible host. But with some help of some great friends I pulled off a surprise 30th birthday party for my husband Brian. I can’t believe he’s 30. He had NO idea and I was completely surprised that he was surprised. haha. I am very thankful that he was traveling in the beginning of November so I was able to sneak a few trips and planning dates in when he was gone. His parents came out to visit us and I told Brian that I was helping my assistent, Alex, get her house ready for her “open House” on saturday. His parents said they wanted to see her home and meet Alex too. So they brought him at 7:30pm. Little did he know that it was his surprise party. And SURPRISE!!! Check out the video above of the surprise moment. It was pretty epic.
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Yesterday I was task girl. Task girl is a refresh compared to hermit-working-on-long-projects-alone-girl. Have you felt the difference? HAHA! I like both girls but sometimes task-girl just needs to do more. Task girl is emails, phone calls, to-do lists, errands, meetings, tweets, facebooks, art direction, blogs, test prints, UPS… you get the idea. Yesterday I had 2 creative meetings IN REAL LIFE…. Can you believe it?!!? HA! and eerands for the rest of the day. Ahh nice!! It was a nice fall day with some sun (apparently I was also a weather caster(sp?) anyway…. This is what I wore. The tomboy look has always run in my blood for as long as I can remember…. and it’s days like yesterday where I felt MA style ROOTS. haaha. BUT…the bad to the bone look in these… Melissa Jill jokes that I am a lot “sweeter” in person than I look in photos. I guess it’s just my bad to the bones insides that desperately want to make their presence known somewhere. hahhaa.
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This january marks the 3 year date that I have been out of an “office”. Like an office, office. I wanted to work at home and have my own business… so I set out to make that happen. At home I didn’t have an office set up. Well… we called it the office but it was really the junk room. haha. I know I took a picture of it at some point and I really wish I could find it. AHH!! but I can’t. anyway, it was BAD!! And I never spent any time in there. It was truly the place we put everything that just didn’t have a place.

We were traveling a lot and still are… and it just never seemed practical to me to have an office. I did everything on my 15in laptop. HA!! But I got to a point where everything SEEMED really unorganized and I started to feel like my head was foggy because of it. DO you ever have that feeling? When your house, office, or room is messy and you just can’t think straight until it’s clean? Haha. We’ll maybe you haven’t felt like that… but I started to feel that way about my business and creative space. Or lack of. So this is a start of my office. It’s definitely a work in progress. Needs more inspiration for SURE. But that will come. I LOOOOVE working in it. It’s actually helped me feel more empowered to be business-y. Like making business phone calls and talking shop. Now I just need a business HAT that I can put on too. haha. I feel like I am at work… in a good way. AND I can easily shut the door and go have a snack downstairs and not feel like it has to come with me.
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Check out those pretty feathers and colors. There are so many fun things going on with feathers this season in particular. I have been crushing over the feather look for a while now. Remember that DIY hair accessory tutorial I did last year? Well, now you can pull it off without looking CRAZY!! haha. I love seeing all the creativity with feathers and colors and textures. It really adds a lot of detail and interest. The fine lines are so interesting to look at. Feathers can be pulled off in so many different ways. And I especially love the feathers in graphics, fine art, tattoos, logos and branding too. SO fun.

You can find all of these items and links on my Pinterest board here. Enjoy!! Oh yea… link any other cool feather stuff in the comments. Would love to see.