Inspired Butterfly Gift

I stumbled across these beauties on ButterFlyartGifts.com. At quick glance I wondered if the butterfly's were sacrificed for a great gift, but after reading more information on their webisite, I discovered, all their butterflies live a long and natural life. And, any purchases you make helps save the rain forest, how rockin' is that! There are several different varieties you can purchase on their site, my favorite being the Blue Morpho. Anyone having a butterfly themed wedding, or just loves butterflies, as I do, this site is perfect. I think it's a lovely gift for the bridesmaids, because every gal is as beautiful as a butterfly ;)

Bringing Your Loved One's Down the Isle

There are many times when loved one's can't make it to the wedding. Sometimes it's money, distance, circumstances or a passing. I love the idea of honoring those important to you, while walking down the isle, by wearing them in a locket around your neck.

With Stacey Samuels love for antiques, she founded Vintage Rehab in February 2008. Not only does she sell her own designs and lockets, but she can recycle family heirlooms into renewed and stylish jewelry! How awesome is it to take your out-of-fashion, precious heirlooms, and turn them into something you can wear now. By recycling old treasures, Vintage Rehab is also an environmentally low impact business! I do love Green!

Vintage Rehab is having a 25% off jewerly sale for Valentines Day, check it out!

DIY Gift Box

I think the nicest gifts you can give someone are handmade. Really, instead of the sugar -coated almonds or little chachke you decided on in a panic, how nice would it be for your guests to give them something lovely, from the heart? Here, I've made a Dragonfly Box that is a great gift by itself or you can fill it up with your favorite treat! I will walk you through how I did it:

What you need: (I purchased everything at Michael's)

1. Small Box
2. Ornamental Dragonfly or Butterfly
3. Ribbon (Martha Stewart has some nice ones!)
4. Glass Beads
5. Glitter
Glue
Scissors

1. Twist the included wire (on bottom of the insect) in the shape of a flat circle and glue to lid of box.

2. Cut enough ribbon to fit over lid of box. Trace the length of the ribbon with a small stream of glue and attach it to lid.

3. Put small dabs of glue inside lid and wrap ribbon so that the ends of the ribbon curl around the lip of the lid. Cut excess ribbon to look tidy. Let dry.

4. Put lid on box and use a pencil to trace where the ribbon will go on box. Cut and glue ribbon around the box to match up with markings so that the ribbon looks like it's wrapped around the whole box (when lid is on).


5. Put a spot of glue on the center of the lid and add beads to it. Then put more glue around beads and add glitter, carefully shaking off any excess.


You can place your new gift box directly on top of place settings, which can add another decorative element to your tables!

xoxo Siena

p.s. Feel free to contact me. If you want to try to make something or need an idea, let me know... I'll help you out! DiyWeddingGirl@gmail.com

My cool isABelt

I never wear belts, because they do that square thing to your waist, so yes, I suffer from plumbers butt. Also, my weight fluctuates so much I have fat-day pants and not-so-fat-day pants. I discovered this handy belt called isABelt. I just love it because it wears flush to your waist, invisible under your shirt, can accommodate any weight gain and loss and go with any outfit!

What got me even more excited is that it's a women owned business, owned by three lovely ladies, Lori, Elise and Leslie Wilkins. AND they have a breast cancer belt we're they donate part of the proceeds to help the cure! I love supporting good causes!I know that when I was gathering goodies for my Bachlorette Spa Day, I had trouble finding things to put in my girls goody-bags. I would have loved to give them these cute breast cancer belts and support a good cause in the process. It would have been a present they would have actually used instead of the useless shower cap I got them.

isABelt has belts for every sized woman and one for men called hisABelt. *cute*
Here I am enjoying my isABelt... which I wear all the time!!

Random but possibly really useful!

It didn't occur to me that this could possibly be an issue for a bride-to-be, until, I went hiking in Eaton Canyon and got poison oak on my arms. It itches like crazy and looks hideous! I though: "My goodness, what if this happened to someone right before their wedding day?!" It makes sense right?! Hiking is such a good way to get in shape. Anywho I did the basic Calamine Lotion on my arms and it helped some, but, it just wasn't fast enough. I've had poison oak plenty of times and tried antihistamines and all that good stuff, and still, I remember it taking FOREVER to go away. I had just bought some ORIGINS Oil Refiner Skin Purifying Tonic and out of desperation I tried it, rubbing vigorously on my arms, and then applying the Calamine lotion. Immediately the itching went away, and the next day the rash was significantly better. I only do it twice a day, and I've never had poison oak go away so fast! I imagine if I was really diligent about applying it, the poison oak would have been gone in a few days!
Thought I'd share my little discovery! xoxo

Happy Holidays and Holiday Update!

It's been an interesting December as I've spent most of the Holiday sick, and a day of almost blindness (apparently I'm much more allergic to cheese then I thought). So I've spent a lot of time making presents for my family.

As a treat for all of you, and in the spirit of DIY, I'll share my Holiday thus far.

Struggling to stay in the holiday spirit and while totally useless for most anything, I decided to make presents for my whole family

For my step-brothers I made felt meat pillows which they seem to really like. These we're much easier to make then I thought and made pretty cool presents (although my step father thought I was incredibly weird). Here's one of the pillows being enjoyed.

Two years ago I made my husband a scarf for Christmas that he wore to bits, so he was in dire need of a new one. I like this one even more then the first one I made him. I knitted it out of wool using a basic knit and adding tassels. I think it looks pretty sharp! Here he is enjoying it! (He's worn it everyday since Christmas!)


My step father was nominated for Pulitzer for the book he wrote The Revenge of Thomas Eakins, an artist who he now greatly admires. So I painted his favorite Thomas Eakins painting on a picture frame for him. I bought a little wooden frame at Micheals, found the painting online, and painted it with acrylics.


My mother loves the painting of the Lady of Shallot by John William Waterhouse. So I painted her a picture frame as well. Both paintings for my mom and step-dad were difficult and for most of the painting I had to use the tiniest little brush... it was like one hair! Here's my mother loving it! (excuse the bad glare, I couldn't find my nice camera)


Lastly a good friend of mine commissioned me to paint a picture of his new baby as a surprise for his wife. I think it turned out pretty cute! I did it with oils, and yes, I was up till 6am finishing everything!


Fortunately I did manage to get some skiing in. Here's my favorite picture of the ski hill and a picture of me in all my skiing glory! So far we've just been going to Mt Baldy, California, which is pretty uncrowded and a fun intermediate mountain... unless it rains and ices up the snow!

I'm super glad to be back at my computer, as I have a ton of back blogs to catch up on! Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful Holiday and actually keep your New Years resolutions! te he! My resolution is to have more home cooked meals, which shouldn't be too hard considering right now, we do zero a week.

OMG Shoes!

I am drooling over these Irregular Choice Flickflack Pumps!!! I want them bad! They could probably work with a Vintage Themed Wedding or with a less traditional dress. I almost wouldn't want to wear them outside because the bottoms are so cute! In fact all of the shoes from Irregular Choice are totally unique! Here are a couple other favs: Irregular Choice Inside Out Mary Jane, Irregular Choice Alphabite Pump, Irregular Choice Tape Me Up Heel, Irregular Choice Amazing Grace Mid Boot, and lastly the coolest boots in the whole wide world Irregular Choice Space Snacks Boot.