Fall Photoshoots

My roommate and I had a photoshoot/stress relief/inspiration session this week. We found an abandon barn and bridge and went to town. Here's what we shot! Side note: neither of us actually smoke, we just used these as props!

Beginning of Fall

It's officially the beginning of my favorite season -- Fall! Bring on the boots, coffee, books and lots of colorful leaves. I've been burning my Pumpkin Nutmeg Pie candle nonstop. No room smells delicious. I found a recipe for Pumpkin Pie Milkshakes online yesterday. I'm going to make one tonight and try to focus on catching up on homework!

Fall Style.

I'm so obsessed with floral, lace and red lips for fall. Actually, I'm obsessed with those things always, but especially around this time of year! I redid this dress a week ago and love how it turned out!I hope the high-low style stays popular for a long time, it's adorable.

 

Home Away from Home

While I'm in college, I live away from home. I live in a house, so I have the ability to decorate my room however I want. I got to completely transform my room this year. Here's the process I took -

Here's how my room started out:

 

All white walls, brownish carpet, wall of closet doors and a built in heater cover. I took a few steps to really transform the room and make it mine.

Step 1 - PAINT! Paint is a fairly cheap, easy way to brighten up the room. I chose a bright color to make my room look bigger. I only painted two walls. All four would have made the room close up and seem small.

Step 2 - Carpet Remnants. They're cheap, they're big, they'll cover the ugly, already existing carpet. I used carpet that I found in my basement. So in my case, it was free! Even better on a college kid's budget.

Step 3 - Furniture. My suggestion: garage sales. DIY furniture projects are a cheap and easy way to decorate a room. All the main furniture in my room came from garage sales except for my dresser, chair and mirror. The dresser had been in my basement for years and the chair came from a local consignment shop. I got the mirror on clearance because it had a small piece knocked out of it. Nothing a little silver paint can't disguise!

Step 4 - Accessorize! This is my favorite part. I have tons of little nick-knacks and books. I love playing around with them all until it just comes together. I'll make a post next week about small DIY decorating ideas that I have used in my room.

Here's the final product!

 (excuse the blurriness of the last photo - great iPhone quality!)

Mixtape for the Week

Mixtape Monday didn't quite work, so I'm switching to this! I've been real into slow songs this week. Most of them are from about 3-4 years ago. They're oldies but goodies. Here are a few of the songs that reflect my mood this week (plus Brand New, just cause):

1. Amy, I - Jack's Mannequin
2. Maga - Daphne Loves Derby
3. The Sounds - The Morning Light (one of my favorite mash-ups)
4. Single Millionaires - Brighten
5. A Plain Morning - Dashboard Confessional
6. Always Move Fast - Lydia
7. Useless - Anarbor
8. Seventy Times 7 - Brand New

Etsy Listings.

This summer I've been hard at work making jewelry and headbands for my Etsy shop. In addition, I have hunted down cute vintage pieces. Here are a few of my most recent listings -

1, 2, 3

More is coming soon! I've been really into natural stone lately. So look for that in the near future.

Wanderlust

I've been M.I.A. for the past two weeks. I spent a relaxing week in the outskirts of Gatlinburg, Tennessee with my family. The cabin was so adorable. We watched the Olympics, went on gorgeous scenic drives, avoided the tourist traps at all costs, and ate at the Apple Barn two days in a row... So delicious! Here's some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Complete Bookshelf Makeover

I'm moving into a house in August (so soon!) and really needed a place to store all my books and magazines. I'm the classic broke college kid, so I didn't want to spend $100 on a plain bookshelf I'd only use for a few years. I went to garage sales and estate sales looking for one, but they weren't what I was looking for at all. Finally, my grandma gave me one - for FREE! Although, it needed a lot of love and care to make it presentable again... Here are the steps I took to fix it up!

Step 1: 

Wipe off the entire surface of the piece with a damp rag to get off all dust - and in this case cobwebs. 

Step 2:

The shelves in the bookcase were very close together. Most of what will be on the shelf is magazines. In order for them to fit, I had to knock out two of the existing shelves. I just used a hammer to make the shelves loose, then pulled out the remaining nails. Then I sanded the entire piece with level 120 sandpaper. It's kind of the medium ground between fine grain and rough grain. Make sure to scuff up the surface pretty well so the paint (or whatever finishing method you choose) sticks.

 

 Step 3:

Wipe the piece off with a damp rag again. Make sure all the dust from sanding is completely gone so the paint goes on smoothly. I chose to paint my case in Ace Hardware's spray paint color "Eggshell." It took me about four coats to completely cover the exterior of this. I did not paint the interior back or sides, because they would be covered later on.

Step 4:

I measured out the interior and cut pieces of contact paper (I got mine at Target) to cover it. Just simply peel off the back of the contact paper and apply it to the surface. This works best if someone is helping you. It's a lot easier to make sure the paper goes on smooth with four hands rather than two.  The contact paper generally stuck on mine, but hot glue had to come to the rescue in some places. Add your books and decorations - and voilà, you're done!

In all, my project cost a mere $14. Eight dollars for two cans of spray paint and six for 24 feet of cute contact paper. Which might I add, I have a TON left, so I'm sure it will be in many upcoming projects.

My Weekend

Good Eats:

This weekend I tried out a new deli downtown. Usually they are all generally the same: bland turkey (that's basically all I eat), pasta salads and potato salads. But this place was delicious! The rolls were so fresh and the turkey was delicious. Not to mention, it was adorable! I can't wait to go back soon!

Oh Baby!:

The cutest part of my weekend was my sister-in-law's baby shower. It was so adorable! Pink galore! The hosts had a local restaurant cater the shower with a potato bar. It was too delicious. The cupcakes were topped with hot pink and bright blue icing. Everyone looked so funny with colorful tongues. Congratulations on the baby!

 

Hope everyone's week is going well so far!

Mixtape Monday.

If there's one thing I truly love, it's music. So every Monday I'm going to post 10 or so songs that I'm currently crazy into. I'd imagine these songs will be mostly pop punk, acoustic, or some weird indie dance music. So here's to the first!

1. Surfaced - The Dangerous Summer
2. Tell Me Why - The Early November
3. Two Worlds - Tigers Jaw
4. Make a Beast of Myself - Twin Atlantic
5. Arrows - Fireworks
6. Stay Home - Transit
7. I Like You - Man Overboard
8. Baby Say Goodbye - Wavves
9. Devotion & Desire - Bayside
10. Summer, Man - Taking Back Sunday

I'm actually seeing The Dangerous Summer tonight! They always put on a great show, so I'm super excited! Pictures to come soon.

Thrifted/Designer Style

One of my favorite things to do is thrifting. You can find nearly anything you want (home decor, clothing, accessories) at incredibly low prices. A few days ago I went shopping with my friends and found this adorable dress for only $4! I paired it with my Jeffrey Campbell studded sandals. I found these for only $23 (rejoice!) at the cutest little secondhand shop, Avalon Exchange, in St. Louis.

 

Dress - Thrifted

Necklace - Etsy

Belt - Thrifted

Shoes - Jeffrey Campell

 It's gorgeous out today, so I'm going to walk around down town. Hope you all are enjoying the weather, and the break from school!

xo Shelley

Summer Trends.

I'm obsessed with so many summer trends: lace, pastels, studs. But my two favorites have to be back cut-outs and ombre. I can't get enough of emphasis on the back. Here are a few of my favorite affordable dresses for summer.

 

1. From Urban Outfitters

 2. From Forever 21

3. From ASOS

Now to ombre. Hands down the greatest trend. Whether it's hair (dyed my extensions ombre), furniture (painted my bookshelf ombre), or clothing (yeah, yeah i bought ombre clothing), it. is. perfect! 

 

1. Skirt perfection from Roxy Qwerinto

2. Beautifully done tablecloth featured on Inspired to Share

(sidenote: one of the best blogs out there!)

3. I'm not actually sure where this originally came from.

It's been on my computer for months!

4. Me and my DIY ombre extensions

Through this I've also realized my obsession for teal and light pink. What are your current summer obsessions?

xo Shelley

Warped Tour fun!

I've been a bad blogger and haven't updated this much. Earlier this month I went to Warped Tour in Indy. I think this was my sixth or so Warped. I love it so much! Minus being excessively hot, and having strangers' sweat rub off on you. But it was a blast! I finally got to see my favorite band of the moment, Man Overboard. I also saw You Me at Six, Fireworks, Transit, A Loss for Words, Senses Fail, Yellowcard and many more! Here are some of my favorite shots from the day.

Nik Bruzzese of Man Overboard

Torre Cioffi of Transit

Josh Franceschi & Max Helyer of You Me at Six

I have more up on my Flickr. If you get the chance to go to Warped, take it!

Library Adventures

Today my best friend Chi and I went to the "haunted" library in our town. It's so old and gorgeous. Here's the pictures we took. Have a good Fourth of July tomorrow!

Skirt - PacSun, Shirt - H&M, Shoes - Jeffrey Campbell

DIY Canvas Wall Art

I'm moving into a new house this year and needed a way to spruce up the walls. I'm completely in love with John Green's book Looking for Alaska and took inspiration from it. I took my favorite quote from the book and transformed it into this.

First: Take a canvas and cover it in a solid color. I used an old canvas because that's what I had laying around. It took me two coats to cover the previous painting.

Second: Choose a font and make it as small or as large as you'd like. I chose Helvetica and manipulated it in InDesign. Print it out. Cut the design out using a X-Acto knife.

Third: Lay the paper onto the canvas. Tape it down so it won't move while you are painting. I used two coats of gold acrylic paint.

Fourth: Wait for it to dry and peel away the paper. Fix the flaws. I didn't want my letters to be perfect, so I just painted black over some of the run off paint.

You're done! I love how mine turned out.