WHAT I WORE : THE LACE KNITTED TOP

While on our date night a few weeks ago the mister and did a bit of shopping. I found some cute shoes, these Jellypops and a few tops. This lace knit top I found over at Forever 21 and it was pretty excited about it. I don't own anything like this currently so it's a nice add of something different for my wardrobe. I've been dreaming of warmer weather, blue skies and fresh cut green grass but as you can tell by the background in these photos our poor dormant yard is just not ready for Spring. We loved the sepia and brown tones which worked beautifully for the photos: which were all graciously taken by the mister. Happy Wednesday! 

Lace Top : Forever 21
Black Shirt : Mossimo. Target
Jeans : Mossimo via Target

Belt : Thrifted
Feather Pendant : Halls

Bird Pendant : Etsy Shop Arete

Shoes : Etsy Shop Maggies Farm Vintage

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TAKE TEN TUESDAYS : NAIL INSPIRATION

I've really been on a nail kick lately. I'm truly wowed by all the possibilities out there. And if you don't like how they came out, you can just wipe them clean and start again. I am loving some new nail polishes by Essie I added to my collection. They are a little pricier than I would normally pay (I'm kinda a 99 cents nail polish gal) for but they seem to hold up well and the colors are to die for. What nail polish colors are you loving lately? If you painted your nails I'd love to see them so link me to your photo below in the comments window. Happy Take Ten Tuesdays!

1.) Peter Pan Collar  //  2.) Multi Colored  //  3.) Aqua/Orange  //  4.) Black/Silver  //  5.) Minx

6.) Bows/Dots  //  7.) Ombre  //  8.) Black/White Stripes  //  9.) Black Teal Diamonds  //  10.) Teal Gold

YUKSEK'S OFF THE WALL VIDEO

(image via)

I recently came across the work of Yuksek (Pierre-Alexandre Busson), a French born electronic music producer, remixer and DJ. This video and the making of this video are awesome. The boy and I really enjoy playing with Photo Booth and you can see us goofing around over here. So when I came across this video I just knew he'd enjoy it and boy did he ever. It was an instant hit and we couldn't stop giggling over everything. His favorite part was the huge eyes. I love the music too, it's kinda a catchy little ditty. Enjoy!

images - eyeball image & keyboard  //  image with flags

HOME PROJECTS / KITCHEN RENOVATION

Well I hope not to bore anyone but I wanted to share a few beginning photos as we start on our kitchen renovation. Some of you may look at the top photo and be wondering but why it's kinda cute. Well honestly, it is cute but we've made due with what we've had so far and this is actually an update since we bought it. We found our lovely home 6 years ago and feel in love with the layout and the huge yard, and location, but this was pretty much it. We looked past the blah decor and the yucky paint choices an saw it had potential but would take some serious work. We were ready for the challenge though. We've always had a vision of updates and it's been a slow process (due to things adding up to cost a butt load, like who knew a front door could be so pricy) but we've actually got around to bunch of the things on our to do list. Now this huge project (gutting the kitchen) is on the top the agenda. I'm gonna have to hunt for photos when we did our home tour cause boy was it ugly! Way different than what you see above, the kitchen was painted dark maroon with white cabinets top and bottom, a white counter, and white with tiny pops of maroon diamonds backsplash. The girl before us obviously had no clue how to paint either cause the ceiling trim was all painted maroon too, which that was lovely to repaint as it took so many coats of primer before we could get it white again. Our kitchen sadly has no storage though and 90% of our food is kept down the hall in a pantry area (built by the mister). That one wall of cabinets you see there, that's all there is, hence why we're remodeling it and now it will have an L shape layout plus more cabinets!!! We've been waiting 6 weeks for the cabinets to come in and we got news they'll be here Wednesday!!! My rents come to join us shortly after to help assist in cabinet hanging. It's time this baby gets some proper cabinets which have rollers, and don't leave sawdust on everything in the drawers when they scrape against the wood beams. I'm a wee bit nervous but way more excited about what's going to happen. I'll update you all with more photos soon. Wish us luck! Happy Monday, hope your weekend was awesome. :)

p.s. There are some current photos of our kitchen and home here if you wanna peek around.

old cabinets are slowly falling apart, house built in the 50's. these are the original cabinets. 

helping remove hardware from all the cabinets.

we packed up a bit but made a few make ready shelves to get us by. this one and the one below.

snacks, cookware, baking goods.

and so they asked us if they could sleep here... 

sadly we had to say no, ha! the bottom cabinet miss p is laying on is not dirty. 

the paints been scratched to bits from cookware pots and pans. 

and i promise it's clean though it looks terribly gross.

MINI COLLECTIONS : FAMILY NECKLACES

Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend. Ours was packed with activities and the beginning stages of a huge kitchen renovation, my next post, up later this morning will be an update on this. Today's mini collection are family necklaces. Now they are not handed down to me from family members but gifted to me and have stories behind each of them and I hope to someday hand them down to my kiddos. From left to right (above photo).

1.) Necklace gifted to me after the birth of miss P, you can see another photo of it here 

2.) The cross was from the mister and w for my first Mothers Day (day after w was born)

3.) Turquoise stone is the newest to my collection, gifted from my younger brother this holiday season. We celebrated the holidays all together (rents and us kids) first time in the past 12 years. This is now a keepsake from this special time together. 

4.) Cape Cod Ball Necklace. Gifted to me from my parents after graduating High School. This style and design is very popular back home (Cape Cod), and reminds be of where I'm from. I have a matching bracelet too which I never take off so I always have a constant reminder of family. 

5.) This Ivory Carved Flower is real and very fragile. I don't wear it often as I am worried of it breaking or loosing it but I found it while hunting online for jewelry to wear with my wedding dress. My parents graciously gifted it to me as a wedding gift and I wore it for our special day. It was just the ivory pendant so I carefully wired it to be a necklace. Boy was I worried I may break it when doing this.

So do you have any family/personal jewelry with a story behind it?

Happy Monday! I'll be back in a bit with those kitchen photos. ;) 

QUOTES : I WILL (AND YOU CAN TOO!)

I see a lot of inspirational quote online, Pinterest is a great resource for a bunch of them. Words of advice which speak to me. Things that I look over and/or take for granted on a day to day basis but really need to remind myself about how these little bits of advice can have a huge impact on life. This one is great. I wish vs. I will! You know what I'm talking about? We all surely have said it at one time or another. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it and lie, lately our home's been a bomb. We've all been messy and I know I'm no better than the others since I've been leaving messy little piles of stuff cluttered about our home. Piles of papers, DIY projects left unfinished, sewing projects pilled high on the dresses waiting for time to complete, dirty clothes dropped on the floor over in placed the hamper. I've been bad about all of this, and when I saw this quote it his really hit me. I've been saying "I wish I had more time to clean that" but ya know what I need to do is kick it up a notch and ditch the I wish thing (though wishing is good for some things like wishing about winning the lotto, if only we played it though) but in this case, it's time to take charge, it's time to make a change. It's time to clean up my mess. I know I'll need to start small and work my way up or else it may be to daunting. So it's time to forget the I wish for _____, and have the confidence that I can and I Will! Ya know what I mean, right? You're amazing and you can do it too I know you can! Last night we started removing everything from the kitchen ( a full kitchen remodel is coming) so now pardon me as I run off to tidy up our messy home some. :) Hope you're having a great weekend! 

(Image) Edited by me

MOVIE REVIEWS / WHAT WE'VE RECENTLY SEEN

The mister and I watched a bunch of movies (8) over the past month. Some were good and some not so much. Plus I ventured to the movie theater for 2 of the movies on my own. A rundown with our ratings, plus a little info about each. Listed from our favorite to least fav. Enjoy!

DRIVE - My rating A (misters rating A)

Ryan Gosling (oh swooon, need I say more, I kinda have a new crush for him) plays a mechanic/Hollywood stuntman and a getaway driver which gets stuck in the middle of a shady deal while falling in love with the neighbor and her son next door. I really liked this movie. Not just because of Ryan Gosling but because of the overall story and action, car chases, and drama which took place throughout the movie.

50/50 : My rating A- (misters rating B+/A)

Inspired by a true store. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a journalist that discovers he has a rare cancer with a survival rate of 50/50 (hence the title). His best friend, Seth Rogen joins along his side for this movie about love, survival, friendships and find humor in unlikely places. I won't lie I did cry some from time to time, I think it's now that I'm a mom I see things differently, but I really enjoyed this one!

REAL STEEL - My rating A- (misters rating A)

Hugh Jackman is a retired boxer. This movie take place in the future where people use robots to box (kinda like sparing/fighting). He finds a new champion in a discarded robot and reconnects with his son who he hasn't seen in 11 years. It was actually pretty impressive. We thought it was going to be worse but we liked the special effects and the story.

WHATS YOUR NUMBER - My rating B/B+ (misters rating B/C+)

Anna Faris looks back on her life and the twenty men she's had relationships with and wonders if one of them might be her one true love. Chris Evans (from the newest Captain America movie, kinda have a crush on him too) plays her neighbor who helps her hunt down info about her previous Ex's. It's a rom/com (romantic/comedy) which I LOVE watching. This one was so cute, kinda girly but I enjoyed it.

THE DESCENDANTS : My rating B- (mister didn't see it)
George Clooney plays a husband and father of two girls, who has to re think his life and embrace his future when his wife suffers from a boating accident. Traveled to the theater with a handful of co-workers to see this. They all loved it but in my opinion, it was just ok; not bad but not my favorite.

RED TAILS - My rating B- (mister didn't see it)

Historical movie about African American pilots who were facing segregation issues during World War II. Myself and co-workers went to see this movie for research purposes and it was actually very knowledgeable/educational.

ABDUCTION - My rating C (misters rating D)
Taylor Lautner (that werewolf kid from Twilight) sets out to discover the truth about his childhood, after he finds a photo of himself on a missing persons website. This is an action/suspense movie and it was not at the top top but rental worthy.

COWBOYS & ALIENS - My rating D (misters rating D)
I've pulled a write up, cause I kinda don't have words for this one. I'll let ya decided for your selves. IMDB says: A spaceship arrives in Arizona, 1873, to take over the Earth, starting with the Wild West region. A posse of cowboys and natives are all that stand in their way." Let me just comment the mister and I didn't care for this one, at all, ha!!!

So what movies have you seen lately?


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ARTIST : SARAH ESTEJE

Ahhhhhmazing! How realistic do these look? Seriously, pretty darn amazing right? Wait till I tell you that they were drawn by French photographer and illustrator Sarah Esteje, who often uses nothing other than a ballpoint Bic pen. What!!! Yup you heard me right, a pen. All of these pieces are via her Tumblr page so link on over to check out more of her mind blowing work. Have a good weekend friends, Happy Friday!

SARAH ESTEJE  //  PERSONAL SITE

       (images credit)

BLOG DESIGN // BUTTON UP BUTTERCUP

Sweet Mandy over at Button Up Buttercup has been a sponsor on my blog a few time, and I've loved getting to know her more. She's very happy going and did some fabulous inspiration boards to give me an idea of her style, which is a twist of pretty/modern with a bit of bold patterning thrown in too. Mandy knew exactly the look she wanted and I was thrilled work with her and help her achieve a new look for her blog. Isn't it cute, I love the black and white with pops of color. If you have a sec jump on over to check it out, and make sure to say hello to this sweet lady!


Needing some help with a mini blog makeover? Email me and let's chat.
Would you like to see some of my other design work >>> Click Here

WHAT I WORE : JELLYPOP'S

Over the weekend, when we had our date night, the mister and I also did a little bit of shopping. I found 3 tops and 2 pairs of lovely shoes. Four outta the five items were way down on clearance or else I wouldn't have come home with them. One of the shoes were these cuties. I'd never heard of this company before but these are by Jellypop. Don't ya just love the name, they sounds so fun to me. They are a bit taller than everything else I own (these are 4" heels) so I was excited to put them on and be able to now stand eye to eye with the mister... but knew also that I'd really need to be careful not to dive bomb the floor while walking. I wore them out all day yesterday and did perfect, no wipe as of yet. I love my new Jelly Jelly Jellypop's! Do you have a favorite pair of shoes? 

p.s. My hair is a bit bluer today thanks to the sweet Bird + Cleaver duo, who graciously gifted me some fancy blue dye. Thanks friends, you're the best! :) 

Bird Cardigan : Mossimo, Target

Navy T-Shirt : Thrifted
Red Skirt : Thrifted. Altered by me.
Belt : Thrifted

White Tights : Target
Flower Hair Clip c/o Jenny (frecklewonder)

Shoes : Jellypop's Spoken Gray 

mine purchased at Off Broadway Shoes 

Over here at DSW for $40
Hair Color : Pravana Hair Color Vivid Blue (buy here)

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WEAR WARE WHERE (33)

It's was sunny out today. A bit of yellow inspiration. 

And how awesome are those tights! I so want them. Happy Wednesday!

wear: Bouba Tights (£40.00 )

ware : Hell'o Monsters (artwork)

where : Lemons. Oahu & Kauai, Hawaii

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THANKS FOR READING!  WANT TO SEE PREVIOUS POST IN THIS SERIES  CLICK HERE
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MUSIC : FUN. FEATURING JANELLE MONÁE

Lately I've been listening to the radio. Which isn't a normal thing, cause I kinda I don't care for the DJ's yapping nonsense between tunes. It's more chit chat than music so I usually switch to cd's instead... but a few weeks back, I decided to do some channel flipping and see if I could find anything good. And I did! I heard a song which I instantly loved but needless to say the DJ's skipped over the name and I was stumped who it was by. The mister has a rather impressive collection of music so I figured he surely must have it or be able to tell me who it was by. I'm a professional hummer (ok or maybe not since the mister never can figure out what I'm singing). I sang what I thought were the lyrics over and over in my head and aloud to the mister to see if he knew it " let's set the world on fire... and something higher... to the sun". As you can see I couldn't remember much and Google did me no justice when I kept trying to search for this. So I gave up the hunt... until last week while driving home and I heard it again! In a frantic panic and probably looking like a crazy lady while driving on the interstate, I scrambled for my phone and called the mister and said, "hurry turn on the radio, this is the song I like can you figure out who it is?" Well he surely knew who it was and go figure he even said we have it on cd. So here you have it, my new favorite song of the month, We Are Young by Fun featuring artist Janelle Monáe. Enjoy!

FUN. 

WEBSITE  //  FACEBOOK  //  TWITTER

I love both versions, this one's acoustic, but link here to see the official music video.

(Image 1)  (Images 2 & 3)