Our Emerald City

Coconut & Olive Oil

2013-05-02T08:23:00.001-07:00

More all natural goodness! After I successfully made my own shampoo and conditioner, I wanted to try more DIY all-natural, eco friendly beauty products!

First up, coconut oil. I've read all over the inter-webs about how great this stuff is, and I know it's quite tasty in the kitchen! Anywho, one day when I ran out of body lotion I wandered into the kitchen and grabbed the coconut oil to try.

It's kind of annoying since it's solid at room temperature, so I had to use a spoon to get it out and then I can't stand having any products on my hands, so it was a pain to clean it off. But, my body felt nice and lovely! I didn't love it enough to use it constantly, but it's still a great moisturizer. It's also great as a hair mask!

As for olive oil, my friend Malena told me she's been using it with a cotton ball to take off her eye makeup. Now, I'm really really bad about taking my makeup off before bed, especially my eye makeup, but one day when I was feeling extra over-acheiving, I decided to try it, and wow!

Literally, one quick swipe and most of my make up was gone! I've been doing this for a couple nights now and I'm in love! As a bonus, it leaves your eye area moisturized!

Wales Part Five: London

2013-02-22T14:31:00.003-08:00

When we left off three whole weeks ago (good job maintaining a posting schedule Shauna!) in our last installment of Fly Away Fridays, I told you about our long weekend in the fabulous city of Edinburgh Scotland. This week, it's London Baby!

I'd been obsessed with Peter Pan, and I was so excited to see Big Ben for the first time!

First I should back up and explain our predicament. Our trip had a week of free time built in at the end of our course, during which we planned to spend gallivanting around London. I told you about the terrorist attacks that happened the week before we were due to arrive. Unfortunately, at the time we decided to cancel our trip and hang out back in Wales for the remainder of our trip.

But, we had already bought tickets to see the best musical ever, Phantom of the Opera, so we decided to take the last train into the city that night and the first train out the following morning. Being a bunch of smart 17/18 year olds, we thought it would be way more fun to wander around the city sightseeing all night long instead of booking a hotel room or anything. I mean, we even argued about taking a cab back across the city at 4:30 AM to the train station, so you can see how cheap we were!

Upon arriving in The Big Smoke, we hopped on a double decker bus, popped into a phone booth, and got giddy at a worldwide Target van driving by.

We visited the famous Trafalgar Square where Lindsey was kissed by two random guys within five minutes.

Malena painted the above photo into a gorgeous canvas that I've had hanging in my home ever since.

Then it was time for the play!

Obviously we changed into our "fancy clothes" in a park bathroom because we're classy like that.

When we emerged after the show, we spent the rest of the night walking around the city, taking in the sights, being scared to death by random street corners, and bring exhausted on some church steps.

None of my pictures turned out after dark, so I don't have much to show you, nor do I remember too much of what we saw, except that some guy at the train station in the morning was absolutely amazed by our snack size box of raisins!

I went back to London six years later and just loved it again! I was only there for a day at the beginning and end of our trip, but I would love to go back and stay for longer one day! You can read more about that trip here!

Next Friday is the last tale from our travels! This time it'll be all about castles!

Kick Off Your Purple Shoes!

2013-02-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

One of the big ideas in green living, and one of the Three R's, is Reuse. By finding another purpose for something you have lying around, you're reducing the amount of garbage you're throwing out. Less garbage, less money wasted!

I needed a pair of purple shoes for an upcoming wedding, and after spending awhile looking and only seeing pairs for $60-70, I wasn't satisfied. Especially because while I love purple and would definitely wear purple shoes often, I probably wouldn't rewear such fancy shoes often enough to justify spending that much. A pair of black heels I wear often? Sure. But not bridesmaid shoes.

Enter in my old wedding shoes. I kept them for obvious reasons, but mostly because I actually though I might wear them again after my wedding. I haven't worn them a single time in the almost four years that we've been married, but I finally had a light bulb moment!

For $4, I was able to pick up a packet of iDye for silk fabric and turn my white shoes purple!

It was as simple as dipping a cheap paintbrush into the dye and painting it onto the shoe. I did two coats, but the first coat was perfect on it's own!

It literally only took 5 minute to brush the dye on, then I let them dry over night and added a second coat the following day.

And look how perfectly they match the invitation!

The color in the photo looks like it might be a little uneven, but in person they are completely the same color all around!

I can't wait to try them out at the wedding! Have you ever been able to re-purpose an old item for a brand new look?

Dressed-Up Dresser

2013-02-18T15:22:00.001-08:00

Just a little update to see what our teal dresser looks like nowadays!

No more Christmas, but I've got lots of metallic tones with a candle holder on Buddha, the owl I've named Hedwig, and the mercury glass lamp!

We're planning on printing some new photos for our gallery wall soon as well!

Eco Home: DIY Wool Dryer Balls

2013-02-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

Hello!! I've been crafting lately, and made myself some eco-friendly wool dryer balls! Is that the funniest name or what?

For about $5, I was able to this pile of wool yarn

and turn it into four dryer balls!

What's the point of dryer balls? They cut your drying time in half because they absorb moisture, and they eliminate the need for dryer sheets, which saves the planet just a little bit more!

The process couldn't be simpler. It only took about 10 minutes to prepare, and then a spin in the washer and dryer.

All you do is wrap yarn around three fingers about 20 times, then slip the yarn off and continue to wrap a tight ball. Keep going until it's about an inch in diameter!

Next, take some old panty hose or knee highs, and stick the balls inside, knotting each one off with some non wool string.

Wash the yarn balls in hot water and then dry them, and you're done!

Now you can toss the balls into the dryer with every load and you should see the drying time cut down! I have found that the tend to make my clothes static-y if I restart the load to un-wrinkle items that I leave sitting there for day. I'm lazy like that!

Wales Part Four: Edinburgh, Scotland

2013-02-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

Yay it's Fly Away Friday again!! This week brings the tales of the most bittersweet part of the trip: Scotland! The land of my people (I'm half German and half Scottish)!

Fresh off the terrorist attacks in London, we decided that we probably shouldn't spend the whole week there like we planned (although at this point in my life I wish we had), so we wanted to make our long weekend in Edinburgh count.

We left the day after the attacks in London, so we were all a little apprehensive but still excited.

Edinburgh is one of my favorite cities ever. I had great memories of it, but I also remember the first day there, when my heart just couldn't take missing Tim anymore and I spent the better half of the day crying in our hostel and then in a phone booth calling him. After our conversation, I laid in the park silently missing him and enjoying some rare peaceful time to myself.

Wandering alone in a city is great therapy. In the days before widespread cell phones, I got to walk around the city by myself while Lindsey and Malena went off by their selves. With only a time to meet later, I finished my nap at the park and decided to take myself shopping. I bought some great pants and I discovered H&M for the first time (this was before they were in the US).

After our day apart, we spent the rest of our weekend exploring the awesome city and taking in the beautiful architecture and sights!

We also went on a really fun ghost tours and totally felt their presences!

And lastly, we explored the Edinburgh Castle!

As I'll tell you about in another blog, we saw lots and lots and lots of castles during this trip! They were pretty neat!

Reusable Produce Bags

2013-01-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Monday readers! Today I wanted to share a quick green change I've adopted recently: reusable produce bags!

These things have been on my "list of random things I need/want to buy that I'll never get around to" forever, but I'm determined to get more organized and take care of those little pesky tasks more often. Do you all have lists like this? So, I snagged a set of five of these bags at The Container Store for $10, and I love them!

Produce bags are the worse. We literally use them to transport fruit and veggies home from the store and then we chuck them right out into the landfills! Buying some reusable bags are another awesome step you can take to make our beautiful world last longer!

Easy to clean as well!!

Have you ever used reusable produce bags? Do you use reusable shopping bags?

Wales Part Three: Stonehenge/Salisbury

2013-01-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the third week of Fly Away Fridays! The last two weeks I told you about hanging out in Aberystwyth and Liverpool. This time, we're ready to talk about a single day during our trip that made a pretty big impact on us: July 7th, 2005.

On this historical Thursday, the three musketeers (as my mom calls us) were lazying around Aberystwyth and decided to hop on a train to Salisbury, England, home of Stonehenge.

The three of us can be kind of oblivious to the rest of the world while we're together, so it took us a long while to notice that at each of the train stations we stopped at, there were signs all over signalling that all trains to London were cancelled.

We all just shrugged our shoulders and continued on our way to see Stonehenge, not really thinking that anything out of the ordinary was going on. I mean, I didn't even believe in digital cameras at this point of my life, let alone have any way of checking the news on the road in a foreign country.

So, back to Salisbury, when we got to town, we had some time to kill before the next bus to Stonehenge, so we went walking around and wound up at the beautiful Salisbury Cathedral, where the Magna Carta- one of our earliest forms of law- is kept.

And to add to our weird day, right after we saw these cute swans, we saw a dead person laying on the side of the road. True story. Don't worry, the paramedics were on their way. But the guy was all green and gross, and it freaked us out a bit!

But, we were there to see Stonehenge, and to see Stonehenge we went!

I love this photo! It shows all the various ethnicity of people who were here that day!

But back to why July 7th, 2005 was such a crazy day: This was the day that 56 people were killed in the London Underground as a result of a suicide bombing.

We were due to arrive in London exactly one week from then. Our hostel was located right next to King Cross's Station, where the bulk of explosions took place. Scary huh?

We learned of the attacks when we were on the train coming back to Wales. We immediately thought about our families at home who had no doubt heard of the attacks and wanted to hear from us, but we had no way of contacting them until we got off the train over an hour later.

It was at the very end of the day that we got back to Aberystwyth and we hastily took turns on the pay phone calling our moms, who had been worried all day long (it was late afternoon in Seattle by the time we were able to call). Thankfully we were all fine, but it was a pretty crazy day. The next morning we were leaving to go spend the weekend at Edinburgh, Scotland, which I'll tell you all about next Friday!

Stripes!!

2013-01-23T09:41:00.002-08:00

Stripes!!!! Who loves stripes? Cause I love love love them! Especially gray and white ones! Remember when I grabbed the awesome shower curtain from West Elm? Still totally in love with that thing!

So what's a girl to do but paint some more stripes in her home! Tim and I used to have a wall of vertical stripes in our bedroom before we painted over it with some dark blue-gray, so we were feeling some withdrawals. Or at least I was. I kinda stopped asking Tim before I change things.

Our old stripes!

So one day I invited my friend Alex over and then pulled out some white paint and painters tape and decided to paint stripes on our TV wall!

I've been dying to add something to this wall for months now!

And less than an hour later...

Love love love love love love love love love! Can you tell how much I love it??? They just go so well with everything! And they're so pretty!!! Oh boy!

Wales Part Two: Liverpool, England

2013-01-18T09:38:00.001-08:00

Welcome to another edition of Fly Away Fridays, or more specifically, Part Two of Wales adventures! Catch the first edition right over here!

So our first weekend in Wales was spent traveling was to Liverpool, England. Why? The Beatles, duh!

Source

The three of us spent the weekend with three guy friends from our class. We all rolled into town on one of the awesome United Kingdom trains (seriously, how awesome are trains?), and checked into what we thought was a super swanky hotel- hey they had my name on the TV! How cool to a 17 year old!

There were a million security guards standing in the lobby of the hotel, and since we were hiding six people into the room when we only paid for two, we were sweating bullets thinking that the guards were all standing there waiting to catch us!

Nope, turned out Oasis was staying on our floor. And got into a fist fight in the middle of the night right outside our door. I slept through most of it, but still pretty cool huh? They're only my favorite band!

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Any who, as soon as we checked in, we high tailed it right over to the Magical Mystery Tour and hopped on the next bus!

We saw all the cool sites you'd expect: Penny Lane,

The orphanage that Strawberry Fields Forever is about,

Ringo's childhood home (the home on the left, far down the street where the white awning sticks out)

As well as George's,

John Lennon's,

And Paul McCartney's!

I think I am missing some photos from the rest of the night...

We went to hang out at the Cavern Club, which is where the Beatles got their start. I still remember that it's on Matthews Street...

Because the citizens of Liverpool are totally over the Beatles, they built a second, more modern bar on top of the old school Cavern Club, and virtually no one was in the original when we rolled up! I mean, I get that the Beatles are probably old news for Liverpool, but I'm still obsessed with Nirvana so...

Anyways, we got to the bar, I casually ordered my first official drink, although illegally, but whatever, and we all hang out as a small crowd slowly fills the room. The iconic stage where the fab four used to play acted s as our background as we danced around like six silly teenagers and have a great time.

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Obviously, being as innocently annoying as we were, we continued to request Beatles songs over and over as the night wore on. And obviously Malena, Lindsey and I had to hop up on stage to dance where the boys once stood! The best part was when the DJ kept kicking off every single other person and kept letting us dance! Now that I'm older I see why, but we were just a couple of flighty kids back then!

The rest of the bar was obsessed with Oasis and so the entire night was spent bouncing between Beatles and Oasis songs, cultivating in an entire room sing a long to Don't Look Back In Anger. Perfection. Seriously. After that, we ran around on the streets eating fish and chips and made our way back to the hotel two by two.

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Malena and I walked back together and took a short cut through a darkened alley and stumbled upon two men doing stuff in the shadows together. It took us a few days to put together what they were doing, and then we giggle about it to this day. Seriously, dumb kids!

Our final morning we made our way back to the train station, passing through the largest Chinatown in the United Kingdom

I actually have no idea what building this was, but here you go!

Then we hopped back on the train and settled in for the ride back to Aberystwyth!

Nighty Night Lindsey!

Mini Mudroom

2013-01-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

Guess what else Tim and I did over New Year's weekend?

We turned this:

Into this:

We've been wanting to create a mini-mudroom in our front closet so we'd have a smoother, prettier system for throwing our shoes, jackets, and scarves off when we get home. So, the first thing to do with any project? Drag out all the junk and sort through everything!

After I'd realized that Tim and I (OK, I) have way too many shoes, jackets, and scarves, it was time to get down to business!

First thing to do was to take down the old wire shelf, fill in the holes, and paint the closet!

We almost went with a nice teal color...

But we decided that Rockport Gray was the best choice since our shoes and jackets are colorful enough!

I'll skim over the next part, because we already had a sheet of wood cut down into four shelves, and painted everything white.

I attached four L-brackets to each shelf and Tim anchored them into the wall.

The first shelf went above a row of boots at the bottom of the closet.

Then we quickly put up two more shelves along the bottom and one at the top of the closet in the wasted space where we could put all our hiking and summer shoes that aren't used as often.

We also planned on putting up a piece of crown molding ala Pinterest to hold my heels...

But it fell down right away. Oh well! I've just been putting my heels on the shelf above!

Next up, we anchored a slim strip of wood along the wall and installed 10 sturdy coat hooks.

And wam, bam, first coat up!

After all that good stuff was completed, we lived with everything for a few days to see what we liked/hated.

And then I decided the leftover carpet in the closet wasn't doing us any favors, so of course I ripped it up and re-painted the whole entry way floor!

And drum roll please...

The last thing we want to change is to extend the coat hooks around the corner so we have more space to spread things out. So I'll make sure to show you when we do!

Jump on over to my project gallery for more fun time crafts!

Wales Part One: Aberystwyth

2013-01-11T10:28:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday everyone!!! I decided that for the next couple weeks, I'm going to be telling you guys all about the month I spent "studying" abroad in Wales, in the United Kingdom! So here goes Part One of Fly Away Friday...

The summer after high school, my two best friends and I set off on what was to be our first big adventure- with our newly graduated freedom! We all signed up for a course in Wales, taught by our very favorite professor, Professor Wicks, who we all had for the History of Rock and Roll (real class) and for English 102. He was easy with the 4.0's and a ton of fun. Plus, he wore yellow clogs and tall socks every day! And had a life size cut out of Elvis in his office.

In June of 2005, I didn't "believe" in digital cameras. Yeah, I know, I was so high and mighty! I liked the surprise of disposable cameras, and even though I'd have to carry about 20 of them throughout the trip and then pay to have them all developed, that's just what we did! I learned my lesson later that summer though, when Tim and I took a trip down Highway 1 and Tim got his digital photos right away, and since I didn't want to ay for 20 more cameras to develop, I didn't get to see my photos for months!

Anyways, I apologize in advance for the crappy quality of all these pictures. Like I said, they're just scans of disposable camera pictures!

Because we were there for so long and I have so much to write about, I'm going to break this up into a bunch of posts. Today, I'll talk about Aberystwyth (pronounced Ab-er-ist-with), where we were headquartered at! We all technically took a class at the University of Wales with our professor, which met three times a week and left the weekends free for traveling. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what the class was even about (Literature of History of Wales I think??). I went most of the time, but all I remember was that the seats were so tiny that I was claustrophobic and that our professor was obsessed with Dylan Thomas, the famous poet who drank himself to death. And, there was that one time when Tim wrote me a letter that got delivered to Professor Wicks, and he gave it to me during class while saying, "If I'd known you were going to tell all your secrets to this Tim fellow, I wouldn't have let you come on this trip!"

We all stayed in flats right along the water. On a clear day, you could actually make out Ireland across the channel! Super neat!

Aberystwyth was a tony town, a lot like Port Townsend (if you're from the area and know it). The first few days we were bored, mostly because we were giddy thinking about our upcoming trips to London and Scotland and Liverpool, and the most fascinating thing we could find to do in Aberystwyth was to go to the local college library and sign up for accounts to email our friends and family back home.

The library was awesome sauce though! It was three times bigger than you see here, and we made friends with one of the workers there, who taught us how to speak a little Welsh and was incredulous that we didn't plan on spending our vacation studying.

Every morning that we weren't traveling, we walked the 15 minutes up to the library to email our families, and I emailed Tim. We had been dating for a couple months at this point and I missed him so bad!

The architecture was gorgeous. Above was where we took our course, and below is just one of the many gorgeous buildings in the town.

They also had this cool sign :)

And sweet castle ruins!

They also had public restrooms all over the UK that you paid a very small sum to use. I wish we had them in the US more often! I would gladly pay a nickle to use a decent bathroom while out and about!

Since we were staying in a flat, we had a fill kitchen to use, and since Malena and I eat enough for 20 people each, we were at the grocery stores a lot! Us 17/18 year selves were highly amused by these sausages....

... and were delighted to find Washington Red Apples in the big market in town! No picture though!

But now it's time for the story about how we almost died. We went trekking around the city alone again, like three little girls should in foreign countries, and stumbled along a hiking trail along the water, so of course we had to go along! Eventually, we were at the top of this big rocky hill above the rocky ocean, and thought it would be a good idea to run down the hill to see the cool sediment rocks below (geology nerds). So I ran ahead, lied and told the other two it was fine, and we all started down the hill.

But halfway down we realized there's no way to stop! It sounds a lot less scary than it was, but the little rocks just kept going and going, there was no dirt underneath that we could reach, and none of us were able to get footing! We just kept going faster and faster down the hill! Eventually I reached a giant rock that we could all grab onto, seeing as the rock hill ended in a big cliff at the bottom. When we were all on the big rock, realizing we were going to have to find a way to jump off the really big cliff or stay stranded, we finally got down to the beach, completely freaked out. But then the rocks on the beach were super cool, so you know, worth it.

There was also the time I found a bunch of pounds laying on the street when Malena and I were taking a walk, so we went on a little shopping spree :)

We also won a karaoke contest! Well, only because Malena and I were the back up singers. But still!

Anyways, Aberystwyth turned out to be lots of fun! I wasn't 18 yet during the trip, so I wasn't technically allowed to drink. Thankfully, I was never carded except for one time. There was a small "club" by our flat that we tried to go to once. Usually there was only a handful of people there, and it was next door to the bar where we all usually hung out (and won karaoke contests). Well the first time we tried going, there happened to be a long line out front, and the security guard walked down the whole line and then asked to see my ID! And then we got turned away because I was 17. Boo hoo, but they let us in every other time!

I'll leave you with a handful of other photos from around town

My favorite, Malena down there with some gorgeous rock formations!

Lindsey groovin!

Me and some person in our class!

Malena and I in our flat! I have a face mask on, that's why my face is so shiny!

Firemen!

Our kitchen!

Girls from our class!

Anyways, the trip was amazing, and next Friday I'll tell you more about our adventures in Wales!

Bathroom Renovation Floors!

2013-01-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

After a loooooooong awaited arrival...

I'm not sure if this falls more under "bathroom updates" or "new floors!" because it's a little of both! Tim and I installed some peel and stick tile floors in our bathrooms and kitchen! The style is called "Concrete."

We actually bought these same tiles last year, decided we wanted to put more work into the bathroom, then realized that of course we didn't want to put more money into it, and finally ended up buying these peel and stick tiles again!

I'm soooo in love with them! Sure, they make the beige carpet look even more yellow, but that should be taken care of soon enough :)

We even had enough leftover to tile the fireplace!

Oh yeah, I also covered the fireplace with some leftover paintable wallpaper (leftover from this and this project).

I just taped it up so that I didn't have to look at the beige stone anymore, and I'm totally in love with it! Easy, quick project that's easy to take down later!

We've crossed off one item on our super long bathroom remodel! We have a couple other quick updates to share soon as well!

Man looking at these pictures makes me so excited for the day we get new carpet!!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot like YHL

2013-01-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

We've got ourselves a new addition in our "dining room"!

Here's what we had going on before:

These were actually two rugs on top of each other. They were both thin ones that flopped around too much, and our bunnies loved to get their claws in the top one. I was absolutely in love with the pattern on there, but I wasn't too keen on the quality. So I've had my eye out for months for the perfect rug!

My friend Alex found this rug for me in 3 seconds flat, and I had to laugh.

It's the same rug that Young House Love have in their bedroom...which they painted the same color as my living room! (Check out their blog to see a more accurate color than my photo!) So, my dining room is having personality issues with John and Sherry. And that's OK with me!

I love how it picks up the color of our teal dresser!

Also....check out this awesome lantern I stole from my mom! I filled it with pinecones at Christmas, and now I have it stuffed with white Christmas lights! I'm totally obsessed with it!

How do you like the new rug? They're one of my favorite things to buy, too bad they aren't cheap enough to switch around a lot like pillows!

Desk Organization

2013-01-04T10:46:00.003-08:00

Last time we talked about the desk that I DIY'd for our spare room's closet, it looked like this:

Considering that was 6 months ago, I figured it was time to update you on what it looks like now!

It looks fairly similar, but hopefully a little more polished!

I switched out the original baskets with my favorite blue baskets that used to live in our entry table, but because we now have a teal dresser there, we were able to make the desk most Shauna with my berry blue baskets!

I also cleared off the clutter that's accumulated since we actually have no real need for a desk and it's just become a dumping ground :)

One day I finally sat down and went through everything, cleared out a bunch to Goodwill, and found new spots for everything else!

And that's where we are now. We still want to put up picture ledge shelves and a travel map, but it'll probably be awhile until that happens- I've been searching for a map I love for months with no luck!

Side note....I'm having the worst time with the white balance on my camera! Every photo I take of my place is all yellow-y! Our carpet looks way worse in photos than it does in real life...help??

Coconut Milk Shampoo

2012-12-12T15:02:00.003-08:00

Last week I went on a bit of a hair experiment when I tried making my own shampoo/conditioner combo out of just four ingredients:

- Coconut Milk

- Castor Soap

- Apple Cider Vinegar

- Water

The basic idea is to combine two parts coconut milk with one part soap. Shampoo your hair like normal, then follow with a vinegar rinse to soften up your hair.

This was taken the third day of my trial!

What's a vinegar rinse?

Combine 1 Tbsp of vinegar- I used apple cider- with one cup of water, and pour over your hair. Sounds pretty strange, but it works! The shower will smell like vinegar for a minute or two, but it has no lingering smell, just like when you add it to the washing machine!

So how did I like it?

It was great!...by the third day! The first two days, my hair felt a little weird, but I realized I wasn't cleaning my hair enough. By the third day, my hair was feeling great! I plan on continuing to use this method, but I might do a weekly clarifying cleansing or something if my hair starts to feel like it has too much buildup. It feels fine so far, but we'll see!

What's my biggest tip?

Really work this concoction into a lather! The first two days I didn't, and my hair was a little oily. But by following a tip from my friend who's been doing a conditioner-only regime, I really worked my shampoo into my roots and scrubbed it good and clean. That left my hair beautifully oil-free all day!

I often use this shampoo:

Which contains the following ingredients:
Aqua/Water/EauWater , Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate , Cocamidopropyl Betaine , Cocamidopropyl Hydroxysultaine , Parfum , Glycol Distearate , Dimethicone Copolyol (Silica) , Cetyl Alcohol , Cocamide DEA , Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride , Polyquaternium 11 , DMDM Hydantoin , Panthenol , Silk Amino Acids , Cocos Nucifera Extract (Coconut) , Albumen , Cocos Nucifera Oil (Coconut) , Hydrolyzed Milk Protein , Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E) , Coumarin

So...I'm pretty content to try out a new shampoo with only two ingredients!

Have you ever tried any home made cleaning solutions? Read more green living ideas at Emerald Living!

Sparkly Raindeers!!

2012-11-30T13:11:00.000-08:00

I started on some Christmas crafts last night! My friends and I got together to make some crafts, and even though our ornament and wreath projects got messed with, we still made a couple crafts that turned out great!

Sparkly Canvas

Supplies

Canvas
Picture of whatever you want to glitter-ize
Glitter!
Glue, Scissors, Paintbrush

All you do it cut out the image you want to glitterize, glue it to the canvas, paint glue on top of the picture as well, then pour glitter all over it and shake off the excess!

I sprayed a coat of sealer on top as well (like that ever really keeps the glitter off everything though!)

Teal Dresser!!

2012-11-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

The moment you've all been waiting for...

I think the universe is trying to keep me from blogging!

Seriously!

I've told you about how my computer refuses to upload editted photos already. Well just recently, I lost a whole memory stick full of images that took two weeks to recover, by which point I was too fed up to go through them.

Then, I lost my DSLR battery charger. I'm sure it's somewhere, but I'm stuck with my Iphone in the meantime.

Then when I was trying to upload photos last night, Blogger said I was out of storage space and wouldn't let me upload anything! But this morning I can...weird.

Anyways, back to the dresser...

We left off with this beauty hanging out in our entry hall, just screaming for some fresh paint and new knobs!

So one night I set off to start priming the thing- later realizing that I always buy Behr Premium Paint + Primer, which negates the need for primer, and I could have saved all that wasted white paint + primer to make stripes on our TV wall, but oh well!

I like to dive into a project before properly setting up or buying the right supplies, so here we are one coat in, without removing the old knobs or putting cardboard down so I can paint the legs:

Pretty ugly, but it's only one coat in!

The dresser has these little panels on the side, where I decided to use some of the leftover wallpaper from my first dresser make over.

Then came the most exciting part.

Painting! Teal! Hummingbird Blue by Martha Stewart, specifically! I color matched it to Behr Premium Paint + Primer, which is my personal favorite.

And behold....

It only took one coat to get this piece looking fantastic, but I did three, because I just love painting that much!

I switched out the old knobs for some bling bling diamond ring type pulls.

The dresser is pretty old, and came with lots of dings that I think add character, so I didn't bother to fill in any of these gems:

Total cost of this make over:

Dresser: $0
Paint: $15
Knobs: $30

Total Cost: $45

Not too bad!

Here's a preview of the carpet that we're 90% sure we're going to be getting after the holidays:

You like? It's a nice gray color; we might go lighter, but we'll see. I'll be sure to keep you updated, as long as technology doesn't keep trying to keep me away!

Cali-For-Nia Love!

2012-11-19T15:10:00.001-08:00

Alex and I celebrated our first weekend in November (also the 1 year anniversary of the first time we hung out outside of work!) by hopping on a plane down to California!

We spent four days hanging out in the sun, going to Universal Studios, and visiting with my brother! Alex's parents took us all out to dinner at Buca Di Beppo and it was really fun!

I got to meet a lot of Alex's old friends, and they're all fantastic! I took a break from my camera as well, so these are all the pictures I have to show you :) It was a nice break from work!

New Entrance in da Hizzouse!

2012-11-18T19:41:00.002-08:00

For month's I've been searching for a good dresser on Craigslist that we could put in our "entry" way. It needed to be a very specific size, and I wanted it to have plenty of storage inside. I wanted it to be vintage with interesting lines; something that would look amaHHzing in a nice light teal.

I mean, what's a good furniture makeover without teal? Right?

After lots of dead ends and one huge @$$ b!tch (yeah, you know who you are, garage sale lady), I was still empty handed in the dresser department.

Until finally I found a gorgeous looking dresser that happened to be located right near my parent's house! I begged them to go get it for me, and a few weeks later I went home to get it!

Unfortunately, the dresser was way way way deeper than normal. Also, my mom had fallen in love with the thing. So, my parents, giggling like school children, stole my dresser from me and it now resides in their dining room holding place mats all all those fun goodies. It looks great there though, so I was happy to part with it, even if it left me empty handed!

Luckily, my mom had a super old dresser in her room that she was ready to part with!

It would have been nice if she mentioned that two months ago.

Just like when we were searching for a dining room table. Just kidding mom, thanks for the dresser!!

Anyways, I finally got it to my condo this week and we lurrrrrve it!!!! It has such a presence! Much more interesting than our old table from Ikea (that I still love). I'm making my bff's keep it in their place until I move to a bigger place one day.

But now I've got me a great antique dresser to make over! I can't wait to slap on some teal paint and switch up the hardware!

Spoiler Alert: I actually wrote this weeks ago, and I'm all done with it! Just need to go buy a couple more drawer knobs and I can share it!

The coolest part? In one of the drawers, my mom and her bff's at the time carved their names:

And they're all still friends to this day! They get together once a year to this day! Neat huh?

Road Trip Vol V

2012-11-12T10:50:00.001-08:00

And now for the real fun of our trip: Vegas!

We spent four nights in Vegas, staying at the Monte Carlo resort. It was the perfect temperature; around 90 degrees.

We drove up to our casino in the late afternoon covered in dirt and lacking cleanliness, as we'd been backpacking for the last two days. Our car was caked with red dirt, stuffed to the brim with junk, and hoisting two bikes on the back. This all looks fine most places, but we felt a little scruffy with all the perfectly detailed BMW's and other pretty sports cars I can't name pulling up around us and transporting lots of impeccably dressed men in suits.

We stuffed our faces with some Mexican fast food, then high tailed it to our room to pretty ourselves up.

He loves penguins!

The rest of the trip was spent eating, drinking, and wandering around. OK, and maybe a little bit of shopping. If you buy it on vacation, it goes towards your vacation budget, right?!?!?!

I got us tickets to two shows: Wicked, which Tim and I saw in London last year and looooooved, and Jersey Boys, which we hadn't seen yet.

Wicked was obvious amazing. This is the third time I've seen it in the last year and a half...oddly enough, none of these were in Seattle! Some jerks behind us were talking the entire first act, so we complained and they moved us to the very first box seat and we could see the sweat on the actors faces. Awesome sauce!

Green for Wicked!

Jersey Boys wasn't my favorite. Our friends John and Gemma just looooove it, so I was super excited to see it, but I'm not a huge fan of narrated musicals. I love Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons though!!! Our seats were great because it was a tiny theater!

After four days in Vegas, it was time to pack it up and start working our way home. Tim's sister and grandparents live in Idaho, so we stopped for a day to see them. We explored some parks in the area and a giant waterfall as well!

We finally made it back home after two weeks on the road, and were soooo happy to pick up our puppy from Grandmas!! She gained a zillion pounds while we were gone, but we still love her :)!

And there you have it! Want to hear more about our road trip? Catch up on Vol I, II, III, and IV, or check out our travel page to see all our adventures! Next time I'll tell you about my long weekend in LA!

Road Trip Vol IV

2012-11-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

Picking up from where we left off...

We finally arrived in the Grand Canyon National Park shortly before sunset. We stopped for a few pictures at the first overlook, and saw that the canyon really is as grand as they all say! We caught a nice show as the sun went down and then continued to our hotel.

The next three days were planned to be spent trekking down to the canyon floor and back! I had been trying to trick Tim into getting in shape with me for the hike, but like most American's, I forgot about it until two weeks before we left and then I got a cold. Sooooo I just hoped for the best! I ran the elevation grade numbers in my head a bunch, compared them to some of the hardest hikes we've done before, and seeing that they weren't as steep as those, I was mostly worried about that heat!

Lucky for us, it never got too hot. We decided to only backpack overnight instead of two nights and instead go to Las Vegas a day early. That may have been because I decided I didn't feel like backpacking and Tim did so I begrudgingly did and didn't speak to Tim the first three miles of our descent until I finally yelled my problems out at a rest stop and then we made up and I was glad that we went backpacking. And that's how Tim and I fight folks. I get mad and Tim rolls his eyes until I get over it, and that's why we're a perfect match :)

Our campsite was really nice! We stayed at Indian Gardens, and it's nice and shaded with places to hang out, nice bathrooms, and pretty views! Seriously though, the canyon's got some really nice bathrooms...I highly recommend.

The morning of our ascent, we got up at the break of dawn and set out at 6:30 AM (were we on vacation or what??) so we could beat the sun rising.

We actually did really good! We high fived ourselves at every rest stop because we made excellent time on a pretty strenuous hike. We were at the rim in four hours!

We made sure to take a couple emo photos near the top. Do you see me sitting on the rock to the far right?

(I like how there are hardly any photos of Tim on the days I make him carry the camera :))

See that patch of dark green at the canyon floor? That was where we camped! Here's a zoomed in photo:

After a quick victory picture and bathroom break, we dove into the car and drove for 3 hours until we could find a dang Starbucks!

The thing about Arizona? It gave us the creeps. I can't even describe it, but maybe it's because almost all our meals here were eaten cafeteria style, or the eerie feeling we got every time we left the car, but there was something about this state that we were anxious to get away from! I wish I was exaggerating when I said we sped the last hour to cross into Nevada, but we did.

After a quick stop at the Hoover Dam, we rode on up to enjoy four fabulous nights in Vegas!

Anyways, I'll tell you all about Las Vegas in my next post! In the meantime, catch up on our adventure with Vol 1, Vol 2 and Vol 3 of our road trip!

Road Trip Vol III

2012-10-31T10:09:00.005-07:00

Next in our Epic Road Trip 2012 series...the Grand Canyon! We already talked about our first ridiculously long drive and our time at Zion National Park, but now it's Arizona time!

We had a five hour drive between these two parks, which we broke up with a tour of Antelope Canyon, the more visited and most photographed slot canyon in the South West.

The canyons are located on Indian Reservations, and you have to book a tour with a local company to see them. So we did!

They were super hard to photograph, but totally gorgeous!

There's not much to tell you guys except that they were pretty sweet to see!

Lots of lovely streams of light flooding in...

We visited the Upper Antelope Canyon instead of the Lower.

Look at that cutie:

This post is so picture heavy that I'll continue with the Grand Canyon next time!

Have you read Vol 1 and 2 from our trip yet? You can also read about more trips over on our Travel Page!

Road Trip Vol II

2012-10-29T09:31:00.004-07:00

So yesterday we left off with Tim and I arriving in Zion National Park, Utah, after 18 hours of driving.

The hotel was freaking gorgeous! Desert Pearl Inn was minutes from the park entrance, completely comfortable, and homey. It was just absolutely amazing and I would totally stay there again!

The agenda for Zion was pretty casual. The weather was absolutely perfect; not to hot for us but cool for the locals. Wanting to relax as much as possible, we went on two hikes and a bike ride, and spent the rest of the time in the pool!

Our bike ride was to a ghost town called Grafton. I couldn't tell you anything about it except there's a tiny little cemetery with tombstones that read, "Killed by Indians."

Pretty neat huh?

Our hikes were pretty awesome. The first one was called Angel's Landing, and is one of the most popular hikes in the park.

And oh boy was this one of the coolest hikes I've ever done!! It was amazing!

The mountain we climbed to reach Angel's Landing

After a brief freak out when someone spotted a rattle snake on the trail (we didn't get to see it), we reached what we though was the top. Then we saw what all the warning were about: you had to make your way up the last half mile by holding onto a rope and tip towing along a cliff.

It was then that I found a brand new fear of heights and figured out what a mild panic attack must feel like, but I grabbed that rope and held on for dear life.

But man oh man it was totally worth it!! Amazing amazing hike with even more amazing views!

The other Zion-tastic hike we did was the Narrows Trail. I liked this one because it was different; the trail is actually up a river in between two steep canyon walls.

You get to wade through a slippery river as far as you'd like, looking up to steep canyon walls and piles of river rocks around you.

We only went about a mile into the Narrows before we called it a day and went back to the pool.

We kept eating at this place called Oscar's Cafe, that had delicious mahi mahi tacos and lots of vegetarian picks. We probably should have explored the options a little bit more, but Oscars just kept calling us back!

This hibiscus tea was to die for!

The best part of Utah was that everyone is amazingly nice. Like literally everyone we talked to in the entire state was wonderful. Even a Seattle friend who hails from Utah is super friendly (yeah that's you Ben)! I could definitely return here!

Oh, and the fact that it was so dry that I'm pretty sure I barely showed the whole four days we were here. My normally prone-to-greasiness hair was totally cool hanging out in the high altitude.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about the next leg of our journey to the Grand Canyon!

Road Trip Vol I

2012-10-25T08:32:00.001-07:00

I love me a good road trip. Even more, I love me some good traveling! Especially with Tim!

One thing I don't like? Surprises! Because I can't keep them! There's a reason Tim and I open Christmas presents the day I buy them!

You know who does love surprises? This guy:

So it's been pretty torturous for me to keep our monthly date night a surprise! But September was a big one. A giant one! Stuffed with a million envelops! And oh boy did it take lots of planning!

First, I had to secure a backpacking permit for the Grand Canyon. They release them four months in advance, and I had all my family members helping me fax in the request form because I kept getting a busy signal.

Luckily, I managed to get a two night permit starting the day of our seven and a half year anniversary! Is it weird we celebrate the day we started dating much more than our wedding anniversary? Honestly, not even sure how long we've been married.

Anyways, after I got the permit in the mail, it was time to secure time off for Tim. I'm Facebook-message-buddies with an old co-worker of Tim's, so I asked her for his boss's email address, and his awesome boss went out of her way to keep this whole thing a secret.

The day we were leaving, I got up and pretended to go to work with Tim, then came back home and packed up the car and dropped Holly off at my grandma's. I called Tim in the afternoon and suggested we have a dinner date in Bellevue. Luckily he says yes to everything!

I parked close to his work right about when I would have arrived via bus, and called Tim to let me up stairs, date night envelope in hand and yoga-fied outfit on my body....and then Tim didn't answer his phone for twenty minutes.

Turns out he had to stay a little late to fix something and was stuck in someone's office without his phone when I got there! He was finally almost done, saying how his boss said he had to finish this thing today and it was really weird because she never micromanaged him but kept asking about this project. Hehe! She even called and suggested some places for Tim and I to go to dinner that night, which I just loved!

Anyways, we finally got out of there and Tim still hadn't noticed I just "came from work" in my yoga pants, so I gave him his envelop and he opened it up and read that we were going to the Grand Canyon! And then he just chuckled and was like, "OK, where are we going for dinner?"

I guess all the times I've suggested hoping on the next plane to Paris have phased him. Oh well! I walked him to the car and he saw it loaded up with bags and I think he finally believed me. Actually, I'm not sure when he finally realized I was serious, but that's why I love Tim: he was totally willing to just drive away in the car with me to where ever we were going with no notice.

And that's how our trip began ladies and gentlemen! 18 whole hours of this:

and this:

And an hour on the side of the road when we both accidentally fell asleep in Utah.

But it was totally worth it when we finally got to Zion National Park (you didn't think we only went to the Grand Canyon did you??) and got to shower!

15-16 hours in!

But more on Zion next time!

The best part about this whole surprise is that Tim can be super oblivious- I could work on the envelops on the couch next to him without him noticing, leaving papers scattered about that he would never look at. What a guy!

And he totally called his boss the next morning to make sure he really had the time off, because he's responsible like that. Sexy, eh??

Check out our travel page for more trip reports!