Angela

Secondhand styled: vintage crochet crop top

December 3, 2013 by Angela

November in Los Angeles means cool mornings and warm afternoons. Over the weekend, with a high of 82 degrees, I thought back to these photos I took last month and never got around to posting. I bought this basic white crochet-style crop top at a thrift store months ago, but because of the mid-length, it doesn’t get out much. But, I finally found the perfect way to style it – with a light, high-waist maxi skirt and basic accessories.

The top is thick enough for the cool mornings, and while summer’s long gone, I still can’t get over the cute faded pattern of this skirt… a boutique score for around $14.

How would you style this top for wear in your city’s winter weather? I know this definitely wouldn’t work in my hometown in Washington – it’s freezing there right now.

Handmade Thanksgiving cards

November 26, 2013 by Angela

Today I’m sending home a few Thanksgiving cards. I made these from the paper scraps and stickers I already had.

Cardstock from a spring stack, turned fall…

Maple leaf made from paint chips…

Just a little something.

Nature inspired handmade gifts

November 13, 2013 by Angela

I’m SO excited that the holidays are finally here! I know at at this time of the month they always seem so far away still, but then they creep up on you and suddenly it’s New Years Day. I shared some of my favorite handmade gifts for the holidays last year, and this year I wanted to share more recent finds.

Most of my favorite art, accessory, and decor products are nature inspired so this doesn’t follow too closely a theme besides being whimsical and artful, and hopefully perfect handmade gift ideas! Check out my finds…

Berry Headband by Ellsewhere Bride, $237

Natural Solid Perfume by IlluminatedPerfume, $35

Rabbit Plywood Print by WhatWeDoDK, $76

Cluster Gold Ring by IslesJewelry, $34

Hemp Infinity Scarf by windwardwearables $44

Ceramic Elephant Figurine by Claylicious, $32

Will you be putting handmade on your gift shopping list this year? I’ll have a new gift guide every week through December, so stay tuned.

DIY vintage glitter painted hangers

November 11, 2013 by Angela

Ever since moving in June I’ve been on sort of a mission to find cute hangers to display on my spray-painted clothing rack. I thrifted these vintage wooden skirt hangers, which were perfect for this DIY because I never have enough room for my skirts.

For this project, I used vintage loose glitter–a coarse blue, and a finer silver and gold, and mod podge. I used a paintbrush to apply the mod podge in circles and poured the loose glitter on, each time flipping the hanger back over onto a piece of paper to reuse the leftover glitter.

I started with hangers of all different sizes + types.

The gold, silver, and blue dots turned out best–I tried the circles with the large hangers, but it didn’t turn out as well. After all the glitter dried, I dusted the excess off and painted a layer of the mod podge over the entire piece to seal it off. I’d recommend doing two layers.

You could recreate this with a glitter pen, but I wanted to try the lovely colors of loose glitter I had on hand from a thrift store years ago.

Proudly displaying my skirt 🙂

What do you think?

Crystal Cove California

November 4, 2013 by Angela

Photos from a recent day trip to Crystal Cove….

Read about my adventure and why I love this place so much here on the Chestnut Mocha blog today as part of a wonderful series of bloggers detailing their favorite places to be.

Halloween DIY 1920s Headband

November 1, 2013 by Angela

This Halloween I wanted to do something inspired by The Great Gatsby, but give it my own twist. Long, straight hair doesn’t exactly fit in with the flapper girl look, but I loved how they did a more modern 20s look on Carey Mulligan in the 2013 movie, with elegant gowns and pretty jewels, and lighter colors and makeup.

I’m always scheming up my costume very last minute so I chose a simple beaded dress, ribbons for a glimmering sash, and an embellished headband. All accessories are from Michael’s. This was my inspiration for the headband. So I took a cheap Forever 21 (and in true F21 fashion I had to re-glue some of the stones on when I got home) headband and created a pendant to put on top.

To create a similar headband:
1. Hot glue a trio of feathers to a upside-down-triangle piece of stiff felt (I used an old Valentine’s Day felt sticker!)
2. Then attach a string of beads or a single dangling gem to the middle and let it hang down an inch.
3. Attach a larger pearl pendant to the center.
4. Once dry, attach the whole piece to a portion of the headband that is elastic.

To see the rest of my outfit, check out this cute instagram I was in for makeup.com.

Happy Halloween!