Floral Boots
A big obsession for me lately, I looove floral boots so
much! Especially Doc Martens or some
kind of grungy, manly boot really girled up with a really feminine floral. I've noticed certain florals work better than
others. There is a reason that a lot of
90s florals still look outdated, while the new florals look fresh and edgy;
background and size of flowers seem to play a large factor.
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| Classy Anthro Vintage-y Maillot |
vs.
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| "Death by wallpaper" via Rural Life Wife |
Black or white backgrounds, or something else with large contrast from the flowers, makes the pattern feel crisp, purposeful and defined, while dated florals with little background contrast can feel mushy and… Umbridge-ish, for lack of a better analogy.
Blech. I want to look like a strong, confident woman who isn't afraid to be girly… not like I would fit amongst moth-eaten doilies and awkward cat pictures.
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| Floral Boot Tute from A Beautiful Mess |
I don't actually have a pair of floral boots, as of
yet. Since most floral Doc Martens cost more
than half the monthly mortgage on my house (yay fixer-upper foreclosure!), I'm
looking into DIYing some. I found this tutorial from A Beautiful Mess (great blog, btw) about how to Mod Podge
fabric onto an area of boots. I was
initially disappointed that it wasn't the *whole* boot, but it is surprising
and cute, and I think it’s growing on me.
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| More DIY Floral Boots via A Smile Each Day |
I really like how Amber at A Smile Each Day did the same
thing. I like the black boots and I
think I would prefer a small-print vintage look floral like the one she chose. If I find a good pair of thrifted boots to
try this on, I’ll definitely share how this turns out. :D
(Hint hint to my mother, who finds me all my
favorite thrifted items :D My birthday
*is* coming up in July ;))
“Happy” by Pharrell Williams
Speaking of my mother, she introduced me to the song “Happy” from Despicable Me 2 a few weeks ago! I don’t know how long this song has been out or how I missed it before. I actually didn't listen to the radio much until the power brick to my iPod speaker broke a month ago :P Now I’m using my magenta clock-radio from middle school, which is still chugging pretty well, but the manual channel changing is kind of a pain during the frequent commercial breaks :P Holy crap, you don't appreciate how few commercials Pandora has until you listen to regular radio again. (I type as Pandora has an annoying commercial break lol) Why can’t I listen to Pandora all the time? Bathtub. I have severe psoriasis, which is okay, but it means I spend several hours in the bathtub pretty much every day. It’s good thinking time, (like I've mentioned on aLBoP, some of my best ideas have come while I was in the bathtub) but the iPod speaker cord breaking is seriously cramping my style about it.
Blah, blah, blah; anyway, my mommy introduced me to
“Happy”! It’s just so catchy and cute
and every time it comes on the radio now (which is a lot, which pleases me), I
turn it up and rock out. Dancing naked
is good for the soul. You know, because
I’m in the bathtub; I don’t randomly dance naked… usually. I’m not exactly sure what being “a room
without a roof” means, but I suppose it’s an unlimited connotation? Anyway, it pleases me.
“Pompeii” by Bastille
This one is pretty new to me, too (once again, sudden influx of radio in my life), but I think it’s epic. It is currently my very favorite song. Honestly, I didn't realize it was a recently released song at first because it’s such a lovely blend of 80s tones. Like Toto’s “Africa” meets something from The Cure or Tears for Fears (who are both some of my favorites <3). The official video creeps me out a little, but whatev. I've talked about elsewhere, one of my biggest fears being losing control of my mind or being turned into something and not being able to turn back, and seeing it happen to everyone else first just makes it creepier; but it’s still cool how it goes with the lyrics, so I'll get over it ;) Can I just say, too, that I doubt I'll ever get tired of hearing British guys sing? One of the best accents ever.
Making things in waffle irons that should not be made in
waffle irons
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| Waffled Bacon via One Good Thing by Jillee |
Our oven has been broken for a few months. Well, actually, we have a cool,
vintage-looking oven that also has a left-mini-broiler-warmer-oven thing and
that still works, but you can’t even get a full muffin tin in there. The stove works and we use that constantly,
but the oven does this weird thing where it just beeps incessantly and won’t
let you start it. It’s an oven control
thing. We’re going to get it fixed
eventually, there’s just always something else coming up and I can make almost
anything on the stove, in the microwave or in the crock-pot anyway. We’ve taken to microwaving French fries,
chicken nuggets, spaghetti squash... We just eat less pizza than we used to,
which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
However there are some things that taste better baked and crispy. This is where I plan to have the waffle iron
come in.
I found this post on Brit +
Co., with 10 suggestions of things to make in a waffle iron besides
waffles. I’m especially excited about
Biscuits and Gravy found here (she seems adorable, I have since started
following her on Pinterest), reheating pizza, reheating French fries,
making cinnamon rolls and using cake mix.
I think I'll try the cake mix idea soon; we have a bazillion cake mixes
we got on sale after Christmas (like hot chocolate cake mix), that are all
totally fine and don't expire for ages, but people who are narrow-minded about
their cake seasons would shun. But
they’ve been sitting there because à
broken oven. Cake waffles sound like the
bomb. Besides, who wants to heat up
their whole house to use the oven anyway?
Well, me because it got stupidly cold this winter, but that’s beside the
point.
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| The "Wonut" - Part Waffle, part donut. Mind Blown. |
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| Counter-Clockwise from top: Oatmeal, Chickpea and Carrot Waffle experiments |
I’ve tried a few cool, random things in the waffle
maker. One night I made three different
gluten free waffles, just to try them out.
Oat and banana waffles were good, by this recipe, and I also made up
two recipes of my own—one from chickpeas, which turned out fluffy and amazing,
and the other from carrots! The carrot
one was entirely grain-free (I have friends that need that), just to see if I
could do it, and it was actually surprisingly good. Tasted a lot like French toast. I want to play around more with the recipe
before I share it, but I have to say I was very pleased with myself ;D
Concrete stuff that’s not supposed to be made of concrete
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| Concrete over Formica via A Beautiful Mess |
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| DIY Concrete Bangles via Brit + Co. |
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| DIY Concrete Candle Pillar via Vintage Revivals |
Vintage and retro swimsuits
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| It was disconcerting to see from far away how similar this pic looked to the bacon one above. |
If I had to choose two historical fashion pieces as my very
favorites, it would be vintage swimsuits and period ball gowns… and shoes… and
underwear… and… well, don't make me pick.
But swimsuits are definitely up there!
One of my favorite things about vintage and retro swimsuits is what outfits they are! Way higher on the glamour charts than what we
usually don at the pool or beach.
I find
a vintage-inspired one-piece to be so classy.
I look better in a one-piece and my Boy actually finds them sexier
:D Seriously, if you ask him about it he
can give you a long explanation about what they do for curves and how good it
looks when the line of the body isn't cut into pieces. I love it when he talks principles of
sexiness to me ;D And I appreciate that I'm not going to have to worry about
sucking it in all summer long.
I already
have several cute vintage-y ones, but I’m planning a few more vintage inspired
swimsuit projects for the summer, including a Gatsby-era, art deco swim cover I've
been planning (which technically is more flapper inspired than 20’s swimsuit
inspired, but eh). At some point I’d
really love some swim bloomers like these, but I’m kind of afraid that if I
made some, I’d end up looking like I was wearing a cloth diaper cover :P Not exactly chic.
Not especially vintage-y, but I've also been
converting one of my tankinis from a keyhole into a sweetheart neckline, and
adding, *ahem,* some support. I’ll
probably post a tutorial on it when I’m done… so long as I don’t screw it up
between now and when I finish…
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| Shabby Apple, from the "Silent Era" line, no longer available :P |
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| Shabby Apple, no longer available either! |
Glammed up sunglasses
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| Bejeweled Cat-Eye Sunnies, Source Unknown |
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| DIY by Honestly WTF |
The easiest way to make Chicken Nuggets taste like they're
from Chick-fil-a
I <3 Chick-fil-a so very much! It is one of my favorite fast food
places. Maybe my favorite… Anyway, it’s not the cheapest place to eat,
blahty blah. We really love Weaver
chicken nuggets. They taste so much
better than either Great Value or even Tyson, imho, and they're cheaper than
both (where we live anyway). They used
to be *insanely* cheap at Walmart, but they stopped carrying them (even though
they were almost always sold out! What’s
up with that?!), but now we get them at Save-a-Lot, which I always think is a
goofily small-town name for a store. But
I seriously digress.
I wanted Chick-fil-a nugget taste without buying Chick-fil-a
nuggets. There are lots of great
tutorials for making them from scratch, but I'm not really keen on that either
atm. But it seems one of the main things
that makes Chick-fil-a chicken taste so amazing is, weirdly enough, *pickle
juice!* Nutty, huh? We tried just adding pickles to our chicken
wraps and that worked pretty well, but then we were running out of
pickles. (I’m telling you, this recipe
is so lazy-a that we weren't even willing to go get more pickles for it
;)) So it was my Boy’s idea to put pickle
juice right into our fry-sauce!
If you don't know what fry-sauce is, it’s just ketchup with
either Miracle Whip (ew) or mayo. It’s a
Western thing. They're weirdos but they
make good condiments. I can say that
since I've lived out there ;D But
fry-sauce is really awesome on Chick-fil-a chicken, especially their sandwiches. And waffle fries. Mmmm waffle fries.
Looong, unnecessary story short, add dill pickle juice to
your ketchup or fry-sauce and it’ll make chicken nuggets or, I’m assuming,
chicken patties, taste like Chick-fil-a chicken. At least moreso. Especially the yummy Weaver ones. If you start with chicken that tastes like
butt, it'll probably still taste like butt, even with pickle juice. This has been your chicken-pickle-juice disclaimer.
I hope you enjoyed Stuff That Pleases Calise #1! For more Stuff That Pleases Calise, follow me on Pinterest!
I hope you enjoyed Stuff That Pleases Calise #1! For more Stuff That Pleases Calise, follow me on Pinterest!
