DIY

DIY

I Designed My Own Engagement Ring (Using Jewelry I Already Had)

My beloved circa 2006 Las Vegas pawn shop ring

I love my engagement ring. It's one of my the very few things, including children and dogs (and, okay, Kendrick, but only on a good day) I would save from a house fire. (Sidenote: A few weeks ago, it seemingly vanished into the ether. I'm stopping myself from panicking with the assumption that it was taken off of my nightstand by one of my kids, and will turn up eventually in some completely unexpected and bizarre location, like what happened this other time I lost some very special jewelry.)

Anyway. I love it. But I also...kind of always wanted a ring-ring. Is that obnoxious?? Not a solitaire, and not anything wildly expensive - just something that was exactly the style and color and design I envisioned. I also had this vague idea that I wanted to design something myself, but that seemed like an insanely pricey proposition, between buying the stones and working with a jeweler to create a custom piece. I mean, who does that?!

Crafts for the Uncrafty

Homemade Halloween Costumes Win Forever and Always

This photograph was taken in 1988, in case the crimped hair didn't tip you off.

Every year when I was a little girl, my mom would start making my Halloween costume in September. I might want to be a can-can dancer, or a character from Little House on the Prairie, or Cher (oh yes)...whatever it was, my mother would somehow pull out confusingly professional sewing skills that she apparently reserved solely for Halloween, and whip up a masterpiece of glitter and ruffles and perfection.

I am simultaneously sad about and relieved by the fact that kids these days ("kids these days"!! I'm so old) don't want homemade Halloween costumes. There was something grand - even heroic - about the fact that despite having no particular interest in crafting and exactly zero time to spare, what with her whole "being a lawyer" thing, my mother just rustled up her reserves and knocked it out of the park, year after year. And even when she didn't - my Cher costume consisted of a stretchy tube of sparkly fabric and the most unfortunate wig you have ever seen...it was still the only costume of its kind out there. It was mine. Made by my mom. I loved that.

DIY

3-Minute Rainbow Unicorn Makeup

About thirty seconds before guests arrived for our party last weekend, I remembered that I had been planning to dress up. And instead of throwing on a pair of cat ears...I did this. (And then did it again, and again, and again, because all of the kids - and half of the adults - who came wanted me to do it to them, too.)

Entertaining

Worms ‘N’ Dirt

Now THIS is the kind of dessert I could have gotten on board with as a kid: Oreos that have been decimated to the point where total potential cookie intake is maximized like whoa.

Sidenote: somehow fifteen whole cookies translate into one teaspoon of ground-up cookie, and while I'm not exaaaaactly sure how to explain the physics behind this, I do know that my daughter ate 90 Trader Joe's Halloween-themed Jo-Jos in the course of an hour via six cups of worms 'n' dirt. And honestly, to me that seems...

Well...

Like a job extremely well done.

Entertaining

Bloody Band-Aids

I cannot take credit for inventing this one - I found it on Pinterest - but I wish I could, because it's genius, costs next-to-nothing, and takes about five seconds (not counting the twenty minutes I spent hunting for a box of Band-Aids to add the all-important finishing touch).


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