Amid all the craziness of running a new program, school getting out, and like eight thousand family events, I am back.
AND I am starting a new feature on my blog!
This is an idea I got from a morning radio show a few weeks ago, which I never usually listen to. But on this particular day, I had forgotten my iPod. As I was flipping through the stations looking for anything that my overly critical musical tastes might actually enjoy. Instead, I found a morning show, and what they were saying really caught my attention. One of the guys was talking about his 6 year old daughter, and how she had asked him what he was most "into" in that moment. He answered generically with family and work, but she was not satisfied. She told him it had to be things and trends that he was particularly taken with at that moment in time; that no matter who he was talking to these things seemed to always come up. I loved her examples: doll shoes, Justin Bieber's new album, and miniature hand soaps.
I have been intrigued with this conversation topic for a few weeks now, but everyone I try to explain it to just gives me a funny look and doesn't really get it. Which is when it dawned on me: it is hard to actually talk about casually, but it is PERFECT for my blog!
So from now on, the third Thursday of each month will be Favorite Things Thursday! I will list the three things I have not been able to stop talking about for the last four weeks. You get the point :-)
So I am proud to announce the first ever FAVORITE THINGS THURSDAY! Yes, I know it is Tuesday. But I am just so darn excited about this, it couldn't wait anymore. I promise from now on they will be on Thursdays :-) Enjoy the ramblings of my crazy brain and the things that it seems to like the most.
1) minty nail polish
Mint has been the biggest trend of the summer so far, and I have been just as into it as everyone else. Pretty much every store I go into I get magnet-pulled toward minty things- even my iPhone cover is mint. But in the midst of the deep mint sea we are swimming in, I have found one particular thing that I love above all else: mint nail polish. I have loved it so much that I have gone through three different kinds in the last year finding my very favorite shade. Finally, I found "Re-Freshmint" by China Glaze.
It is perfect! I first found it when I was getting a pedicure for my BFF's wedding in April. I wanted something fun and springy, and this little gem popped right off the wall at me. It isn't too green, and even in some lights it looks slightly blue. And, bonus, it looks just as good on tan skin as it does on my pasty white exterior. I can't even tell you how many compliments this nail polish gets. It goes for about $7 a bottle, which is more than I am usually willing to pay for polish: I paint my nails so often (about twice a week) that it is pointless to get anything more than $2 polish. But for this shade, I was willing to make a concession :-)
2) pic-stitch
Pic-Stitch is a super handy little app. If you are like me, you love to take pictures of various events and happenings in your life and then share them with the rest of the world. I know they are all waiting with baited breath to see what I am eating for dinner ;-)
Here is an example of how handy my new fave app is: Last weekend we took my dad putt putt golfing for fathers day, and I took about 6 pictures of us and the gorgeous water-feature-only course. I wanted to share the event with my expectant public (ha!) but how was I supposed to choose one picture? I wanted one of the score card so that I could show off my skillz (yeah, with a z.) but I also wanted one of the sweet waterfall, or maybe one of the man we were celebrating. Enter pic-stitch! It allows you to combine several different photos into a variety of different arrangements for between 2 and 4 photos. Mine looked like this:
The family, the scenery, and the scorecard- plus I only had to tweet once! Pic-stitch also will export your creation directly to any other photo app you like, including Instagram. I whipped this sucker up in about 3 minutes- with easy to use features and in-app editing tools, I can't get enough of pic-stitch.
3) silhouettes
I am a craft geek. I love paper, scissors, chip board, modge-podge, all of it. A few years ago, my family was at Disneyland and my aunt had silhouettes cut of her two daughters. My mom toyed with the idea, but they were expensive and not all of her children were present, so she passed on the opportunity. On the plane ride home she said the only thing she wished she would have done was get those silhouettes cut of my brother and I. Being the amazing and thoughtful daughter that I am, I promptly filed that little bit of info away into my brain. Sure enough, two months later, my mom got not one, not two, but SIX custom and framed silhouettes- one of each child, one of all three of us together, one of my parents first dance at their wedding, and one of the dog. The bug was caught. I haven't been able to get over them since. I love the way they look. So clean, so classic, so beautiful. I even ventured into scenery and words- I made this for an old teacher last week:
I am also working on a silhouette necklace, but cutting something that small and that delicate is taking much more time than I had originally planned. I will post it as soon as I finish it :-) While I am not at expert level yet (where you just look at a person and cut their silhouette as they sit there and pose for you) I have recently purchased some special tools for better outline cutting- like a swivel-head Xacto knife. And it won't stop there. I just ordered "Silhouette Art: Papers, Instructions and Patterns for Making Modern Heirlooms" from Amazon.com and can't WAIT for it to get here. In the mean time, I will just keep drooling over silhouettes on Pinterest :-)
So there you have it! Favorite Things Tuesday is going to be so much fun. Next month, my roommates and I are having a favorite things party! I can't wait to tell you all about it.
What are a few of your favorite things right now?
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