DIY "Sparkly" Decorative Fruits

Hello loves!

I have been feeling extra crafty lately, and I have been seriously enjoying every bit of it. I also started baking like I'm #MarthaCrocker. And before you think I'm crazy, I intended to put the two names together. Having said that, here is yet another fabulous DIY for those of you who like fabulous things at Dollar Tree prices. I drew my inspiration from some fruits I saw a picture of somewhere. I can't remember where I found them but I had enough sense to at least save the picture.

I decided against glitter because as we all know, glitter gets ever-y-where.  I may use glitter when I make them for myself later on though.

                  

 

I started by spraying the fruits white. Once they dried I poured epsom salt in a plastic container, painted the fruit generously with glue, and dipped it into the epsom salt. I let them sit over night to make sure they were completely dry. Once they were dry I sprayed them with the clear Rust-Oleum Glitter Seal Spray so that the salt would stay sealed on. I then sprayed a little gold paint on the wax paper, dipped my brush in it and painted both the stem and bottom (whatever it's called) gold.

           

Excuse the toes.lol

 



The finished product looked like it was purchased at Pottery Barn or something equally as expensive, when I spent a fraction of what that would have cost. I hope you enjoy!


XOXO,

Here's what you'll need:

• Foam Fruit of your choice (Dollar Tree)
• White Spray Paint
• Epsom Salt (Dollar Tree)
• Gold Spray Paint (optional)
• Rust-Oleum Glitter Seal Spray
• Small Paint Brush
• News Paper
• Craft Glue (ie. Modge Podge)

Monogram Candleholder DIY

Hello again!
As you probably saw in my previous post, I created some custom monogram candleholders for my friend Keno's birthday. Since this was my first try, and my original plan didn't quite work out, I had to improvise a little but they turned out great.

I started out with some plain square glass candleholders from Dollar Tree. I love that store by the way. So many little great finds can be picked up there.

Buy here

These little vases were made out of a fairly thick glass, so they didn't look or feel cheap. My original plan was to order a page of stickers already cut out in the shape of a K. I found a company online that charged $9.99 for a page and I thought I was good to go. Unfortunately those were for square stickers with a K printed on them. That wouldn't work, so I had to improvise. I printed out a sheet of K's and cut them out. What I SHOULD  have done was buy a plain page of 8.5x11 printable vinyl. It would have made my life much easier. (can be purchased here). 

I on the other hand used regular paper and then glued it onto the glass with a glue stick which I then scraped off and cleaned up with a little water on a q-tip. It was quite the hassle and paint managed to get under the K in certain places that I had to scrape off. Cutting out the letters and making sure the lettering was perfect required quite a bit of patience.

Once I sprayed them all, I let them dry a little before peeling off them K's. Don't let them dry 100% because it makes the edges slightly uneven. Unfortunately I didn't take a lot of pictures of this project, but it was pretty simple after all.

I hope you guys enjoyed this little DIY moment, and if you try it for yourself, please send me a picture.

Smooches,

Shopping List

• Square Candle Holder(s)
• Rust-Oleum Spray Paint (in your choice of color)
• Printable Vinyl 8.5x11 
• Scissors
• Newspaper
• Patience to cut out the letters

Party Planning DIY from Dollar Tree

Hello all!

I'm sorry I have been missing in action, but so much has been going on. I'm in the process of starting my own company on top of my regular job, party planning, and regular household things.
What I would like to share with you today is a couple of awesome DIY tutorials. Unfortunately I haven't bought one of those fancy cameras yet, so my pictures aren't the greatest, and I am new to the tutorial thing and haven't quite figured out at which step I need to take a picture, but most of them are quite simple so it should be fine.
I have been interested in wedding/party planning for quite sometime, and I occasionally work with a local event planner as an event supervisor. I genuinely enjoy making people's events everything they have dreamed of. I was recently asked to help a friend create a Lisa Vanderpump style table for his birthday, but on a budget. I accepted the challenge and went to work. I was given majority of creative control, which was great, and things turned out amazingly if you ask me.

Everything was made from "scratch" and was custom made for this event. The ambiance of the room of course puled everything together perfectly.  I made the vases, tall candles, monogram candles, gold stones, cake pops, and "sparkly" fruit. I will be breaking this up into several blogs instead of one long one.

Let's start with the candles easiest one, the tall gold candles. I simply used gold spray paint on 4 white tapered candles from Dollar Tree. I then placed them in these cheap, yet fancy looking candleholders.

Found Here

Two simple steps that even a child could do, but with a really pretty outcome. The candles were also from Dollar Tree. Next up I will show you these fabulous vases. I have since planned on making myself a couple to keep in my home, but I have been procrastinating and haven't gotten off my little procrastinating ass.

First I taped the vases all the way up. You can choose the width of your lines however you like, but I chose to do my bottom 2", and then alternated 1" at a time. The easiest way to get a good guide was to take the entire vase and then remove the pieces I wanted to be gold.











Once they were all taped, it was time to start spraying them. Now this is where I apparently had some diminished capacity of the brain. At least temporarily. But hey, this means I can tell you what NOT to do. You see, in my mind at the time, I thought I could just spray the vases just the way they are over here to our right. Well, what I didn't think about was the fact that the overspray on the inside would show through to the outside....since it's glass. DUH!! I know. Much an idiot move, but hey, we all have those moments. SO what you SHOULD do is stuff the vase with newspaper.

As you can see here, I held my hand in it so that I could turn is when I needed to since my space was limited. I also decided to do this in the house, which wasn't the brightest idea ever, but since I live in a loft, I didn't really have anywhere else to go. Our house was filled with gold dust for days.

At least I had enough sense to put on a pair of latex gloves.

I peeled off the tape, and VOILA! So simple and so gorge. The can of paint was only $4 at home depot. I used the Rust-Oleum Specialty Metallic Gold Spray Paint.

I hope you enjoyed, and if you decide to try this for yourself, please feel free to send me a picture. I would love to see your results.

Smooches,

Tallspiration April Dasal

A few days ago I saw a post about a young woman named April Dasal. I saw her before and after picture and I was oh so very impressed. I personally lack self control when it comes to eating, and I LOVE food. One of the first things I think about when i wake up in the morning is what I am going to make for dinner. I cook 6-7 days a week, and I thoroughly enjoy the process as well as the product. I have been wanting to get in shape and lose about 15lbs for as long as I can remember, but I can never quite seem to get the motivation to actually do it.
April however, had the motivation and discipline to not only lose 15lbs, but rather she lost 101lbs. She didn't get a weight loss surgery or took any prescription weight loss drug, but she did it the right way. She used good ol fashioned hard work and determination along with a workout regimen and healthy diet. This beautiful 6 footer transformed her body in a way most of think may be impossible. I was truly inspired and I would like to applaud her for her accomplishments. Here is April's story:

"May of 2008 I was weighing in at 260 pounds, the heaviest I have ever been my entire life. That's when I finally realized how unhealthy physically and mentally I allowed myself to become.

Before I go any further let me introduce myself. My name is April Dasal, I'm currently 24 years old and I use to be a foodaholic. Food has been a huge part of my life since childhood and it all started with my father. He moved to the U.S. from the Philippines in his 30s where he met my mother, married her, and had 4 children. If any of you are familiar with the Filipino culture, you're aware that the importance of food is right under family. It was branded into my brain as a child that the more I ate, the happier my dad was. He was very difficult to please but because having a large appetite made him proud, I became very good at it.

To give you a better understanding of how much I had trained myself to eat, here are a few examples (and I'm not exaggerating any of it); when I was in 3rd grade our teacher ordered the class pizza, most of the kids had 1-2 slices of pizza, I on the other hand ate an entire large pizza. When I was in 6th grade I would come home after school and cook 4, that's right, 4 packets of ramen noodles. I would also drink the left over soup as well. Another overeating incident that occurred during my 6th grade year is I ate an entire pound of expired turkey bacon. I became sick that evening, threw up all of it, and had food poisoning for a month. I became accustomed to eating so much food that my stopping point would be when I was on the verge of puking. The older I got, the closer I became to food. Not only did it satisfy my hunger but also my boredom, anger, sadness, and depression. Food was the answer to all my problems.

Then, at the end of my 7th grade year, I learned about the sport of bodybuilding. I spent hours looking on websites, reading articles about nutrition, training, and my favorite part were the pictures. All the people in shape inspired me, especially the teenagers that were around my age. I educated myself through articles on the internet and made myself a training routine I could do at home with the few pieces of equipment we owned. This is where my journey towards fitness began. My only problem was food. I understood that I was eating too much and the wrong foods but unfortunately my bad habits got the best of me. I was still able to stick with my training and gain muscle with the little knowledge I obtained. Working out eventually became as addicting as food and was the only thing I had in my life that made me feel good about myself. I kept my love for weight lifting and dreams of making it a part of my future a secret. I wasn't sure if it was possible and I knew my father wouldn't approve if he found out. He had already told me as a child, that I was going to choose a high salary career and suggesting anything other than that would have been ridiculous to him.

My dad never found out about my love for lifting. December 23, 2002 I woke up to him yelling for my older sister. I heard my sister's footsteps, running down the hallway. I came out of my room to see what was going on and he was sitting on the floor, holding his chest, yelling in a panic at my sister to rub his back. I ran into the living room crying, and asked him if I should call 911 but he yelled, "No" at me. My older brother then came into our living room and told me to call 911. I picked the phone up but I couldn't move. It was the most intense and frightening experience I've ever gone through. Finally my brother grabbed the phone out of my frozen hand and called for an ambulance. At that time, my youngest sister had stumbled into the room, just waking up to all the commotion. I took her quickly into my brother's room so she didn't have to see our dad. As she sat on his bed, I stood in the doorway, watching the paramedics come into our house and push my dad out on a stretcher. My mom came home from work and picked us up to go to the hospital where we were brought into a room to wait for the doctor. We sat in the room silently until the doctor came in and told us that our dad had a massive heart attack and couldn't be revived. I will never forget that moment and realization of what had caused his death.... years of unhealthy eating and a sedentary lifestyle. The very same habits I and everyone in my family were practicing.

After my father's death, my family struggled mentally and financially. It was the first time in my life I had difficulty eating food. I began losing weight because I was depressed. I felt extremely alone and my purpose in life had vanquished. Luckily, my freshman year, I had met a teacher who had reached out to me and made me realize the important things in life. My mind made a 180, from negative to positive. My eating habits even improved and I was incorporating fresh fruits and veggies into my diet, as well as controlling my portion sizes. I lost 30lbs, going from 220 lbs my 8th grade year to 190 lbs my freshman year. I even saved up some money to get a membership at Gold's Gym, which soon became my second home. Things were starting to look up and I finally regained control over my life. The next year I purchased personal training sessions from Gold's Gym and my trainer opened up a whole new world of training to me. He taught me many different training techniques and most importantly taught me how to push through pain when I wanted to stop. I made lots of progress and even got down to 179 lbs. I then started hanging out with a new crowd in high school who didn't care about their health. My weight plummeted back up to 200 lbs and my bad eating habits caught back up with me.

My weight stayed around 200 lbs until my senior year in high school (2007) when a friend told me about a new store he got his protein from called Supplement Superstore. I decided to check it out instead of going to my usual supplement store. I went to the St. Peters location where I met Joe Keough. This was the first time in my life I had visited a supplement store and all my questions were answered without a sales pitch. Joe probably spent at least a half an hour with me or longer explaining which protein I should get and dieting in general. I continued shopping at S2 taking Phormula-1 and Ignition for my post workout shake. I noticed a pretty big difference in my strength and was happy I switched over (my bank account was happy too).

After I graduated high school I got a job at Gold's Gym selling memberships then changed positions to the night shift receptionist. I worked Monday-Thursday 11pm-9am, and that is where I watched my weight climb. My irregular sleeping patterns, combined with eating high calorie foods, and inconsistent workouts caused me to go from 200 lbs to 260 lbs in less than 6 months. I remember the day I got on the scale and saw those numbers, I knew I couldn't continue to live like I was unless I wanted to end up like my dad. I changed my eating habits and Gold's Gym luckily changed their hours. I worked from 4 am-10 am instead of covering the night shift, which allowed me to have normal sleeping patterns. I was able to get down to 230 lbs and over the course of the next 4 years my weight fluctuated between 200-240 lbs.

May of 2012, my good friend/workout partner was in need of somewhere to stay over the summer while he attended school at Lindenwood. I told him if he couldn't find anywhere he could stay with my family and I, which is what he did. We decided that since we were living together we would get on a strict diet and training routine. Eating out at restaurants stopped and I cooked all my meals. Breakfast I usually would have 2-3 egg whites with spinach leaves and whole wheat toast or oatmeal. My second meal usually consisted of a lean meat, (like tilapia, chicken, or ground turkey) with a complex carb (brown rice or quinoa) and a vegetable (broccoli, salad, or carrots).  I also made sure to include healthy fats into my diet like olive oil, avocados, almonds, coconut oil, and natural peanut butter. I would eat at least 6 meals a day all similar to my second meal except I would stop consuming carbs after 6 pm and my last meal of the day would usually be a Level-1 protein shake (my favorite flavor is ice cream sandwich). As far as training went we completely switched things up. I figured I should since I had been training the same since I was 12 years old. I found a new 6 day a week program. It incorporated power lifting type training as well as the bodybuilding type training. For my post workout protein I continued to take my Ignition and Phormula-1 and started taking 1-DB Goddess and Thyro-Drive. I was able to make great strength gains as well as drop body fat up until I hurt my back and my shoulder at work. I found out I had partial tears in my shoulder and a herniated disk. It was very discouraging to hear but I was determined to change my life and not go back to the lifestyle I was living. It was difficult to not train my injured body parts but because I never gave up things were falling into place perfectly. I was eating right, training right, and had a great support system with my friend that moved into my house. My weight was melting off me and before I knew it I was at 185 lbs 3 ½ months later. As happy as I was about my accomplishments, I still had one thing on my mind and that was competing in a bodybuilding show. It was a dream of mine since I was 12 and I knew I was capable of doing it.
I was determined to do what I once thought was impossible so I signed up for the 1st Phorm NPC Midwest Bodybuilding show 6 weeks out. I entered in the women's bodybuilding, physique novice, and physique open categories. My training and diet changed drastically. During the last 3-2 weeks my energy levels were at an all time low. I wasn't getting much energy from my diet and I was burnt out on all of the cardio I was having to do. I decided to tryout the new BMR Bliss go pack since I was successful with the 1-DB and Thryo-Drive. I'm happy to say that was one of the best decisions I made. It helped tremendously with my energy levels, which helped clear my mind when I was feeling overwhelmed. I continued to take my BMR pack until 2 days out from the show when I wasn't needing to do cardio anymore. The day of the show I weighed in at 159 lbs, 101 lbs lighter than I was in 2008. I placed 1st in women's bodybuilding, 2nd in physique novice, and 3rd place in physique open! I finally did it, what I had been trying to achieve for the past 12 years of my life, when I first discovered this crazy exciting sport!

This is only the beginning for me. I want to inspire and help others change their lives for the better and continue to work harder and compete until I obtain my pro card.

I owe the S2 crew, especially Joe Keough, a huge thank you for the time they set aside to help me grow. Not just physically but mentally as well. Joe really helped me realize that the only limits I have are the ones I give myself. Remember, this is your life and you are the only one that has control over it. If you really want something, do what it takes to get there. Now go out and achieve what you want, and make the changes necessary in order to do so!!!!"

So now go out there and do what April said and achieve what you want. Anything is possible!


XOXO,

Meet my new man!

I know I'm a little bit late, but let me introduce you to my new baby. Everyone, say hello to Enzo. Let me give you a little bit of history. When I first moved out on my own I got a little blue chihuahua girl that I named Tia. When she was 2.5 years old, Honey entered our lives. I was young and although I always took great care of the two of them, I knew they weren't quite getting the time they needed, so they moved to Sweden with my mother. I have always felt like I shouldn't get another dog as long as they are alive, so instead I have fostered shelter dogs over the years. I have even had a dog or two that I regretted letting go of.
Earlier this year I started seriously thinking about getting a pup of my own, and in the end of September, I finally did. I looked around for a while and I finally found someone (on accident) who had a beautiful litter of Cane Corsos, and as soon as I saw his color I knew I needed to have him. For those of you who don't know, a Cane Corso is an Italian Mastiff and range from about 80-160lbs. The range  in weight is so big because Americans tend to breed for weight more than anything. I will dedicate a blog post to the breed on a later date.

This little boy is so darn cute (as most puppies are) and he is so funny. How can you resist this face?

     

Or how can you resist the frog legs?? When I got him home he was 7.5 weeks (I thought he was 8 weeks until I saw the paperwork after I already got him), and 13lbs. He started growing about 2-3lbs per week and was actually a surprisingly good puppy. I am not usually a fan of puppies because they are hyper, not potty trained, chew on things, and don't listen. Enzo however, was super chill from day one and didn't do much wrong except pee in the house. He never did a #2 in the house, even from day one. He didn't chase the cat, and did't chew on things he wasn't supposed to. Oh, except for socks. He has a thing for socks.lol What most people don't understand is that most shelter dogs are housebroken, or at least mostly so. I will do a whole other post on that later.

I wished I would have waited to get a puppy in the spring so that I could take him everywhere with me to help socialize him , but I did take him as much as I could when I first got him home. He was a bit timid and definitely needed it. I took him with me to any bar or restaurant that allowed dogs on the patio. He slept through most of it, but he was always happy to meet new dogs and people.

At Nara Again

At Nara Hookah Lounge

At friend's house for a BBQ

He was so tiny and cute when he first came home to us. He is still super cute, but not so much tiny anymore. I will make sure to talk about him more often and I will give you guys an update on what he looks like now. I could hold him in my arms like it was no big deal back then.

Just to give you an idea before I sign off, here's a more recent picture of my baby Enzo, and his father side by side. His father is 125lbs and his mother is 110.

Thanks again for reading. I sure do appreciate each and every one of you.

XOXO,