Bauble Bar Pop-Up Shop in Soho

Have you been to Bauble Bar's pop-up shop in Soho yet? Before wedding madness took over I had a chance to stop by last month to take a peep at the online e-tailer's spacious set-up on Greene Street.

Whether you're looking for that great statement necklace or just some every day essential, there's a lot to covet at at the pop-up. If you have questions about buying costume jewelry online, this is your perfect chance if you're in the NYC area to see the goods in person. The pop-up shop will be featuring the same items that are available online through August 13, 2013. 

In addition to jewelry, there are a number of fun events happening and the next one features one of our favorite crafty ladies, Jenni Radosevich of I Spy DIY. So if you're around this Wednesday, July 17th, stop by for a chance to DIY with Jenni, sip Godiva cocktails and receive a complimentary leather pouch for attending. Just make sure you RSVP to rsvp@rmo-weatherly.com.

If you can't make the event, the pop-up is open Monday-Saturday 10am-8pm and Sundays 11am-7pm.

Super Easy Healthy Banana Oat Cookies

Cookies have been food group that I've had to severely reduce since I began cutting gluten, dairy and eggs out of my life. Seriously, I think countless friends have told me that I've lost a lot of weight, and it's not that I am eating less, but I am eating less in terms of baked goods. When I can get it though, I've always appreciated Babycakes Bakery's cupcake tops and cookie sandwiches as well as Enjoy Life's Snickerdoodles in the grocery aisle.

So when a friend told me at a recent get together that we were going to make sugar free, butter free, egg free, gluten free cookies, I had my doubts. Have you ever made a recipe from Pinterest? I guess there is always a first time for everything. I tried on 2 occasions with slightly different sets of ingredients and quickly learned what works best. These aren't cookies in the traditional sense, they are a bit more like dessert bars, but still tasty nonetheless.
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Tips:
*Use very ripe bananas, the more brown spots the better.
*Use quick oats. You can use gluten-free rolled oats, but quick oats works so much better. Since I'm not celiac, and I couldn't find GF quick oats, I just used regular quick oats, but they exist :)
*Mini chocolate chips work better than the chunks
*Not necessary but if you want a bit of a richer flavor, add a teaspoon and a half of melted coconut oil to your batter. You won't be sorry.

Pretty much the base recipe goes:
2 bananas
1 cup of quick oats

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet (don't skimp or your cookies will get stuck). Mash the ingredients together and add any mix-ins. Spoon tablespoons of your mixture onto your cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes until firm and lightly browned on the edges.


For this version pictured I used 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 cup of currants for a spin on an oatmeal raisin cookie.


I made another version that instead of cinnamon and currants, I used 1/3 cup of coconut and 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips (you can use carob chips, to cut out sugar, but they have dairy)!  The coconut added a nice texture to the recipe.

Ultimately, my bananas weren't ripe enough, and my chocolate chips were chunks, so they ended melting everywhere when I tried to free them from the pan.  Still not too shabby, and they held together just fine.

For my next attempt, I may try adding some peanut butter to the batter to see where it will take me.

DIY: Lady Mary Crawley Inspired Wedding Tiara

There is no bones about it, I am a huge Downton Abbey fan. Ever since I first entered the world of the Crawley's I have admired the style and poise of all of the "Lady's". Naturally when their weddings aired earlier this year for all of the world to see, I couldn't resist admiring Lady Mary's bejeweled tiara that weighed in at 45 carats and cost about $200,000. Being a bride on a budget, that tiara was most definitely out of my price range, however I could not shake the lovely laurels from my head. Thankfully I happened to stumble upon this laurel brooch while browsing eBay and I found myself an affordable solution. I ended up ordering 2 brooches and a pack of 10x5 Navettes on eBay, buying myself a comb in a craft store and some super powerful glue (E6000) and seeing what I could do with a little bit of grosgrain. All in all, I think I spent under $20 for my own laurel wedding tiara. While it's not as large or bold as Lady Mary Crawley's I think I still get to have a little touch of Downton on my special day.

The pieces I ordered on eBay were actually brooches, so the first thing I did was snap off the backing by pushing in on the brooch pin and pulling back and forth a couple of times.


My next move was to weave some thin 3/8" grosgrain ribbon through the wire comb to give myself a bit more surface area for the glue to set. I trimmed the ends in a diagonal angle.

Next I applied some glue and allowed it to sit a couple minutes to become really tacky before carefully placing both brooches centered over the comb. I overlapped the end slightly to create a continuous line. There were a few funny gaps where the grosgrain ribbon showed through, so I carefully took one of the navette crystals and glued them to fil in any awkward spaces.

I let my creations sit overnight until the glue secured everything into place.

The next day, I carefully glued down the ends back onto the comb and voila a tiara to call my own. I think to make sure that it's extra secure I'm going to have to use a couple of bobby pins horizontally to make sure it won't fall off my head, but otherwise it's everything that I hoped it would be :) It almost makes me wish I ordered 3 combs instead of 2.

DIY: Custom Wedding Signage

A couple weekends ago I wandered into an art supply store with Jeff because he had a plan to make a Jackson Pollock inspired painting. While looking around the shelves I saw some super affordable wood board panels called "Birch Board", so I picked up a 5 different sized pieces and some acrylic craft paint all for the grand total of $16.89 with the grand ambition to make some cute a cheerful wedding signage the likes of which I've been seeing on Pinterest.

Unfortunately I failed to pick up a decent paint brush and after some failed attempts to paint signs with a terrible paint brush, I decided to help Jeff splatter his painting instead. Fortunately this past weekend I found a couple of better paint brushes at home and I took a second go at painting. I used some nylon bristle size "0" and "4" brushes along with Navy Blue and Silver paints for some signs that I am very excited to have at my wedding.
You'll need:
A couple of decent paintbrushes
Some Birch Board Panels
Acrylic Paint in your wedding colors
Paper Towels to clean up and smears and dry your brushes between colors
A cup of water to rinse your brushes
A plastic plate/tray to mix your paint

First I thought of a few of the types of signs I wanted and then the ways that I wanted to say them. I then Googled a few ideas on the internet for the placement of words and was inspired by the scrolls that were on a stamp that I'll be using for the wedding. I penciled in approximate placement on the boards and I started painting away over the pencil. Don't worry if you don't cover all the pencil because you can erase this later, although you should wait until your paint is completely dry first.

One thing I learned about using the acrylic paint was that if it was too thick it wouldn't spread nicely, but if it was too thin, it would bleed out on the wood. So I experimented by mixing a few drops of water into the paint for a smooth consistency. While my signs didn't turn out perfectly, I am going to sand a few smudges away later and I think it sort of adds to the charm. Don't worry if you make mistakes, because my failed attempt of a board was easily fixed by painting over the whole debacle in black paint and adding letters in a contrast color once the black paint dried. The magic of acrylic!

Another tip is to start at the top corner that is farthest away from where you will end up in the end. Since I am a righty I started in the top left corner and moved right and down as I progressed. This will help prevent smudges on the hand which will inevitably lead to smears on your pretty boards. I also started with the text and then later went back to add pretty swirls where I saw fit.

Anyways I am pretty darn pleased with my efforts and it ended up costing me a lot less than if I were to have bought the signs from someone else. Hurray! I call this a win!

DIY: Pollock Inspired Painting

I've been meaning to fill up some of the empty wall space in my room with a DIY painting but winter put a damper on my plans...until this weekend!  The weather was amazing so I decided to hit up my local art store to pick up some supplies.  I'm by no means a painter (I'm an accountant for Pete's sake!) so if I can do it - anyone can.  Seriously.  This is a super fast project and a bajillion times cheaper  (that's my official numerical accountant talk here) than buying a "real" painting or a large print at somewhere like Ikea.

I picked up a few brushes, some acrylic paints and a canvas board - I wanted something big since I literally have nothing on my walls and opted for a 24x36 canvas.  My room is pretty monocromatic in general (white, grey, brown and a bit of blue) so I wanted to pick all of that up in the color palate I was using.   

Since the weather was so amazing - I decided to paint on my patio to minimize cleanup (this worked amazingly well until I had the bright idea of adding more to the painting inside at night while buzzed on tequila - but more on that later).  Live and learn!

To start, I painted the entire canvas black - but you can leave it white, paint it another color or do whatever you like.  This is seriously one of the most forgiving styles of painting, so literally anything goes.  

After painting the canvas black, I thought it was bit too black and harsh so I decided to paint a white line while the black paint was not still wet and smudge it to soften the black.  Once that was done, I was all set to throw some paint down - literally.

I started by taking the paint bottles and creating lines by squeezing the paint bottle directly on the canvas in a swift motion.  There's not much thought involved but to make the lines fluid and even you have to go fairly quickly - almost like throwing a baseball (paint ended up on the floor but hey - that's half the fun).  If I had thought about it beforehand I would have laid down some newspaper or cardboard to catch the mess but I didn't.  Acrylic is one of those paints that super to easy to clean as long as it's not dry so no harm done! 

To make dots, I just held the paint bottle a couple feet off the canvas and let the paint fall, moving all around the canvas.  To make smaller flecks, I applied the paint to a brush and flicked it around the canvas.   This works great with two colors applied at the same time on the same brush and creates a swirl effect within the paint blob.  I highly recommend this technique as it is very professional.

Here's what I ended up with initially.  I was happy with the result so I packed up and headed inside and put the painting down flat to dry.  When transporting your wet painting just try to keep it level so that the paint doesn't run.  Set it down somewhere flat and let it dry overnight or until it's fully dried (it might take longer than a day depending on how much paint you apply.

After a couple hours and some tequila, I went to look at the painting and while I liked how it outside,  I though it was lacking indoors,  maybe because of the lower light or bare walls.  I decided I wanted more stuff on it so that's what I did - I kept going splashing and splooging paint in my room with the painting resting on my desk.  This seemed like a good idea at the time until I looked up and saw blue, gold and white paint splattered over my wall.  An ounce of prevention will save you time in the end (i.e. scrubbing paint off the wall is a surefire buzz killer).  At the end of the day, this is what I ended up with and I love it - mess and all.

 There's something incredibly rewarding about creating something with your own hands.  You get a sense of accomplishment and pride (it's kinda like scoring big at a sample sale - but different and better).  Anyways, I love the result and it's just what my room needed.  I couldn't be happier - minus the residual blue streaks I couldn't get off my wall due to my impaired judgement (damn you Don Julio).  If you want an easy way to spruce up your home this is a super easy, fast and seriously fun project that will leave you feeling like a kid again.