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Sweet Bubbly Halloween Costume



So I am a Halloween zealot. I can use zealot appropriately because Halloween did used to be a religious holiday of sorts. Now it's a celebration of gorging on candy corn, drinking in excess and putting together a ridiculous (or ridiculously slutty) costume!

I am a devout follower of these practices.

Anyway my friend asked me if I would be doing a post on creative Halloween costumes and I said no yes of course! So I thought I would share my costume from last year, which I really liked and was completely homemade.

Last year I was a champagne bottle! The pictures above are the hair aspect of the costume.
I went to Michaels & bought champagne colored Christmas ornaments (bulbs)
They were very convenient because they came with little hookish wire on them that I just bent and bobby pinned into my hair.

The other thing you are seeing is clear marbles, which I hot glued in layers onto a hairclip to make it look like piles of bubbles. Warning, they look cool but were pretty heavy. I did manage to wear them all day though.
For the rest of my costume (which sadly I have no pictures of) I wore a black tank top & black pencil skirt to be the actual "bottle" I then bought metallic gold poster board from Michaels and glued an enlarged copy of a real champagne label on to.

It was relatively easy and really interesting. I just added a ton of gold glittery make-up and ta-da! Human champagne bottle.

This year I'm going to be a Maenad (crazed female follower of the wine god Dionysus), basically a Greek wino. I've made my head piece already and will post it soon.

If I have any advice about Halloween costumes it would be:
1. Do it yourself! The store bought costumes are normally very poor quality and very widely sold.  Or if you do buy a premade costume, spruce it up with personal accessories to make it look less cookie-cutter.

2. Go to a craft store! They sell anything and everything basically. Want to be Mother Nature? Go buy tons of fabric flowers & leaves (they even sell little fake birds & butterflies) Want to be a champagne bottle. . .well you know.

3. Focus on hair & make up. Most outfits for women will be similar for costumes. Lots of dresses, skirts, etc etc. The way to really create an effect on a more plain outfit is to do really elaborate hair or make up. If you want to be a lizard (I know, who would want to do that) you can just wear a green top & pants, but do really detailed scales on your face with make up.
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Friday I'm in Love

It's Friday again and the bliss of Saturday afternoon is so close I can literally taste it.
I say literally because I'm hoping my Saturday afternoon will be filled with delicious fresh picked apples.
Have I mentioned I'm becoming obsessed with picking my own produce?
It's scary.
Soon you might find me peddling my goods at roadside stands. But that's another story.

Anyway today I'm concentrating my obsession on a long-time dream of mine.
A furry vest.
Can I commit to it? Can I pull it off? I don't know. But Olivia Palermo sure can.

I think the key is to keep it simple, & use one color scheme to where the fur stands out, but also blends in, so you don't look like some tacky Peta nightmare. . .

Thanks Brunch at Saks !
Have I mentioned I love her glasses? Ugh. Swooon.
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First Ever Little Girl Shiny World Freebie Printable!


This bad boy is free for personal use! No commercial use please. (not like it's that good, but still had to say it)
Download Here

So friends, remember when I mentioned I was taking that graphic design course?
Well it's about halfway over and we have worked on a lot of really lame great projects.
Ok, the projects aren't lame per say, but they are beginner at best. Which is perfectly appropriate for me since I am a complete beginner--except for one little problem.  My eyes are bigger than my stomach!

In non-foodie metaphors that is to say that I want to create things beyond my current skill set! I want to build Rome in a day and sit on top of it sipping a nice Syrah I bottled myself. But then I breathe, and I remind myself that all comes in time. For now I am super excited that I get to share my first FREEBIE PRINTABLE CREATED BY ME for YOU.

Well actually, it was created by me for my most recent and most exciting homework assignment, which was to create a postcard design.  So in reality you are getting sloppy seconds. But you don't mind that at all do you?

I'm new to this whole uploading freebies thing, so I apologize if something goes wrong.

It's a 4 x 6.25 which is apparently the standard postcard size.
It was designed according to US Postal Service Regulations, which means there is no design element that should make it un-mailable and it shouldn't get returned to you!
Just slap a stamp on the back upper right corner where my fake indicia (stamp-thing) is!

And I wouldn't mind feedback at all! I am learning so I only have room to grow. Also any ideas for printables you might like to see would be welcomed. I need some fun practice!
Email me:
littlegirlshinyworld@yahoo.com
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Black & Cream & Lace All Over.



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SOL Food Festival & Farmer's Market



Tonight is one of those great fall nights where it's frightfully windy & cold,  and it feels really satisfying to just be inside. Listening to the world roar around you. For some weird reason it gives me this sense of inexplicable excitement, like  Christmas Eve. Like anything could happen out there. Tomorrow I'll head out to find that the only thing to occur was plenty of leaves decided to pile themselves not-so-neatly on my porch. And a tree branch might have sacrificed itself to the wind gods. Nothing more.
But I do love this familiar feeling, a reminder of childhood wonder lost.
 This weekend was the SOL Food Festival.  It wasn't what I was expecting, nor would I say it was the best festival I've ever been to. But everyone's heart was in the right place (woohoo support Mother Earth!) and there were sweet little scenes to be found everywhere if you had your eyes open.
Baby ostriches! The fluffiest little creatures I've ever seen.  And the little kids completely enthralled by them.
Farmer's market, filled with gourds & pumpkins, little orange clocks telling us that Halloween, Thanksgiving and finally Christmas are almost here.
So a lovely weekend it was. And culminating in such a great Monday night, sitting inside, eating & drinking wine with my sweetie. . .
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T.G.I.F.

The Love Shop on Etsy!
SOL Food Festival this weekend.
I plan to get my Sustainable,Organic, and Local food & drink on!
Hooray!
I will make sure to post about how it goes, (as if it will be anything but sweet.)
Lately I've been spending my Saturdays all cooped up @ Starbucks doing homework.
This weekend, I plan on lazing around in the sunshine as much as possible.
What are YOUR plans?