What I Wore Wednesday: All Cozied Up

Hey Guys, remember me? I'm that quirky chick who wears scarves in the summer and puts cream cheese on my egg sandwiches (no judging till you've tried it)

This past weekend the bubs and I finally put the down payment on our wedding venue (ladies and gentlemen we have a date!) so I wanted to look comfy yet put together for our wedding errands.

Hat: Charlotte Russe (Too old for the clothes, buuuut still pushing their accessories)

Bow: brickyard buffalo

Poncho: Bought it on the streets in some fall festival (I'm classy like that)

Purse: Kate Spade (I'm that girl who hoards birthday money and splurges with it)

Jeans: Old Navy

Boots: Carlos Santana (Dooooo dooo dee dooo doo do da doooo) (thats my best Carlos Santana Guitar riff impression) (it's a work in progress)

and here is me standing in a room re-created for the 1940s (yep this is an area in our wedding venue! Can ya guess where we're getting married?) (the photos on the wall should help ya!)

I don't know whats happening with my face in this photo....

He Asked Me, So I Asked Them (They Said Yes!)

A few of you have asked how I asked my bridesmaids to be a part of mine and Bub's wedding day. I had to wait to show you guys since I wanted to try to ask all my girls in person. It was hard meeting up with everyone so I had to ask the girls over the course of a month.

I created a yarn pom pom flower for the top of the package (to add a lil umph) inside the box was a felt fortune cookie with a fortune inside of it and 2 4x6 prints. One print was the color palette (which I'm sure will change a bagillion and one times before 2015 rolls around) and the other being a list of "vows" for the girls to "vow to me" (don't worry I didn't go all bridezilla, it's all fun things like "help me hold up my dress for what I gotta...ya know... or to reassure me that my bustle does not make my butt look big even though it totally does) (I'm thinking of adding them to the shop)

The fortune inside the cookie read "will you be my bridesmaid?" I added a little pull tab for one of 2 reasons. 1: it's cute. and 2: if they really tried to open the cookie it would be hard to get it back into its cute cookie shape.

If you want a tutorial for the fortune cookie you can use this tutorial here (SIDE NOTE: If you are stumbling on my blog, like, a year from now and the link for the fortune cookie no longer works please dont stalk me via email and ask  me to "find the broken link". If someone removes their blog post for the tutorial I can't magically POOF find it. Just google "felt fortune cookie how to". You're welcome, from "future" Leonora)

In case you were wondering, they all said yes ;)

How did you ask your bridesmaids?

How To Find Images on the Web That do NOT Link Back to their Source

How many times have you scoured pinterest while at the dentist office, during commercial breaks or in bed (I'll just go to bed when I get to the bottom of this page...ok the bottom of this page...no the bottom of this page.. OH I refreshed YAY MORE PINS!) and you come across thee most perfect pin out there.

You know the pin. You come across a sweater. Its an aztec sweater, oh shes a beaut. You have been searching for thee most perfect cream and black aztec sweater that has gold beading all throughout. The length is perfect too, hits ya right at the waist. You swear your phone just started to glow a little brighter and you wipe away a tear of joy from your eye as your finger taps the image so you can be directed to the check out page so you can hurry up, click "add to cart" and start day dreaming what skinny jean and scarf combo will look great with that sweater.

Except, there is an error message. You let out a NOOOOOOOO, curse the azter sweater gods, shut down your phone and go to bed praying that this was all just a bad dream.

But its not a dream, this is real life, and that aztec sweater that you imagined in your head and have finally seen in the flesh is gone.

Enter me, wearing a fabulous pink cape with a gold script "L" on the back (can you visualize it? I look cute, right?) I am here to save the day! Do not fret guys, I got you.

Here is how you can find out where an image's source is so you can do the following:
• purchase items you see on pinterest that have no link backs
• properly credit artist's whose artwork goes viral with no credit linked back to them
• feature items on your blog and giving them the proper credit that they are due
• figure out where the original DIY post is so you can make whatever it is that caught your eye
• be able to send your friend that awesome link of the picture of that cat wearing a lobster costume

There are one of 2 ways to do this.
Number One:
• Right click and save the image in question to your desk top.
• Go to google.com/images, it's this really awesome place that lets you find websites by hitting keywords. It's pretty trendy right now you've probably heard of it or used it before.
• Take that picture that you saved to your desk top and click and drag it to the "search" box. Once you see the search box change shape let go.

BAM all the websites out there containing that image show up. This trick works 90% of the time, sometimes people will feature that same image on their site with NO link back. Most of the time I usually find the shop that had the product I was looking for so I can purchase it.

Number Two:
Erika showed me this handy trick the other day! There is this website called tineye.com it's the same concept as the google image option but instead of clicking and dragging your photo to the search bar just upload the image into the "browse" button located on that site.

tah-dah.

So Much Explaining

pen and paint

So, life has been crazy hectic lately. Some of you probably noticed I have fallen slightly off the business/blog radar.

Life started to get a bit out of control the second Bub proposed. We were in the "OMG WE'RE, LIKE, FINALLY ENGAGED!" honeymoon la-la-land phase.

Two weeks later we hoped on a pane for Texas for a week to see his brother marry the love of his life.

We got home, I had to get my front tooth (yes *front* tooth) filed down so get fitted for a temporary bridge. I recovered from that. ("filed down" is putting it nicely. It was more like cutting my tooth in half and choking on chunks of tooth that were splintering off and getting stuck down my throat. It was disgusting and terrible)

1 week later it was my turn to be in my besties wedding. I spent the week before running around back and forth to Nordstrom doing a ton of dress fittings since they made it too small (WHO makes a dress TOO SMALL?!) (just stick me in a high school classroom with no teeth and everyone laughing at me and this is the perfect storm for a real life nightmare) BUT with just the right amount of time (and fabric) left to spare they pulled through.

Shortly after that I had to get my front tooth pulled. The recovery took longer than expected and I was in pain for 10 days. My stitches were tight and uncomfortable and it was difficult to eat.

While recovering we got the really sad news that Bub's grandfather was not doing so well. In the past when we got this kind of news Pop always bounced back to a full recovery. This time it was different. We spent the week soaking up as much time with him as we can before he passed away.

Family flew into town to see Pop, so we opened our doors to them. At this point we were behind on laundry (8 loads to be exact) (and if you were wondering yes we had to resort to the underwear hidden at the bottom of the drawer that you hold onto in case of an emergency, but you would rather not wear) and hadn't gone food shopping in weeks. The house was a disaster and I had at this point completely fallen behind on all Yellow Heart Art orders since I was busy spending time with family during this sad time.

For a solid 6 weeks life has been non stop full speed ahead, and it's still going. We had to put wedding planning and our engagement photo shoot on the back burner for the time being because there were more important things in life to deal with at that moment in time.

So, I take a deep breath, and slap on that black goop that football players put under their eyes to be more intimidating (or whatever that black goop is for, does anyone know?) and tackle life.

They always say "when it rains, its pours" and whoever "they" are is right. So excuse me as I play the "catch up on every single aspect of my life" game.

**bangs head on floor**

Weddings Weddings WEDDINGS!

Last weekend I had the opportunity to be a bridesmaid in my college bestie's wedding. We go back 10 years (whaaaat??) and we've stayed in touch ever since! We met in photoshop 101 (in case anyone is wondering if I actual went to college to make pretty things all day...yes I did) and since then we've had our fair share of stressful "art school kids" moments.

• Having to draw ourselves life sized and nude
• Staying up till 2am finishing sculptures that involved power tools that were waaaaay out of our comfort zone
• Faking our way through every art critique by throwing in there words like "dominant and sub domination motion" "composition" "...in todays society..." "negative space" and "harmonious color palette"
• Having our art box fall at least once a week while running late to class which involved having to pick up charcoal pencils, kneaded erasers, pastels, paints, inks, clay tools, pens, markers and sharpies. Our "art boxes" would inevitably always take a spill in front of the football team's dorm rooms on their way back from practice. Needless to say we didn't land many dates with the football team...
• Holding each other and stroking each other's hair when one of us would develop a roll of film that was over exposed.

From charcoal stained finger nails to now seeing you say "I do" I am so happy that you gave me the honor of standing by your side as you married the love of your life.

(psssttt im the one in the dark brown)

ummm, how cute is their "first look with out actually having a first look" (they wanted a photo before the wedding but didn't want to see each other. My heart melted into a giant pile of goo during this photo)

...and didn't I do a good job of re-creating Josh and Courtney as little wooden people for their wedding day??

...and now it's my turn! HUZZAH!!

all photos by Kristen Randolph