Easter fun

Hello lovelies,

I hope everyone had a good Easter weekend (those that celebrate anyway). I'm not very religious but I do like the family traditions that go along with Easter: getting dressed up, eating lots of candy, a delicious family dinner and of course breakfast mimosas!

I spent the day relaxing and spending some quality time with my family. I was excited because I got to break out this white dress for the festivities, since to me Easter unofficially marks spring. My littler sister and I did some posing for the family photo albums. 

This dress is great because it's so simple and white goes with everything of course. I decided to go with a neutral color pallet by pairing it with a beige cardigan and belt and added my gold ruffle sandals. If you have a paler complexion I suggest pairing the white with bright colors like coral or teal. 

All in all it was a great day, but my favorite part had to be enjoying the beautiful weather here on the East Coast by going outside to blow bubbles! 

xo, AM

Caffeine please! : Summer snack #1

Alright, so I've gone completely mia in the past couple months due to some life changes but I'm back and ready to go. I'm soooo excited because it's almost my favorite time of year, summer! I've already started stepping up my work outs and getting a base tan and I can't wait to get on the beach. In honor of this wonderful season I thought I'd start sharing some of my favorite summer snacks and drinks that I make at home. The first of which, is iced coffee, a must in the summer. I love coffee but hate paying six bucks for flavored iced coffee at the store. So instead I make my own!

my coconut mocha coffee creation!

You can two this two different ways. If you're a big coffee drinker (like me) it's a good idea to store a lot of chilled coffee. To do this simply make a pot of coffee like usual, then transfer it to a jug that you can stick in your fridge. Let it get cold and then use it to pour yourself a cup of ice coffee whenever you want. Just add ice and milk or sugar to your taste. Keep in mind that as the ice melts it will water the coffee down, so don't use too much (this is why you chill the coffee first). I like to get different creamers from the store and make my own delicious drinks for a fraction of the cost.

If you only want an occasional cup of ice coffee then go the instant route. Simply put instant coffee in a cup and pour a small amount of boiling water in it. Mix the powder into the hot water until it dissolves. Then add ice and fill the rest of the cup with cold water. Wallah - instant iced coffee. Add whatever flavor you want!

Hope this helps keep your summer delicious, and your wallet full!

xo. AM

Under wear?

Having an organized closet is the best way to get the most out of it. Reorganizing your clothes makes it easier to get ready in the morning and it reminds you of all the great pieces you haven't seen in awhile because you pushed them to the back of your closet after you got all that new stuff for Christmas. But this doesn't just go for the stuff you wear on the outside for all the world to see. When's the last time you organized your underwear?

A lot of people give up on organization when it comes to underwear because they're so hard to keep folded. Especially if you're a thong girl (guilty). It ends up being a big ball in a drawer and you can never find the ones you want. I decided to tackle my underwear drawer and my bra collection all at once.  When I was done I found a bunch of items I'd forgotten about and made everything easy to see/grab in a rush.

First, I tackled the bras. I have less of them so it seemed like an easier task. I'm not a pro on how to store your bras so they keep their shape but I knew I wanted to organize them in a way that I could see everything all at once. This was my result:

I used two fabric boxes from Ikea because I had some extras, but you can easily do this with a shoe box or two (to make it look pretty cover the box in paper or fabric). I figured the best way to keep the shape of the bra intact was to make sure the cups don't get crushed. It's hard to see in this picture but each bra basically just folds into the other one so that they maintain their curvy shape. Then I stuck the fabric boxes in a drawer  to keep them from prying eyes (lets ignore the fact that I've put a picture of them online).

Next, I moved to underwear which was a bit more difficult. After some brainstorming I decided to empty the tea bags out of the many boxes I have in my kitchen and put them in one big dish (this turned into a project of its own since I decided to make a tea tray but maybe I'll post that tomorrow). I cut the lid off the boxes so I was left with this:

Then I covered the boxes with a funky green construction paper and black electrical tape.

Mine were kind of sloppily covered because you're not really going to get a good look at the inside of them. I just wanted a uniform color. I did this to four boxes and stuck them in another fabric Ikea box, a little larger than the last two (Ikea must have been having a sale on these at some point because I have tons of them). Again, you can use a shoe box or plastic container or just stick the smaller boxes directly in a drawer to get the same effect.

Then I covered a lightening bulb box (the kind that are divided into two sections) with black duck tape. I got some small baskets for $1 at Walgreens and added them to the back half of the box. The final result looks like this:

As I said I'm a thong girl, so I used the four front boxes specifically for them. I tend to match my underwear to my bra (I know I'm weird) so I organized them by color. I used the light bulb box (top right) for my basic black and white thongs. In the baskets (upper left) I folded all my bikini and boy shorts by style (all the plain cotton are together, all the comfy lace pairs are together and all the sexy but not so comfortable pairs are together). Now I can grab the color/style I'm looking for without searching through a ball of fabric. 

As a side note, the easiest way to organize items so that you can see everything you have at once and maximize space is by folding them into little squares and stacking them almost like file folders. This way, instead of having some stuff at the very bottom of the pile or behind other piles everything is showing at once and easy to grab. I did it with the boy shorts in the back and I do the same thing to all my t-shirts and tank tops. 

Now that you've seen all my intimates get to organizing your own!

Old is new again...

Well I've been an incredible slacker when it comes to posting in the past month and a half. I got a new job and settling in has taken up a lot of my time. However, I'm going to try to commit to posting semi-regularly now.

My boyfriend and I bought a new bed so of course I took the opportunity to move our bedroom around. So I was doing a little re-organizing/decorating yesterday (what else is new) and found a new jewelry fix. I have a ton of long necklaces that take up too much space to put on the wall with a shower curtain ring. Then I found an old doll closet that I used as a kid for my American Girl doll (the good old days).

I found that it was perfect for holding all the long necklaces so they don't get tangled. I had some extra room and found that it also made a great place to put all my sunglasses which are always everywhere and constantly getting lost. With the little extra room at the bottom I stacked all my jewelry gift boxes I've collected over the years (for some reason I hate to throw them out). They're great for storing small keepsakes or broken jewelry pieces for future craft projects. Now everything's organized and the old doll closet makes for a great room decoration.

I guess hoarding pays off sometimes.

PS. look closely and you can see me in the sunglasses!

Holiday How To

It's my favorite time of year! Christmas has been my favorite holiday since I was a little kid and this is the first year that I have an apartment of my own to decorate. I took some decorations from my parents house since they have tons, but I also decided to get creative and make a couple. One of which is this cute table display.

All you need is a wine bottle or two, an empty coffee tin, glitter, wrapping paper, ribbon and some kind of christmas filler.

I cleaned the wine bottles and then painted them with green glitter. It's hard to tell in the picture but they sparkle when the light hits them. Then I tied some red ribbon around each bottle neck.

Then I took an empty coffee tin and covered it in Christmas wrapping paper. I had strings of small christmas ball garland. I pulled the balls from the garland and filled the tin with them. (I didn't have enough to fill the whole tin so I stuck tissue paper underneath to make it look full). You can easily use other Christmas fillers such as candy canes or ribbon, etc.

So easy and a great center piece, or in my case end table filler. 

Keeping things together...

Well I've been slacking. Finishing up the semester and job hunting has kept me pretty busy the last couple weeks. However, I promised to show my household "kits" that I've created so I'll get to it.

I like the idea of keeping things I use at the same time together and I like to make them easy to transport from one room to another. Our bathroom in our apartment has a ton of storage space so I keep a lot of things in there that I don't necessarily use in there. To solve the problem of moving everything from one room to another I made myself little kits out of thing I found in my kitchen cupboards and bedroom closet.

Kit #1 Nail Station

First I grabbed an old toiletry bag to hold all of my foot scrubs, lotions and salts. Then I found an old wristlet and an old makeup bag to hold my nail polishes in a cute organized bundle. Then I grabbed a foot sized Tupperware container and placed everything inside, including my nail polish remover.  Now when I want to give myself a mani-pedi I can just grab the container and bring it to the living room/bedroom and get to work. Plus the Tupperware container doubles as a foot soak when you fill it with hot water. 

Kit #2 Ironing Tools

This time I used a storage container to hold my steamer, anti-wrinkle spray, iron and lint brushes. I slid them on the shelf right next to my ironing board so i can grab everything at once and move it to an area where there's actually room to get rid of my wrinkles. One day I'll have my own laundry room with space dedicated to this, but for now this works for me. 

Kit #3 Hair Care

Finally, I wanted to get rid of the mess of clips, headbands, brushes and other hair tools that resided under my sink. So I grabbed a cloth box I had purchased from Ikea when I redid my bedroom last year and used it to corral all of my hair supplies. I washed out two plastic containers (like the ones that hold rice pudding or ricotta cheese, etc.) I used one for all my clips and a taller one for all of my hair brushes. I slid my blow dryer and hair straightener next to them. I used a small makeup pouch to hold all my bobby pins and hair-ties so they were easy to find. The I slid my headbands into the remaining space. I didn't have time to cover the plastic containers in any kind of wrapping/craft paper to make them more aesthetically pleasing but I'll get to it. For now it keeps everything in place and easy to get to when I'm rushing in the morning!

Cleaning up

I spend most of my days off cleaning and organizing my apartment. I hate clutter and am always finding areas that need to organized and re-organized. So, after spending the morning getting inspired on Pinterist, I took on my bathroom cabinets. Luckily, I have a lot of storage space in my bathroom, especially for such a small apartment. However, more storage space sometimes leads to more of a mess. Our medicine cabinet was completely disorganized with bottles of medicine, boxes of Q-tips and beauty products everywhere. However, when I was finished I was left with this!

I started by tackling the top shelf, which was a mess of asprine bottles, band-aid's, cold pills, etc. I grabbed one of the cloth boxes I bought from Ikea last year and used it to corral everything into one organized space. These boxes weren't expensive but if you don't want to spend money, you can use wrapping paper to cover an old shoe box and make a pretty space to hold all of your health needs. Just make sure the box fits in your medicine cabinet. I grouped like items together in the box so that everything was easy to find. Putting everything in a box you can pull down off the shelf also makes it easier to get to what you need without struggling to see on the top shelf. 

Next I tackled the shelf of beauty products. One of the biggest problems there was the amount of space packaged products were taking up. For instance,  I took the Q-tips out of their box which was taking up most of the shelf and put them in a Tupperware container to save space. Then I took my disposable razors out of their packages and placed them in an old coffee mug that I wasn't using. Finally a took a long plastic tray (a dollar at Walgreens) and put all of my lipsticks, chapsticks and lipglosses inside. I also used a tiny pouch (free with a jewlery purchase at American Eagle) to keep all of my beauty "tools" together (tweezers, nail clippers, nail scissors, etc.) and placed it in the basket. 

Finally, I tackled the rest of my make up which was basically jammed into the plastic drawers on the bottom shelf. It was a disaster trying to find what I needed in the morning. First things first, make sure you go through your makeup and get rid of anything that's old or that you don't use anymore. Then I simply organized each drawer by what part of the face I used the products on. I made an "eye drawer" a "cheek drawer" and a "brush drawer" (I already had a "lip basket"). I fit all my bronzers, blushes, and concealers into the cheek drawer and all my eyeshadows, mascaras and eyeliners into the eye drawer. To keep the eyeliners organized I used another one of the small pouches to hold them together. I put all the different kinds of blush, bronzer, and eye shadow brushes I had in the brush drawer. I used a small case with brush openings to keep all the smaller brushes together since it's easy for them to get all over the place. 

Any smaller lotions or moisturizers  were placed in another small Tupperware on the bottom shelf. Now I have a medicine cabinet I love to look at, and getting ready is 10 times easier in the morning. My organization didn't stop there. In my next post I'll show you how I made hair, nail and even an ironing kit to keep everything together, in reach and easy to transport.