{oh, hey}

Families are the best, aren't they?  Blame their amazingness for my absence.

This past weekend my mom, stepdad, step-sister, step-brother, twin sis, & I all met up at the beach. My step-brother left for Buenos Aires for 6 months yesterday {!!!} & we wanted to spend one last weekend as a family.

I love this bunch of people.

Our dog Cooper was there too, but when you're too busy searching for seagulls than posing for the camera, you get cropped out.

And now, I'm up in Boston visiting my dad & his crew. I can't wait to kiss & hug their brains out. I missed them so much! I haven't seen them since my graduation back in May, & I have some catching up to do. Like a birthday I've got to celebrate with my little sis since I missed it back in June, and because, duh, 9 is totally the new 10. Haven't you heard?

Should be a fun weekend.

I'm working on four side projects that are keeping me busy, so I'm sorry for the radio silence. I'll be back to regularly scheduled blog programing by next week.

ps. There's a new post over at OAM Photo + Design. Exciting stuff!

{diy project: painting t-shirts}

Since girl's weekend & July 4th were happening in the same week, I wanted to make something festive for the girls to remember the trip by. My mom & I found a great project while browsing through Martha Stewart Living & we immediately hopped in the car to head to Michael's. Painting t-shirts!

Here's what you need:

Then decide what you're going to do!

Here's what we did:

We let all six shirts dry before we stenciled the letters.

^^^LBI stands for Long Beach Island ;)

Other shirts...

^^^this may have been my favorite of the day. just a little star on the pocket :)

Now the super important part...

To make them machine washable, you must do 2 things:

1) Let them dry for 24 HOURS. 

2) Iron them. How to do that:

If the iron doesn't cover the entire area, iron it in sections. Hold it to one section for 30 seconds, lift, then press to another section. DON'T move the iron around the area like you normally would to get wrinkles out. That's no bueno.

I finished right in the nick of time. I laid a t-shirt on each bed for the girls & they were happily surprised!

I especially love how it looked on Shelby, because it made her tattoo look that much more awesome.

I should've gotten a group shot of us wearing them. But trust me...they all looked good ;)

I have a few more white shirts. I can't decide what to do next!

{girls weekend & the fourth}

This weekend was one for the books. Good food. Great friends. Lots of sand.

Dylan became besties with these girls in Rome last year &, since then, I've had the pleasure of joining in their little group. They're all amazing. Each of them. I've said it before, but I think it's so cool that even though my sister & I went to separate colleges, in different states...we're friends with each other's friends. A dream, I tell you.

It's a shame we don't all live in the same city.  Because then weekends like this one would happen often. But that's okay, since we've already decided that this will be an annual thing. Someone threw out Cabo, but I'm thinking we should just go back to the city where they all became a sisterhood. Roma, anyone? :)

Here's a photo recap of girls weekend & the fourth. Hope you all had an equally wonderful holiday! More on those shirts this week...

Miss you girls already! xo.

{bits + pieces of life lately}

Before I start, this made me laugh. I opened up my "drafts" folder to see what blog posts I've started but haven't finished yet. I found this EXACTLY how it is:

Lol.

The past few weeks have been a tad busy. I've gone to NYC about 5 times for interviews, meetings, & auditions, {I'll explain that one in due time...but can you say nerve-wracking?!} & seeing Dylan. Here was my audition outfit:

Then I got my DIY on & sanded, prepped, & primed a bunch of vintage furniture. Those posts are coming soon.

That's the furniture.

I came down to the beach last Thursday since I've been a little sick. I'm over this under the weather stuff, people! This week Dylan's friends are coming in for a girl's weekend at the beach, & I hope I start to feel better.

Lots of this goin' on:

Also, a few things to note...

My laptop has been so.freaking.slow. lately, & I was over it. One of my graduation gifts was a Mac desktop {!!!}, but until I get it later this year {when the new ones come out}, I needed to do something about my ram. Like, upgrade it. So...I ordered 8GB of ram from Crucial & installed it. It's so fast now! But as much as I'm happy about the result, this part of the process was scary as $%@#.

Also: if you have teak furniture, scrub it down & re-oil it. It makes a difference! We've had our deck furniture at the beach for about four years & it needed to be done. Check it out:

We have 11 pieces of teak furniture. My mom is a rock star.

Finally...

The Heat was so funny my abs still hurt.

DIY folks: Looking for Me by Beth Hoffman is a lovely novel. I couldn't put it down. Great characters, compelling story, & a dose of design to boot. What's not to love?!

My friend Kate reminded me to update this Wishful Wednesday post. Dunkin Donuts is coming out with gluten-free donuts! In a safe, delicious, non-cross-contaminating way! Hurray!

And lastly, Google Reader shut down yesterday. {insert annoyed face here.} So follow me on BlogLovin!

{diy project: how to transform a boring table}

How to Wallpaper a Boring Table

In our office at home {that would be my mom's office...not mine...} we have this boring IKEA table. It's at least 10 years old, still in pristine condition, but this ugly orangey wood color. With the rest of the house looking fabulous, this was a constant eye sore for me. Even though I barely go in the office. Ha. Someday down the road, it'll be replaced by a beautiful new desk, but in the meantime, we needed to make it look better.

Enter Chasing Paper. 

Ever heard of them? No? Well I can bet you're gonna be looking at them & ordering some paper within ten minutes of you finishing reading this post. 

Chasing Paper sells removeable wallpaper. It can be used on tables, walls, backsplashes, & frames.

We fell in love with ALL of the patterns, obviously, but for this table...we thought Sunburst {white} would be the best fit. Oh, it was.

All you need is 

• Paper
• A ruler {not only to measure the paper, but also to use as a smoothing tool}
• A straight edge
• A boxcutter or exact-o-knife
• Spray paint {but only if you paint the edges like we did}

Here's how we did it:

How AMAZE!!  I'm kind of in love with it?

We also did the same thing to this $40 vintage lamp table my mom found at a flea market. {Philly peeps: the Brooklyn Flea Market comes to Northern Liberties every Sunday this summer. Let's meet there next Sunday, yes?} We need to re-wire the lamp, but in the meantime, it works as a desk just fine.

I'll be honest: it was hard. & you will DEFINITELY have air pockets in the end. {Unless you're a wallpaper guru, which I am not.}  To get rid of them, poke a hole with a needle or the end of the knife, & press the air out. But from far away, you can't tell.

Also, this is for SURE a two person job. One person lays down the paper/matches corners, the other holds the paper.

I can't imagine trying to wallpaper an entire room with this paper. I'd probably go crazy. {& that's not Chasing Paper's fault. It's mine.} Maybe if I get more practice it'll be less daunting. I have one more table to do. I just need to decide on what pattern!

My other favorites on the site are the Lattice, Circle & Pop, & Vintage House Dog. 

Happy Monday!

**This is not a sponsored post