A New Season + A Giveaway.

The past few months have been pretty cool for me.

I started to realize that I wasn't super thrilled with the way a lot of things in my life were, so I decided to do something about it.

I started getting up early and writing a ton of words every day,  I started reading The Purpose Driven Life, I got a new blog design, I chopped all my hair off (just trying to be like Taylor), and I started saying yes when I would normally say no out of fear or discomfort.

I told Chris I thought I was having a mid-life crisis, and he said, "I don't know how to respond to that. Here, have some wine."

Point being, I've been looking at everything in my life and asking, "Do I like it like that?" And if the answer is no, trying to do something about it.

I closed my shop down for about a month because I just wasn't thrilled about it. I spent November crafting for fun instead of making things that I thought would be popular. And it has been so much fun. 

I reopened my shop today, and it's full of pretty things that I love, love, love. 

To see more: click HERE.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving and Christmas and presents, I thought it'd be fun to do a little giveaway to celebrate the reopening! I'm giving away a $50 gift card, all you have to do is follow my shop's new instagram!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy Monday! 

A Very Colorful Fall.

It's no secret that I love fall. If I had to make a list of everything I love most in life, fall would be pretty close to the top. I love brown and black and neutrals, but I really, really love color. So when I was making plans for a new batch of products for the fall I knew I wanted them to be c o l o r f u l.

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I've never been so excited over new products. Everything is so fun, the prints are perfect, and I think the colors are perfect for a very whimsical fall.

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I'm over-the-moon excited about these, and I hope you guys love them just as much.  Be sure to click on over  h e r e  to see the rest of the new headbands. Happy happy Wednesday! xo

Do you wear colors in the fall? Or do you tend to stick to neutrals? 

H A P P Y F R I D A Y : vacation + new blogs.

1. After today, Chris is off for an entire week! When he normally only takes an hour or two off every day, a whole week feels like an eternity.  I am so excited!

2. I found the picture I was talking about in this post. 

so tiny and snuggly!

3. The new Pretty Lovely Littles goodies will be out in ten days! I've been finishing everything up this week, and let me tell you...I have never been so excited about new products before. These are, hands down, my favorite that have ever been in the shop.  Pssst: keep an eye out, because there may be a few pre-order items listed this weekend!

4.  Megan has started a NEW BLOG in addition to her photography blog.  She is a beautiful writer and I highly recommend following along. If not for her writing, then for the hilarious pictures she posts of her 101 pound dog who thinks he's the size of Gatsby.

5. It's Friday.  I'm drinking a cup of coffee.  The laundry is going and there are candles burning.  Sometimes it's the littlest things that make you happy to be alive.

What made you happy to be alive this week?

Happy to be Alive, Because: Summer & Fall.

1.  I'm having entirely too much fun with the Party Party App.  Mostly just with Gatsby, but hey.  Who doesn't like having a photo booth in their pocket at all times?

2.  I can't get fall off my brain.  I love summer and am usually so sad to see it end, but I'm getting more and more excited for scarecrows and pumpkin spice lattes. 

3.  Because I have fall on my brain, I've already ordered the fabrics for my fall headbands.  Here's a little sneak peek...I can't wait to get my hands on them!

4.  In an effort to get more serious about my shop, I'll be creating an entire new line for fall.  I am SO excited about this.  That means that as of August 18th, all of the current pretties will be gone.  Until then, you can use the code "SEEYASUMMER" which will mark everything down 25%.

5.  It's still summer.  Because even though I am extremely excited for fall, it's still July, and I love that can cart myself, a book, and a mimosa up to the pool this weekend.  But let's get real...I live in Florida.  I'll be doing that until December. 

What made you happy to be alive this week?

Dealing with Summer Hair: Pretty Little Headbands.

There comes a time every year where I really get the urge to chop all of my hair off.  I pin pictures of shaggy bobs and decide that I'm going to have short, wavy hair that doesn't even touch my shoulders because it's too dang hot to have long hair.  But then I remember how much I love being able to throw my hair in a bun and I cancel my salon trip.  I'd say this is a pretty common theme with women everywhere once the summer hits, but because I live in Florida, this epidemic tends to happen a few weeks after Christmas.  If I went by the weather, I'd be chopping my hair off every other week from January-September.  So instead, I make headbands.  And bows.  And anything that will make it look like I tried with my hair, when we all know I didn't.

Few things make me as happy as falling in love with some fabric, taking it home, and staying awake way too late making as many different types of headbands as possible from it so I can have new stuff in my shop.  And that's just what I did this week.  These black + white + gold headbands may be my new favorite thing ever.

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Pick a few up for yourself and use the code SUMMERHAIR for twenty-five percent off any order of $10 or more. 

Happy summer.  Here's to messy buns and pony-tails and pretty little things in your hair. 

Happy to be Alive, Because: Jason Street & The Magic of Beginnings.

1.  It's Friday.  This has been one of those weeks where I've had to put the tips I talked about yesterday intro practice many times.  I'm so glad it's the weekend.

2.  This beauty lives on my counter now.  

That's a wax warmer that looks like a mason jar with a gold lid.  In other words, someone, somewhere has designed a wax warmer just for me.  Now my house smells like lavender and vanilla all day long.  Win, win, win.

3.  I've been watching Hart of Dixie.  How did I not know about this show?!  I started watching it because Jason Street is in it and I will watch anything that has anyone from Friday Night Lights in it on pure principal.  I'm kind of just pretending that it's his life post-Friday Night Lights.  AKA, I'm just waiting on Tim Riggins to show.

4.  Trips to Hobby Lobby and new fabric. 

I'll be back on Monday with some new headbands, and I'm pretty freaking excited about them.

5.  This:

via

Cheers to Friday and the magic of beginnings!  What made you happy to be alive this week?

Happy to be Alive, Because: Stars, Summer, & Coffee.

1.  I saw The Fault in Our Stars.  It was beautiful.  If you're on the fence about seeing it, read this.

2.  We now live in a tiny studio apartment.  This means when I wake up, my entire apartment smells like coffee.  Which is a beautiful thing.

3.  It's officially summer.   And by that, I mean it has been officially summer to me since May.  I have no idea when summer technically starts, but since I am now an adult with no summer break, any day that is warm and free is dubbed summer.

4.  The entire fourth season of Pretty Little Liars was released on Netflix on Tuesday.  In other news, I have four episodes of Pretty Little Liars left. . .this pretty much covers my reaction to every single episode:

5.  Days of creativity.  I made a necklace this week of my favorite summer colors.

here

Why are you happy to be alive this week?

Happy to be Alive: Books, Headbands, and Peaches.

1.  Tomorrow is moving day!  While this means that today will be crazy, I'm so looking forward to waking up in our new home on Sunday.

2.  I mailed out 58 of my books to reviewers this week!  The blog tour for my book is starting in two weeks...this means that 58 book bloggers I have never met will read and post about my book.  This is both insanely terrifying and thrilling, and I'm so excited to see what they think!

3. I made these headbands for my shop and asked Chris to take pictures of me so I could list them.  He was actually really good at it and I got to laugh a lot while listening to someone say I was pretty.  Hello, win-win.

4.  I'm working really hard on being okay with the fact that not everyone is going to like me.  This has a lot to do with the fact that I just sent 58 copies of my book to strangers.  To them, it will be 304 pages of words.  To me, it is 304 pages of three years filled with dreams and emotions and time and tears.  I'm working on being okay with the realization that there are going to be people who just don't like my book.  I was looking on pinterest (because duh, where else else do you turn when you're trying to learn a big life lesson?) and saw a quote I've heard so many times:

I'm pretty sure it's going to be a lifelong journey, but I'm going to try to remember this every are of my life.  Way easier said than done.

5.  Let us end on a wonderful note...it's a three-day weekend.  I wish you immense amounts of pool time with way too much sunshine and guacamole.

Why are you happy to be alive this week?

w h i l e   y o u ' r e   h e r e :

I'm happy to be alive because of gold & glitter & cheap headbands.

1.  It's supposed to be 88 degrees today, and I will be enjoying every single one of those degrees by the pool.

2.  I haven't really been sleeping, and while that kind of sucks as a whole, I've had time to make things like this:

gold & glitter & ampersands, these are a few of my favorite things.

3.  I love April already.  I got to meet my mom for lunch yesterday and had the best time ever celebrating the start of book & birthday month!

4.  I'm so incredibly close to making my last payment on all things book related.  To help with the final push, I've dropped t h i s  h e a d b a n d down to $8, no code necessary, for this weekend only.  {psst, and I dropped t h i s  o n e down to $5!}

5.  Reading through your question emails this morning is so much fun!  Keep them coming!

What makes you happy to be alive this week? 

s h o p   h e r e :

send someone flowers today.

Happy Monday!  

I added a few new things to my shop yesterday, and these are probably my favorite. 

Felt flowers in a tiny mason jar that you can send to your friends.  Or yourself.  Or both, because they're a heck a lot cheaper than sending real flowers.  And you get to keep them for longer than a week. 

Happy Monday.  Happy spring.  Happy almost April.  How has this happened?!

send someone flowers today.

Come say hi here:

Do something amazing today.

Happy Monday!

How is it already the last Monday of February?  Anyone?

It's no secret that I love making headbands, but these are definitely my favorite things I've ever made.  I've worn one of them pretty much every day for the past two weeks because I love silver, I love gold, and I love not having to wash my hair every day fix my hair.

buy it HERE

I am oh so close to having everything with my book paid for, and I'm trying to wrap things up by selling 80 headbands.  The fact that I have gone from three-hundred and ten to eighty is amazing, and I am so thankful!

Buy it HERE

Buy it HERE

Thank you for reading my blog, for being supportive and buying from my shop, and for giving me a place to chase after my dreams.  If you are reading this, you are incredible and I am so thankful for you!

You can use the code BLOGFRIENDS for 20% off, just because.

Happiest of Mondays to you!  Do something amazing today.

Check out this month's featured sponsor:

Thankful Fridays are the Best Fridays.

1.  My husband finally made it home and we were able to celebrate the best Valentine's ever together.  We really do have so much fun together. 

2.  Creative friends.  When the people in your life are creative, that creativity almost always rubs off on you.  Please go look at this gorgeous photo shoot my friend Megan did.  Stunning.  Creative friends inspire each other, and she definitely inspires me.

photograph p/o Megan Elizabeth Photography.

3.  How busy I've been.  Making things, shipping things, freelance work, actual work, repeat, repeat, repeat.  I've been so busy, but it's been busyness that's making money for my book.  I've never worked so hard on anything, I've never been so tired, and I wouldn't change a thing.

4.  My mom.  Because at least once a week I call her with a book update.  It's usually really no different than last few I've called her with, but I get so excited by the whole thing that I have to tell someone.  And she always acts as if it is the biggest deal in the whole world.

"The publisher called and said everything is going smoothly!"

"WHAT?! THAT'S AMAZING!"

She's the best. 

5. This turban headband.  And five other amazing headbands that will be coming your way on Monday. 

What are you thankful for this week?

Check out this month's featured sponsor:

All Gold Everything.

And maybe some pink, too.

I know it's a few days late, but the Pretty Lovely Littles February collection is ready, and it's safe to say I'm just the slightest bit obsessed.

I think it's pretty obvious that I was inspired by a certain holiday coming up, but really, how could you not be?  It's the month of love..also known as the only month where you can cover your house in pink and glitter and your husband can't really say anything about it, because hello...you're celebrating a holiday.  I tried to make things that I thought would be perfect for Valentine's Day, but perfect for after Valentine's day, too.  Enjoy! 

pink felt tassel garland///pretty little bouquet///gold riff raff headband///gold and gone with the wind garland

Happy Monday!  Have the best day ever. 

Check out this month's featured sponsor: