Love Is

I like Valentine's Day, but I don't like heart shaped diamond jewelry. I like little paper cards, but I don't like boxes of chocolate. I like the messages on conversation hearts, but I hate their chalky flavor.

Love it, or hate it, when we set aside the commercialism and all the HORRIBLE jewelry commercials, stripped down at the core of VDay - we are celebrating love. And to me, love in the truest sense couldn't be a more worthy thing to celebrate.

I also found this great article about Valentine's Day on Etsy. Its about making food for people you love. How delicious and festive does this salad look?!

 

Picture Taken By Kimberley Hasselbrink

The Year in Food Blog

A Friendly Reminder

Some times you gotta remind yourself... unless of course you're not.

Happy 'Hump' Day!

Featured on Fatty Style Blog

Its always fun to be featured on other friends' blogs. Whats especially fun about this one is that Meredith (from Fatty Style) is a friend of mine from the days of playing young miss softball!

Our paths crossed in adulthood here in Columbus and its been a sweet partnership of love for photography, all things fine design, craftiness and of course fashion. She asked if I'd submit some maternity style pics so I obliged (thanks to Mr B for the photos). Her blog is dedicated to style and food - hello?! McFly!? yes please.

 

To see more details from both of the above - check out Fatty Style!

Inspiration and Design Process

Here's some images I gained inspiration from for the new blog background. I'm really obsessed with the whole play on bees and the letter 'B'

(if you hadn't noticed, I themed my blog on it...)

There are so many cute honeycomb/bee things out there right now - try a search on Etsy.

Found these really cool down loadable jpegs and photoshop designs on Pugly Pixel blog.


I wanted to spice it up a little, so I was looking for different ways to create honeycomb shapes with more colors and textures.

This is a picture from a tutorial on how to pimp out your sewing machine - lol. If I used mine more I might consider this, but its the perfect example of what I wanted in adding patterns and color.

And then I came across this project on A Beautiful Mess blog. I loved the photos in the triangular shapes.

Since I haven't been sleeping much (thank you pregnancy), this background project is how I've been passing the time. Here's what did with my new found inspiration.

I started off by photographing some fabric scraps, along with some scrapbook paper I liked. I just centered it in my view finder on my camera and voila. Seriously. Not fancy.

(top is scrapbook paper, bottom is fabric)

Once I had all my photos in a variety of patterns and colors from the fabric and paper, I opened them in photoshop. I tweaked with the hues, saturation, colors and added some actions to really make them pop. I used the shape tool to "cut out" single honeycomb polygons.

The one with 6 sides - wait... right?!

It looks like this!

I made some solid colored polygons, a few with just the outline and even clipped some Instagram photos too! I started a new document in the size I needed for my blog (which was a lot of trial and error). I started collaging all my little polygons together and there you have it.

 I really like the way it turned out. I think it adds a lot to the design and layout of the blog.

I am NO blog designer by any means and this literally was a lot of trial and error to figure out the sizing of everything, so creating your own blog background is TOTALLY do-able!

Let me know if you have questions!

Busy Bee: DIY "cool" Denim

Please note this ain't your typical school teacher denim we're talkin about today. If you like apples and busses and alphabets on your denim, this might not be the post for you.

(No offense mother in law - you rock those things - kids love it!)

I've been wanting a light colored "hipster" version of a chambray/denim shirt. Target had a really cute one, but I couldn't justify the $25 (I recall) they wanted for it. It was similar to this....

My hopes of wearing outfits like this....

While wandering through the thrift stores this weekend with my sis, I came across a giant section of denim button ups. I remember seeing a DIY ombre project for denim on Pinterest, so I grabbed one that looked to have some potential.

By potential I mean that it had some pretty cool details on it. I like the v-neck collar and the stitched seaming. I realized when I got home that it was even cooler, because its also got the little button up sleeve roll fabric flappy thing - (legit terms here people).

I literally just dumped bleach in a big bucket, submerged the shirt and ensured that all parts were saturated in bleach water mixture. I used about equal parts water and bleach. I also suggest doing this outside if you can - bleach stanks!

I let the shirt sit for 5 minutes, then flipped it around, just to make sure again that all parts of the shirt were covered in bleach water. Time lapse - another 5 minutes.

I rinsed the bleached shirt and washed it ALONE, with an extra rinse cycle.

And dryed it ALONE. I had to be sure I didn't ruin any of Mr. B's dress shirts...

I am ABSOLUTELY THRILLED with the outcome!

And the side by side:

Denim/chambray, red and leopard love.

Send Some Love - Postcard Style

I love Valentine's Day. I don't get into it for all the commercial reasons, but as corny as it may sound - love really is an amazing thing.

I love love.

I also love cards and paper things. I've been wanting to dabble into making more prints from my photos and this year seemed like a good one to try it out since I'm booking less shoots in anticipation of baby bee coming in April. So here I am nervously announcing that I've finally added some postcard photo prints to my Etsy shop. They're just in time for Valentine's Day! I hope you'll grab a pack and send to a few friends! I'd love to know what you think!

I've also included an Etsy Treasury list I put together. I think it has a nice assortment of gifts for just about anyone on your list to send some love to this year. If nothing else its some good eye candy :)

"Bee Mine"

  I assembled an assortment of found objects for each of these cards. I photographed them, edited and ordered them as one sided cards. On the back I've hand stamped each of them to create the

 postcard look.

Back view of each card

"Pearls and Perfume"

"Hello Friend"

Each one comes in a set of 4 post cards for $10.00 - Postcard size is 4x6 inches.

Thanks! - Mrs. B

Busy Bee: Saturday Banner Project

Saturdays are starting to become my project day. Mostly because I am not home during the week with enough day light to photograph them... isn't that sad? I think it is. Stupid day job (::sigh::)

We've been sprucing up our bedroom and this banner project inspired me to do one of my own.

(thanks again Pinterest)

 

So here's the step by step. Its a really quick project and a good one for days when you're stuck inside. Isn't it cute? I love how it turned out.

I started with this old burlap bag. You could use any fabric, but this really goes with the rustic/"beachy" theme we have. I really hate using the word beachy, because its not like typical corny beachy. At least I don't think so. The burlap bag was from a shipment of green coffee beans Mr. B ordered. Pretty cool I think - and I didn't have to spend the extra $$$ on a supply I didnt' have. I just cut out the parts that weren't stamped with spanish I didn't know. (ha!)

I cut out a template for the individual penants. I did a similar project for a Halloween 'Trick or Treat' banner, so I had a good idea of the size I wanted. The top was 6 inches across. In the middle (at 3 inches) I drew a straight line down that was 7 inches and then continued to make a triangle from those points.

 

I cut out the template and traced it onto my fabric. I put them every other upside down to save space.

 

I used a generic stencil I got at Hobby Lobby. I liked the more simple straight lines of it, rather than some of the fancier options, but use what you like and what fits with the rest of the decor you'll be using it for. Seen here a mini can of white semi matte spray paint as well.

 

Here is my first letter taped and secured, so that I only get paint in the open letter 'R' area.

And here's what it looked like after a couple sprays of paint - fail.

Some times projects don't go as planned, but if at first you don't succeed, try, try again - and so I headed to the basement to see what other options I had for white paint. I was looking for a white sharpie or a marker pen, but I came across something better. Acrylic paint and a brush. DUH.

This worked MUCH better.

I strung the penants together with hemp. Since burlap isn't solid it was easy to weave it through.

I love it!