First of all, I'd like to explain why I changed the name of my blog from My Vanilla Tiara to Love Type Thing; when I first started this blog on 2008, I was a little bit obsessed with the scent of vanilla and all my parfums, body lotions, etc. had a strong hint of vanilla in them. I'm already over that obsession and I've been thinking about changing the name for a while and thought of an obsession that I've had for years and years and it will unlikely go anywhere: Tegan and Sara. 

After shuffling and shuffling through their songs, this one came up and I just knew this was it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I am now, and let's hope it lasts at least 7 years as My Vanilla Tiara did. 

This is me, resting after a loooong day!


For wrapping the gifts, I used mostly FRAMSTALLA paper from Ikea. It was hard to manipulate since it's thick, and even being thick it's a bit see-through (weird). Last year I used a huge roll I bought at Costco and it had much better quality,  it even had the guidelines for you to cut evenly. The solid colors were delicate, a bit of rubbing against the table made the color fade, so after the first gift I had to be very careful with it.

Still, I was very much pleased with the results :).

I know Christmas is still 3 months away but if Costco has already packed their aisles with all kinds of ho-ho ornaments, I can write my little wishlist to Mr. Santa Claus. So I'm thinking of starting this "Monthly wishlist" posts so I can easily remind myself of what I want to buy next :). And also, I can share it with you all! Ahhhh ♪ if I was a rich girl ♪ na na na na na ♪ 

I'll focus on 5 items I've been craving for! If anyone wants to be the lucky person that picks one as a gift to your friend here, well... who am I to try to stop you?

. 

Number 4: Samsung Galaxy Tab 4, 10.1-inch in white

Number 3: Sperry Top-Cider Women's Cedar Riding Boots (I NEED these!!!)

Number 2: Kate Spade Gold Stripe Thermal Mug

Number 1: Kate Spade New York Cedar Street Maise Satchel in Ginger Nut

If I end up with the coffee mug I'll consider myself lucky enough!!! 

What are your cravings? what do you want so so bad right now that you can't wait anymore?!!?!

xoxo

Lau

Apple Cider Vinegar and Turmeric are basically my new superheros!!! 

I've been pinning and pinning about these two guys like crazy! Reading about their benefits and basically they do wonders. I wanted to try them for a long, looong time, but since at this specific moment I'm not visiting San Diego that much, I didn't know where to find Organic kinds here in Ensenada so... I thought of this place my mom used to go when we were little to find teas and roots and stuff that's not so easy to find now-a-days, went there and voila! (The place is called "La Milpa" for those who live in Ensenada). 

They had Bragg's ACV but they have the big gallon and sell you a smaller/individual bottle of it, obviously it's more expensive than buying the whole thing in the US but it's what I had in hand. They also had organic Turmeric (Cúrcuma in Spanish for those who -like me- have to show a picture of Turmeric to the lady because don't know hth to say that in Español). 

Anyway... I'm not going to share a super long list of their benefits, I bet you can find thousands of other blogs that are waaay ahead of me on this matter (you can visit my Health and Fitness board on Pinterest to know all about them), I can only say to you: PLEASE TRY THEM! I've been feeling more energized in the mornings and sleeping like a log at night, they're amazing. 

How I take them? Well, I'll share with you my 2 basic recipes. 

The first one is my ACV Lemon Detox drink, I have a big cup of this every morning.

Ingredients:

1 big cup (around 300ml) of warm/hot water

2-3 Tbsp of ACV

2 Tbsp of raw organic honey (when I feel guilty because of the calories, I use Stevia)

1/2 lemon

A dash of cayenne pepper

You mix all things together and drink up!

Second one is Golden Milk, it's awesome and there are thousands of recipes out there, I'm sharing mine and what works for me.

Ingredients:

1 cup of milk (I use either almond milk or lactose free 2% milk)

1gr of turmeric powder (they gave me this little measured spoon when I bought it, so I'm using that and I'm thinking it's somewhere around 1/2 and 2/3 of a teaspoon)

1 gr of ginger powder 

2 Tbsp of raw organic honey

A dash of black pepper

I mix all the ingredients in a small saucepan and bring them to "almost-boil", when it looks like the milk is foaming up but it's still under control, I do this because I noticed that just heating it gave me a very bitter Turmeric, while boiling it  made the taste much enjoyable. 

I hope you try them and enjoy them as much as I do!

xoxo

Laura

Hello there! I want to share with you my latest "golden" DIY. Lately I've been crazy about finding beautiful decorative pillows with gold accents, even when I've found very pretty ones in Marshalls and Ross, I still have not enough of them and definitely don't have the cash to buy some of the prettiest ones (like sequined ones, even a small one is around $20 USD).

So, I had a pillow, lying around the house, and I decided it was time to revamp it. I think I got this from mexican Walmart a couple of years ago, I remember I paid around $50 pesos for it (like $3 USD), it has poor quality but at the time, as a newly wed, I needed stuff to "fill up empty spaces". What I did is very simple and quite easy, I loved this project because of that and because it was very cheap! 

BTW, sorry for the poor quality photos, I still don't have a professional camera, this is all using my cellphone and sometimes I get it right and sometimes the light is wrong, the sequins are very hard to photograph, they come up blurry, etc etc etc...

Ok, so... this was my ugly pillow:

What I did is I bought Stretch Gold Sequin Trim from a local store here in Ensenada where you can buy by meter (I bought 1.5 meters and it was more than enough), price was around $2 USD per meter. I found this link in Amazon with what looks like the one I used, pretty much the same one.

First I thought of covering entirely one side of the pillow, but then I figured I wanted stripes, so I played around a litle bit:

I used a hot glue gun, figured out where I wanted my stripes (didn't measure it so they didn't come up perfectly aligned), and I glued away...

This is the final result:

Then, these very pretty cards (that I pretend to frame) were there:

I'm kind of in a "shoe crisis" at this specific moment of my life. You know? All these adulthood years I've been awful at taking care of my feet, I confess I'm the kind of person who buys  the cheapest shoes as long as they're pretty! I've always hated the idea of paying a lot of money for something I'm gonna end up ruining in a couple of months... sadly, for the last couple of months I've been in a lot of pain, my feet hurt all the time and I had awful corns :(  I needed a deep pedicure and I payed for one 3 weeks ago at an awful place in Ensenada called "Angie Day Spa" NEVER get a pedicure there... they charge full price for cold water and an old nail file... plus the girl looked in a hurry like she really wanted to go and was sloppy all the time... I had to go to my mom and she gave me a 5000% better pedicure at home, she's a sweetheart...

With that said, I took a decision I should have taken more than a year ago when I bought the most comfortable booties I've ever had: Never again will I buy cheap shoes. This doesn't mean I will pay retail... I hardly ever pay retail... this means I will have to look harder and spend a bit more money in order to get good shoes, good support, right size, etc... etc.... So first, I need to get rid of old shoes right? Non-comfy ones... then at the same time I've been reading all these DIY Glitter Shoes tutorials... I decided maybe I can get rid of old shoes or maybe I can revamp them, try to make them comfortable and wearable and still have fun with a new crafting project!

All blogs I read call for Mod Podge... but I live in México and specifically in Ensenada where we definitely/urgently need a crafts store... where to buy it? Where??? A friend and I walked the whole city, went to Office Max, Home Depot, a bunch of local stores and nothing! I was starting to give up when we googled alternatives and found out that 1 part of white glue + 1 part of water could do the trick. I was a bit skeptical but went with it... also I didn't find the "almost dust" glitter I was looking for, I really need to go craft shopping in San Diego... I decided I was going to start with a couple of very old patent leather shoes, in that case if I didn't like the finish, I could always just throw them away.

1. I used a very fine sand paper to take the gloss out, so the glue could stick better and not fall off.

2. I mixed 1 part of glue and 1 part of water, then I mixed in the glitter. I didn't like this... I shouldn't have, it made the finish a bit bumpy and I had to fix it later.

3. I started with a very thin layer, using a foam brush... it was very frustrating because the glitter was so heavy it was sinking at the bottom and I couldn't get any of it; so, I decided to use a spoon to pour small amounts and then "spread it" with the brush. This worked a lot better.

4. I gave it 2 coats and waited for them to dry like 30 minutes between each coat. They were looking a lot better but still not what I wanted! You can look at the texture and dullness :(

5. Then I put a 3rd coat using mostly glue and just poured in the glitter on top of it... shook the excess off and they were so MUCH better!!!


I still believe I need to try this project again but with "dust" glitter and mod podge... and NO mixing of the mod podge and glitter... Lucky me I have plenty of shoes I can use for this hehehe...

I also added a comfy insole for me to use this and not kill my poor feet! I know this is not making them "good shoes" but at least I get to wear them a couple of times before saying bye bye!

So this is it for now... I'll keep you posted if I do more of these projects!