Posts in the 'Maddie' Category
September 2nd, 2010 by maddie
This week’s wedding inspiration comes in flashback form…..straight from the roaring twenties! One of my favorite novels in High School was “The Great Gatsby” and ever since reading about the fabulous parties in the book, I can’t help but imagine how diving a twenties themed wedding would be. Jazz bands, canapes, champagne fountains….doesn’t it sound beyond fabu?! I think so.
I’m having a passionate love affair with that divine sparkly dress right there! I love love love it!
Find the sequin dress here the ruffle dress here Find the wine colored dress here. The best part? All of these dresses are under 100 bucks! SCORE. Big time, yo! The black jewels are from Kenneth Jay Lane for $150 and the other jewelry and shoes can be found on net-a-porter. (Except for the pink shoes that can be found here for $170!)
This vintage engagement ring is TO DIE FOR! It’s from Fay Cullen and it is divine!
I imagine a party with a jazz band under a huge white tent would be simply spectacular for this event. Plenty of florals like gardenias and lilies to grace the tables would look fabulous too! One easy way to decorate would be to use vintage photographs from the nineteen twenties to place on the tables or hang on the walls like the one below.
Use vintage photographs like this to decorate your space. It’s cheap and easy!
Also, I had to post the two pictures of Katy Perry and Drew Barrymore because their 20’s style hairdo’s are simply stunning! Try out some vintage jewels in your pin curled hair and dark dramatic makeup to make your look complete!
Love this hair style!
Red lips and charcoal eyes hidden by a bird cage veil
create the perfect 20’s style!
What is your favorite era? Will you be incorporating it into your wedding?
August 25th, 2010 by maddie
When coming up with this week’s wedding inspiration, I decided to pay homage to one of Dana’s favorite TV shows, Mad Men. How cool would that theme be for a wedding?
I looooove the 50’s and the 60’s, and my favorite wedding dress of all time (worn by Jackie O.) is the epitome of everything a wedding dress and wedding should be. Flirty, fun, girly, and above all, classic!
Soooooooooo dreamy!
Perfect wedding attire: ivory gown, satin pumps, red lips, and diamonds and pearls
Have your guests don their vintage attire, cat eye glasses, and sip a Tom Collins on some plastic lawn furniture
Serve up some fun 50’s favorites like Coca-Cola out of glass bottles, jello molds (for centerpieces!), pot roast, a mashed potato bar, and Tom Collins or Old Fashioned cocktails to sip as signature cocktails. Skip the DJ and rent a jukebox for your favorite tunes, or hire an old-school band. Serve up inexpensive homemade punch out of a big bowl, and keep the cake simple and frosted with butter cream! Don’t forget to ride off in a sweet vintage ride, too!
PS – have you seen this dress? Still available, only $695, and to freaking die for! Please buy it. Jeebus cripes.
Are any of you incorporating vintage elements into your wedding? Dish your deets in the comments!
August 18th, 2010 by maddie
This weekend I was thinking of what would be the FUNNEST freaking wedding of all time. I thought of Santa Monica Pier and a wedding I had seen there once, and thought “Yes! A circus wedding!” How awesome would that be?
Put on some glittery shoes, take photos with the bearded lady, and eat loads of pink and fluffy cotton candy. You can serve popcorn and mini hotdogs and ride the ferris wheel with your new honey. So. Perfect.
Inspiration Board Sources: ♥ the dress ♥ the shoes ♥ the peach bangle ♥ princess crown ring ♥ the earrings ♥ the clutch ♥
Be sure to have a kissing booth….or even name the sweethearts table or photo booth “the kissing booth!” How cute.
Serve up some mini hot doggies and popcorn balls and all the fun foods you loved as a kid!
I love all of the stripes and fun funky fresh colors on this cake.
This wedding would be such a fun day for your family and friends. With all of the colors and bright lights at the circus too, your photos of the big day would be completely magical! Who says your wedding has to be a formal and grown up affair? Have fun with it!
August 11th, 2010 by maddie
I was thinking of ideas for wedding inspiration last week when suddenly, the most amazing wedding idea of all time dawned on me: a wedding based on Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Hells to the YES! The book is about finding nourishment in the foods and language of Italy, discovering the power of prayer in India, and finding love in Bali. It is rich with sensual inspiration that would be perfect for a wedding… and what a wedding it would be!
I imagine taking aspects of a Hindu wedding such as mehndi (the traditional beautiful henna-ing of an indian brides hands and feet) and pairing it with a beautiful embellished dress like the gown shown in the photos below. How bad-ass would dark beautiful henna look against the stark white dress?! Love it! Put on some gold bangles and long big gold earrings as well. Sometimes I think that minimalist is best, but with these accessories, bigger is better!
Serve up a family style Italian meal and eat it guilt free (I’m talking STUFF your face, enjoy the meal and do NOT count calories!) and decorate the reception site with tropical and exotic aspects of Bali such as lotus flowers, lily pads, big banana leaves, and big tropical flowers.
Inspiration Board Sources: ♥ prayer beads and the meditate necklace ♥ pink flower Bali ring ♥ Bali bliss dress ♥ gold plated earrings ♥ lotus tea light holder ♥ sitting buddha statue and the pillow ♥ eat pray love candles ♥ scarf ♥
Of course, the menu would be a “no carb left behind experiment” full of Italian decadence! For appetizers I would have skewers of little heirloom tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil drizzled in balsamic vinaigrette (caprese salad on a stick), roasted artichokes, and calamari.
For dinner I would have wood grilled pizzas: margherita, pepperoni, and (my favorite pizza) burrata cheese pizza with hazelnuts, arugula, carmelized onions, and pesto – yum)… but serve them on traditional indian naan flatbreads! Serve alongside fritto misto salad, crusty bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, maybe some olive tapenade… and finish it off with a rustic rosemary-apricot tart. I love to make pizza on naan like at home. So quick and delicious!
For dessert I would have to include gelato and creme brulee….my guilty pleasures. And of course for the cake you would do a cream puff cake with spun sugar, and loads of fresh tropical fruit on the side!
Of course you must wash it all down with great wines and limoncello (yum!) and dance it out to funky fusion music under the stars! Send guests home with a full belly and a prayer bracelet, and guess what? You just got married Eat Pray Love style!
What great ideas do you have for a wedding? Is there a wedding theme you’d love to see us explore? Let us know!
August 2nd, 2010 by maddie
Some wedding inspiration for ya!
I put together a little inspiration board with a garden/vintage kind of theme. I love peonies because they are such luscious, big, delicious smelling flowers and I also love the pale pink color of them. I’m also head over heels for vintage cameos and think that they can make the perfect match when pinned onto a bouquet. In my book, you just can’t go wrong using vintage inspiration for anything. Flea markets and antique shops are my mecca.
I love the vintage yet modern feel to this mood board. The pinks, greens, and greyish blues go so nicely together. It makes me do a happy dance.
All the different cameos and shoe colors kick up the subtle colors in these dreamy chiffon dresses.
What kinds of things inspire you for your wedding?
Want me to create an inspiration board designed for you? Send me some comments of your favorite color combos, themes, and ideas that inspire you, and I’ll get to work!
June 17th, 2010 by maddie
Today our real wedding/engagement feature comes to you all the way from New York, yo! Ohhhh, fuggedaboutit! No, just kidding, don’t fuggedaboutit….listen carefully to this brilliant broke-ass bride. Katerina (I wish I could call her K-Lo from the block, but I’ll refrain) decided that in order to be a money saving maven, she would have to come up with way to trim her budget wedding cost. But how? Forego a wedding dress and get married in the nude? Illegal. Give up having food at the wedding and make her guests starve? Cruel. No. None of the above.
Katerina looks bubbly and colorful in her printed dress. I love a girl who's not afraid of color!
She and fiance Seth decided to have their college friend, Nanxi take their engagement photos, rather than skipping it altogether. If you have a family member or friend that can take photos and you’re looking to save a few bones, ask your creative bud to take the photos for you as your wedding gift. It’s the perfect excuse to exploit your friends talents and creativity.
Barefoot in black and white on the Brooklyn Bridge. Say that five times fast. I dare you.
Also? Katerina said that because Nanxi was such a good friend, they really felt relaxed and uninhibited in front of the camera, and it is certainly important to be able to be yourself in your engagement pictures.. Katerina and Seth offered suggestions of where to shoot and they also chose some cute (and extremely tasty) props. Katerina and Seth love to travel and explore, especially in their new home of New York.
Seth is ready to nosh on his delicious prop while Katerina politely poses with her tasty treat.
They took in the food, culture, and architecture of their new abode and incorporated that into their photos. Katerina is cute and colorful, so it’s only fitting that she and Seth’s engagement photos portray just that! They started at the Brooklyn Bridge, and then meandered over to Washington Square Park and finally ended up at West Village.
Katerina has replaced her love of Seth with her love of art and books in this photo.
And of course, Katerina and Seth couldn’t pass up sneaking a cupcake into their photos from their favorite bakery, Crumbs. Seriously, if you don’t have a Crumbs bakery near you, I highly suggest having a cuppy-cake shipped to you, they are that good. Your hips and booty will hate you, but your mouth will do a happy dance. Katerina knows this because she and Seth can hardly walk by the bakery without needing to split a cupcake.
A perfect day for a photoshoot and a lil' picnic in the park!
I LURVVVVE this pic of Katerina and Seth on the steps! Gaw-juss!
Nanxi did a fabulous job photographing these two! It can be stressful having to trust a friend to do something important like this for you, but it’s a perfect Broke-Ass example of getting creative instead of sacrificing!
Do you have a friend who is contributing to your wedding? Are they taking your photos? Baking your cake? Let us know!
June 7th, 2010 by maddie
Today is awesome! Know why? ‘Cuz today, we get to introduce you to our newest member of team broke-ass…. its Maddie, our intern extraordinaire! Please join me in giving a warm welcome, and enjoy her sick, crafty skills! Maddie is a recent college grad and LA transplant by way of Iowa. She’s a fellow ginger (which makes her even more awesome) and she’s settling into her new life, living with her long-term boyfriend and making our lives brighter and better every day!
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I love basically any sort of DIY project. If I buy a perfectly good dresser, I strip it, paint it, re-do the knobs and make it my own. If I buy a perfectly good dress, I rip some seams and add some new buttons and create a new look. JoAnns, Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, and Home Depot are my Mecca.
Recently I’ve been DIY-ing my little apartment and decided it was time to create something more fun and less functional. I discovered that if you ever want to concern your boyfriend, a good strategy is to leave bridal magazines lying around your apartment and then drag him with you to fabric and craft stores so you can makes birdcage veils and fascinators and run around the wedding section like a crazy person. Yea, he’ll think you’re just totally normal after that experience. It’s okay though because craft stores like Michael’s have fun kids sections too and if your boyfriend is anything like mine, he’ll be intrigued and delighted that you can buy things like toy helicopters to paint and dinosaurs to put together. So buy your man some ridiculous crap at the craft store and he’ll shut up about you wandering the wedding section for an hour.
Anyways, this weekend I decided that I needed a little sparkle and pizazz in my life, and making a new hair accessory was just the thing I needed. With a little time and craftacular shinanigans I ended up with this bit of bling to rock my ginger locks.
Oh yeeeeah!
But rocking the goods is only half the fun, won’t you join me on my crafting adventure…
I started out by choosing some silk flowers…. which generally run from four dollars and up, but it’s incredible how realistic they look. It’s always nice to use real flowers in your hair too, but then they die and the fun is over. I picked out a big blue rose and some pink orchids to play around with. I know that some of the flowers can look huge and ridiculous, but don’t be afraid to take risks and go bigger. Go find a mirror in the store somewhere and and stick the flowers in your hair to get a good idea of how they will look with your style and hair color. Play around with it and find something that you love.
I got all my craft supplies gathered all together! Silk flower, rhinestones, hair comb, and a fun feather piece!
I also bought some feathers and rhinestones (I love me some sparkle!) and for the orchids I bought some netting. You can use tulle or Russian netting for birdcage veils, and it’s fairly cheap so you don’t have to worry about buying too much if you are going to end up with extras. I also bought a cheap package of hair combs so that the fascinator stays in your hair and you don’t need to worry about messing with bobby pins. Every time I use bobby pins I end up using way more than I need just in case they fall out, and inevitably I leave a trail of pins behind me wherever I go. A hair comb will stay securely in place and will be way less of a pain in your bootylicious bum.
I got home from the store, laid all of my craft purchases out on my kitchen table and created a little workspace. I started with the blue flower first. For this project, I needed some hot glue and a a tweezer to pick up the rhinestones and iron them on. When you open up the rhinestones, be sure to do so forcefully so that they go flying all over the place. Nope, just kidding. That’s just what I did. I live in a small enough apartment though that they couldn’t have gone flying very far. I bought hot-fix (or iron-on rhinestones) as I deem them the easiest little nuggets to work with. Just grab your tweezers, and iron that sucker on there! I’ve even been known to attach the rhinestones with a flat iron for hair in a pinch when I can’t find a regular iron. Innovation, people! Also, I only rhinestone and bling-ify the outer three or four layers of the petals as they are the only ones that will show. Don’t waste your time or energy putting rhinestones in the center unless you know that your flower will lay flat.
Start out by taking the flower apart and gluing it back with hot glue piece by piece and put the glue in a little spot in the center
Pop the stem off of the back of the flower either with some scissors or simply by pulling it off. I like to take the flower apart in layers if I’m going to be adding rhinestones. I also like to glue it all back together piece by piece for extra staying power. Just dab a little bit of hot glue in the middle and be careful when you handle the silk flower as the heat from the glue will seep through. I burnt my fingies nice and good! Once you’ve glued all of the floral layers back together you can chillax. That sucker ain’t going nowhere! Glue the feathers in before finishing with your top layer of flower. This way the base of the feathers are hidden. Once you put the flower all back together with the hot glue, glue back on the piece of the stem to hold it all in place.
hide the feathers in between a layer of the petals on the flower
The plastic part of the stem will be easier to glue onto the hair comb than the silk flower as a whole. Now just attach the comb to your flower and stick that sucker on into a ponytail or a bun….wait for the glue to dry though!
Once you put the flower back together, just attach the comb.
Here's how it looks on
Now wear it some place fab...like in your bedroom with a purple t-shirt you bought at target.
Broke-Ass Bonus!:
I also made another hair piece using the orchids and some netting. In order to secure the netting, you’ll need a needle and thread. You’ll have to play with the netting a bit to really get it to look how you want, but you can scrunch it up as much as you want and never ruin it.
scrunch the netting together and hold it so you can sew it in place.
It’s very resilient, so don’t worry about being too delicate with it. Once you get it in the shape you want, pinch the end of it together where the flower is going to be and sew it tightly so that it retains the shape you desire. Then just glue on the florals and the comb and voila!
See how easy that was?
You have two fantastic hair pieces with one tiny budget. Make one for yourself or have all of your bridesmaids over for a DIY partay! Drink champagne, have some brunch, and make hair pieces…. it’s a perfect day with the girls! Don’t operate a hot glue gun while consuming champagne though. I can’t be held accountable for such things. Have fun!
And just for fun? Here's the craft that my boyfriend made while I was busy making hair things. He sure is
