This post is about an awesome eye bouquet I made for Halloween!

First, here is what the finished product looks like.

1. Obviously one of my first steps was purchasing my artificial flowers. I used search terms like purple, burgundy, and eggplant to find the colors I wanted.

2. The next step was coloring the lavender. It just wasn’t spooky enough for me! I spread out a plastic grocery bag to protect my table. Using a red permanent marker, I firmly pressed the dark purple petal between the felt tip and the table. I pressed the felt tip into the petal for a few seconds until the ink stopped spreading through the fabric. Next, I used a brown permanent marker to color the light purple plastic tips of the lavender.

3. I used a 2-inch EZ Bouquet Floral Arranger to help me arrange the flowers.  You can use a full sphere or a half sphere. I used a whole sphere, because when you have to stick the stem through the top and the bottom of the sphere, it makes it a lot more stable. My bouquet is very full and the opening of the vase is narrow, so I had to bend the lavender to reach around the back of the bouquet and also point upward.

CREATING VEINS

1. Cut a few inches of red yarn. Then unravel some of the string by pulling at the individual threads. The paint will dry quickly so it is important to do this in advance. You can plan out how you want your next vein to look. It could be just a couple single threads. It could be a bunch of single threads splayed out. It could be a thick group of threads twisted together that split into two smaller-but-still-thick veins.

2. Paint a section of the sclera (white part) by brushing from the outside edge of the iris (colored part) down to the flat edge. Your section should be about two strokes wide. Be careful not to get paint on your irises. It will make your eyes seem less realistic. For some reason, using nail polish remover to clean polish off the irises makes the clear plastic turn cloudy and scratched-looking.

3. Pick up your thread and place it on the wet paint. Don’t be afraid to push the threads around while the paint is drying using your tweezers, a toothpick, or your fingernails.

4. Repeat these steps.

5. After a few sections, use your scissors to trim off the excess thread. It doesn’t have to be perfect, because you’ll be sticking the eyes into the flowers.

6. After you’ve applied veins all around the eye, let it dry for a good while. Then, apply a topcoat of clear nail polish uniformly over the sclera. Let it dry.

INSERTING YOUR EYES

1. Before applying glue to your eyes, prepare the flowers. Try to insert the eye to gauge how much of the petals you’ll need to cut. Use scissors to cut out some of the center petals. The hole doesn’t have to be too deep. Just take off half an inch or so. Make sure to cut off some large scraps of petal (about .5 inch deep by 1.5 inch wide), not just thin shreds, so you can use the scraps later.

2. Apply Elmer’s glue to the inside of the eye. Insert it in the flower. Wait for the glue to dry a little and stabilize. Waiting overnight might be a good idea. Elmer’s glue can take a while to dry, but if you make a mistake with Elmer’s glue, it’s easy to correct.

3. Position some of your scraps around the eye like an eyelid or just to create a fuller flower with more petals. Test the placement without glue. Then glue them on. I only added scraps to my center green eye. The others looked fine without additional petals.

I was inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest. You can see it here.

I learned how to make these eye veins from a great video tutorial. You can see it here. 

There is also a great tutorial on how to alter the pupils and irises to be more realistic. You can see it here. There is a free download for different irises you can print.

You can also visit my Pinterest board, Halloween Eyes, where I have a lot of creepy craft ideas pinned.

So, I don't technically have a mantel... or a credenza... yet. So this post is about my Christmas Shelf! I've been waiting all year to put my bottlebrush menagerie together!

Here's where I got all of my little friends.

Here are some words you can use to Google search for natural-style Christmas decorations:

• Sisal bear
  
• Bottlebrush penguin figurine
  
• Buri animal ornament
  
• Natural owl ornament
  
• Natural fiber bird
  
• Pepperberry rattan cone tree
  
• Tabletop wicker Christmas tree
  
• Berry pinecone topiary
  
• Birch tabletop Christmas tree
  
• Burlap hedgehog
  
• Glitter twig Christmas decoration
  
• Twiggy Christmas ornament
  
• Woodland squirrel ornament
  
• Indoor twine snowman
  
• Holiday white fox figural
  

Here are some places you can find natural-style Christmas decorations:

• Pottery Barn
  
• West Elm
  
• Pier 1 Imports
  
• World Market
  
• Target
  
• Nordstrom
  
• JCPenney
  
• Macy’s (Martha Stewart Collection)
  
• Anthropologie
  
• Etsy
  
• Craft stores
  
• Christmas stores
  

You can also visit my Christmas Pinterest board, where I have a lot of natural Christmas decorations pinned.

I hope you create your own wonderful menagerie! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Warm wishes,

Alex

On the one hand cashmere is soft, warm, and looks great! On the other hand, who am I kidding? Cashmere is itchy, even when it’s decent quality, especially in a warm room. (At least in my experience.)   

My solution is wearing a long-sleeve undershirt with my sweater. But there is another problem. I own a few v-neck sweaters, and it is hard to find a t-shirt with a v-neck deep enough that it doesn’t peek out from under my sweater.   

Here’s what I want out of an undershirt:   

• A deep v-neck. Why? I don’t want it peeking out from underneath my sweater.   

• Thin, light-weight fabric. Why? I don’t want it to add additional warmth. I don’t want it to make my sweater look bunched up or bulky. I want it to be flexible, because I don’t want it to feel binding, especially in the underarm area.   

• Cotton fabric. Why? I want it to wick away sweat to protect my sweater, but I also want it to breath so I don’t get overly warm.

I’m petite. To give you a sense of how the sizes fit, my dimensions are: 5’ 0”, 100 lbs., chest 34A.

Vintage Cotton Long-Sleeve V-Neck Tee by J. Crew

Find it here. I own two of these shirts in XXS in the blue and pink. I bought mine a while back, some time in 2012 or 2013. They no longer have the blue color in stock online, but they do currently have the pink in stock. The color is Heather Blush. Don’t confuse this shirt with the Tissue Long-Sleeve V-Neck Tee by J. Crew. I tried that shirt on in the store. I thought it might be more light-weight than the vintage tee, because tissues are pretty thin, right. But, the tissue tee was much thicker than the vintage tee and felt a little binding.

Women Cashmere V-Neck Sweater by Uniqlo

Find it here. I bought mine in October 2012. I own two of these sweaters in XS in the orange and magenta. They no longer have the orange or magenta in stock online, but they have a ton of other colors. One great thing about Uniqlo is that they always have a ton of colors to choose from.

V-Neck Tee

I love this tee, and I want it to last a long time. Reviews have warned that it can get warped in the washer and dryer, so I wash mine along with my delicates.

1. Use a delicates bag. I use the bags made by Real Simple.
2. Machine wash cold.
3. Air dry. I use the Room Essentials Heavy-Duty Metal Drying Rack by Target.
   

Cashmere Sweater

Lately I've been machine washing a lot of my "hand wash only" garments on the delicate cycle, but I still adhere to hand washing my cashmere. 

1. Hand wash cold. I wash my cashmere sweaters in the kitchen sink using the Progressive Collapsible Dish Tub. And I use a gentle laundry soap, Soapberry, which can be found on the Kleinert’s website.
2. Air dry. I gently squeeze my sweaters over the sink so they are not sopping wet. I do not wring my sweaters! Then I gently roll my sweaters in a towel to remove a lot of the moisture. Finally, I use OXO Good Grips Folding Sweater Dryer to air dry my sweaters.
   

You should totally pick up one of these shirts the next time J. Crew has a sale. Have you found the perfect undershirt somewhere else? Share your find in the comments below!

Warm wishes,

Alex