Playing Dress up

Oh, Halloween. The time to eat heaps of sugar, scare the shit out of people and play dress up.

This year Ryan knew I would love to get out and do something. Just a few days before Halloween he asked if I wanted to go to Halloween on the Harbor with some of his co workers- well DUH, of course I wanted to go! I assumed he would get stuck at work late that Friday (the night of the HOTH) and than say have to work on Saturday- BUT NOPE, it all worked out! We got to go out-whop, whop!

Luckily it was too too crazy the night out for the night before Halloween. We had a good time, didn't get too crazy which was great considering 3 glasses of wine normally knocks me on my ass and ruins the weekend. But we are learning, we can not handle drinking and mixing and all the stuff we some how survived in college. Blows my mind thinking about how we did that and could wake up earlier than ever and do it all over again. Not anymore that is for sure! I am not even that old!

This year we choose to use what we had for the most part to try and save money since our rental situation is taking us for a ride :) I will have lots to say on this once it is over with.

Back to our costumes.
Here is a look at what we were.

Can you guess who we were?

Here is a comparison.

Amy Adams and Christian Bale from American Hustle
hey, we did our best for what we had.

Ryan did get me the wig and I found the coat at Goodwill for $15 bucks!

The wig...oh my! That thing had a mind of its own. I looked up how to style a synthetic wig and Ryan had a good laugh thinking I was crazy.

So for those of you who want to try and style your synthetic wig- YOU CAN TOTALLY DO IT!
Not heat though- lie seriously, do NOT use heat. Common sense people.

Okay, so first wet it with your hand. Don't just stick your wig in the water but have the water running (if you don't live in Cali) and wet your hand repeatedly and just run your hand over the hair of the wig.

I separated the hair into sections and while wet I brushed the sections. Once I brushed the section, I clipped them off to the side until I did the entire wig.

Now, wet you hand again, grab a section and twist the hair like you would your own. Using a bobby pin, pin the twist to the mesh part of the wig so the curl sets. Do this for all sections, A good way to section your wig off is to follow the seams of the hair in the mesh.

Once you have pinned and twisted all the sections, add a bit of hairspray. Being synthetic, your wig is already super flammable, now adding hairspray, well you are creating a walking ball of fire if you get too close so be fricking careful with that shit!

Find somewhere to hand this ( I used my towel rack). Leave this pinned up until right before you put it on. Use the bobby pins to secure it to your head as needed. You can pin it back like I did or however you want it styled. Once you have it how you want it, add another layer of hairspray to hold your finishing touches.

Bam! There ya go! Hope ti works out for you. I had a lot of compliments on how "real" it looked for a synthetic wig.


November trends and fall fashion is in full motion. Be sure to take a look at the new fall trends with TOM & Orrow TRENDS. We are now offering our TREND ME BOX. The first box to be sent is DEC 15th and it will have a FAUX FUR VEST in it!!! Ah! So exciting, it is the trendiest accessory at the moment!

Alright, enough for now. Have a damn good Monday.

Marriage is Like a Bike

My husband, Ryan, always says you can't have your cake & eat it to....I know many other people say this as well but he says it because I have thousands of ideas that I typically think of, tell him & want to do ASAP. 

Well, I want to let you know you can totally have your cake & eat it too. 

You know how, BALANCE! 

Balance is the key to life & marriage (thanks Kelli ;) 

Marriage is a path that is extremely hilly & slippery! 
Sometimes the ride is hard, exhausting and slow. 
Other times the ride is so damn fast you should probably 
slow down! Oh, & safety- don't forget about safety! 
Protection is super important in a marriage. No no, not 
like gutter minds. Protecting each other- say what you mean, 
how you feel when you feel but stop and frigging think about 
what you are about to say! Some times it is better for 
you to just keep your mouth zipped, other times- 
speak up damnit! Supporting each other through 
even there worse ideas (sometimes) helps. Use your 
brain on this one people. Next, you know when you are 
riding a bike and you have to use your ears to listen so 
you don't get hit by a car? Yeah, apply that to your marriage. LISTEN to the other one when they talk- even if you 
give two shits about what they are saying! It will keep 
you from getting hit by a car later when you are asked 
about that conversation or when you forget to do something because you weren't really listening. 
(If you are wondering, this is typically me. I totally
 zoned out and my mind wonders with ideas-half the 
time I have no frigging clue what Ryan is talking about 
but I started listening and learning all his engineer terms 
so I could actually be involved and provide more 
feedback than "yeah", "hmmumh".) Next up, the pedals, 
chain, and air in your tires...those are all the little things 
in you bike that keep things moving along. 
The little things in marriage are also what keep things 
moving along. Women love this shit! Men typically 
don't realize all the little things women do. Yes, cleaning 
up after you counts (hair in the sink.) The things that we 
spend hours on Pinterest finding just the right recipe 
or cute DIY for the spouse. Little things piled up 
create something HUGE! Last, remember when 
I said balance was the key to life & marriage? 
You can't ride you bike if you don't have balance 
& you sure as hell can not ride it with no balance 
up and down a slippery hill!! 


We don't have a picture perfect marriage. 
We didn't take the "typical" marriage path but 
did create our own & our path is frigging fun! 
When we first met, we both had said we weren't 
looking for a relationship...I mean, I was in Fargo, ND 
visiting friends! Last thing I every expected was to 
find someone I would fall head over heels for 
(which I totally did- googly eye and all) For being 
so creepily alike (it is actually chills creepy sometimes) 
we think completely different! Ryan is as logically as 
you can get, and I am like let's just be happy and drink 
coffee all day- we will be fine. In reality, no we wouldn't 
but we also wouldn't have too much fun if we were always logically. We balance each other out to where we have fun 
& enjoy life without crashing our bikes. 


Tip: Women are crazy like 97% of the time. Our minds 
function in a very strange way that even we don't understand. 
Don' let us be hungry either, that is a bad mistake. 
Life will be way more fun if you hop on for the ride 
rather than try and figure out how we think because 
that is a trick and you will crash and fail. :) 

We have talked about so many outcomes of our life, so 
far not one things has panned out like we discussed 
besides doing our best to make each other happy. 
Life is going to hit you with some hard bumps and 
will have rough SHARP turns. Hang on and ride with it. 
As long as you now that your plan will most likely not 
goes as plan you will do this marriage thing just fine. 
Plan for the unexpected by knowing that change happens, 
life is challenging but you have someone to do it with 
and to help you take those uncomfortable rough & sharp 
turn with out. 

TODAY ONLY you an find a code for a discount in the 
spirit of our anniversary. Just head over to my shop blog 
to get the code and shop away! 

Thank you to everyone that has provided us with love and 
support throughout our adventure together. 

I love you Ryan, you oh so strange yet wonderful man! 

Here is a good laugh from my mother:) 

SEE THE JIB JAB MY MOM CREATED FOR US

Laters! 

Return from the Dead

Brushes and Bolts return from the dead

With the inspiration if fall and Halloween, I have brought Brushes and Bolts back to life. Today I will be sharing a quick DIY fall painting and a link to a steal of a deal scarf & beanie combo I am offering in my online shop. It ends TODAY!!!

My apartment building does a lot of events for everyone that lives here. The next one I get to help out at! They have called it paint and pour and we will be painting and well, pouring wine into our glasses so our paintings looks beautiful by the time we are done!

Our painting will eventually (fingers crossed) look something like this

Here are a quick view of the materials and steps I used to do this painting.

Use your pencil to mark where you want your birch trees. Now, use tape to act as your trees, be sure to press all edges down so nothing leaks.



Once you tape is on where you want. Put TINY, TINY drops of paint onto your canvas. Place the drops where you want the color to be the most bold! My picture of above has TOO MUCH PAINT!!!

Now, water down your sponge brush so you can cover you background with a small amount of paint. You want this to dry fast so a lot of paint = not drying fast!

be sure to dab your sponge brush to it is not soaking wet! 

Now start spreading your paint around covering your canvas. 

Dab your sponge brush as needed. If your colors are mixing too much, clean your brush. 

for a more blended look, use the entire sponge. Press the entire sponge down firmly until you have the desired amount of blending. 

You can also use you pencil to draw in any other trees in the background. You will use black paint for these for don't worry about the pencil showing through. Take your tiny, thin brush and dip it into your black paint as need to "trace" paint you little trees in the background.

Here is a good place to take a sip or 5 of wine while you wait for your background to dry...trust me, you want it to dry! 

Here is me being lazy and not fixing this....

you canvas should be covered with your trees. Have a few sips of wine while you wait for it to dry. 

About 3 sips in, take off your tape carefully. 

Use a brush that fits right into you taped off trees. Add white to the base background of your tress. 

Here there is no need to wait for this to dry, the less perfect your birch details the better! 

You will need a piece of paper, thick paper. I used old paint sample color swatches. Dip just the edge into black paint. Start on one side of your white birch base and drag the strip of paper across your tree.

Do this as you see fit. Switch sides of where you begin your drag. 

You can than use the edge to add lined details to your trees. 

Also, your tiny, tiny paint brush dipped in black paint will help with any other added details you want to ad. See below:

& now sip some more wine. 

Be sure to wait until your painting is pretty dry at this point.

Once it is dry, re- tape your trees! 

Now the fun part....which I for some reason do not have any photos of? hmm....

yse a small circle sponge brush..or anything smaller brush and add your colorful leaves over your trees. Space them out first, than go back over and do layers. Wait about 3 mins between each layer so your color spots do not blend too much together creating an abstract blob. 

Take off your tape when you are ready for your LAST layers of color! 

Ta-Duh! 

If you are reading this and attending well well- I will see your lovely face there! If you somehow got lost in the world of blogging and ended up here well, hello and I hope you enjoy this post!

Ps.
want more blog reads? You are in the right place. Just click here to get to my other blog! Tom & Orrow is releasing new scarfs &  jewelry this week so stay tuned there! I also extended a steal of a deal scarf and beanie combo that you do not want to miss out on! 
Tomandorrowtrends.indiemade.com