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We have so many new things happening! Be sure to check them all out! 

Ps. We JUST RELEASED a new product TODAY! 

Get your bundle now!

See you over at TOM & Orrow.

Xo,

Amanda 

Yarn Weave Home Decor

Have you fallen in love with beautiful weaves? 

We have! They add such a cozy, warm feeling to your space. We started making yarn weaves as a part of our home decor collection but want to show you how you can make your own!

Materials:

Weave board OR nails & wood

3 or more different colors and thicknesses of yarn

Inspiration

Larger needle

Scissors

Ruler

1. Create your board for weaving

You can buy them just about anywhere online or at craft stores. We made our own using an old wooden cabinet and some nails. Nail about every ½ inch at the bottom and top of your board.

2. Pick out a thinner yarn to start

You will tie your yarn on top the first nail (top or bottom line, doesn’t matter). Zig zag your yarn up, down and around each nail.

3. Leave space for you rod

Leave at least 3 inches at the top for your rod of choice. I like to use sticks & old branches I find outside.

4. Large Needle

Once you have zig zagged your yarn around all your nails (placeholders) you can pick out your first color & thickness of yarn you want to start with. Tie the end onto your large needle (light but snug). There are many, many designs you can do for weaving. Let’s start with the basic and when you are ready for more- hit up YouTube :)

5. Start Weaving

We are going to start basic. So now that your yarn is tied onto your large needle, you will start doing an over under motion through all your strands of thin yarn across and back, over & over until you are pleased with the outcome.

6. Continue weaving

Weave as you please with each different yarn. You can switch yarns but simply un tying you light but snug knot and replacing it with a new yarn. Be sure to tie off your yarn onto your thin yarn or on top another yarn as you go so you do not lose all your hard work.

7. Leave Space

Be sure you are leaving space! If you think you haven’t left enough, use your ruler to tighten your weaving. Leave about 2 inches the the bottom so you have room to slide off your thin yarn from your placeholders.

8. Add Fringe

You can add fringe just about anywhere you wish. I like to add it to the bottom first and then move to the weaved area. To add fringe to the bottom you will need to unhook your thin yarn from your nail placeholders. Pick the yarn you want for you fringe. Decide on the length and double it. Loop your fringe yarn around the loops from your placeholders. Once you have all of your fringe looped on you will not cut the ends of your loop creating your fringe look!

9. Add details

THis is now where you can go back to add any fringe into your weave or other fun details. To add fringe into your weave just pick an area you feel it will look best. Decide on the length on your fringe, double it and cut one end so you have one long strand of yarn. Fold your fold in half and loop it around the thin yarn you created your weave with. Pull the ends around, up and through to create your fringe. Repeat this over and over until you have the fringe you had visioned.

10. Rod Placement

Yes, I choose the word rod because I know some people will find it funny. Besides that, once you have all happy and giddy with your weave outcome you will need to slide off the top loops from your nail placeholders. When You slide them off, you will slide them right onto the rod you have chosen. Tie a strand of yarn to the ends of the rod for hanging.

Hand your weave up, ship it off to a friend, take photos for use to see, blog about it, do whatever you want with it!

What did you decide to do with your weave?

We loved making this so much that rug making might be in the making here soon for us.

P.S. Our website is down at the moment! Tear, I know. IndieMade has told use that they are working on it so hopefully it will be resolved and up & running here soon!

Much Love,

Amanda

Faux Fur Ottoman

DIY A Faux Fur Ottoman

I am totally in love with all things comfy and cozy right now! 

I have this ottoman that I have already re covered but no longer like the fabric. So rather than buying a new ottoman for anywhere from $45.00-$125.00, I made what I wanted. 

So let us get started.

Materials: 

• Staples ( 1" to 2" depending on how thick your fabric is)
• Staple Gun
• Needle Nose Pliers to remove staples 
• Fabric of your choice ( I used 1 1/2 yards for faux fur. I had extra, just got more to be safe, plus it was on sale!)
• Ottoman   * You can also do this with an old box or basket just be sure that you have something sturdy for the staples to stick into

Before

Here is the ottoman. 

Since I had already re covered this ottoman I first had to remove all the staples and fabric.

Using needle nose pliers that staples came right out!

One everything is removed the ottoman was back the its original look. I failed to capture a photo but it was a basic textured taupe fabric. I left this on to keep the structure. 

Lay out your fabric

Measure Your Ottoman Top 

* Lay your top on your fabric, add 2"- 3" for stapling room

Measure You Ottoman Base 

* I like to wrap my fabric around the base as if I were ready to staple and 

mark it as needed with a pencil. Be sure to add

2" to your measurements so you have room for staples

Once it is all measured make your cuts were you did your markings & start stapling! 

A L L   D O N E! 

How did yours turn out? 

P.S. Click MY SHOP to shop for great spring looks! Use the 

code: HELLOSPRING for 50% off all winter wear or 

code: CLEARANCE for 50% off any and all of our clearance goodies 

Much Love,

Amanda 

Tips For Non Greasy Hair

Hair Care Tips & Tricks 
Tips on not washing my hair for weeks!

I don't enjoy washing my hair, it makes it so damn straight! 
I love having messy hair.

People always ask me what I do to my hair because it is never greasy. Well ladies, let me introduce you to being product free with a dash of dawn and baking soda.

First things first. I have always hated washing my hair ever since I was little. This includes brushing it. My name once flipped my head over and "brushed" out the knots underneath. By brushed, I am cut out the knots! Straight took scissors to my long locks!

I grew up with extremely long hair. Like fall in the toilet if you are not careful long. That happened once, next thing I know my mom had me cut it to what I considered short.

Australia 2010 was a crazy time for me. I moved there in February of that year to study abroad, which is also known as drunk as much box wine as you can and try to attend classes. :) it is true. So one of my random adventures there I woke up with dreads...we won't get into the details. But I had them, and honestly loved it. They were like the intense ones or anything but when people saw me, that is what they reference my hair style as.

Here is just the start of my hair going wild. About a month after this, it got real. 

Arriving back to America I did what I could to "clean" up my hair without having it cut it all off. I stopped using ALL products, got it deep conditioned with the lovely Allen of Studio 7119 in Sarasota, Fl (love him) and chopped it off just to below my shoulders.

I continued to not use products and wash with water and a dash of baking soda. I continued this for about a year and a half! My hair was growing (slow but it was) and looking healthy again.

Anyone that knows me can tell you how often I dye my hair. For being a health conscious person, I treat my hair pretty poor compared to the rest me my body. Anyways, I have had pretty much every color. One time while changing colors my hair got so oily- it is GROSS, all capitals yelling like you just touched someone's snot. Seriously. My mom & nana (because I am old enough now to admit they know most things if not everything) told me to use Dawn dish soap. I laugh because I won't even use that stuff on my dishes. Like I was about to put it on my hair. HA! 

Well, guess what? I did it & I loved it. Still use it....sometimes. It took out the oils from the dying (thank you hair god). I do NOT use it daily or weekly but when I do, I add a 2 second drop of a squeeze to water and apply it right to the top of my head. Rub a dub dub and rise. 

Typically I use a tbsp of baking soda when I have product in and rise my hair. Sometimes I add this to a tad bit of the Say Yes To Blueberries Conditioner I have.  

2-3 weeks is how often I wash my hair. Sometimes I will get it wet in the shower (if I have no product in it) but not of the time, I just toss it up and let it be. Now that is is getting warmer outside, I plan to sweat more on runs which will lead me to more wet washes (just rising out my hair with water).  Everyone has their own point of view on this. It is good for your hair, it is bad, gross, whatever you think, it works for me.  Everyone is different. Everyone's body is different. Do what works for you.

I am back to using products here and there but only if I am going out, have a meeting or I am networking. Otherwise-nothing! Which helps so much! I hear ladies telling me all the time that they could never not wash their hair every day or every other day. STOP THAT! Please take the time to get your hair free from products so you CAN make it more than 2 days without having to wash your precious locks. 

All of the above photos are ones with no product in. In fact the bottom two are while we backpacked Ireland, Scotland & England and I didn't wash it the entire trip! 

My husband just started this. He stopped washing his hair on a daily basis. He even notice that it wasn't the greatest but soon after doing this few showers, he noticed a difference in his hair. 

On another note. 
Since Australia, I have chopped it, grew up out and chopped it shorter than I have ever before. It is now just past my shoulders. I am working on growing it out again. I mess my messy bun way too much! I have been taking Hair Skin & Nails from ItWorks and damn, I love this stuff! It does give me a pretty gnarly tummy ache so I have to take it right as I fall asleep. I have seen a difference in my hair and my nails are stronger and longer than I ever thought I could have them. 

Well, that's that ladies and gentlemen. Let me know your tricks to keeping things grease free in the hair world.

Later loves,
Amanda 

DIY Home Renovations: Painted Accent Wall

We have a giant 2 story wall in our home that we have talked about making into a wooden wall but with doing bamboo flooring now we didn't want to take away from them or have so much wood going on so considering most of our accents & furniture are also wood.

While browsing Pinterest I came across an angle ombre wall accent painted right on the wall. I showed Ryan the picture & surprisingly he liked it! As soon as I knew he liked it I began measuring and taping.

I started off by measuring the boarder of the wall and marking little lines at 6 inches all the way around. Once everything was marked, I began taping away...

Here is a glimpse at before

 Here is the start of the taping. 

I had to wait to continue the taping because that little step ladder you see there was not getting the job done for this 2 story wall. 

Here is another look before Ryan got on the scary ladder and finished the taping.

When taping the angle lines I went with the flow of the wall. Luckily I have a pretty good eye for straight lines so I just eyeballed it and Ryan check them. We looked at the angles from all sports in the view of the wall to get different looks at it to make sure the lines were straight as could be. 

PRESS DOWN THE TAPE! 

If you get inspired to do a painted accent wall of your own please, please buy good tape! We used Frog Tape, the widest one, through out our entire home and for this wall. It is awesome! Just make sure that you press down the tape really well so your paint does not leak through and make you cry when you are all done. 

Lucky for us, our tenant left some of their belongings in our shed and some are rather useful, like this ladder.

We used Valspar paint for all of the painting in our home. Most walls only need one coat with some minor touch ups here and there. Overall thus paint is amazing! 

THIS is why I need to have someone else proof read! I am dyslectic and damn is it frustrating when you spend time to create an image to see this...STAIN instead of SATIN! GRrrrrr. 

Ryan just loves when I include him in photos! 

 The turnout was a success! 

We totally love this Valspar Reserve Satin paint! It is not cheap but it is amazing to work with. As much as we wish we would have used this to begin with, we are also glad we didn't considering our tenant would have just ruined it anyway.

Much More to Come & Much Love,

Amanda 

DIY Home Renovations: Small Office

The basement is still carpet (barf) not thrilled and I fought it for a while but Ryan made some good points about up north and basements and all that jazz that growing up in FL I may overlook. So the rest of the basement is still carpet but my office is now laminate...which was also a struggle. Ryan hates the sound of laminate but we both hate carpet even more. This laminate was the best option for this small space in our basement. We both ended up liking this Lowes, Tavern Oak Laminate. It is $0.99 per sqft (& on sale right now for $0.85) which helped us a lot with our budget!

We have never done flooring before but that has never stopped us from doing any of the projects we take on. We tackle lots of diy projects together which is great because we have such different ways of doing things that we balance each other out and aid each other in thinking differently or using another way if problem solving.

Getting this room ready was a hassle! 
We started off by taking up the carpet just like we did upstairs but there was an issue immediately and we knew it would be. The carpet covers the concrete flooring and they used nails to hold the tack strips down which were impossible to get out! We jammed our fingers against the ground so many dang times. Finally, I think after talking to his brother about it, Ryan said that we would use an angle grinder to remove the tops of the nails so that the flooring would not have imperfections that would cause issues with laying down the laminate.

So Ryan tackled that wearing sunglasses as eye protection and some extra sheet of metal against my freshly painted walls to protect them from the sparks. Eventually the nails were leveled and all the remaining nails from the trim were out as well...also not fun due to the poor job they did on the sheet rock when the house was flipped.

Oh did I mention we also had some uninvited guests that were staying with us? One morning I was upstairs in the kitchen and heard something scratching around. I thought it was in a garage since we have 20 trash bags full of food and beer that were left by our tenant in there...yeah gross. So I immediately texted Ryan telling him that something was in a garage. It was so loud I wasn't exactly sure was it was. He called me right away and I walked toward to the garage door when I realized it wasn't coming from there but somewhere downstairs! So I made my way down there looking towards our sliding doors in the back, nothing there but the noise was loud. Scratching and than it sounded like chewing...I knew right than that it was a mouse. I opened my office door and bam, located the little guy. It was in the wall! Just so happens to be the exact corner I had told Ryan smelled so bad that I wore a mask while painting it the other day. It was horrible! Turns out that that smell was a dead mouse!

We had to cute a section on the sheet rock out to pull the mouse out, that is when we found another one! 

WARNING

THESE ARE A BIT GROSS

The mice we pulled from out wall (right two are the same mouse)

Sadly, since this, we had heard at least 2 more mice! One in another wall and one in the garage. 

Back to the office space. 
We put down a 6mil poly plastic sheet for moisture and taped it to the wall just to hold it in place while we got started to keep it from moving around too much.

                                     

Next was the underlayment. We used Pergo Gold Underlayment. It came pre-taped but we also bought some to use for the closet area.

We layed the first section down so we could started laying the flooring.

After messing up immediately with cutting off the wrong end of the board we got the flow going and were half way done! 

That poorly painted window wall will soon be a white brick wall. 

The closet was interesting. We had to get crafty with this section but it all worked out. 

The flooring is done and we moved right on to the wallpaper, Ryan's favorite thing! I fell in love with the white brick peel & stick Devine Color wallpaper at Target and talked Ryan into getting it :) 

Many curse words later we got the first roll up! 

We started the second roll and notice that the rolls were different! 

I was so sad! 

I shared the photo below on Twitter about it and Target tweeted back! They gave me a full refund! Still not thrilled that they are not the same and look slightly different but the refund makes it a bit more tolerable. 

Here is the end result with the brick wall 

and laminate flooring

I will share the finished room with you once we get all moved back! Sorry about the dim lighting! 

It was almost 3 am by the time we finished. 

Much Love, 

Amanda