DIY Easter Egg Dye

{marbleized via Camille Styles; another tutorial here} 

{cement also via Camille Styles} 

{au naturale dye via Design Sponge}

{ombré}

{dip-dye (using masking tape and spray paint; source unknown)}

{tissue paper}

Not sure whether it's my love of pastels or obsession with candy in egg-form (and otherwise) but Easter has long been one of my favorite holidays. Unfortunately it has been less celebrated for the last oh, ~20 years since reaching the age where it was no longer socially acceptable to hunt eggs. But I have high hopes that with the new addition to the family it will be a bigger deal in the years to come. And no Easter season is complete without dyeing eggs so I leave you with six unconventional decorating ideas that would make for a fun little weekend activity.  Happy Easter!

Weekend Update - 12/10/2012

{re-using the DIY 'Cheers' sign from last years party}

My word...am I sorry for the much-longer-than-anticipated interruption (Mary Jo). Work, holiday parties, guests in town have all consumed my life as we round out the rest of 2013.  This weekend I had a group of friends visiting from Illinois so started with my 2nd Annual Christmas party Friday night, Saturday wandered around Brooklyn and Sunday brunch in the West Village. Now another busy week with a day trip to Charlotte tomorrow and off to Miami Thursday for a wedding. Hope you all had a great weekend!

{much more fun using Christmas lights instead of regular lights} 

{Christmas lights reflecting off the gallery wall I'm finally near finishing}

{sheepskin rugs and a tutu to add texture around my room}

{hats & scarves adorning the walls so as not to take up any additional space}

{my midget tree that fits nicely inside the built in book cases and thus doesn't take up any other space}

10 Last Minute DIY Halloween Costume Ideas

Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's

Cruella Deville

Catwoman

Devil in a Blue Dress 

Princess Kate

Little Red Riding Hood

Minnie Mouse 

Peacock

Indiana Jones

Rosie the Riveter

I have intentions every year of having a really sweet Halloween costume but it never fails that I start thinking about it a whole two days before (i.e. now) and all the stores in New York are wiped clean. I'm also cheap and don't like to spend money on something you'll only wear one night which usually results in me throwing something together out of items in my closet (see exhibit A from last year). These 10 costume ideas I found around the interwebs can all be thrown together if you have a few basic items: black dress (Audrey Hepburn/Cruella Deville), blue dress (Devil in a Blue Dress, Princess Kate), black leather pants/lace top (Catwoman), red dress (Little Red Riding Hood, Minnie Mouse), teal dress/purple tights (peacock), chambray shirt/high waisted jeans/booties (Rosie the Riveter). What are some of your last minute halloween costume ideas?

Weekend Update - 4/23/2012

Today's 'Weekend Update' is dedicated to my apartment as this is where I spent the last two days in there entirety before a crazy week of work travel and finally moving on Friday. Here are a few photos, some of which I've posted about before (here and here), of some of my DIY design projects including:

- Hammering antique upholstery nail heads into a plain-jane ikea couch
- Making shelves out of tossed & found pieces of wood and Home Depot brackets
- Putting as many pairs of shoes / glasses / purses on display as possible as a space saver
- Replacing white plastic cabinet knobs with glass ones from Anthropologie and hanging wall paper on cabinet doors

- Replacing the really ugly and horribly placed light fixture with a pretty chandelier in the middle of the room

- Vintage Harpar's Bazaar magazine covers in frames

- A simple string of lights on the patio

Looking forward to having this move over with and embarking on a whole new set of home improvement projects at my new place. Stay tuned!

DIY Valentine's Manicure

In honor of today's holiday, I figured a nail DIY was in order. I first tried out this one from Refinery 29 but could not get it to look even remotely decent and thought the contrast of red and white hearts would get noticed at work. I've noted a couple times my love for all of the metallics out in stores right now so I decided to channel that into a DIY foil mini-heart manicure.

Materials: pencil, small piece of foil, cuticle scissors, Essie's 'Marshmallow' and topcoat nail polish

Draw small hearts by hand on the least shiny side of the foil

Using cuticle scissors, cut out miniature hearts from foil and place 'dull' side down

Use the pencil or some other small pointed object to position the heart on freshly painted white nails and finish by adding a layer of top coat

Shameless plug: Did you vote for me in J. Brand's 'Style Showdown' contest yesterday? Did you know you can do it again (and again and again) today? Please remember to let me know if you voted so I know which Shanelé follower is in the running for the $300 gift card in the event that I do win. Thank you, thank you!

FriDIY: Ombre Wine Cork Heart

Remember that whole hoarding thing I mentioned a couple weeks ago? I'm about to fill you in on a little story that takes it to the next level. I don't know why, but I've saved wine corks for quite some time (and have used them for other DIYs here and here). I know what you're thinking [GEEEZ, alchie] but they're not all mine. A little over a year ago, I realized you could search for 'Free Stuff' on Craigslist and I did it (multiple times a day) for a couple weeks straight. As expected, a lot of it is complete crap / spam but there was a lady giving away a bunch of wine corks because her cat kept getting into them or was allergic...whatever, not important. So one balmy August day, I literally sprint to the little old wine drinkers Bryant Park office on my lunch break. Sure enough the sweet cat lady had hundreds of corks nicely bagged up and ready for me to create a craft a year and a half later. Therefore I present to you, a diy ombre wine-cork heart in honor of the upcoming holiday.

Materials
- All the wine corks you can find (drink up...or find an alcoholic, hoarding wine drinker and buy him/her a cat)
- Cardboard
- Knife or scissors
- Elmer's glue
- Hammer & nail

Directions
- Draw a heart shape on a piece of cardboard. Eyeball it to be big enough to fit all of the corks.
- Cut out heart shape with knife or scissors. It doesn't need to be perfect as the corks will provide a nice, clean outline.
- Line up the wine corks in order of darkest purple to light pink and finally white.
- Place on cardboard heart cut-out.
- Glue with Elmer's glue and let dry over night.
- Hammer nail into wall and puncture the back of the cardboard to hang.

FriDIY: Lace Nails

If I haven't touched on it before, there is no better time than now to let you in on one thing. I'm a hoarder.  This little piece of lace is from my friend Vanessa's wedding invitiations. She got married June 2010. But I knew it was just too pretty to pitch and a short 1.5 years later, it came in handy. I had some down time during the Giants game last weekend so I cut it up into 10 small pieces for a little nail DIY.

Materials:

- Essie's 'Fiji' nail polish

- small piece of lace

- nail scissors

- clear top coat

{paint one coat of Essie's 'Fiji' or other color of your liking}

{cut lace into small pieces the width of your nail - I just eye-balled it and trimmed with nail scissors afterwards}

{apply another coat of polish, quickly place lace piece on top and press to secure. Allow lace to dry in polish and later apply two layers of top coat}