Sweet Dreams: 14 Beautiful Bedroom Design Ideas

Well, well, well, it's me again. I feel like this last hiatus I took was longer than most, but with Internet issues compounded by preparing for a trip to Paris, life has just been a little bit of a whirlwind. However, I'm trying to get back on the blogging horse for real this time, with plans for recipes and DIY tutorials in the very near future. In the meantime, to celebrate (or mourn, depending on how you look at it) by return home from a beautiful 2 week stay in the city of Paris, here's a collection of cozy, comfortable, and chic bedrooms!

Design Ideas: New Year's Eve Party!

Today, instead of my usual interior design find, I thought I'd share some cute New Year's Eve party ideas! Whether you'll be a guest or the host, it's always fun to get in the holiday mood! (Can you tell I'm excited for the New Year?) These DIY New Year's Eve party ideas are quick, easy, and adorable. You might even be able to get one or two of them in before the big party! A little glitter spray paint fixes everything.

Tuesday Inspiration: Brocade for the Holidays

Now that we've finished stuffing ourselves after Thanksgiving, it's time to start hunting for that perfect holiday dress. I'm not ready to commit to anything yet, and I have a relatively small budget to work in, but there's nothing wrong with a little window shopping is there?

In perusing the internet for ideas, I found that one of fall's RTW 2012 trends would make the perfect holiday outfit: brocade!

Thursday Tutorial: Hot Pink Home Decor DIY

I've been in the process of making my apartment a home for a little bit now. Slowly but surely it's all coming together! Oh course my appetite is constantly bigger than my wallet, so I've been finding cheap ways to creatively decorate my apartment. This hot pink and gold serving tray set way my first attempt at doing just that and I was really happy with how it turned out so I'm sharing this little tutorial for it with you guys!

What I Wore: The Magnificent Mile Edition

Oh Chicago, you manage to steal my heart again and again. Maybe it's been the weather getting slightly cooler and the fall items hanging in all the shops on Michigan Ave, but I've been loving going downtown and walking around the city. It's reminded me how lucky I am to live in such a fun and dynamic city. And that I love hot chocolate.

Vintage Love: Baubles and Jewels

I love jewelry. It's one aspect of my outfits that I can never omit because I think that accessories really are the topping on the cake. Jewelry, shoes, etc. can make or break an outfit, so I have an absurd collection of rings, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings. And especially since it's trendy to wear tons of these at once, it just gave me an excuse to collect even more. Most of mine is pretty cheap and costume-y, but that doesn't matter to me (as long as it doesn't turn my neck green). Long story short, I love jewelry and I feel naked if I leave the house without it.

Now, I collect a lot of vintage clothes and accessories both for myself and the shop and a lot of times things that I pick up for the shop end up living in my closet (sorry guys!). Jewelry though is something I have never been good at picking up at estate sales or thrift stores, so I really admire vintage Etsy sellers that have a large collection of vintage jewelry. Clothes is one thing, there's almost always a tag to help you figure out what era a piece is from, but with jewelry it's such a crap shoot. I'd love to expand my collection, but I hate putting things in the store that I can't date. So anyway, today I pulled together a collection of vintage jewelry pieces that I though were really awesome and definitely amazing finds. I'm jealous of every last one of these. Anyone know where to find cool vintage jewelry in Chicago?

'Retro Baubles and Jewels' by StrangerThanVintage

Vintage Natasha Stambouli Go... ATestOfTime $55.00	Vintage Necklace Purple Glas... boylerpf $35.00	Vintage Southwestern Tiger&#... antiquario $115.00	Vintage Floral Brooch - Milk... PinkAstilbe $12.00
Lily // Vintage Molded Glass... FunWithVintage $65.00	Vintage Sterling Silver and ... VisforVintageO... $175.00	Sterling Silver Enamel Pheas... Elsewind $95.00	50% SALE - KJL Frog Earrings... BentenDesign $75.00
Vintage Turquoise, Coral, an... VisforVintageO... $95.00	Rhinestone Earrings Couture ... EmbellishgirlV... $450.00	TAKAHASHI BLUEBIRD Brooch H... Cleoras $175.00	80s Dark Purple Square Earri... StrangerThanVi... $5.50
Lovely Deco Pink Star Sapphi... acrazeelady $120.00	Vintage BEAUJEWELS Rhineston... RaeOfLight $9.95	Vintage Gay Boyer 4 Strand G... CherryOrchardA... $65.00	LARGE 14kt Carved Shell Came... vintagebitsbli... $595.00

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Do you ever buy vintage jewelry? What's your favorite type of jewelry to wear?

Tuesday Trendspotting: Rose Gold

Rose gold has been popping up all over the place lately and I have to say that I am a big fan. I used to be a strictly silver girl and just started wearing gold in the past couple years, but if rose gold had been this popular a few years back I would have warmed up to it a lot sooner. I just love the warm tone that hint of pink gives to the gold. The color is very flirty and feminine and goes well with a lot of different shades. I love the mix of it with lilac and teals.

I've also been finding this metal used to creating some hard and edgy pieces like the skull wrap ring below and buckle-like bracelets. It's a fantastic mix for a metal that's very soft and feminine.

I love the metallic jeans below too - another way to add some edge to an otherwise soft and girly pallet.

Rose Gold by blacknblue featuring oversized handbags

What do you think? Love it or hate it?

Tutorial: Golden Birthday Necklace

So I wouldn't necessarily call myself "crafty", but if I envision something in my head that I want and I can't find the right thing in stores, sometimes I will try to make it. Now, it almost never comes out how I imagined it in my head, but I'll at least like what I made...sometimes. This was one of those times.

I am no expert in metal jewelry making by any means, but I decided to make this necklace last year for my golden birthday. I know, I know, it's mostly silver, but that's because at the time I wasn't a huge fan of gold. Instead I decided to just be "metallic" for my golden birthday and I needed a big statement piece to go with it. I wore a silver strapless jumpsuit with a big gold, bronze, and silver beaded belt and grey shoes. This necklace fit perfectly.

Anyway, I saw this shape in a lot of necklaces last summer, but none of them were the right color so I made my own and now you can too! I still wear it all the time. I wore it in my very first outfit post over the summer and promised a tutorial.  So here you go!

Golden Birthday Necklace Tutorial

Tuesday Trendspotting: All That Glitters is Gold

Like every Christmas season, you can expect to see a lot of gold and silver. Metallics just seem to go so well with celebrating the holiday season, but usually they get shoved back into the recesses of our closets when the tree comes down. Well not this year. We are now well into January and I'm still seeing a surge of metallic washes, most notably gold. Looks like gold is here to stay, at least for a little while longer. I mean, it's no surprise that one would see gold touching the pieces of the Alexander McQueen 2012 resort collection but it's really in the outfits of other fashion bloggers that it's been catching my eye. Don't get me wrong, this is not a complaint. I always saw that I need more gold and I was not planning on retiring my gold sequin shorts after New Year's eve, so a big thumbs up to this one!

1. The Glamourai
2. Sea of Shoes
3. Lookbook
4. Alexander McQueen
5. Lookbook

I love the idea of incorporating a little bit of flash into my everyday wear. I mean, that's basically how I live my life, but if everyone's doing it maybe I'll get less funny looks when I walk down the street.

So what do you say? Gold = holiday only or year round?

What I Wore Wednesday: The Velvet Skirt Underground Edition

Do you remember my trendspotting post where I was gushing over velvet as the fabric for this winter? Well I decided I needed a velvet skirt to survive this miserable season, but not being able to find exactly what I wanted I decided to do a little DIY magic and make one for myself! You like?

Sweater: Local boutique
Velvet skirt: DIY
Buckle heels: Target

 I'm no seamstress so (big surprise) it didn't turn out perfect, but it's soft and longer than all the other skirts I was finding in stores. Long story short, I'm extremely happy with it even though I have to sort of wiggle into it. I wanted it to be a bit high-waisted and didn't quite plan out what would happen when the waist was narrower than my hips and my stitches didn't stretch. Do any of you sew? How do I make a stretchy skirt where the stitches won't pull when putting it on? I should probably look at a couple tutorials before trying to sew anything again. For now, it works.

 And yes, you have seen this sweater before, but doesn't it look good with everything? I think so too.

Three tier necklace and bird ring: local boutique
Rock ring and bracelets: Urban Outfitters and vintage

That's all I've got for today. I know that velvet is generally a very holiday fabric, but it feels so appropriate in these single digit degree days. So what do you say, is velvet fabric for the holiday only?

Home Design: Gilded Accents

I have to admit, I laid around watching the Golden Globes last night and in all the glitz, glamor, and sparkly ball gowns I had to write a little gold inspiration post. The Golden Globe stage kind of looked like Superman's iced fortress of solitude, but there were these pretty little gold accents wrapped around some tall clear Lucite poles. That got me thinking about glided accents in design.

Adding in gold accents in home decor is a fantastic way to instantly give a room a more regal feel, but it can of course be over-done. Adding gold touches in perhaps a mirror or the arms and legs of an armchair can really make you feel like you're living in a queen's living room, even if the rest of the house is more shabby chic than elegantly royal. Making everything in the room gold toned can instantly turn your living room into the lobby of a hotel in Las Vegas. Unless you enjoy feeling like you live in a casino, I suggest going for the more subtle touches. Not sure what I mean? Keep scrolling, I found some perfect examples that make me want to grab my can of gold spray paint and start redecorating!

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I love the gold legs on these little stools. The velvet makes them look especially regal.

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I'd love to wake up in this bed every morning. Wouldn't you? Especially if there was always breakfast in bed involved.

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Ok, honesty time, it makes me a little uncomfortable to have a giant mirror right over the bath tub, but the giant gold frame adds a gorgeous touch of elegance to an otherwise very simply decorated bathroom.

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I just realized that all of these pictures are of gold and white home accents. Apparently that's what I think looks best.

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I just love this gold and cream chair. It's location in the bathroom? Not so much.

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I wonder if gold fabric paint would work to turn this chair into a DIY?

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This is more gold toned than anything else, but there are some pretty gilded accents on the doors. Something about this room makes me want to classify it as modern Egyptian. Just me?

Do you have any gold accents in your home?