If you're like me you own several belts that are too big and you just need one or two more belt holes to make all the difference. Maybe you bought the wrong size belt, or you lost a little weight, or it’s because different pairs of pants sit on your body at different places. I finally discovered that you can easily solve this problem yourself with a belt hole puncher. It's a super-simple to use tool that comes with a variety of prong sizes for punching holes. With it, you can add new holes to your belts in a snap and end up with a great fit. Definitely worth every penny! I wouldn’t recommend this for belts that are several sizes too big, because there will be too much length left over.

Here are some tips for using the belt puncher so punching those extra belt holes can be a breeze. Know that the hole puncher does not make clean holes as it doesn’t quite cut through. To solve that use it by holding the lower handle (the one with the striker plate) firmly on a flat surface. With the lower punch handle anchored on the table top, simply press only the upper handle to bring down the revolving punch head. This technique will help you punch holes with less effort! To prolong the sharpness of the punch edges, put a small piece of strong cloth (like denim) under the belt to be punched. This way you aren’t hitting the end of the punch on the back metal plate.

When I built my shoe closet I took out that shoe shelf and re-purposed it to be for entry storage. I threw my purses on top and threw other random stuff in the tiny cubby holes. My DIY magazine basket was spray painted black and I had fabric sewn into it. But it was always full of junk mail and reusable shopping bags and was awful and had zero function. It took me eight years of living here before I finally did something with the space.

I needed a routine to get everything back in place. I followed the Kondo method which says that everything needs a place. The main function of my entryway is to hold incoming mail. I needed one super organized space instead of allowing the kitchen island to become the dumping ground. So I picked up this cute wall organizer when I was in Thailand last year. Now the first thing I do when I get home is open all the mail, trash what I don’t need and the rest goes into the wall organizer. I also got a sunglasses basket so they are all in one place that I keep in my coat closet.
I replaced the shoe shelf with the Kallax shelving unit from Ikea. In fact if you google Kallax hacks you'll find a lot of ideas for using it. I’ve been loving it every since it was built as it's fantastic and keeps my entry way tidy and organized. I finally have a place to display all my travel guidebooks from the trips I've taken. I haven't taken a vacation this year but I do have a business trip to San Francisco next month.
 
Let me show you a close up of the cute gold bulldog tape dispenser I picked up at Target. I love all the gold desk accessories and the glass jar filled with roses. I feel it looks bright and organized.  The picture is from my strawberry picking adventure this summer.
On the bottom shelf I got a large storage bin also from Ikea for $5. I had wanted a metallic one but the ones at Pottery Barn were $29 so I thought it would be cheaper to DIY by just putting some gold stickers on it. It’s a great place for my reusable shopping bags, coupons and receipts.  Also in the past couple years I’ve been signing up for $2 per year magazine subscriptions. I get Oprah, Dr Phil, Allure, Women’s Running, and Real Simple, yet I barely have time to read them. lol I got a pack of cheap magazine holders from Ikea that I DIY with stylish wrapping paper. With a designated spot for magazines and papers, it really clears the clutter from the entryway area and the magazine station is hidden away.

If you don't have a balcony or outdoor garden, a terrarium is a great idea for a house plant. Succulents are low maintenance, they just need some sun and a little water. Terrariums are easy to make, even if you don’t have a green thumb. I think it adds a beautiful touch to any room as the plants come in all kinds of colors. Since my living room is painted orange I wanted to create my terrarium around a vibrant orange moss. I recently read the book The Signature of All Things which talked about the world of mosses in great detail. Did you know 12,000 species of moss exist?
I really enjoyed the process of making my terrarium into its own tiny biosphere. I started off by picking the perfect container to build it in. The beauty of terrariums is that you can plant one in any container, the sky is limitless! Terrariums can be potted in cactus soil or sand. I arranged mine with a composition of different materials to create their own little world including colorful plants and crystals. I think the crystals create a great sparkle factor and natural beauty in my miniature landscape. I also added two airplants, also known as Tillandsia, which don’t require soil to grow. See they get all of the water and nutrients they need through their specialized leaves. In nature, air plants use their roots only for attaching themselves to rocks, trees, shrubs, and the ground. But in my terrarium I remove them once a week for a soak in water so they can absorb water into their leaves.

Succulents can thrive indoors in containers that don’t drain as long as they receive some light during the day and as long as you’re careful not to overwater them – a few drops of water once a week is really all they need. I also added some activated charcoal and pebbles at the bottom of the bowl to help with drainage and possible mildew issues. The more sun a succulents gets, the brighter it’s color. My plants only get morning sun from my window, but the species I have could potentially turn orange and red! And once a year they will bloom flowers! I love how they are sticking out of the bowl and spilling out.



Last summer on a business trip to LA, I walked by the vendor below on the street and fell in love with the succulents but thought how will I pack the spiky plant to take home? Well when I got home I showed this picture to my mom and she knew exactly where to get one locally and bought me a moon cacti. At first I kept it in a dark room and the cacti turned orange. That’s when I realized that it needed to be on a window to get sun. Once I put it there, it returned to its bright red color. I also spray painted the potter gold.

I wanted to share some cute way to gift money that I found on pinterest.








 

Clay has been used for centuries to beautify skin so  I ordered the Aztec Indian Healing Clay, a Bentonite clay, from Amazon for $5. The healing clay absorbs impurities while the apple cider vinegar is a great natural toner and antiseptic, balances the skin's pH and dries any blemishes. Unfiltered Apple cider vinegar  contains natural alpha-hydroxy acids that, over time, aid in stimulating your skin to gently exfoliate. It works at the cellular level by encouraging cells to slough off on their own.  The mix will fizz a little when you add the apple cider vinegar. As the mask starts to dry on your skin, you will start to feel your skin tighten. The apple cider vinegar will temporarily cause your skin to be red temporarily after the mask is removed.  If you make too much, simply store any excess in the fridge for up to a week. The next day your skin will be much clearer and soft. This can be done weekly for a deep pore cleansing treatment.

Ingredients:

2 tsp of Indian Healing Clay 

1 TB Unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar 

Mask brush 

1. In a glass bowl, mix the clay with the apple cider vinegar until you have a smooth mask consistency. If it is too runny add more clay.  
2. Apply to skin and leave on for 15 minutes.
3. Rinse off with warm water. I use a sea sponge to first wet my skin to make it easier to remove. 
4. Follow up with a moisturizer.

Step 1: I went outside and used Krylon's copper foil metallic to do a base layer on my bottles. I did this so that in case the glitter doesn't coat evenly or if it sheds at some point, that background color will show through instead of the bottle itself.


I week later I had a snow day on Saturday and got very productive at home since I had a touch of cabin fever and continued on my fun DIY project. You can cover your bottle with just one color of glitter or do a multi color ombre.

Step 3: Shake up your spray adhesive and spray your bottle in sections according to how many colors you're using. I started spraying the top third of the bottle, keeping clear of the cork because you need it as a handle.

Step 4: While rotating the bottle, sprinkle glitter over it. Give the bottle a little shake to shed any excess. Then repeat, spraying sections with a tiny overlap as you continue to shake your progressive shades all over that bottle.

Step 5: The final step is to seal the glitter on the bottle so it doesn't shed later. I did two layers with 10 minutes drying time in between. The Modge Podge acrylic spray is non-yellowing and doesn't dull the sparkle and shine.

Voila you're done!

Shoes to Shiraz | Two Teens and their Mama | A Lovely Little Wardrobe | R Squared  Confessions of a Frumpy Mommy | Family Love Inspiration Education   The Mishaps and Mayhem of Solitary Life | The Blondissima | Positively Learning | Quilty Joy Joy  Daily Style Finds | Making The Most of Everyday | Puppies and Pretties | She Thought She Could   Foxy's Domestic Side | Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After | Sprinkled Just Right

With Valentine's Day upon us I thought I'd show you a delicious chocolate mask I tried. This mask smells amazing, like you're baking chocolate cupcakes in your kitchen. And it makes your skin feel so soft, plus its edible so you could lick it off. I love pampering myself with DIY masks and this is the most decadent one I've made. It's made with three simple ingredients I already had in my kitchen. It's perfect for winter's dry skin as the honey is incredibly moisturizing. Don't worry it won't break you out, honey acts as a antibacterial to help disinfect your skin if you have acne. I used pure cocoa to get all of the antioxidants to help clear skin and keep it hydrated. Coconut oil is an amazing product to put on your skin, it's an antiseptic and helps fight wrinkles.

Ingredients:

• 2 TB of raw cocoa or dark chocolate
• 1 TB raw honey
• 1½ TB virgin coconut oil

Directions:
Mix all the ingredients together and apply to your skin. Leave on for 20 minutes. Remove with water and apply your moisturizer.

If you're looking for a great dish for brunch this weekend, try my Valentine's Healthy Breakfast option. Here's how I spent Valentine's Day last year.

I hope you've been enjoying your 3-day weekend, my was filled with yoga, birthday parties and brunches. A long weekend is the perfect time to do a face mask. Matcha powder is loaded with antioxidants to nourish your skin and protect against sun damage and it is also gently cooling and anti-inflammatory. I make banana smoothies with it, drink green tea lattes and now my love of matcha continues with this rejuvenating mask. Matcha basically means finely grounded green tea leaves, you can tell the quality of your matcha by how radiantly emerald green it is. I bought this high quality matcha powder from amazon for $22.

You can make this mask by simply adding water to the powder, but you can take it to the next level by adding one or any of these ingredients: virgin coconut oil, raw honey, aloe vera juice, baking soda and jojoba oil. You can expect this mask to smell amazing!

Coconut oil is an anti-inflammatory too, it's a great moisturizer, and it has natural anti-bacterial properties that will help keep your skin clear and fight aging. Honey, jojoba oil and aloe vera juice are all amazing natural moisturizers for your skin. Baking soda is a natural skin scrub that will exfoliate your skin when you remove the mask. The matcha will stimulate your dead skin cells and fight bacteria (if you're prone to breakouts).

Ingredients:

• ¼ tsp Matcha Green Tea Powder
• 1 TB of baking soda
• 1 tsp of virgin coconut oil

Directions:
Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl and apply to your skin. Leave on for 15 minutes and remove with a warm washcloth and water. Follow up with a moisturizer.

My mother told me not to buy her a necklace this year since she has plenty. In the past I've made her an edible arrangement, only cost me $20 to make! This year I made her a Lime Peppermint Foot Soak because she has one of those portable foot spas that gives you a massage so I thought this would be a great addition to add to the water.

Funny story here, I bought her a bouquet of flowers yesterday and as I was walking home I just happened to see her waiting at a bus stop (totally random!) so I thought perfect I can hand her the flowers now instead of taking them home and keeping them in water. But then the bus pulled up! So I ran to the stop, got on the bus and gave her the flowers, she was so surprised! As I'm sure everyone else on the bus was too! lol

We're going to spend the day together today and in addition to the books I bought her (below) I'm going to give her the gift of helping her restore calm and order in her home. She always enjoys when I help her declutter her space and reorganize her closet. I know my mother always appreciates the gift of time.

One of the shelves in my medicine cabinet broke in half and everything fell out. I guess I saw it coming, the crack in the middle had been in there a long time and I had too much stuff in there. So now I'm stuck with just two shelves and it brought to my attention how ugly I thought the plastic shelves looked to begin with. I went to Home Depot to see if the could cut glass shelves for me but strangely on a Sunday no one was working in the Kitchen department. I tried Ace Hardware but the solutions they gave me just weren't pretty. So for now I'm stuck with just two shelves and it gave me the opportunity to really organize my medicine cabinet and simplify what I keep in there.


I decided to make the inside of the cabinet adorable by adding a pretty purple quatrefoil print to the back of the wall to match my purple towels. The snowflake in the plug is a wallflower that makes the bathroom smell so amazing! The scent is a mix of sweet bamboo, lush jasmine and wild grasses.

Then I took it up a notch and added chalkboard to the back of the door. If you saw my winter bucketlist then you know I have a thing for chalkboards. The neat thing about it is I don't have to use messy chalk to write on it, you can now buy chalk pens! It wipes clean with a wet washcloth. On it I wrote the words to the Outkast song "So Fresh, So Clean" that you can listen to at the top of this post.  Then I bought a drawer to hold all my safety pins, bobby pins and cotton balls which always created a mess inside my cabinet. It gave me more space to put more things on the top shelf. Now everyday I love looking inside my medicine cabinet, it's so pretty it always makes me smile!

Now that I have a new shoe closet, I stumbled upon a new problem (first world problems lol). My boots aren't standing up, they're slumped over! And well it's not a good look at all. lol  Since everything is exposed in this closet I wanted to make it look nice and polished.

I googled this problem and found a couple DIY ideas. One was to put two paper towel tubes together and taping together with wrapped paper. I think it's ingenious, but I'm not feeling crafty right now. Plus I don't use paper towels at home and I'm not about to stalk the paper towels in the kitchen at work to see when it's almost done to take home. lol Another option I found was to use Smart Water bottles because they are tall and narrow. You cut off the top section then tape together two bottles.

I ended up going to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought these boot shapers for $8.50 with my 20% off coupon. I wish I'd known about them before, I could have prevented the years worth of creases in my boots. See how with the boot shaper inside the boot it stands up on it's own? The glitter chevron art work is what I've decided to hang at the top of my shoe closet.