"Sunshine" Necklace for a very special lady!

Last Summer I had the incredible privilege to go to Romania with a group from my church and run a week long camp for some very special teens and young adults!  They all live with other special needs kids and adults at the Tanner House with Tata Bruce and Mama Sandie.

Recently Mama Sandie contacted me about a custom order. She needs a grey and yellow necklace and earring set to go with her favorite grey tunic. Her family is having it made for as special gift.  I was so honored that she asked me! She gave me several photos to give me an idea of what she was looking for and a picture of the tunic she's trying to match. She said the yellow she wanted was the yellow in the rose focal bead.





Guess what I found! During a trip to my favorite bead shop in Georgetown, I found nearly the exact same rose bead! Found lots of other yellow and grey beads too. I sent pictures to Sandie and these were the ones she liked best. I ended up getting more than I probably needed so I would have plenty of options!

Everything was going great and I was almost done when I ran into a problem! the grey spacer beads I found were too large to let the yellow rose beads lay flat! Oops! So now I need to take another trip to the bead store to find some smaller spacer bead options!   Sandie wants to be surprised so I can't post pictures of the finished piece until she gets its and has a chance to see it first!  But here is what "Yellow Rose Necklace Version 1" looks like!

Wish me luck!

To see lots of my completed jewelry make sure you stop by our etsy shop!

To learn more about the incredible work Mama Sandie and Tata Bruce are doing you can visit their website.

How to be a "fashonista" before you count to 10!

This post is dedicated to my amazing, smart, fashionphobic friend T.

So as most of you know my day job is working at Dress Barn (a ladies clothing store). So I'm a professional at giving fashion and style advice! ;-)

Frequent concerns/questions I hear include: "I never know what goes together" "How do I accessorize?" and for people needing a whole new wardrobe... "Where do I start?"

The Answer?

Start with your favorite color. Or the color that looks best on you. Build on that.  I recommend you start with 10 things:

1. A great fitting pair of jeans or slacks (disclaimer: the jeans I have on in the photos are NOT my favorite pair, but I happened to have everything else I needed to I went with it)

2. Flattering T-shirt or Tank Top

3. Coordinating cardigan/jacket

4, 5, & 6. Earrings, Necklace, and Bracelet in the same color family (note that they don't have to be a perfectly matching set)

7 & 8.  2 pairs of shoes. 1 pair sensible and versatile and 1 pair in a fun color or eye catching style. Express yourself!

9. Scarf - I may do an entire post someday on how much I love scarves. Doesn't matter where you live, there are tons of light weight ones for warmer weather! Plus, adding 1 more scarf that coordinates can completely change the look of the outfit!

 10. This one is semi optional. A great belt. I know not all body types look good in belts, but experiment with different colors and styles. If you find one you like, you'll be amazed how many extra options it can give you! (notice in the pictures below that never once does the belt go through any actual belt loops!)

Once you have your starting 10 pieces, adding more will be so much easier! For example: I have other purple necklaces and earrings I can mix and match. I have a Maxi Dress that will go with the cardigan and the jewelry!  If I want the outfit to be dressier, I can add a skirt or a pair of nice slacks. I have a lacy purple cami for a more feminine feel! Keeping your main wardrobe in one color family makes looking great easy! Once you've gained confidence from all the great compliments you'll start getting, then adding in other colors gets easier!

Believe it or not, the scarf and earrings above can actually be swapped out for the scarf in step number 9 and the earrings in step number 4 for a whole new look with just two changes!  Easy peasy!

And there you have it!  Apologies for the poor lighting and "selfies" this was a VERY impromptu photo shoot!

 

If you'd like to see steps 11-20 for what to do next, leave a comment and let me know! Have your own favorite fashion tricks? Please share!  Happy Shopping!  

~ Chelsea

Credit where credit is due:

T-shirt and Black shoes came from Target

Jeans came from Dressbarn

Cardigan came from Hannah D's

Earrings I made!

 

Blue Lagoon

So after a multitude of technical difficulties... I've finally (with lots of help from my fabulous dad) got my camera and computer talking to each other again and all the different programs playing nicely!  After getting 999 (no joke) photos uploaded and sorted, I can finally start listing things on Zoe Cara again! Yay!


So with out further ado... Check out the Blue Lagoon! New 3 piece jewelry set added to our etsy shop!

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Roses from Cuttings

For Valentines Day last month, Nate (my husband) almost got me a bouquet of roses, but he changed his mind, remembering that I had I told him that I wanted a rose garden. I'm no dummy, and I used to work in a flower shop- as lovely as they are, those token v-day bouquets are short lived and overpriced. I want to look at and smell roses for months on end! Luckily for me, my hubby is not afraid to get dirty.
Since Nate is just starting a new position on the development team of with a local youth center and his income there is support based, things are a little tight in the financial department, so we wanted an affordable option. I had found an add on Craigslist of a woman who was trimming her rose bushes and giving away the cuttings; she had 10 varieties. Nate picked them up and made a quick stop at home depot to get the potting soil, mulch mix, and growth minerals. We ordered the rooting hormone from amazon.We already had a few small plastic planters to work with and used some glass jars for the rest.
We looked at several online tutorials and read some product reviews. I like what we came up with. We have 4 sprouts from each type of rose. The lady who gave us the cuttings also included seed pods for several of the varieties that she had better luck sprouting from seed, so I also have a few containers that are set aside for seeds. The whole process was pretty simple (note: simple does not necessarily mean mess free). We mixed the potting soil, mulch mix, and growth minerals, hydrated the soil, filled the planters and jars and hollowed out the holes where the stems were going to go. Then we cut the healthiest looking stems off the larger branches measuring 6-9 inches from the tips of the branches, removed the lower growth from each stem we cut, and made sure we had made clean 45 degree angle cuts. Next we dipped the cut ends into 2 inches of water, shook off the extra drips, dipped them into the rooting hormone, set them into the holes, careful not so scrape off the hormone on the way into the hole, and covered them with the extra soil from the holes. I used popsicle sticks to label them.
Pretty simple really. We are keeping them inside for now on a bakers rack right in front of a window, we keep the soil pretty moist and water them once a day with a super growth mixture. If all of them take off, I'll have 44 plants this spring to put in our currently barren yard. Although, I'd be happy if we got 50% of them to sprout considering we've never done this before. My next project is to prepare the soil outside.

Here are the pics of my rose garden project.