Shop Local: The Hanger

The Hanger is a new boutique in Louisville located in The Highlands, and I recently had the pleasure of stopping into the shop and chatting with owner Amanda Hinds.

The Hanger girls are Amanda and Frances and they specialize in designing and creating custom-fit clothing for women of all shapes and sizes, with a motto of We make clothes in sizes Y-O-U. 

Check out their Facebook Albums for a sample of some of the custom dresses and clothing pieces they make.  I am seriously so in love with so many pieces from their October Lookbook!  I think many women can appreciate wanting to have the perfect dress or pair of pants that is tailor-made to fit the uniqueness of their body.  The Hanger gals are able to create custom stylish pieces for anyone, at affordable prices.

 This Kate dress is one of The Hanger’s most popular designs.  Its beautiful wrap style is flattering on every body shape.

 

The Hanger also sells handmade items from local artists and crafters. I was excited to see Miss Happy Pink’s art and other accessories from D.I.Y. Louisville members for sale in the shop. Amanda and Frances share a vision of creating and supporting handmade in our community.  Handmade supporting handmade – that’s what I love to see. 



You can find more information on custom clothing orders by visiting The Hanger on Facebook.  Liking their page is the best way to stay up to date on sales, promotions, and new merchandise.  The Hanger gift certificates make perfect stocking stuffers.  I know that I’m adding one to my wishlist this year!

Want to see more of what The Hanger gals have to offer?  Check out this video:

Happy handmade shopping, DIY’ers!

 

~julee~

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Wear It: Bloopers

I’m hunkered down and focused over here as I wrap up this semester with final exams, term papers, and class projects.  Which incidentally means not getting dressed and not getting out much.  I’ve worn yoga pants and leggings for so many days now that my daughter asked if I wanted new sweatpants for Christmas.  Pipe down kid, I’m asking Santa for something much more exciting. 

Luckily, my friend Jilli of Mia Bella Photography has rescued you from seeing pictures of my lounging gear with this awesome blooper reel she put together of our photographic adventures from last month.  You can see our complete sets of outfit posts HERE – HERE - HERE and HERE.

Yes, I am a goofball.  Yes, I have E.T. fingers.  Yes, Jilli was amazingly patient trying to get me to be serious.  And yes, I plan on getting out of my yoga pants very soon.  Until then, embrace your goofy side, DIY’ers!

~julee~

 

I post my outfits here to show off my thrifty and handmade wears. Plus, I  like cute clothes. I link up each week with What I Wore Wednesday at The Pleated Poppy, Whatever Whenever Wednesday, Not Dead Yet Style, Real Girl Style and Casual Friday.   If you're dropping in today, please say HI! in the comments – I would love to come check out your blog!

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Thanksgiving Giveaway with From the Guestroom

We have teamed up with From the Guestroom for a fantastic Thanksgiving giveaway!  This is a great chance to win a Sponsor Spot on D.I.Y. Louisville, plus more awesome gifts from some great bloggers.  Visit the GIVEAWAY page on From the Guestroom for all the details!  Good luck!

Happy Thanksgiving!

julee & kim

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Wear It: Purple Pants with Mia Bella Photography

 

This is our final week with Mia Bella Photography.  It’s been so much fun having my outfits professionally photographed that I think we should all send notes of love and admiration to the very talented lady behind the camera and beg of her to continue photographing our outfits each week.  You with me?

 

In the past few weeks you’ve seen me play with color, get dressy, and go vintage, but for my final outfit I chose to dress down in a casual every day look.  I love to pull on a fun, flirty dress or skirt, but the truth is that 80% of the time I’m donning a pair of comfortable jeans.  Usually they’re of the blue variety, but like everyone else, I am digging colored jeans lately.  For me, I’m particularly digging these purple jeans.

 

What do you think?  Are you a colored jean fan?

 

Top:  TJMaxx

Purple Jeans & Tank:  Target

Shoes:  Franco Sarto, thrifted

Purse:  Vintage, thrifted

Yellow Wooden Ring:  Uncommon Handmade

Earrings:  Handmade by me
Necklace:  c/o Buttons by Becky  

 

I highly encourage you to take a peek at Mia Bella Photography and the Mia Bella Facebook page, and hit the LIKE button while you’re there. She updates her page daily with amazing photos from her photoshoots, and if you’re a Louisville local, she also updates session openings and special pricing opportunities. For a limited time, she is giving a free 10x13 image when you book a session and mention DIY. Mia Bella specializes in senior, family, and newborn portraits. I’m thinking she should also go into the fashion blogger market.

~julee~

 

Kim and I post our outfits here to show off our thrifty and handmade wears. Plus, we like cute clothes. We link up each week with The Pleated Poppy, Whatever Whenever Wednesday, Not Dead Yet Style, Real Girl Style and Casual Friday with a bunch of other bloggers in blogland doing the same crazy stuff we are. If you're dropping in today, please say HI! in the comments - we'd love to come check out your blog!



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Bake It: Applesauce Bread

My CSA boxes have included lots of apples, which I’ve been turning into applesauce for my daughter’s lunchbox.  This week I reserved enough applesauce to make a delicious applesauce bread.

I looked at many recipes online and ultimately decided on the one from Joy of Baking because it used the least amount of sugar, and I liked the incorporation of whole wheat flour.  I used unsweet applesauce, and the result was a bread that was moist, hearty, cinnamon-y, and just a tad sweet.  The only dried fruit I had on hand was cherries, and it was a good flavor combo for us (my family loves tart cherries), but any dried fruit will work great.

I used the Joy of Baking Applesauce Bread Recipe HERE, and didn’t alter it at all, except for replacing the currants with cherries.  You can see how I make my homemade applesauce HERE. 

Do you have any favorite bread recipes?  I’m thinking of making some loaves to give as gifts this year and would love to know what recipes you use.

Happy baking!

~julee~

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November Umba Box

I made the decision to cancel my Birchbox, halt my Julep subscription, and purchased a 3-month Umba Box instead.  Umba Box is a monthly subscription service that delivers a package of 2-3 handmade items each month.  I obviously love the idea of supporting handmade artists, and I can’t think of a more fun surprise to get in the mail every month.  (Lottery pay-outs aside.)

The contents of this month’s box was a handmade journal from To Boldly Fold, fancy clothespins from Earth Cookie Creations, and crazy delicious caramels from The Caramel Jar.  I absolutely love each item!

Are you an Umba Box subscriber?  If not, you can use the code NOVFRIEND for 10% off a prepaid subscription, expires November 19th.  A subscription would make a great holiday gift.  I'm hoping Santa will put more of those caramels in my stocking.

~julee~

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Wear It: No nonsense

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of No nonsense. All opinions are 100% mine. No nonsense tights and leggings can be found at food and drug stores as well as mass retail stores.

Julee and I were lucky enough to be asked to try out No nonsense tights and leggings.   I received the cotton leggings in Espresso, and Julee received the Rose Floral Openwork Tights.

I was super happy to see the leggings show up in brown since I have been looking for a pair to wear with my brown boots.  I ordered the XL and am normally a size 16.  They are super comfy and have a great weight and stretch to them.  My only suggestion is to maybe order down a size if you are on the smaller end of the size scale.  These were a tiny bit big on me.   I love leggings in the fall/winter since they keep me so much warmer than tights and since I work in a preschool they help keep me decent too.

 

Julee paired her pink lacy tights with a chambray sheath dress and black booties.  Lace tights add such an element of fun to your outfits.  You can wear them to make a bold fashion statement, or you can pair them with a more classic skirt or dress for an unexpected hint of sassiness.

You can find No nonsense on Facebook or Twitter, and their affordable tights and leggings can be purchased at many food, drug, and retail stores.

We were sponsored by No nonsense for this opportunity.  All opinions are our own.

What are your favorite leggings and tights trends this fall?  Do you opt for warm and cozy leggings, or are you more of lace tights kind of gal?

--kim

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Ana White Book Review

We love Ana White’s website and building plans over here at D.I.Y. Louisville and that’s why we were super happy to be asked to review her newest book The Handbuilt Home.  I’m one of the many who has taken advantage of her straightforward plans for making just about anything you can think of.  If you aren’t familiar with Ana’s website, she takes on a lot of famous brand products and makes something similar, then gives you the plans and the how to’s so you can make it yourself.

I can’t wait to try some things from her new book.  It has a collection of projects for every room, even sewing and crafty rooms.


Each project gives you a price guide, skill level guide, and approximate time needed to finish.  I love that I can start with some of the basic projects and gain confidence to then tackle some of the larger projects.

This sewing table is definitely bookmarked for the near future!

One of the projects that my amazing dad has built from Ana White’s plans is the  Bookcase Dollhouse.  He put together two of these awesome houses for my daughter and niece for Christmas last year.  He said that the plans were easy to follow and the houses came together well.  They are extremely sturdy and buying something of this quality would be hard to do.  Plus, they are very well loved.  My daughter has collected Calico Critters since she was about 3 years old and this is where she houses them.  She has plans to ask Poppy for a nursery addition in the future; I hope Ana has some plans for that!

This is Christmas morning.  The houses are side by side.  My niece uses hers as a Barbie mansion.



This is one I took today.  You can see that this is easily my daughters favorite thing.
You can read about the garden planter boxes that I made using Ana’s plans here.  All of her plans are easy to follow, and the pieces are amazing and stylish.

Have you ever made any of Ana White’s projects?  How did they turn out?

--kim

 

Disclaimer:  We were provided a copy of this book to review, but all opinions are that of D.I.Y. Louisville, free thinkers that we are.

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Wearing Vintage with Mia Bella Photography

 

This is the third outfit in our series with Mia Bella Photography.  For my first outfit, I chose an everyday true-to-me style.  For my second outfit, I picked out a classy look without an expensive price tag.  For my third outfit, I chose a classic vintage look.

 

I love vintage pieces, but wearing many of the vintage styles isn’t very practical for my lifestyle.  So, when I come across vintage clothing on my treasure hunts, I feel it’s good karma to leave those pieces on the rack for the next vintage lover to come along and sell on etsy claim.

 

However, this 1950’s style vintage dress that fit me like a glove for $5 could not be put back on the rack.  Nope, no way.  I’m thinking I scored the deal of the century.

 

 

Dress:  Vintage, thrifted

Belt:  Thrifted

Purse:  Vintage, thrifted

Shoes:  Target

Necklace:  Vintage, gift from my mom

Earrings:  Handmade by Kim

 

I highly encourage you to take a peek at Mia Bella Photography and the Mia Bella Facebook page, and hit the LIKE button while you’re there.  She updates her page daily with amazing photos from her photoshoots, and if you’re a Louisville local, she also updates session openings and special pricing opportunities.  For a limited time, she is giving a free 10x13 image when you book a session and mention DIY.  Mia Bella specializes in senior, family, and newborn portraits.  I’m thinking she should also go into the fashion blogger market.

How do you feel about wearing vintage clothes?  Do you ever find any amazing vintage buys?

~julee~

 

Kim and I post our outfits here to show off our thrifty and handmade wears. Plus, we like cute clothes. We link up each week with The Pleated Poppy, Whatever Whenever Wednesday, Not Dead Yet Style, Real Girl Style and Casual Friday with a bunch of other bloggers in blogland doing the same crazy stuff we are. If you're dropping in today, please say HI! in the comments - we'd love to come check out your blog!

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American Girl Doll Party

Our birthday girl loves her American Girl doll, Julie, but she really wanted to have an owl themed party.  What to do but throw a doll party with owl accents, of course.  We lucked into finding quite a bit of the American Girl party accessories on mark down at Michaels and Meijer.  These accessories included mini versions of big versions, even mini invitations for the dolls along with the regular invitations.  We added as many mini-sized party goods as we could and used the colors pink and green throughout.

The amazing cake was made by local baker Louisvillicious.  Her fondant replica of The American Girl Julie and owl were adorable.

Owl sugar cookies and star sugar cookies also made by Louisvillicious. 

We also had mini cupcakes (Julie had her own special cupcake), mini cookies and mini marshmallows.  The cupcake toppers came from the American Girl party accessories.

Appetizer plates and utensils are very popular at party supply stores right now.  These made the perfect doll-sized accessories.

We made a small pennant and a large pennant from the American Girl scrapbook paper pack.

American girl goodie bags filled with treats from an owl piñata.

We set a table for the girls, and another table for their dolls using mini versions of the table settings.  We used the American Girl scrap pack to make large and small pinwheels.

  The birthday girl was happy to have her favorite doll included in her special day and I think this turned out to be a very sweet party.  As always, feel free to ask if you have any questions!

~julee~

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Hello, Friday

    

I’m reflecting on my simple moments from this week, because is it just me, or did this week just fly by? 

True story, my daughter actually cried when she realized my husband would not be home to carve our pumpkins this year.  The hubs does really awesome jack-o-lanterns, and I…well…I have zero artistic skills.  Of course I used this opportunity to carve into our pumpkins with a  We don’t need no man! fervor, and then I dressed up as a man for Halloween.  I don’t know, a little Rosie the Riveter perhaps, but I think there was some important life skills doled out for my daughter along with her Halloween candy this year.

I hope your Halloween was safe and full of fun.  Kim and I are still sending positive thoughts out to our friends and readers on the east coast.

Happy Friday!

~julee~

 

linking up with Life Rearranged and Hello Hue and High Five For Friday.

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