cute | cardigans and necklaces

The Bohemian style has been quite a popular look this summer. Every store I go into I end up seeing tribal like patterns, fringe, loose clothing, headbands that wrap around your forehead, and lots and lots of lace! I have always been a fan of clothes with cute little lace details because to me it screams girly. Just this spring I stocked up on some lace shorts for the summer because they were comfortable, good to keep cool, and super cute. Now lace isn’t only associated with the bohemian look, you can style it any way you want. It’s just that now with the bohemian look being in, it is easier to find clothing with lace on it.

I decided to style up my white lace shorts in a more elegant way this time. I took a nice light grey sheer top that is very simple but has a small lace detail around the neckline. Too much lace can over power so that’s why I had a simpler shirt with only a tiny bit of the lace accent at the top so that the look was simple yet elegant. I also paired it up with some white sandals which is perfect for the summer even though there have been a few times where I got really bad sandal tan lines. I also paired it up with a necklace that consist of white, black, and grey beads. These are fairly basic colors and not a lot going on but my mom always tells me that sometimes less is best. In this case the simplicity of the outfit is best and elegant at the same time.

It’s also a nice light outfit for the summer, especially when death comes knocking at your door in the form of 100 degree weather. When I went to take these photos I sat down on the concrete wall and my thighs were super red after the shoot because they were burning. It’s even worse when you have to sit in a car with leather because not only do your legs get burned, but your sweaty thighs start to uncomfortably stick to the blazing leather. I think the North Pole is starting to sound pretty good at this time of year, don’t you think?

In one of my earlier posts I posted my first DIY gift wrapping idea where I used a toy gumball machine. I have recently been to another teenage girl party and I needed an idea for how I was going to wrap her gift up. I usually go to the dollar store to find ideas on what I want to do with the gift. The birthday party was in the spring so there were a lot of spring items there at the time. There were a lot of other ideas that we could have done but we decided to go with the butterfly net idea because to me it was cuter and a lot more girly.

Materials:

butterfly net (available at the dollar store)
fake flowers (preferably medium in size)
fake moss
plastic disk/flower arrangement disk to cover the opening of the net
ribbon
fake butterfly
tissue paper
hot glue gun and glue stick
rubber cement
clear tape
scissors

Steps:

1. Take the plastic disk and put rubber cement on the inside of the bowl.

2. Take some of the moss and pack it to the bottom of the disk until the whole disk is full of moss.

3. Take your flowers and make sure it’s just the flower (no stems) and hot glue them on top of the moss after the rubber cement has dried (10-15 minutes).

4. Take the tissue paper and put it inside of the net to where it covers the inside completely. The gift gets wrapped for the surprise, it won’t be a surprise if the person can see what they’re getting through the net.

5. Place the gift inside of the net and cover the top with the flower disk you finished earlier.

6. Secure the disk onto the net using a couple of pieces of clear tape.

7. Take your butterfly and hot glue it at the top closer to the net.

8. Take the ribbon and tie it at the top of the stick. In order to make sure it’s secure, you can apply hot glue to it.

This is a super cute idea for a girl’s gift wrapping, party favors, or even a party décor for a garden party! The options are endless, it all depends on how you want to play with it and since we had many of the materials on hand we spent only around $5.00 on the packaging which is about what you would spend in a box and gift wrapping paper anyway. It gives me great satisfaction to see the excited faces of my friends when I tell them that the packaging is pretty but that there is a gift inside as well. Usually they think that the packaging is the gift :).