Friday, January 31, 2014

DIY Turban Headband and Beanie

Need a fashionable way to stay warm while it's freezing out? How about turban headbands and beanies. I love these I've watched a few tutorials and different ways to make them. This is how I did it!

For the no sew headband turban you'll need:

First you'll take your t-shirt and spread it out to cut. I used an old plain white t-shirt I had laying around that I used the corner of for another project. Try to use old shirts that are kind if large and stretchy fabric is better too. If the shirt is too small it won't fit over your head very well. 
Next, you'll cut a strip through both sides of shirt. This thicker the strip you cut the thicker the turban headband will be I made mine about 5-6 inches. Try to cut clean striaght lines, it's easier if you put the tshirt on a flat surface to do this.
You'll open it up the t-shirt to make a circle. 
Then twist in the middle twice like this to make what looks like and infinity symbol. 
Then take one side and place it on top of the other like this. 
Stretch it out and you have a turban head band!
I made two of these, the second one I used an old tube top that was kinda of bigger at the bottom and made of stretchy fabric. I made my cut a little smaller than the white one. 
I love how my both turned out! You can wear these a couple different ways and can double as an ear warmer. I think it would also be fun to make these out of an old sweater.



Next is the (some) sew but no machine necessary beanie turban. Here is what you'll need:

The shirt I used was kind of like a thin sweater almost, with a large band at the bottom which I thought was perfect for a beanie. To start, I put my shirt inside out. The I took my shirt and measured it around my head keeping the side seam on the side of my head. I pulled it a little tight because I wanted it to have a snug fit. Then I marked where I wanted it but be sure to make it just a tad bigger than you want you'll need to have room to sew.
Then I made a mark about 6-7 inches up. This will be the top of the beanie of your beanie. If you want the to top to be looser add a couple more inches. I wanted mine to be tighter to my head. Make a mark centered between the side seam and the mark you already made and however high you want.

My marks are kind of hard to see. Using both marks you made draw a beanie shape and cut it out of both side of the shirt. If I makes it easier you pin both sides of the shirt together to make and even cut on both sides. 

Now just take your needle and thread and sew along the line you cut out! I hand sewed this but if you wanted to you could use a machine. When you are done sewing flip it inside out and it should look like a beanie. 

Next is the front detail. First, you pinch the very front bottom middle of the beanie using you pointer finger and your thumb, as shown below. 
Now take that pinched section and fold it back on the beanie like so.
Then pinch again like how you did it the first time but this time also have what you folded in your hand still and then fold back on the beanie like so.
You create the front peak by folding it. Try to make sure all the folds are the same length. Then pinch all of the fols together.
You are going to sew this front section of folds you've created. Try to sew this right in the front middle of the beanie. And try to make it so all the folds are flat.
You are going to put your button on this folded piece, so this stitch doesn't have to be pretty it just has to be a nice flat surface for you button. It should end up looking something like this.
Next you will sew your button into place right of the very middle of where you made these folds. Unfortunalty the loop where the button should be sewed on broke off so I just glued mine in place. It ended up looking like this.
And now your done and you have a cool new turban beanie! 

I hope this was useful and you enjoyed this tutorial! Now to make you some turbans and stay warm! 



Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Chicken Lime and Jalapeño soup

A few weeks ago Joseph wasn't feeling well so I decided to make him some soup. My favorite soup is sinagong it's a Filipino soup and I like is extra sour. So when I found this recipe I was really interested. When he was sick I didn't have all the ingredients the recipe called for so some things were left. Which ended up fantastic.  

Here is the original recipe I found on Pinterest: http://www.budgetbytes.com/2012/10/chicken-lime-soup/

I'm going to try to tell you what I used accurately but there definitely wasn't a science or exact measuring so here we go. 

Ingredients: 
1 chicken beast (not too large?) 
1 can of rotel or any tomatoes with green chilies 
1 jalapeno 
1 onion 
1 3 cloves of garlic  
1 4 oz of chicken broth 
1 tsp of Oregano 
1/2 tsp of cumin 
1 lime 
2 tsp of olive oil 

First I sliced the onion. I sliced instead of diced because I love onion in soup and I just prefer it sliced. And I minced the garlic I put the onion and garlic in the pot with the olive oil on medium heat. Soften the onion while you continue with the next step. 
Next I cut up the jalapeño you'll need to scoop out the insides and seeds. To do this first I cut the top of then slice down the middle long ways. The use the knife to cut the middle loose and dice.


Add the diced jalapeños to the pot and let that soften as well. Then add the whole chicken breast.

And then add the can of rotel including the juices, the chicken broth, and the cumin and oregano.

Let that boil on high for a few minutes and then bring it down and let it simmer with the lid. 

The actual recipe said to let it simmer for an hour. I most definitely did not let it simmer for an hour. I needed to eat sooner than later and my sick boyfriend needed food and honestly my shows came on at 8 so dinner needed to be done. So I let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Then I took the chicken out and shredded it with two forks. If you've never done this it's super easy. Just take one fork and hold you would hold a fork when you are trying to cut a piece of chicken and hold the other fork in the other hand in the same way and pull apart.

And now you have shredded chicken!

Then mix in the shredded chicken in your soup. Before you put the top back on take your lime and squeeze it into the soup. I cut my lime into quarters so it was easier to squeeze, but whatever works for you. You might want to take a spoon to push into the lime to get as much juice from it as possible. The lime juice makes it perfect trust me the more the tastier. 

After you add the shredded chicken and lime juice, cover and simmer for 10 more minutes. After that your soup should be done and delicious. A little spicy a tiny bit sour and full of onions. Yum! 


Perfect for a cold day! Or just in the mood for different chicken soup. If you try this I hope it turns out delicious, and if you do try it let me know how it turns out!


 
 

Monday, January 27, 2014

Friends for the Better


Who you surround yourself with is so important. When I was younger this is something I didnt think about at all. It never occurred to me how much your friends can influence you. And when you're young for the most part you don't care. You think I am who I am no one can change me! Which is true in a sense Only you can dictate your own life but who you surround yourself with can definetly effect who you allow yourself to be.

This concept can be even little things like picking up new music or hobbies your friends like because they introduced it to you. When you surround yourself with good people who do good things and are kind it inspires you to do the same. Who you choose to be your friends can inspire you to be a better person. However, the same is true about negative people. If you choose to surround yourself with people who are lazy or unkind or have bad habits it can change your sense of what is ok and not ok. When first witnessing it you could think it's wrong or know it's not for you but if you continue to hang out with that crowd you can start to be desensitized to their bad habits and even participate. When you hang out with a group of people with the same bad habits it can seem like everyone is doing it so it can't be so bad. When I reality it's not everyone it's the group you chose to hang out with. It's like smoking cigerettes. If you are the only one who doesn't smoke and are the one left out of smoke breaks it can start to seem like it's not that bad and it's just social, but just because this group does it doesn't make it ok or healthy or less damaging to yourself. You've just become desenitized to it. Or a friend or group of friends who always has drama following them. If you surround yourself in that situation or those people you are going to find yourself with new found drama in your life too. So no your friends may not directly change you but they can definitely influence you and it might not be an immediate change in yourself but they can cause a change. This is why the saying "you are who you surround yourself with" is true but you may not see it right away. I'm not telling you to ditch every friend with a bad habit. Im just telling to try to be aware of this and choose your friends wisely. But if you have friends that pressure you to do things you shouldn't or are involved in things they shouldn't then maybe you shouldn't invest too much of your precious time with them. 

I've experienced both; friends who influenced me to be a better person and friends who influenced me to do or become desensitized by things I would have otherwise been against. Only you can decide who you are or who you want to become. Invest your time with people who will encourage you not bring you down. To be the best you, you need a good support team. You need good friends. I also encourage you to be the type of friend who encourages others and lifts them up instead of bringing them down maybe you can encourage some of the friends who have negative habits. 

Everyone in the photo at the beginning of this post has been a positive influence in my life. I've had a lot of good friends and good people have come into my life. These three lovely people have helped make me a better person and I'm glad that we crossed paths, you've been inspirational. If you have good positive influences in your life let them know and value that friendship. Be that friend for someone else. 


Wednesday, January 22, 2014

How I did my Red Ombre at Home

 I just gave myself a red ombre at
home. This is something I've wanted to do for awhile. I was inspired by the beautiful creator of LEHAPPY.com

My hair isn't as light or red but here's how I achieved this at home. 


This is what I started with, a light brown/dark blonde hair.

I bought a dark red hair dye by Loreal.



Disclaimer: I will never buy this dye again. When I washed the color out after dying it the color bleed out in the shower so long the water got cold and about 3 showers later it was still bleeding red. It even dyed my white towel red! And it seems like the color is washing out so I'm probably going to re-dye the red. So annoying! 


Ugh anyways...

I started by I mixed the dye as the instructions said and brushed my hair. I dyed my hair in three sections, the bottom middle and top. I used a clip to hold up my hair. I started with the bottom. 

For the bottom layer I wanted the red to not go down as far as the other sections, so I picked where I wanted it to end and started to cover my hair with dye starting at my roots and brought it down to where I wanted it. I just used my hands and gloves for this. 


Next I let down the middle section from my clip. And did the same process but brought the red down just a smidge further. 

 I have layer so I dyed to whole top section red.

 I had a lot of red dye around my face and on my neck so I wet some toilet paper and wiped it off before it dyed so I wasn't left with red skin.

I left it for about 30 minutes and washed it out (forever) and used the conditioner it came with. The end result end up like this.

I left it let this until the next day. I was ok with how this turned out but I really wished my ends where lighter. So the next day I bleached them. Below is what I used to bleach.  It was leftover from when I went blonde and had to touch up my roots. If you have never bleached your hair at home I recommend letting a professional or a skilled friend to do it for you. Bleach isn't something I recommend experimenting with because it is damaging and unless you are a professional the outcome could be a disaster.

I bleached my hair similar to how I did the red, in three sections, but this time I did it in pieces. I used the brush pictured above and brushed my ends. Some pieces I went a little higher then where I originally had it mostly because I noticed there were places where I missed or I just wanted more variation. I didn't want it to look like a straight line between the red and blonde. I pre-cut some pieces of aluminum foil to wrap small sections that I bleached.





Then I did the middle section the same way.


I left the top section alone since that was dyed all red and I wanted to keep it that way. I let the bleach sit for about 20 mins then I checked it and here's how it looked. (This didn't photograph well, i doesn't look like much of a different but there was definitely a difference)


Next I took out all of the foil washed it and blow dryed it. After I still wanted more of a faded look (this process ended up taking much longer than I originally thought). So I used a dye I had from went blonde by Jazzing called Creme Soda. I used this just were the red and blonde meet. I did this pretty haphazardly. Really no rhyme or reason just trying to created a better faded ombre. 

Then I tied the ends of my hair in a plastic bag and left it for 20 minutes then blow dryed it for 10 minutes. Then I washed my the ends and blow dryed it one last time. The last and most important step was conditioning. I used this from organix.
And after this enduring this, what ended up being a long process this is the end result that I am happy with. I'm glad I put the effort in bleaching the ends and creating a more faded ombre. 



If you were planing on trying an ombre at home or just interested on how one might achieve this at home, I hope this has helped!