Kate Spade + Keds? Yes please

I was totally inspired a few months back when I saw that Kate Spade and Keds were teaming up to release a spring line sneakers. Of course they were a little out of my price range so I decided to make my own. I purchased a pair of plain Keds at goodwill for $2.34 (can I get a "woot woot" for thrift stores?!) and decided to DIY it up.

The Inspiration! Kate Spade for Keds

Alright, into the DIY part!
Starting off with my plain white shoes, I cleaned them with rubbing alcohol to insure the paint would adhere to the surface and since they were previously owned I thought it was a good precaution. 

Another before picture.

After the shoes were all cleaned up I started drawing diagonal lines with a pencil beginning at the toe of the shoe. After I finished that, I went from the other direction so the diagonal lines crisscrossed. Then at every point where the lines intersected I drew a circle. And that's how I got a little guide. Now it's far from perfect, but I wanted to have some order to the polkadots rather than a random pattern.

Then I used fabric paint and began filling in the dots. First a used a paint brush, but it was difficult to control in the small area, so I decided to experiment and found out a q-tip made an excellent dot. 

 Just continue filling in the dots until you're finished and repeat for the other shoe. I ended adding a few extra polka dots that weren't on my pattern, just because I felt there was too much white space. The guidelines are just there to help you. There's no need to follow them to the T.  After the paint dries, remove all the guidelines you drew with the pencil. I just wiped mine off with a damp cloth. 

Then add some shoelaces and you're finished!! However, when you're buying your shoe laces remember to check how long they are, I remembered the hard way. 

I purchased my laces at wal-mart for less than $5

And last, but certainly not least, it's time to don your new shoes and show them off to all your friends!

 I hope you enjoyed this little DIY project. It was really fun to do, and I hope to do more DIY's in the future!

Short and Sweet

You know you're best friends when...
eating dinner with her family, her dad looks at her mom and says, "I think Ashlynne is moving in", to which her little brother replies "Yes!!"
or
standing in her bathroom getting ready for a girls' night out she looks at you and says "you might as well just leave a toothbrush here"

In closing, friendship is a beautiful thing. It's just an extension of family and I love it.

Sweet Tooth

If you know me, it's pretty obvious that I have a sweet tooth. When I was working at our local cafe I think I ate some sort of sweet goodie every shift. It was really a problem. Since then I have cut back a lot and if there aren't sweets around I'm not usually tempted. However, tonight after dinner I had my heart set on a piece of homemade apple cake, only to find out my family finished it off at lunch without me! Needless to say, I had to come up with something to hit the spot. That's when I hopped on pinterest to find a recipe that we had all (or enough) ingredients on hand for and I came across this recipe for a Chocolate Peanut Butter Mug Cake. I changed up the recipe a little by cutting back the amount of cocoa powder and I didn't use the frosting recipe listed because we didn't have any cool whip on hand, but I made up a frosting recipe on the spot so it wasn't a bare cake. My verdict? Overall it was delicious and I'll probably make it again one day. I would watch the cooking time carefully though because I thought it was a smidgen dry. Next time I definitely want to try the frosting recipe too, but fair warning, you'll definitely want to share this with someone. It was so rich! I shared it with both my little brothers who were raving about it. If you try it, let me know! I woud love to see pictures and hear what you thought. Any other great mug recipes? What's one of your favorite desserts?