DIY – Hoots of a Night Al

Share the Joy of Summer with Lone Star Living Bouquets

July 22, 2018 5 Comments

This post was sponsored by Lone Star Living, and I am thrilled to share their summertime fresh flowers with you!

Summer holds so many celebrations for my family. My dad, mom, sister, and nephew all have summer birthdays, we have an annual 4th of July party, and we take our yearly beach trip to Galveston. Basically, the fun just keeps coming all season long, and summer 2018 has been no exception! We enjoy one gathering after another and each one is an opportunity to showcase Texas, southern hospitality. Want to know the number one rule for any southern celebration? Never show up empty-handed! Whether it’s food, gifts, or flowers, your host will always appreciate your kindness. And I can guarantee no hostess will turn you away if you show up with fresh flowers from Lone Star Living!

Our most recent get-together was to celebrate my dad’s birthday at my sister’s home, and I knew the Lone Star Living July summertime flowers were the perfect thing to bring. The bouquet is full of red and yellow roses, lilies, carnations, alstroemeria, and more! The vibrant colors instantly brighten up any space and provide major summer decor inspiration.

I wanted to use a wide-mouth vase to showcase the fresh flowers, but because of the wide opening, they looked sparse. An easy fix if you have the same issue is to loosely band the flowers together within the vase, and your bouquet instantly looks fuller! Lone Star Living also recommends holding your bouquet by the stems and twisting it around to fluff it. These simple tricks will give you a professional-looking centerpiece in no time!

In case you missed my last post about Lone Star Living, let me share what makes them special. They are a Texas-based floral brand that creates dynamic, stunning bouquets for each month of the year. Their fresh flowers are sold exclusively at H-E-B in the H-E-B Blooms department, and each bouquet comes beautifully packaged in craft paper with the flower food included! As you can see, their July summer 2018 bouquet created the perfect focal point on the table at our birthday party.

I can guarantee if you show up to your next summer gathering with these blooms, they’ll be equally loved by adults, kids, and pets alike! 😉

Hurry over to H-E-B to grab your own July Lone Star Living Bouquet before the month ends! I’m sure August’s unique bouquet will be just as stunning, but I can’t think of a reason why you shouldn’t enjoy them both. After all, now that you know to never show up empty-handed, you have the perfect “excuse” to purchase all the Lone Star Living Bouquets your heart desires! 😉

Decor, DIY

Beautiful Summer Flowers with Lone Star Living

June 28, 2018 2 Comments

Anyone who knows me, knows I love flowers. I can’t go into H-E-B without stopping by their floral department, and I rarely ever leave empty-handed! We’re officially one week into summertime, so lately I’ve been wanting vibrant, yellow bouquets to brighten up my home. Luckily for me, the Lone Star Living June bouquet satisfies all of my summer flower requirements! This post was sponsored by Lone Star Living, and I am thrilled to share their beautiful blooms with you!

Let me back up and tell you more about Lone Star Living. They share their love of Texas by crafting unique and dynamic bouquets that fit perfectly into any celebration from cookouts to birthdays to simply treating yourself on a weekly H-E-B trip. 😉 Speaking of H-E-B, Lone Star Living knows where loyal Texans shop, so they sell their fresh flowers there exclusively! Every month, they create a new bouquet theme that perfectly highlights the season.

For the first month of summer they combined sunflowers, alstroemerias, and more to create a yellow and green explosion of summertime fun! Their flower style stands out in the floral department, where their bouquets are sold in fun, craft paper packaging. I love that everything you need to make a vibrant centerpiece is already grouped together for you. They even include the flower food!

Once you get home, it’s easy to get your summer flowers prepped for display. All you have to do is remove any unwanted leaves, trim the stems at an angle, twist and fluff your bouquet, and place it in a vase that has fresh water and the included flower food. Lone Star Living also recommends placing your bouquet near sunlight. If you need extra flower care tips, feel free to check out their website as well.

As you can see, Lone Star Living bouquets easily brighten up any space and help bring the beauty of summertime inside! Utilizing all of the recommended tips, my fresh flowers are still looking perfect and are bringing me so much joy. Next time you visit H-E-B, pick up your own Lone Star Living bouquet, so you can bring some extra charm and loveliness into your home, too!

This post was sponsored by Lone Star Living, but, as always, all opinions are my own.

DIY, Fashion

My Experience with thredUP

July 12, 2016 10 Comments

I recently decided it was time to clean out my closet and get rid of some clothes I’ve had for far too long. I’m talking about the sweaters I’ve had since high school. The romper I bought “on a whim” and have never worn. The dress that went out of style three years ago. When I was done weeding out items, I had around five trash bags FULL of clothes, shoes, and accessories.

Most of the items I had were in great condition, so it seemed like a waste to just throw them away. After doing some research, I found thredUP. They are an online resale company offering gently used and like-new women’s and kid’s clothes and accessories. The best part is that you can send your used clothes to them, and they’ll pay you for them!

All you have to do is make a thredUP account and request a Clean Out Kit. They’ll mail you a large bag with a pre-paid shipping label and directions on what they’ll accept and how to ship your bag back. You can give it to your mail carrier or return it to a FedEx Office.

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Once they receive your bag, they will review the included items, keep the ones they can resell, and pass on the rest to their textile recycling partners to be up-cycled. Then, they’ll pay you for the items they plan to resell! You can either use your credit in their shop, or request a Visa gift card.

I found the entire process very easy and surprisingly quick! thredUP has a Payout Estimator, where you can see if they’re currently accepting the brand/type of clothing you want to send, and about how much they’ll pay you for it. They accepted almost all of the brands I had, and any they didn’t accept, I donated to my local Goodwill.
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Also, feel free to send things they say they won’t accept, just in case. For example, their website said they would not take clothes missing tags. However, I sent a suit jacket missing its tag, and they purchased it from me! They also accepted several of my items that were over 5 years old.

In total I sent two full thredUP bags and earned around $70 for about 30 items. Could I have earned more selling each item individually? Possibly. However, it would have taken way longer, and I may have never been able to sell them! With thredUP, I just mailed them away for free, and got paid almost immediately.

Overall, I was super pleased with my thredUP experience. If you want a Visa gift card instead, you do have to wait two weeks to be able to claim it, but I was able to do so and received it in the mail soon after.

If you want to shop on or sell anything to thredUP, you can use my referral link and get a $10 credit! They have women’s clothes, kid’s clothes, designer items, handbags, shoes, and more! Based on the quality of my clothes that they purchased, I’d bet most of their items are in great condition!

Have you ever used thredUP or a similar system to clean out your closet? I sure thought it was an easy way to earn some quick money!

Retro Siggy

Beauty, DIY

Easy Minimal Nail Art

May 6, 2016 No Comments

I’m no artist. Let me get that out of the way up front! My handwriting isn’t great, I can’t draw worth a poot, and in general, I’m not super artistic. However, I love painting my nails (okay…that’s a lie, but I love having painted nails), and I’ve always wanted to add a fun accent to them. I’m not big on the different color accent nail trend, but I still love a fun pop of nail art, and this is the perfect compromise!

All you need for this minimal nail art look is Scotch tape and two colors of polish. I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Naked Ambition (previous review here) and Revlon Nail Polish in Minted. For an even more minimalist look, you could paint the nail art on your naked nail, which would only require one polish (duh.).

Paint your nails whatever base color you choose. Once they are completely dry, tear off two pieces of Scotch tape. I usually stick the tape on my hand and peel it off once to ~~pick up some dead skin cells~~ make it slightly less sticky. It needs to be sticky enough to stick onto your nail, but not so sticky it will pull off your base polish.

Stick the tape to your nails to form a triangle shape however large or small you’d like.

Use your secondary color to paint over the tape and fill in the triangle shape you created. As soon as you’re done painting, peel off the tape to reveal your perfect triangle! Make sure you peel off the tape while the polish is wet, so you don’t accidentally pull up the dry polish with the tape. You can also add a top coat afterwards, if that’s your jam.

Voilà! You’re done! I think this look is so fun, and I love that you can create so many looks with different colors and without any special nail art tools.

You could paint the triangles on every nail or just one finger, like I did. The tape is fun to play around with as well because you could use it to make any number of shapes or designs on your nails.

If you try this nail art, share a picture of it on Instagram and tag me! I’d love to see! 🙂 Feel free to pin the image below to help you remember the simple steps in the future!

As always, thanks for reading!

This post contains affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase using these links, I may receive a small percentage of the profit at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Hoots of a Night Al!

DIY

Christmas Gender Reveal

December 7, 2015 2 Comments

With Christmas upon us, it reminds me of two years ago when my sister was expecting her second child. She found out the gender right around Christmas time and decided her and her husband wanted to learn if they were having a boy or a girl along with all of our family. They kept the results hidden, and my mom offered to host their Gender Reveal on Christmas Eve! I worked with her to come up with ideas for decorations, and here are the results of the special day!

Since the gender reveal was on Christmas Eve, the theme was so easy to come up with…CHRISTMAS, DUH. We decided on traditional Christmas colors, red and green, and planned around those. With red being closest to pink, and green to blue, we decided red would represent a little girl and green a little boy.

My mom made the kitchen the focus of the decor and divided her kitchen table into red and green for the snacks and decorations.

She made several banners asking “Boy or Girl?” in the decided theme colors and placed them around the house as well.

One of the best things about hosting a party close to a certain holiday is that you can plan the decorations around whatever holiday decor you already have up! My mom goes above and beyond decking out their home for Christmas every year, so it was great that those additions went perfectly with the gender reveal theme!

I may be biased, but nothing compares to the Christmas decorations at my parent’s house, and they totally added to the warm and cozy feel of the gender reveal.

We also used the chalkboard that resides in her kitchen to create a “Boy or Girl” guessing spot for everyone to pick a side! As you can see, almost everyone thought my sister was having a girl, so quite the surprise was in order. 🙂

With the craziness of Christmas, we decided to keep the food pretty simple. My mom found the cutest gingerbread boys and girls and used them as decorations for some homemade cupcakes.

She also set out red and green chips to accompany red and green salsa! You can also see the cute red and green straws she set out along with Christmas Spode and napkins.

There were various items to snack on including homemade bonbons and fudge, red and green Twizzlers, cheese ball and crackers, candy canes, a relish tray, cookies, and Rice Krispies “ornaments.” The food was the perfect amount for people to graze and enjoy while we waited for the big reveal!

Also on the table was a little poem I wrote to remind everyone why we were there (as if anyone had forgotten!). It read:

A precious little baby,

is on its MERRY way!

What will be its gender?

We’ll know by Christmas Day!

The time is now upon us,

The answer will unfurl…

GREEN means it’s a baby BOY,

and RED means it’s a GIRL!

The centerpiece of the table was a Christmas-tree topped diaper cake that was adorned with red and green ribbon and sequins as well as ornaments!

My sweet nephew Henry, was dressed and ready for the big moment in a shirt showing off his new “Big Bro” status, so we gathered everyone in the den.

My mom made a green ornament reading “It’s a boy!” and a red ornament reading “It’s a girl!” Uncle Lou was tasked with looking to see what gender the baby was and wrapping the appropriate color for my sister and her husband to open. It’s so neat to me that he was the first one to know what they were having!

He brought in the box, and we all anxiously watched them open it up. As you can see on their faces above, we were all surprised to find out they were expecting another boy!

We celebrated with hugs and excitement (and bubbles for Uncle Lou and Henry), and began planning to add another boy to our family!

I hope you enjoyed reading about this special night for our family, and it gives you some ideas if you’re planning a Christmas Gender Reveal in the future! Shout out to my mom for making this such a precious celebration and for letting me help!

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