Target gets Major Backlash in Social Media over Lilly Pulitzer Collab

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When Lilly Pulitzer was announced as the next designer collaboration for Target, I was ecstatic. I thought the April launch was perfect for helping me score some amazing printed pieces for spring and summer. But I might have been part of the few people that were happy about it. And that was truly shocking…

Like I’ve said a dozen times I’m a southern girl living in NY, but still am very true to my southern roots. So I know that a cute LP dress and pearls is a southern girl staple. The prints scream southern sorority girl, high class, elegant, lovely and very expensive. So to think I can get some LP at a lower price point is totally awesome. I, apparently, am part of the few that think so.

There’s been several things that have plagued this collaboration since it was announced: One, that Lilly Pulitzer is the next designer for Target. Two, that Lilly Pulitzer is offering plus sizes. And three, that the plus sizes are only being offered online. What else will be next?

Social media was in a firestorm this week. Here are some of my favorites:

“Lilly Pulitzer is rolling over in her grave”

“Great, now basics will be wearing Lilly Pulitzer”

“This is what happens when the founder dies and ignorant people are left in charge”

“Lilly Pulitzer is built off class and now you’re declassing it with it being associated with Target.”

“Great, I just spent $250 on a dress that will now sell for $40 to some randoms.”

I was pretty shocked that people would be so crazed and appalled by it. Isn’t that what a Target collaboration is for? To offer lower price points from a designer to the masses. It’s not like Lilly Pulitzer is moving into Target permanently. It’s a limited number of items which will probably sell out in the first day. And then never again. I do not see the problem.

I’m a girl who wears labels. I love a designer bag, designer scarf, designer shoes. But I also love to mix a high end designer with something from Target. I own at least 5 Burberry scarves, so I still can love and appreciate a great plaid scarf from Target without screaming it being “low budget knockoff” or that it’s sold to “basics”. I will still pick a Target scarf over a designer one if it goes with my outfit better. I love Louis Vuitton but I also love Target. Does shopping at Target make me low class or a “basic”? No.

I also think it’s awesome that plus sizes are being offered. I was once a plus size so I can understand the importance. I don’t understand why it’s being sold online only though, considering the expanding waist lines of Americans and the need being more prominent than ever for a nice selection of plus size clothing. But they’re also saying since it’s the first time Target has offered plus sizes with a designer collab that they’re “testing the waters”. I can understand that.

Whatever you believe, Lilly Pulitzer is an amazing designer with prints like no one else. And I believe that the same people complaining on social media will be some of the first in line to buy LP for Target on April 19th. So now they can be “basic” and “randoms” like us all, but at least I’ll be a “basic” wearing Lilly. 🙂

Azature – Midnight in Paris Nail Polish Collection

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What girl doesn’t love a nail polish that contains real black diamonds?! I had the honor of testing out the newest collection, Midnight in Paris by Azature. I started using Azature polishes about three months ago and I fell in love. It really has the most amazing shine and shimmer in a nail polish that I’ve seen. And what really made me happy was how well it stands up against my every day running around, Momma of 4, craziness, because I chip my polish pretty easily. Azature didn’t show any signs of chips until a good 6 days later. My usual go-to polish brands are Essie and Butter London, but Azature has easily replaced those as my favorite. So I wanna show you the new collection and then share with you some of the other beautiful manis I’ve done using the polish. AND you can get 10% off by using the code at checkout, AZVIP10. You can make purchases on their site http://www.azature.com

Midnight in Paris, aren’t these colors ah-mazing!

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First off, I’m not a huge fan of black polish. I don’t know what it is. It just doesn’t look good on me so I really don’t ever wear it. I love a navy or dark red, but black just always puts me off when I wear it….until, I received this black in the Midnight in Paris collection. It has the most amazing sparkle and shimmer. It’s multidimensional, so it doesn’t look like a basic flat black. It is called Boudoir. A camera cannot catch the luster. You can see other colors within it.

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Next I did a little party nail. Well, that’s what it looks like to me, a nail party. I used the  color “pearl” as the base with the shimmer flakes over the top and the gold as a tip. A party on the nail!

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Now this red is a beautiful burgundy. It is a deep wine tone. I love to wear red polish. It’s such a classic. So this is a great red alternative to a normal bold red nail. It’s definitely the perfect fall/winter nail polish.

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I also wanted to share with you some of the other nail polishes that I have used of Azature. It is not the Midnight in Paris collection but it still available to purchase on their website.

My absolute favorite classic nail polish using Azature Blush with a silver metallic tip. I get a million compliments when I do this look. It’s classic but with a twist.

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This cobalt blue has a beautiful shimmer in it, along with the metallic silver polish. No taping off for this, just a steady hand. It’s really easy. Give it a shot!

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Azature Blue with a glittered corner. I wore this polish to Disney World since it reminded me of Cinderellas dress and it received a lot of compliments. I do love a blue polish!

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This is a great neutral polish, Nude.

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Lilly Pulitzer for Target Coming April 19, 2015!

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When I heard last night that Lilly Pulitzer was the next designer to collab with Target, excitement would be an understatement! I’m a southern girl through and through, and Lilly Pulitzer is a southern girls staple of choice. Her prints are bright, fun, colorful and scream spring and summer. Even though Lilly calls to the southern belles, I know that women everywhere will be flocking to their local Target stores on April 19th to clear the shelves.

There’s going to be 250 items available to give your house and your wardrobe a good dose of Lilly Pulitzer! I can’t wait to stock up on some beautiful LP printed dresses at a more affordable price point. The LP for Target collab is following along with the Missoni line in offering a more lifestyle line of products for Target. So expect to see a whole range of home goods from decorative pillows to chairs to umbrellas. The price point will be from $25 to $250, with around 200 items under $30.  Here are some photos from the preview. What are you most excited for?

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Review: Crumbs Bake Shop At Home Cupcake Mix

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Are you ready for my scathing review of the Crumbs Bake Shop kit? Well here we go! Lol!

I was excited when I saw the Crumbs cupcake kit at my local Target a few months ago. I did do a little double take at the $10 price tag. Like, say whaaat? I thought “okay, so NO ONE is going to pay that price, I’ll wait till its got the red clearance sticker.” It never did get clearanced but they did lower the price point to $7.99. And since I wanted to make my son some cupcakes for his birthday before his big party he’ll have next weekend, I thought this was a good time to try it.

Now let me tell you, I am not a fan of boxed desserts. I think if you’re going to eat something high sugar, high fat, high calorie then at least let it be fresh and without all those preservatives. But some of them are not bad. It’s just I usually bake fresh. I do LOVE Crumbs Bake Shop. Every time I’m in NYC, I always take my kids there. Their cupcakes are seriously delicious and I’m glad to see after closing their doors that they’re reopening some of them again.

I went home to make it and realized very quickly that I was missing some ingredients. See, something important that’s missing…..oh that lovely little visual display of things you need to make this. So when I was in Target and looked, I just assumed it had all the basics which I already had in my kitchen. I do not, however, stock cream cheese unless I need it. So if you buy this, make sure to read through the first three things to check for items you may need.

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So I had to get back in the car and go back for cream cheese. These instructions are no joke. I thought they were, frankly, ridiculous. I just feel like if I do buy a box kit, isn’t it supposed to be easy? Quick?

So this is everything that the kit includes.

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So I mixed Pouch 1 – main mix – and it had sprinkles already in the mix and it came together well. It had a weird color and consistency though…like pudding. And notice it doesn’t say “fill up to 1/3 or 1/2”, just to fill equally. So then I had some that had more by the end and I was trying to even it up. Which was a pain. I also think there’s too much oil that the recipe calls for because there’s not a lot of mix for 2/3 cup of oil. Which would explain a problem I had later on….

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So the recipe calls to bake them for 17-18 minutes. I baked mine for 18 minutes and stuck the middle and it was clean. However, a couple had to be thrown away because while they cooled the middle collapsed in and felt squishy. So scrapped two at that point. I guess they needed longer. I would say at least 19 minutes, probably 20.

So next I made the first of two frostings. This is where I was annoyed. So the frosting mix is basically a bag of powdered sugar and you still have to cream butter and cream cheese. I wish I would have known that from the beginning. I’m starting to feel ripped off at this point in the process. I just spent $8 and then another $6 in butter and cream cheese. Why not just go to Crumbs and buy a damn cupcake?! Okay, I told you this was gonna be scathing. Lol!

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So I’m mixing my frosting together with the sugar it comes with and I decided to taste it to make sure it’s ok. I don’t know what it is but it’s soooo sweet. Too sweet. Sickly sweet. I even added a little extra butter and it didn’t improve much. I have a recipe for the most amazing cream cheese frosting that I should have made but I wanted to follow through with this nightmare and see it through. Lol

Until I got to the point where it said I had to scoop out the middle of the cupcake to put frosting in the middle. Look, the frosting is gross, so I don’t think I wanna add more into the center so I skipped that. Sorry!

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The instructions were not really clear on HOW to get that icing shape. So I ended up just winging it. I slathered it on the top and rolled the sides in a plate of sprinkles and that worked really easy. In fact, I would definitely do cupcakes like that again because it worked well.

But….here’s where the too much oil in the recipe came to play. My cupcakes started coming out of their liners just at the simplest of touches, worse when I had to frost them and apply sprinkles. I was practically holding it together to get those sprinkles on. All of their liners looked like this from the time I took them out of the muffin pan.

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Now, the second frosting packet. This is like the never ending cupcake recipe. So you have a second frosting bag that you’re supposed to mix with more butter and cream together. It was very firm and hard to mix, and once it starts mixing it reacts and turns yellow to create the rosette. In general, it stays a pretty stiff frosting.

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They include a pastry bag and say you apply the “rosettes” but frankly it’s just a little squeeze of some yellow frosting in the center. And the frosting is worse than the first in taste and texture.

So here is the final product.

Presentation: Not Bad…the cupcake liners are very cute and very iconic to Crumbs.

Time: Took me 1.5-2 hours to make these, not including the going to the store for more things.

Price: Horrible, especially considering all the butter and cream cheese on top of the high price.

Solution: Go to a good bakery and spend a little more. Take it home, sit down, put your feet up and have a glass of wine! But if you like the boxed sets and want the look of these, just get a box of the Funfetti that sells for like $1.20 and a tub of frosting and sprinkles. Total of that would be $5 and I bet it would be less stressful than this and you’d achieve a very similar look.

Happy Baking y’all! 🙂

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Lego Mini Fig Display

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I have a 9 year old son that loves Legos. He loves the mini figs even more than the actual sets so he has tons of mini figs. In an effort to organize the chaos, I decided to try to make him a mini fig display. I tried looking on Pinterest and all I could find were shelves and I could see those easily coming down with the shut of a door. So on a recent trip to the Lego store I filled up a tub of 8 bricks in different colors to come up with our own and it’s pretty awesome! Now, of course he needs another since this one is filled!

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I filled up a tub of 8 point bricks at Lego store. It was $14.99 for the large size and I used about 3/4 of them. I alternated colors. The frame was something he used to have an old poster in and I took out. I glued the bricks right to the glass with a 99 cent tube of super glue in the dollar bin from Target. I used painters tape to keep me level. A small amount of glue across the brick locks it in place. I did leave a good amount of space between rows for things the mini fig was holding and your hand wouldn’t bump into the next row. I wanted to test the glues holding power before I posted about it. But one month later and nothing has fallen off. He uses it daily to take things off and put back as he plays. It’s a great organization, plus display for a boys rooms.

DIY Painting Wine Glasses

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Yeah, my nails match my glass…lol! These were my New Years nails.

Here’s a super easy, fun, affordable DIY ladies, painting your own wine glasses. I own a few of those glasses you see in the stores and boutiques that sell for $20-30 each! I’ve been wanting to try this for some time and finally got around to it. I started off simple, so stay tuned for some more elaborate designs later on. I used Folk Art paint and Martha Stewart glitter paint from Michael’s that sell for about $1-2 a bottle. Using what I already had, I decided to go for metallic gold and gold glitter.

The stemless glasses I found at Target for $1 each. I like using a blunt edge paint brush because I feel like it’s easy making straight lines, but you could tape off as well. I used the end of my paint brush for polka dots.

The supplies list is super simple. Wine glass, paint and paint brush, and a paper plate.

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Dipping the end of my paint brush into the paint and just dotting it on. I used the Metallic paint first, let it dry for about 30 minutes and then went back over each dot with the gold glitter paint.

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For the martini glass, I left it as plan metallic paint polka dots. I really like how it turned out. Simple and cute.

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On another glass, I painted about a quarter of the bottom in metallic, allowed to dry for 30 minutes and then used the glitter. I’m sorry I don’t have a finished version. I didn’t “love” it. I think because I didn’t bring the paint up high enough and my line wasn’t as straight as it should have been. I probably was drinking wine out of another glass while doing this craft, making my lines wonky. So I blame it on the wine 😉 But I do like the glitter layered with the metallic. It creates a nice gold sparkly finish.

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Stay tuned for more elaborate designs. I’m excited to try this again. I expected to have to cure the paint in the oven but it really is unnecessary. I always hand wash my glasses anyway otherwise they get broken. So I only recommend the oven if you put yours in the dishwasher and then it’s 350 degrees for 30 minutes to set the paint. Happy painting!

Antique Desk revamped for a Pre-teen

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It starts with a funny story….asking my husband to take down a plain white desk from target to the garage so our daughter can paint it something fun. Then….there’s a crash and he drops the desk down the stairs and it breaks into a million pieces. My hubby “it was crap anyway”. Well, thanks. There goes that idea. So I decided to look in some local antique stores and found a cute roll top desk to revamp. I loved the pull out for added space and the fact that she could close it up and all the mess was hidden.

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First stop was Hobby Lobby. I let my daughter pick the paper and knobs. She loves music so she picked music note paper and glitter chevron for the pull out and drawers. She had talked about incorporating sea horses into her room for some time and I had no clue how to do that without it looking tacky, so this knob was an easy solution. It was painted in Annie Sloan Emporers Silk chalk paint and sealed with clear wax. The paper was applied with Modge Podge and sealed with the same. It took me a day to complete this piece and it truly represents her. I highly suggest hitting up a local antique dealer for some affordable pieces made of REAL wood and personalizing it. Now my other three kids want one too….lol

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New Years Eve When You’re a Mom

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No fancy sequin cocktail dress with matching heels, a killer clutch, professionally done hair and makeup, a glass of champagne in hand dancing the night away….well not really when you’re a parent to little ones. I have 4 kids, ages 3 to 11 but I don’t completely do without all the glittery crazy fun, just slightly modified.

I love Targets New Years party kits. This year we bought a back drop with hand held champagne glasses and sunglasses, bow ties, hats and had fun in our mock “photo booth”. I also spent $10 on the party in a box with top hats, tiaras and blow horns, all in New Years colors. And I bought several $3 confetti cannons. All in all I spent about $25 in decorations and props. We’ve spent several hours taking photos and making some great memories so it was well worth the money.

We made prime rib, lobster and shrimp for dinner and finished it with chocolate cake. The kids have been sipping their “champagne” and we have our bottle of Veuve ready to pop at midnight. I make sure the music is turned up and we sit and laugh, together, as a family, with our kids, and I wear a sparkly JCrew top and lipstick. It’s fun. And I know in 20 years I’ll give anything to go back to this moment when I have my house full of kids celebrating the new year, new beginnings and fresh starts. Hope you all are having a blessed New Years….I have to head back to my crazy family now.

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New Year, New Self

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I become very self reflective when a new year roles around. I don’t necessarily call them “resolutions” but it’s more of a time where I reflect on myself as a whole person. Not just a singular, lose weight, eat better, go to church, stop using the F word…lol. I cant find “one” thing. I’m a mom, wife, woman, friend, sister…how can I pick just one thing to work on? I wanna work on it all. What were my mistakes this year? What were some accomplishments I made? What do I want to do more of? Less of?

I can think of several. First off, I lost myself some, okay, probably A LOT this year. I grieved a lot. In July my mother died and it became easy to “let myself go”. Drink more, eat more, cry more, wallow more, self-pity, guilt, fear, anger….I’ve gone down the rabbit hole for well over 6 months. When does it stop? She’ll never come back. I’ll never get to be there for her more. I’ll never get to be a better daughter. I’ll never get to “fix” the problems we had as a mother/daughter. There are no do overs after death.

So why not just be a better Heather? And if I’m a better Heather, with a better sense of self, doesn’t that then make me a better wife, mother, friend, sister? Doesn’t it trickle to all aspects of life? Maybe some people have near perfect lives and really do just need to lose that 10lbs from holiday eating. But I’m not that person and I like to keep it real.

So I’m picking it all.

I want to put myself first at least some of the time. Pry the toddler off my leg and go to my yoga classes without guilt, so I can fit back into my jeans again without feeling angry. I haven’t dared to get on a scale but the jeans tell no lie and those seams are doing overtime!

I want to work on more projects at home, like this old steamer trunk I’m refinishing. Find more antique furniture to slather chalk paint on! Laugh more, eat less, eat better. Notice I didn’t say drink less wine?? Look, baby steps people. Lol!

I don’t allow people around me to be victims so I don’t expect myself to be one either. I’ve done the whole, it’s not fair to lose your only parent at 34 for long enough. I will never stop loving her and I will never stop missing her. But you can’t allow grief to swallow you up. I don’t think my mother would have wanted that either.

So I won’t be joining a gym on New Years or starting the master cleanse. I will be more open, like this blog post, which exposes more of me than most people know. I will go to great lengths to laugh more. Bring more joy to my life. See some great concerts because music makes me happy. I will be becoming a better Heather by listening to my needs and wants. I’ll pick up my yoga mat without guilt. I’ll stop sweating the small stuff, picking up more great books to read, spending more time enjoying life. My mother would want that. She would want me to keep living. So in her memory I’m choosing to let go of the grief and keep going forward to a better me, a better Heather, a better mom, better wife, better friend, better sister, and a happier me. Hope you all have a safe and happy New Years!!!!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip and M&M Cookies

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip and M&M Cookies

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 stick margarine

2 tbl white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

Half a bag of chocolate chips

Pumpkin spice M&Ms

These cookies kind of came together on their own. I had some leftover pumpkin purée and had bought some pumpkin spice M&Ms that I was trying to figure out what to use with.  These cookies came out delish!

Preheat to 350 degrees. Let margarine come to room temperature.  Add sugars, salt, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda and blend until creamy. Add egg and mix. Add pumpkin and mix. Add chocolate chips and mix. Spoon out  onto cookie sheet. Add M&Ms. Bake for 12.5 minutes. Makes 30 cookies. Enjoy!