Tutorial: DIY Flower Headband/Crown

Hello, old and new readers! As you can see from my title, I decided to take a break from the beauty reviews and do a D.I.Y tutorial instead. Summer music festivals all over the world are coming up in less than two weeks and of course, with such a massive event, you gotta have the daisies!

Flower headbands have picked up in the trends for music fesivals, such as this year's Coachella Music Festival. I saw so many flower headbands on Instagram this year. While many of them looked beautiful, I couldn't believe how expensive they were--$130 and up! Those better had contain some rare, exotic, real flowers flown in from the jungles of Brazil! or something Anyways, all kidding aside, in this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to make a flower headband for less than $25. In fact, this tutorial is actually good for 3-4 headbands.

Before I get into the tutorial, let me just say this--WOW. I'm overwhelmed by how quickly my giveaway has grown. I really didn't expect my giveaway to receive that many entries, but thank you so much to those who have participated! And also, thank you for all of the wonderful suggestions in my comments. :') I truly appreciate how everyone has helped this blog grow and I will continue to try my best to put out fun, quality entries. The giveaway is still going on until the end of this month, so for those of you who haven't joined it yet and are interested, please feel free to join here.

So let's get started! Since it was such a beautiful day, I decided to take my workstation outside. For this tutorial, you will need: 

• Fake flowers - $6.50
• Hot glue gun (high heat) + glue sticks - $6.99 + $2.99
• Elastic headbands - $4.89
• Thumbtacks - $1.73
• Scissors - $1.00

The total comes out to $24.10, which is definitely under $25. I got the fake flowers from The Dollar Tree, which sells a wide variety of fake flower bundles. A truly great value, I must say, considering you get around six flowers for $1. I got six bundles of flowers, thirty-six flowers in total,just in case I wanted to use them on other articles of clothing or make extra headbands. If you live in the US, there are plenty of stores throughout the nation. 

1. First, remove the fake flower from its stem. You should be able to pull it off easily, but if it's glued to the stem, simply cut the flower off from the stem. If you wish to add leaves, remove the leaves from the stem as well. They should slide off easily after you have removed the flower.

2. If the base that is stuck to the flower is too long, then feel free to cut it with a pair of scissors. The shorter the stick, the better it will be for when you need to glue this to your headband. You'll want your flower to be able to attach to the headband as closely as possible. 

3. So that you have an idea of how your flower headband is going to look, roughly map out where you want your flowers and leaves to be. 

4. After you figure out where you're going to place your flowers, take a thumbtack and pierce the elastic headband. It should pierce with relative ease. I know I'm being Captain Obvious here, but please buy flat thumbtacks, you really don't want anything to be poking your scalp when you're wearing your headband =p

5. As soon as your glue gun is heated up, squeeze a small amount of hot glue by pressing on the glue gun's nozzle lightly. Don't distribute too much product or else you might burn yourself when you press the flower onto the headband. Just dispense enough so that the pointed end of the thumbtack is coated all around with hot glue. 

6. Fit the small hole over the pointed end of the thumbtack and press the flower down until it lies flat against the headband.

7. Hold it there for around 15 seconds or until you know the flower is secure. Hot glue dries pretty quickly, so it shouldn't be long until you can move on to the next flower. Be careful not to burn yourself. Of course, me being the klutz I am, before I began this tutorial, I accidentally picked up the glue gun on the wrong side.......don't ask me how that happened. 

8. Repeat this step with your flowers, leaving some space in between your flowers for when you place your leaves. Try to keep your flowers evenly spaced, but it doesn't have to be exact. 

9. After you have glued all of your flowers to the headband, now it's time to add the leaves. You can place the leaves wherever you wish, whether you want it to be evenly distributed or random. I alternated mine in between the flowers. Repeat the steps that you did with the flowers, using a hot glue and thumbtack to secure the leaves. 

10. You can use any type of leaves that you want, but I wanted mine to look neat for this headband, so I made sure they were arranged as symmetrically as possible. 

Ta-da! Now you're finished and you have a lovely flower crown that you can wear to any music festival, concert, fair, photo shoot or just about anywhere you'd like. You can mix and match different flowers, add more or less; that's pretty much the fun of making this flower headband. 

For my face, I kept my makeup simple with just a dark brownish bronze smokey eye and to match my pink flowers, I added a bright pink lip as well. Since you're probably going to be wearing this outdoors, you don't want your makeup to melt and look messy, so I'd advise you to just keep it simple and feminine.  

What I love most about this headband is how versatile it is. You can wear it many ways such as with silky, straight hair or with loose waves, like I did here. You can even wear it with a nice side braid or a trendy fishtail braid. You can wear the headband around your forehead a'la hippie/flower-child style. You can even just glue one flower onto the headband and place it so that you have a flower on the side of your head. 

Since I had a lot of extra material, I decided to make another flower headband. For this one, I used yellow daisies, combined with small purple flowers. I didn't make it quite as uniform as my pink flower headband, but I thought it still looked lovely. 

Flower crowns often evoke a sense of etherealness and whimsicality, which is why they look so perfect for the spring and summer season. I tried to keep this tutorial as informative and simple as possible and I hope you enjoyed reading this. Please let me know what you think of this tutorial in the comments below! Have you made any flower headbands or are you looking to make or purchase one? Where would you wear your flower headband to? 

Well, until next time guys, happy flower crowning!  

With love, Tiffany

Nail Tutorial: Watermelon and Gold

Hello! I wasn't really expecting my first blog entry to be a nail tutorial, seeing that I haven't really gotten into nail polish until around six months ago. But I've been meaning to start this blog for a while now and somehow, writing about my nails of the week just seems right.

My friend is having a birthday party in Los Angeles at a club this weekend and I was inspired by one of my high waisted skirts which also happens to be hot pink. To match this skirt, I always break out my light gold heels since the colors complement each other beautifully. And so, my nails have taken on the form of my outfit this weekend. 

To create this look, I used three nail polishes. 

Essie's "Watermelon", Castledew's "9845", and OPI's "OPI Top Coat"

Just like the name suggests, "Watermelon" is a bright, juicy hot pink, similar to that of a watermelon. Although Essie's website states that it's a "creamy and refreshing, juicy red", it definitely veers a lot closer to pink on the color spectrum. 

Castledew is a Korean brand and I got "9845" a while ago in Korea. I apologize in advance that you may not be able to find this nail polish easily in the US, but Essie's "Beyond Cozy"is pretty close to it in terms of color. "9845" can be described as a cool, light silvery gold and is very glittery and grainy. I'm not quite sure if "Beyond Cozy" would go on smoother but color-wise, it's a pretty good match. 

I painted all of my nails with "Watermelon" in two layers, except for the forefinger, which I've painted with "9845" in three layers. I also applied the top coat afterwards. It's pretty self explanatory at this point. However, I decided to take it up a notch by adding a small gold cross onto my index finger. 

To make the cross, I used masking tape and a pair of scissors. You can use any kind of tape you want. In hindsight, I should've used scotch tape, since it's stickier and has better staying power, but I didn't have any lying around. 

I took "9845" and painted a small section of the tape in three layers. You can do two to three layers depending on how thick you want it to be. After it dries, cut the section into small, thin pieces or into whatever shapes you want. 

Stick the sectioned pieces to your nails according to how you want. After you have the pieces positioned the way you want, use the scissors to cut them as close to the edge of your nail as possible, making sure that the pieces don't stick out. And to further secure the pieces, paint a layer of top coat over it. 

You can make stripes, criss-crosses or use one of the strips per finger to separate the nail and the tip to make a cool French tip as well. I think another super cute idea would've been to cut a small gold heart and stick it onto one of my nails. Hmm, perhaps I'll do that next time.

And here's one more shot of the finished look.

I love painting my forefinger in a different color to contrast against the rest of my nails. My go-to color so far has been "9845", just because it matches wonderfully with pinks and pastels. I just think it adds a cool and fashionable dimension to your typical, uniformly painted nails. Most of my guy friends have told me that they don't really get the whole painting-your-forefinger-a-different-color. But who really cares? I guess this is one of the beauty trends that guys won't really get such as orange lipstick or brightly colored eyeliner. What do you think? Let me know in the comment box below! 

With love, Tiffany