Pumpkins and Ray Villafane

These are the lucky winners from todays hunt!

Today Danny and I took our last trip to the pumpkin patch before Halloween! We might stop by some grocery stores later this week and pick up some smaller pumpkins, but we wanted to make one more trip to Tanaka Farms before the season ends. Our goals were to find two weird looking pumpkins, with lots of character, in order to make some really memorable jack-o-lanters and of course pick up some pumpkin bread! 

What I wore: Sun-glasses: Forever21. Sweater: American Apparel. Shirt: Urban Outfitters. Pants: Paul Frank corduroys. Shoes: Los Angeles Fashion District find.

There weren't that many big pumpkins left, but our mission was to find pumpkins with character, not girth!

I think Danny is an amazing pumpkin carver, but this year his pumpkin carving idol, Ray Villafane, came out with an instructional DVD on how to carve some of his crazy pumpkins! Danny ordered it the second he found out about it, so I am really excited to see what he does this year! Ray Villafane has done some crazy stuff! We try and watch every show he is on around the holiday, this year he did a Halloween challenge on the Food Network and he was featured on The Martha Stewart Show! Here are some pictures of his work:

Picture from designswan.com

Picture from designswan.com

Picture from designswan.com

Picture from trendhunter.com

Picture from trendhunter.com

Picture from trendhunter.com

 Order Ray's DVD here and get the secrets to his amazing pumpkin carvings. Danny got his on Saturday, and now he has a full week to learn Ray's tricks and carve some truly amazing pumpkins!

villafanestudios.com

Happy Halloween week!

Weekend Fun ...

On Saturday Danny and I headed to Long Beach to have lunch at one of our favorite restaurants Gladstone's. They have the yummiest food! We got some sushi to start, then some fish and chips and fish tacos. We were SO stuffed we couldn't even think straight! Since we were already on the pier for lunch we took a stroll around the shops and then up the grassy trail to the lighthouse. The weather was perfect by the beach, it was sunny and breezy so it wasn't too hot. I can't wait to go back down there. I am already craving Gladstone's yummy sourdough bread! 

Behind me is the LBC pier and the Queen Mary. This is the view from Gladstone's, which makes dining there that much more enjoyable!

Gladstone's ... SO yummy!

The pier has some pretty amazing shops. It reminds me of 1920's Atlantic City ... the pier, not the mermaid/pirate hooker.

We made it to the top! The Queen Mary looks so beautiful from the lighthouse. I think it would be so fun to have a picnic here! Maybe order Gladstone's take out ... best of both worlds!

What I wore: Sunglasses: Forever21. Top: Anthropologie. Jeans: Pilcro from Anthropologie. Sweater: Gap. Purse: Romanity (gift from Italy). Watch: Fossil. Necklace: made by me.




Hope your weekend was full of good food and good views!

Missing ...

Danny's sister is going up to Bishop this week and it made me miss our trip up there. I bet it's so beautiful now with all the leaves changing! I hope she takes a lot of pictures so I can see all those pretty trees transitioning into fall! 

Our trip out there ...

                                           

What it looks like now ...

Photo by Tarrin Carlile

Photo by Tarrin Carlile

It's beautiful and I bet it's not 97 degrees up there! I wish we could go back.

Hope you all had a good weekend!

Shiny Glitter Shoes!

I start my mornings watching The Martha Stewart Show. I get a lot of my craft inspiration from her. She has so many great tips! Last week she had a blogger on her show who demonstrated how to glitter up your shoes! I thought they looked so cute, I have a ton of Alpargatas lying around my house from Argentina. Alpargatas are like flip-flops in Argentina. Toms shoes are based on the Alpargatas design. Whenever any of my friends or family members go to Argentina they always bring me back a pair. I thought they would be the perfect shoes to glitter! I went to Michael's and picked up some Martha Stewart glitter and some Mod Podge and started crafting! 

It was very easy, you just mix the Mod Podge with the glitter and layer it on your shoes. I did about 5 coats, I wanted it to be solid! It got a little thick, but I still think they look cute, especially when the sun hits them!

You can find all the instructions here!

The supplies. 

Before (these aren't the exact shoes because I forgot to take a picture before I started, but they are similar...like I said I have a lot of these!)

The final product! I think I might make them again, but this time I will use one of my black Alpargatas!

Messi Loves Halloween

When I was taking pictures of all my Halloween stuff, Messi decided to come out and check out my decorations. He is too cute, I had to post!

He's never allowed on the table, but he was just so curious! I let him sniff around a bit.

I love this cat!

This is Halloween!

I put up my Halloween decorations promptly on October 1st. I LOVE Halloween and I couldn't wait to get all of my decorations up. Danny sometimes thinks I can "over-decorate" but I think he is being silly. You can't ever have enough decorations! Especially for Halloween! Danny usually takes pictures, but he was away so I took his camera and took pictures myself...which is probably why they are not the best pictures. There are a lot of pictures, I can't edit when it comes to Halloween ... and cats. 

The more the merrier!

This is a table runner I made for Jessica's birthday party last year. This year I am using it underneath our little Halloween village.

Here is the beginning of our Halloween village. We just started buying stuff this year, so we don't have much yet.

We have a little grave yard

We have some glittered trees and a fence that Danny painted.

We have pumpkins and a couple of little figures. 

World Market is one of my favorite places to get Halloween stuff.

Danny's sister in law made these decorations for us last year.

Here are some more table runners I made, and some lanterns from Wal-Mart.

I usually make signs with my Cricut, but this year I saw this cute one at Target and it matched my table cloth so I had to get it. This paper lantern I found at the Orange Circle. It was hanging outside, but then it started raining so I brought it inside to dry.

Those were all my indoor decorations, now here are my outdoor decorations! 

I love tissue paper garlands!

Danny got this coffin a while ago, there's a little guy that pops out and scares me all too often, so I keep it off most of the time.

I LOVE string lights, these are from World Market. Big bulbs are the only way to go when it comes to string lights.

These little pumpkin lights are from Target

I made this wreath last year, when it comes to spiderwebs less is more. Don't over do it!

BOO! Hope your house is full of Halloween cheer! 

Twenty-Five

Here are some pictures from my birthday. After a day full of shopping we invited my cousins and a few close friends over for cake. Danny didn't take his camera out until 11pm so these are the only pictures we have from that night! 

Me and my beautiful cousin Laura

There are few things I love more than tissue paper honeycomb balls!

Since it was my birthday everyone decided to pose on my good side. I think it's everyone's good side because we all look good.

Joey, Jill, Me, German, and Laura

My sister and I made these cupcakes, they were so good! I love confetti cake.

Since my house was already decorated for Halloween we decided to keep the theme going for my birthday. Danny bought these pumpkins and carved them out in like 5 min! They looked so good on my balcony! Danny is the best pumpkin carver!

Danny's sister Julie and her husband Ryan had Danny and I over and when I walked in Julie had put up streamers and balloons AND they had a cake waiting for me! I felt so special, here is a picture of me getting ready to blow out my candles at their house. More birthday wishes for me!

 

Quarter of a Century ...

Number pinata from Oh Happy Day. Easy to make and it's nice to be able to hit something on your birthday. It takes the edge off being another year older.

 I turned 25 on the most popular birthday in the county, October 5th! I feel old. I've been 25 for 4 days now and I feel wiser already. I have always had to share my birthday with tons of other people but, I still always feel special because my wonderful boyfriend makes me feel like most important person in the world. He took the day off work and took me shopping! We were supposed to go to Disneyland, but it rained like CRAZY on my birthday so, we went to South Coast Plaza instead. I had a very successful shopping trip, followed by an amazing lunch at Taps. Then I had my cousins and close friends over for cake. It was a perfect day, even with the rain! I'll post pictures soon

My friend Ashely was sweet enough to take pictures of me blowing out my cake! My mom decided to take pictures of everyone singing "Happy Birthday." I love them both.

I couldn't blow out that last candle. It was a super candle.

Cause I, Emilia, the PUMPKIN QUEEN!

Happy October! Well, it's my birthday week and one of the ways I wanted to celebrate was to go to a pumpkin patch! Danny and I LOVE Halloween, and we really love pumpkins! Every year we go to Tanaka Farms at least twice (I love their pumpkin bread! I already bought two loafs)! We also hit up all the grocery stores around us to get the BEST pumpkins Orange County has to offer. We got some pretty amazing pumpkins the other day at the pumpkin patch. We didn't see any really big pumpkins at the pumpkin patch though, Danny was a bit disappointed, we did however see some fun big white pumpkins and bought some pumpkins with some pretty amazing stems. I can't wait to see what other pumpkins we find later this month!

I loved these big white pumpkins!

We found our fun pumpkins!

Look at those stems!