Perfect Ponies

As a college student, I don't really have much time to dedicate to perfect hairstyling everyday, but that doesn't mean I can't look cute! My favorite look: the humble ponytail. Ponytails are a trendy and easy hairstyle to wear, and there are a lot of ways to dress them up. Take your ponytail from mundane to fabulous with these few, easy ponytail tutorials I've corralled (click the links below the pictures to find the tutorials):

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Container Gardening

I should preface this post with the truth: I do not have a green thumb. However, I've always been fascinated with growing produce for consumption. This mixture has led to, I'm sure you can imagine, a lot of subpar harvests of sad, little plants.
Now that I'm cooking a lot, I really want to use fresh herbs and vegetables from my own garden. I have the perfect spot for a little garden, and I've been doing a lot of research on container gardening and what I should plant. I found a lot of great resources for natural, homemade pesticides and fertilizers as well as a few helpful tips for a quick perusal. Here are some of my favorites links:

Choosing a container:

Choosing a Container    /    Selecting the Right Container

Soil solutions:

Choosing a Soil   /   Potting Soil Recipes   /   Testing your Potting Soil

Organic fertilizers:

Homemade Fertilizer Recipes   /   Easy Guide to Composting   /   Homemade Liquid Fertilizer Recipes

Homemade Pesticides:

Homemade Pesticide Recipes   /   Plants that Repel Insects

What to plant:

Vegetables for Containers   /   Herb Varieties   /   Non-Edible Container Plans

In general:

 General Helpful Tips

Color Inspiration

Leave-in Hair Growth Treatment

Since donating my hair, I've had an obsession with attempting to grow my hair the longest I can in the fastest way. In a previous post, I made a wash-out oil treatment. This treatment has a lot of the same ingredients, but it's a daily leave-in spray. Let's get to it!

So obviously I didn't make enough to fill this spray bottle, but in my defense, I was going to use a smaller bottle.

 Here's what you'll need and an estimation of how much of each I used:

2 bags - Camomile tea (make sure it's 100% camomile) or Peppermint tea
1/2 tbs - Dry Rosemary leaves
5 tsp - Lemon juice (from the bottle or the real thing) I added this to lighten my hair - you may skip it if you wish.
1 cup - water

(Just a side note, chamomile will lighten hair - especially if exposed to heat or sun.)

Heat up your water and put in into a cup or jar to steep with the two chamomile tea bags. Leave it be for now.

Take the Rosemary leaves and grind them as fine as possible. Of course, a mortar and pestle is so helpful with this step, but getting the leaves super fine isn't truly necessary. Let's go back to our steeped tea. 

Remove the tea bags and stir in the lemon juice!

Now stir in the Rosemary leaves. I put this in a jar that I could shake but I don't think that's entirely necessary. Now I let this mixture sit for an entire day because I wanted the rosemary to steep as much as possible.

In order to get this to spray, I had to strain the rosemary from it before I placed it in its final bottle.

I really love this spray! Firstly, because it's super fast to apply; secondly, it feels really light and bright on. Personally, I added a touch of apple cider vinegar, and it smells really good too - even though I put vinegar in it. 

DIY: Dip Bleached Shorts

As I was rifling through my closet, I unearthed these pair of shorts. I've had them for... ever. Too long and not stylish at all just boring they were long overdue for a restyle. I chose to do something fairly simple, easy and cute. My plan: a cuffed, dip bleached look.

I started off by cuffing them. I marked the length I wanted them to be while I was wearing them, cuffed them and slipped them off. This is optional, but I wanted the cuff to be permanent so I pulled out my thread and needle and did a quick cross stitch on the four seams of the legs. Nothing too fancy but now I know I won't have to mess around with the cuffs anymore.

Now to bleach. I filled a tub with undiluted bleach and slipped the shorts in as far as I wanted the brightest portion to be. The amount of time you leave them in will depend on how thick your denim is. These were thin so I left them in for about a half hour. (Another pair I bleached I had to leave in bleach overnight... three times.) After the half hour, I took them out and let them dry in the sun.

Of course dipping them alone didn't produce perfect results. To even them up a bit, I used a bit of undiluted bleach in a spray bottle. I merely sprayed it on lightly where more bleach was needed and let it dry.

I really like how these turned out, and they were super easy!

DIY: Natural Hair Lengthener

Not too long ago I donated eight inches of my hair. Although it was going to a good cause and I don't regret donating, I do miss having my long hair. Luckily, my hair grows pretty fast, but I really wanted to kickstart it as well as I could. So I looked around a bit and found some natural ingredients that supposedly help hair growth and I came up with a recipe that I'm hoping will show some real results.

In addition to boosting hair growth, this should soften and subtly lighten hair. I tried it out and although I can't speak of it's hair growing properties, it did soften my hair.

Here are the ingredients:

Coconut Oil
Lemon Juice (optional: I've wanted to subtly lighten my hair)
Dry Rosemary Leaves (or Rosemary Oil)

Also optional is rinsing it out with Apple Cider Vinegar.

Melt the coconut oil and mix it together with the lemon juice in a 2:1 ratio. 

Now take your dry Rosemary leaves and crush them as fine as you can. Having a mortar and pestle really helps with this step!

Mix up the Rosemary leaves with the coconut oil and lemon juice mixture and you're done!













What you're going to want to do is massage this mixture into your scalp and through your hair. Leave it in your hair for about four hours, or ideally, overnight then rinse it out with cold water. (Make sure it's mixed really well before you put it in your hair - separation is natural.)

I really liked this treatment (even though I smelled a little bit like a salad...) and will probably do it once a / every other week. I can't wait to see how it works in a few months.

DIY Quick & Easy Hamper

I've been moving around quite a bit lately, and I was forced to downsize dramatically. Somewhere along the way I lost my laundry basket - not that it would have fit in my new place anyway. Nonetheless, I needed something smaller and that would fit in a rather awkward place in my more than full closet. I've had this idea for a while, but I didn't have dress I was willing to use. Then I received a hand-me-down. Certainly not my first choice for this project, but I like free stuff too much to just give it away when I knew it was the perfect shape.

Regardless of my initial trepidation, this was so easy and simple, and it works perfectly for me.

Here's what I did to turn an awful dress into an ugly but useful hamper: first, I cut the neckline to make a larger opening then I flipped it inside out and pinned the bottom. One simple straight seam later and I've got a hanging hamper (after cutting off the excess fringe and dress of course.) I could have stopped there, but I wanted to stabilize it on the hanger. After two seams on the straps to keep it on the hanger, I'm finished.