5 ways to style a headband

arlier this month Salvage and Stone asked me if I'd be interested in styling some of their headbands, and I thought it'd be a fun opportunity to come up with a few different ways to wear a headband!  Since my hair is curly, all of these styles are done with curly hair, but you can definitely still work them with straight hair, or you can curl your hair prior to styling if you want a similar look but have straight hair.  
You can find the two headbands I'm wearing in this post here and here! THE HALF WRAP


 

This is a super quick and easy style.  With your hair down, just pull the headband down over your hair and then tuck half your hair into the headband, leaving the bottom half down.  Pull the hair at your crown slightly out of the headband to give it more volume.  For a full version of this, where you wrap all your hair into the headband, click here!  I left some hair out in the front, but you can also try wrapping you hair all the way from the front to the back.  

THE EXTRA-LONG PONY


 

You may have seen this extra-long pony trick bopping around the interwebs.  Separate your hair into two parts, top and bottom.  Make a half pony with the top half, clip it out of the way, and then pull the bottom half into a low pony, and then let the top half out of the clip.  Pull your headband over and you're done!  You might have to play around with the ponies to get them to integrate.  It's a fun way to make your hair look super long!

THE SIDE FLIP


 

For this style, take a very deep side part, all the way to your ear, and flip your hair over to one side.  Pull the headband over your hair.  You can leave your hair out, like I have here, or you can do a side pony or side braid with this style!

 THE BARDOT BUMP


 

Pull your hair into a half pony and clip it up.  Pull the headband on over the hair you've clipped up, then release the clip. To get extra bump volume, tease the hair at your crown.  Done!

THE CLIP BOUFFANT


 
Pull the headband over all your hair.  Take your hair in a pony and get some volume in the top (you might need to tease your hair to get the desired volume).  Take the end of the pony and twist it into a french twist-esque style and then clip the hair to secure.  Use bobby pins to secure any wonky spots or stray hairs.  

ice cream social

So that ice cream shop I talked about last post?  Yup, this is the one.  If you're in the Tacoma area and you haven't had a scoop of Ice Cream Social, you need to get down there asap. They make each batch of ice cream fresh without using artificial stabilizers, preservatives, or ingredients, and source their ingredients from reputable, local sources as often as possible.  It makes for incredible ice cream, let me tell you.  When we were there to get this cone the other day at like 8pm there was a line out the door!  It's so exciting and refreshing to see local businesses committed to making an amazing product and having the community response in such an awesome, supportive way! This red wall is right outside of Ice Cream Social's scoop shop and after looking at the photos I realized it reminds me so much of my days taking outfit photos in front of our old red garage door!  It's crazy to think that that was five years ago.  Back when my hair was real long, black, and I had bangs.  I've actually been thinking of going back to all three of those things sometime soon, well, at least in the next year.  It's funny how much has happened since I stood in front of that red garage door.  Jobs, Winnebagos, Hair Colors, Weddings, Corgis.  Five years from now I'll be 32 (holy moly) and who knows what will have transpired in those years.  I want it to be wild.  I remember for pretty much every year of my life I would look back to one year prior and think that there's no way I would've imagined that I would be where I was.  This year is one of the first ones that hasn't been that way.  I remember yearning to settle somewhere.  Since moving to college I'd changed living spaces at least two times a year and after the Winne trip I was longing to put down some roots and stay in the same space for at least two years.  This November will mark two years in our current home.  Roots are nice and stability is comfortable, but in some ways stability has felt a little foreign and stifling.  I was used to doing whatever I wanted, going wherever I wanted, and there wasn't much keeping me from pursuing whims and wanderlust.  I know there has to be a middle ground somewhere, so maybe the next five years will be learning to find that balance between roots and feathers.

 


dress(similar) + shoes + top(altered)/courtesy of modcloth necklace(similar)/francesca's collection :: purse/courtesy of minnetonka shades(similar)/courtesy of lulu's :: ring(similar)/thrifted :: photos by Dan

ginger banana smoothie

Soooo, an amazing local ice cream shop opened up down the street from us, right next door to one of our favorite pubs.  I've eaten ice cream three times this week and went to the pub probably four or five times.  Needless to say, I'm feeling like I should probably hop back on the healthy train soon.  One of my favorite healthy snacks is the smoothie.  I'm pretty much incapable of drinking a smoothie without chugging it.  I just suck them down and the next thing I know I have a brain freeze and no more smoothie.  I love smoothies all year, but a cold smoothie in the summer heat is pretty much unparalleled.  Tacoma's been getting some serious summer temps lately, so all I want are smoothies all day every day.  Basically I just play the game of, "hey what's in my fridge/freezer that I can combine in a blender that will hopefully taste good and at least not disgusting so I can chug a cold beverage."  Usually it works out pretty well. 
I have some leftover ginger in my freezer from a recipe I made a couple weeks ago, so I've been throwing a bit of ginger in my smoothies lately and I really love it!  It gives them a nice subtle zing, but I'm also a bit obsessed with ginger.  I always want ginger everything.   Ginger beer, whiskey ginger, ginger ice cream.  I recently discovered Crabbie's alcoholic ginger beer and it's kind of my everything.  If someone could ship me a pallet of Crabbie's for the summer, that'd be great. I digress.  Oh right, I was talking about healthy drinks...  
What you'll need: 1/2 cup mango chunks, frozen
1 cup milk (or almond/soy milk)
1.5 bananas, frozen
1/4 pear
3/4 tsp ginger, frozen and grated

makes one 16oz smoothie
Place everything in a blender and blend until smooth.  enjoy!

what's keeping you from achieving your dreams // share your story

If you've been around the blog for a while, you probably know I enjoy writing introspective posts.  Some of them are more word vomit-y and others are carefully thought out, slowly crafted posts.  One of my favorite parts of those posts are the thoughts and comments you guys share in the comments section.  It always amazes me how much of my personal experience is mirrored by so many other people.  The best part of blogging is sharing life with other people and learning that we're all in this together.  We're not alone.  I wanted to read more about your guys' experiences, and also have a place for people to share their stories so other people can read them too.  I'm starting a journal prompt type link-up series so you guys can share your posts here!  I'm excited to see what posts you guys share.

I thought I'd get down and dirty for this first link up.  I had a realization a couple weeks ago about my personality.  I've always sort of known it about myself, but only recently did I have an "ah hah" moment realizing how it's been keeping me from achieving my dreams.

I crave approval.  It makes me feel valued and important.  It makes me feel worthy and fulfilled.  For most of my life I never really got a sense of the dark side of that part of me.  In a lot of ways that desire for approval has some good effects.  I always did great in school.  I worked hard and felt proud that I'd achieved high grades.  It made me happy to get rewarded for my hard work with accolades.  When I rode horses competitively I worked hard all year so I could win my classes during the summer horse show season.  I loved being able to stand up there with a big champion ribbon or trophy.  It was a visual representation of how hard I'd worked and everything I put into it.  My high school bedroom walls were literally covered with blue ribbons from horse shows.  In a lot of ways I feel like my experience when I was younger was a red herring.  I learned, unintentionally, to value myself based on my accolades.  Once I started getting into the "real world" the equation of hard, good work = recognition, didn't quite follow though the way it had in school and sports.   I remember working for minimum wage at a little coffee shop in college.  I did all I could to learn how to make espresso well, tried my best to keep the shop looking nice, and I still made the same wage as the girl I worked with who made terrible coffee and didn't care, and never cleaned up the shop.  In a way my hard work felt pointless and futile.  There was no opportunity for advancement, no room for the recognition I craved.


I work hard because I want people to see me as a person who works hard.  I would say that I work hard because it makes me feel good to work hard and do stuff, which it does, but at the same time I know that a large part of my pleasure comes from people recognizing that I do stuff.  I work hard because I want to advance in ability and position.  I was told all through school that that's how it works.  Do the work.   Do the work well.  Get an A+.  Repeat = success.  Success = value.

The problems with living this way are obvious, but one strange side affect of this is that I've realized I only do things well enough to impress other people.  Once I get feedback that I've done great work and that the person is impressed with it, I don't go beyond that.  I stall out.  I do well enough to sufficiently impress others and then slack off.  The problem is, I want so much more than to impress some people.  I have dreams that go beyond that.  I want to do stuff that exceeds that minor psychological goal of impressing a few people who give me positive feedback.  I have to make a shift from the carrot in front of me being other people's stamp of approval, to it being an actual goal I want to achieve.  Regardless of whether or not that goal will garner laurels of "wow, much impress, so amaze, very inspire, wow."

Where the rubber meets the road is where talent ends and hard work starts.  Stuff can come naturally but no one became a concert pianist on talent alone.  It's the hours of practice and hard work that get those people to their goals.  That bestselling author, that famous actor, that major blogger, that award winning doctor, they all put countless hours of work into making their dream happen.  It wasn't handed to them, it didn't happen overnight.  One piece of advice I like to remember is, "don't compare your beginning to someone else's middle or end."  It's easy to see the end goal and see people who are already there and get discouraged.  I have to constantly remind myself that I'm at a different place in my journey towards my goals.


Here’s how to participate:

 Write your own post on your own blog, answering the question: What is keeping you from achieving your dreams right now? Write it quick, don’t overthink it, just spill it all out, it can be pictures if you want, whatever. If you’ve already written one, feel free to link that up, too.

 Include a link in your post back to this post, so your readers can find others writing on the same topic. Feel free to use my photo up there in your post!

 Enter the link to your post (the actual post link, not just your blog link) into the link-up tool thing there below.

 Tell a few people about your post,  either through social media or talk about it with a friend over coffee.  Click around and visit a few of the other posts linked up, leave comments for each other, and feel comforted that kindred spirits aren’t as rare as we think!  We're all in this together.  There is strength in numbers!

An InLinkz Link-up

flowers in her hair

Dan recently got a new job, and he gets up at 5am to get ready for work, which means I have a lot of night time to myself.  I'm a dyed in the wool night owl and I really don't think that will ever change.  I may or may not have built my life around not having to get up early ever again.  I'm always impressed by morning people, though.  I'd much rather stay up late to do stuff, so I can sleep in in the morning, but some people, apparently, would rather go to bed and then wake up and do that stuff in the morning.  My problem is, I know if I don't do it at night, it's just not going to happen.  My sleep brain just has different priorities than my regular brain.  My regular brain thinks it's a great idea to wake up early and go get coffee and get a bunch of work done before 9.  My regular brain thinks it'd be awesome to wake up early and go for a run.  My sleep brain thinks nothing is more important than sleep.  More sleep.  10 more minutes of sleep.  30 more minutes of sleep.  Unfortunately my regular brain is out of commission when these doing-things-in-the-morning decisions are to be made and sleep brain rules, which means: sleep.  

 

dress / courtesy of chicwish :: shoes / courtesy of modcloth :: bracelets + ring / thrifted necklaces/ courtesy of adorn by sarah lewis :: flower crown / handmade
The good news is, Dan now has a regular schedule and gets off around 4pm every day which is great for being able to schedule our lives more and hang out in the evenings!  Mostly it's just nice that he has a regular schedule now.  His last job was working nights and afternoons with different shifts on different days, so it was hard for him to find a rhythm.  He loves having a regular schedule in his life, so this change is awesome for him.  More power to him for being able to wake up at the ass crack of dawn before I'm even close to resurrecting from my nightly death.  
In other news, it's been hot here in the PNW lately and it's only going to get hotter this week, so white breezy dresses is the name of my game.  Less fabric=better, although I'm pretty sure I could walk around naked and I'd still be sweating balls.  Still, I'm loving it.  For all those months we put up with the clouds and rain, the summers in the PNW are outstanding and totally worth it.  It's going to be in the 90's this week so I'm thinking at least one of those days needs to involve waterfront and a bikini.  At least.