diy hook rack

Over the weekend when I wasn't playing Pokemon Go (YOU GUYS IT'S SO FUN I can't stop), I was attempting to organize the kitchen. I'm super late on my spring cleaning - or super early? Either way, between the five cupboards and four drawers in our mini cook space, & it gets really hectic. Even though I did some major rearranging, I figured I needed to create more space to organize. There were a few elements at play here:

1. Apartment life means putting as few holes in the wall as possible. Which means no hooks directly in the wall. Reasonable enough.
2. I didn't feel like hunting for a perfectly sized shelf or rack, so I needed to get materials I could alter if needed.
3. Speaking of altering, I do not have a table saw, so I needed wood that was easy to cut with a blade.
4. Why not try to make it? We can make anything, right?

Here's what I used:

• 2 pieces of 1/8 inch basswood
• 1/4 inch wall hooks 
• Acrylic paint
• Wood glue
• Command strips (my favorite are the velcro kind because you can readjust as you hang)
• X-acto knife (not pictured)

First things first - if you basswood is too long, now is the time to cut. Basswood is nice as it's soft, and cutting two 1/8 inch pieces is much easier than cutting one 1/4 inch piece. Once you have trimmed your basswood with an x-acto blade, glue both pieces together with wood glue. Clamp tightly, and let dry.

Next, paint (or stain) the wood.

Once the paint as dried, mark every 2-3 inches along your wood, and screw in the wall hooks. Basswood is soft, so the hooks should screw in easily - however, it's easy to over-screw so watch out for that.

Press Command strips to the back of your hook rack. The velcro strips are nice because if you hang the rack crooked (like I always seem to do), you can readjust.

There's definitely something invigorating about a project that gets imagined & completed in the same day. Plus I found a Pikachu on my walk to the hardware store to pick up supplies. Yikes, you guys. I have a serious problem, & it's eating all of my phone's battery life.

xoxo,

-m.e.

P.S. Recognize these pot holders?

Affiliate links are used in this post.

out & about | brunch

No lie, I love brunch. I know it's utterly basic of me, but breakfast food surpasses all else & mimosas are too delicious. It also doesn't help my brunch-lust that we have so many tasty options in the city (Aster Cafe on the north side being our destination during this trip). Fortunately I'm not alone. Everyone here celebrates brunch time. It's a ghost-town around here on Sunday morning, but go to a place serving eggs & bacon & it's a madhouse. Before chowing down with the locals, Heather & I wandered around down by the river & took a few snapshots. 

One of my favorite parts of Minneapolis is the northeast. Yeah, I love my neighborhood, but if I had all the money in the world I'd totally move down by the Mississippi river. There are too many cute shops, coffee houses, & brunch options for days. 

Can I tell you how excited I am that denim in back in style? I will gladly revisit the fashion of the 90s in any decade. This shirt is so comfortable I wear it twice once a week. Sometimes even donning the oh-so-chic Canadian tuxedo (yikes).

Also, if I could boast about Heather's shoe-game for a minute. For a girl with teeny feet, she really does work some magic when it comes to finding dapper footwear. 

What we're wearing:
m.e. | denim top: h&m (no longer available, but it's close to this one) | skinny jeans: target | shoes: dsw | sunglasses: pride swag from last year
heather | polo: target | jeans: denizen | hat: new era | watch: kenneth cole | shoes: a+

xoxo,
-m.e.

P.S. Speaking of skinny jeans - check out this old-as-dirt tutorial on how to make your own.

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Instagram @wecanmakeanything | Twitter @wcmanything

It's dis-gus-ting outside. Hot, hot, hot. You know you can get seasonal-depression in the winter because it's too cold to go outside? I've got a bad case of seasonal-frustration because I'm sick of all this gross sweating I'm doing when I leave my apartment. Ick. In happier news, fall is only 61 days away! Sweaters, I miss you so. 

HAPPY THOUGHTS

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Thanks to our frequent biking adventures, I'm able to cycle farther than I could a month ago, & I'm not as tired at the end of a ride! Little wins.

HAPPY LINKS

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• Favorite DIY of the week: This breezy denim shift dress
• Also this under-bed-storage DIY (I'm immediately smitten with any furniture on wheels)
• This super-simple iced espresso trick
• These thoughts on shaving your head (I've done it twice - would you dare to?)
• This list of National Parks to visit that aren't overcrowded
• This fantastic tweet-thread from Martha Stewart at a Jason Derulo concert

xoxo,

-m.e.

P.S. If this heat-wave keeps up I might be echoing these thoughts on my wall all weekend.

vietnamese-style cold-brew coffee

It seems like everyone & their mother is trying vietnamese iced coffee, & with good reason. It's delicious. After seeing this recipe pop up every time I opened my Pinterest app, I wanted to see if it melded with my whole cold-brew routine. I posted this recipe for french-press cold brewed coffee (total mouthful) a whole year ago, & over that past year I've been drinking said cold brew each &  every day. That's a lot of coffee, guys. I'm not going to do the math on it, but I'm pretty sure that's enough coffee to, like, fill a small lake. Either way, I usually drink my cold caffeine with chocolate syrup & milk, sort of like a mocha. Inspired by this fun twist on coffee, I gave it a try. The outcome was delicious. Simply sweet, but not too sweet to drown out the rich coffee taste.

To make this vietnamese-style cold-brew, all you need is:

• A cup of iced or cold-brew coffee (click here for the recipe)
• 1 tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk
• Ice cubes

Pour one tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk in the bottom of a glass. Fill the glass with iced coffee, & stir thoroughly (pro-tip!: I throw the whole concoction into my travel mug & shake thoroughly). Add ice. Yum & done!

xoxo,

-m.e.

P.S. If you're a mocha-person, try adding some homemade chocolate syrup to your cold brew.

bicycle love a.k.a. pimp my two-wheeled ride

My bicycle has seen more love in the past month than it has in the past year. This rekindled romance is part in due to the lovely summer weather, & equal part due to Heather forcing me to get off my lazy butt on the weekends. We're biking to pick up our groceries now, which has us in the market for more convenient methods of carrying foodstuffs. I'm thinking panniers (potential DIY question mark?). And a basket. Basically I found a bunch of pretty stuff that I now want. 

From left to right:
1. bicycle seat pack | 2. time clock bell | 3. rear rack leather pannier | 4. six-pack bike cinch | 5. handmade leather cup holder | 6. steel rear rack | 7. wooden bicycle crate | 8. saddle bag

xoxo,

-m.e.

P.S. Cycling DIYS!: Bike pouch & how to give your old bike a new coat of paint. 

Sponsored links are used in this post!

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Instagram @wecanmakeanything | Twitter @wcmanything

Did the week go by as quickly for you as it did for me? I feel like just yesterday I was getting my lazy-girl on & sipping mimosas in my sweatpants (not much was accomplished last weekend, truth be told). The temperatures are up, but this weekend my fiancé (that's so fun to say!) & I are planning on biking lots & taking the dog on long walks in the evenings. We're trying out this new thing where we bike to get groceries rather than drive. Sadly it takes the dreaded "shopping while you're hungry" thing to the next level. However, it feels really great to knock something off the to-do list while also getting a workout. 

THOUGHTS

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No happy thoughts today, in light of recent events. My heart is heavy. I feel all of these words. I would like for things to change now, thank you very much.

HAPPY LINKS

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• Favorite DIY of the week: This edible terrarium!
• Also this hacked-Ikea piece is gaw-ge-ous
• This delightful discovery = the First Lady is on Snapchat
• These vegetarian-friendly BBQ recipes (we like grilling too!)
• This Apartment Therapy round-up of furry photo-bombers
• This pretty-in-peony wallpaper that you can download
• This marvelous blogger is back & wearing socks with her sandals (only you can pull that off, Ems)

xoxo,

-m.e.

P.S. If you're feeling the mid-summer slump, perk yourself up with one of these motivational phone wallpapers.

pot-painting with rubber bands

I'm obsessed with my windowsill plants. They're my babies. I think I'm so obsessed with them because they're the only plants I haven't straight-up tortured to death (a moment of silence for those lost thanks to my forgetting that plants actually need water). I've even has some success propagating my succulent plant (see Instagram for proof), which I'm giddy over. Hooray for small wins. 

Since these greens are essentially my children, I like playing dress-up with them. They were wearing fun lettering before, & now they're all stripes! I've been in a mad black & white mood lately. Rubber bands made the stripe-painting a breeze. I want to try this same technique with glass-etching soon!

To start seeing stripes, you'll need:

• Terra-cotta pot 
• Flat-sidded rubber bands (like the ones pictured above)
• Two colors of acrylic paint
• Paintbrush

Step 1 | Paint the entire terra-cotta pot with a base color, i.e. the color that will show up as the lines. Wait until dry.

Step 2 | Wrap rubber bands around the pot.

Step 3 | Paint over the terra-cotta pot with top color. If you are going from dark to light, you will need to use more than one coat of the light-colored paint. Wait until dry, & remove rubber bands.

xoxo,

-m.e.

P.S. RIP to these little plant babies seen in a previous project. Yep, they're dead too. 

life | links

Instagram @wecanmakeanything | Twitter @wcmanything

It's 4th of July weekend! Barbecues, beers, & booming noises throughout the night that will surely upset pets of all shapes & sizes. My family never went all out with actual fireworks on 4OJ. Instead, my dad would always buy us kids some black snakes & pop-its (at least I think I'm recalling the names properly). Black snakes are those weird pellets that you light & then wait forever for something to happen & then BOOM they start growing all weird. Sort of anti-climactic, but still fascinating as a kid. Pop-its are just plain devious - they're those teeny packets the size of your fingernail that make a "pop" sound when you throw them. Alternatively you can snap them in your fingers next to your SISTER'S EAR DAVE I'M LOOKING AT YOU. Either way those were my favorites. That & sparklers. I've got good memories of waiting until dark & lighting sparklers one by one as fireflies danced through the grass. Then after the sparklers burned out, we would dunk them in a cup of water & they would make that great sizzling sound. The smell that sparklers make always takes me right back to summers as a kid.

HAPPY THOUGHTS 

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In current news, it's a three day weekend (yay!), pluots are in season (my favorite fruit), & coffee exists which is a blessing because I have been dragging this whole week. #blessup.

HAPPY LINKS

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• Favorite DIY of the week: These LED mason jar lanterns (two bonus tutorials in this link too!)
• This one too - how to make a table!
• This dog in menswear is KILLING ME
• This new trend of temporary hair tattoos is crazy
• These adorable paramedics who got engaged at Pride 
• This overdue decision that Miss Teen USA made (finally)
• This beautifully inky bedroom has me questioning my love of white walls

xoxo,

-m.e.

P.S. Don't forget to download an Independence Day iPhone wallpaper!