We can't forget about our little friends this summer! They enjoy the sunshine just as much as you do, unfortunately they can get heated pretty quickly. Why not cool them down with some easy to make frozen treats? Your pup will love you a million times more once he gets his paws on this yummy delicacy. The version I made is also great for cats, because let's face it, they tend to get jealous if I spoil my dog more than them! I'll include another recipe just for dogs at the bottom of this post!

You will need:

Ice cube tray

Can of tuna

Some water

A mixing bowl or Magic Bullet

A ziploc bag

Start by mashing up the tuna in your bowl or stuffing it into your food mixer. Don't drain the tuna water, it helps with the freezing. Add about half a cup of water to the mix.

Then mix up that tuna! I used my Magic Bullet, because really, it's my go-to kitchen appliance and takes 10 seconds. Yum... doesn't that just look delicious?...

Fill your Ziploc bag with the mix and cut a small hole in one end. This helps save you from making a huge mess while filling up the ice cube trays. Fill your trays and place in the freezer for a couple hours.

Let pets lick the bowl.  When they're nice and frozen, you can pop them out and let your pets have a taste! I recommend letting them chew on these on a tile floor or a plate, because I'm pretty sure you don't want tuna bits all over your house. You can store these in a plastic bag in your freezer for up to 6 months, so if you make a bunch you can always have some on hand!

Bear was super excited about this new treat! He snatched it right away from those pesky kitties and gobbled it up! Here an an alternate recipe for your pups only:

32oz. plain low or fat free yogurt
1 ripe banana
2 tbsp peanut butter (natural and salt free is best)
You can also add in other fruits like blueberries or anything that is safe for dogs to eat!
Mix it all together and follow the same steps above!

If you don't want to use yogurt, other freezable bases you can use are chicken broth, beef broth, water (like I did), fruit juices (natural or "no sugar added"), and baby foods (natural/organic fruit or vegetable blends). *make sure nothing has onion in it.

Do you think your pet would love these?! Give it a shot!

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top: c/o romwe

Summer is upon us and what a better way to celebrate than a new blog series!  I'll be creating a ton of summer themed posts over the next little while and there was no better place to start than with this easy hair DIY!

I'll show you how to create your own sea salt spray so you can look like a beached mermaid! It's so simple to do and works on any length of hair, or any hair type! I'm talking a lot of texture here, people!

You will need:
Empty spray bottle
2 cups of warm water
2 tbsp of sea salt or epsom salt (note: do NOT use table salt!)
2 tbsp of rubbing alcohol (you can also use vodka!)
a glob of hair gel for staying power
*optional: coconut or essential oils for that summer scent!

Mix all of the ingredients together in your spray bottle and you're set!  The alcohol helps the mixture last longer and also combats oily hair. We don't want oily, we want texture! You can add a little conditioner to the mix if you like as well if your hair is super dry. Spray it onto damp hair, scrunch, and let dry. Remember to shake it up before every use. I don't recommend using it every day because it will dry out your hair if you use it all the time. Now go on and hit the beach!!!

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As a kid, I always had a fascination with makeup. I would peek through my mom's little makeup bag and play around with the pretty things I would find. Even though I was a little too young to be wearing makeup, I was always experimenting in my bedroom mirror. I used to read Seventeen magazine back then, too. I remember finding this lip gloss tutorial among the pages and becoming completely obsessed with it. The colour possibilities were endless! The mess I would make was huge but I didn't care!  Here is that same DIY project... (a little cleaner this time!):

You will need:

- Vaseline

- Powdered eye shadow or blush

- Small empty container

- Small mixing utensil

1. Fill your container with Vaseline (petroleum jelly). 2. Sprinkle your favourite eyeshadow or blush on top. I used Everyday Minerals blush in DVR Saturday. 3. Mix it all together well. Clean up the edges. 4. Apply!

Probably the easiest tutorial in history, but there you have it! Vaseline is also amazing for your lips, so you have an added benefit! If you can't find it in your drug store, check the baby section. For some reason they like to hide it away there even though it's used for millions of things (makes an awesome gentle eye makeup remover too!).  If you're looking for a more natural diy lip scrub, I have you covered too!

Did you read beauty magazines as a kid?

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I spent the past two days getting this little project together and am happy with how it turned out! I wanted to create some custom boho style shorts like the ones you see at Free People... but obviously I didn't want to spend any hard earned cash on something I knew I could pull off. Get ready for a long, photo-filled DIY project, friends!

For my shorts, I used a pair of old unauthentic Rock & Republic jeans (ew). If you know me at all, I'm a huge designer denim fanatic and am 100% against fakes (do you like funding terrorism? I sure don't...). I purchased these in my uneducated days from Ebay and never ended up wearing them after I realized the seller sent me a faux pair. So, what a better way to make use of some unused denim than to tear these babies up and create something totally new?!  I also used a bunch of vintage fabrics I had sitting around...

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This nail design is super easy and can be used with a variety of different colours! My original creation consisted of mint with lilac tips, which was perfect for Easter!  I came up with this design as a quick fix for worn off polish on my tips, so it doubles as a quick "cover up" too!

Paint your nails one solid colour. Let dry completely.
Brush secondary colour over the tips diagonally, in two swipes, starting from the edge of your nail up towards the center.

How easy was that!? I'd love to try out a bunch more colour combinations. What are some of your favourite nail colours this season??

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While I was doing some of my new product shots this morning, I thought to myself, "hey, self, why don't you share this process with your readers?". So here I am, sharing my photo taking process with you all!

This is probably going to be the easiest tutorial ever, but I promise it makes all the difference in the appearance of your shop, if you are a handmade seller, for example.

All you need is a sheet of bristol board in your selected colour.  You can pick up a sheet at any office store, craft store, or in my case, dollar store. They come in tons of colours, so pick one that will be easy to use consistently and match the overall feel of your store.  I can't stress this enough -- all of your photos should be consistent. If that means re-doing your product shots multiple times to get them all right, then so be it (believe me, I've redone all of my Wonder Forest photos about five times until I was happy with a "look") .  It can only improve your listings.

Anyways, on with it!  Grab that bristol board and a chair. You can also do this on a floor near a wall but I like the mobility of a chair.  You'll want to place that chair somewhere in your home/office/space that has the most natural light.  I always choose to go near a large window, depending on the time of day it will either be at the front of my house or the back of my house. I rarely ever take photos in the evening/night because the light just is not there. You'd be surprised if you saw the difference between a photo taken in the same spot at night compared to the day time.

Place that bristol board on your chair like so.  If using a wall, just tape it to the wall instead.  I prefer taking photos using one bent sheet as opposed to two (one on the bottom, one on the chair back/wall) because it makes for a seamless backdrop.  I hate seeing that line in photos where the floor meets the wall.  Maybe I'm a little OCD about my photos? ;)

Place your product on the backdrop and start shooting. Be sure that the surrounding background is not visible in your photos, obviously.  If it is, you can easily crop it out in Photoshop. A fancy camera helps, but it really isn't necessary. If you have the right light and setup, your photos should turn out just fine regardless of your camera.

It's important to take various angles of your product, so the viewer gets a real feel for every aspect of it. I normally do 5 shots of my plush, from side views, to close-ups of detail, to back views.

After I have my shots, I transfer them to my computer and do a little resizing in Photoshop. (Image > Image Size > 900 pixels in width).  I usually do anywhere from 700-900 pixels wide because it makes for a nice viewing size. Not too small, not too big. Too small, and you risk deferring the customer if they can't see product details. Too big, and you hurt load times and distort your images if the viewer clicks to enlarge the image, resulting in it being resized by their browser or being too "zoomed in" if they expand it.

I also like to add my little 'thewonderforest.com' tag to all of my product shots. This helps if people were to Pin my stuff or lose the source.

So, there you have it!  I hope I helped you in your future product photo taking ventures!

By the way, I redid my Wonder Forest shop design! It is much more clean and simplified now. I did this so that my photos would stand out more, and the visitor's experience would be more streamlined. Why not go check it out and let me know what you think? The above deer will be listed soon!

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Today's DIY session took a little longer than normal, but finally here it is!  This is day 11 of the series and my second last post, so enjoy!

If you missed any projects, you can view them on my blog here and on Heather's blog here.

I wanted to give you ladies a little tutorial for some Valentine's day inspired makeup which would be totally date worthy!  We're talking totally pink and glam!  I had a little fun with false eyelashes this time around.  Though I'm not a huge fan of them, I do believe some occasions call for a little something extra!  Here's the look:

And here's how it's done:

 
Add a little pink blush on your cheeks and some pinky lip gloss and you're good to go! (pink heart headband c/o Vintage Wanna Bee). Shirt by Wildfox (here) or (here).

Products used:
White base = NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk 
Light pink = Everyday Minerals in Parasail (Similar: Bare Escentuals bareMinerals in Vanilla Sugar)
Medium Pink = Rock & Republic in Corset (Similar: Urban Decay in Free Love)
Dark Pink = Rock & Republic in Love Rocks (Similar: Make Up Forever in Dusty Pink)
White shadow = Everyday Minerals in Bundled Up (Similar: Bare Escentuals bareMinerals in Snow)
Kohl Eyeliner = Mac Kohl eyeliner (cheaper and just as good here)
Liquid Liner = Rimmel Glam Eyes Professional Liquid Liner
Mascara = Rimmel Glam Eyes (extra black)

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Welcome to the ninth day of the series! Yesterday, Heather showed you how to make some totally amazing lip balm using Koolaid!  I am dying to try it! If you missed any projects, you can view them on my blog here and on Heather's blog here.

Before I get started, I also wanted to say that today is the birthday of the Wonder Forest shop!  It was one year ago today that I decided to open up an Etsy shop and get the ball rolling! Because of that, I am offering 15% off in my NEW shop until Feb 1st with code "BDAY"! <3 Thank you for all of your support and love over the course of this very eventful year!!

Alright on with it! Today is all about the couples! I have to admit to borrowing this idea from Martha, but I substituted some things... that's enough to create my own DIY out of it right? ;)

We're going to make some super cute felt fortune cookies! This is so easy and you can get as innocent or as risky as you want with the fortunes ;)

First you will need the following supplies:

• Felt
• Your own fortunes printed on paper
• Twist ties or a thin wire
• Glue gun or fabric/tacky glue
• Ribbon

First you need to cut your felt into circles. My circles were about 3.5" in diameter.

Then, grab a twist tie (cut to size if needed) and glue it onto the center of your circle. I found that using 2 twist ties was a little better, but this will depend on how strong the wires are.

Grab a matching ribbon and glue it on top of the twist tie to hide all of it's ugliness.

Pop your fortune inside!

Pinch the top of your cookie together...

... Then bend it from the bottom wires into that classic fortune cookie shape.

Give them to your lover and watch him open up all his love-filled fortunes! I'd love to know what you thought of this tutorial! What are some cute fortunes others could put inside their cookies?

Like my nails? That tutorial is here!

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