Effie Trinket Inspired Party Dress

For Halloween, I found this lavender clown wig in my closet, stuck some holiday decorations in it, covered my face in glitter and wore my birthday dress from the year before...which was actually my wedding dress, re-worked. I don't know what I was trying to be, other than dressed up, but someone decided I was Effie Trinket a la the Hunger Games, so I just went with it. 

I throw a big party every year for my birthday, and always wear something over the top (because why not?). This year I decided to keep the Effie Trinket inspiration going and make a dress inspired by the Capitol City crowd.

On a budget, of course.

I found a deep blue version of this dress at a thrift store for $5.99, with the original tags still on it, marked down from $90.00. (I had pictures of the original dress, but all was lost when my phone exploded)

I bought a bundle of teal holiday poinsettias for $6.50, originally marked at $13.99.

Tulle is basically my favorite party dress accessory ever. Every dress is a party dress with tulle. I bought two rolls, at approximately $2.50 each.

White feather butterflies and glitter teal butterfly floral picks. The butterflies were the most expensive, at about $1 each.

I already had the butterfly punch. The glitter paper cost $1.99 per sheet.

I basically scrunched tulle up and sewed it around the neckline of the dress, making it as poofy as possible. I sewed strips of tulle to the skirt of the dress, making that a little bit poofy, as well.

My sewing skills are terrible. I hot glued the poinsettia leaves, butterflies and floral picks onto the dress, hiding bad sewing and using the tulle to cover the glue marks and anchor everything in. I glued myself to myself approximately 17 times in the process.

I glued the paper butterflies absolutely everywhere.

Glitter, fake eyelashes, fake hair, and more butterflies. I ended up taking the fake hair out - in an outfit that was designed to to be over the top, the fake hair made it TOO over the top.

 More glitter. Our house looks like a glitter bomb exploded, but the dogs are feeling very shiny and pretty.

 My dress held up all night...from posing for pictures at 7 pm....

to dancing on chairs at midnight...

...to floating in cages at 4 am...(???)

The total cost for the dress was just under $40 and almost everything on it can  (and will!) be re-used for other projects. Not a bad life for a party dress, right?

The Best Statement Necklaces by Independent Designers on Etsy Right Now

I'm obsessed with giant statement necklaces, but I very rarely find any that I would actually wear. Except for these. I spent hours on Etsy and I would, without a doubt, wear every single one of these. They're not cheap, but really great art shouldn't be, and each necklace here is absolutely a piece of wearable art.

Raw Brass Necklace by Ttereve.

Soutache Necklace by StudioGianna

Leaf Necklace by Inbarshahak

Blue Sparkle Necklace by AllThingsTinsel

Necklace by Distinguished Jewelry

Couture Necklace by Monikque

Petal necklace by BuddhaBead

Fluorite and Pearl Necklace by GinnyTaylorDesigns

Infusing Positivity Into Everything I do

...or trying, at least. I'm also trying not to pretend everything is perfect all of the time for the sake of marketing my little jewelry company. Sometimes stuff sucks. We should talk about it.


When I was little, I thought that there were 2 kinds of mean people. Little kids who were mean to other little kids, or adults who were mean to little kids. For some reason, I figured that when everybody grew up, they wouldn't be mean to each other because...well, I don't really know why I thought that. I just did.

So it came as a big surprise to me to discover that grown-ups can be bullies. I mean, professional, 40+, "you should totally know better than this" kind of grown-ups.

I know. I'm totally naive.

Anyway, apparently, when you start doing great things (I'm lucky enough to be part of an organization that does really great things!), people feel weirdly threatened by it. And they start being mean. Like - "Mean Girls" high school, Lifetime movie of the week, holy crap I can't believe this is real life kind of mean. And there's all sorts of weird politics involved, and lying and manipulating. For me, there was a lot of crying and beating my head against the wall as the result of this.

And then I had an epiphany. The details of how I finally came upon my epiphany are long and boring and completely uninteresting, but the important thing is, I got to where I needed to be, which is this:

I don't care anymore.

I mean, I don't completely not care, but at the end of the day, I can't control what other people think or do. The kind of people who are comfortable lying and spreading rumors and being manipulative and trying to hurt other people are always going to be like that. Even if I'm a complete asshole, or even if I'm Mother Theresa, people who are jerks are always just going to be jerks.  So while I might be still be bothered by it (like I'm bothered by a fly) I'm not going to be hurt by it anymore. Because flies can't hurt you - they're just really annoying.

I'm not going to let mean people change who I am. I did let it change me for the last 6 months. I let it make me sad and angry and bitter and tired and frustrated and then...

I stopped caring about people who don't care about me. I like who I am. I love my friends and family. I'm surrounded by people who do amazing things every single day. I like them. I care what they think.

I don't care about flies because seriously...so gross. Flies are gross.

Anyway, the moral of the story is this: I'm a good person, surrounded by good people. I have faith in this.

 I love joy. And love. And hope. And kindness. And I deserve those things, and I want to share those things with others. And sometimes I need to be reminded. So much so that I tattooed it on my skin.

A reminder - Be kind to others. Be kind to myself.

Tattoos aren't for everybody, so I made you this bracelet. (I mean - you knew at some point I was going to revert this back to my shop, right?)

Look! You can mix and match! 

Also, listen - I totally photoshopped this picture. I carry some major baggage underneath my eyeballs and I don't really like to show that so I airbrushed it out and made myself look well rested.

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." ~ Harriet Tubman

(You can have this. I mean - you can buy it, and then it will be yours to have.)

"Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future." ~ Robert H. Schuller

I have hope tattooed on my other wrist. I forgot to take a picture. Sorry about that.

And finally, in closing, in the immortal words of Wilson Phillips - someday somebody's gonna make you want to turn around and say goodbye. Until then, baby, are you going to let them hold you down and make you cry? No. You're not. Because you are awesome and things can change, things will go your way, blah blah blah, you know how it goes...

It's Like Trying To Eat the Entire Pack of Starburst at Once...

...because you love Starburst so much that you just want to eat all of them, right now. And then you end up with a huge ball of Starburst in your mouth that you can't chew and and it's actually stuck in your mouth and rainbow drool is dripping down your chin and everybody that you love is looking at you like a giant idiot because everybody knows that you're supposed to eat Starburst ONE.AT.A.TIME.

This is my life. I am forever trying to cram the entire pack of Starburst in my mouth. And when you cram the entire pack of Starburst in your mouth, you usually end up having to spit it all out just so you don't choke to death on the giant wad of rainbows that's lodging itself in your throat.

 I am forever trying to cram everything that I love into every single day. I have a bar/restaurant that I love and I have so many big plans for it but wait!  Because I volunteer with dogs and I have big plans for that but I have a store and I have big plans and a freelance job with really huge plans and a community association with so many big plans and I just started wholesaling and AND THERE ARE SO MANY BIG PLANS!!!!

I can't breathe. I am choking on all of these rainbows.

I have taken on too much and instead of getting everything done, I am spitting all of my rainbow flavored candy into the garbage and am accomplishing very little.

So, it's time to scale back. Everything that I am doing is doing ok.  The bar, the store, the dogs, the community association, any number of other projects...they're all hanging on. But not a single one of them is really living up to it's potential.

I am a part owner of Blue and I work there but I have never really helped manage it. My husband has always managed it and I've always had something else going on.  Blue deserves two managers and my husband deserves a little bit of a break. Our customers deserve more from both of us and our primary business deserves a little more focus.

I own Hey Lola and have had it in some capacity for 10 years now. Once I re-opened the retail location, I quickly realized that in order for it to succeed, I would have to really be a retail store manager. Which means I create less. Which is why I started Hey Lola in the first place. So while Hey Lola the store is doing fine, I'm not really sure what I'm doing here anymore. Especially since I am receiving more and more requests for custom work that are continually being delayed because I have to run a store.

Hey Lola the store is competing with Hey Lola the merchandise and at this time, they can't exist together. They just can't. In order to keep loving and nurturing Hey Lola into the romantic and recycled and beautiful line that I KNOW it can be, I can't spend my days trying to be a shop manager. Especially if I need to spend my nights being a bar owner.  So Hey Lola the store is closing it's doors in the middle of January.  Not because the location isn't great - because it is. Not because business was bad, because it isn't. It's not fantastic, but we could have stayed here indefinitely and been just fine. Our customers are loyal and wonderful and add a bright spot to every day.  But I need to focus on the creative side of Hey Lola, and I'm losing quite a bit of that by trying to maintain the store.

We are fortunate enough to have studio space in our home, and that's where I will continue to work. Hey Lola merchandise is already being carried in 3 stores here in town and is available online. I hope to expand that, so that these beautiful pieces are carried everywhere. I am slowly building our Etsy shop back up and hope to be able to incorporate that with this blog and our website and create a real online home for all things Hey Lola. I have already made plans to take part in the Riverfront Market next year and will more than likely be taking part in other vending opportunities.

My husband and I are lucky enough that our customers at Blue have supported us through this journey and that we can afford to make decisions like this. I think in the long run, that this will benefit Blue, Hey Lola and the neighborhood in general. I am still committed to Renaissance Park/West Main and I still think it's a great place to locate a business.  Even more so, because I've now had two here, both of which have been successful and one of which isn't going anywhere.

I recently read this in a Forbes article and it struck a chord with me - (It's about Kathy Ireland and I LOVE Kathy Ireland.)

"Not every move you make is going to be a winner. So what? Pick yourself up, learn from it, and move on."

Opening a retail location at this time wasn't the right move, but it's a move I learned from, so it was important. In the end, closing the store wasn't even a hard decision to make, because it is so clearly the right decision. I just need to take smaller bites, so I can really enjoy everything life has to offer and focus on what's important - so I can do a great job instead of an ok job. I hope you understand and I hope that you'll continue with me and Hey Lola as we continue this journey. You are all appreciated so very much!

Why Shop Local?

The big cry right now for lots of people is "shop local!" ...but why? If Big Business donates thousands of dollars to a local charity and a small business barely squeaks by but does nothing to contribute to their community, why shop with them over big business? Shopping local is great but it's better when it means something.  I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you the story of my business and the businesses around me and what it means for us when you shop local.

This is The Gaslight, a tavern my husband and I bought 4 years ago. 

It used to be run by drug dealers and murderers until the FBI and the DEA came in and threw everyone in prison. 

 This is 100% true.

It was closed for 8 years after that, until new people came in and tried to start over. It didn't work. The bad element never went away. Drug dealers still wanted to hang out and after a year, it closed. Then somebody else came in and tried it. It didn't work. They kicked out the bad element and there was no one left to buy anything. They closed after 3 months.

My husband and I are apparently crazy, so we thought we'd give it a try.

We decided if it had even a chance of success, we had to change everything and we had to do it with almost no money. Because we're crazy.

We used a lot of blue paint...so we called our bar "Blue."

This is Blue.

Blue has been here for 4 years. My husband and I work almost every night and we don't let drug dealers hang out. Not even in the parking lot.

These are a couple of our customers.  They work for the local public television station.  The guys behind them are from a local church. They just finished a community clean-up because...

If you're going to locate your business in a struggling neighborhood, you should sponsor clean-ups. So we do. Every month, April through October.

We were incredibly excited when the guys from Excel and Urban Artifacts decided to take an old boarded up building down the street...

And convert it into retail shops, artist studios and two art galleries...

I liked this idea so much, that later on I decided to locate my own store right here!

My husband liked it so much that he decided to locate James McGhee Photography here:

Urban Artifacts and Excel decided to give us money to help with the neighborhood clean-ups. With more neighbors and more financial support we decided to take an empty lot...

And start a community garden.

When a business that had been here forever decided to close, we were disheartened.  Until somebody came in and opened the amazing Broken Tree Coffee in it's place! 

This is a mural in progress on Broken Tree's outside wall...The owner works on this in between running his shop, being a father and husband and helping out with the community garden and neighborhood clean-ups.

Meanwhile, across the street, we were looking at this...

Which was pretty depressing...

Until...

The Main Statement opened! Owned by a young couple with a brand new baby, they carry work from a large variety of local artists and help out with neighborhood clean-ups and the community garden.

Do you know what would be really great next to The Main Statement? An artist studio and gallery....so Russ Joseph opened one...

He keeps late hours and is helping us form a neighborhood watch program. His gallery compliments the already existing Backspace Collective, a "space for contemporary art and ideas."

In the meantime, the local karaoke bar shut down, leaving an empty storefront in the middle of all of our hard work....

Until....

Pitch Karaoke opened! The guys from Pitch not only help out with the clean-ups and the garden, but they also raise money for cystic fibrosis and the local humane society!

With more and more businesses coming into the area, we took on a couple more projects...

 This corner needed some work...

So we're working on it...a little bit at a time...

These planters always end up neglected...

So we clean them up...

The more we all do, the more people seem to want to be a part of it...

Like Jessica Ball, from The Art Garage!

(photo via Peoria Life)

Jessica Ball and her family help with the clean-ups, the garden, the landscaping and recently adopted a dog  through Foster Pet Outreach.

With all of this activity, we decided to start The Renaissance Park Community Association - a group of all of the volunteers, neighbors and businesses that are working so hard not only to build their own projects but to build this neighborhood into a community we can all be proud of. Other businesses in the area that have contributed to all of this hard work include the amazing neighborhood staple, The Costume Trunk and Mr.G's (now owned by the same people who brought you One World Cafe!).  We've even attracted help from businesses outside of the neighborhood, like Heading Om Yoga and Top Hat Productions!

And me? I volunteer for the local humane society, Foster Pet Outreach, Crittenton Centers and am one of the founders of The Renaissance Park Community Association. Don't be surprised to find me picking up trash and pulling weeds at midnight around here - surprisingly, it relaxes me.

So this year, when you think about shopping local, think about why...and hopefully you'll think about us!

 XOXO,

Lola