For All My Designers Out There..

If you are a web/graphic designer, read this comic.

This is totally worthy of an entire post today..so funny.

And true.

Thanks to my friend @haydendavey for this one!

Pretty Necklaces

I am lucky enough to have a really awesome bloggie friend named Abby, who is also a New Zealand blogger (woo!) and who blogs over at Only Impossible Until Done. She is one great lady who I got to know better when I did a blog design she won on a giveaway here, way back when. I am very happy today to feature one of her amazing necklaces, and also give one away (and some ad space, kaching!) to one of you lovely readers!

Meet Abby!

Look at that model, ow ow! 

Be sure to check out Abby's blog and shop, and enter the giveaway below.

{how gorgeous?!}

{this is actually a sneaky peeky at a What I Wore post coming soon...lucky ducks}

GIVEAWAY CLOSED.

DIY Cooking: Creamy No-Cream Fettucine Alfredo

This is my first ever time doing a recipe post on the blog, so bear with me. Let me start by saying that I looooove me some alfredo, but there's so much fat in it, like seriously? With all the technological advances in the world I don't understand why fat and calorie free but still amazing tasting things can't be created. Like no-fat no-calorie chips, someone let me know when those are available. Anyways, I've just made a delicious pesto alfredo sauce. And I didn't use cream, holla.

I'm no chef-- but this tastes good. It's an adapted recipe I found online.

So, for two people (but this would probs serve three cause I overcooked a bit):
- 1/2 stick unsalted butter (OKAY YEAH I KNOW, I SAID NO CREAM TO MAKE IT SOUND GOOD FOR YOU but you would've had cream AND butter otherwise which is just not good at all. This is only a little bad...)
- a little bit of garlic, however much you like or don't like
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup water
- 2-3 tbsp white flour
- tbsp pesto (optional)
- mushrooms (or whatever veggies you like in pasta. Come on guys, veggies are good for you!)
- grated/shredded cheese (I used a little bit of shredded parmesan and some grated cheddar)
- your noodles (I used fettucine cause I love it)

1) I would get your noodles on to boil firstly cause this sauce is like five minutes to make.
2) Melt your butter in a fry pan and sauté your garlic (look at me using fancy words, sauté)
3) When all your butter is melted, you're going to create a "roux" (I learned that in cooking class in highschool) by slowly whisking in your flour. Don't add it all at once, do a tbsp at a time or you'll get all clumpy and that's not cool. You may not need to add all your flour either, just judge by how thick it's getting (you want it to be pretty thick cause you're going to liquefy it soon).
4) Add your half cup water and swoosh it around in your sauce so it's all mixed in.
5) Keep swooshing it all around. Now slowly add your milk whilst still swooshing it all in. You might not have to use all your milk either, so use your judgment or you'll have mad runny sauce.
6) Throw in your veggies and let those hang out and soften up. This is also when I added about a tbsp of pesto.
7) Add all of your grated cheese and melt it all down, make sure you mix it all well.
8) At a bit more water at your own discretion, if you think it's the right amount of creamy already then don't add any but you can also let it sit at the end to thicken if you want to stretch the sauce out a bit to feed more.
9) Salt and pepper to taste, obvs. Let it sit and thicken for a couple minutes.
10) EAT & ENJOY.

I hope you enjoy my first ever recipe on the blog. I'm not much of a cook but I really want to learn, so hopefully you will see more soon! I'm going to eat my pasta now, bye.

PS - Did I mention I'm no food photographer either?
PPS - I'd love for you to pin this!

Fashion Friday: Neon Frenzy

Neons are all the rage right now, and I can't get enough. My favorite way to wear

them is as a pop of color in an outfit, for example with a solid black dress. I also would

suggest easing into it with one neon piece at a time. A great way to do this is with

Alissa from Rags to Stitches' super adorable neon bow clutches!

1 // 2 // 3 // 4

Mani Monday

I know it's a little late in the day for me to be posting a mani-Monday, but let's be honest, I only just remembered. There's still an hour and 19 minutes left for me to legitimately participate anyways, relax!

My nails this week were a teal/turquoise mix, and I am in love.

The darker teal color is Salad Dressed by MAC - which, might I add, I have had for like two or three months and haven't tried because I wasn't sure how I felt about the color. Then I realized it was teal, not green, and life was complete.

The light turquoise color is one of my all time faves, Miss Minty by GOSH. It is the perfect mint polish for my skin tone, I love it so much. I am a fan of the "accent nail" because it's so easy and makes me look like I'm cool at doing my nails. Cause you know, you can be cool at doing nails. Like me.

Here's to a good week!

Linking up with Heather x 2 for Mani Monday

OOTD: Bird Prints & Braided Belts

Expect to see way more of these posts since the weather is starting to get nicer here again {finally}. I am loving them - fashion is one of my main loves in life so I am really glad I get to share my personal style with you guys. I wore this dress for a day at the beach, but it was pretty windy and I hid in my big jacket the whole time, haha.

SHOP THIS LOOK & MATCHING ITEMS:

OOTD: Pink & Teal

My first ever legitimate outfit post...

necklace c/o this enchanted pixie

SHOP THIS LOOK:

Current Crush Thursday

I haven't linked up for Current Crush in a while, but here we are!

And I have some lovely little things up my sleeve for you today..

one of them being you can get 25% of ANY of my ads for September 

with the code SEPT25. Maybe you can use it to buy the Maximum Exposure

ad that hangs out in the footer of every post and gets seen by every reader?

Just a thought ;) And I reached 600 followers today. HOLLA! 

You all are the bomb dot com. That's kinda been my thing lately, saying that.

Bomb dot com. Lame, I know. I'm cool like that. That makes no sense. Okay anyways..

Current Crush #1: Video Star app

Hopefully you saw my Wordless Wednesday that one time, because

it is pretty much me in a nutshell. If you ever wanted to know what I'm

like outside of my blog...yep, that's it. And my boyfriend has the poutiest face

cause I am trying to make a video and he doesn't want to be part of it hahaha.

Anyways, I made that video on an app called Video Star {introduced to me 

in a post by Erin at Living In Yellow} and I think it's essentially the 

best app ever, possibly. I have made three videos of me lip-syncing, by myself,

just tonight. Yeah, I use it that much. Yeah, I need hobbies. But seriously,

it's free so how can you go wrong? It's so fun hahaha.

Current Crush #2: Handmade Coffee Sleeves

A couple of my friends and I are doing a craft weekend pretty soon, and

I am super excited. We have this list of things we want to make all in one

night: scarves (made from a knit material, not like knitting them haha), tote bags,

and reusable coffee sleeves. So making your own coffee sleeve never occurred

to me in my entire life until very recently. It is such an awesome idea, plus it

makes your coffee look really cute and cool. So easy to make. Extra points

because you're helping save the environment...ish. Here are some I love.

image 1 image 2 image 3 - from etsy but broken link image 4 image 5

Current Crush #3: PicMonkey

If you haven't heard of PicMonkey, you are missing out. I know some people

are probably sighing right now, saying "can't you just learn how to use Photoshop?"

But guess what, I do know how to use it. And guess what else, PicMonkey is

so easy. And some people just don't get the complexity of Photoshop and that's

totally okay - it doesn't mean we have to suffer looking at their terribly edited

Windows Paint photos though. PicMonkey is amazing. You don't need any

skills, just a little creativity and some time to figure out what you want to use

because there's so many cool options to choose from. Best of all? It's free!

Don't tell anyone, but I have a tutorial on how to make your own blog buttons

in PicMonkey coming veeeeeeeeeeery soon. 

Fashion Friday: Bold Colors

If you read my blog pretty often, you probably notice that I am pretty MIA

from Friday through Sunday. Not gonna lie, I'm not a huge fan of posting on the

weekend unless I feel I have something really important to post about. It's my

time to spend with my boyfriend and his family, and to catch up on life and take a

break. 

However - I am going to start a new weekly Friday post on one of my favorite

topics that I don't post about near enough to express my love for it... fashion.

I'm sure I spend at least 80% of my life either dreaming about or shopping for clothes.

I love love love anything to do with clothing. I am seriously obsessed.

So - commence Fashion Friday. I may, in the future, open this up to be a link-up but

at this point I just want to focus on some of my favorite things without putting too

much time and effort into it. I just want to have a day to share with you my current faves!

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 

Hello, I'm Chelsea. Nice to meet you.

I thought - in light of recent uproar in the blogging community about there are too many link-ups and giveaways in the world - that I would do a post entirely on little ol' Chelsea today. And also include a massive blown up picture of my face. With my cool new mug. It rocks, right? I'm going to just start listing off things about myself, that you may or may not have known. I'm totally thinking of starting a "Get To Know Me" link-up, because does that not combine the best of the recent uproar + love for link-ups? Thought so.

1. I am 21 years old. Did you think I was older? I guess you couldn't have thought I was much younger seeing as my little sidebar thing tells you I'm a 20-something blogger.

2. I have been in a relationship with my cute Kiwi {New Zealander} boyfriend for 2 years and four months. Yes, I count. #coollikethat

3. I am quite skilled in Photoshop yet I still totally promote and encourage the use of Instagram. I am so annoyed of people complaining that Instagram is just a place for people that don't know how to use Photoshop. Number 1, it's not, and number 2, who gives a flying cow pie? Not me. Instagram away!

4. I have two younger brothers. The youngest one is like my twin but not, and we have the exact same thoughts and sense of humor. In fact, he's visiting me in NZ right now and the other day we were watching the Olympics awards for some running thing, and at the EXACT same time we both said "that guy looks like Snoop Dogg." Weird, right? My oldest but still younger brother is autistic and has Dandy Walker syndrome, which I've wrote about here, and he is totally freaking awesome. He is the funniest person I know, and finds joy in the best things. He knows no judgment {unless you have no snacks or cool stuffed animals, then you're pretty boring} and we could all definitely learn so much from people like him.

5. I am a crazy cat lady. You probably already knew this. It's no secret.

6. I love anything sparkly, Hello Kitty, or that tastes like salt. Excluding playdough.

7. I have pretty bad health anxiety and I am also just generally anxious about anything and everything I could possibly get anxious about. I've talked about that stuff here.

8. This video will basically give you a clear idea of me.

9. I am a thalassophobic, which is a fear of the ocean/sea. I've blabbed about it here one time, I think this is probably just to do with my anxiety about everything.

10. I am always cold, in summer you can probably find me curled up in a blanket. Seriously, I think I have really bad circulation or something.

11. I am a bargain-master. Like, queen of bargain shopping. Oh, you only have $50 to spend? I'll find you a pair of jeans, twelve shirts and a freaking plethora of wedges for your $50. I should have my own TV show.

My Love/Hate Relationship With Exercise

I've always been very off and on with fitness. Mostly off, haha.

Sometimes I get this urge to get off my butt and get fit -- but it never lasts long.

In fact, my week of effort this last week is probably the longest commitment to

fitness I've made in a really long time {sad, I know}. 

ahhah this was for a "theme day" at the camp I've worked at for 6 years.
our roles were mean fitness instructors ;) with our best New York accents for some reason.

It just seems like so much effort and struggle to get off the couch.

I'm an expert at sitting on the computer all day whilst eating chips.

But something has ignited within me the past week, and with some words of

encouragement from some fellow lovely bloggers on Twitter, I decided that

maybe I would go for a run one night. 

So that night {last Tuesday}, when I got home from work, my boyfriend and I

decided to go for a run to the school by our house and back.

It didn't seem too far planning it in my mind...but when we got running I realized

how many hills there were, how far it actually was and how out of shape I am.

out of shape? DO SOME PUSHUPS!

But I pushed through the panting and pain. I just kept going. Yep, I did angrily

kick some rocks on my way and have some uncalled for rude outbursts at my

boyfriend when he tried to be encouraging by telling me to keep going, "you can

do it" and all that nonsense {sorry Cole!}, BUT I finished the run. And when I got

home, this handy little app that I had going the whole time to follow my run and 

count my calories, speed and distance {called MapMyRun - it's excellent, get it},

told me that I had just run 5.24 km in 35 minutes.

FIVE POINT TWO FOUR?!!? 

I was/am SO proud of myself. Firstly - I had no idea the school was that far.

Secondly - the endorphins were pumping like never before, I was on cloud nine!

Does anyone elses face get this red after a run? Mine stays like this for literally
like an hour after. Any tips? Freezing cold showers don't help :(

The feeling of completing a run is I guess like accomplishing anything else, but a

million times better because of the endorphins. I haven't felt so proud of myself in

years. However, I was in extreme pain/limping for the next two days. If you decide

to run 5kms...or any kms... please stretch before and after. Lots. Keep stretching.

Up in the gym just workin' on ma fitness... not actually in a gym but okay Fergie.

Since the feeling of total accomplishment from my first run, I have done two speedy

super-uphill walks of 3km each and two other 4km runs. In fact, I just finished a 4km

run and in only a week's time, I have noticed significant improvement in my 

breathing and endurance, it's so encouraging. I cut five minutes off the time of my run

today compared to the 4km run I did 2 days ago. I am seriously impressing myself,

and it is the best feeling.

If you want to join me on my new running adventures, please do.

I highly suggest investing in a pair of good shoes {they really make all the difference},

stretching heaps and using MapMyRun as it's so encouraging to see how far you've gone.

I'd love to hear of your running tips and stories if you'd like to share, tweet me!

Happy Monday friends, the endorphins are pumping like mad and I am a happy girl.

Some Weekend Ponderings + Premade Designs!

Hope everyone's weekend is going swimmingly.
Ahahaha...what a weird word. Mine has been good - I have got heaps of design
work finished and started on my new project of premade designs! I am having so much
fun getting to do designs that are totally me and completely my ideas and not having to
follow someone else's idea of what they want, so expect to see tons of these in the future.

Here is a little peek at my favorite one:

How sfhkjdskhfdsjing cute is it??!?! I am in love. I have been dying to make something

mustache-inspired for who knows how long...so woooohooo! If you need a new blog

design and want a cute premade on the cheap, check out my options HERE!

I've also revamped the whole design section to be it's own website, but you can
still access it from within my blog by clicking on the design button in my nav up top.

So guess what everyone, my brother who is 16 and has never travelled anywhere in his
short life other than going to Disneyland when he was like 6...is coming to New Zealand to see me!
TOMORROW! Well, he flies out of Vancouver tomorrow and then gets here on Tuesday.
I can't imagine how intense it would have been if I had travelled to the other side of the world
without my parentals at sixteen years old... props to him. I'm stoked that I am able to give him
this opportunity. That's not meant to sound self-centered haha, I just mean he never would be
coming here if I wasn't living here. So I am super happy for him and so excited to have family here!

Me & my brother Matt, we look so much alike it's nuts.

Now - I want to address some heavy posts happening lately in blog-land.
We are all feeling the pressure since these posts, and honestly - we damn well should be!
If you haven't guessed what I'm talking about, it's about how blogging has lately become very
impersonal for some of us {myself included, guilty!}. Our blogs have been taken over by
link-ups, sponsored posts and the whatnot. Amanda at Royal Daughter Designs addressed
this very bluntly and honestly in her last post, Winning & Losing. It was a pretty brilliant post
and she hit the nail on the head. With a really great hammer. Yeah, I went that far just then.

I called this photo "New Beginnings" when I took it, so I guess
it's kind of appropriate for this topic, haha. Thought I'd add it to
"spruce" things up a bit.......hahahahhaah I'm so punny. Get it?

So anyway, I want to do my part in getting my blog back on track with being more personal
and more me. I started this to document my life and I want it to continue to be that way.
Now I'm not saying I'm going to stop doing link-ups and giveaways...but I'm going to make
an effort. Because, I like linking up. And I like giving away stuff. Why not? It's my blog and I'll
do it my way. And hey, I am SO excited about my new hop starting up next Wednesday!
But on the off days that I am not doing these things, I am going to make an effort to post
something me - all Chelsea and all real. Not necessarily deep and meaningful, but I want you
guys to get to know the girl behind the blog a bit more. I hope you stick around to learn more!