balboa island adventuring

Courtney and I wanted our first day of summer to be filled with fun. We decided on a lot of different things like play basketball, go on a hike, go to the beach, watch Mad Men, or go to Balboa Island to explore. We ended up going on a Balboa Island adventure (and ended up playing basketball in the process!). Check out this video above to see what we saw. 

 - Christina

happy summer solstice!

All day today I've been sing Billie Holiday's "Summertime" with my dear friend, Courtney. We took a trip to Balboa Island and became little tourists as we searched for the Bluth Banana Stand. Stay tuned, I will be posting a video of our adventure soon!

- Christina

Photo by Courtney

photo booth flower wall

  

May was full of celebrating this year. My sister, Natalie, graduated from college and turned 30 all in the same month! We celebrated by hosting a strawberry/40s/summer picnic themed party in my parent's backyard. One decoration that made the event extra special was a huge flower wall as the backdrop to the photo booth. 

The flower wall took a lot of hard work and honestly wasn't the cheapest project in the world, but was well worth it. Not only was it a beautiful backdrop, but it added another decoration to the party. 

First, I bought tissue from Paper Mart. Paper Mart is local to me so after I place my order I have the opportunity to save on shipping by going straight to the warehouse to pick it up. We got 4 "mini packs" of each color (Scarlet Red, Peach, & Cool Mint). For some reason Cool Mint came out looking way different from the first time I ordered it (first I ordered 2 mini packs each and didn't have enough) but it didn't matter, it still turned out great. 

I started to make the tissue flowers by myself and it was taking HOURS. So I ultimately had a tissue-flower-making party. (Thank you for everyone that helped!) An easy DIY to make tissue flowers can be found here. 

After I had garbage bags FULL of flowers, Natalie's sister-in-law, Hannah, and I tied the flowers to "chicken wire." It's not really chicken wire but it's called Hardware Cloth at Home Depot. The wire is 2ft x 5ft and we bought 3 of them. When attaching the flowers to the wire, make sure to place them as closely as possible so there are no gaps between them (you want the wall to look nice and full). 

When it was time for the party we staple gunned them to the fence. They were placed on the fence lengthwise so became a 6ft x 5ft flower wall! At first I feared the wall was too small but it turned out to be the perfect size. 

The party was so much fun, and ended too quick. There was a lot of babies that needed to go to bed! To see more photos of Natalie's birthday party check them out on my Flickr. 

- Christina



The app used for the iPad photo booth is called Pocketbooth.

hello!

This blog has been on hiatus for 3 years almost to the day. I've missed blogging here. This blog is also going to undergo a change. It will continue to be a lifestyle blog, but there will be another primary theme of the blog. Veganism. & being a traveling vegan. Specifically traveling as a vegan will come more to light when my boyfriend, Keith and I go on our European backpacking trip next year. 

Being vegan for four years gives me a relatively good amount of experience with the subject, but there is still so much to learn! & there is also so much to learn in regards to traveling and being vegan. I would say it's 50% easy (having a lot of practice of navigating a menu), and 50% difficult (figuring out where to eat and finding options).

Anyway, I'm so excited to continue this journey with cityloveee. Thank you for joining!


- Christina

P.S. - I reverted my previous posts back to drafts because they were so out of date. I am looking forward to this fresh start!