Salty Kisses & Sandy Toes

  Although most people dream of having sunny, 85 degree weather everyday, it sure is nice to have a break in the sunny routine with a few days of stormy weather.  I sure do love some sunshine, but a little variety is always welcome!  

  You can usually count on a stormy week in January every year, but we’ve missed out on any good rainfalls in South Maui the last few years.  I love when it rains here because everything turns a vibrant green that just screams life and growth!  The longer we live here, the more I appreciate the beauty of the rain. 

  This last week’s storm brought amazingly huge swells and beautiful rainbows – it was truly one of the most beautiful weeks I think I have ever experienced in my (almost) 10 years of living on Maui.  Here are a few favorite highlights from these rainy days

                                                            Turtle Bay

                                                               Ho'okipa

                                                            Peahi (Jaws)

                                         Rainbow Hale (hale is home in Hawaiian)

                                                            Rainy Day Selfie

These little guys are my new favorite thing.  So cute, so functional and actually work!  I have super fine, super straight hair and even if I put my hair up for 5 minutes, I would get a big, ugly dent.  But not anymore! These new no crease hair ties really do leave your hair perfect – I can even sleep with my hair in a ponytail all night and my hair is perfect the next day. Unbelievable! 

   I’m sure you’ve seen them everywhere, as they are super “hip” this season.  Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, Forever 21… and yes, Salty Kisses and Sandy Toes!  I have a unique line of premium, hand made, no crease hair ties.  Unique color combinations that include fancy glitter and lace ties too!  You can see the whole collection here at my Etsy Store – saltyandsandy.etsy.com

  Make sure you check out my Valentine’s Day collection – Limited Edition 3 packs of my no crease hair ties – they are on special right now where you can purchase and ship a set all for under $10!

 As everyone knows, I have quite the obsession with starfish.  I have starfish all over my house and they are definitely my most favorite thing to create new items with.  I recently got a supply of mini knobby starfish that are just SO CUTE. 

  They add a whimsical and sweet touch to so many projects.  From re-purposed wood framed starfish to starfish hair clips – I’m having a hard time not hoarding all of these news creations for myself! 

I love re-purposing vintage linens into something functional - here's a fun vintage beach blanket that I made with a combination of new and old fabrics.  The brown and cream geometric print is a vintage bed sheet that I got at a garage sale and the blue and white fabric I purchased here on island  - I liked it because it was kind of a modern take on the traditional Hawaiian print. 

For an easy DIY gift, I just laid these out on the floor and folded and pinned the excess vintage fabric over the blue printed fabric to make a fun border.  Then I just added a little blue accent on the vintage side to tie it all together and make it have a fun little surprise!

This little dresser had been sitting in the garage for over a year waiting for me to get enough inspiration to work on it! Marshall was convinced that I had forgotten about this piece and that it was safe to move it into the crawl space… Of course just a few days later I asked “where did that black dresser go?” Never underestimate my DIY motivation on summer break!

Since I hate sanding, I decided to just paint over the existing black paint with white paint on the drawers and sea foam green on the rest of the dresser. I had initially wanted to try my hand at a herringbone stencil on the drawers BUT after the first coat of white paint I realized that all original plans would need to be… adjusted to say the least! All the paint bubbled underneath and left this ugly, lumpy finish… That’s what I get for skipping sanding :(

New plan! Painted some blue stripes and then sanded the heck out of the whole piece to distress it. It came out this really interesting combo with the stripes and the black coming through… Although it slightly looks like a cow to me! The black and white spots… Did I start a new trend? Nautical Dairy? Well whatever it’s called I love it and I’m so glad to finally have it finished and out if the garage!

I wanted to make a beach sign for the garage to hang above where we put all our beach towels. I had seen these wooden signs selling for a fortune in “beach” stores with surfboard prints or “this way to the beach” text on it, selling for over $80! YIKES!  I just knew I could recreate it for a fraction of the price.  As usual, I grossly underestimated how long it would take to finish this project, specifically hand painting the letters.  I thought this was going to be a 1 hour project - but it was more like 3-4.  But I just brought the sign up into my living room and watched a few episodes of GLEE while I painted.

  Sidenote, the combination of GLEE and DIY is wonderful - 2 things that put a big smile on my face!  And when they’re combined, they equal a wonderful afternoon! Has anyone seen the GLEE 3D movie? We ordered it through our NETFLIX and I watched it TWICE within 24hrs.  I’m such a dork. I loved every second of it!

I finished this sign the day we had some Canadian guests visit for the weekend, Aaron and Amy Castle.  They are old friends from university and it was so amazing to catch up with them both.  We had a blast together and they gave me the kick in the butt I needed to start this blog.  I had been thinking about starting a DIY blog with all my projects for awhile, but never got around to it.  Aaron and Amy have an amazing food blog - www.thearugulacastle.com - and have starting their own catering company in Calgary.  They encouraged us to start the blog and use the sign as inspiration! Thanks for the encouragement guys - now we can follow each other’s creations!

This dresser was another craigslist score.  I knew it was the exact dresser I was looking for so I quickly emailed the seller and then spent the next hour full of anxiety wondering if it had already sold!  I swear I refreshed the craigslist ad 50 times to make sure it was still for sale!

Luckily I happened to be the first one to email the seller and fate would have it that he was only a few blocks from our house, so we took the truck over and loaded up this beauty!  Now it wasn’t looking so great at first as it had clearly been sitting in the garage for a few years. But I knew this dresser had the bones for something really beautiful! And really it didn’t take much for her to be transformed -   some cleaning, a little sanding and some white paint and look at the difference!  

Just goes to show you how simple transformations really can be if you know what to look for!  I need to finish the gray detailing on the drawers but I’m really pleased with how quickly this piece was transformed into something really special.

My parents were in Barbado’s last year during a tropical storm and they went down to the beach the next morning and it was littered with sea fan’s!  Oh my, how crazy I would have gone if I was there myself! JACKPOT! Thankfully, my parents know me oh so well and picked out a BEAUTIFUL large sea fan for me.  How they managed to get a 28inch sea fan from Barbados to Hawaii was definitely tricky but they figured it out.  Out of all the projects I’ve done, this one is probably my favourite!  It is so beautiful to me - the fan, the colours, the fact that it cost under $20 to make and most importantly that Marshall and I made everything together... DIY perfection.  Read more for the full DIY.

Next week will be my first big craft fair!  I’m so excited and I’ve been busy busy making all of my creations for the big day!  I am loving everything I’m making so much I’m having a hard time think about selling it!  I guess that’s a good sign though... it means every piece is truly unique and created with lots of love!

Portuguese Water Dogs are considered “working” dogs - and although I knew that meant that Scout would have lots of energy that needed to be honed into something productive… what I didn’t know was that it would mean that she is quite serious about work too!

I recently got Scout a doggie backpack so she can carry some weight on her when we go for hikes and walks. She can carry a few water bottles which will lighten our load and help us tire her out.

We went up to the Haleakala Crater last weekend and we decided to put her new backpack on to give it a test run and let her get used to it What we didn’t expect was that Scout misunderstood this trial run and decided that this was her “work backpack” - she was on a mission! Once that backpack goes on Scout is all business full of purpose! She has this little extra pep in her step and she stands so tall and proud! Its adorable. Look at this proud Portie standing on the top of the mountain! Here we are at 10,000 feet and Scout is certainly enjoying the cool, crisp mountain air!

  I’ve been on the hunt for an IPAD case but most don’t look very nice and the one’s that do cost a FORTUNE!  DIY to the rescue!  And once again, I lucked out with another patternless sewing project that turned out really well - that always makes me feel fantastic!

  This is a great project for using up old scrap pieces of fabric.  I just laid the fabric down, put the IPAD on top and cut the fabric 2 inches wider than the IPAD.   I also put an accent fabric on the bottom of mine but you can do it with just 1 piece of fabric too.   I sewed the  right sides together, leaving the top open.  To finish the top,  fold over 2 times and sew your top fabric around the edge to finish it cleanly.

Here’s a picture of my first pattern.

Pretty cute but a little more "rustic"

There's really only 1 store on Maui that sells beach inspired furniture and decor - THE NEST.  It is a little pricey but at least it gives us the option to find unique pieces that are not Hawaiian print or bamboo!   Yesterday they had their AMAZING annual sidewalk sale and we scored big time!  We picked up this beautiful table - we've seen tables like this sell for hundreds and we got it for $50! It was on an extra clearance because it has a big crack in the wood.  The crack doesn't affect the structure and I personally think it gives it even more character.

We got it home and it looked a little too "Bali style" for me.  The lines have a little bit more of an Asian flair to them which doesn't really fit with our beach theme.  A simple solution is swapping out the hardware.  Luckily I had stumbled across some really neat pewter sea shell drawer pulls at a random estate sale about a year ago.  It took about 45 minutes for Marshall and I to find them but once we made the swap and decorated the top - Beachy transformation!

Watch out!  These are dangerously addictive and really easy to make!  Unlike most cheesecakes that can take over an hour to bake and hours to cool - these mini cheesecakes can be prepared and baked in less than 1 hour! The recipe is an adapted version from Paula Deen - with a few changes to reduce the sugar content.  That woman loves her sugar and butter!  So yummy and easy to make - make sure you have people around to share them with otherwise you’ll be tempted to eat them all yourself! Luckily I'm hosting a girls night tonight - so lots of friends to share yummy treats with!  Read more for the full recipe.    

I love making homemade gifts for people.  They are thoughtful and you can personalize them for whoever and whatever occasion.  One of my favourite things to make recently are bags - beach bags, grocery bags, gym bags - really its just a tote bag but I’ve been using mine for everything these days!  This is a really simple bag to make and they are super cute! So if you just love these bags, I do take custom orders OR you can read more for the full tutorial to see if you can make them on your own!

People often ask us “what is it really like to live in Hawaii?”  It really is amazing - I’m not going to deny that, but the real answer is that it’s full of life’s everyday tasks that are not so glamorous - work, dishes, cooking, laundry... but of course,  we also can walk 5 minutes down to the beach for sunset every night, in fact, this picture is from last night's beach walk!