Easter Tea Party Camouflage

This was my outfit for Easter Sunday with my family last weekend. I first saw the dress in Forever 21 and I squealed a little when I saw it paired with a black studded pyramid belt. I own this exact belt from another dress (2 actually!) but I'm a sucker for dainty floral dresses with edgy twists like the belt. Love! The gal at the register said it was a very "Rocker Girly Girl" and it would fit me perfectly. (I honestly think people expect me to be much "harder" than I really am... I mean, I know I have tattoos and piercings, but I'm really rather reserved and just... not "hard" in any way. I'm not complaining though!)

I've been sickly the past couple of days and yesterday it was really rough. We woke up really early to leave by 8am to drive to Lawrenceburg to attend Mike's sister, Laine's CNA pinning and then we stayed all day so Mike could photograph his bonus-mom's employees (for their new website which I'll be whipping up!). I felt like a party pooper most of the day as I just started feeling so sickly, but it was a good time and then I had to go work. Womp womp womp. Work was slammed and while it was good money, it was a strange night. I was exhausted, and there were so many situations I wasn't happy with. (For one: A pregnant lady was drinking whiskey and cokes at rapid speed. Keep in mind this is not one glass of wine at like 8 months... this is 5 whiskey and cokes in 1.5 hours and she's 6-7 months pregnant. It's illegal to refuse her alcoholic service in Tennessee, but I stated my stance a long time ago and I refuse to serve anyone who is pregnant and wants to drink. There's a gal who comes in who drinks Shirley Temples and I'll gladly fill her order every time, but I have certain morals that make that part of my job very hard. I can't say to her "I won't serve you because you're pregnant" because that's discrimination, and it's her body so it's her choice... but I can say "I won't serve you simply because I don't want to." That's totally legal. Weird, right? It breaks my heart because we all know whiskey and babies don't mix. But there are so many women out there who simply cannot have their own children and well, you know where I'm going with this. I just won't stand for it. I think the other bartender got a little irritated at me because the girl came to order 4 drinks from me and I just walked off. I just cannot do it.) Then another situation transpired and I'm just glad I got out of there and went home to sleep.

Today Mike and I are going to spend the day together since he has the day off. It's already almost 3pm and I have to leave for work at 8 but a few hours will be nice.

There are still some sponsorship spots open and I'm keeping them open in case anyone else wants to partake in the Red Cross drive (as seen here). So far we've raised $100! It's still open for one more week so don't worry, you've got time! 

Forever 21 dress

Target cardigan

Target tights

Blowfish shoes

Kaelah Bee Handmade headband

Forever 21 purse

PS; I'm thinking about putting all of my variations of these headbands on my Etsy just to offset the insane financial costs of Georgia and Pipkin's surgeries coming up. I have a ridiculous amount of them made for a craft fair I was going to apply to but right now I think the focus should be on paying for their surgeries instead. Let me know if you think you'd be interested, and I'll try to get those up ASAP!

PPS; You can get 15% off your Blowfish Shoes order by using the code BFKAELAH15! Wahoo!

Mother Nature's Fury

Sunday will mark the one year anniversary of when Mike and I (& Georgia) lost our home and almost all of our belongings. (This is how it looked two days later.) Nashville still hasn't fully recovered and I can remember it like it was only yesterday. Scrambling to find out where to go, what to do, and somewhere to seek refuge. Watching our house flood with water up to my shoulders and our very special possessions float right out of our backyard which had become the Harpeth River. It's hard to think back on all of that, even still. To have our whole life ripped away from us in a matter of hours. And then I think of all of those who are suffering from the deadly tornadoes which blew through most of the South in the past two days... they didn't have an hour or two. They didn't have any warning. Instead, Mother Nature took her fury out on thousands of people. With a death toll of over 265, it really feels like it hits close to home.

I know many of you were readers around this time last year. You offered your condolences, sweet letters and care packages, and you were there for us. I cannot even being to express enough gratitude to all of you who were there for us in our time of need. Friends, family and strangers alike, I've never in my life felt such an outpour of love and support. Now it's our turn to help our Sisters to the South with their recovery. I know several of my readers were affected by this disaster, and even if not directly, their friends and family were. With many friends in the Birmingham area, my heart breaks at the coverage on the news.

Sometimes it's hard to fathom just how something like this can happen. Even with living in Tennessee, tornado devestation just seems like something you see on the Weather Channel. Like it doesn't actually happen. Much less to you or someone you know. But that is exactly how I felt about floods.. and then I experienced one for myself. My life has been changed dramatically by that event, and I'll forever remember it. Even a year later, I honestly feel as though it was some sort of twisted blessing in disguise because it brought into my life so many wonderful people. Our entire community pulled together to support one another when the catastrophe failed to make national news. We fended for ourselves, but that doesn't mean they should have to.

With that being said, I wanted to touch base on a few ways that you can help! You can text 90999 from your cellphone to donate $10 to the Red Cross (it will show up on your next statement) or you can donate directly at RedCross.org. If you are located in the Southeast and would like to volunteer your time, you can look for opportunities to help with cleanup. 

From now until May 7th, I will donate 100% of the proceeds to the Red Cross from anyone who wants to sponsor Little Chief Honeybee.

It's so easy for us to just look at the news and feel numb when we see things like this. The media has definitely left us a little less responsive to catastrophic events such as what just happened. So many people were there for us when we needed it, and it really truly meant so much. Now it's our turn to give back. If you've been on the fence about sponsoring before, think of it as a wonderful way to help those in need. People have been stripped of their homes, material possessions, and even family members. All of the proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross here in Nashville (down the street from our house) on Monday, May 9th. Please email me at kaelahbee@gmail.com if you'd like to partake.

Things I Love Thursday

I woke up feeling rather sickly this morning so I think a lovely list of magical things is just the medicine I need! Happy Thursday, honeybees!

♥ this no-nonsense job posting ♥

♥ this dress ♥

♥ this hovercat ♥

♥ this will ferrel parody twitter ♥

♥ this adorable kiddo ♥

♥ these apple sandwiches ♥

♥ this artistic kitty ♥

♥ this show will never not be funny ♥

♥ this magical experience ♥

♥ this gorgeous makeup ♥

♥ this awesome breakfast club infographic ♥

What are you loving this week?

70's Lady

Even in light of recent computer woes, my new iMac and I are getting along rather nicely. Still trying to work out in the kinks with Apple and MacAuthority to have my 250gb harddrive replaced in my MacBook Pro (Apple will only cover 160gb of it but hopefully MA will help me out!). I had a mini-breakdown yesterday about everything I lost but I pulled myself together and I'm making the most of it! I hate to be such a sap! Anyway- I'm ready to be posting some outfit photos from last week. It's good timing too because the weather in Nashville is such crap right now (Well, I love thunderstorms, but they're not very conducive to my blog. Neither is Mike's work schedule. sigh) 

I wore this outfit out and about this weekend when Mike and I decided to head out for Mexican food. Las Palmas is a little mexican restaurant down Charlotte Pike and we were thoroughly impressed. They claim to have the best margaritas in town but I'm not much for those! 

The dress was sent to me by ModCloth and I am in love! The print, fit, silhouette and length are perfect! So many dresses now are booty skimmers (and I stand tall at a staggering 5'2!) so when I opened this to see that it was of decent length to wear sans tights, I was elated. (And I really don't like to not wear tights. Yow!) Peep them pasty white legs! (You can also see a little mosquito giving me a big ol bite in one of them! Okay, enough parentheses!) Paired with my cork platforms, this is totally a 70's style number.  The shoes are my Blowfish faves and I opted to go a rather controversial route with the lacy socks. I know oh so many are against the 90's childhood throwback but I wanted to try. And to be honest, I kind of like it. But hey, that's just me!

I wish the weather would cooperate with me a bit. I have so many errands to run today and the rain really isn't helping matters much! Either way, off I go! xo

Pocket Full of Posies dress c/o ModCloth

Target cardigan

Thrifted belt

Thrifted bag

Sock Dreams socks

Garren wedges c/o Blowfish Shoes

Right On Time

today is a new day. started with a new (brilliant!) cup of coffee. new kisses on the face of my future husband. new cuddles with my favorite furry girls. new tasks on the to-do list. new things to be grateful for. new friends to meet. and new adventures to seek.

today is a new day and i am excited!

happy wednesday, honeybees! 

i hope this is the best wednesday yet! xo

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Well, yesterday was not fun. I had a serious case of the Mondays and so did practically everyone else I know. I generally really like Mondays, so this one came as a surprise. If you follow me on Twitter then you probably know how it all went down. But if not, let's backtrack. Remember when I was complaining of computer-related stress last week? My MacBook Pro was finding it hard to function, then I thought I remedied the problem. Turns out I didn't. As it would seem, my drivers failed, my directory got all scrambled then low-and-behold... my harddrive crashed. Again. (This happened in '08, too.) Many trips to the Apple Genius bar later, I spent 3 hours at the bar, 1 at Best Buy trying to locate a decent new external harddrive, and then I spent about 2 just crying. Not sure if anyone remembers the tiny little detail of Pipkin completely annhiliating my external harddrive a few weeks ago? She did. She chewed it to pieces. It had the only backup of my senior portfolio. The only backup of all of my design-related coding, etc. Luckily I can get most of my pictures from Flickr or Photobucket, and my music is on Mike's iPod (this is where Senuti comes in handy!). But no portfolio. No design jobs. No wedding plans. and I think the worst part was: No bookmarks! And I'm a person who bookmarks EVERYTHING!

I lost all of my sponsor information so I've been poring through emails for hours trying to relocate them (found them all, I think! But if you're a sponsor for several months, please email me to make sure I know! Otherwise we'll have to work it out once you realize I forgot you! >.<)

Anyway, it could be worse. I'm not sure how... but it could be. Well, like if I hadn't been covered by AppleCare. That would've sucked. But I was. So it's fixed. and it was free. But I'm still bummed. My parents surprised me with my graduation present yesterday... something I've been saving up money for on my own. I cried a lot when my mom offered it to me, too. I think I just really cried a lot yesterday. (Such a sap.) This isn't meant to be one of those "woe is me! I'm so sad!" posts, but I hate that it happened and I do feel incredibly blessed by my parents who offered up something so unbelievably huge for graduation. They bought me a 27" iMac for my desk/office and it's amazing. I can only get excited about the amount of productivity that will come from it! I'll still have my MBP, but now I can work diligently at home, with less strain on my back, and maybe even knock some awesome designs out.

So here I am... asking all of y'all for some help! 1) Bear with me! This week's posts will likely be scattered and not make much sense. I'll probably miss a few features, and there'll be some delay in responding to emails. So so sorry! I'm just trying to catch up and reinstall a bunch of software, etc. 2) Send me links to any/all of your favorite websites, blogs, tumblrs, etc. It can be anything at all. Funny article? Send it. Silly pictures? Send it. Cool design thing? Send it! Your blogs, even! Like I said, I bookmark everything so losing it all is rough! 3) If you've sent me an email about an interview, feature, or guest post, please double check with me to make sure I've found it in my email! I've lost my entire to-do list! I know of a couple so I'm trying to work like a maniac to make it happen!

I still have a couple of sponsorship spots available. CLICK HERE if you wanna learn more or just email me! kaelahbee@gmail.com!

I'm going to just look at this as "April showers bring May flowers!" It happened for a reason and I know I need to make the best of it! Everything on my computers will be synced, organized, and intentional. No more clutter! Make lemons into lemonade, right?! xo

PS: Winners for the Vedette Shapewear giveaway have been announced! HERE!

Sponsor Spotlight + Giveaway: Elle of Elle.MNOP!

Today we've got our Extra Large sponsor (and my crafty gal pal), Elle from Elle.mnop indulging us with a sweet little interview and insights on her crafty life with her sweet pup and fella! I know several of you read Elle's blog already and I think all the rest of you should as well! It's a really fun and inspiring blog which will motivate you to break away from the computer and get your hands dirty! (Seriously... we made mosaic pots two nights this past week and we were covered in glue and grout! Dirty!)

Hi Elle! LCH is super tickled to have you as our Extra Large sponsor this month! I already know tons about you so how about you introduce yourself to the rest of the Honeybees? Tell us what makes you tick!

-Kaelah thanks again for letting me sponsor LCH this month I am so excited about it! Well for those of you that don't know me I have four loves in my life: my boyfriend Bryan, my awesome dog Riley, my career in web design, and of course crafting projects and creating things. I spend around 8-10 hours every day in the computer designing and as much as I love it it is very important to have a break from it at some point in the day. This is where the crafting comes in... There are many different ways to stay creative and inspired and as much as I love to look at other designer's work I get the most inspiration when I am creating and getting hands on with something.

So you write a blog called Elle.mnop… That's a super clever name! When did you start Elle.mnop and how did it come to fruition? What's the buzz all about?

- Well my name is Elle and at a serving job I had at Macaroni Grill everyone had nicknames and after many failed attempts of nicknaming me they came up with the nickname "lmnop" for me. At first I hated it and then I decided to embrace it and have loved it ever since! So when thinking of a blog name it just seemed right.

What are some things you hope to accomplish with your sweet blog?

-I have been blogging for almost a year now and I really love it! At first I mainly posted on online inspiration like artists and designs with a few craft projects sprinkled throughout. For the month of April I have done a craft project everyday and while its been challenging to complete sometimes I have loved how creative it has made me. For the future of Elle.mnop, I hope to continue to inspire people and create tons more projects that everyone can do.

Since you dove headfirst into blogging, what has been your favorite part of the experience? How about least favorite?

-My favorite part has got to be all the people I have meet in the process along with the great feedback. It makes me so excited to hear that people have actually tried some of the projects that I have created! My least favorite part was probably the beginning and starting it all. I found it to be hard to keep writing and creating for my blog when only a handful of people actually read it and it was mainly family. I am so glad I stayed with it though and didn't give up. Of course I want tons of people to read my blog but I had to learn to focus on the people that were actually reading it and keep them inspired.

What is a "typical day" in the life of Elle like?

-I am a hardcore multitasker so my days are pretty packed! I work at a web design firm in downtown Nashville from 9-6 and then head home to walk the dog. Walking the dog is actually my favorite part of the whole day because it lets me unwind and relax and of course get outside and walking around which I don't do much during the day. Next I try to cook a nice dinner for myself and Bryan but I'm still in the learning stages of cooking so sometimes its not so nice haha. The rest of my evening involves working out, creating, doing the next day's blog post, playing with the dog, and the occasional tv watching. Somehow I get it all done and don't sacrifice too much sleep which is always good!

Where do you find most of your inspiration? Do you read loads of other blogs to get the fire burning or do you find it in more unexpected places? 

-I read tons of blogs and normally have around 300 posts each day sitting in my Google Reader. I get a lot of my inspiration from fellow bloggers and designers but honestly most of my inspiration comes while driving. I drive an hour rounddtrip each day to work so I think a lot in the car. A lot of my craft projects come about from an idea while driving or a desire to recreate something with a twist on it.

What are some of your  daily reads that you can't get enough of?

- I of course read LCH everyday to find out what you are up too since I don't get to see you that much (sorry probably my fault) and I also love to read A Beautiful Mess, Design Sponge, Oh Joy, Turquoise Ink, the Martha Blog by Martha Stewart, and so so many more. One of my favorite things though is finding new blogs and new bloggers to get inspired by.

If you could just imagine awesome things into being, where would you see yourself in five years? What would you be doing?

-In five years I would love to see myself with a greeting card line in local boutiques along with options for custom invitations for weddings and baby announcements. I used to do illustrations for a shop in Murfreesboro, TN and I absolutely fell in love with how creative you could be and how much you could impact someone's special days. As much as I love web design, my dream has always been to own my own business so I would love to see myself working towards that goal in the next few years.

Any parting words of wisdom to the little honeybees looking to start their own blog or delve into a handmade life?

-I definitely recommend both to everyone! My main piece of advice would be to not focus on the number of people reading your blog but more enjoy writing it and just have fun! Write about things you want to and not just things you think people will read because your heart won't be into it then.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Elle is offering up a lucky winner two handmade journals with custom marbleized paper along with a hand sewn binding. If you don't win the giveaway you can find both of these DIY projects HERE and HERE!

All you gotta do to enter to win is visit Elle.mnop and leave a comment below!

You can earn extra entries by following her on Twitter and/or "Like" Elle.mnop on Facebook! Just leave a separate comment for each entry (up to 3 total)!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Window Shopping + Daydreaming

I like clothes. I won't lie. I don't think they're a necessity for a full and happy life (Well, we have to cover ourselves... but you get what I mean!), but I really really like them. Even more so... I really like shoes. I never thought I'd be a shoe girl. Constantly being asked "Why do you wear the same black flats every single day?" I would just pout off with "I'm not a shoe girl. I don't like shoes. I don't care about shoes." Boy, how the times are changing! It all started with some funky Dolce Vita wedges and then it just snowballed! Dolce Vita, Blowfish and finally... my true (shoe) love... Jeffrey Campbell.

I was browsing around LuLu's today and I couldn't help but peruse the shoe section like a wide-eyed kid in a candy shop. So many beautiful soles... they need to be adopted into my wardrobe! Quickly! Here are my six favorites that I'm drooling over! All but two are JC... sigh. Let's start a "Kaelah needs pretty shoes!" fund, yea? Totally!

1. Nina Sheona Capri Platforms: I think I just love the chunky look of the heel and the bright pink accent straps. The studs on the side toughen up the feminine color and make them just look like ultra rad shoes! I'd wear them with this BB Dakota by Jack Fiona strapless dress! With the Eliza Doolittle Black purse!

2. Jeffrey Campbell Ford Platform Booties: I love the subtle cutout of these booties and that duo-tone brown! They're like the little sister to the famous Litas and they've got a sexy vibe going on. I'd wear them with this Tulle Apricot Preserves dress! With the Melle Bianco Violet Blush Pink handabag!

3. Michael Antonio Studio Mercer Ankle Booties: Hold the phone! Just look at these! I die! Those buckles and subtle tan color... They kill me! That wedge heel is so insane! I'd wear them with this Ophelia's Flowers blush pink dress! With the Material Girl Multi Stripe purse!

4. Jeffrey Campbell Sunny Orange Platform Wedges: The color combination of these are begging to be worn all Spring, Summer and Autumn! Paired with pretty tights or a statement sundress, I can imagine lots of picnics in these babies! I'd wear them with this Sunshine Coffee brown dress! With the Queen Palm beige handbag!

5. Jeffrey Campbell Daisy D Platform Wedges (Cheetah): I already own the Daisy D platforms in Navy+Red Bow and I love them! These are just begging to be brought into my wardrobe! I've been fearful of animal print in the past but these I just need! I'd wear them with this Splendiferous ivory dress! With the Proper Passage Pink tote!

6. Jeffrey Campbell Lana Ankle Boots: I'm obsessed with the curve of the chunky heel on these! The hidden platform and the cut out back heel are just fierce. They're the perfect equilibrium to a ultra swanky and feminine sundress, or even a white sundress with a black studded motorcycle jacket. Oh my stars! I'd wear them with this Dolly's Day Drive red dress! Maybe throw in the Hip Hip Hooray Floral Fanny pack just for fun?!

I mean... my birthday is only 50 weeks away! ;)

A Date Day and Thrifting!

Date days are my favorite! Sweet treats like froyo and sortbet. Hours of sifting through thrifted finds. and lovely company to spend it with!

How's your weekend shaping up so far?

PS; Anyone need a "scraf" or two? ;)