Back-to-School Binder Covers Tutorial with HP.

     This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #BTSwithHP #CollectiveBias

     The back-to-school season means that it's time for most students to begin lots of shopping. While basic school supplies like pens and binders usually top high on the list, sometimes items that are a bit more investment-worthy are needed for the school year as well, such as a new laptop computer! These days, it is almost impossible for a middle, high school, or college student to be able to complete their homework without having a computer of their own, as so many assignments are either online or require online research to complete nowadays. In college, I even had to take several online classes throughout my four years, meaning that these classes never even met in a physical classroom!


     Since a laptop can be such a big purchase, I know that a lot of students who might be shopping for one will be looking for one that combines convenience and affordability. Luckily- HP has come to the rescue. Walmart stores are carrying a wide array of HP laptops, all at different price points, which are perfect for different students' needs. 


     I recently had the chance to test out one of the new HP laptops (sold at Walmart). The one that I received was an HP Notebook. It came equipped with the latest Intel processor, a crisp HD screen, and high performance backed by over 200 tests! In getting familiar with my new computer, I decided to use it to help with a small project that I'd been wanting to work on for school! As some of you know, I began attending broadcasting school just over a month ago, which is essentially "graduate school" for people in my chosen career path. The start of school came upon me a little earlier this summer than I was expecting, so I am still in the process of figuring out which school supplies to bring with me each week, and what is best helping me studying and homework needs. One thing that I do need is a big binder to help organize all of my class notes. I was using a plain one, but I wanted to try and make a decorated and personalized binder cover to add a little bit of color and pizzaz to my school supplies!


     There are a lot of tutorials online for how to make your own customized monogrammed binder covers, but I already have either my monogram or the letter A on a lot of things, so I wanted to do something a little bit different and add an encouraging bible verse to my binder cover. 

     The first thing that I did was use Microsoft Edge, the all-new web browser that came pre-installed in my HP laptop, to search with and find a pretty background for my binder cover. (Is anyone really that surprised that I went with a Lilly Pulitzer background?!) 

     Next I launched Microsoft Word, which is the program that I used to make the binder covers. You don't have to have Adobe programs or anything fancy to do something like this!

     I then copied and pasted the Lilly Pulitzer background image into the Word document, and resized it to fit the whole page. Then I went under "Insert" and found a shape that I wanted, and placed that over the picture. Lastly, I added a text box over the shape. The text box had a default white color around it, but I was easily able to deselect having any color around the box, so that the text was transparent over the shape. Lastly, I selected a font and typed what I wanted it to say, which was "Broadcasting School," and an encouraging bible verse! 

     

    I have previously owned an HP printer (which I absolutely LOVE), and it was very easy to link my new laptop to the printer using HP's ePrint service. 

     I am just loving how this binder cover came out! It is so much cuter than the plain binder that I was taking with me to school before. 

     You can find my HP Notebook and a wide selection of other laptop models at your local Walmart! 

    Are you currently in the market for a new computer for back-to-school (or for work if you're beyond your school years)? 

     xoxo Miss ALK

How to Make a Car Emergency Kit.

      This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #UBKForMe #CollectiveBias

    Summer is a season known for many things, but something that is quintessentially associated with an American summer is a good old fashion road trip. Whether you're journeying across your state on a day trip excursion, across state lines to visit family or friends, or across the country in pursuit of adventure or exploration, there is no better time than now to hit the road. (Not to mention that gas prices are also quite reasonably priced this summer!) I'm excited to be road tripping with some blogger friends of mine next month when we attend a blogging conference. I'm sure that the car ride will be a highlight of the trip! 

     Unfortunately, sometimes mishaps can occur on road trips. As much as we all love our cars and invest into making sure that they run smoothly, they aren't 100% fool proof. Life can still happen. Mishaps can be anything from car accidents to flat tires to dead batteries, or even just being stuck in a bad traffic jam or hitting a detour. You never quite know what to expect on the open road. 

     While road conditions and car problems might be of surprising nature, one thing that you can do to take action is by preparing an emergency preparedness kit for your car! This kit will have a variety of items in it: some safety related, some that are there for practicality's sake, and a couple of easy entertainment type items in case you are ever stranded somewhere. See what I think are the essential items for a car emergency kit:

    An item that I think is an absolute must-have for an car emergency kit is a paper map (or even better, a paper atlas!). Even though GPS devices and smartphones have now become commonplace as the means for finding our way, technology still isn't 100% fool proof. There are still areas of the country that don't have cell service, and sometimes our devices can also crash on us. Reading a map is an excellent skill to have, and I'm so thankful that my mom taught me how to do this when I was younger! (Fun fact about me: I absolutely adore reading maps and atlases for fun as well!)

     Two items that I also wanted in my own kit were a lint roller and an adult coloring book. You never know when you might be in a sticky situation with your clothes and want to clean up a bit, and as far as a coloring book goes, you also never know when you might be stranded somewhere and need fast and easy entertainment!

     A flashlight and hammer are essential to keep in your car in case of emergencies. These are items that you might not use on a daily basis,  but if you ever need them you'll be so glad they're there! And two items that I use quite often that I keep in my car are packs of tissues and a spare umbrella. Tissues can have a variety of uses, and living in the South... you never know when a downpour will hit!

     And finally, for all of you ladies, keeping feminine hygiene products in your vehicle is an absolute must! I'm not normally one to talk about things like periods on the blog... but let's get real for a second, they don't always come when they're supposed to! And even if yours does, chances are you could have a friend riding in your vehicle who might be having her time of the month. It can sometimes be difficult to pick up your preferred feminine hygiene products when you are traveling and in a quick pinch. My preferred brand for tampons and liners is U by Kotex®. (And no- I'm not just saying that because this is a sponsored post. It actually is! Again without being TMI- I've been using this brand for years and now it's the only brand of products that I will buy.)


      I think that is always better to be safe rather than sorry, and to keep everything back-ups of everything that I might need feminine hygiene-wise in my car and ready to go. This is why my U by Kotex® Click® Tampons and Barely There Liners make up the last item in my car's emergency preparedness kit! You can conveniently find a wide array of  U by Kotex® tampons, pads and liners at your local CVS store: 

     Lastly, I've heard before that some people keep bottles of water and perishable food in their car's emergency kits. Here in the South, summer temperatures are often in the high 90s and feature extreme humidity, so I didn't think it was the most practically decision for my kit to keep food and water in there- I was worried about how long it would last! But if you are from a cooler climate, these might be excellent additions to your car emergency kit. 

     Have you made a car emergency kit before? What would be your essential items for one? 


     
     God Bless,

     xoxo Annaliese 

SouthPark Style.

Top: Talbots || Jeans: American Eagle Outfitters || Shoes: The Walking Company || Earrings: Burlington Coat Factory || Necklace & Ring: {Made by Yours Truly! :-) } || Bracelet: Sharelli Jewelry || Purse: {Gift} || Nails: {Acrylics from my sorority formal} || Lips: Revlon Color Burst Lip Butter in Berry Smoothie

      Finally sharing my very last outfit from Charlotte! After leaving the Queens City a few weeks ago, it's finally sinking in for me that I'm out of North Carolina for the summer. These pictures were taken during the week before my final exams, when I took a little study break by heading to SouthPark Mall with my Charlotte blog bestie Morgan (from How 2 Wear It)! SouthPark is Charlotte's luxury shopping destination- Morgan and I had a great afternoon there together and as pictured you can see that we paid a visit to the brand-new Kendra Scott store!

      I love this top from Talbots! I first wore it on the blog last August in this post (and I also wore it styled differently another time last year for a first date ;-) ). Y'all know that I'm all about bright colors and fun prints, and this shirt has both of those things, plus it is super flattering on! I love continually finding new ways to wear it.

     Fun fact about my necklace and ring: I made both pieces! I used to love making jewelry in high school, and then got to take two semesters of metalsmithing as an elective during my last two years of high school. I haven't done any jewelry making in the last few years, but I miss it! It's a skill that I would love to try again after college!

      xoxo Miss ALK

DIY Tutorial: State Pride Sorority Craft

     I have a really fun DIY craft to share with y'all today! 

     A couple of weeks ago was initiation week for the new members in my chapter of Alpha Delta Pi! In my chapter, we save Big/Little crafts for the night before initiation (instead of at the time of Big/Little reveal). I have been waiting to do a blog post to share with all of you the things that I bought and made for Julie, my Little Diamond Sister!

      My favorite thing that I crafted for her was this canvas craft that featured that state of North Carolina, the name of our school, and our sorority name. It was inspired by something that I originally saw on Pinterest, shown below:

Etsy shop that sells these canvases (which was my inspiration) 

     There wasn't any tutorial attached to this picture on Pinterest since it linked to an Etsy shop, but I thought that I would try and free-hand it! Below is a picture of (almost all of) the craft supplies that I used for this project. Almost everything came from Hobby Lobby, and a couple things that I had to buy once I was already working on the project (more on that later in the post!) came from Michael's, since there's a Michael's five minutes away from my college. When I am away at school I generally prefer shopping for craft supplies at Hobby Lobby though. 

• One 11x14 canvas (although you can use any size canvas that you want to!)
• Stencils (unless you have great caligraphy skills and know that your penmanship will be even ;-))
• Acrylic paint in a color of your choice for the base color of the canvas
• Paint brushes- large brush to coat the canvas and small brush for going over the stenciling
• Paint pen in color of your choice for stenciling
• One sheet of scrapbook paper in color of your choice
• All purpose super adhesive craft glue

     Not pictured:

• Acrylic paint in the same color as the paint pen for touching up the stenciling
• Sticker sheet of small hearts
• Cut-out of state of your choice

 

     I began this craft project by finding a good map image of the state of North Carolina on Google Images, then saving it to my computer and blowing the size of it up in my computer's Preview feature (I have a MacBook). Then I e-mailed it to myself, printed it, and then cut it out!

     

     Next it's time to start getting the base coat of paint on the canvas! I wanted to go for a bright, medium pink color. I ended up originally mixing a custom pink color; combining a darker pink, light pink, and a little bit of white. (This later ended up being a bad idea and I should have just painted the canvas one color straight from the paint bottle, but more on that later!)

All painted! It wasn't quite that dark- the lighting is kind of weird here.

     After the base coat was done, I was ready the trace the state onto the pretty scrapbook paper. I didn't like Hobby Lobby's scrapbook paper selection as much so that was one of the items that I bought at Michael's. I picked out a really sparkly gold piece!

      Important thing to keep in mind: trace out your state THE RIGHT WAY. I ended up having to go back to Michael's the next day to buy a second piece of paper after making this mistake....

      In the mean time, I still wanted to work on getting the lettering started. I used the correct cut-out (from the map) and placed it approximately where I wanted the actual one with scrapbook paper to go, and then started the stenciling around that. I used a paint pen to do the intitial stenciling, and then later went to touch it up with acrylic paint and a fine tipped paint brush to make the letters look bolder.  

      Now here is where I accidently messed up (more than cutting out the state the wrong way!). I got a couple of tiny gold spots on other parts of the canvas, and tried to touch them up with the pink paint. But since the pink shade that I used wasn't directly from the a bottle of paint (it was mixed between three colors of paint), the color that I re-mixed to touch up the gold spots ended up being a little bit too dark... and it kind of looked like grease stains on my canvas. :-/

     You can kind of see the dark spots in these pictures, but they were a lot worse in person. Once the touch-up paint dried, the color was still much darker. So I knew that I had to re-paint the canvas a whole new color! But I didn't want to take off the state of North Carolina or the stenciling, so I decided to paint around that. This was a tedious process which took several hours, but it was worth it in the end! I used a tiny paint brush to paint around all of the stenciled letters and to trace around the state, and then used a larger brush to fill in the rest of the canvas. I had to do 2-3 coats of paint to cover all of the darker pink. Again- this was a step in the craft project that shouldn't have happened! 

       I think I forgot to mention that at this point I had glued on the (correct shaped) state of North Carolina, and also glued a small heart sticker onto the part of the state where Charlotte is since that's where my college is located!

      After a few coats of the new lighter shade of pink, everything turned out okay! Here is the finished product:

     

       Overall this wasn't a super difficult craft! Mine just had a lot of extra steps because I kept making stupid mistakes. :-) But everything still turned out okay in the end! 

   

      I will do another blog post later this week sharing the rest of the items that I purchased and crafted for Julie! 

     In the meantime, stay tuned tomorrow for pictures from a semi-formal event that was held here at my college this past weekend! This is the first time that I am featuring a non-blogging friend's outfit in my pictures as well, and I am really excited about that. :-) 

      xoxo Miss ALK

OOTD: Coral Crush.

Far away picture but shows how bright this dress is!

Dress: Old Navy || Shoes: The Walking Company || Sunglasses: Kohl's || Necklace: {Made by me!} || Bracelets: c/o Jet Chic Arm Candy, {Local Boutique + Gift} || Ring: {Local Boutique} || Purse: Michael Kors || Nails: Ulta Nail Lacquer in Taupe on a Rope || Lips: NYC Color Expert Last Lipstick in Coralista 

     This dress was one of my favorite bargain finds of Summer 2014! I found it marked down to $7.99 at Old Navy during Memorial Day Weekend while I was outlet shopping. I barely own anything from Old Navy because I never seem to luck out with a.) finding good deals there, or b.) finding things that fit me well from there, but this dress surprisingly worked out for both of these! I love this dress for the beautiful bold coral color, how easy it is to dress it up or down, and the fact that the material is so gosh darn comfortable!! I styled the dress for this outfit for a birthday dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant for a sorority sister of mine. Fun fact about the necklace that I paired it with: I actually made the necklace!! During high school I was really into jewelry making- my high school even offered metalsmithing (which was a fancy name for jewelry making) as an art elective and I took two semesters of it. :-)

     It has been really hard for me to get into the mindset of Fall fashion! Spring and summer fashion are my favorite seasons to dress for- I love floral prints, as well as pastels and summer brights. Over the past two years I have loved the month of September in Charlotte because the summer temperatures tend to stick around for the whole month... but this month Fall made a very early debut in the South! This past week was quite chilly in the Queens City, and on Monday the colder weather is supposed to return. So that means that y'all should be seeing more colder weather inspired outfits on the blog soon- whether I like it or not! ;-)

     xoxo Miss ALK

OOTD: Bright Orange Bow.

     This past weekend my aunt and uncle from Long Island, NY were visiting Maine! It was a wonderful opportunity to "play tourists" for the weekend, and one of the things that we did with them was go on a beautiful walk in a neighboring coastal town that overlooked the ocean, rocks and many beach homes. I knew this would be the perfect setting for blog pictures!

Dress: {Bought in a little boutique on my trip to England last winter!} || Shoes: Clarks
|| Jacket: Forever 21 || Sunglasses: Charming Charlie || Bow: Glitter (NC accessories store) || Bracelet: {local boutique} || Ring: {made by yours truly!} 

     This fun little sundress was one of my favorite souvenirs on my trip to England from last December! I also got the beautiful dress that I wore for Easter this past Spring (and a fun cocktail dress that I haven't worn yet!). I've been wearing this dress a lot for my summer job, as it's modest and work appropriate, yet still fun with it's adorable collar, bright color combo and pretty pattern! I also got a really good deal on it when I bought it- it was only 10 euros! I think that translates to approx. $15... not bad at all in my opinion! 

     So my mom got me these Clarks sandals a few weeks ago to add to my very small collection of work shoes. Since my summer job is in retail, I am on my feet for very long periods of time, so my normal summer shoes like Jack Rogers, wedges or other fun sandals hurt my feet too much. At first I planned for these sandals to only be work shoes, but they're growing on me a lot! They are SO comforable- like walking on air! I wore them outside of work when these pictures were taken for hanging out with my family, and I also wore them the day after for a fun day trip that I went on with my friend Shara. I would definitely recommend Clarks if you need some really supportive shoes or if you work in retail like I do! Their shoes might not be the most fashionable, but they aren't as ugly as I thought. ;-) They have grown on me a lot in the cuteness factor!! (I have another pair of Clarks for work as well but those are very old and beaten up and will NOT be making any appearances on the blog lol.)

     For this OOTD post I am linking up to the weekly Trend Spin Link-up that is hosted by the bloggers behind Walking In Memphis in High Heels and The Fashion Canvas! I have been getting e-mailed about these fun trend link-ups for weeks, and this is the first time that I have finally been able to get a post up in time to participate. This week's theme was "bows," and bows are one of my favorite hair accessories (or just favorite accessories in general!), so this was a great first week for me to join in! 

     Today is my first ever double shift at my job! I will be there for a whopping 13 hours!! I am thankful that I was able to get the past two days off so that I could enjoy some fun and R&R before the big shift. :-)

     xoxo Miss ALK