And now, some more super simple Halloween costume ideas, constructed out of pieces currently in the shop (and most of em are on sale!).

Look Uno: The 60′s Hippie

Complete the look with braids + floral crown in your hair, a fringed leather bag and you’re good to go!

Look 2: The 60′s Mod

This is one of my favorite dresses in the shop right now – and not just for Halloween! The color and back are TDF.  Pair this dress with some black tights, black booties, black eyeliner (the more the better) and you’re totally channeling Edie, Twiggy and my favorite, Sienna Miller’s character, Nikki, from the film Alfie.

We have a handful of over-the-top, totally 80s prom dresses on the sale rack right now – just waiting to be paired with some gruesome make-up and a glittery tiara for a vampire/zombie costume. Zombie fill-in-the-blank and Vampire fill-in-the-blank costumes are some of the easiest and most fun to do. You get to look crazy on the cheap!

For this 90s ish get up, we were inspired by My So-Called Life’s Angela Chase. The cropped daisy top, long silky black skirt and rainbow backpack (not pictured) paired with some beat up combat boots and a flannel would complete the look. No, wait, all of those things with an apathetic, unimpressed scowl on your face would complete the look.

Put your hair into braided pigtails, top it with a bonnet and you’ve got yourself a Little House on the Prairie Halloween costume.

Got any other ideas or costumes you’d like to see created from items in the shop? Leave a comment on this post and we’ll try our best to make it happen. Always up for a challenge.

Does anyone else subscribe to Who What Wear Daily? If you don’t, you totally should!  The daily e-mail is an inspiring and quick lunch-time read — and yesterday was no exception.

Erika from P.S. I Made This (one of the best, most fashion-y DIY websites going) gave the (very simple) instructions on how to bleach dye your denim.  It’s a project perfect for an old pair of jeans you never wear anymore (cut off the legs, dip them in some dye and viola!) or just to give new life to a pair of shorts you already have. I also like this method because you can control what the final product will end up looking like.  Splatter the bleach, dip all the way, just the hem…whatever you’re feeling!

In fact:

I’ve got some in the shop right now!  In addition to these, I’ve a a couple pair of fuchsia dyed cut offs, the idea for which I got here. (another awesome DIY website).

Sunday (May 1st) marked bv’s first year anniversary! We celebrated on Saturday night with the unveiling of the second look book and sweet treats.

In honor of the shop’s 365 days, I took to making a few changes. Here are some of em!

• Ian streamlined the look of the blog – made buttons to take you directly to certain types of posts, updated the home page and he even made me a customized favicon up there next to the URL. Sweet, huh?
• Ryan Poe has started selling his handmade leather journals here at the shop. They’ve already become a huge hit! He will be teaching a creative journaling class at the shop this summer, so stay tuned for details

• I’ve started carrying handmade friendship bracelets

• and flower pins, inspired by Carrie

• and cocktail rings, made from vintage clip on earrings

• and dip dyed/bleached vintage cut offs (hand dyed, cut and distressed by yours truly)

• bv has its first intern! Morgan joined us last week to help get the Etsy shop in tip top shape and delve into some DIY projects.  I hope you’ll see her soon around the blog as well.

I can’t say thanks enough to all bv’s friends, family and supporters.  This past year was one of the most challenging, exciting (and stressful!) years I’ve had but it’s all be so, so worth it.  So, thanks again

I hope everyone has a great first weekend in May! For everyone who is graduating, congratulations and good luck! And to all the mommas out there, Happy Mother’s Day!

I’m sure there are lots of people like me right now – knee deep in wrapping paper, ribbon and Scotch tape – and feeling a little uninspired by throwing yet another bow on top of a box.  To re-inspire and motivate you to have a little fun with your gift wrapping, check out these ideas

Homemade yarn pom poms.  If you’ve seen my window displays at the shop, you know I’m a huge fan.  Plus, your gift-ee could totally use it again to hang off their car’s rear window or attach to their keychain.

Crayon wax dripped paper.

Use all different kinds of paper: magazine pages (esp from art magazines), Sunday comics, old maps, sheet music, wallpaper, kraft paper – really, any kind of paper you have.  Tie it with a big, pretty bow and even a Chinese take-out menu will look chic and totally unique.

Use part of the present as the actual gift wrap itself.  This red and white gingham shirt looks super festive and the sparkly vintage brooch is a glam alternative to a paper bow. For smaller packages, a pretty silk scarf or vintage hankie would be so cute!

Use old paper grocery bags or plain brown shipping wrapping paper to wrap your gifts and then glue down paper doilies (you can get them at dollar stores, party stores or any craft store). Tie a pretty ribbon around it and ta-da! You could also cut out your own shapes from pretty paper to achieve the same effect.

I’ve got another easy and fun DIY today!  Handmade cards are always way more fun to give and get, no matter if it’s a fancy hand-painted watercolor card or a crayon-doodled, folded piece of computer paper (plus, you get to decide what to write on the inside, not Hallmark).

While I don’t recommend hand-making a mailing list’s worth of holiday cards (yikes!), creating a few personalized ones to accompany the gifts for your nearest and dearest is a nice way to top off your gifts.

You’ll need:

• Blank cards or postcards (depending if you want an envelope or not)
• ModPodge glue (it comes in satin and matte finish – whichever you prefer)
• A foam brush
• Regular glue stick
• Festive paper
• Cut-outs from magazines
• Scissors
• Buttons, ribbon, glitter, self-adhesive rhinestones – anything you want to use to decorate your cards – the possibilities are pretty endless!
• Markers, sharpies, crayons, pens, etc

If you haven’t used Mod Podge before, it’s a sealer used in decoupaging, and in our case, collaging.  It just seals all the different pieces of paper down together smoothly.  You don’t have to use it, and if you do, use it sparingly (you just brush a coat on over your collaged card [pre embellishment] and let it dry).

I cut out pretty, glittery, festive looking clippings from magazines and all the december catalogs (Free People, Anthropologie and J.Crew were all good ones to use) to collage.

Here are some examples of the handmade gift certificates I made for the shop:

I used a lot of glitter, cut up some of my biz cards for my logo and just cut and pasted pretty images!

Here are a couple of the holiday cards I’ve created so far

For this card I pasted down a piece of green origami paper, picked out a bunch of white buttons from my button jar, and used two differently sized jars to draw a circular line to follow while I was gluing down the buttons.  I used some fabric glue and glued down the bow on the top and voila!

For this card, I cut out lots of sparkly/glittery things from the catalogs (most of it is a photo of a sequined sweater from the J.Crew catalog) and pasted them all together haphazardly and included a bunch of stick-on rhinestones to mimic the rhinestones on the paper.

Again, this project is so super simple and you can make it as personalized to yourself and your friends as you’d like.  You could print out photos from Facebook or cut up old holiday cards that don’t have matching envelopes anymore (we all have them!) to create something totally new.

I hope everyone is enjoying the snow!