Thrift Style Thursday - One With Nature

It's Thursday and that means it's time for Thrift Style Thursday again!  Our theme this week comes from Kristi of Delightfully Kristi and she suggested natural and earthy tones inspired by nature to celebrate spring!  I went pretty neutral on this one with just a pop of color from my necklace and handbag.  

It was super warm in MN yesterday, but today not as much, so while I would love to be wearing a dress or a skirt I went instead with one of my favorite pairs of jeggings, but rolled them a little to make them more like ankle pants!  We got a bunch of rain last night so I'm hoping that the grass you see around me will get much more green soon!  So that's kind of what my outfit represents today - the tan and browns are the trees and grass at the end of winter waiting and coming out of dormancy and the brightness from my bag represents those first sprouts of buds, the first green poking through in the grass.  Deep stuff right?

Sweater - Old Navy (handed down from friend), Blouse - Mossimo (Target)
Jeans - H&M (thrifted), Necklace - DIY by me

Shoes - Mossimo (thrifted), Bag - Merona (Target) 

I'm hoping to spend some time out in nature this weekend, hopefully the weather will cooperate for that!  For other nature and earthy inspired Thrift Style Thursday posts, check out all the lovely ladies at their blogs listed below!  And don't forget to enter our Gift of Thrift giveaway!  All the details can be found in this post.

Thrift Style Thursday - Fringe benefits

The theme for this week's Thrift Style Thursday is fringe.  I was originally going to sit this week out as I own not a single fringed item - but then I started looking at some DIY projects online late yesterday and I found a tutorial on how to make a fringed scarf.  It was another easy DIY for my spazzy self to handle so I gave it a go and I'm actually really excited about how it turned out!

All you need to make this scarf is an old t-shirt you no longer want to wear.  You cut it off at the armpits so you have a rectangle and then take and make cuts from the bottom - as long as you want the fringe essentially - all around the shirt.  Stretch out your strips and boom.  It could not be easier to make this bad boy!  How's that for resourceful?

I also added one of my favorite pair of Minnetonka Moccasins - not thrifted, but still fringy and also one of my favorite bags that is also not thrifted, but features fringe's close cousin the tassle.  Add that to my favorite flowy maxi dress and suddenly you've got a fun boho look for early fall!  Yes I said fall.  It's coming people. Deal with it.

Dress - Cliche Mpls (from friend), Sweater - Camy Couture

Scarf - DIY by me, Bag - Urban Expressions (Lulu's)

Shoes - Minnetonka Moccasins, Bracelets - S&D 

Oliver loved my scarf too.  He loves when I wear anything that dangles over him when I pick him up or take him out of the car in his carseat.  He grabs on and won't let go.  It's adorable, I think he's learning dangly things are fun by watching the cats or something!

For other fringe-y fun, head to the other Thrift Style Thursday blogs below:

Spoolish//Sandpaper Kisses//Sincerely Miss J//Confessions of a Refashonista//

Alligator Toe//Buttons&Birdcages//Snippets With Alex//
Eclecticity//Being Zhenya//Erika's Style Diary//Sistas from Cali//

The Two Cent Chick//Lipstick And Yarn//Nuttier Than Nutella//
That Cheap Bitch//Slight Impression

Homebrew love

Nate and I love beer.  It's much more than a "oh man I want to drink to get smashed" kind of thing.  We enjoy it for the flavor, we enjoy trying different kinds, we like pairing it with food.  It's truly something that is just interesting and fun to us!  About six years ago Nate was lucky enough to inherit some homebrewing equipment from his now late grandfather and it was during a time he was out of work and needing something to do, so he took up homebrewing his own beer and it just evolved and grew over time.  We now have a bar with seven taps in our basement and have fun coming up with fun and delicious brews to fill it up with.  For fun, I thought I'd kind of walk you through the homebrew process in case you were curious!
We do two types of brewing - extract and all grain.  The best way I can think of to describe the difference is this.  Extract brewing is like making a cake from a cake mix.  Some of the ingredients are already put together for you but you add a few of your own to make an awesome creation.  All grain brewing is like baking a cake completely from scratch.  All grain is definitely my favorite - it's hard to tell the difference between Nate's all grain beer and the stuff you can buy in the store.  Extract brew still turns out and tastes delicious, but you can tell it's not quite the same as the all grain.  We mostly do all grain now, but it is a ton more work so this past weekend we did an extract brew.  Nate was mostly looking to get a batch done quickly so we can have a full stocked bar ready to go for our Oktoberfest party in late October.  Extract brew is a great place for a new brewer to start out - you buy a pre-made kit and all the instructions are right there for you (even this spaz can do an extract brew!)

 1. Giant pot  2. Adding the grains 3. Adding the malt

We use a giant pot that used to be part of Nate's dad's turkey fryer.  The process of brewing is almost like making a giant pot of tea - you get your water boiled to a certain temperature, then you steep your grains much like you would a tea bag.  The rest of the items that really make beer be well, beer, are not added until almost the very end.  It is usually about an hour or so to steep the grains.  Then you add in things like hops, malt and anything you want to use to flavor your beer.  This particular batch is a raspberry porter, so we are going to be adding in some fresh raspberries after the beer starts fermenting a bit.

1. Ollie "supervising"  2. Nate enjoying a cold one while waiting 3. My beer on the table  4. Cooling the wort
We do the brewing outside when we can for a couple of reasons - it's easy to use the propane from our grill and then we use something Nate made called a "wort chiller" to cool the "wort" (wort = boiled grains and ingredients) that attaches to our garden hose.  The goal is to get the wort cooled down very quickly and this copper contraption that he built takes in water and gets nice and cold very fast.  We used to stick the pot in a bathtub full of ice water and it could take 45 minutes or more to cool it down.  Now we can do it in six minutes or under.
Of course while we're brewing we have to drink a beer.  We also have a very cute supervisor now too.  I imagine he will get a kick out of helping his daddy eventually!  We'll be the cool parents (judge all you want) who will even let him have a sip when he's older.  
The beer will need to sit in fermentation (we use our basement bathroom, nice dark cool spot) for anywhere from three to six weeks depending on the type of beer.  Then it's kegged and thrown into our bar!  It needs a few days to get some carbonation going and then it's good to drink.  Below is a picture of our bar.

Our bar!  We actually have a seventh tap in the middle now - a "stout" faucet
We used to bottle the beer which was nice to be able to share with friends - but was a TON more work if you can believe that.  We recently figured out a way we can still share beer with friends.  Nate brewed a special anniversary brew for some friends of ours and bought something cool called a "jockey box" which is basically a cooler that was fixed up to be a little mini keg system.  It's fun to now have a way to share beer with people again!  The only downside is we have yet to figure out how to clean it...and one huge thing about anything with homebrew - everything must be sanitized and cleaned really well.  If it isn't it can actually cause your beer to get infected which can mess with the flavor and end result of your beer.  It won't necessarily make you sick if you drink it, but it won't be good!

Jockey box that can hold up to two taps if we want!
So, there you have it, my really brief sort of idiots guide to homebrewing.  Nate was attempting a homebrew blog for awhile and it kind of fell by the wayside.  He absolutely loves talking about homebrew and helping others though, so if you have questions, let me know and I'll pass them along to him!

Thrift Style Thursday - Denim Rebel

I'm pretty excited about this week's Thrift Style Thursday - who doesn't love denim?  What I'm more excited about though is the actual denim I'm wearing.  I did a very basic, simple DIY!  I had been resisting shorts for years, I got to a point where for some reason I no longer liked my legs.  Then two summers ago it was crazy hot, we went to St. Louis where it was into the 100s for highs and I decided I needed shorts again so I started easing them back into my wardrobe - but surprisingly not a single pair was denim.  Then last summer when I was pregnant I had two pairs of denim maternity shorts that were the best thing ever.  Flash forward to this summer and I found one pair of denim shorts before the shopping ban - and lately have been feeling like that isn't enough.  What is a girl on a shopping ban going to do?  Make her own!!  I took a pair of jeans that were sitting in my "get rid of" pile and turned them into cutoffs!

Now I'm sure you're all going - any idiot can take jeans and make them into cutoffs.  And you'd be right - but I'm one of those idiots who is all thumbs with even the easiest DIY projects.  I actually watched several YouTube videos before taking my scissors to these jeans.  I'm pretty proud of them, not only do I like the rough distressed edge I got on them, I also added some distressing to the legs with some rips and holes that I also learned how to do through some online videos and the overall result is pretty fun!  They are a little shorter than I was intending, but in the end I'm kind of glad - and my mom said it best "you're young and have nice legs, might as well show them off while you still can!"  She's right, I do kind of like my legs again - must be all that cardio and lifting from taking care of a 20 pound plus child!

 Shirt - thrifted, Shorts - DIY cutoffs from thrifted Gap jeans

Bag - Fossil (flea market), Sandals - Target

Sunglasses - Target

These were super comfy for my shopping trip to the Just Between Friends sale last Friday and for just kicking around the house with Oliver!  I'm anxious now to try some other DIY projects - over the weekend I successfully made two turban style headbands from t-shirts and my next project is taking a denim jacket and turning it into a vest.  I have already done the "turn into a vest" part, but now I want to bleach it so it's lighter colored.  Apparently my jumping into DIY projects is kind of like opening a can of Pringles, once you pop the fun don't stop!  Or something like that!  If you have any super simple DIY projects to share, send them my way!

Check out the other denim rebels at their blogs below!

Spoolish//Sandpaper Kisses//Sincerely Miss J//Confessions of a Refashonista//

Alligator Toe//Buttons&Birdcages//Snippets With Alex//
Eclecticity//Being Zhenya//Erika's Style Diary//Sistas from Cali//

The Two Cent Chick//Lipstick And Yarn//Nuttier Than Nutella//
That Cheap Bitch//Slight Impression