Ninna Lu

A Home Girl's Holiday Gift Guide

 

HOME is where the heart lives and grows.

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HOUSE + LOVE = HOME

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Whereever we are together that is HOME.

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LOVE is spoken here.

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HOME is happiness made simple.

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HOME is the place you want to return to over and over.

~

   Those were just a few inspiring quotes that I'd like to share along with this fun holiday gift guide for that HOME girl that loves adding decorative pieces that are both modern or vintage for her cozy dwelling. Items selected for this set are directly listed on  Ninna Lu Polyvore. I'd love for you to also share your own holiday gift guides in the comments below.

 

Happy Holidays everyone! ~ marissa

 

 

This blog post was submitted to IFB's Project # 72: Create Your Best Gift Guide Ever

   

Boutique Envy: Shoptiques

   Boutique Envy is a new series of blog posts within Ninna Lu that shares my five reasons of why I envy a particular boutique. Feel free to visit the blog series here. With Cyber Monday on November 26th, this boutique of boutiques can only be found online. This unique e-commerce platform called Shoptiques was newly launced in March 2012. Shoptiques provides a service for small boutiques that have no online presence from devising each boutique page online on their website to handling all the photography of the store and its merchandise. Starting this fall season, Shoptiques just added 20 partner boutiques from Paris on top of the 125 carefully chosen within the U.S.. 

New York [ B o u t i q u e ] finds

[Callalilai] a batwing sweater; [Tuttitrendy] a blue fringed suede leather handbag; [Monarch Boutique] a red bottom shoe necklace; [Ame Ame] a leopard fur scarf; [Darling] a gold narrow braided belt; and [Baci] classic stitch boots

 

 

 

 

Here are my five reasons of why I so envy Shoptiques:

1) Keeping fashion affordable. Most of the chosen boutiques within the U.S. have a price range of between $20 to $400.

2) It allows the customer to virtually experience boutique shopping in Paris, New York and Los Angeles without the extra travel expense.

3) Shoptiques handles all customer returns and also covers the return shipping charge.

4) A curated collection of pieces from all boutiques from local designers and most pieces are not mass produced therefore each piece is almost original.

5) Boutique shopping in Paris from the luxury of your home. A fashionable piece from a local French designer sounds intriguing to me.

 

Paris [ B o u t i q u e ] finds

[Cancan] cute color-block leather loafers; [Paperdolls] a turquoise clutch; [Corners-des-Createurs] a gold-played rabbit mask; and [Yaya Store] an adorable bi-color felt hat

 

 

 

Thank you so much for reading and happy cyber shopping!

~marissa

 

 

 

Geometric Charm

 

 

 

 

 

I must confess.

I have a strong fetish for fashion jewelry. 

I recently became strongly fascinated with Elena Howell's one of a kind geometric designs for TOMTOM Jewelry with most of her collection being on my personal wishlist. The gold and silver metals have that perfect vintage quality finish and workmanship with prices that range from $65 to $400 for bangles, rings, earrings and statement necklaces. Baublebar offers a more colorful variety of charming geometric designs that are quite pocket-friendly. Nicole Richie's House of Harlow 1960 original jewelry designs was for me ~ love at first sight, also using that geometric charm.

So with those shapely jewelry design inspirations, I wanted to offer these designer-inspired geometric pieces with a very affordable appeal on Ninna Lu online. These pieces will also be offered at Ninna Lu's Pop Up Shop on Dec. 16th at the Beatnik Studio's holiday event. So I hope to see some of you there! ~ marissa

 

 

Thanksgiving Thoughts

 

 

If you're hosting Thanksgiving for your family, here are a few of my personal recipe picks.

{Appetizer} : Brie and Cranberry Tartlets

{Sauce} : Apple & Cranberry Sauce with Orange and Crystallized Ginger

{Brine} : Apple Cider Brined Turkey

{Side Dish} : David Chang's Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Asian Vinaigrette Dressing

{Dessert} : Pumpkin Pie Spice Whoopie Pies

{Cocktail} : Pumpkin Pie

 

Below are my 10 reasons to be extra thankful for Thanksgiving every year:

1) My husband

2) Pawley and Maddie

3) My Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother and the rest of the Mendoza clan

4) True friends

5) My home

6) My local wellness center

7) My health

8) My job

9) My neighbors

10) Lastly, Ninna Lu and its fellow supporters

 

Wishing you ALL a Happy Thanksgiving

 

to yours. ~marissa

 

DIY: My Eye on Studs

   The nailheads I ordered have finally arrived in the mail today. It was perfect as I was off today from work. Happy Veteran's Day! I've been so anxiously waiting as I had a few things in mind that I'd like to stylishly update. All for $4.98 (plus shipping of course), I updated three existing items in my closet with these iron-on studs from MJ Trim, my new DIY BFF. You get 50 per pack and it does come in four different colors (I believe, sorry for the short memory). The color I chose was antique gold. All was required to make it happen is an iron and an ironing board. My DIY rating = Easy.

   I wish I would've taken a before picture, but here is a camel Ralph Lauren button down shirt that I've been wanting to embellish. Subtle nailheads were added to the shoulders, the tips of the collar, and the bottom corners of each front pocket. 

 

 

It is definitely not easy as it looks because it is tricky to keep the nailhead straight and I was making sure that it was angled the right way. (Keep in mind, I knew ahead of time where I wanted to add the studs before starting this DIY project. Please be very careful to not burn yourself with the iron.)

[DIY Instructions]

(1) I placed each stud on the fabric and turned it upside down to iron the back side of the fabric. It is difficult to keep it straight so be patient. (2) Keep the iron on the back side for about one to two minutes. Each stud varies so if it sticks right away great, some may take longer than others. Repeat step one and two until finished. That's it! Below are two more existing items from my closet that I wanted to style up.

 

 

I quickly learned that the thinner the fabric, the harder it is to keep the stud from staying still. So please bare with my embellishments, as you can see from the picture, one or two are not angled the same way as others. But I'm still very happy with the results. I added four studs each on two of the opposite corners of the silk scarf. This is a fairly large scarf so I would normally fold it in half anyway. 

 

 

My olive green Toms are looking fresh with the added studs. I wish I had more to go around but I actually used all 50 nailheads from the one pack. Do steps one and two, then repeat until finished. Voila! From envelope clutches to fedora hats and etc. there are so many great ways to add studs and even create your own personal touch.

Oh and by the way, I just recently added more vintage items to Ninna Lu Etsy.  I finally had the time to list some more items. 

Well I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and thank you so much for reading.

~marissa