Wonderful World of Window Clings!

So the weather is uber crappy here in the Chi today (well actually for about the last week)! What better to do than bust into the new school supplies you bought for your girlz and make something fabulous with them...since your stuck in the house anyway! The Glitter Girlz have you covered! This should all be stuff you have right in your house so you don't even have to spend any additional dough. Pretty radical huh? Follow the steps below and you will have some super fantastical window/refrigerator clings....

HERE IS WHAT YOU DO:

1. Get all the "Stuff" together.

STUFF:

-Glue

-Glitter (duh!)

-Cookie Cutters

-Wax Paper (I had to use foil but use WAX!)

-Food Coloring

-Little Bowls

-Spoons

2. Pour some glue in a little bowl (I personally only use Fiesta Ware because its pretty). Add a TINY bit of water. I'm talking like 5 drops. Add a few drops of food coloring to the mix and stir it up until its just a little bit runnier than normal Elmers. You need to be able to pour it. It should be about the consistency of shampoo.

3. Lay your cookie cutter on the foil or wax paper with the sharp side on the paper. Metal cutters work the best but use whatever you've got! Fill the shapes with thin layers of the colorful glue. The layer should be as thin as possible without being see through at all! You may have to push the glue around in the shape so that every little nook is filled...this is important! You can also use your spoon to drizzle glue into crazy free form shapes. Check out the stems I made for my flowers!

4. Repeat the previous steps with more colors and more shapes! You probably have quite a few windows in your house...so go crazy, make a million of these things!

5. Now its time for the fun part, the GLITTER! We only use Martha Stewart glitter....duh! But you can use whatever kind you'd like. Sprinkle different colors on your shapes until your little heart is content. I tend to go overboard with this part. I tend to go overboard with most things though. As Mae West said, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful".

6. Now comes the part I hate. WAITING! Ugh. I hate waiting for anything...especially a craft or my nails to be done drying. These normally take about 10 hours to dry. Thats like 10 episodes of 90210 you can watch (old school 90210).

7. The big reveal! Okay so this the fun part. Carefully peel the cling away from the foil and the cookie cutter and VOILA! You did it girl. You may have to trip the edges with scissors wear the glue bled under the cookie cutter a bit.

Stick these babies on the windows or the fridge and people will be jealous. just saying :-)

Have fun! xoxo. Ellie

Glitterpalooza!

This weekend was Lalapalooza here in the Chi and I'm sure it was a pretty fun party...BUT nothing compared to the Glitterfest we had! Friday night was our first ever "Go Make Something Sparkly!" Workshop and it was AWESOME! We had lots of different groups of girls and they are were all so much fun! If your girls didn't have the chance to attend be sure to sign them up for the next one by emailing workshopz@theglittergirlz.com! All the girls were pretty pumped with their pillows and they were all so YOU-nique! We had the workshop at the Hotel Indigo in Vernon Hills...seriously the cutest hotel!

Jodie and I will be hosting a "Skool Is Kool!" workshop at the end of September and your girls should be there!

If you'd like to see all the pictures from the workshop and the party pics from the weekend click THIS!

xoxo, Ellie

FASH BASH 09! Krazy Kenzi turns 7!!!!

The Loibens....ahhhh, The Loibens. aka The Glitter Girlz BIGGEST cheerleaders! Jodie and I had the pleasure of meeting "Mr. Lou Life of the Party Loiben" a few years back. Lou started his own party company back in the day, Personalities Inc. and has been more than supportive and helpful with our new adventure. Jodie and I can only dream to bring as many smiles to kids faces as Lou and his crew have brought to kids all over the country. Then there is "Mizz Super Mom Kelli Loiben", Lous wife. We can not thank her enough for all of the buzz they have created for us in the Vernon Hills area and for the opportunity to do both of their girls birthday (Mackenzi and Skyler just happen to the be the cutest little girls in the world btw). One thing is certain....no amount of ad space or PR can get you more attention than one crazy cool mom with a perfectly glossed big mouth!

Friday night we celebrated "Fash Back 09....Kenzi turns 7!" In true Loiben style it was an incredible bash. We had 35 girls all in their house, of course Lou was throwing a dance party in the basement and the girls all designed one of a kind tshirts! This was a family affair...we had aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmas....everybody was gettin down and dirty with their fashion designing selves! Pretty awesome.

My two favorite parts of the night were Mackenzi's joke:

Q. How do you make Lady Gaga sad?

A. Poker Face

Q. How do you make Lady Gaga happy again?

A. Just Dance

AND

the concert that 8 of the girls put on at the very end of the night, complete with choreography and a curtain call.

Girls like Mackenzi and her friends along with parents like Lou and Kelli are the reason Jodie and I started The Glitter Girlz. They believe in creativity, the importance of "never growing up", not taking life too seriously and just having a blast!

xoxo, Ellie

People Who Sparkle: Maggie

A little while back my sister called me to tell me that her husband, Chris, and her were going to start the process of adoption. I'm sure there are many of you who have been through this process and I am certain it changed your life. Georgia, GiGi is what I call her, is now nearly four months old and has so powerfully impacted my family. She has no idea how much she is loved and how many lives she has already affected. My sister has a pretty tremendous blog about Georgia's journey to her and Chris and their journey as parents afterward. Maggie talks about adoption very openly...the good, the not so good, the TOTALLY AWESOME! Maggie has recently contacted a number or parenting publications on the possibility of writing a column on adoption. She explains it all much better than I do. Please take a few moments to check it out and share it with anyone you feel would enjoy it or benefit from it. There's lots of "moms to be" out there who are considering adoption that would really love to hear what my sister has to say.

"A JOURNEY TO YOU" -MAGGIE'S BLOG

10 Reasons Why Maggie Makes Life Sparkly, in no particular order:

10- She wears sparkly eyeshadow.

9- She is often the only one who can talk me out of doing something totally irrational without making me mad.

8- She is a great wife. I love watching Maggie and Chris together. Its like watching a really good band perform live...every thing just works. Sometimes they have loud crazy songs and sometimes they play nice lovey dovey type stuff...either way, it sounds good and they compliment each other.

7- She is an amazing teacher! I googled my sister a few years ago (I know thats creepy. Chances are if I know your last name I've googled you too :-) and all these lesson plans she wrote came up...AMAZING! Lets just say, If I had a history who used Kanye West songs in her lesson plans I may know a thing or two about history. I've had the opportunity to meet many of Maggies previous students...The report from them is always the same, "She's the strictest teacher, the FAVORITE teacher, and the best dressed teacher"....duh.

6- She never made me feel like I was "just" the little sister. Maggie always went out of her way to include me in pretty much everything she did and never complained about it. I think this impacts me more now because I am always with little and big sisters and see how some little sisters get treated....BE NICE KIDDOS!

5- She pretty much always wins arguments. Sometime I call Maggie before I know I'm going to "get into it" with someone (not that I'm a major time scrapper- but ya know) and get a few good jumping off points just to really be able to blow them outta the water. She always delivers. I've even used this technique with our very own parents :-)

4- She is a WAY better cook than I am...nuff said.

3- She is funny.

2- She is the only other person in the world who knows allllllllllllll my history and still loves me! Every boy I've dated (and trust me, there's too many), every class I failed, every curfew I missed, every performance I had, all my happy days, all my sad days...she's cool with all of it!

1. She is a better mother than she will ever know. TRUST ME MAGGIE- you are.

Call your sister and tell her how much you love her, Ellie

WACKY WATERMELON MANICURE!

One of my favorite things to do when I was a little girl was to get manicures from my mom. She would set up a little table and make it look just like the salon! We even had one of those cool dishes you rest your hands in to soak your nails. When my mom did my nails we would talk about all sorts of things! Boys, projects, how messy my room was, school, my dad...you name it, we talked about it! It was a great to time to hang out with my mom and chill together! My mom, Maggie and I still get together and spend plenty of time doing our nails, putting make up on each other, doing our hair and just being nerds together...cute nerds! More important than what we look like when we are done playing dress up are the conversations and things we learn about each other. So grab the little lady in your life and have some fun!

Coming Soon:

A super awesome end of summer give away!

Totally free craft idea to do at home with stuff you already have laying around!

Leopard Print Manicure!

Peace Out Girl Scouts, Ellie

People That Sparkle: Nicole

Jodie and I had a breakfast meeting with our friend Nicole this morning. Nicole and I became friends while working together almost five years ago, I was also fortunate enough to get to know Nicole personally. Nicoles role was Director of Advertising and Marketing but she did SO MUCH MORE. I always respected Nicole when I worked with her because she just seemed to always "rise the occasion"....whatever the occasion may be. Throw a QUALITY 45 minute presentation together in 3 hours to present to the "higher-ups" complete with power point and visual aids- DONE, learn adobe illustrator as if she'd went to art school on a PC- DONE, dance to "Who Let The Dogs Out" in front of 120 people- DONE, let the florist know exactly how off the color of the flowers were on her wedding day- DONE (that was actually just kinda scary :-) pull together a $20,000 dollar photo shoot on a $20 budget- DONE, come to office with the biggest "wall of bangs" on "Flashback to the 80's Day"- DONE....

Nicoles enthusiastic energy is contagious and today her energy was all about The Glitter Girlz, it was an honor. Her willingness to help us is SO amazing! Talk about a person whose heart is in the right place and filled with passion for things she believes in. Words cannot explain how wonderful it is to see that Nicole believes in what we are doing and is willing to help us follow our dream.

Jodie and I are learning that when you start your own company you tap into every resource you have. Anyone you know who is good at something is probably going to get hit up for a donation of their services or particular area of expertise. Well today was officially "Hit Nicole Up Day"...

Once again Nicole wowed me by rising to the occasion...

"Your Life is an Occasion, Rise To It"

xoxo....Ellie

I must apologize for the lack of nail tutorial that I spoke of yesterday! I told you I would post it today and I am a bad little lie teller. Its not ready. However, I did the mani and pedi on my little cousin Olivia last night and IT is AMAZING! Lets just say she was most def the most happenin 8 year old at summer camp today. Tutorial will be up tomorrow...CROSS MY HEART HOPE TO DIE STICK A NEEDLE IN MY EYE!

Peace, Love & Martha Stewart Glitter!

Growing up most girls see their moms reading things like Red Book, Ladies Home Journal, "Questionable" Fabio type romance novels and an occasional Chicken Soup for the Soul. Not at my house. I'm pretty confident my sister and I were read bedtime stories from Martha Stewart Living. My mother, I prefer to call her Marsh- her name is Marcia, has EVERY issue ever published...all the way back when the paper was real thick and nice. She hoards her MSL's big time ...along with her craft supplies, jewelry, dishes and candles- but whatev. My mom passed along the love of Martha to both my sister Maggie and I. When I met Jodie 6 years ago and she expressed her love of "good things" I knew we would get along just fine.

Jodie and I heard about a competition that Mz. Stewart had created for young woman who have turned their dreams into a business or philanthropic organization. We entered! We were pretty excited when we were contacted by Marthas producers this week to inform us that we would be featured in their newsletter. You all know our business is still VERY young and we are trying as hard as we can to create a glittery buzz about what we do. To even be looked at by Marthas peeps was enough to super charge us to work twice as hard to continue turning our dream into a reality.

Martha is an amazing source of inspiration to us every day at 11am when we watch her show here in Chicago and we are so honored.

We will be sure to keep you updated on the competition!

Be sure to check the blog tomorrow! We will be posting a deliciously cute totally free tutorial video on a mani pedi idea you can do at home with your girlios.

sweet dreams, ellie