Charlie Tamara Piper

Halloween is upon us! I wanted a cool Halloween costume that didn't break the bank and would be suitable for the family Halloween party I would be attending. Enter Rosie the Riveter: a super powerful costume that can be easily achieved with a little crafting. I spent $3 pulling off my costume! Here's how I did it. I first turned to my favorite artwork resource - Google Images - to get versions of the famous Rosie the Riveter poster with and without Rosie herself. I printed the Rosie-less version on card stock and laminated it to make it sturdier. Then I used mailing tape to fix a stick to the back of the poster. I printed and laminated the Rosie version to fit over the pocket on my denim shirt, using mounting tape to keep it secure. Next, it was on to the fun part - makeup! I couldn't help myself and wanted to use all of my fun makeup. After prepping my skin with Giorgio Armani Maestro UV Skin Defense primer , I used the products featured in the photo above...

They say that good things come in small packages, and with a little gift wrapping magic, you can make small packages have a big impact! Here's how to do it: I started by wrapping this small box in metallic purple paper. The recipient loves purple and so do I, so the paper was a natural choice. I didn't want to add a ribbon because I felt it would be too large for such a small gift. Instead, I created an embellishment to mimic the look of a ribbon without overpowering the gift. I used a decorative punch and some black card stock to cut out a floral string. I then used some clear adhesive to wrap the floral string snugly around the box. To create a custom gift bag, I cut the remaining black card stock to a 6 in. x 6 in. square and used a decorative punch to create a scrolled circle. I then took some purple card stock and used edging shears to give it a festive border. I then assembled everything over a small brown gift bag. The purpl...

Shoe storage is tricky. They take up a good deal of space and it's hard to sort out how to accommodate the different shapes and sizes of each shoe. For years I swore by the plastic shoe boxes by the Container Store , and I still recommend them. They're a fabulous storage solution and multifunctional - I currently use many of them as drawer dividers. My shoe closet was always neat and organized. Here's an old shot of my shoe closet. I stored all of my flats and sneakers in the center boxes and vertically stacked my boot boxes along each side. While everything was certainly neat and visible, it was a bear to get to my shoes. I found myself wearing the same pairs of shoes repeatedly because I didn't want to pull a box out from the lower levels. And grabbing a single pair of boots was no easy task. Storing my purses on the shelf above my shoes was a great idea but really needed to make better use of that shelf for shoe storage. I spent a lot of time online loo...

I love clothing, and carefully storing your clothing is the best way to take care of your clothes to make sure they last as long as they can.  This was my closet on Thursday night. I loved using wooden hangers, but as you can see, my closet was simply bursting at the seams. Clothing fell off the hangers regularly because the closet was so jam-packed. Closet organization is tough - especially in New York City, where your closets are super tiny. I had already added additional space by adding a hanging closet rod  but I knew that my hangers were getting in the way.  I caught an amazing sale at Macy's for Huggable Hangers and immediately ordered up a few boxes. I'd heard so many positive things about them over the years and with my closet in complete chaos, it was time to give them a shot. And the results speak for themselves! I switched out my wooden hangers for my new Huggable Hangers and gained so much space. I was even able to add a few additi...

Fall is here! Fall is my absolute favorite season and I enjoy the darker colors of autumn. I'll wear a dark manicure any time of the year but it's clear that you can get away with it more in fall. While at my local Walgreens I found this dark, vampy shade called Nemesis from CoverGirls's Outlast Stay Brilliant line of nail polish. I have a ton of dark polishes - each one that I believe is somehow unique! - but this one had enough of a purple undertone in it to seem more unique than many of my other darker polishes, with a black, brown or red base to them. And at $6.50 for the bottle, it was worth a shot. CoverGirl claims this polish contains a base coat, pigment and top coat in one bottle so that no additional products are necessary. Customer reviews indicate that the polish has great wear to it, which I'm particularly keen on - by day three, I usually touch up or even redo my nails because I don't like the way they look anymore. My first impressions of th...

I love home organization, and a few months back I found two teal organization pieces at TJ Maxx that I knew would be perfect in my home office. The only trouble? I needed to find a way to make the teal pieces work with my purple color scheme in my home office. I'd shown the results on my Instagram page ( @charlietpiper ) and I got a few requests for the details on how I completed the transformation. When I found a third teal piece at Marshall's, I knew I had a fantastic way to organize my crafting supplies and I could finally show the super quick process for how you can make pieces work for you with a little bit of crafting. To the left is the desktop organizer I picked up at Marshall's. It's just a shade or two off from the original piece I customized but it's a negligible difference for me. In this case, I didn't much care for the pictures inside the frames of organizer, but I knew that it would be easy enough to fix it up. To the right is the o...

Sundays are my beauty days, and I turn my home into a spa. My ritual starts with doing a facial, deep conditioning my hair, and ending it with the best part: painting my nails. Before I end my beauty day, I thought I'd share the tools that make my home manicure look professional. Cuticle Care I love using Josie Maran's 100% Pure Argan Oil Light as a moisturizer to soften up my cuticles. I'll then use my Sephora metal cuticle pusher (similar available here ) to gently push my cuticles back.  I purchased a great manicure kit from Sephora a few years ago and kept the pieces that work best for me (similar available here ). I'll grab my cuticle nipper to gently clip away at any hang nails that might have after I've pushed back my cuticles. Nail Shaping Once my cuticles are taken care of I'll turn my attention to trimming and shaping my nails if need be. My Revlon nail file (similar available here ) is the perfect file to shape and finish my nails. P...