quick & easy weekday dinner

guilt free buffalo chicken wraps

i love to cook and i reeeally love to cook relatively quick, healthy things. that being said, this is one of my favorite new recipes. even better? it doesn't require you to dip into your 401K to buy a gazillion ingredients. you know what i'm talking about...those recipes that call for fig butter and seasoned rice vinegar that you'll never touch again. 

what you'll need:

- 1/2C franks buffalo sauce (roughly)

-  2 or 3 stalks celery

- 1LB chicken breast

- blue cheese crumbles

- romaine lettuce

- ranch dressing

- 2 TBS butter

- 2 TBS olive oil

- pinch celery salt

- salt & pepper

- tabasco or siracha (optional)

steps:

saute the chicken in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil until cooked through. remove chicken and shred on a cutting board.

dice celery stalks. in empty pan put the frank's wings sauce, butter, celery salt, salt & pepper to taste. (i personally go crazy with seasonings and put a ton of pepper, siracha and tabasco in the mixture. i just try it until it tastes right...there's no science. that is of course if you enjoy spicy foods.) saute until the butter is melted and return chicken to pan. add celery and toss to coat. 

to dress just add blue cheese crumbles and ranch dressing to taste. serve with baby carrots or red pepper slices and wah-la you have an easy weekday meal.

c a l i f o r n i a

lots of changes have occurred over the past few months in my life. as i was getting my business off the ground and adjusting to a new position at a salon in atlanta as a hairstylist, my world was somewhat turned upside down (in a good way) very quickly. i had only had this new position for maybe three weeks when my husband was offered a job working for nickelodeon in los angeles, california. the offer came toward the end of february and his start date was in the middle of march which meant one thing: hurry! i sold lots of things, planned the logistics of moving across the country, said my goodbyes to family and friends and hit the road in a matter of two or three weeks! it's been a complete whirlwind! 

i have wanted to live here for literally as long as i can remember. i'm a beach bum at heart and have always been completely enamored by the film industry with dreams of working in it in some capacity. (hopefully that capacity will be hairstyiling and makeup. fingers crossed.) in fact, benji and i have put off buying a house and "settling down" for several years to keep this dream alive and possible. to be here, to actually live here and be making a go of it...it's an odd feeling. very surreal. like, how the hell did this actually happen? 

my plan for ashley williams designs is to rebrand my website to be predominantly hair and makeup. i love event planning and decorating, but being that i'm in a new city with fewer connections than atlanta, i think it's best to keep my focus narrow.  i haven't come up with a definite timeline yet, but stay tuned. my blog will continue to cast a wider net and incorporate a little bit of all of my loves: interior design, event planning, hair, makeup, fashion, cooking, etc.

onto our adventures! i'm just going to post a little bit about what i've been up to since we have moved here.

i went with my friend amy and her son, johnny, to the LA zoo a few weeks ago. it was super fun despite every child in the tri - county area being there for spring break! i've always been an animal lover and would watch them all day if i could.

oh you know, just your average neighborhood road in southern california. the palm trees make me so happy! 

californians love their donuts! there's a shop on practically every corner around here. these are from a favorite of ours, the donut hut.

across the street from the donut hut, the perfect photo opportunity. who put this there?!

i know, i know. california needs to stop being so ugly right?! ha. on saturdays we have a ritual of going to the beach in malibu. the mountains and scenery are absolutely glorious up there. this weekend we're going to break tradition and see what laguna beach is all about. i'm excited! 

weekends are for exploring. a couple of weeks ago we headed up to santa barbara for some sightseeing, a good dinner, and a walk along the bay. it was beyond beautiful. i'm dying to go back and either go kayaking or whale watching.

i'd live in this house. happily.

boats on boats on boats.

meet ol' handsome. aka, my best friend.

we drove over to santa monica last sunday to see what it's all about. i didn't realize muscle beach was in santa monica. i thought it was on venice beach. also, i didn't realize that it consists of lots of circus, acrobatic type equipment. there was a lot of tight rope walking and hula hooping. not quite the scenery i was expecting! 

well, hopefully that didn't bore you to death! i'm making it my personal goal to update my blog more frequently.  hold me to it. also, stay posted for the new changes that are coming to my business and website! 

xoxo, 

ashley

last minute costume ideas

happy halloween everyone!

i thought it might be helpful to post some last minute halloween costume ideas for any of you that may be down to the wire. the worst feeling is when you have a party to go to and the aisles at target and party stores are completely ransacked. these costumes are super quick and require items that most of us already have in our closet.

the party animal

every girl has a leopard shirt in their closet, right? throw on some red lipstick and a party hat and call yourself a party animal! if you feel like going all out, you can make some animal ears from craft paper and glue them on. so easy and cute!

bank robbers

another one that really just requires some wardrobe basics. pair a white and black striped shirt with black pants and a beanie for this costume. use an old black t shirt to cut into a robber mask. paint some dollar signs on canvas tote bags and you're good to go!

the airhead

ok, if you thought the other two were easy, this one is a real breeze. get some colorful balloons and tie them to a headband. just add some bright clothing and you're done! duuuuh!

wednesday addams

 if you don't have a dress with a white collar you can always make one out of posterboard or cardstock and tape it to a black dress. or even add a collared shirt under a black dress. easy peasy!

classic cat

when all else fails, there's nothing wrong with a good ole classic. it's all about the makeup with this one! in a pinch you can use black eyeliner for the whiskers and nose. no need for face paint. make sure to wear red or pink lipstick and an all black outfit!

halloween themed gallery wall

i typically don't deck out my house in so many halloween decorations, but what can i say? i got the crafting bug a couple of days ago and it just made sense. there are two things that make me really happy: crafting and decorating. what could be better than combining the two?!

in my trip to michael's i stumbled upon the cutest patterned scrapbook paper and my wheels started turning. i decided to go with a black, silver and green theme and replace the pictures in our gallery wall with a halloween theme. so i stocked up on cute patterned paper, halloween themed cutouts, stickers, tape and got to work! 

really this project is just a matter of cutting the paper to the size of your coordinating frame. it's easy peasy. i took a picture of the current gallery wall on my phone and used it as a reference for deciding on the patterns and colors for each frame. after i cut the paper to size i taped the glittery spiders and webs to add a little something interesting.

i cannot tell you how handy this paper cutter has been in my life! it's an essential in my arsenal of art supplies. one of my favorite elements of the gallery wall is the word "EEK" made from glittery stickers meant to decorate pumpkins. i had other plans for them though. into frames they went!

i laid out my design on the floor as i went just to make sure they were going to flow. you don't want to many of the same pattern and color next to eachother. variety is key in a gallery wall! next up, putting them into frames and hanging them. aka, the boring tedious part.

ta-daaa! there you have it, a cheap and easy peasy DIY project that you can complete in a night. 

i painted some ceramic skulls and added lots of green glitter to cutesy them up a little bit. they completed the halloween look!

halloween diy

well, it's officially a week into october and i was inspired to make some halloween crafts for the apartment last night. not that we need them, we already live in a basement floor of a century old building so it's doing fairly well on the creepy factor all it's own.

i went to michael's and perused the aisles until i came up with some ideas. i knew i wanted to create a spiderweb out of yarn, but i didn't want it to come off too eerie and creepy. i like cutesy halloween, not terrifying halloween. i found a chipboard spider cutout for...wait for it...$1! it was perfect. 

really, it's trial and error with this project. make an X with yarn trimmings and scotch tape. just don't make it too perfect. it looks so much better if it has imperfections like a real spider web would.

after you make your imperfect X it's time to start weaving the web. just knot a piece of yarn wherever you'd like to start and on each intersection go over and loop back around to secure it. you'll get annoyed and want to quit, but don't! it'll come out great once you step back and take a look!

and there you have it! a very effective decoration for about two dollars and fifty cents! can't beat that. 

i also knew i wanted to do a little something to our tiny bar area. it's a fun area to decorate. i found some chipboard bats in the same area as i found the spider. they were also a dollar each which is awesome. i took down the mirror that is usually above the bar and hung three of the bats in a flying pattern with some tape. so easy! i was originally going to put black glitter on them, but it looked kind of gross so i washed it off and just kept them how they were. i'm pretty happy with it.

i also got some small skulls to put on the bar and elsewhere. i painted and glittered them up to make them less eerie and a tad more cutesy. 

there you have it! some fun, quick and easy diy halloween decorations. i love crafting so much. stay tuned for another halloween diy post tomorrow!