A Few Favorites!

Elizabeth W Hot-Cold Flaxseed Pack (Zebra)

Kate Spade's STUNNING Grande Bow Heels (Black and Pink)

Essie's TomBoy No More

Jonathan Adler's Darjeeling Cookie Jar

Busy Fall Weekends

There is a reason I've been avoiding the impending "September Goal" follow up post....mostly because I haven't completed most of them. Work sped up tremendously, then came to screeching halt all at the same time Junior League commitments picked up! I feel like I've been going a mile a minute and my to-do list never ends (yes, blogging is on there!).  I've been spending my weekends playing catch up with a lot of things. This weekend was filled with Public Relations planning, Glitter Pumpkin's, Scented Candles and lots of fall celebrations!

The boyfriend and I spent Saturday at SF Magazine's fall fest, sampling delicious food and wine from all over the bay area! Saturday night was some girl time celebrating a friend's decision to quit her job (which was decided at 1pm on Friday) and new job offer (which was given at 4pm on Friday). Sometimes things just have a way of working out.

Sunday was spent at Kingsley's beautiful baby shower! I missed the first one due to wedding plans, so it was very exciting to get to celebrate with her finally! It's so hard to believe the Little Miss will be here in a month from tomorrow and in 17 years she'll have, hopefully, pledged Theta. We taught her how to do twin star hands this weekend so she's halfway there!

New ABD Coffee Mugs!

If you haven't seen already Ashley Brook Designs just released a new set of her darling coffee mugs {including a holiday one} here they are! I am absolutely obsessed!!

I'm so happy to see the 'Miss Fancy Pants' for the fabulous single ladies and absolutely cannot stop laughing over 'You Can't Sit with Us'!  I think it's going to come down to these 3 for me:

Or I could just go for broke on 4. Not quite sure what the BF would think of this, but if it matches mine it's cute right??

P.S. She may or may not already have her Holiday Shop up at running and I may or may not have already been browsing!!! {t-2 months}

Adventures at Home with the Gel Manicure

I have a confession. I'm a nail biter, which is Not. Cute. My nails get short and hang-naily, plus the whole chewing aspect. I've found the best way to combat the biting and keep my nails pretty is gel manicures. At $35-50 bucks a pop it gets a little expensive to get them as much as I need them so I decided to try an at home kit. 

The Sally Hansen Insta Gel strip was on sale for about half the price of my usual mani so I snatched it up! 

                                                   

The kit comes with a nail buffer, 2 sets of gel strips, nail cleansing pad, he gel top coat and the tiny UV light for drying. Replacement Gel strips run between $8 and $13, which would save you about half of what you'd be spending on salon Gels.

                                       

The steps are fairly easy. File and Buff your nails and then clean them off with the cleansing pad (which is basically an alcohol pad). It's important to get your nail as smooth and clean as possible so the strips stick. 

Next you apply the strips, nail by nail.
The strips basically feel like semi-hard nail polish. They come in several sizes and are fairly long, so size up your nail by width and press it on to your nail. They also provide and orange wood stick to smooth out the wrinkles and run along the edges to make sure it's really stuck on there. To trim the length you fold the end over the tip of your nail and press down until the strip naturally creases and rips.


Both of these steps were a lot easier than I anticipated, but I could see you having difficulty if your nails are shorter.


When you've done this to all your nails on one hand you apply the gel top coat. It's thicker and stickier than a normal top coat so be careful.

Next you put each nail 1-by-1 under the tiny LED light that came with the kit. The light is timed for 30 seconds, but it was definitely necessary to put it under twice. I probably could have done it three times just to make sure, but I got a little antsy.

All in all they came out beautiful. They were even, shiny and had the same surface 'stiffness' of the salon gels. You do need to make sure you really seal the corners with the orange stick though or they do start to look like little stickers on your nails. 

They ended up lasting me about a week, so not sure how cost effective it would be. It was also pretty tedious to do this all nail by nail. I think it took me about 45 min/hand, but it might have been because it was the first time. I haven't tried it again yet and....I'll admit, I went back to salon gels. It was worth a shot though and will definitely be worth it for any last-minute-manicure needs!

Wonderful Wedding Weekend {aka Summertime Saddness}

This summer has been really the summer of weddings for me, attending 5 in total, all over the state and country! This weekend was one for my former roommate out here. We met on craigslist about 3.5 years ago as we were both frustrated with the aggressive/expensive search for a city apartment and were running out of time before our current leases expired. I didn't have the balls yet to post an actual 'wanted' ad on Craigslist, so I started reading hers. Mid-Twenties. Just broke up with Boyfriend. Has nice furniture and cat (if possible). Sounded safe right? I sent her an e-mail and we both agreed to look at the last few places we had showings at in the upcoming weekend and then would get drinks and start our search together.

I went to look at this flat that had 2 rooms available. 1 was pretty tiny, but $100 cheaper than the other one. Moving from the 'burbs to the city I was already going up in rent quite a bit and had convinced myself I could live in the tiny one. The flat was gorgeous, lots of common space and the girls were nice. When one of the girls called to say they'd love for me to move in, they informed me the smaller room had been taken. I was devastated really thinking I couldn't swing the extra $100 a month and passed. I reached out to B {craigslist lady above} and she had found a room that weekend so we weren't going to need to start from scratch. I resorted to looking at studios, within the 24 hours of hearing B took a room, searching for studios and semi-realizing that paying an extra $100 for a huge room is better than an extra $300 for a small studio I received another e-mail from B saying she had just gone to sign the lease at her new room and my name had been on there as well, but she heard I wasn't taking it! I definitely won't say it was fate, I looked at 2 more crappy apartments before sucking it up and taking the bigger room, but it was sure weird. We lived together for 2 years. That boyfriend eventually came back into her life and they got engaged a little over a year ago. It was so amazing to see her and them start from where they were in such a bad place and grow to such a great one.  She was never the "fairy-tale" type. Very laid back. Even when they got engaged she wanted to wait a few years before the wedding. Do to scheduling etc they moved it up a year to this past weekend.

ANYWAY, my point. I went to a lot of weddings this summer. A lot of beautiful, beautiful weddings. Please don't get me wrong when I say this, as I'm a 'fairy-taler', but I think a lot of people's weddings reflect this grand idea of who the 'want' to be and not who they 'are'. I didn't really realize this until I saw B's wedding this weekend. It was in a backyard, with their closest friends and family. The flowers were beautiful, the food delicious and everything felt so them. During the vows, the speeches and the dances you can feel their couple mojo and love emanating through the room and it felt amazing. Something I think everyone should feel one day. It will probably be one of my favorite weddings ever, I can only hope to have the same feel at mine.

Needless to say it was a perfect way to end my Summer (of Weddings) and it was only appropriate that the overplayed song of the weekend was "Summertime Sadness". I literally threw out my neck dancing to it so many times this weekend. Summer 2013 was a great one, a long one and (even though Christmas is right around the corner) I'm sad its over.

Thursday Tumbls

I thought I'd dedicate my favorite Tumbls this week to my favorite "Tumblrs"

...besides myself of course!

Prep In the Bay

There aren't a lot of prep's out here so we have to appropriately represent!

Bourbon and Pearls

Puppies, bourbon, cute preppy outfits with some vintage flair!

The Glitter Guide

This is one of my favorite blogs and the internet and their tumblr

 just embodies everything they put out there!

The Brunette Prep

This might be my favorite tumblr. Classic, elegant, preppy!

Seabelle

Good mix of romance, southern style and preppy boys!

Hollywood Assistant

I do have a minor addiction to all those gif blogs. This one hits the closest to home and is a go-to every morning. Like group therapy, but on tumblr!

The Loved Black and Gold

Kappa Alpha Theta. Elegance. Glamour. I love everything about it!

Recent {Beauty} Obsessions!

Almay Liquid Lip Balm ( in Rosy Lipped)
I have largish lips and it bothers me to bring tons of attention to them. I usually stick with a nude lip gloss to add a little color, but isn't over bearing. I was using a Gap lipgloss for a while (soo 1998, but I loved it) and then they stopped making it. On a trip to Target, I needed a quick replacement  (because finding the perfect lipgloss requires months of research and sampling) and I grabbed this lip gloss mostly because of the color. #1 it turned out to be on sale for $2.99 and then #2 it turned out to be awesome. The color is a neutral with a hint of pink so it doesn't wash out your lips, it lasts forever and isn't sticky at all!!


Origins Modern Friction
In the summer, my skin is oily so I wash my face twice a day. This leads to drying in my t-zone and really attractive skin flakes that attract all the foundation I put on to 1 area. I've used Orgins Modern Friction a couple times a month, but I've upped it to once or twice a week now and it keeps my skin so smooth and those really attractive skin flakes in check!

Bliss Ingrown Eliminating Pads
With all the summer weather I have been shaving a TON (and maybe mixing a little shaving with waxing...sshhhh) but with shaving a lot and cross-waxing comes copious amounts of ingrowns. I've tried a couple things but my Waxer turned me on to Bliss Ingrown Eliminating Pads and they work great! They're not overly drying and they're easier to travel with then liquid roll-ons....oh and they smell great too!

Aveda Damage Remedy Daily Hair Repair
I'm trying to grow my hair out, but it gets frustrating when the ends start looking dry and I have to get a trim. My hair stylist told me it was due to heat damage and recommended this heat protectant to keep the ends looking great. It's also a detangler and has quinoa protein to repair existing damage!