Girls' Night!

Girls' Nights are wonderful!  Last night I had the opportunity to get together with some great friends for a fun, kid-free night.  I think it's so important to take time for yourself.  Just like it's important to plan date-night, girl time is so important too. I also love that I get to dress up a little bit, I'd planned to wear this tank and shorts then added the blazer and thought, "Why didn't I think I of that before." Love.  Add my heels and I love this summer, dressy look.

As of July 1st GFC is gone, so I'm preparing to move to Bloglovin.  Here's easy directions for how to move all the blogs you follow to Bloglovin in one easy step. Here's the link to follow me on Bloglovin too! 

*On a side note, I obviously got my hair cut.  FYI when you tell your stylist to "do whatever" that's what they'll do.  I think the cut's alright, but it's definitely shorter than I expected. I'm starting to get used to it, but it might take a while...

Blazer: Kohls $17

Top: Old Navy $9 ?

Shorts: Kohl's $20

Necklace: Stella and Dot Rebel Pendant

Bracelets: Stella and Dot Foundation, Christiana Link, and Chimera

Shoes: Audrey Brooke $25

Linking up with:

Look What I Got

Tre-Chic Fashion Thursdays

Summer Style Link-up

Pattern Mixing Four Ways

I'm so excited to be teaming up for our final week with Jenna from Freckled Fashionista, Inge from This Ever Evolving Life, and Amy from Classy in the Classroom for a trend series.  This week we're covering pattern mixing, or by first glance "how to wear a coal striped shirt." Except for Amy, she's an individual ;). I love all our takes on it, and it's great inspiration for me too! Make sure to check out their great blogs for their outfit details.

Pattern mixing has been one of my favorite things this year, and this outfit is no exception. I think the key to pattern mixing is different scaled prints, but in coordinating colors.  I love the bold stripes here with the small flamingo pattern on the shorts.  This outfit was a total steal too! I got the shirt for $4 and the shorts for $10 just recently at Old Navy. This look will definitely be a casual summer favorite!

As of July 1st GFC is gone, so I'm preparing to move to Bloglovin.  Here's easy directions for how to move all the blogs you follow to Bloglovin in one easy step. Here's the link to follow me on Bloglovin too! 

Top: Old Navy $4

Shorts: Old Navy $10

Necklace: Ebay $10

Bracelets: Stella and Dot Christiana Link, Triple Wrap, and Chimera

Shoes: JCrew (circa 2007)

Linking up with:

What I Wore Wednesday

Get Your Pretty On

Fashion and Beauty Finds

Foodie Spotlight: Whatcha Makin' Now

I'm so excited to be having my wonderful sister posting here on my blog today.  I even changed the name of my series this week just for her. :) She's even nice enough to blog swap with me, so once you've checked out Chelsea's great post here, stop by her blog to see my Style Spotlight post over there. : )

* Also, my sister is super fancy and if you click on the pictures below it will take you to the recipe, say what?!

Hi, I'm Chelsea from Whatcha Makin' Now. Thanks to my sweet seeester for mixing up her fashion stoplight with some yummy food.

1. Why did you decide to start blogging?

I actually started blogging for my day job. I work with real estate agents and wanted to be the best resource for all things social media to help them build their business. Turns out, I really loved it and now I do it for me!

2. What are a few of your daily reads?

That's a tough one, I have a full list of blogs I love on my site, but these tend to be my go-to's:

My New Favorite Outfit
Young House Love
How Sweet It Is
Neon Fresh

3. What are your favorite types of dishes to make? Why?

That's easy. Dessert. Specifically cookies. Because I work 8 to 5, most of my recipes are quick and easy so that I can make them after work or on the weekend. Cookies aren't too complicated, but always delicious. And, who doesn't like cookies!?

4. What's the best things that has come out of blogging for you?

I'd have to say the friends I've made. It's so fun to follow other bloggers on their journey. Food bloggers, much like fashion bloggers, are such a supportive and fun group of people.

5. What a piece of advise you have for your fellow blogger or those thinking about starting a blog?

Do it! Reach out to other bloggers you love and ask them about blogging. Do your thing and be yourself and people will want to follow you.

I'd love to connect with you! Stop by and say HI on Facebook, Twitter, email, or on my blog! 

Thanks for the feature, Ginny! :)

Thanks Chelsea!  Now everyone, I'd love it if you'd take a minute to stop my Whatcha Makin' Now to see my guest post there!

Anthro, What?

A few months ago I was shopping at my favorite Goodwill. I came across this dress and loved it instantly. I hadn't heard of the brand, so I Googled it only to find out it was sold at no other than Anthropologie. Say, what? I was waiting for the weather to warm up to wear it, but I so should have broken this bad boy out right when I bought it, even if it was like February. I pretty much love it and want to wear it every day, and I might.

Also, it's getting close to D-day for GFC. I'm honestly hoping it's all a fluke and my newsfeed will stay as is, but I'm preparing to move to Bloglovin if need be.  Here's easy directions for how to move all the blogs you follow to Bloglovin in one easy step. Here's the link to follow me on Bloglovin too! 

Dress: Anthropologie $5 (thrifted)

Necklace: Target $3

Cardigan: Billibong $3 (thrifted)

Bracelets: Stella and Dot Renegade, Foundation, and Chimera

Shoes: JCrew (circa 2007)

(Striving to Be) Super-Mom Summer Series

I'm really enjoying all the different themes that Grant and I have done so far.  This week was no exception with us learning more about dinosaurs. Here are some of the things we did:

Dinosaur Mask: Grant had fun coloring this mask and they practiced his cutting skills on the straight parts of the mask.

Dinosaur tooth necklace: Such a fun idea!  We used Plato, poked holes, let it dry, then Grant laced it.

Dinosaur Letter Practice: Seriously cute idea.  We're going to do it today, we just didn't have time this week.

Dinosaur Hide-and-Seek: I hid these pictures all around the house and Grant went looking for them, then we glued them onto a collage.

Dinosaur Science: This site had all kinds of cool dinosaur activities.  We decided to create our own little dinosaur world.  I gathered sand, rock, some of Grant's little dinosaur figures, and made a little volcano.  He helped me put everything in place.  Then we let the volcano erupt pouring vinegar over baking soda!

Family Movie Night: We borrowed Dinotopia from the library. Grant really liked it. Seriously people, utilize your library. Ours has so many great movies to check out free for the week.

Dinosaur Books: Here's a bunch of different ones on Amazon. I just used my library's online catalog on my phone and we found different ones to check out.

Dinosaur Worksheets/Activities: we did a bunch of different ones like finding the pattern and which one's different. Nick Jr. Also had a bunch of great dinosaur printables here.we did the matching game and a puzzle.

Dinosaur Snacks: Here's a ton of great ideas for dinosaur snacks. Just look at these!

Grant and I attempted the fossil cookies, so fun! However, they turned out like this:

Grant thought they were delicious anyway. : )

 

It was a fun week, we're going to move onto transportation for next week!

Two Weeks in a Row!

I couldn't help myself, I love this top and these shorts so much I couldn't help but put them together to wear them again this week.  On Thursday I wore this but changed into the outfit below because I got hot. Silly, Summer. I ended up wearing this to go on my very first "blate" with Andi.  I had such a good time with her and she's just as nice as she seems.  You all should totally go and say hi to her on her blog!  Anyway, I only had this outfit on for a couple of hours, which is a total waste of a cute outfit if you ask me, so I'm wearing it again this week.  My. New. Favorite.



Top: Ark and Co. $6 via Plato's Closet

Shorts: Loft $16

Necklace: Borrowed from a friend (I soooo want it) Pegasus from Stella and Dot

Bracelets: Stella and Dot Julip, Renegade, and Chimera

Shoes: JCrew (circa 2007ish)

Lovin' Lace Four Ways

I'm so excited to be teaming up again this week with Jenna from Freckled Fashionista, Inge from This Ever Evolving Life, and Amy from Classy in the Classroom for a trend series.  This week we're covering lace. I love all of our different takes on it, which just shows how versatile it is. Make sure to check out their great blogs for their outfit details.

Today's look was one of those "I wonder....." outfits. I love ths skirt, but haven't worn it much. I really wanted to try something different with it, so I added this cobalt lace top with a teal tank underneath, then layered it with my teal cardigan and the pop of a yellow belt. I pretty happy with the casual ease of it and the fun color combo.

Cardigan: Target $3 (thrifted)

Top: Target $6

Skirt: ? $5 (Plato's Closet)

Necklace: Stella and Dot Juniper

Bracelets: Stella and Dot Gilded Arrow, Foundation, and Zebra

Belt: Kohl's $6

Shoes: Target $12

Linking up with:

What I Wore Wednesday

Get Your Pretty On

Fashion and Beauty Finds

Pretty Please.....

Please vote for me in the expert shopper contest here! The top five by popular vote each get $100 and then compete for the final prize of $250! I'm competing against some pretty great girls and am in 7th place now.  I'd love your support! If you already voted you can vote again!

I got a tremendous deal on this look, here's the details:

This outfit encompasses everything I love! First off, I loved this blazer at full price, but didn't want to pay the $108, well I was patient and it went on sale for $39then had an extra 40%, so I got for like $22! I'd been wanting a pair of white jeans, but couldn't seem to find any. I went into my local Goodwill and found these for $5! I'm also crazy about my Stella and Dot necklace but didn't want to spend the $128, so I had a trunk show and got it for free with my hostess rewards! Lastly is the shoes, I found them at DSW on clearance and had a $5 off coupon. There were originally $79 and I got them for $26!

Great deal, right? Please vote here!