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Month: February 2013

outfits

Texturized

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Talbot’s Sweater (similar here and here), Urban Outfitters Corduroys, Steve Madden Boots

I picked this sweater up at a Talbot’s Outlet back in December on my way to pick up some cupcakes from a local cupcake shop, and was immediately sold on the price – just $12. I’ve mentioned before that my love of black is growing, so I knew I had to add this sweater to my collection. It’s loose enough to not be itchy, but thick enough to be warm. Plus, I need more texture in my closet, and the huge cable knit down the center fit the bill. I wore it with these buttery-soft corduroys for a contrast in texture.

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currently obsessed with

Currently Obsessed With: Envelope Clutches

envelope clutches

 

Metallic/Beaded/Leopard/Coral/Turn-Lock/Studded/Black and White/Blue/Lace

I’ve always loved envelope clutches: they just feel so much more special than a regular clutch. But it just so happens that whenever I look to buy one when I’m out, all I find are cheap plastic-y ones or bags which are far out of my price range. So I took the time to look around for tasteful ones from the comfort of my home – above are my picks.

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outfits

Navy and Coral

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H&M Top (similar here), The Webster for Target Sweater, Forever  21 Skirt (similar here), H&M Leggings, Steve Madden Boots

 

This is probably the first colorful (read: non-neutral) thing I’ve worn in a long time. This sweater is back from the Webster for Target Collection (part of the Target Shops collection last summer), and I finally got around to wearing it with this H&M sweater top. I’ve always loved pairing coral with navy blue – especially in the springtime, when my go-to outfit is a nautical striped top with coral skinny jeans. It’s also no longer warm enough to wear this skirt (or any skirt, for that matter) with bare legs, as I did here. On that note, I’m becoming increasingly excited for spring – I’ve already begun buying dresses and tops, soon to be featured on the blog.

P.S. Just so you know, I don’t naturally pose like this – it’s all at my photographer’s insistence.

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food

Classic Vanilla Cupcakes

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Happy Monday everyone! I can’t even express how happy I am that the Raven’s won last night (Baltimore born and raised, hon!) – sorry, 49ers fans. I hope everyone’s recovered from screaming and chanting and eating way too much last night. Now, on to cupcakes.

There are no words to describe how incredibly perfect these cupcakes are: you just have to eat one. I first made these over the summer, shortly before I started this blog, and I made the mistake of baking a full batch – the recipe comes from a cupcake shop, so it already yields an abnormal amount of cupcakes, plus I made them mini cupcakes, quadrupling the yield, and (if I haven’t mentioned this already) I have the astounding ability to make cupcake batter stretch twice as far as it’s supposed to, even if I follow the recipe exactly and fill the cups up to the very top. Even so, these are possibly the best cupcakes I’ve ever made.

The most frustrating part by far, however, was the frosting. When I first made these, it took two attempts and left one of my pans coated in rock hard sugar. I also had to buy three bake-sale type large foil trays to house the cupcakes that wouldn’t fit in my 8 largest Gladware containers. But, I emerged from the project as a more accomplished baker, being able to claim that I’ve made frosting that requires the use of a candy thermometer.

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Note: I made a third of the cupcake recipe, and a half of the frosting recipe. I also like to make these cupcakes as girly as possible by adding 8-10 drops of red food coloring to the frosting and sprinkling the tops with edible pearls.

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Uncategorized

Life Lately

As you may have been able to tell, I had some issues with my blog for the past two weeks. On the night of Sunday, January 20th, I went to load pictures onto the blog for Monday’s post, and the site wouldn’t let me log in. I tried again and again, called my hosting site, looked to WordPress forums for support, and finally realized that in the end, there was nothing I could do but delete it and start over. However, I was smart enough to copy and paste everything over into a Microsoft Word document, and spent my Friday afternoon and Saturday reconstructing the site from the ground up, from fixing the appearance to re-publishing all 56 posts. I let this be a lesson to me, and I’m now sharing it with you: if you are a blogger and you don’t do so already, back up your website. I was lucky to have done what I did, and it really saved me. But it is the most devastating thing to see your blog completely wiped clean, blank and empty with those sample pages and posts and nothing else. I can’t imagine how I would be feeling right now if I had no copies of the posts anywhere.

Coincidentally, this whole experience is kind of a perfect analogy for my life lately: frustrating, confusing and exhausting. I still don’t know what happened to my blog. But there was a bright side to rebuilding it – I got to go back through all of my posts and see how I’ve changed. I got to fix random typos and spelling mistakes. I figured out how to re-organize my website. And I’ve done the same in my life this month: fixed things, changed things, cleared my head, re-evaluated my priorities, and took a look at where I’ve been in the past year and thought about what I’m going to do with myself next. And then more specifically, I slept in, finally scrapbooked a bit, caught up on work, spent a long time with a friend I haven’t talked to enough in recent times, and even made a new friend this past week.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that these deep and aggravating things are happening at this time of year. February has never been my month, and I remember last year as being a particularly terrible 28 days. But I’m hoping that the worst has passed. I’m being more conscious now about where my blog files are stored, and about how I’m handling things in my life. I see better times ahead.

 

And now, as a side note, here’s a social media update:

Take a peek at my Pinboards

Follow me on Instagram (although I can’t promise how often I’ll use it)

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