Gray & White

Last week I ventured into the world of taking photos out in the street by myself with a tripod.  And let me tell you, it was super embarrassing.  Not only because I managed to set off my own car's alarm.  Or because I happened to run into my boyfriend's dad mid-shoot.  I tried to explain to him what I was doing, but I think that just confused him more.

Tee - Target / Jeans - Old Navy / Bag - Target (similar here) / Sandals - Payless (old, similar here) / Necklace - Sira & Mara / Bracelet - Baublebar (similar here)

This look was inspired by Jill of Good Life for Less.  I normally would think gray and white were a little too boring to go together, but her styleboard changed my mind.  Of course, I had to throw in a little color too.  That's just how I do ;)

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Five Things

I was tagged quite awhile ago for the Five Things post by Mega of Dress Up on a Cloudy Day, but I thought I'd get around to it and share some things about myself with you.

1. For most of my childhood I thought I was going to be a civil engineer.  Then I went to fill out my college applications and suddenly wasn't so sure.  I ended up majoring in advertising, which required about one math and one science class.  These days, the hardest math I have to do is proportions.  Which I do by hand because I think it's fun.

2. I'm embarrassingly obsessed with America's Next Top Model.  If they're rerunning a season, I'll sit down and watch the whole thing again.  When I was in Orlando two weeks ago, I'm fairly certain I saw  Aminat from season 12, and I sadly knew her name and who she had competed against immediately.  Then I shared this news with my coworkers and they looked at me like I was crazy.  What, other people don't remember obscure reality tv contestants?

Oh, that's her.

3. I'm really scared of the dark.  I'll be totally fine, and then as soon as I turn off the lights to head upstairs I freak out and have to run all of the way to my room.  Then as soon as the lights are on I'm fine again.  When I was little, I thought it was something I'd grow out of.  Um, nope, guess not.

4. I went to pre-school for four and a half years - from before I was a year old until I went to kindergarden.  My siblings said my mom must have really wanted me out of the house because they both only went for two.  I can definitely believe that's true ;)  The majority of that time was at Montessori pre-school, which is super bizzarre if you've never heard of the concept.  The theory is to learn through play and to let kids pick the activities they want to do.  My mom took some videos of it, and it was a basically a huge room full of children playing quietly by themselves.  Super creepy.   Weirder/sad fact - one of the teachers at my school was the mom in "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius."

With some of my fellow baby preschool friends.  I'm the one in the center.

5. The only countries I've ever visited are Canada and the Bahamas (my passport is pretty sad looking), but the boyfriend and I just booked tickets to go to Spain and Morocco in the fall.  World travels, here I come!  If anyone has been to Morocco, I'd love advice/travel ideas!  My only knowledge of the country comes from movies.  Ahem, and one season of ANTM they filmed there.  I really do have a problem.

photo source

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Friday, on a Boat

Happy Friday!  I ended up having a pretty easy week, I woke up on Monday to a text from my boss saying I could have the next two days off as comp days, which was pretty much like waking up and finding out it's a second Christmas.  Or a snow day or whatever.  Either way, it's pretty nice.

This weekend the boy is off on a bachelor party so I'm going to watch a lot of Kardashians on the tv (Did I tell you I saw Kris Jenner in Las Vegas?  She looked absolutely crazy.), hang out with my girls on a boat ride down the Chicago river*, and go to a bridal shower for my brother's fiance.

*When I say boat ride, I mean we're renting this little golf cart of a boat and causing general mayhem among the usual rivergoers.  Last year I almost fell in the river several times and got in trouble with the boat police for dancing off the back of the boat.  So, a pretty successful trip.

I hope you have a great weekend!



My post from yesterday is being featured on ShopBevel's blog, check it out here.  I'm also being featured on Simple Easy Style today, hop on over to check it out.

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Neon & Sparkle

Since I saw the first preview for The Great Gatsby, I've been really excited about '20s styles.  The drop waists and loose fits don't really work for my body type, so rather than going full-out flapper I've been incorporating little details in more subtle ways.  This Shopbevel necklace is the perfect way to add a little vintage flair to a modern look.  I love the way it dresses up a casual tee.

Tee - Loft / Chambray and Shorts (old, similar here) - Target / Necklace - c/o Shopbevel / Shoes - Shoe Mint / Bracelet - Baublebar (similar here)

I wore this over the weekend to my first street festival of the season.  It turns out wearing neon yellow is an excellent way to find your friends in a crowd ;)

Linking up:

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What to Wear: Beach Wedding

I've been posting a series lately about what to wear to different types of weddings.  I've already posted about what to wear to an outdoor wedding, a church wedding, and a hotel wedding.  Today I'm bringing you what to wear to a beach wedding.  Beach weddings can be extremely different based on the weather, location, and whether the ceremony is just overlooking the beach or actually on the sand.  My sister got married on a beach last fall and it ended up being about 40 degrees and windy - closed toe flat boots turned out to be an excellent choice for that one.

This beautiful invitation comes from Minted.  

The design of this invite isn't particularly formal, but they do use standard language and don't specify casual wear, so I would still plan on dressing up a little.  Since the ceremony is on the sand, you can go a little breezy/beachy with your look.  I like the idea of a longer dress that's a little more casual in style and softer colors to match the beach feel.  Also, just like for outdoor weddings, a flat, dressy sandal is your best bet so you don't sink into the sand.  

1. / 2. / 3. / 4. 

Dress / Bag / Ring / Necklace / Sandals

Oh, and a bonus - a couple of pictures from my sister's beach wedding.  Do we look cold?

The ceremony - nice and intimate

My family on the beach

Pre-ceremony - looks like I'm literally being blown away by the wind, but I think I was actually jumping to keep warm.

Linking up with Shanna and Chelsea.

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Black & White

I have a problem with deal of the day sites, like Haute Look or Ideeli.  I find myself buying things that I don't really know what to do with.  I picked up this vest and then let it sit in my closet for a couple of  months before seeing this photo and deciding to pull it  out.

Vest - Kut from the Kloth (similar here) / Tank - Gap (old, similar here) / Jeans - H&M / Sandals - Nine West (old, similar here) / Bag - Jessie Blume / Bracelets - BaubleBar & Michael Kors

Linking up with Laura

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Trip Recap

Hey ladies, I'm back!  It was definitely weird being away from the blog for so long.  I had a lot of fun in Vegas, and then not quite as much fun in Orlando since I was working 

basically all of the time I wasn't asleep.  Every time I go to Vegas I'm terrible at taking photos (too busy having fun!) but here are a few I managed to snap:

Getting ready to go out

Drinks & Gatsby out by the pool

An outdoor club at Wynn. 

Giant stiletto in Cosmopolitan

Chandelier Room

And now a few from Florida:

Super puzzled by the tv built into my bathroom mirror

We stayed at the Peabody, which is famous for the Peabody ducks that swim around in their lobby fountain.  They seemed to really enjoy the duck theme - duck soap, duck pillows, a duck bathmat, and duck butter:

The actual Peabody ducks

They let people get weirdly close to them.

The hotel was full of pretty chandeliers 

When I got home I slept about 12 hours straight, which is really unusual for me.  I spent the rest of the weekend checking out Mayfest, hitting up a Guster & Dispatch concert, stopping by an America themed going away party for a friend moving to London, and hanging out with my siblings.  I was supposed to run a 5K on Sunday morning but elected to sleep instead ;) 

Have a great week! 

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