The last time I wore this blouse I toughened it up a little by pairing it with a black zipper skirt but this time around, I wanted to embrace the girliness and paired it with this cute paperbag waist skirt.
What I’m Wearing:
Top: Yumi Kim
Skirt: BCBG
Shoes: Miu Miu
Blue Topaz bracelet: Gift from Ice.com
I also just realized that the last time I wore this skirt I paired another Yumi Kim top with it. I just adore Yumi Kim and when I was in New York I got to meet with Kim, the very talented designer/owner of the Yumi Kim line. She is the sweetest and I had such a great time chatting over drinks with her. And seriously, the girl is so ambitious, I love it! She’s the type that goes after it and makes it happen. I feel like all too often, I hear a lot of talk about what people want to do but rarely do they go after it. It’s really refreshing to meet someone who knows so well what she wants to do and wants to accomplish and DO it. As a young(ish) entrepreneur myself who has high goals and ambitions for herself it’s so nice to meet someone who’s been through it all and has come out successful but still strives to do the best every day.
A big thank you to Emily from Ice.com for sending over this gorgeous blue topaz bracelet! I adooore it, it’s so sparkly! See my Shop the Lookbook below to find out how to get this bracelet and other pretty jewelry with a special discount! (The diamond tennis bracelet is mine. It’s one of my staples, every girl needs a diamond tennis bracelet!)
And my Barbie shoes complete the outfit! 🙂
Shop the Lookbook:
I got my top last year so it’s no longer available but you can’t go wrong with any of her prints. These are two of my favorites.
Ice.com is offering my readers an exclusive offer to get up to 75% off the 10 items in Summer Styles selection, as well as 20% off all jewelry at ICE.com by using source code FBSS2 at checkout, or by shopping directly using this link
Please note that this offer excludes watches, engagement rings, and sale items. This coupon will expire on August 31st, 2010 so make sure to use it soon!
You know that I love sharing my new shoe purchases with you all and you’re probably used to seeing my 4 inch stilettos but had to show off these little bow flats as they deserved a post of their own!
I found these at the Prada store when I was in New York last month. I didn’t think I had a chance of finding them in my size as I had seen them first at Saks but the size they had was a half size too big. When I asked for them at the Prada store I got the “oh, that’s quite small, I don’t think we have that size, let me go check.” Never a good sign when the sales person already tells you that they don’t have that size. But, luck was on my side and he brought out my coveted size 5!
The big bows are too cute aren’t they? (Oh and do you like our new living room rug?)
I love that the bows are bigger than the front of my feet. I’ve been wearing these with everything. They have become my replacements for my Tory Burch Revas. Although I own 3 paris of Revas, they all have become so worn down with all of the walking that I’ve been doing in them so I was due for a new pair of flats. (I wear them whenever I travel and when I travel I do a lot of walking.) But I do have to say that the Revas are more comfortable than these flats. These ones kind of pinch on the side but nothing too bad, I can still wear them for hours and not complain about my feet hurting.
I can only find them online at Neiman Marcus right now, but like I said, I saw them at Saks too. Saks had a pretty blush/nude color too but they were out of my size. I hope they put them online soon as I’ll probably be ordering that color too!
There are lots of cute bow flats out there, here are some of my picks!
I had lots of you tell me that you were going to try out the vest + dress combo that I styled in my “Vesty” lookbook, did you do it yet? I want to see how you paired it together! I liked it so much that I decided to try it again. I hope you don’t get too bored of this look as this is probably not the last time you’ll see me doing it!
What I’m Wearing:
Dress: Gift from Alainn Bella
Vest: Ben Sherman
Shoes: Miu Miu
Nail Polish: Gift from Eyeko Cosmetics
Megan, the owner of Alainn Bella, sent along this adorable dress from her online shop. Isn’t is so cute? I love the stripes and the bubble hem. The dress comes with the belt and looks great as is but I belted over the vest for a bit of a different look.
Eyeko sent over some of their makeup for me to try out and I loved it all. I had been on the hunt for a perfect polish for the summer and their Coral polish was exactly what I needed. You gotta check out their packaging too. Such cute stuff!
On a different note: Do I have any readers from Vancouver, B.C.? I’m planning a trip to take my parents up there for my dad’s birthday and I need some reccommendations of things to do while we are there. I would like to go to a park or somewhere with nice scenery to take pictures or just somewhere fun! I would love any suggestions! Please leave a comment or send me an email.
I get a lot of questions regarding what to wear to the office. I know that recently I haven’t done too many office looks as when I’m home, I don’t go into an office and when I do go into an office, I’m away so I have no one to take my pictures! I thought that these 3 could easily illustrate some office looks for those of you that want to look professional but still add a bit of style to your outfits.
These days, I’m working at offices where everyone dresses business casual to casual but it’s also very “standard” where fashion/style is not on anyone’s list. At every office that I worked at I’ve always stuck out as the “stylish” one but these offices I would stick out way more. Also, because I’m working in a different capacity now as a consultant, this means that I’m visiting my clients’ offices thus I feel the need to blend in more than stand out. When I first got this job and my boss told me where my first clients were located (a much more rural/rugged city than Seattle), he warned me that I would have to dress down and maybe leave the heels at home. I told him I’d try my best to “dress down” but going to work and dressing down just isn’t something that I do. It took me a bit to get used to it but I’ve since learned to compromise as to what I will and won’t wear to the offices but the heels are always coming with me!
I usually fly the day that I get to the office so I try to wear something work appropriate on the plane. I don’t like traveling in nice trousers as I don’t want them to get wrinkly or worse, spilled on since I go straight from the airport to the office. Here’s what I wore to get on the plane then just changed into the J. Crew Minnie Pant before I went in to the office. You can’t see the top very well, but it’s got great details with pleats and a vintage-y looking lace down the center. I love those kinds of details on a blouse. (You can see it better here.)
Here’s what I wore to the office and then back onto the plane to go home. This cardigan-blazer is one of my favorites for work, it’s great for those cold air conditioned offices! I really like the look of slim trousers but most I find are still a bit baggy. I found these that are probably a bit more casual but since they are black, you can’t really tell and they work fine paired with a dressier top.
My go-to lazy day kind of outfit for the office (also good for Casual Fridays) is a fun top and cardigan. You could easily mix it up with a slim knee length skirt for a more dressier look. Thank you to Sharon of elisharon who hand made the adorable headband that I’m wearing.
I’ll do some skirts/dresses for my next office looks! Any other requests?
I also get this question a lot: What do you do for a living?
The easy answer is that I’m the Director of Human Capital for a management consulting firm. The more complicated answer is well, much more complicated. When companies don’t have the capacity/time/expertise for a certain project, they come to a company like us to create, run and administer programs or to find solutions to current programs that aren’t working to their standards. I manage several clients and accounts all in regards to their Human Resources departments but I also work on other things like business strategy and change management. I have to visit my clients in whatever locations they are in so that’s why I travel so much. When I’m not traveling I work from home. I am more of a project manager type role as I’m the one that’s responsible for the overall strategy and implementation of each project and I have several employees that report to me. They are the awesome people that actually do all the work that makes everything run. I can’t say much else but I love this job. It’s definitely the right step in my career and a huge change from my last job. This one has given me so much more freedom to let me do what I want and I get to travel, meet new people and work in different industries. I also love being able to work from home and set my own hours. I can’t imagine going back to a mundane office day after day after day again.
Most of you know I also have a side business as a wedding photographer with my husband. This is only the 2nd year we’ve been doing this professionally and it’s been fun for me to be doing both of the things that I love, the business side and the creative side. To be honest though, I was over ambitious with all the weddings that we booked and I’m a bit burned out by working all week and then shooting weddings on the weekends. Although the majority of our weddings are destination weddings which is a lot of fun but I’ve been home very little this entire summer so I’m looking forward to September when the weddings start slowing down and I can rest! We are limiting the number of weddings we are booking for next year so I don’t get into the same situation.
AND if you can believe it, my husband and I (along with my parents and brother) are in the midst of creating a new business! We are super excited about it and I don’t want to tell you what it is just yet but it’s related to photography. We are hoping to launch at the end of summer so I’m hoping I’ll be able to share the news sooner rather than later!
Wow, this is a loooong post. If you got through this entire post, THANK YOU! 🙂
First of all, baby’s got a brand new look! If you are reading through your reader or email, click on over to see the prettiness! Thank you to Joy from How Joyful for the blog redesign! Contact her if you are looking for a blog makeover, she is fantastic and so accommodating as I had a gazillion changes and she never complained one bit. 🙂 I found her through the lovely Jenna who had Joy do her design as well so check out Jenna’s pretty blog too!
It looks cold in these pictures and to be honest, it was kinda. But I was sick of waiting for the sun to come out in Seattle so decided to pull out a floral dress anyway. Of course I wore a jacket when I went out but I really wanted to just wear the dress.
What I’m Wearing:
Vest: Ben Sherman
Dress: Forever 21
Shoes: Christian Louboutin
I never wear this vest, I thought that I might wear it for work but then never liked the look so it’s been hanging in my closet ever since I bought it a year ago. When I put on this dress I was thinking that I might put on a cardigan but I saw the vest hanging in there and thought that it might just work. I ended up really liking it! I think it might be my new thing vests + dresses. It adds just the right touch if you don’t want to go with a cardigan.
Okay, finally my review of the eyelash extensions! It’s been a few weeks now and I can honestly say that they are so worth it. I absolutely love that I can wake up, put on a little powder, blush and lipgloss and I’m ready to go. On the days that I do my eye makeup (which realistically is almost every day) my eyes are that much more dramatic without having to deal with all the eyelash maintenance that I used to do. (Curling lashes, putting on false lashes, million coats of mascara) It is such a time saver and they seriously look so real that I’ve gotten so many “wow, your eyelashes are so long!” compliments that I should probably start making a commission on how many people I’ve convinced to get lash extensions 🙂
Here’s my makeup free eyes before the extensions. (see those freckles creeping up on my face from the sun? Ugh. I need freckle remover, stat.) My lashes have always have a good bit of length to them but the problem was that they were never full enough. With the lash extensions it definitely filled them out and added a good amount of length.
And here is an “after” shot! Obviously, full make up on here but as you can see it makes my eyes that much more dramatic.
With the eyes closed you can see how full and pretty they are. The process of the lash extensions is that they attach each lash individually to one of my own lashes. Because of that, it’s a very long and tedious process but obviously well worth it in the end. Mine took about 2 hours total but it was a pretty easy 2 hours for me as I was asleep for most of it. My esthetician had the hard job of applying them while I snored in her face! 🙂
The cons of the extensions is that it’s impossible to rub your eyes so if you are an eye rubber like me, you will be going through some eye rubbing withdrawal. For the first week I was super careful about getting my eyes wet and avoiding direct splashing of water by my eyes. I used a lot of eye makeup remover but not directly washing them. BTW, you must use oil-free eye makeup remover as anything with oil is bad for the glue that the extensions use. After the 2nd week or so, I was washing my face like normal and being careful just not as careful as before and they still look great. You will see the lashes fall out sometimes but that’s a normal eyelash cycle. I’m ready for my refill now (4 weeks later) and my lashes are still pretty full, but there are some sparse parts that need filling.
The lash extensions are not cheap and it’s certainly not something you want to cheap out on as you need a very experienced and licensed professional to apply them as it’s a very tedious process, but to me the cost is definitely worth the results. It’s something that I recommend for special occasions, especially for brides or if you have a photo session coming up (engagement session or budoir session, is a great excuse to get them!) I got mine because of my crazy travel schedule and knowing that I needed to cut down on the time I get ready in the morning and also not having to pack extra things in my make up bag just for my eyelashes.
Oh one thing to know, one of the first steps was that my esthetician had to tape down my bottom lashes so that the glue wouldn’t stick to them and at the end of the process when she pulled off that tape – OUCH! I wanted to cry. I did actually tear up a bit. It hurt! But that’s the only part of the process that was painful.
I went to Lady Lam on a recommendation from a friend. She is absolutely fantastic and very professional. We had a consultation about how I wanted my lashes to look. I told her that I wanted long and full but still wanted them to look real. She showed me examples of her clients with long, dramatic lashes and other clients with shorter but still full lashes. I definitely wanted the long lashes as I’m used to wearing false lashes so didn’t mind the dramatic look. It’s great that she takes your tastes into consideration so she knows what lashes to apply on you. I highly recommend that you check out her website for more examples of lash extensions and she also has a great FAQ on them.
I’m going to get my refill this week and will probably keep them on for at least another month or so. I know many of you have been waiting for this review so thanks for your patience! I hope that this helps you decide if you’d like to get them for yourself.
Just had to share these pictures with my fellow Hello Kitty lovers out there. On our way back home at the Taipei airport, there was an entire gate dedicated to Hello Kitty and it was absolutely adorable!
So kawaii right? If you are ever in the Taipei (Taoyuan) airport, you’ll have to stop by, I believe it’s Gate C3. There’s a children’s play area and even a store for of Hello Kitty stuff to shop in. I didn’t buy anything, but I really wanted to take one of those waiting chairs home with me!
On sale!
