My fiance and I have been engaged for almost a year, but I hardly ever look at wedding blogs or magazines.We will get married eventually though, and I figure the perfect dress/shoes/hairstylist/make up artist will just magically appear on our wedding day without any planning. Nevertheless, I do find myself occasionally perusing Martha Stewart's wedding blog, and came across this hairstyle on a blog post courtesy of Champagne Showers:
Even though I probably won't be a "boho" bride, I do love this hairstyle! But what I loved even more was my fiance's reaction to the title of the blog post "Dig this DIY: Boho Updo":
Chase: "DIY? Boho? Updo? Do you know what those words mean? Is that even English?"
I don't even know what it is like to live in a world where I don't know what any of those words mean, so I simply replied: "Yes."
Every day, Lucky magazine has a deal which usually gives 50% off an entire website. It is hard for me to resist these deals, and yesterday was no exception. This time it was for Jo Handbags, a company founded by three women in 2010. Maybe it is the growing Texan in me - I went absolutely bananas over their unique and rugged bags! Particularly their use of brass detailing, burlap and boot leather. It was difficult to choose, but I ended up buying two of their bags.
1. An unstructured leather hobo with suede accents and a chain strap (bottom right)2. A clutch that has a wrap-around leather strap with brass detailing, that can be worn two ways (left and top right)
Needless to say, I can't wait for them to arrive!
This picture by Sarah Illenberger perfectly symbolizes my love for both food and fashion.
More than the meat dress at least...
Anyone who knows me well would know that I am practically obsessed with magazines. I think I currently subscribe to about ten, mostly about fashion or food. My nearly constant influx of them into my apartment requires that I occasionally clean out my magazine rack, and little did I know that my kittens would actually be interested in this process. In particular, Eddie (my male kitten) made a point to immediately claim them as his own as soon as I left the room for a second, which included tearing the edges and biting the corners. I caught him in the act though...
...and he subsequently surrendered and voluntarily entered what I now call KITTY JAIL (my magazine rack)
Bail is currently set at one subscription to Marie Claire magazine
More often than I'd like to admit, I end up skipping breakfast because I do not have time to make it, and most convenient things are too sweet. I do not have much of a sweet tooth, so I am always looking for a quick, savory breakfast recipe I can make at home. For a while I was eating bagels with lox pretty frequently (which I still do occasionally), but lox can be expensive and a possibly offensive smell if you decide to bring it to the office.
So, being a lifelong fan of McDonald's breakfast, I decided to put my own homemade spin on the egg mcmuffin. Not the most novel idea, but most recipes I found try to exactly re-create it and advise baking the eggs. I definitely do not have time for that in the morning. So here is my recipe, which takes less time than going through the drive-thru:
Ingredients:
1 sourdough english muffin
1-2 slices canadian bacon
1 slice cheddar cheese
1 egg over easy
Dash red pepper powder (optional)
Instructions:
1. Heat skillet over medium to medium high heat, depending on how hot your stove gets. Spray with non-stick cooking spray
2. While pan is heating, split sourdough muffin and place slice of cheese on one half. Toast face up in a toaster over until cheese has melted
3. Microwave slices of Canadian bacon until hot and to desired doneness
4. When pan is hot, cook egg over easy.
5. When egg is done, place on one side of toasted english muffin. Sprinkle some red pepper on top if you like spicy food
6. Top with canadian bacon slice(s) and other side of english muffin
The sandwich is especially good if you keep the runny yolk intact while cooking the egg, so you can dip the sandwich in the yolk when it inevitably bursts after the first couple bites.
Other options:
1. Vegetarian: swap canadian bacon for some tomato slices
2. To-go: cook egg over easy, but cook the yolk all the way through
Online shopping is practically a part-time job for me, and I spend a lot of shifts looking at blazers. A nice, fitted black blazer is an essential for any professional woman's job, but some of us need something with a little more kick. Red and blue blazers are a nice alternative to black, while still looking professional. Here are some blazers I've been coveting, which can be found here:
A more casual blazer that could be worn both for work and play can be found here and here:
At around $100 each, these blazers won't break the bank and are worth the investment! Would you wear any of these blazers?
To follow up from my last post, the shoes on the left were the ones that were more expensive. Specifically, $225 from Ash. The ones on the right are the pair I got from GC shoes.
Moving from San Francisco, CA to New Braunfels, TX (A city 45 miles south of Austin) in the middle of the summer was a big change, especially in terms of the weather. Finally, it started to cool down a bit last week, and started raining for the first time since I got here. After a long day at work, this view was a pleasant surprise I received upon opening the door to leave:
I was so excited to see this perfect, beautiful rainbow that I stayed back to show everyone standing in the hall, including the CEO of my company. Rainbows = raises right?
One of the recent fashion trends which most intrigued me was the wedge sneaker. I always love a good wedge, and find it hard to find fashionable sneakers, so this was an intriguing combination of the two for me. Unfortunately, their debut was mostly from high end designers such as Isabel Marant, and I couldn't convince myself to spend almost a month's worth of rent on a pair of sneakers.
So I decided to wait it out, and sure enough designers like Ash came out with pairs in the 200-300 dollar range. However, I was pretty sure that my strictly t-shirt and jeans wearing fiance would scratch his head if I spent even that much on a trend that would remind him of the early 90s. No wedge sneakers for me then, until I managed to score one of the below pairs for 35 dollars from GC shoes. Can you guess which pair? My next post will expose which pair cost about 15% of the other.
After checking out my first blog post, my friend reminded me "All the world needs is more cats on the internet". So I am happy to oblige all those cat haters out there and post about something unrelated: how to decorate a bookshelf.
Here are some pictures of my bookshelf as it looks now:
This is far from my old bookshelf that I had while living in San Francisco, which had books lined up with no particular order, and only books. Here are 5 tips to transform yours:
1. Arrange books by color. In the picture on the right the top shelf has all my books which are dark red or pink, with some neutral colors mixed in. This helps give the bookshelf a more orgazined, visually appealing look.
2. Alternate between arranging books vertically and horizontally. I stacked my biggest books horizontally, so they could fit on the bookshelf and offer a nice contrast to the smaller, vertically lined up books.
3. If you collect anything, like me, put a couple of them on the bookshelf. Just a couple. I have a ton of elephant themed trinkets that I have collected over the years, and so I decided to put three of them on the bookshelf. In the picture on the right is a closer look at a beautiful elephant piggy bank my fiance gave me, which nicely blends in with the books.
4. Do not put any of those beat up old books on the bookshelf. Store them in beautiful boxes, and put those on the shelves instead.
5. Throw in other visually appealing things, and place them on, in between and in front of books.
Let me know if you have any other ideas for decorating, or if this post helped you transform your bookshelf!
Welcome to my blog, Lone Star Ash! In this blog I will be writing about things that I care about and inspire me, such as fashion, food and my two little felines. To start, here is a picture of my female kitten Sprinkles to tide you over until I get some actual content on here:
