Happy Hour vol. 1

image via

Welcome friends to my very first edition of Happy Hour! When making plans for the blog this year, I wanted a place to just be able to round up all the thoughts, finds, and ideas that I have during the week and share them with you! There is nothing I look forward to more during the week than happy hour with my girlfriends, so I wanted to bring that to the blog- consider this our time to catch up, chat, laugh, and share everything we're loving!

4

2018 New Year's Resolutions, Goals, & Word of the Year!

It seems surreal to be chatting today about 2018- I mean, what?! The year's just seem to be flying by faster & faster, and I'm just trying to keep up! 

I know not everyone loves New Year's Resolutions & goals, but last year I set some really intentional ones- and I'm proud to say I accomplished all but 2 (and even those I made some great strides!) Setting concrete goals for myself helps to keep me on track and gives me something to strive for. Sharing them through the blog is such a great way to keep me accountable to them & to get more personal with y'all and share a piece of my heart! 

So, without further ado, I'm thrilled to share my Personal & Blog Resolutions for 2018 with y'all!

9

2017: The Year in Review

Happy Friday (and the last Friday of 2017)!! I know I keep saying it, but I really can't believe this year is coming to a close. It has been such a year of learning, growth, strengthening, & faith and I am truly grateful for each and every experience! 

It is so much fun to look back on the year and see all that I have gone through. I'm grateful that this blog, besides a fun place to share fashion & finds, also serves as a diary of sorts! There will be so much more to come in 2018, but for now let's take a walk down memory lane...

JANUARY

One of the posts I am most proud of was this one On Embracing Confidence.

8

October Book Reviews

Happy Friday friends! As I mentioned on IG last night... this week might be driving me to indulge in an extra glass of wine (or two)! But in instead of wallowing in the crazy- let's talk about something more fun! Today I'm sharing my October reads & my reviews. Luckily I had a long flight to LA and back which gave me plenty of time to find some great new books! Let's dive in shall we?

11

Event Recap: Cocktails and Couture

BB Dakota Calvin Dress

Happy Halloween! This is not my favorite holiday of the year (I'm always afraid if I dress up in costume I'll have an Elle Woods at the Wine Party moment)- but I do love seeing pictures of my friend's little ones all dressed up on my Facebook! 

Today I thought it would be super fun to do a mini event recap of a fun event I was lucky to be a part of: the Junior League of St Petersburg Cocktails & Couture Fashion Show! My blonde blogger better half, So Sarah Hunt was my co-host for the evening- and of course we had a ball! Talking about fashion, over cocktails? You know we were "in" from the word go!

5

Bridging the Gap

Ever had so much anticipation about something that your literally jumping for joy by the time it finally gets here? Yep, that's how I feel about today's post! And trust me y'all... you are going to want to read all the way to the end because the story I'm about to share is both inspiring AND chill inducing!

5

One Black Dress, Five Short Days...

If you feel led to support the JLSP, you can donate to our campaign here

Hello hello friends! I could be more excited to share today's post with you because it's deeply personal AND y'all are going to get to meet some amazing ladies!

From September 25-29 I joined 76 inspiring women in the Junior League of St Petersburg to answer a seemingly simple question, "Can wearing one black dress, for five short days, help make a difference in the lives of other?" While you may be wondering how in the world it can- I can attest to the life-changing effects of the week (and the Little Black Dress Initiative)!

The premise of the week was fairly simple: each participant wears the same black dress for 5 days with a button that reads, "Ask me about my dress." Through wearing the same dress the participants begin to understand what it is like to live in poverty & the toll that it takes on your self-esteem as well as the frustrations from having no options due to lack of resources. In turn, the button encourages friends, family, co-workers, and even strangers to ask about what you are doing and gives you a platform to not only talk about the issues happening in Pinellas County/St Petersburg, but also allows us to share how the Junior League is helping to combat each of the issues and is working for the good of our community. It was a powerful week y'all!

4

September Book Reviews

Y'all I have been loving this reading kick that I've been on lately- and it means lots of fun new novels to share with YOU, so I hope you've been loving it too! :) September was another great reading month and I have three awesome books to share! Spoiler alert: I recommend them all! I love it when that happens!

11

How I Organize My Simplified Planner + My Review

You know when you're anticipating something for a really long time, and then it finally comes together and you just can't wait to tell everyone about it?! That's how I feel about today's post & sharing my Simplified Planner with y'all!

I take my planners very seriously, so when I went on the search for a new one I reviewed a LOT of options! I even reached out to y'all on Instagram and got about 100 suggestions- y'all are the best! I looked at each and everyone thoroughly, but ended up connecting with the Simplified Planner team at Emily Ley and moving forward with the Simplified Planner Daily Edition (in "Happy Stripe" of course!) Before I shared it with y'all though I wanted to take several weeks to use it so I could make an honest recommendation. So today's post has been awhile in the making- now let's get to it! :)

11

Love Thy Neighbor: Hurricane Irma Resources and Relief Efforts

Happy weekend friends! Today I am grateful to be able to share with you a comprehensive list of ways that you can help victims of Hurricane Irma. I feel extremely lucky that both my homes in St Pete and Orlando escaped major damage, but there are thousands of people who can not say the same. Our neighbors in Naples, the Carribbean, and the Keys have been devastated by this natural disaster and my heart's call is to do whatever I can to help, donate, and raise awareness. I am so grateful to see so many people step up to the plate and present so many opportunities for us to give back in whatever way we are able!

1

Checking In: Hurricane Irma Status Update

via

Hey friends! I am humbled, grateful, and thankful to be writing this post today. There are not enough ways for me to say THANK YOU to every single one of y'all for your prayers, DMs, comments, and messages throughout this unknown period of Hurricane Irma. I seriously felt the encouragement & hope from every single of them and they were immensely appreciated! 

Since it has felt like #irmageddon has been the only thing on my mind for the past week, I thought I would check in today and let you know everything that happened and how I'm doing! (Spoiler Alert: all is good on the home front and I'm THANKFUL!)

Ps- this is certainly now going to be the most glamorous post ever, but it's about as honest as can be! (There's not many ways to be cute during a hurricane!)

10

Making Time for Him With Cleerely Stated

Stationary, Cards, and Devotionals c/o Cleerely Stated

Oh friends, what a week it is turing out to be! I will be honest, I had every intention of hopping on today and posting a "out of office, closed for Irma" message when I realized what grave danger my home state is in; but when the Lord puts a message on your heart, sometime you just have to heed the call! And truly, when I hear the reports of what is happening in the tropics with this hurricane, I know that the only source of protection and safety is in our sweet Lord. 

So that's when I knew that I just had to share Cleerely Stated with y'all! As I'm sure you know if you've been here awhile, my faith is a very important part of my life. It is a contest journey that I am on, and to be honest it's also an ongoing struggle to carve out adequate time for. But every day I learn and grow in it- and find new ways to carve out time. 

9

July & August Book Reviews

Oh man y'all, I've kind of fallen off the reading wagon in a bad way the past two months and I've got a short book review to share with you today. I know it sounds kind of terrible, but I've just been so busy lately that when I do have those precious few minutes of free time, I usually just want to rest my brain and do/watch something totally mindless (#RealHousewives #BachelorInParadise). I think I just needed a great book to get me back in the habit- so do y'all have any reccomendations? Send them my way!

3

Love Thy Neighbor: Hurricane Harvey Resources and Relief Efforts

Image via Lilly Pulitzer's Instagram

Well friends, this week has been a heavy one for me- so many emotions! First, I cannot thank you enough for the outpouring of support on this instagram post. Hurricane Harvey has been so very heavy on my heart (as a Floridian who has lived through my fair share of hurricanes I know how devastating these storms are- and I haven't even had the experiences that they are going through in Texas). It just didn't seem right to keep talking about dresses and sales without acknowledging that there is a national disaster happening in our country- as asking myself how I could help. Y'all moved me to tears with your kind & heartfelt responses- I'm blown away by your hearts to give, serve, and love our neighbors! Thank you for inspiring me even more!

So, with that said, many of y'all asked how you could help and what was needed. I am by no means an expert, so I rounded up some phenomenal lists of resources & needs from both local residents & national organizations. I also have been blown away by the companies & local women who have stepped up and are donating a portion (or ALL) of their proceeds to the Hurricane Harvey disaster relief funds, so I rounded up a list of these items for you as well! 

10

Recent Market Trips: JCK Las Vegas and AmericasMart Atlanta

Arriving at the Mandaly Bay for JCK Las Vegas show!

I've been lucky enough to go on some really fun buying trips for work lately, and although I've been sharing the trips on Instastories I know that that isn't everyone's cup of tea, so I thought it would also be fun to share more about those travel experiences here too! 

Unfortunately, one of the first rules at these shows is that you cannot take pictures in the exhibits/halls (without permission from the vendor) - so unfortunately I don't have nearly as many photos as I would like! But I hope that these small glimpses into my day job give you even more insight into what I do and how I find product for my lines. 

PS- if you're wondering what it is I do (I'm a jewelry buyer!) you can learn more about it in this post!

10

Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Being a Buyer

Goodness y'all, it feels like this post has been in the works forever! Without fail, whenever I mention that I am a jewelry buyer I always get tons of questions/DMs/emails asking what exactly I do & how I got into it. So today I am taking all those questions and compiling them into one mega post and spilling everything y'all have ever wanted (or may want to) know about being a buyer!

7

Fancy Friday Finds (vol. 6)

How perfect is this colorful linen ruffle skirt for the holiday?? Love!

Woo-hoo y'all... we made it to Friday! I'm seriously so excited for a fun weekend here in town- even if I have to work 1/2 day on Monday! In celebration of the great weekend ahead, it seemed like the perfect day to share my latest round of Fancy Friday Finds- and there are seriously SO many good ones! So let's not waste any time and get to 'em!

7

Weekend Recap: All the Girl's Nights Out!

Happy Monday y'all and welcome to a brand new week! You know that kind of "ugh" feeling when you have to go back to reality after a fabulous weekend of fun? That's kind of how I'm feeling today. So, I figured the best cure for the Monday blues is reliving all the goodness that was the weekend and giving y'all a glimpse into my past few days! :) 

14

May Book Reviews

Woo- hoo! It's another fun day around here, because I'm sharing my May book reviews! I was able to read 4 great books this month and I'm sharing them all (plus my thoughts) with you below. I have a big trip to Vegas coming up next week so I'm hoping to get even more new books read to share with you next month- let's keep this bookworm thing going ;)

7

These Are My Confessions...

image via

Today's post was a fun one to put together because it is a little "different" than the normal content around here. Lately I've been thinking- if y'all only knew the crazy going on behind the scenes! So I thought today I'd do what we love to do in the south, parade my crazy right out in the open & set it on my front porch! 

So grab a cup of coffee, cue the Usher jams, and let's get started!

These are my confessions...

7