Pumpkins+Coffee

I just realized that this would be the perfect post to show off my pumpkin carving for this season. 

Pumpkins and coffee just seem to make a great team lately. Last year I carved a cupcake so it only seemed fitting to continue carving my loves and obsessions. Next years "oversized, chunky sweater pumpkin" could be interesting...

Until next time.

The first sign you have a problem is when you start carving it into pumpkins.

Things I Love

So so so many things that I am loving this week. 

Starting off our list today is a collection of colored jeans that puts Essie's fall collection to shame.

Joe's Jeans has introduced their "skinny" jean in 55 (count them!) colors. I die. 

Not only do I own a pair of these jeans, in Fiery Red, but I absolutely love them, but they have reached that level of your favorite jeans that never get washed because you are too busy wearing them. Let me tell you, it is not quite as easy getting away with wearing red jeans as often as dark wash denim, but I am working on switching up my outfits so no one can tell.

Other than the comfortability factor of these jeans, I love them because browsing the selection is like picking out nail polish; comparing the names and shades to find the one that is perfect for you.

Colors that are on my radar right now?

Dirty Olive, Sassafrass, Spruce, and Caramel for fall and winter.

Available at JOE'S JEANS

How often does one have to mention a certain blogger before it is classified as a full-on blog girl crush?

Bee, from Atlantic-Pacific... cannot get enough of her outfit posts.

With the craziness this season has brought with it, I find that I don't have the joy of reading all of my "daily blog reads", but I always make time for Bee's post, as well as some of (all of) her twitter updates through out the day. Upon seeing this post I fell in love with her trench, first thinking that it was reversible jacket from the pictures, but to my surprise it is even better than that.

Kelly Wearstler

Perfectly color-blocked and totally mod. Swoon.

When shopping with my sister in SoHo, we had to step into Bloomingdales to escape the mass of people at the street fair on Broadway. Let me tell you, it was such a bummer having to go into that place. That beautiful, shiny department store. 

We were immediately drawn to a jewelry display that had all sorts of bangles, delicate rings, statement necklaces, and lots of dangling earrings. Being girls, we start playing around as the sales clerk is encouraging us to try on different combinations of the unique designs. As we start conversing with the woman we find out that she is the designer (so glad I liked the jewelry and didn't make rude comments). 

C.J. Recht

Everything I tried on from her collections I loved, especially her pieces made out of sting ray skin.

She talked me into buying a pair of big, beautiful hoop earrings, because according to C.J. studs should never be worn, because they aren't even worth putting on. 

"If you are going to take the time to put in studs, you should at least put in something that is going to flatter you. I believe that the bigger the person, and the bigger the personality, the bigger their earrings should be."

Well I had to buy the hoops after hearing that. I absolutely love the hammered silver hoops with gold details and have found myself wearing them even more than I had anticipated. I am not quite ready to kick my little studs to the curb but I am trying to embrace this new motto on jewelry. 

Some other things I am loving, thanks to Refinery 29.

Nicki Minaj OPI Collection- I feel like when I wear these all I would want to say is "I'M THE SECOND NICKI MINAJ!!!!!!!"

Halloween Nail Art

More pumpkins

Achieve the perfect winged eyeliner

Until next time.

Color me happy.

Smashing Pumpkins

I love holidays that include crafting, like Easter and dying eggs, Christmas and making sugar cookies.

I have such fond memories of my sisters and me standing in our kitchen, covered in sticky, smelly egg dye, dunking our hard boiled eggs in as many colors as possible. I am sure they were a mess but we were proud and fought for our favorite eggs the next morning after the Easter Bunny had hid them. My older sister always won, she was always the smart one and remembered all the good hiding spots from previous years while I, on the other hand, dawdled around looking in places completely unsuitable to hide eggs, while my youngest sister chewed on the plastic grass in her basket. 

Baking and decorating Christmas cookies is a tradition that will never be lost in our family. Our decorating and creativity has only grown over the years, as one of our cookies for Santa lost an arm this year so we decided to decorate it with blood and stitches. So mature and appropriate... Santa obviously loved it as he still left us wonderful things under our tree and in our stockings.

So who is itching for it to be Christmas season now...

well not yet! We absolutely cannot skip over Halloween or Thanksgiving for that matter. Fall holidays are the best!

My memories of my childhood Halloweens are just as magical as every other holiday. We rarely went with store bought costumes, but rather preferred my dad to make us unique ones. Those that made it in the Halloween Costume Hall of Fame include a Hershey's Kiss (until it rained...), a Christmas present (which made it impossible for me to climb any stairs leading to houses), the Queen of Hearts (the actual playing card), and my favorite--  the Statue of Liberty (complete with working torch and Bible that held my candy).

But before the big night of devouring candy and showing off our costumes, my family always carved jack-o-lanterns and it is a tradition that will be my favorite no matter how old I get. One year, as a child, we decided to forgo actual carving and paint our pumpkins to look like Bob and Larry from Veggie Tales. They were dead ringers for the actual cartoons.
Last year, I strayed away from cartoons and scary faces and went with something much more practical for my current love... a giant cupcake carved into my pumpkin.

I have been collecting ideas all season and can't wait for the special night when I sit down with friends and carve, paint, or glitter (or all of the above) this years pumpkin.

All ideas are from Apartment Therapy 

Until next time.

I put a spell on you.