Easter Take 2!

Good morning, sweets! And happy Friday! So happy the weekend is finally here. As you can tell from all my moaning and groaning this week, I'm particularly ready for it.

Seeing my family this weekend to celebrate Greek Easter. Lots of things to look forward to. Summer-like weather, it's going to be 80 on Sunday!, my Yia Yia & mother's delicious cooking and my father's amazing wine. He went deep into the wine cellar and already has some special bottles selected.

And I already have my summer dress picked out because I'm planning on spending a lot of time outside basking in the glorious weather.

So what do you all have planned? Whatever it is, I hope it's a fabulous one!

xoxo

The Shopbop contest is now closed.

Be sure to check back in on Monday for the winner announcement.

Images: 1, 2, 3 All images edited by The Alternative Wife

Welcoming the Weekend!

Happy Friday, sweets! Are you guys as excited for the weekend as I am? I have a fun-filled packed one ahead of me!

Tonight I'm lucky enough to be attending the Lucky Shops VIP Event courtesy of the lovely Audrey Allure. I won her contest a few weeks ago and I've been bursting with excitement ever since!

Then tomorrow night I'll be hitting the town with my sister and brother-in law, aka BFFs, to celebrate my sissy's birthday which is today! Cannot wait for that one! Oh and I'll be sporting my latest purchase, the fabulous Zara sequinned clutch above. I've been dying for it for a while but despite searching high and low everywhere in store and online I couldn't find it. Thanks to Sabra from The Lonely Wife Project's help, it's finally mine!!!

What will you all be doing this weekend? Hope it's jam packed with fun like mine is :)

Oh and I just wanted to say happy birthday to my amazing sister and best friend Lisa today! She's the love of my life {well excluding J} and I celebrate today as if it were my own bday :)

Enjoy, lovelies!!!

xoxo

Images: 1, 2, 3, 4 All images edited by The Alternative Wife

Monday Morning

Good Monday morning, loves! And welcome to a brand new week! How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun?

Our weekend was nice. We left the city on Saturday morning and spent some QT with our 9 year old niece. It was so good to see her and have some good girl bonding time. Her mother, who was our best friend, passed away two years ago and we always end up doing fun girlie stuff with her. She's totally that girl. Just like her Mom. Shopping, nails, and things like that. It's always really emotional to see her but so rewarding at the same time.

Then Sunday we had some more family time with both of our families. Saw Js mother earlier in the day and then had a fabulous dinner with my family for my mother's birthday.

All in all it was a fun weekend. No beach but I saw that life can indeed be fun without it :)

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

xoxo

Images: 1, 2, 3 All edited by The Alternative Wife

Morning, Beautiful

Good Monday morning, lovelies! Here we are at the start of another week. Trying to be all bright eyed after a fun-filled yet pretty hectic weekend. I didn't get to spend much time relaxing, and never did get around to shopping, but I did get to spend a lot of time with family which was wonderful.

Hope you all had a wonderful one and that your week gets off to a great start! xoxo

Images: 1, 2, 3 All images edited by The Alternative Wife

Welcoming the Weekend

Good Friday morning, lovelies! So happy the weekend is finally upon us. I don't know if it's me but the weeks seem to be getting longer and longer lately. Guess it has to do with the lack of sunlight. Hope I'm able to soak up some sunshine this weekend.

Not much on the agenda this weekend besides celebrating my sister's bday tomorrow which should be a ton of fun. Otherwise I plan on chilling out and doing basically nothing!

What do you all have on tap this weekend? Have fun whatever your plans! xoxo

Images: Waldemar and Max via calikartel

Celebrate, Celebration!

Happy Thursday, lovelies! How are you all doing today? The weekend's so close I can almost taste it! Can't wait!

Today is a special day. It's my sister Lisa's birthday and I wanted to wish her the happiest of birthdays. She's my best friend, my rock, my confidant & my partner in crime. We're so close that I almost feel like today is my birthday! That's how excited I am :) So without further adieu, here it goes...

Happy Bday Li Li!
Have the most amazing day today!
I hope that Mike spoils you rotten and that you
get every little thing your heart desires.
I can't wait to celebrate with you on Saturday!
xoxo

Hope you all have an amazing day and good news...tomorrow's Friday! :)

Images: 1, 4, 7, 3, 6, 2 & 5 edited by The Alternative Wife

Weekend Snapshots & A Winner!

Good Monday morning, lovelies! Hope you all had a fabulous weekend. As you can probably tell from the photos, I finally got to realize my foliage fantasies. My family & I hit the road on Saturday, a picture perfect day. We drove on up to Bear Mountain, Warwick and Sleepy Hollow and were treated to gorgeous views and yummy fall festivities.

We pumpkin picked and ate caramel apples, exactly what I had hopped for. The hills were bursting with vibrant shades of red, yellow, orange and green and then we were treated to the most gorgeous sunset over the most placid pond. The mirrored reflection of the sky and the trees over the pond was so magical. Only the darkness could make me leave.

Before I go, I wanted to announce the winner of the Shopbop Giveaway. And the winner is....

Helena from A Diary of Lovely!!!

Congrats Helena and happy shopping, darling! I'll be in touch shortly with the details. Thanks to all for entering!

Hope you all have a wonderful Monday! xoxo

Images: The Alternative Wife

My Life Is An Open Book

Happy Friday, lovelies! Today I am so thrilled to be taking part in Hello, Splendor's Blog Crawl. I've really been loving following the crawl along and getting to find out so much more about the lovely bloggers participating.

Thank you so much to Haydee from Happenstance for passing the torch on over to me.

For those of you not familiar with the blog crawl, this first ever crawl concept is "My Life is an Open Book" and we are supposed to discuss our lives in a story format.

So without further adieu, here's my story...

The Author

The Setting


Set in fabulous NYC, my amazing hometown, the city that never sleeps

I grew up 35 minutes away from the city and always dreamed about escaping there. Once college came I ran so fast right off Long Island and never turned back!
Fast forward 20 years later and I'm still here.

{Hence the reason for me calling NYC my hometown and not where I lived the first 18 years of my life :) }

The Characters

Dawn
The creative one, cosmetic product developer extraordinaire
{I'm going big since this is my story told by me :)},
blogger & wife and lover of all things beautiful

J
Wife extraordinaire, the smart one, the writer and editor {and I'm the one with a blog, go figure}, the neutral party in every situation, aka Switzerland, and the one with the heart of gold

The Sibs

My other greatest loves

The Friends

Life is not worth living without

The Plot

This is the story of a shy girl who always dreamed big. Loved J, beauty, fashion and illustration more than anything in this world and always knew she would one day break out of her shell and realize all of her dreams.

Dawn always had a passion for fashion, beauty and art but never knew what kind of a career could possibly come of it. As a young adult and teen she spent countless hours hiding out in her room reading endless amounts of domestic & international fashion magazines, making grand collages and scrapbooks, watching Style with Elsa Klench {that was one of the only places a girl could actually see a fashion show in motion}, and in turn illustrating all of the fashions she saw on the runways and in the pages of magazines.

At that time her ultimate dream was to become a fashion stylist or fashion illustrator. There really wasn't any information available at the time about how one actually becomes a fashion stylist {it was just something she saw on Style with Elsa Klench and it sounded like the ultimate dream job. Someone actually pays you to shop, scout locations, models and hair and makeup artists, and put outfits together??? She was sold!}. And her father convinced her that she would never be able to support herself with a career in fashion illustration so she decided to go to the Fashion Institute of Technology for business degrees in Fashion, Buying and Merchandising and Cosmetics & Fragrance Marketing. And that's where her luck turned. Straight out of college she landed a great internship in the Marketing department at Revlon which soon later turned into a position in {wait for it, wait for it.....}

Product Development!
{Hear the heavens sing}

Product Development was her true dream job. Combining all of her passions in one. Beauty, fashion and art all rolled up into one perfect gem of a career.


The other part of the story is no less important. Enter J, Dawn's best friend since grammar school that turned into something magical when they were in high school. J has always been Dawn's rock, greatest supporter and eternal love. She is the backdrop of this entire story. The true wind beneath her wings. They've been a couple for 24 years now and people always refer to them as The Lucky Ones. So although this story is a girlie, chick lit book chock full of style it's also at the heart one of the greatest love stories of all time.


The Twist

While planning her wedding, for months Dawn obsessively scoured over gorgeous inspirational wedding, design and style blogs and being the visual girl she is, eventually decided to start one herself. Reminder, this is the girl who used to maniacally cut out pictures of magazines and arrange them into artful collages. And that girl still did tear way too many pictures out of magazines for that exact same reason up until last year. Can you say unhappy wife, unhappy life? What better way to arrange her favorite ideas and things while cleaning the clutter out of her life! All is good these days :)


Since then this little blog that she started on a whim a has turned into a full time passion fueling a whole other side of creativity while at the same time allowing her to meet so many great new friends.

Well there you have it. My life in a nutshell.

Thanks so much Beth for hosting the fabulous Blog Crawl! I just loved being part of it!

And friends, be sure to visit the lovely Anna @ In Honor Of Design on Monday to hear her story.

Have a wonderful weekend!
xoxo