Beautiful Life

Happy Monday, loves! And welcome to the second week of the new year! How was your weekend?

My now most of us should be getting back into the swing of things after the holidaze. For me it's back to business as usual. But this time it's me, only better. I'm taking better care of myself so I am feeling much better, healthier and more energized. Also, with my new clean and decluttered office, I'm no longer dreading having to sit amongst all of that "stuff" I once had.

I can't begin to explain to you how much a beauty product developer can accumulate. We have product EVERYWHERE. It's kind of mind boggling. But I decided that the time had come to let go of a lot of it. Kind of a scary thing to do since you never know when you might "need!!!" a sample of something you developed 4 years ago. Believe me, it does happen but I'm taking my chances. Now I just love going into work. It's a fabulous feeling and a great way to start the week.

Hope you all have a fabulous Monday!

xoxo

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

See Ya!

Good morning, loves! Hope you're having a great week!

I've got a busy day today on tap today. I'm running around for work so no office time to for. I need a strong coffee to start the day and then I'm off!

If only I was running around Paris. In reality, it's Jersey but hey, a girl can dream, right? :)

Oh and I've been sporting my glasses for the past few days which is a new thing for me. Usually I only wear my contacts but had a subconjunctival hemorrhage in my eye this weekend (I'll spare you the details...) so I'm giving my eyes a break for a while. Trying to embrace this new look since I think I'll have no choice for a while.

I always see such chic looking ladies wearing glasses. Are you one of them?

Enjoy the day, sweets!

xoxo

Images: 1, 2, 3 All images edited by 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

A Little Peak Inside My World

Happy Tuesday, darlings! I'm so excited because I just found out my ReadyMade magazine feature is up and running. It's been on their site for over a month now...I had no idea...nobody told me about it. I was waiting for the print issue to come out but I haven't heard about that and I'm not sure if it's going to happen.

Anyway, after all this time {they acutally interviewed me over a year ago}and two photo shoots later, it's nice to see the final product come to fruition. Hope you all enjoy this little glimpse into my reality :)

Hope you're all having a fabulous week! xoxo

Image: via ReadyMade

Sing Me To Sleep

Well I'm finally tucked away in my hotel room after a very long few days of lots of work, lots of travel and not enough food and sleep. Just a little more work to go tomorrow morning and then I'm headed back home. Oh how sweet it will be to get to go to sleep in my bed tomorrow night. Hoping to have sweet dreams about it tonight.

Goodnight, lovelies! xoxo

Images: via here

Out & About

Happy Tuesday everyone! Totally loving today because I don't have to sit in my office all day long. I actually get to hop in my car and take it for a swing for work purposes.

And I couldn't ask for a more perfect day. The weather's gorgeous so I'll be opening the sun roof and rolling down the windows to let the gorgeous breeze run through my hair. I so need a day like today.

Hope you all have a great one! xoxo

Images: Mikael Jansson via FGR edited by The Alternative Wife

Desk Dreams

My work office is in the midst of a major renovation. Like the tearing up all the carpeting, installing new lighting, and painting all the walls kinda overhaul. Not a pretty sight at all.

And myself, being a cosmetic product developer, has a TON of stuff. My office is stuffed to the gills with bins and trays of cosmetics. And my desk is often completely covered in product submissions. Needless to say, it can get a little overwhelming. Not the most creative of environments.

Well this past week and a half I've been doing a major cleanse. Tossing all the old and only keeping necessities and the pretty things to bring a bit of personality to the workplace. It's been kinda cathardic and I'm liking where it's going but I'm not quite there yet.

I've been looking around for a bit of inspiration and I came across these photos of Aerin Lauders home and work offices. They're so inspiring! Now I know Aerin Lauder and I are in the same line of work, and I know that she's Aerin Lauder and I'm not but why oh why can't I have an office like hers?

I'll take her desk from her home office above...that gold z desk is to die for!...or even her business office below. It's so clean and pretty and organized. But where does she keep all of her stuff? Must be nice to be a Lauder :)

Images: via this is glamorous