ShopDiary

Fashionable Holiday Cards by Bonnie Marcus & Co.

Every year, my girlfriends and I get together during the holidays. I’ll be hosting this year’s party and I’m so excited because I ordered a set of chic invitations from Bonnie Marcus & Co. Style Press, whose Haute Holiday collection includes illustrated hand-sparkled holiday cards and invitations. They are perfect for those who want to celebrate and spread holiday cheer in style. I got the blue snowflake invitations pictured above with an illustration of a girl in a red velvet dress holding a glass of champagne. You can’t see it in the above photo but the glass of champagne has yellow hand painted sparkles that shimmers and shines. I can’t wait to hear what my girlfriends say when they get their invites!

Swarovski 2007 Annual Edition Ornament

The champagne in your crystal-stemmed glass isn’t the only thing to sparkle this holiday season. Each year Swarovski designs a new eye-catching crystal ornament. For 2007, the Annual Edition ornament has elegant, detailed facets that replicates the Swarovski star that will sit atop the Rockefeller Center holiday tree when it arrives tomorrow, November 1st. It is beautiful! Swarovski will donate $250,000 from sales of this ornament to the Starlight Stabright Children’s Foundation, a national, non-profit, charitable organization that is dedicated to making a world of difference for seriously ill children and their families. So when you purchase it to light up your home, it also lights up the lives of children all over the country. Available at Swarovski retail stores worldwide and www.swarovski.com for $70.

Spring Cleaning

I just threw out a ton of skin care products that I haven’t used in years. I don’t even remember when I last used Clinique. Their skin care line never worked for me. The jars of cream were still full. My friend said I should have just returned them as soon as I knew they didn’t work for me. I didn’t know you could do that. It must have been nine years ago that I last used them. What?!

And so it’s out with the old and in with the new for me this spring. My friend just sent me more Shu stuff. Check out those fierce lashes at the bottom right.

Reader Survey

I just posted this nifty reader survey form on the sidebar. It’s part of an ongoing project with Coutorture, a fashion network that I am a member of, to determine who our readers are. It’s quick, easy and confidential (your name is not even required!) so please take a moment to click through it and submit your responses. This survey will be up for only a week. Many thanks in advance for your participation!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody! In just a few minutes, I will be getting ready to go out to celebrate New Years Eve with friends. Where will you be tonight?

Have fun, be safe, be good and best wishes for 2007!

Fashion Resolutions

Two more sleeps and then it will be a new year! It’s the end of 2006 and it’s time to take stock of how the year has been for me, at least in the realm of fashion and shopping.

Here goes:
Resist the urge to buy just because “it’s on sale” or “it was such a good deal”. Those $45 jeans I got last April? Three pairs are still unworn. The stuff I got at Barney’s Warehouse Sale? Three items are still in the shopping bag. I still think I got fantastic buys but my not wearing them has something to do with resolution #2…

If it doesn’t fit, don’t buy it! The jeans that I got need hemming and the stuff from BNY were just too large. I know I could’ve gotten them altered but many months later, I know that those are just the things that I never get to do. So if I bought my right size in the first place, I would probably have gotten the chance to wear them. Or maybe, I should resolve to go to the altering place in the first place because who gets off the rack clothes fitting perfectly all the time anyway?

Don’t buy in a rush. I got the $45 jeans when I was rushing to go elsewhere. I had to be somewhere else in an hour. So I plucked whatever I fancied, tried them on quickly and made snap decisions because “it was such a good deal”.

Buy quality items. I would rather have a few quality pieces than a slew of clothes that fall apart after a few washings. I think this is some kind of Catch-22 in that I will tire of trendy pieces soon enough so why pay more for them? So I guess I will still shop fast fashion for trendy items (who doesn’t love the prices?) but I do need to limit doing this and learn to buy timeless pieces that are well worth their tag prices.

Pay cash. Let me start off by saying that this is more about my personal comfort zone about not racking up a huge debt to satisfy my wants vs. my needs than about others’ buying habits. I guess paying cash all the time is not realistic but I used to be good about not using my credit card in the past years. But being fashion conscious makes me want more and more and I don’t want this to get out of hand. So I guess my next resolution will help me in buying more sensibly. I paid cash for my Chanel bag and I’ve been itching to get another bag but thankfully I haven’t given in yet. Which brings me to my next resolution…

Take stock of what’s in my closet and work with it. That way I know what I need and be able to resist the urge of a “good deal”. This means I will also need to do some early spring cleaning to get started. I’ll need to get rid of clothes I haven’t worn in two years and organize my closet. Hmm. I’ve just given myself a project for the new year!

Fashion Week Daily asked several celebrities what their fashion resolutions are. Their answers are here and here.

So, do you have any fashion resolutions for 2007? If so, what are they?

Happy Holidays!

Come back here on the 26th and let me know what gifts you’ve received.

America’s Next Top CoverGirl

I think this is what this show should be called instead because that’s what they basically become after winning. Don’t you agree?

Which IT Bag Are You?

You’re an Hermes Birkin. Confident, graceful, and discerning, you are none other than the legendary Birkin bag. Like the pantheon of purses, you portray a portrait of supreme elegance and status. Not one to be on the wrong side of the red rope, your aura of exclusivity and privilege makes people crave having you by their side.

Hmm. I’m not entirely sure if this is true but I’ll take it. Maybe choosing a catered affair and George Clooney did me in. If they had Keanu Reeves in there, I probably would’ve ended up as a Louis Vuitton Murakami or worse. Bwahahaha. No offense to those who love the Murakami. I probably am one anyway.

Take the quiz at Glam.com and let me know which It Bag you are.

ANTM’s A.J.

I must have jinxed A.J. of America’s Next Top Model. I was planning to feature her last week as she was one of my top faves to win. Majority of the contestants look more like actresses than models (hello, Melrose, Brooke and Caridee!). Aside from Meghan, who was booted off in the second episode, A.J. looked to be the most “model type” to me. She can walk with a blindfold on and project herself very well. But remove the bangs she hides behind from and her confidence just sags. I didn’t think her inability to express herself and do interviews would affect her that much since Danielle, the last ANTM winner, couldn’t talk either. Last night, A.J. was booted off the show.

So what do I know about this show anyway? I’ve only begun watching recently again. Maybe, I should just watch Top Chef.