Happy Valentine’s

I hope you all have a year full of love!

Arki

What does you Bag Say About You?

I love this personality exam Refinery 29 put together according to your bag. I think it is spot on!

Now, which bag are you? Which bag would you love to be?

2012 Spring Trends

We all can feel the spring approaching. As I was driving to work this morning, I noticed how it wasn’t as dark anymore. The sun actually came out earlier than what it had been doing for the past few months. This observation instantly drew a smile on my face and lifted my mood (I am sure we all can agree that driving to work, at 6am in the morning, is not the ideal thing to do!).

Spring is my favorite season of all, especially when you live in Virginia. Virginia has one of the worst winters (well not this year, at least we haven’t seen anything yet), and it has one of those nasty hot and sticky humid summers; therefore, spring and fall are the best seasons in this state. However, spring always wins!

Spring = bright sunny skies + a nice breeze + Easter + Blooms + Cherry Blossom in DC + My Birthday! On top of all that, this year Spring 2012 means Pastel colors + Neon colors+ A-symmetrical skirts + Spikes and studs + Chunky Chain Accessories + tiny jewelry pieces + Brogue shoes + loafers + and another trend that is going to help us transition from winter to Spring and stick with us for a while is the Ankle Boot!

Here are a few ankles boots that you can put your hands on. I have 1, 2, 3 as my favorites. I think they would look extra cute with a bodycon mini neon skirt, a flowy pastel sheer shirt, a couple layers of chain necklaces, a stackable rings, and finally a subtle eye look with a bold lip color!

Click me for more details

Happy Spring!

ArKi

Indulge Yourself in Sweetness..

Last weekend, I hosted a spa party for my girls. A skin analyst specialist was there featuring an amazing machine that analyzes up to three layers of the skin. Through that machine, you get to know your skin better, learn where your trouble spots are, get educated on their condition, and get help and recommendations for treating them.

Many of the girls learn that their skin wasn’t actually the type they’ve always thought it was. For example, my sister had always the impression that her skin was oily to combination. However, it turned out that her skin is Normal to dry! They were all impressed with the machine and the products that were promoted. A few things I love about their products: they are all natural, cruelty free, work amazingly, and are made in the United States. [I will have more in depth review on the products]

One tip I need to share with you here is, Please Use Sunscreen Every Day of Your Life! This small step can save you so much in the future. Sunscreen now = Less Wrinkles in the future. Trust me!

Other than impressing my guests with the special facial treatments, they were all in love with the other treats. Dessert. Something you need to know about me is that I absolutely LOVE Red Velvet! That weekend was the one following Valentine’s Day, so what a better way to celebrate than having Red Velvet treats everywhere?

I love decorating; therefore, I enjoyed making a cute display out of those delicious treats. I got so many compliments on the dessert and the food. It always feels good when you leave a great impression on others. These little things make you, and the others around you, so Happy.

The menu was:

Red Velvet mini cups

Strawberry Dipped in Chocolate

Pink Champagne

Vitamin Shots

Avocado Cherry Tomato Salad

Caesar Salad

Margarita Pizza

Wings

[My family owns a few pizzerias; therefore, our guests always request having pizza and wings at our parties, because they are that delicious]

The day went by fast and everyone enjoyed their time. It was great having the girls over. I haven’t hung out with them since my wedding. We had a fantastic day together and hopefully will be planning another get together soon.

Seriously, what’s a better day than relaxing, sipping champagne, and indulging in deliciousness?

I cannot get over the Red Velvet!

❤

ArKI

Meeting the President

Monday the 19th of February, businesses and schools were all closed celebrating the United States’ President’s Day. I moved to the U.S. seven years ago; therefore, I am not a native to this country and I do not know a lot about its history.

The hubby has a friend who is fascinating. He is basically an open history encyclopedia! History is his passion. His knowledge does not stop to the history of the U.S., but it stretches out to the other side of the world, to the side I came from.

Since we live in Virginia, we thought it would be a great opportunity to go with him to Mt. Vernon and visit George Washington’s house, especially when its free to get in on that day. I have never been there, and I do not know much about G.W. except that he was the first president of the U.S.

Early in the morning

Our field trip started early on Monday morning, before it got crowded in Mt. Vernon. We were accompanied with a couple other friends of the hubby. Since we are in mid February, you can imagine how cold it is in VA in the mornings. It was so cold that I felt like my nose and ears were going to fall off while we were waiting for them to open the gate. The gate opened at 8 a.m. and we immediately started walking towards G.W.’s house. We did the house tour, which was very interesting. We were in the same rooms, walked through the hallways this man walked, and touched the stair rails he touched hundreds of years ago! They explained that everything in the house was original, even the vivid green pain that most of the rooms were painted with. Did you know that the color green was a symbol of wealth during that time?

G.W. Porch

A few hours later, the weather turned out to be gorgeous. We enjoyed walking around his land, through the forest trails, and beside the Potomac River. We saw such gorgeous scenery and enjoyed learning about G.W.

The dock of Mt. Vernon

I definitely recommend visiting Mt. Vernon especially on a nice day!

View of the Potomac River

It is such a beautiful place to visit. We had a great time with the friends and learned a lot. It sure makes a huge difference when you have a friend full of knowledge. We will definitely make another trip to Mt. Vernon in the future!

 

Roasting a chicken with Thyme and Rosemarie.

 

I hope you enjoyed the few pictures I took to document the beauty of that place.

 

❤

ArKi

 

Best morning snack

A snack that I learned from the hubby, Skinny pretzel topped with a piece if provolone cheese = deliciousness in crunchiness and tastiness!
Something to get me through until lunch! 😀

Arki

MyGlam February

As promised, here is what I got in MyGlam bag for this month.
1. Cute Hot pink makeup bag.
2. Freeman Enzyme Mask.
3. Premier Moisture Complex & Instant Stretching and Revitalizing Mask.
4. Full size NYX Roll on Shimmer in Light blue.
5. X Out Shine Control.
6. $100 Gift Certificate to NUME.
7. Finally two Ghirardelli chocolate as a valentines treat.

Pretty good selection I think. I haven’t checked NUME website yet and I haven’t heard about it before. I will keep you posted of how I use the $100 gift certificate I got.

Happy Friday love<3
Arki

Blazer Love

I have been obsessed with blazers lately. However, those two for to be my absolute favorites. They combine both my love for blazers and bright neon colors. I love everything about them: the color, the shoulder pads, the cut, and the hardware. I cannot wait to pair them with jeggings, cute shoes/ boots, a simple T shirt, and one of my jewelry pieces.

ArKi

Cutest purchase!

I am so in love with those two pieces I scored yesterday. A bright lime yellowish green and a faux fur vest! The cutest combo ever.

❤ aRKI

Happy Valentine’s Day

❤
ArKi

Organization tips: recycled bags

I’d like to share with you some of my organization tips and ideas I’ve learned through out the years.
Let’s start with recycling the grocery bags. I’ve been using this technique for over 9 years now.

Storing Grocery bags can be overwhelming as well as messy sometimes. Therefore, sometimes we just end up throwing them because we don’t want to deal with that. This idea will make storing them easy, neat, and accessible.

Follow these easy steps:
1. Lay the bag flat.
2. Start folding it vertically as pictured into 3 to 4 folds.
3. Grab one of the bottom corners and fold it to form a triangle.
4. Keep forming mini triangles until you reach the point where the bag handles begin to form.
5. Now take the handles and stuff them inside the triangle pocket on the other side. Viola!

Now store it wherever you like. You can put it in a cute container or vase for easy access, or in my case, I store them under my sink.

Happy Organization!
ArKi

February Birchbox

Here is what I got in my Birchbox for this month.
1. Eye Rock designer eyeliner. I am pretty excited to try that. I will have a review on it soon.
2. Glow and Go Travel Puff self tanner.
3. Jouer luminizing moisture tint. Previously I received the clear moisturizer and I loved it. I am excited to use this one a well.
4. Dermalogica daily Microfoliant.
A couple cute other things:
1. Hot pink heart shaped nail filer.
2. A code to download a free track for Green River Ordinance. I’ve never heard of them before.

I cannot wait to receive my Glam bag and compare it to this.

Happy weekend everyone!
ArKi

Lips is Details

So here is a detailed post about those lip colors from the previous post.

Those three colors are:

Divine Divine 330 by Cover Girl

Gumdrop 060 by Revlon Color burst Lip Butter

Unending Kiss 112 by L’Oreal Infallible

These products are amazing. First of all, my absolute favorite is Divine Divine. Beside the gorgeous purplish pink color, it has a great staying power. By great, I mean 24 hours, I wake up sometimes in the morning and I can still see it on lips even after washing it off! I’ve always had that dilemma of my lips eating the lipstick. I’ve always struggled trying to find a lip product that would stay on my lips for at least an hour. Everything melts off or gets absorbed within a few minutes of applying it. Well, not this one! This lip product is absolutely AhMazing!

I currently own 3 colors from that line of Cover Girl. This weekend I am planning on visiting a drug store and purchasing a few more colors. I am not sure if it is advertised as a long lasting lip product, but it sure does work 100 times better than any other product that claims it has a long lasting power.

Now, the Revlon lip butter. Those are amazing as well. They do not have the same staying power as the Cover Girl product, and even though they are lip butters, they still stay on for quite a while and definitely longer than other brands I’ve tried. Not to mention, the color is super cute. Its almost as if its an icy pink color; however, it doesn’t wash you out. I have an olive skin tone and it looks gorgeous on!

Last but not least, the L’Oreal Unending Kiss. This is such a gorgeous nude color. It is definitely warm nude that doesn’t wash you out. Its staying power is not bad, however, it is a bit drying on my lips. Nonetheless, I love the color!

I hope you enjoyed my little review. I highly suggest checking out the Cover Girl line. It is fabulous!

❤

ArKi

My Favorite lips at the moment!

Go Green!

I know we haven’t gotten one single decent snow storm yet, but I like to keep thinking how Spring is approaching. I am looking forward to that. Spring has got to be my favorite season!

In spring everything turns green, flowers and trees blossom, life returns to the nature, our mood gets lifted, and our days become brighter!

I always associate Spring with pastel colors, my birthday, Easter, and finally the color Green! What a better color to symbolize the Spring season than Green?

Green is definitely a cheerful lively color that symbolizes life and nature. It has this positive energy when looking at it, and it brings this sense of relaxation to your mind as well. I love Green! It has been one of my top favorite colors.

Now, let’s talk fashion. Green color is big in fashion trends this year/spring. Especially, lime green shades and neon greens. They are quite fabulous colors! I have so many favorite pieces I am planning on purchasing soon. Seriously, what a better color to welcome the spring?

Enjoy the little inspiration board I put together. You can click on it to direct you to the individual pieces.

Valentine’s Pink

Usually we associate red color with Valentine’s day. Well, not this year!

This year has been the year for bright neon colors, and the Hot Pink color has definitely proven to be the color of choice for many clothing articles and accessories out there. I am not a pink girl (shocking!), but I am definitely a Hot Pink fan. It makes everything look sophisticated, glamorous, pretty, yet edgy!

Hot Pink is definitely one of my favorite colors. It is such a beautiful color and it brings glow to my skin. It definitely suits my olive skin tone. If you are not brave enough to rock a Hot Pink outfit, well, this Valentine’s day should be your excuse! Everything out there is in that Hot Neon Pink color, go grab a piece and rock out wearing it on February the 14th.

Happy Hot Pink Day!

ArKi

Blurbed out!

So who knows about Blurb? Have you designed an album on that site?
I love pictures and love how you can re-live those moments through a photo. However, these days everything is digitalized and most likely most of your pictures are saved on your hard drive, flash card, or even still on your camera’s memory card. Every time I think of that, I get disturbed. What if a glitch occurs and that device, I am trusting, won’t work again!? What happens with all those memories I have stored?
Thats why I am trying my best now to have those hard copy pictures physically in front of me.
In an attempt to do that I joined Blurb community and I’ve been on that site a little over 6 months. However, I haven’t ordered one single album yet!
The reason is because I’ve been so busy lately and I feel that designing an album needs time and artistic mood. Let’s face it, we don’t always feel artistic and we are always time challenged. However, I am determined to work on these albums intensively in the next couple weeks, and I am planning on ordering one of them first as a test of quality and outcome.

I cannot wait to have those albums around my house, bringing back memories and putting a smile on our faces.

How Did U?

So how did you spend your Super Bowl evening? What was your favorite commercial?
I spent it home alone, watching the commercials really. I didn’t pay attention to the game. I had some peach fuzzy, read some magazines, organized my pantry, and worked on a couple jewelry pieces. It was pretty relaxing time for me.

As for my favorite commercial, I am not quite sure. However, I thought David Beckham underwear commercial for H&M as well as Adriana Lima’s for Teleflora were very sexy!

❤
ArKi

Super Bowl

I will be watching the super bowl in a few minutes.. 

I am not watching it for the game, only for the show and commercials! I wonder which commercial will be the number one hit! 

Let us watch and find out.

 

 

ArKi

 

Lemon Diet?

Seriously though, who doesn’t love lemons? I am one of those people who adds lemon on everything!
I love lemon in my tea, lots of lemon on my soup, on my salads, on cucumbers as snacks, in my water, and on my proteins. I can never get enough lemons! Besides the fact that it adds such a great flavor to the food I eat, it has many health benefits.

Did you know that introducing lemons to you diet with help with your digestion? It actually helps the body regulate its metabolism, lower the sugar absorption in you stomach, and increases the absorption of calcium which gets stored in your fat cells and later burns the fat. All this is due to the lemon’s acidity content and richness in vitamin C.

All you have to do is add lemon to your current diet, squeeze a few drops over your tea and salads, add it to your marinades and sauces, and finally enhance your flavors and health!
So, please bring on the Lemons. I want more!

❤
ArKi

I cannot help it but..

I cannot help it, but keep looking and searching for vibrant color clothing items. I guess its how they say, you wont know the meaning of something until you lose it. Same here, I think because its the winter season, you start to see less and less of those vibrant colors, you start noticing browns, blacks, and greys all around and surrounding you. Well I miss Color, I miss it so much and want it back in my life!

Stack Me Up!

I can never get enough Neon!

Those vibrant colors make it easier for me while waiting for the spring/summer to arrive. I hate winter! It is such a depressing season where color disappears from everything. It even disappears from your complexion!

Those pastel and neon colors help bring it back into my life. All these stackable bracelets are on my to get list.

Cuff Love

My favorite piece of jewelry has always been the bracelet. I love stacking a bunch of bracelets with different dimensions and characteristic to create a unique look. Bracelets are definitely the arm candy!

What better candy than those neon vibrant colored cuffs. How about those studded cuffs with bold geometric shapes?

Those are a few of the many bracelets I am getting my inspirations from.

Happy Friday!

I am so happy the weekend is finally here! I have a feeling that this is going to be a great weekend. I decided to wear one of my favorite pieces today: Zaina the Mati Rosary!

Happy day everyone!
ArKI

Accessorize Me

Furnishing a house from scratch is not easy, it actually takes a long time. Our townhouse is a little over 1600 sq ft, and still we are not half way done furnishing it. I don’t think furnishing a house should happen in a day & night, it should be treated as an on going project. Just like when your mood changes, your appetite and cravings change. It is the same exact situation with your decorating and designing taste.

For instance, in my case, my whole color theme changed drastically from when we signed the contract, on the house, till the time we actually moved in. At first, I wanted to have leopard and animal prints around the house, I wanted brown and cream color palette around the house, but now it is nothing like that! In fact, I hate brown furniture and brown color palettes. I am so over the typical brown or cream couches, way over brown accents, and beyond over standard looking pottery barn-ish looking furniture. I went to the opposite direction, to the crisp white vibrant color palette, and I absolutely love it.

Another thing I hate is buying sets. I think it is absolutely boring when you buy a set for you living room, bedroom, or office. When doing so, you do not challenge your self to create a space that catches your personality, you’re only taking what “someone” thinks looks good and placing it in your space. That is NOT me. I live to be different and unique in everything I have and do. I like to be creative, and I love to challenge myself. It doesn’t bother me when it takes me longer to find something because I know I will love the end results.

One of the benefits of having white as the bases for your color palette, is that you can easily change the space up by changing only the accessories! Therefore, if the mood changes, and I want to spice things up, all I have to do is replace my accessories with new colors. How easy and cheap is that!?

Currently, my bedroom is only white. At first, I thought of adding a light lavender tones accessories to it, but that soon changed. By soon, I mean within a month! Thank God my furniture is white; otherwise, my wallet will be in big trouble if I wanted to change my color palettes as often as I wish. Well I decided on the accent colors for the room, Tiffany Blue and silver! Also, I decided to have my two favorite patterns: Chevron & Houndstooth as an accent as well.

Images are from Zgallerie

YOU PICK!

GUYS, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE ON MY BLOG?

ANY IDEAS, QUESTIONS, TOPICS YOU’D LIKE ME TO ADDRESS? Let me know!

 

Grape Juice

So I am thinking of starting a favorites series. It will be a nice way to see how my favorite might evolve through out the years. Of course, what a better way to start this with my wine favorites. I am not a wine expert, but I definitely know what I like. I really enjoy the fruity Sweet ones, but not overly sweet. Anyways, Here are my top 4 favorites:
1. Golly wobbler Pink from St. Michaels Winery
2. SANEMAN Ruby Porto
3. Mavrodaphni of Patras Kourtake sweet red wine
4. Dow’s Porto

I’d go for a glass right now actually!
And now what’s yours?

Hot pink Me

Every person has this particular color that brings out their personality, character, and glow. It makes them shine and look spectacular. In my case, I discovered that neon colors, especially HOT Pink, brings me that glow. So now, the question is, what’s your color?

Arki

Fantabulous Guilty Pleasure..

So, it’s ok to slip in a frozen mango yogurt+warm chocolate chip muffin when your lunch really sucks on a Friday. Right?

Valentines?

So what do you guys have planned for Valentine’s day? Are you one of those who hate Valentine’s day, don’t really care for it, or look forward to it every year? Personally, I love Valentine’s day. Aside from the fact that you are allowed to enjoy chocolate on that day and maybe receive flowers, I love it because it was the day my lovely handsome brother was born!
But we should never forget the reason behind this day: Saint Valentine. This day is to commemorate saint Valentine. There are many legends, stories, and history behind it. It all sums down to this: Saint Valentine was martyr of love!