KimberlyMichelle » pretty

borrowing lenses is a good thing

Kim — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:10:00 +0000

In preparation for “helping” out with the Bid Day festivities, I rented a 35mm (1.4) lens from borrowlenses.com to capture some great photos from the day for the girls. It was super easy to order it online and pick it up from a local store, and despite using it for the first time on the spot and not having a full-frame camera, the photos turned out really great.

I kept the lens for the week in order to be able to return it on time, and snapped a few other shots over the weekend. That’s when I realized I had gotten myself hooked on the good stuff… and now going back to my other lenses just won’t be the same. It’s the evil taste of amazing wine when you know you can’t buy the bottle, or knowing just how beautiful a well tailored dress fits in a price range far exceeding your own.

But, then again, it’s nice to know that an amazing piece of technology can be in your hands for a few days if you really really need it… and that at the rental prices it’s not really out of your league. I’m thinking that renting a lens for special occasions might be completely appropriate, especially since there’s no need to spend oodles of money on film and developing costs like we used to back in the day.

I whole heartedly recommend borrowlenses.com to try out some lenses if you’re looking to buy in the future… but just beware that you might not want to give them back!

i need hair tutorials

Kim — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 16:44:01 +0000

I’m the worst at hair. And by “at hair,” I simply mean doing anything with it that someone would consider a style. I only learned to frenchbraid my hair out of necessity (basketball/softball in the ‘90’s required it), and I was never one of the girls that liked to play with other girl’s hair. And fast forward twenty years and nothing has changed!

I don’t own any styling tools other than a hair dryer. My hair is usually damp coming to work. And I’m pulling off the “ombre” look without even trying right now with my awesome dark roots. And my arm falls asleep if I leave it up for more than a minute trying to do something up at the tippy top of my crown.

So call me skeptical when I saw these “visual hair tutorials” floating around on Pinterest from A Cup of Jo. But I figured that if I could follow, step by step, with what was there, I might succeed.

So last night, I pulled up the image below on my iphone and tried out this style in the bathroom mirror before bed…

[Photos by Jamie Beck for Cup of Jo]

And guess what? It worked!!! It was pretty and classic and super easy to do!!!

If you want to see all of the amazing tutorials, check out this link. And maybe we’ll wear one less ponytail to work next week!

pinning pretty pictures

Kim — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:13:00 +0000

[screenshot of my pinterest account]

If you haven’t heard about pinterest yet… let me share a secretive pretty place with you. Think of all those wonderful images that you bookmark away… or that you hope to stumble upon again when the right time comes. Now imagine that you can stow those images (and the link back to the content goes right with it) into file folders and categories of your choosing with tags and all the details you want. Now go a step further, and know that you can share these clipping files with others instantly… and have access to others amazing pinboards too!

Am I making sense here? If I’m not, head here for a better description.

And if I’m making sense, and you’d like an invitation, just comment below and I’ll send one your way! Remember, I can see your email address, so just ask and you’ll receive!

looking a little like sex and the city

Kim — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:30:00 +0000

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I can proudly admit that after I saw Carrie in this outfit on Sex and the City one week, I RAN (ok… maybe I drove?) down Wilshire Blvd. to the promenade and Fred Segal FUN to get my own exact copy of the yellow Mickey Mouse t-shirt and paired it with a black tuxedo jacket for my own copycat look. And that t-shirt is still in my closet today (despite its shrinkage and my enlargement) just because it’s a piece of my attempt to be as sassy as one of the SATC gals.
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Now the girls are still going even though my days of watching the show in the sorority house are long over, so why not keep going on and trending with them and their fashions? If you want to jump ahead of the trend and live like the girls in the upcoming movie, you could grab one of these adorable cupcake aprons by Jessie Steele and pretend you’re Charlotte in your own kitchen. They have them in both adult and kids sizes — and they’re even 15% off (code: BLOG10)!
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Wait… how do I know that these appear in the movie? It’s in the trailer silly!
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Now if only I could grab me a summer white dress and SJP’s legs, I’d be a happy fashionista at home!
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time for home to enjoy a sample sale

Kim — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:22:00 +0000

The next online sample sale site has opened up… and it’s all about home decor. I’ve signed up to see what it’s all about, and if the 50-75% will pay off in the end!

If you’d like to sign up, just enter kimberlymichelle.com@gmail.com in the referral box.

[and you could win a Hermes throw!]

p.s. I have a gmail folder and filter set-up for “Shopping” … so I can join lots and lots of mailing lists, but never be bogged down by how many there are. They simply hide away in the folder and I can easily erase them as well!

weddings ruined colored candy for me

Kim — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:56:54 +0000

That’s right. Weddings ruined colored candy for me. Perhaps I shouldn’t lay all of the blame on weddings, but rather just the idea of a candy buffet. Normal candies transformed into wondrous displays of color… all yellows, or greens, or reds… And now for some reason I have an insane wanting to color separate all of my candy as well?

Exhibit A: One normal bag of plain Valentine M&Ms… purchased by my lovely coworker to replenish my candy supply

EXHIBIT B: They’ve somehow managed to separate into their color groups… be it by magnetic force, or “magic” ?

EXHIBIT C: Vials of candy goodness… neatly sorted… ready for consumption on the top shelf of my bookcase.

p.s. if you’d like an M&M container that will really keep you from guzzling them down… try these vases from IKEA. The narrow spout really helps on portion control, so when you want a taste of chocolate, you can have 4 M&Ms rather than a handful. I say this because I think I accidentally inhaled 5 Kisses the other day in less than 10 seconds. It was not pretty.

urge for color

Kim — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:08:00 +0000

I’m having a pretty crazy busy wacky day. In fact, this year has so far been following this pattern, and I’m really looking forward to our vacation in two weeks.

To illustrate how crazy I am… I’m lusting after

these cords right now. Maybe it’s just the price ($19.99), but I’m seriously drooling over them. After I saw the color in the stores and was literally BLINDED by the intensity of these reds/oranges/yellow… Andyou know I’d just end up wearing a white tank/shirt with them, so it’d only be a partly exciting outfit with 46″ of crazy bold color on my ridiculoulsy long legs… yet still I’m entranced.

…oh well… I didn’t add them to my bag…back to crazy world.

Retreating

Kim — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:57:07 +0000

I’m off eating apricots and retreating for the day in the hills. I hope you get to enjoy your Veteran’s Day as well!

gilt-y for the first time

Kim — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:30:00 +0000

So I went ahead and did it… I made my first Gilt purchase last week. I have a wedding to attend next week, and when I saw this Cynthia Rowley dress… I knew it was perfect. I’ve long been a fan of the cut-out-shoulder look since Julia Roberts sported it in Notting Hill when her character starred in Helix… and I realize how wonderfully it disguises my well-sized shoulders.
As far as Gilt goes, it was a great process all the way along. It arrived about a week after my order, nicely packed on its hanger in a flat box via UPS. All it needs is a little bit of steam and it will be ready for its debut in Manhattan (Beach that is).

stopping to smell the roses

Kim — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:47:13 +0000

Some days, my work takes me on a walk past the rose gardens at the state capitol. Sometimes I’m walking briskly since I left a minute too late for my meeting/appointment, and other times I get to take my time and find a few blooms to sniff.

Today, I spent about five extra minutes meandering the garden pathways and iphone-ing a couple of delicate specimens. And boy did I smell them!

So amidst the smokey haze of today… I took a “nap” from reality… AND I got a pretty picture. Not bad!