Fashion, Travel & Lifestyle Blog || Est. 2012 || Virginia Beach, VA
Happy Friday! Welcome to this month's work outfits. Spring is definitely here in Charlottesville. It sure is nice to be able to wear dresses and skirts without tights again. As always, I link either exact or similar details for all of my monthly work outfits on my LIKEtoKNOW.it profile, so be sure to follow me there if you aren't yet!
At the end of 2020, I was invited to become a Sarah Flint Brand Ambassador. I was previously familiar with Sarah Flint shoes (they've been worn by some big names like Meghan Markle and Lady Gaga), but I didn't actually own any for myself as they are at a high price point. When I was invited to join the Brand Ambassador program, I was really excited to finally get to try and style a pair of these shoes, and test them out to let you know an honest opinion of them. Now that I've had my pair for a few months and worn them a good bit, I'm excited to share this review and a special Sarah Flint discount code with you today!
ImPRESS Nails were one of my best new purchase discoveries of 2019, and I'm still absolutely obsessed with them today! Discovering these press-on drugstore nails completely eliminated my expensive monthly nail salon visits. It's been so much fun to hear from a lot of you since I started sharing about these nails that have also tried them! However, one of the most frequently asked questions that I get in my DMs now is how to make ImPRESS Nails last longer. There are definitely some "best practices" for application that can be the difference between them lasting just a few days, to lasting 10+ days! Today I'm sharing my best tips for making your ImPRESS Nails last as long as they can.
I've been doing an annual blog reader survey for the past several years, and it is something that I look forward to each year now! The feedback that I receive from each of you about your thoughts and suggestions for Southern Belle in Training and my social media accounts is so valuable to me. I always look back on each survey's results and feel so inspired and ready for another year of blogging and content creation!
What a week for sales! I chatted about and shared a wishlist for the one happening at Shopbop earlier this week on the blog, and today we're talking beauty buys and the Sephora Sale. I have to start this post by being fully honest: I'm not the biggest Sephora shopper! In the last year especially, I've been trying to switch to as many drugstore beauty products as possible. I would say right now about 80% of my hair and makeup products are from drugstore brands. So I tend to buy a lot of beauty stuff mostly from Ulta, Walmart and CVS! But with that said- there are a few things that I do shop at Sephora for, and since they don't often do sales, now is the time that I stock up on these things.
This week I am excited to order a few things in the Shopbop Spring Sale! It began on Monday, and is ending on Friday, 4/16. I have only started shopping regularly at Shopbop in the past year or so. For a long time, I thought that everything that Shopbop carried was solely ridiculously expensive designer clothing labels. It wasn't until about a year ago that I realized they actually carried tons of items under $100, and even some under $50! They also carry a lot of mid-range designer labels that I've grown to love from shopping at places like Nordstrom- things like Tory Burch (they have a great Tory selection!), AG Jeans, Sam Edelman shoes, and more. Today I'm sharing my wishlist for the current sale, and also a couple items at Shopbop that I already own and love!
Last spring, I began my first car lease. I felt that I had well researched buying vs. leasing, and was confident in my decision to choose leasing. I loved my car, but was already excited to think about getting a newer vehicle at the end of the three year lease term. Three years was a timeframe I felt great about! What I didn't expect however was having my brand new car totaled after just 10 months of having it, thanks to a deer jumping on it while driving on the interstate.
Confession: I am an earring hoarder. I suppose in fully honesty I'm kind of an all-jewelry hoarder... but earrings are by far my favorite type of jewelry. I am rarely seen without earrings. (I usually only take them out for workouts, and even then will often wear small studs.) Despite the fact that I only have one hole in each ear, I have an extremely large earring collection! From tiny studs to big statement earrings, I love them all. I recently started storing my earrings differently thanks to a great organizational find from Amazon- and I love this new method so much that I wanted to do a quick blog post about it.
What is it with this whole Gen Z vs. Millennials debate on skinny jeans lately? I'm personally a big fan of skinny jeans and have no plans to take them out of my wardrobe anytime soon... or ever? Haha! But with that said, I am always open to trying out other styles of jeans as well. Long bootcut jeans I don't think will ever be my favorite (they give me middle school flashbacks from before I had my first pair of skinny jeans... *shudder*), but there are some other types of styles I'm willing to give a try. I've been shocked this spring at how much I'm loving cropped flare jeans- I've worn this pair so much more than I thought I would since I got them!
Today's blog post is one I've been wanting to write for quite awhile, but have continued to put off (probably because it's a more vulnerable topic). With Sunday being Easter and today being Good Friday, it seemed like now might finally be the time to write this. I wanted to write honestly and openly about some of my faith related thoughts and feelings in the past year during COVID-19.
