Monthly Archives

March 2018

Fashion

What’s In My Bag?

March 20, 2018

Hi cuties, welcome back to my blog!  Today, I’m sharing the goodies I carry around with me everyday.  I’m constantly switching back and forth from my work bag to a small purse to a large purse but there are a few essentials I make sure to grab no matter what bag I’m carrying.  Keep reading to see what my favorites are!

The first thing I always make sure to have with me is my wallet.  Sometimes though, especially with the warmer weather coming, I prefer to have a smaller wallet to stick in my pocket (or my boyfriend’s pocket).  Lately, I’ve been loving this palm leaf card holder from Thread Wallets!  It’s the perfect size for sticking your ID, credit card, and some cash in if you’re going for a fun bike ride or walking on the boardwalk.  I love it!

I also always make sure to bring hand-sanitizer and hand lotion with me wherever I go.  The last few months have been pretty rough with sicknesses going around and I want to make sure I stay healthy!  For hand-sanitizer and hand lotion, Bath & Body Works is the way to go.  I recently bought their new Guava hand cream and it smells like a dream!  It’s such a light and airy scent and it’s perfect for the spring and summer seasons!

Another important item in my bag is my glasses.  Thankfully, my vision is good enough where I don’t need to wear my glasses all the time but they’re good to have on hand for when I need to throw them on.  The pair I’m wearing right now is this pair from Warby Parker.  I’ve had them for a little over a year and I love them.  It’s my favorite pair I’ve ever had!

The last item that I always make sure to have with me is my phone!  I have the iPhone 7 Plus and I am absolutely obsessed with it.  My phone case (only $7 from Nordstrom Rack!) is clear so you can see the gold color through it and that’s one of my favorite parts!  Are you team Apple or team Android?  I’m totally team Apple.  Let me know which team you’re on in the comments below!

That’s all for my “What’s in my bag?” post!  Make sure you follow me on my Instagram account to keep up with my day-to-day life in between blog posts.  Have a great week and, as always, I’ll see you next Tuesday!

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How To

How To: Keep Your Blonde Hair Healthy

March 13, 2018

Hey everyone, happy Tuesday!  Welcome to another post on the Allison in Wonderland lifestyle blog.  Today’s post is one I’ve been wanting to write for a few months now so I thought it was time to finally sit down and do it!  In the last eight months, I’ve gone from being a natural brunette to a blonde (click here to read my post about my experience with dyeing my hair) so I’ve had to switch up my hair care routine just a bit.  Keep reading to see how I keep my hair healthy!

Starting off with shampoo and conditioner, the products I’m currently using are from a company called Soapbox Soaps.  Soapbox Soaps was founded in 2010 with a mission to empower people to change the world through their everyday purchases.  They believe access to soap can change someone’s life so they donate a bar of soap to someone in need, locally or abroad, for every Soapbox Soap purchase.  How incredible is that!?  The line I’m using right now is their Bamboo Strength & Body Shampoo and Conditioner and it’s doing wonders for the health of my hair.  Constantly bleaching and toning my roots takes a lot out of my hair and the nourishment from this line is exactly what my scalp has been needing.

Another thing I’ve added to my hair care routine is regularly using a hair mask.  About once a week, I pick a day to take time to use the Aveda Sun Care After-Sun hair mask.  In my opinion, it’s a little bit pricey for the amount of product you get but it’s an amazing formula.  It’s not messy and is extremely moisturizing and my hair always feels great after I take it off.  The packaging says to keep it on for at least 2-5 minutes but my stylist recommends leaving it on for a few hours or even sleeping with it on.  With the combination of Soapbox Soap’s Bamboo shampoo and conditioner and Aveda’s hair mask, my locks are in good shape even with all the coloring I do to it.

That’s all for this week’s post!  I hope you enjoyed my hair product recommendations.  If you already use or are going to start using any of the products I mentioned, let me know in the comments below!  Blonde hair takes a lot of upkeep but I think it’s worth it!  Make sure you come back next Tuesday for another brand new post.  Have a great week!

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Things I'm Loving Right Now

My Bachelor Finale REACTION: Arie’s Season

March 9, 2018

Hi Bachelor-loving cuties and welcome to my second Bachelor recap!  I’ve been watching the Bachelor and the Bachelorette for years and years now but I only started writing about it last season.  If you want to hear my thoughts on Rachel’s season, click here!  As I said in my previous Bachelor post, I know that the show is a little bit silly and I don’t really agree with their process of finding love but I can’t stop watching it!  All the drama is so funny to me and every season, the girls get nicer and nicer and you can tell they form real friendships with each other so it’s a good guilty pleasure watch for me.

Let me start by saying it was a little bit of a struggle to even get myself in front of a TV to watch all of Arie’s season.  As you might know, I moved into my own apartment in the beginning of January and, while I have a TV, I haven’t set up cable yet.  So every Monday at 8pm, I had to find somewhere to watch the Bachelor.  I am clearly a dedicated viewer!  All in all, I didn’t miss any episodes and I thoroughly enjoyed watching.  I thought they chose a really, really great group of women for Arie and they kicked off the dramatic ones early on, which was very relieving!

Moving onto my thoughts about Arie, I liked him in the beginning!  I thought he was mature, down-to-Earth, and ready to take on the process.  I thought with him being a bit older than the usual Bachelor and being removed from the Bachelor spotlight for a few years, he might have a different perspective than someone coming right out of the process of being on the Bachelorette.  These positive thoughts lasted all the way until the finale and now I’m not his biggest fan.  Although I do agree with him following his heart and choosing the one he sees a real future with (come on, we alllllll could tell he was gonna choose Lauren from the beginning), I don’t agree with the way he broke it off with Becca.  Breaking up with someone should be private and not only did he do it publicly, he did it for the whole country to see.  I can’t imagine how humiliating and hurtful that was for her and I’m glad she stayed so strong when she had the chance to talk to him about it on the live show.

I’m so excited for Becca to be the new Bachelorette!  I think she’s perfect for the role and I can’t wait to see the places she’ll travel to with the men.  That’s one of my favorite things about the Bachelor.  Every season, they go to such cool places that I’ve never thought about going to myself and I love to live through them when they have adventures in new cities.  If you have any ideas as to where you think they’ll go, leave them in the comments below!  I’m thinking South Africa?  We’ll see!

That’s all for this week’s post.  If you enjoyed it, check out my Instagram for a sneak peek as to what I’ll be writing about next time!  Have a great weekend!

Fashion

My Spring Wardrobe ft. Old Navy

March 6, 2018

Disclosure: Old Navy provided this clothing for me to review. However, all opinions stated here are my own.

Hey everyone and welcome back to the Allison in Wonderland blog!  Today, I’m wishing for warmer weather by jumping head first into my bold spring wardrobe.  Where I live, the winter season has felt extremely long and cold so I’m more than ready to break out the bright colors and fun prints.  Keep reading to see a few of my favorite pieces from Old Navy’s new, spring line!

The first outfit (pictured above) is an outfit I can see myself wearing a ton this season.  The laid-back-but-still-trendy vibe is perfect for casual Friday at work, running errands, and date night on the weekend.  Not many outfits can transition like that!  Old Navy calls this jacket the Sueded-Knit Moto Jacket and I’m obsessed with it.  Not only is it soft to the touch but it’s flattering as well.  Most jackets this length tend to make me look boxy but this one just makes me feel empowered or, as Old Navy would say, #hipowered!  I paired it with a striped yellow tee and white jeans and the look was complete.  This outfit is all I need to take on the rest of this week!

This next outfit is my favorite!  I’ll admit, I do wear a lot of denim in my day-to-day life but not usually denim on denim.  When I saw this white denim jacket, I knew I had to have it!  I decided to take a risk by pairing it with fun, striped AND flower printed jeans and I fell in love.  I’ve never owned jeans like this before but I’ve been wanting to #sayhi to new experiences and new style boundaries so I went for it.  I tied the look together with a navy, v-neck tee and super, super comfortable navy sneakers and called it a day.  I love how it turned out!

This last look is for my lazy-Saturday crew.  On the weekends, I love to relax and take it easy and that transitions into my outfits as well.  This striped #oldnavystyle tee is perfect for that!  It pairs perfectly with jeans and it’s so adorable that you don’t even need to add anything else to your outfit to make you stand out.  I already can’t wait to wear it again!

That’s all for today’s fashion post, I hope you loved it!  If you liked any of the pieces above, make sure you check out oldnavy.com and @OldNavy on Instagram for some great deals and steals.  They always, always, always have a sale going on and their new spring line is incredible!  Comment below what your favorite look was and I’ll see you back here next Tuesday.  Have a great week!

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Fashion

Girls Supporting Girls ft. Things I’ve Made, Wild Public, and Ali & Ariel

March 1, 2018

Hi beauties!  Welcome to another week here on the Allison in Wonderland blog.  I’m so excited to share today’s post with you!  Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to meet another Maryland lifestyle blogger for the first time, shoot on-location in a place I’ve never been, and work with three incredible female-founded t-shirt brands all in the same day.  Keep reading to hear all about my exciting shoot!

Meet Mary.  She’s the cutie next to me in the photo below!  Mary is the blogger babe behind a blog called Easily Inspired (click here to check it out).  We connected online a few months ago and immediately started planning this collaboration!  It’s always fun working with other local creatives that have a similar vision and it was awesome getting to meet her in real life.  Her Instagram feed is killer too – check it out here!

The first brand I want you all to know about is called Things I’ve Made (click here).  Things I’ve Made is run by a girl named Caroline Artime and she’s the sweetest!  She’s so nice to work with and her merchandise is so, so cute.  One of her newest tees is the RAD tee both Mary and I are wearing in the photos above.  It’s amazingly soft and perfect for spicing up a casual jeans-and-tshirt look.  Caroline was even nice enough to give you all a discount code!  For this weekend only, if you use the code RAD15, you’ll get 15% off your RAD shirt.  Hurry and go scoop one up!  You won’t regret it.

The next brand we collaborated with for this post is called Wild Public (click here).  Wild Public is an Etsy shop that was opened in 2017 by a beauty named Kara and she sells tons of graphic tees.  One thing that I love about this brand is they donate 10% of their proceeds and that’s a lot for a small company.  It just makes me want to support them even more!  I had the hardest time picking out which tees I wanted to get but I ended up choosing two – one that says Ladies Unite and one that says Happy Camper.  Scroll through the photos below to take a peek at them – they’re adorable!  Also, if you sign up for Wild Public’s email list, you’ll get 15% off your first order.  Woohoo!

The third t-shirt company we partnered with is Ali & Ariel (click here).  I wish I had known about this company while I was in college because they have so many cute options for big and little sorority gear!  The shirt I’m wearing from Ali & Ariel is the pink one that says “Classic” across the front.  This tee is one of my favorites!  It’s so different from any other graphic tee that I have and I also like that I can still make a statement even though I’m only wearing a t-shirt.  You’re definitely going to want to check this shop out – especially if you’re in a sorority!

To wrap up the final details of our shoot, I want to tell you about the location we shot at because Mary and I really hit the jackpot with this one.  It’s called the Hummingbird Inn and it’s AMAZING.  The Hummingbird Inn is located on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in Easton.  Click here to check out their website – they even have a blog too!  We found it on Airbnb when we were scouting locations and their Crisfield Room was just what we were looking for.  It’s decorated in a very mid-century modern style and we fell in love the moment we laid our eyes on it.  We coordinated everything with Eric, the owner, and he couldn’t have been any nicer.  His Yelp reviews are second to none and his Instagram features the tastiest food you could ever imagine.  I will definitely be going back to the Hummingbird Inn as soon as I can to stay as a guest!

That’s all for today’s blog post.  I hope you enjoyed reading about a few of my favorite creative, female-founded brands!  I’ll be back next Tuesday with a fashion post featuring another really fun brand.  Does anyone think they know what brand I’ll be featuring? Leave your guesses in the comment section below!  Have a great week!

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