ootd action!

I am fortunate to work in an office where I get to wear all of my clothes that I love. We are able to dress in business casual and I always look forward to picking something out each morning. Last night I was on a “Target run” and picked up a few great things on clearance that I was excited to work in to the outfit I put together this morning for work.

Denim and jean shirts are making a really big comeback in both the casual sense and the dressy sense. I own a few myself but last night I was really excited to find a fun denim dress with a tiered pattern. It was marked way down on clearance so I got a great deal on it too!

I paired it with a blush-colored blouse that is slightly menswear inspired with the bigger front pockets and button detail on the sleeves. I like being able to wear long-sleeved dress shirts without having them buttoned all the way up and tucked in.

As I have discussed before in the blog, leggings are a big staple in my wardrobe and I wear them most days. Today I wore some tan/brown colored ones from American Rag that are lighter weight and perfect for summer. More often than not, shoes can make an outfit 🙂 These salmon pink flats are M.I.A and came in one of my Stitch Fix boxes this spring. They are neutral enough to be worn with a lot of different colors and the eyelet pattern is unique. Since I am a little on the taller side I don’t find myself wearing heels very often so flats are definitely my go-to.

Finally, I also snagged this great chunky white and gold necklace on clearance at Target yesterday too. I like the weight and layers of it and I know I’ll get good use out of it. My gold drop earrings are some of my favorites. They are from Francesca’s and even though they are dangly they aren’t heavy so they don’t hurt to wear all day.

The next big thing for “sugar, spice, and style that’s nice” is that I’m now on Instagram! I wanted to make a separate account so that anytime I post on the blog I can also post there so it’s easier to follow along if you aren’t a wordpress user yourself. Please find me and follow me!! My username is: sugarspiceandstylethatsnice

I hope that you’re all having a wonderful week!

xoxo Jen

#sugarspiceandstylethatsnice

Advertisement

bedroom oasis

I promised I would be sharing more pictures of the rooms in my new place and I apologize it has been taking me so long! This weekend I finished the final touches and one last big project in my bedroom so I am excited to share the photos and ideas with all of you. I am really thrilled with how it turned out and I feel like my room is a good reflection of me and my personality!

The first project that happened right when I first moved in was painting the accent wall behind the bed. I painted over the previous owners dark purple and chose a really bright turquoise to bring some color to the room and bring out one of my favorite colors from my bedspread. I also ordered a headboard from wayfair and I LOVE how the brass studs stand out and give it an elegant touch!

Luna wanted to be in the picture, laying in her favorite spot on my bed 🙂 My bedspread is from Target and I love the quilt style but with such bright colors. The gold stars hanging in the corner are paper folded stars I bought during the Christmas season last year and I’m happy I found a year -round use for them.  I also tied in some fun gold accents on my turquoise side table that I snagged at a garage sale, already painted the perfect color! The gold lamp is also from a garage sale and the other two decor pieces are from Target as well. This also gives you a closer snapshot of the headboard.

Sometimes things we already own make the best decorations….so I decided to use my jewelry to decorate one whole wall of my room with a little help from some other pictures/decor. Statement jewelry and bright colors are such a current fashion statement and it’s like having built in decor! I bought the turquoise jewelry hangers from Bed Bath and Beyond and the classic yarn hanging is from Kittsona lifestyle. I picked up the hot air balloon wall from Gordmans because I couldn’t resist…they are one of the world’s most fascinating things to me! And one of my favorite little touches is my owl light switch cover that I picked up at Francesca’s!

The final corner of my room might be my favorite. The project I tackled this weekend was the painting of my old dresser to give it a facelift. My aunt Julien told me how great chalk paint was on some projects she did recently so I picked up some Annie Sloan chalk paint from Eco Chic in Fargo when I was there last week. My mom helped me with the painting (thanks mom, you’re the best!!!) and it only took two coats of this royal blue to go over my dark brown/black dresser.

It really is true….chalk paint doesn’t have any odor and each coat dried in about 25 minutes. The day after we painted I put on the wax later which took some time but definitely helped seal the finished and make the piece look great. I bought my vintage gold, glass, and white knobs from Eco Chic as well and they give the piece the perfect amount of charm. I also bought a gold gilding wax that I applied with my finger to all of the edges and drawers to give it a metallic sheen. I am so happy with how it turned out and I hope I can have another chalk painting project soon!

Lastly, the other pieces around the dresser add some more color to the room. On the wall I have styrofoam patterned tiles that you can buy on Amazon for around $2 a piece! They are made to mimic the beautiful old ceiling tiles that were more typically made of metal that you can still see in a lot of downtown building/older architecture. I painted these a coral color and adhered them to the wall with sticky squares from 3M. I actually used these same tiles to create a “headboard” in my old apartment. A pretty sweet headboard for about 15 dollars!

Just like jewelry, scarves can be art/decorations in themselves. I found this blanket ladder at a garage sale and painted it before adding my scarves to it and hanging them together by color. It’s a great way to be able to easily see all of your scarves at once and to also use them as decoration!

I hope you all enjoyed the peek inside my new bedroom! If you have any questions on any of my projects please send me a message, I am more than happy to help.

I promise I’ll be back sooner with another post this time 🙂 thank you so much for reading!

xoxo Jen

#sugarspiceandstylethatsnice

it’s new planner season!!

Many of you who know me know how excited I get about “planning” anything. This time each year is always exciting because it means buying a new planner!

In college my planner was basically my lifeline. I had everything in it, from school committments to work schedules to outside appointments. Some of my friends even used to joke that I needed to write down our plans to hang out in it so that I wouldn’t forget!! I remember thinking of the panic I would have felt if I ever lost my planner.

Since it’s the time of year to go shopping for a new planner I was looking at the store (I have bought at Target for the most part in the past) but I wasn’t finding anything that really fit what I wanted. I prefer pages that have the week days going horizontally so that I have plenty of room to write each day and I also always like to have lines to keeping everything straight.

I decided to leave the store without buying one and turned to looking online. Since I am working full-time now and going to grad school part-time I really wanted to have a planner that can help keep me organized and on track so I didn’t want to settle for something that I wasn’t fully happy with!

I am so glad I decided to go online and explore some more because I found the PERFECT website for me!  I stumbled upon Erin Condren when I was looking for a customizable planner that would allow me to make things just as I wanted them. This company calls them”Lifeplanners” and I don’t think that could be more true 🙂

P.S. They also sell some awesome lesson planner books for any of my teacher friends out there!!

You are able to select from tons of different cover styles and colors, and you can even customize the planner by adding your name or photos of your own to the cover. After the cover page and style you can also choose your page layout and the color scheme.

Here is a photo of all three of the products I bought! My lifeplanner is in the middle 🙂 I love how I was able to put my name on the cover and the bright colored circles really fit my style

Finally, one of the biggest things that hooked me in was that the company also sells sticker books/sets that you can buy to customize each week and month page throughout the planner. I bought 2 different sets of stickers to start and I have had a ton of fun getting the month of August all planned out and ready to go!

The first set of stickers I bought is called “do it all dots” and they are small and circular and have what I would call “picture clues” on them such as $ signs for when bills are due, a tooth for dentist appointments, a blow dryer for hair appointments, etc. Being able to use the stickers will really dress up the pages and it is an easy way to put a visual reminder of things like bills in your planner.

These are the “do it all” stickers up close

Finally, the last book of stickers I bought was too fun to resist. It’s called “Always a Reason and Season to Celebrate” and it is a monthly themed book filled with fun border stickers and other things you can use to decorate the pages for each month in your life planner. The ones for holiday months (like December and October for example with Christmas and Halloween)  are especially unique and I can’t wait to use them all as the year goes on. The month of August is always the start of a new school year and the end of summer so the theme for this month on the page involves some of those elements.

The month of August stickers I get to use!

Anyone who is as much of a planner freak as me OR if you are someone who has always wanted to get a planner and stay committed to using it I absolutely recommend that you hop on the website and check out what they have to offer.

The only thing I will caution you on is that the planner is quite expensive, especially if you choose to get things extremely customized, but since I am someone who uses mine every day I wasn’t afraid of the cost and I didn’t go too crazy with the personal touches to keep the cost lower.

I hope this post helps any of my fellow planner fanatics and I also hope I have inspired some of you to go and check it out if you have been wanting to become more organized in your day-to-day life. Please send me a message if you have any questions and definitely send me a message if you choose to buy one yourself 🙂

Thanks so much for reading, I hope you’re all having a wonderful week so far.

xoxo Jen

#sugarspiceandstylethatsnice