self portrait project

if you follow me on instagram you may or may not have seen the picture that I posted with the caption "i am having way too much fun with this self portrait project.."

i am taking a photography class with some local girls. the teacher is a local wedding photographer, and i literally can't tell you how much i love this class. my mom even told me that my photography has gotten better since i've been taking the class, and the class is only held once a week. 

pretty impressive ;) 

so anyways, this weeks project is to take self portraits. today, selfies are very popular in the world of teenagers. the twist to this project is that we had to use our "real" cameras and we couldn't just sit in front of the mirror. 

so i discovered the self timer feature on my camera and sat down in my room and shoot 400 pictures of myself. 

yes, 400. 

that's a lot if i do say so myself. 

here are the top five that i'm going to be showing my class. 

i like them together so much, because they kind of show all different perspectives of my personality! 

have you ever taken/painted/drawn your self portrait?

i'd love to hear your thoughts! 

thanks for reading

p.s. if you would like to view some of the other photos I have taken, check out my flickr account 

monogram lilly pillow giveaway!

pillows.

everybody uses them.

everybody needs them.

so why not completely prep-ify your room! 

today I have super awesome giveaway today courtesy of irene from my pink and green garden

not only is it a monogrammed pillow, but it's a monogrammed lilly pulitzer pillow! 

the winner gets to chose either a monogrammed square pillow or a single initial square pillow 

how awesome is that?

these pillows are perfect to throw on your bed to add instant "wow factor" 

and not to mention "cute factor"

so enter below and cross your fingers and toes that you're the future owner of this adorable pillow!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

check out irene's etsy shop because she also has some adorable lilly pulitzer memo boards that would be the perfect addition to any room or office space! 

there is a special promo code for my lovely readers this week!
enter the code PREPPYDIARIES and you'll automatically receive 15% off your entire purchase.

good luck!

thanks for reading!

q&a

it's time for another youtube video! 

this time it's a q&a 

so put your earplugs in, turn up the volume, and get ready to experience my awkwardness - yet again

thanks for watching! 

what makes christmas "christmas"

Hey Preppy Diaries readers!

I usually blog over at  {The Life and Times of Belle} but today I'm super excited to be guest posting for Chloe while she's off on her ski trip - the lucky thing! I'd love to go skiing - anyways before I go off point before I've started  - seeing as Christmas is literally just around the corner I thought I blog about what, in my mind, makes it Christmas...

Frosty weather... in the absence of snow I'll take take a heavy frost :P

being by the lake when it's all icy and frosty is just so beautiful...

... as is going to uni on such a gorgeous campus.

Fairy Lights

As much as I love fairy lights indoors I really love them outdoors - I love seeing peoples houses all decorated and lit up, brightening up the dark nights when I'm driving home :)

Christmas themed candy - 

when this stuff hits the shops (usually in November or whatever) I do start to get excited about Christmas!

Seeing the unveiling of the annual Christmas Harrods bear always puts me in a Christmas-y mood :)

I think this one is the cutest one yet! I can't wait to receive my little Chester bear :)

Holiday drinks (and cups) - pretty standard 

My fave is a mint hot chocolate - yum :) What's yours?

Christmas candles

These really help to set the scene for me Christmas-wise - Yankee ones are my brand of choice but I'd love to try some B&BW ones :)

Decorating the house for Christmas

Nothing makes a house feel more Christmas-y than putting up the Christmas decorations - in my opinion anyway :)

Presents!

{via}

I love going out and finding the perfect gifts for my friends/family and then coming home, putting on some Christmas tunes and settling down to wrap them - it really puts me in the Christmas mood.

Side note: I love this idea of putting on photos of you and the recipient on the wrapping paper

Hope you enjoyed reading this post! I'd love if you would go on over to {my blog} and give it a read!

tackling your monogram obsession

i don't know about y'all, but everywhere i turn i see monograms! i am in no way complaining, but now that everyone is monogramming everything it's time to get creative! tumblr and pinterest are both filled with monogramed items so i wanted to share some of my favorite things i've seen with y'all! also, monogramming is pretty expensive, but decals on etsy can easily be found for less than $10! 

i recently discovered the etsy store monogramsandmore2 and am completely crushing on everything in the store! Karen, the shop owner, was sweet enough to send me a few of her products. i seriously can't tell you how much i love absolutely EVERYTHING! the quality is better than i've ever seen, the decals are super easy to apply, the prices are great, and there are tons of color choices. quadruple whammy!

here is how i decided to use my decals, and couldn't be happier with how they turned out! 

here's everything! can you say cute??

i love the way this monogram looks on my water bottle! its so simple, and so classy at the same time! and i have a habit of leaving my water bottles in class, so this will easily fix that problem! 

the little iphone monogram added the perfect touch to my lilly pencil pouch! its big enough to be seen, but still small enough to not take away from the lilly print! 

my new kindle case needed a preppy touch, and the monogram decal did the deed! 

i wasn't sure if the decal would stick on the leather (or faux leather?), but it seems to be sticking just fine, and i don't think that it will be coming off anytime soon! 

i've shown an iphone decal before, and as much as i liked that one, i do have to say i like this one so much better. it isn't too thick so i can easily press the home button, and i don't think that it will leave a sticky residue! 

it is required that everyone in my school owns one of these hefty calculators. sometimes when people forget theirs, i let them borrow mine and it is great to know that my initials are always on it so nobody can accidentally forget to return it to me! 

 if you need some more inspiration, here are some other things that you could monogram!

the lilly agenda : everyone and their mothers now owns one of these (and if you don't, no worries because you can still pimp whatever planner you have out!) so make sure that you don't get your lifeline confused with anyone else's! all you have to do it purchase a monogram decal from etsy and slap it on your planner and voila! you've got yourself a personalized, yet very cute, planner! 

hunter boots : this is a little bit more adventurous in the monograming world, but i think when done right monogramming your hunter boots can look super polished and still be fun! who wants to have boring boots when it's raining? i know i don't! 

laptop : i am allowed to take my computer to school, and a ton of people have the same computer! i have a shell on my laptop, but a ton of other people have the same color as i do so i needed to add something else to make sure no one else accidentally picks up my computer! when i add one to my laptop i'll either put it on the right hand corner near where the mouse pad is, or i'll put it on the front left or right hand corner! 

don't forget to check out the esty store where all of these great decals are from! 

are you liking the monogram trend? 

what's the coolest thing that you've seen monogrammed? 

thanks for reading! 

xox

weekend recap -- bro's bar mitzvah weekend

this past weekend was my brother's bar mitzvah weekend! we had all our family come in town to celebrate the festivities, and i had a great time seeing everyone! today i'm going to show y'all a little photo recap, because there was SO much going on that i would have to write a novel to share everything with you and by the time you finished reading it your eyes would hurt and you would never come back to read my posts (which neither of us would appreciate) 

instead of a novel of words, i'm going to give you a novel of pictures -- 

(warning, my cheetah dress makes it's debut in a lot of these pictures) 

friday morning my mom and i walked over to the nail salon. i got a manicure with essie's beach party. its literally the perfect peachy nude color, so if you're in the market for a good basic nail color i recommend this one! 

next, my brother, dad, and i went to the airport to pick up my grandmother and her boyfriend (although they hate me saying boyfriend haha). her flight was a little bit delayed so we had a photo shoot in the airport. i live in kentucky, so it's normal for there to be a random colonel sanders (of KFC) in the middle of the airport. 

it's also normal for there to be a random horse a jockey statue in the airport.
random stuff goes down in kentcuky! 

my family was staying at this awesome hotel in town, and by the elevators there is an interactive wall. that rains letters and land on your shadow/refleciton! it's so awesome I made my dad take a picture with me! 

this is my cousin's and me at my brother's friday night dinner! he had a special drink made for him that i like to call "jewce" (get it? juice with a little touch of jew? i know what you're thinking, that  i'm hilarious and clever and witty, but i already know that because i get it all the time... not)  my cousin's and i had a blast at dinner, because us "older girls" got our own table outside of where the rest of the family was because there wasn't enough room, which was fine by us! 

saturday morning there was a brunch at my house, and my cousins and i walked over to the thrift store that i talked about in one of my recent posts. we didn't find anything cute so we tried on these hides tops! they don't look too bad in the picture but it's out of focus, so you have to trust me on how bad they were! 

saturday afternoon, my other cousin from nyc and i went out to the driving range.  she is literally the most athletic person i know, and since i play golf we went to see if she could pick up the ropes (catch the ropes? i'm not sure how that saying goes, but i tried). it turns out she can play every single sport naturally, but golf is one she is going to have to work at! 

this is a random story, but this is a picture of the mumford and son's concert where i live! all those little ittie bittie dots are people watching the concert.
side note- my grandma is a talker. she literally could talk to a brick wall and learn each brick's life story. i'm not even kidding. she will talk to any person no matter what they look like and no matter how old they are.
so anyway, i drove to pick up my grandmother and her boyfriend from their hotel to bring them back to my house, and they were talking to this random guy outside of the hotel while they were waiting. when they got into the car i asked them who they were talking to, and they responded "someone from mumfry and something band i think". at first i thought they were just talking to a small band's member. but then i asked if it was a mumford and son's band member, and it was! how cool is that??
if you've never heard of mumford and sons you have to check out there music! i absolutely love every single song that they have made! click here and here to hear a good one!




so that concludes my little weekend recap. there was a ton more stuff that went on, but i think you've seen enough for now!

did you have a fun weekend?
have you heard of mumford and sons?

thanks for reading!
xox
chloe