The Effortless Chic

Road Trip {San Francisco}

Jen — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:13:23 +0000

I am on my way out the door and heading up north to San Francisco for the weekend! I am going to meet up with 7 of my cousins for a little wine tasting version of family bonding– what could be more fun?! While I am there, I am also going to hop on over to this little shindig that the Gap is throwing.

I am sure I will post pictures next week, but in the meantime I will be posting plenty of them here

Have a great weekend!

Jen

Image

Stars

Jen — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:37:45 +0000

I sort of regret how often I use the word obsessed because now I feel it doesn’t properly convey just how passionately I love these star hair accessories from Rodarte’s A/W ’12 show last week. I want them now. I have a feeling we are going to start seeing stars popping up in other places as well– bold prints in fabric, hanging wall decor… the possibilities are endless!

But seriously, I need these:

Images via Into The Gloss

My Office

Jen — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:34:49 +0000

I mentioned last week that I spent some time in my office trying to reorganize and make things run more efficiently in there. I am still not totally sure what I need in there to do the trick or what I want the final product to look like, but I thought I would share some of the images that are inspiring the process right now. The achilles heel of this room are the lovely metal rolling racks that are an integral part of my job and take up a massive amount of space. Hopefully, there is a stunning before and after of this room somewhere in the near future! In the meantime, here are some of the offices and am dreaming of…

Shopping Guide: 1. File Cabinet 2. Desk 3. Rug 4. Storage Boxes 5. Candle 6. Throw 7. Wastebasket

Images 1, 2, 3

{Not So Mellow} Yellow

Jen — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:57:18 +0000

Remember last week when we made meyer lemon bars together? Well they were so good they are still inspiring me this week! I have been finding myself gravitating towards pops of yellow lately. I love the bright contrast of yellow against white and the more subtle pairing of yellow and gray. Most importantly it is just so sunny and optimistic! How could you possibly be in a bad mood if you look down and your shoes are bright, sunshiney yellow?!

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

This Week In Pictures…

Jen — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:30:06 +0000

I have been looking forward to today all week! Tonight I am going on a date with Aaron who has been traveling pretty non-stop lately so I am really looking forward to the time together. Has anyone ever eaten at Fig & Olive on Melrose? This will be our first time but we have heard great things!

Here is the skinny on this past week:

My good friend Janet came to town over the weekend. We became great friends when we both lived in Austin, but now I am in LA and she is in Atlanta. She has four kids and I am a terrible phone person so we don’t often get to catch up but when we do it is like no time has passed at all. I just love her! Oh, and her husband won a grammy on Sunday. How cool is that?!

This is a picture of us Friday night at the RRL party on Melrose we just happened upon… If I had known we were going I probably would have opted for a more denim-centric look and boots, but instead I was the token girly girl in polka dots and ruffles!

Monday I fit a new client for press and premieres for his new movie coming out next month– very exciting! Then on Tuesday I shot with photographer Angelo Kritikos– how dreamy is the shot below?! I can’t wait to see more pics!

Tuesday night was eventful for all of the wrong reasons. Below are the wrongly accused:

Around 9:30 I heard the super high shreeking beep that we all dread. After almost calling the police, then almost bursting into tears (which did happen later), I went to 7-11 and purchased a handful of 9 volts. One by one I replace every battery in every smoke detector in our house (there were 6!) and yet 45 minutes later the beep had not ceased! Like a truly crazy person I proceeded to take every one of them off of the wall and lock them in my car– the beeping was driving me insane! Once all of the devices were dismounted and in the driveway (not safe, I know.) I breathed a sigh of relief until… the beep continued. Turns out it was our carbon monoxide panel on the wall that is not even battery operated so I had to call ADT and they walked me through the steps to get the beeping to stop then came out and replaced it the next day.

I took advantage of a slower end of the week to try and organize my office. I have been working from this home office now for a little over three months and am still going through a trial and error process to figure out the best way to keep it all together in there. While cleaning out my desk I found these photos which pretty much derailed the next 30 minutes– such good memories! The top left is the first photo Aaron ever took of me before we were even officially dating. He would come shop with me on Saturdays when I was working and we would always stop at Joan’s on 3rd for lunch which is where this photo was taken. The one on the right is Aaron’s mannequin that he bought when he was first learning to light his photos. I cannot even count the number of times she made my heart stop when I would walk into a room and see her unexpectedly! And the last photo strip is from my cousin Sammie’s wedding in Salado, TX– so much fun!

Sorry for the rather long excerpts today! Hope you have a wonderful weekend– I am going to pick out my outfit for my big date tonight!

xo,

Jen

Meyer Lemon Bars

Jen — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:15:28 +0000

Our meyer lemon tree is literally the gift that keeps on giving! I have always been more of a chocolate person when it comes to dessert but since my jar of lemon juice in the refrigerator was starting to get overly full, I figured it was time to try out a new sweet, lemony recipe. Each little square is the perfect blend of sweet and sour and the buttery, flaky crust is the perfect complement!

Meyer Lemon Bars

For the CRUST:

1/2 pound of unsalted butter

1/2 cup of super fine sugar

2 cups flour

1/8 tsp of kosher salt

For the FILLING:

Zest of 3 Meyer lemons

1 2/3 cups super fine sugar

4 extra-large eggs

2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

2/3 cup flour

powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Combine the flour and salt, and mix into the butter mixture until it just comes together. Press the dough evenly into a well-greased 9-x-13 baking pan. Bake the crust for 15-20 minutes, until very slightly browned. Let the crust cool.

Meanwhile, zest the lemons and combine with the sugar using a wire wisk, until the sugar becomes slightly clumpy and fragrant. Whisk the sugar mixture with the eggs, lemon juice and flour until smooth. Pour the filling over the crust and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the filling is set. Cool to room temperature before sifting the powdered sugar on top. Cut into squares and serve.

NYFW {Backstage}

Jen — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:56:01 +0000

Last night I was innocently perusing From Me To You, photographer Jamie’s fantastic photography blog when I fell head over heels for all over her stunning behind the scenes photos of New York Fashion Week. There were incredibly highneck and approachable silhouettes at DKNY and sexy white Prabal Gurung gowns that are just begging to walk down a red carpet. Next thing I knew I was 4 pages in and already planning how I would achieve the super sleek ponytail that the girls at Jason Wu were sporting. The bottom line is this: Jamie is one crazy talented photographer and I will absolutely be making the trip to New York for fashion week in September. Let the countdown begin! (Check out her complete coverage here.)

Fireplace Before & After

Jen — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:10:41 +0000

Our house was built in 1941. To put things in perspective, FDR was president, World War II began for the US that year, and prohibition had just ended a short 8 years earlier. Kind of crazy, right?! Now fast forward seventy years later to us purchasing this home. Additions and renovations had been made over the years, but we have still had our hands full of plenty of projects these last three months. Aaron was in Indianapolis for the Superbowl a couple of weeks ago so I thought I would surprise him by tackling one of the things on the list. (Naturally, I picked the one that only involved a can of paint and a trip to West Elm!)

When we first saw our house, the family room looked like this:

Not bad… I actually had friends beg us to keep the yellow fireplace! However, it definitely wasn’t our personal aesthetic which is much more neutral and rustic.

So after a quick trip to Sherwin-Williams I began by priming the fireplace. A quick note to anyone who has never painted brick: It is hard to get paint inside of all of the gritty grooves that are part of bricks texture and takes a lot more time than you might expect. After the coat of primer, the all-white fireplace was already a sight for sore eyes! Next came the color I had chosen– the best way to describe it is to say that it is the color of a common mushroom– both tan and gray elements kind of mixed together which is basically my home heaven! This picture is halfway through one coat of the new paint. I ended up doing two so that it was nice and solid and not splotchy.

Voila! Painting is finished! It was still lacking some accessories, though, so I while I was prepping for a shoot the next day I popped into West Elm to see what they had. I had originally thought of doing shades of green with these recycled vases and jars, but ended up doing this small handful of matte and glazed white vases and votive holders (There are more on the bottom of the fireplace):

I also bought those two pieces of driftwood from West Elm, but may swap them out for this rustic modern set of andirons I ordered online. Which do you like better?

So finally, taken from the same spot, here is my AFTER photo:

The room is definitely not finished, but that made a big difference, right?!

I had a coupon from Alt for a free gallon of paint at Sherwin-Williams and a store credit to West Elm, so technically the project only cost me $8 in new paintbrushes. Not a bad deal if you ask me!

Be Bright!

Jen — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:32:31 +0000

My first job in fashion? Working at the Gap during college and taking mad advantage of that great employee discount! It may not have been New York Fashion Week or the set of a Covergirl commercial but the mod plaid raincoat I scored at 50% off was quite fabulous for a 19 year-old college student. However, it was not nearly as fabulous at getting to style the Rue Magazine girls on their new campaign with the Gap! Here are just a few of the pictures of Bri and Anne that were released last week:

This Week In Pictures

Jen — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:35:27 +0000

Confession: I was not a very good camera owner this week. While three photo shoots plus one mondo fitting did not leave very much quality time for me and J1, it was still a pretty awesome week! The Gap ads that I worked on finally went live yesterday and came out so beautifully. You can see them here, here, and here. Such a fun project to work on!

In lieu of my usual This Week In Pictures pictures, here is a little sneak preview from one of my shoots this week. These were taken with my iPhone, but the photographer was the super talented Denise Crew so I am pretty sure her photos are going to knock my socks off!