It is clear that I love shoes. If you have been following my blog for awhile, you know that these striped shoes got a workout this summer and served as a perfect neutral. They were also the shoes I was wearing when my six year old snapped a photo that ended up on J. Crew‘s #SHINYPONIES page as I mentioned in Shoes Tell the Story this week. So I decided to commemorate my proud Mama moment with yet another shoe, this time on my hand.
Bring on the cold! I recently featured the J. Crew for NET-A-PORTER capsule collection in All of the Stripes. At the time I thought this amazing striped faux fur coat in my favorite blue and white was sold out. I was so excited to pick it up at J. Crew at The Grove recently. I have been wearing it around our LA home every evening when the temperature dips into the 60s. I must convince my husband to visit his family on the East Coast for the holidays so that I can enjoy the gorgeous coat for more than an hour at a time. Regardless, I will be grateful for the fake snow at The Grove during the holidays.
My husband and son are more into fashion than most, but are sometimes bored with my photo shoots and five day a week blog posts. Yet when I brought home both the faux fur scarf (featured in All of the Stripes) and now the faux fur coat they each wanted their turn.
Who wore it best?
The coat is still available in each size at press time on NET-A-PORTER. If you live in a colder climate, this is a no brainier. I also have lots of ideas for wear on the West Coast.
I’ve taken on a few new roles this year. One of them is Recording Secretary for the PTA at my son’s school. Although this blouse is not called a “Secretary Blouse” as many other J. Crew selections are (such as this one or this one), it has the same feel. I have styled it with my favorite leopard flats (naturally) and basic black.
As I wrote yesterday in Shoes Tell the Story, my blog had it’s six month anniversary last week, so there was cause for celebration.
October 7th was the six month mark for my blog. And, it’s been about a year since I made my Instagram profile public. I was intrigued by the J. Crew #SHINYPONIES Contest, where I posted and hashtagged photos of my shoes for the chance to win a year of shoes curated by Jenna Lyons each month. I was determined to win and so excited when my first photo was chosen for J. Crew’s #SHINYPONIES page on jcrew.com. I have since had over 20 photos selected for the #SHINYPONIES page. Here are a few of them with links to the J. Crew #SHINYPONIES page and purchasing information linked below the grid.
The best moment of this social media journey happened last week when I woke up to a number of notifications from J. Crew letting me know that my photos were selected for one of their posts. One of their selections was a photo taken by my six-year old. I beamed with pride and could not wait for him to wake up so I could tell him. He has recently been helping with some of my Mani Friday photos, too. Sharing this love of photography with my six year-old son has been a blast. He has an amazing eye when it comes to shooting with just the iPhone.
As a child I enjoyed photography and my high school class was one of my favorites. I liked taking self portraits (long before selfies) that were artistic because I liked that I could control the art in front of and behind the camera simultaneously. The logistics were harder with the timer.
In college I took an Art History course on Photography and it was among my favorite classes. It was nice contrast with my Economics major. Cindy Sherman was one of my favorites. She was a big influence, especially her Untitiled Film Still series . I recently saw the Cindy Sherman Imitation of Life exhibit at The Broad and I could not help but snap this selfie in front of a photo of her playing all four roles.
Combining my love of shoes with photography was a no brainer when it came to the #SHINYPONIES contest. I already had a shoe obsession and it was fun to feed it by photographing shoes.
I have always said that shoes can tell the story of your life. Yesterday I featured a pair from a 2005 trip to Antwerp in Antwerp Memories and Pink Cherries. They have walked with you through experiences. In my case, I almost always buy a pair on vacation. Then when I put them on I remember Paris or Antwerp or Hawaii. When I did not win the #SHINYPONIES contest, I was disappointed, of course , but not discouraged. I decided to just keep on going. Six months later I started this blog. I wrote about where the name came from in It all started in Paris with these shoes…. I really need to thank J. Crew and Jenna Lyons for the inspiration to document my love of shoes as art in a whole new way.
XO,
JAE
This is not a sponsored post, in fact none of my posts have been sponsored (so far). I will definitely make that clear when the time comes.
Shoes can tell the story of your life. They have walked with you through your experiences. In my case, I often buy them on vacation and then remember the trip when I put them on. The shoes in this outfit were purchased in 2005 in Antwerp, Belgium.
My friend and I had traveled to Brussels, Belgium for another friend’s wedding. On the day of the wedding, we had enough time for a day trip. We were deciding between Bruges and Antwerp. My friend is a fan of diamonds, so Antwerp it was. We arrived after a short train ride and enjoyed the sights. We stumbled upon a shoe store that had Prada driving shoes arranged in a circle in every color you can imagine. They reminded me of the Cole Hahn loafers I craved in High School that came in a rainbow of colors. I chose this hot pink and my friend chose a pretty beige suede. We were both so excited with our selections. The dollar was favorable enough at the time that they were also a good value.
We each went to pay and my card was declined. The same thing had happened to me the summer before on another trip to Europe. The fraud detection team was overly zealous and had shut me down. This time I had called my credit card company to let them know ahead of time where I would be visiting. I was furious. I decided it just was not meant to be. My friend insisted on buying my shoes and I would pay her back. She simply would not take no for an answer. Once I returned to the hotel in Brussles, I called and got the credit card straightened out.
The shoes are still in great shape. I still wear them eleven years later which is amazing considering they are driving shoes with out a full sole. Every time I wear them or see the box in my closet, I think of the kindness of my friend and that trip.
I styled them with a fun J. Crew top in a cherry print, my favorite pink J. Crew sunglasses, dark denim and a pink cardigan. Between the color, the cherries, and the memories of Antwerp, I can’t help but feel cheery. The shoes are long since sold out, but I’ve linked two fun hot pink styles below.
This was a week of small miracles, kindnesses and a few challenges. Audrey Hepburn and my pink manicure with a couple of hearts got me through. Until last December, I only wore pale pink and very natural looking nails. I decided to get a red manicure for the holidays and had one nail done in plaid to match my shirt. From then on, I was hooked on nail art and have had a weekly creation ever since. This week I wanted to go back to the basics with a little art.
It is hard for me to resist a Liberty Print. You can see part of my Liberty print collection and read about my love of Liberty prints in May Liberty Flowers. This paisley shirt has a different twist with a club color. I have styled it with grey denim. All of the details and links are below.
When you match the kitchen, you just have to do a photo shoot. Here is the same look that was in yesterday’s The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies post minus the apron and plus shoes (leopard, of course).
This week I am baking my chocolate chip cookies for another event. Since I first posted this five months ago, I have made a couple of changes to ingredients and a couple of the tools and ingredients are on sale. My blog will have it’s sixth month anniversary on Friday, so it seemed like a good time to update this.
The original post (with updated links):
I love baking chocolate chip cookies for my family and they are my go-to for events and fundraisers at my son’s school. The challenge in the past was that when I needed to make them, I needed at least three to four dozen. A certain amount for the fundraiser, my husband’s office, my office and of course the ones we want to eat right out of the oven.
I love Alton Brown’s recipe The Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie. As he states, his recipe is essentially a hack of the Nestle recipe. You melt the butter, so you don’t have to bring it to room temperature. You do need to chill the dough for one hour before baking, so it involves some planning and time management. When I made the cookies after work it was a long night. After some practice with the recipe, I streamlined a few things and created a few of my own hacks, so that I can make two batches more efficiently.
My son waiting for the dough to chillLast Mother’s Day I received a KitchenAid stand mixer in my favorite color of navy blue (the color is called blueberry). My other stand mixer was on its last legs. I now have two mixing bowls. This is key. You can always buy a second bowl. This allows me to quickly make two batches at once and not wait for the mixing bowl while the dough is chilling.
KitchenAid Design Series in BlueberryI measure all the ingredients ahead of time and do them two at a time. Two sets of flour, the sugars, and the egg mixture. That way I can get the first bowl in the refrigerator and start making the next batch immediately. Both batches can then chill together.
My favorite IngredientsI know I am not to first to say this, but it really is all about the quality of the ingredients starting with the vanilla. I use Nielsen-Massey which is currently 20% off at Williams Sonoma.
These cookie sheets from Williams-Sonoma have made all the difference in baking a perfect cookie. I use them only for cookies along with this ice cream scoop which I have in both small and medium. Today I am using the small size.
This scale is so easy to use. You weigh all the ingredients for this recipe.
Kid approvedHaving the right equipment (and enough of it) along with the best ingredients makes these cookies perfect every time.
“It’s your story. Write it down.” It’s so simple and so compelling. I always stop to look at Sugar Paper’s sign when I see it. I want to grab a journal and start to write. There are so many ways to tell stories. It is so important that we do it for the next generation.
the navy leopard 