Lar might have stayed in a British manor house last week, but I got to hang out with the Bloomsbury group at their Charleston house in Sussex. Ha! Jealous, Lar?

Ah, who am I kidding? I haven’t left this country in months (I hear a little violin playing somewhere.).

Well, I might not be having adventures in the isles of Scotland, but I’ve had the pleasure of exploring Club Monaco’s fall line of clothing for the past few months. Remember this post where I played dress up? Well, I got another chance to check some of the newer items earlier this week.

I immediately fell in love with all the patterns, which is unusual for me because I tend stay away from patterns – and color, for that matter. The designs in the Fine Print line seem so British-vintage to me. So I decided to cut and paste photos of myself from my most recent Club Monaco dress up session into photos of the Charleston Farmhouse – a wonderfully British house that was once home to Virginia Woolf and other members of the Bloomsbury set.

Lar pointed out that the Micaila Dress I’m wearing below is actually much more in the style of William Morris than Bloomsbury, but I think it goes nicely with the hand painted mantel (and wallpaper, furniture and rug) in the farmhouse’s garden room.

It’s the perfect dress for strolling in the garden. I brought my Ally Hat along with me just in case of rain.

Here I am checking out the books in one of the dressing rooms. . .

This gorgeous red skirt is on sale! Even the painted guys on the screen are impressed.

I’m wearing these Schutz pumps in all of the photos. I love the two tone snake skin design. Did I mentioned that they’re also on sale? They even look good with the all-time-favorite Elisa Pant and Hilda Silk Shirt. Also, look, I’m floating!

So there you have it! I miss my twin so much I’m having delusions of visiting the UK just by taking a trip to the mall! Fortunately Lar is coming home in less than 20 days, which hopefully means you won’t get a post from me pretending to have tea with the queen.

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Dearest Lar,

Someday we’ll make it to Sussex and take a tour of Charleston together. Until then, I’ll keep cutting and pasting photos of myself into photos of the rooms. Next time I come to Scotland we’ll have to rent the Saddell House together.maybe in the summer 🙂

xoxo, Cath

My daily makeup routine is incredibly boring. It takes me less than 10 minutes to do my makeup every morning because I’ve done the same thing for the past 3 years.

All of my makeup techniques and products have come from Lar. She has a lot more patience for finding out what colors look best on us. Just one of the many benefits to being a twin! Although, come to think of it, she might be significantly more pale than me since she hasn’t seen the sun in over three months.

Anywhoodle, to shake things up a bit, I stopped by the traveling Make Up Forever truck at Atlantic Station when it came to Atlanta a few weekends ago and got some great makeup tips and a full makeover. Look at the transformation!

Syretta, my Make Up Forever makeup pro, was great at showing me how to keep things simple. I had made it pretty clear to her from the beginning that I was incredibly lazy with makeup and only bought colors that I had read about “looking good on every skin tone” in magazines.

I only use tinted moisturizer as a base, so I freaked out a little when I saw all of the layers of primer, concealer and foundation. Who needs all that stuff?! I do! At least that’s how I felt after the makeover. None of the stuff made my face feel cake-y or like my skin couldn’t breathe and it looked like I had a perfect complexion (something I haven’t had since my pre-puberty years).

Syretta wrote down all of the products that she used on my face so I could hop on over to Sephora and buy brand new makeup. Since I still have yet to win the lottery, I only purchased a few items: the HD finishing powder (it’s magical!), the Aqua lip liner in 14C and Aqua Rouge in 15.

The lip color is so much pinker than I would have ever thought to use. When I showed Syretta the lip color that I use everyday she said, “Yeah, that’s, uh, very safe.” What do you mean? It matches perfectly with my lip color?!! You can’t even tell I’m wearing it!!

See how much I needed a makeover? Now I embrace the pink lippies and gray eyeliner (I’ve been using black to rim my eyes for a decade). Makeup break-through! Sort of. I still just use tinted moisturizer 🙂

Believe it or not, this is not a sponsored post. I just realized how many times I’ve written “Make Up Forever” in the past 20 sentences. What can I say? It’s a good makeup brand and the products made me look pulled together and glowing in a sheep-printed sweater. Now if that’s not a measure of a successful makeover, I don’t know what is!

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Dearest Lar,

I’m so glad you encouraged me to sign up for the makeover. Do they have Make Up Forever in the UK? They must if they have Sephoras. Apart from the HD powder (which I learned about through JennySue Makeup), I had never really heard of the brand before.

Are you having fun in the manor house in west Scotland? Please keep texting me pics! I’m equal parts jealous and excited for you. And I would really hate the fact that you’re not going to be home for Thanksgiving this year, but I know you’ll be here in less than a month!!!!

Do you know how excited I am about that?! I tell complete strangers that you’re coming home. The dialogue goes something like this:

Stranger: Hi. How are you?

Me: My twin is coming home in December for two weeks!!!!!

Stranger walks away.

Skype me as soon as you get some place with the wifis.

xoxo, Cath