Category Archives: Cath’s Style

Fig and Flower – Natural Beauty

Dearest Lar,

While you’re exploring Amsterdam (finding canals, drinking green juice, buying Van Gogh postcards, etc.), I did a little exploring in my own backyard today. Fig and Flower opened up a little less than a year ago in the Poncey Highland neighborhood and I’ve been meaning to check it out ever since.

fig_and_flower

Fig and Flower sells all natural makeup, skincare, and household cleaning products. So it’s basically a store made for you!

For the past few years, you’ve been inspiring me to switch to more natural products. Sometimes I slip up – like when I’m suppose to make a quick trip to pick up a prescription at CVS and end up with three new chemical-filled lipsticks (I blame the weekly coupons!) – but overall I’ve been trying to clean up my makeup and skincare routine.

fig_and_flower_Atlanta

I seriously wanted to buy everything at Fig and Flower times two (one for me and one for you).

Fig_and_flower_eyeshadow

They even carry Vapour, an all natural makeup brand I’ve been wanting to try forever. Look at all of the pretty lip colors! That’s Troy in the background checking out the selection of beard oil.

fig_and_flower_vapour

I felt like a kid in a candy store. I can’t wait to take you there next time you’re in Atlanta!

fig_and_flower_shopping

Just a few more of the brands they carry: Holly Beth Organics, Indie Lee, Acure, and 100% Pure.

fig_and_flower_products

Also, look at these amazing services they offer:

Fig_and_flower_services

I really want to come back for a makeup application and beauty bag clean out – that’s where they show you how you can replace your favorite items with all natural versions.

Becca, a makeup artist that works at Fig and Flower, was super helpful. I told her that I’m attempting to grow out my eyebrows and she explained the best technique for doing it. I’m listening to her in the photos below, which is why I look so serious – because eyebrows are serious business.

fig_and_flower_seriousface

This is me laughing at the thinness of my brows:

fig_and_flower_eyebrows

If my eyebrow grow-out is successful, I might do a future blog post on it. If not, I will never speak of them again!

I ended up purchasing the 100% Pure Eye Brow Powder Gel in Brunette. I initially thought it was too light, but Becca showed me how it just subtly enhances my brows without making them look drawn on.  I also got the 100% Pure Naked Palette since the only other all natural eye shadow I have is the Josie Maran Argan Beautiful Eyes quad, which is all shimmery shades. I’ve been wanting to jump on the Urban Decay Naked palette bandwagon, but have been hesitant since it’s not an all natural brand. So the 100% Pure palette is exactly what I’ve been looking for – all natural, neutral, matte shades. I’m going to spend a few weeks playing around with it and then I might do a mini 100% Pure Naked Palette makeup tutorial.

I can’t wait to see all of your photos from your long weekend getaway to Amsterdam. I’m so jealous that you got to go to an Other Stories store – and experience a different culture and what not. 🙂 Is it bad that I get more excited about stores you’re visiting than museums. I think I’ve become shallower with age.

Let’s go crazy and Skype during the workweek once you get back to Edinburgh, ok?

xoxo, Cath

New Things

I’ve been trying to be really good about budgeting lately since I still have a stack of hospital bills to pay off. Some days I’m more disciplined than others. I know it’s never good to buy things to make yourself feel better and feed into consumer culture, blah, blah, blah. But sometimes when you’re down, a new item of clothing or a cheap sparkly ring, is exactly what you need want.

redplaid_closeup

Two weeks ago I was desperate for something new and shiny to get my mind off stressful health stuff and I remembered that I had a few giftcards from Shopbop – woohoo! So I ended up getting a BB Dakota Lillian Drapey Front Jacket and a MICHAEL Michael Kors Jet Set Cross Body Bag.

shopbop_accessories

Yes, I’m bringing the late 90s back with my loose fitting bootleg jeans. Don’t judge. They’re comfortable and perfect for the weekend.

redplaid_outfit

H&M scarf | Hat from Amazon.com | American Eagle jeans and boots | V rings from Squash Blossom Boutique | Old Navy spiral ring | French tip and polka dot Jamberries

plaidoutfit_accessories

For those of you who don’t have a Shopbop giftcard, not to worry! From now until Sunday, Shopbop is having a big sales event:

If you spend $250 or more, you’ll save 15%.
If you spend $500 or more, you’ll save 20%.
If you spend over $1000, you’ll save 25%.

Click here to get the coupon code. If you can’t hit the $250 mark, get some friends in on your order.

Disclaimer: AsianCajuns participates in Shopbop’s affiliate program, but this isn’t sponsored post, so all my thoughts and opinions are my own.

And last but not least, thank you to everyone for such wonderful and sweet comments on my last post! It’s not easy for me to open up about my health on the blog and all of your support and kind words mean so much. Now that I’m almost back to 100%, I’ll be blogging a lot more regularly!

xoxo, Cath

Beating the Post-Christmas Blues With Jamberry

Dearest Lar,

I think almost everyone gets the post-Christmas blues. I’m jealous the Brits celebrate Boxing Day because it puts off the inevitable depression for a day.

However, this year I didn’t feel as bluesy and I think that’s because my expectations for Christmas weren’t as high as they normally are. That sounds terrible, but it really wasn’t bad! You and Matt didn’t come home for Christmas and we didn’t do presents this year so everything was very low key, but in a really nice, relaxing, decompressing kind of way.

Anywho, I’m rambling. What also helped stave off my post-Christmas blues was an evening hanging out with Brie and Ali. The day after Christmas (a.k.a your Boxing Day), Brie, Ali and I got together to have a girls night in and try out some Jamberry nail decals.

jamberry mug

(Recognize the ring you got me in London! It’s one of my all time favorites. And Thom got me the beautiful J. Crew bracelet)

I’ve always liked nail decals – like the ones that you just had on your nails for the holidays. And I always figured Jamberries were like all the other nail decals out there. So it took me a while to jump on the Jamberry bandwagon, but I’m so glad I did. Why? 1.) Because they’re affordable. One $15 sheet of decals will give you at least 4 manis or 2 manis and 2 pedis or 3 manis and 1 pedi, you get the idea. 2.) They last as long as other decals, but you can remove them with a good soak in olive oil – no acetone needed. 3.) Jamberries are made in the states, and 4.) It’s a company started by women. Woohoo!

jamberry tools

Brie and Ali are both Jamberry consultants so they have all the fancy Jamberry tools (above), but as long as you have a file, buffer, an orange stick, nail scissors and a heating tool of some sort (heater, hair dryer etc.) you don’t need to buy anything other than your Jamberry sheet, which looks like this:

jamberry sheet

This color is called Cherry Ice. It’s actually more raspberry than cherry and I love it. Perfect for the holiday season. You apply them by snipping them to size, heating them up, and placing them on your nails. Here are the official application guidelines and here’s a video I found that was super helpful when I was first trying them out.

jamberry application

It definitely takes a bit longer than just painting your nails – especially if you’re a newbie like me – but the results are worth it. I’ve had these on since last Friday and they still look brand new.

jamberry before and after

There are a million, bah-jillion different designs that you can check out here (that’s the link to Brie’s Jamberry site). I love all the fun patterned ones, but they’re just not me. I’m more of a solid or subtle pattern girl. The next ones I want to try are these nude beauties or these geometric ones.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve become less interested in having trendy, fashionable clothes and more interested in cultivating a wardrobe. My closet is slowly becoming more pared down with blacks and grays, which sounds drab (and probably is), but it makes me happy. Because of all that simplifying, I like having a little bit of sparkle or something of interest either on my nails (hello, Jamberries!) or fingers (delicate, gold rings are my thing at the moment – tempted to get these when I magically have more money).

Next time we’re together, whether it’s in Atlanta or Edinburgh, let’s have a Jamberry session with a cuppa – and maybe some cake. Unlike going to get a mani or doing one at home, you can actually EAT while applying Jamberries because there’s no drying required. I probably should have mentioned that first because that’s the biggest selling point for me – eat while you apply nail decals! 😉 Best. Thing. Ever.

So tell me, what are you doing to beat the post-Christmas blues? I hope you’re not just spending your days off doing work.

Can’t wait to hear about your lovely New Years Eve dinner you have planned!

xoxo, Cath

PS: Brie has tons of info and fun posts about Jamberry on her Facebook page.

Fall Things

Dearest Lar,

Hello!!! It’s only been 2.5 months since I’ve last written here – and oh, how I’ve missed it!

Cath_plaidscarf

I’ve missed sharing photos with you and telling you about random stuff that’s happening in my life. Skype, Instagram, and FB are great and all, but blogging is better. That being said, I haven’t had much to blog about. I don’t think photos of my school work and regular work are AsianCajun worthy. That’s why it took me 2.5 months to get you a quasi-outfit photo and a picture of my fall mantel. Tah-dah!

fall mantel

Not great styling and vignette-ing, but autumnal! I made the wreath and garland last year and miraculously found them packed up together in the garage (a.k.a. the storage/catch-all room).  Some day I’ll have a Restoration Hardware/Pottery Barn worthy mantel, but not this year. Speaking of home catalogue/stores have you seen the Ikea holiday decor? I want it all!

fall garland

It’s been a typical fall here in Atlanta – 70 degrees one day, 45 degrees the next. The polar vortex is supposed to hit us on Friday so that’ll be the first time I’ll legitimately have to wear a winter coat – maybe even gloves!

cath_backyard

DKNY wool coat (remember when we bought these over 15 years ago?!?!?!) • Hat & scarf from H&M a few years ago • Gap jeans • H by Hudson boots

I so wish I could fly to Scotland next week and we could celebrate Thanksgiving in a giant house together for the second year in a row. I’ll be working for most of Thanksgiving break drowning my I-miss-my-twin sorrows in a bucket of wine. . . I kid. . . kinda 😉

Drink lots of tea and eat some Tunnocks teacakes for me!

Love, cath

Touring Ponce City Market

Dearest Lar,

You know I’ve been wanting to take a tour of Ponce City Market, but the public tours always sell out faster than you can say, “Ponce City Market.” This is the closest I’ve been to a tour. So I was super excited when, two weeks ago, Lena and I got the opportunity to take a tour with the Georgia Brownfield Association. 
Exploring Ponce City Market

Jealous of my hat? Everyone on the tour had to wear a hardhat.

PCM Tour Guide

The space actually feels bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside – if that’s even possible. Jamestown Properties is renovating 1 million square feet of the property to turn it into a giant mixed-use project. The photos below probably don’t look like much, but work has come a long way since it began a few years ago. The food court should open up at the end of this year and a handful of the apartments will be ready by this fall.

PCM columns

PCM floors

PCM storefronts

PCM foodcourt

PCM elevator

The food court will house a mix of restaurants and food stalls. The freight elevator will take visitors up to the rooftop where there will be more restaurants and a mini golf course! I don’t know why, but I’m so excited to have a mini golf course nearby.

PCM flats

There’s a gallery space near the leasing office. The current exhibit is Farm to Frame, which features photos of Georgia farms and farmers.

PCM gallery

I can’t wait to see Ponce City Market when it’s finished. I think it’ll be a great addition to Atlanta’s shopping and dining scene. It’s a bummer that there isn’t a MARTA station nearby, but it does run up against the eastside trail of the Beltline.

The urban development nerd in me makes me want to take a tour every couple of months to see the progress. And then I’ll get a chance to wear the hardhat again 😉

PCM hardhat

I can’t wait until you come into town in less than two weeks. You’ll be amazed by how much has changed in this city just in the past few months.

See you in 11 days!!

xoxo, Cath

P.S.: You can also read my Groupon article on Ponce City Market here.

 

Housekeeping – Kind of

Dearest Lar,

I feel like this blog could be subtitled “One twin has a much more interesting life than the other.” Seriously, while you’re taking trips to London (not to mention Greece, Istanbul, Germany, etc.), I’m trying to figure out how to be a homeowner.

So far being a homeowner has meant not spending money on anything except for the home. . . while on a tight budget. The American dream!

Apart from workwear, this is pretty much what I wear all the time now: t-shirt and jeans (actually probably more yoga pants than jeans, I’m not gonna lie).

weekend paint wear

bucket feet shoes

Luckily the former homeowners of my house had the whole place repainted a light dove gray with off-white trim before putting the house on the market, so Troy and I don’t really have to repaint anything. Of course that doesn’t mean we’re not going to! The first room we’re working on is the study. We’re painting the walls Decorator White since pretty much everything I pin on my For the Home Pinterest board is white rooms. I promise I’ll show progress photos soon.

My yard is HUGE! I would be completely overwhelmed by it except I know I can trust mom to help me figure out how to landscape it. I haven’t spent too much time outside because the mosquitos are insane. They’re so bad I have bites all over my legs. So this has been my only feeble attempt at “gardening”:

Faux gardening

I brought back a succulent from the Detroit Eastern Market and it somehow managed to survive the move last month. I decided it was time to actually pot it in something other than the plastic pot it came in. So I cleaned out an old candle container (using these directions), got some extra soil from the backyard with a spoon because I don’t own a spade, and potted it! And then it died. Actually I think it died before I repotted it because it started falling apart as I was manhandling it. So then I bought a replacement at Walmart. So sad. My Walmart succulent now lives on my mantel:

succulent

I hope my succulent experience isn’t telling of my future gardening attempts.

I can’t wait until you come to visit in August. I feel like my house won’t really feel like my home until my twinie has been in it!

Love you so!

xoxo, Cath

Exploring Ponce City Market

Dancing Goats Coffee bar

Dearest Lar,

Troy and I took a 1.5 hour break from working on the house yesterday and headed over to Ponce City Market so I could get some photos for a Groupon article I’m writing. The area hasn’t changed too much since you saw it this past winter, but give it another six months and you won’t even recognize it.

Dancing Goats is still the only shop/restaurant open (although a number of restaurants have signed leases to move in this coming year). Troy and I were starving, so we stuffed our faces with ordered a homemade blackberry pop tart (which reminded me of your wedding!) and two mini Duck’s donuts with our coffee.

homemade poptarts

Then we headed over to the Historic Fourth Ward Park, which I think I drove you to in January. It’s a gorgeous city park with lots of winding paths, water features and plenty of seating areas. The Old Fourth Ward Arts festival was just wrapping up as we were walking around. Atlanta might not have one giant amalgam of festivals like Edinburgh, but it does have a festival every weekend.

Birkenstocks at the park

Zara t-shirt • H&M jeans • (really old) Birks • necklace from Sq/Ft boutique • Longchamp Le Pliage
I’ve been dying to dress up since this summer has mostly consisted of me sweating in a tank top and yoga pants with all the packing, moving, unpacking I’ve been doing. Well, dressing up didn’t happen yesterday either – ha! But this outfit is the most pulled together I’ve looked for the past four weekends.

stacked rings

Cross ring from Boutique Karma • black and silver ring from a second hang shop in Athens, GA • silver ring purchased at the Decatur Arts Festival

exploring old fourth ward park

At this very moment you are spending your last day in London on your mini weekend trip. I love seeing all of your Instagram pics of your trip (here, here, here, here, and here) and think it’s hilarious that you drank your first fresh coconut in the rain in London. Did you end up running into Wills & Kate?

I promise to include more photos of the house once I get some more artwork up on the walls.

Can’t wait to see more pics from your trip!

xoxo, Cath

yonks

 

 

Catching Up

Dearest Lar,

It’s been waaaay too long since I’ve posted. You’ve kept me up to date with everything going on in your life with your wonderful posts – cheese! a perfect Sunday, trams, and Calton Hill – but I haven’t done the same.

However, in between starting classes for the summer, closing on a house, packing and moving, I still managed to take some pics over the past few weeks. I owe you lots of posts, so I figured I start with one with lots of photos!

It’s been so hot here that all I want to wear is summer dresses. I’m tempted to buy a handful of cheap dresses for this season, but I can’t spend any money this summer on clothes (all my money and then some will be spent on house stuff). So a few weeks ago I wore this oldie but goodie:

HM summer dress
 H&M zebra dress • Marc by Marc Jacobs sunniesAsh wedges • Sole Society clutch

Neon clutch copy

A week before the move, Troy and I took a break from packing and spent the afternoon in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward neighborhood (future home of the Atlanta streetcar coming soon!):

Old Fourth Ward

street art

We had lunch at Illegal Food located in Joystick Gamebar and look what was on the wall (nerd alert):

Illegal Food

I haven’t had much downtime, but I’ve been trying to squeeze some time in to read The Pink Suit by Nicole Mary Kelby. It’s a fictionalization of the seamstress that made Jackie Kennedy’s famous suit and it’s been the perfect summer read. Kelby goes into detail about the different fabrics and types of seams the main character uses – which I love to read about even though I hate sewing.

The Pink Suit

Right before we moved, Troy made a batch of the most delicious watermelon mojitos: fresh watermelon juice, simple syrup, mint, Four Roses bourbon, and gin. Yum!

watermelon kentucky mojito

Ali has her wedding photos up online by Once Like a Spark that you can check out since you couldn’t spend a couple thousand and fly back home for it 😉 Here’s one of me and Troy (and Greg off to the left) dancing. I wish you had been there!

wedding

Now on to photos of my house! The move probably took us around 4 days with mom and dad, and all of our amazing friends helping. Seriously, if it was just up to me and Troy, the 2 mile move would have taken us weeks! In addition to moving all of our furniture (including a ridiculously heavy music studio console), in the past few days we (Troy and I, family and friends – and some hired help) have unpacked more than half of our stuff, cleared out the overgrown backyard, scrubbed the house from top to bottom, installed my new Ikea chandelier, caulked both showers, reinforced the crawl space door, sold the ridiculously heavy music studio console, and replaced a toilet seat.

I’m desperate to decorate, but there’s still so much unpacking that has to be done! Here’s what the house looks like so far:

The living room – it’s so much bigger than my last living room. I don’t know what to do with so much space! I think it might be the size of your whole flat.

moving_living room

The second bedroom doesn’t have a closet (it was converted into the master bathroom) so for the time being, this bedroom is going to be my closet! Ideally I’d like to streamline my clothes enough where I won’t need a whole room to house all of my clothes. Plus, eventually I want to use this room as our guest bedroom, but I don’t have an extra bed at the moment, so until that changes, it’ll be my walk -in closet.

moving_closet

I threw a bunch of things on this table – so it’s not properly styled – in my closet and then realized that it looks kind of cool. I’ll fix it up a bit, but I love the wire of the hat stand (which I think is yours) and the vintage fan.

moving_vintage fan

Our bedroom – this is probably the neatest it’ll ever look. Pretty soon my side table/lamp thingy will be piled high with mags and books – and dog fur. I’d love to put a great piece of artwork over the bed, but I don’t have one that will work. Maybe I can convince my amazingly talented twinie to paint me something (hint, hint).

moving_bedroom

Mom brought over her label maker the other day and I went a little crazy with it:

moving_labels

I can’t wait for you to see the house in person in a few months. I hope it’ll look much better by then and the third bedroom won’t be piled high with boxes. Who knows, maybe I’ll even have a guest bed 🙂

I promise my next post will be in a few days and not so hodge-podge as this one.

I miss you so much and wish you could be with me in person during this crazy house-buying/moving process, but getting to see you in August is almost as good!

xoxo, Cath

Wedding Season

Dearest Lar,

Do you realize that out of all of our close college friends that you were the second to get married?! I didn’t realize that until I attend Ali’s wedding this past weekend and figured out she was the fourth (Brie, you, Michelle, Ali). At 27 you got married “young” ;p. I sometimes wonder if going to a women’s college slows down the marriage trend a bit amongst friends – we are an independent bunch after all.

It was so awesome to see everyone on Saturday. The only one missing from our group was you!!!

Michael_Kors_Dress_outfit

Michael Kors dress via TJ Max • thrifted clutch (similar here for $25) • Zara heels (similar here) • vintage clip on earrings • Essie Borrowed & Blue nail polish

Do you recognize the dress? I wore it to Troy’s cousin’s wedding two years ago in Colorado, but I accessorized a little differently. It’s the most comfortable dress in the world. I remember when I bought it at TJ Maxx there was a black one too – I should have snatched it up!

vintage clip on earrings

I finally got to wear the vintage earrings I got at Salvage last month. I love them so much and they were only $15! They did start hurting my ears after a while, but were still totally worth it.

golden clutch

See how I’m wearing the ring you got for me in London? It’s still one of my favorite pieces of jewelry. I get compliments on it all the time. It’s so elegantly understated that no one would believe it dyes my finger green 😉

blue and turquoise heels

Since Ali and Brian love to travel together (they’re going to Budapest for their honeymoon), the flower girls threw out petals and heart shaped maps. Brilliant idea.

me and Troy

I posted this photo on Instagram and Ellen said that it looks like I’m wearing a giant tie clip standing next to Troy. It totally does!

The wedding was really fun and for a few hours I didn’t think about school work or house stuff. These past few weeks have been so beyond stressful. The end of the semester is always crazy, but trying to find another house to rent and then deciding to buy a house instead is insane! If you had asked me two months ago if I’d think about buying a house, I’d be like, “Wha? Who are you talking to? WTF is homeownership?” I always figured I’d be a renter for life, but that was before I realized the rental market in the Atlanta was bonkers. Who knows, maybe a month from now I’ll be an honest-to-goodness homeowner. And maybe in a few months I’ll be filling this blog with home inspiration pics and DIY, but until then just keep your fingers crossed for me.

Thanks for being so supportive throughout this whole month.

Skype with mom on Sunday?!

Xoxo, Cath

Dear Lar

I love the idea of writing more to each other – or making this blog a “full-on epistolary” as you so elegantly put it in the last post :). Skype only goes so far and I haven’t been Instagramming as much because I’ve been so busy. It’s pretty bad when you’re too busy for Instagram!

I’ve mentioned this before on the blog, but whenever I get really busy I just want to keep things simple in the clothing department. It goes along with what you talked about in your post – having a smaller wardrobe, only having one winter coat, etc. That’s why I wore this outfit last weekend:

uniform

It doesn’t get more simple than a white button-up and jeans (with my Feiyue sneakers, Fjallraven backpack, and Jawbone Up).

Anywho, in addition to lots of school work and work work, I’ve also been spending all my time in the kitchen. I know, I know. That doesn’t sound like me at all. I don’t like to cook, I hate dirty dishes, and I love to eat out. You’ve always been more of the cook/baker.

As I told you on Skype, Troy and I are halfway through our Whole30 detox. I’ve been wanting to try Whole30 for a while every since Ashley started writing about it on her blog. So, for the month of April, Troy and I have been making all of our meals and planning ahead for a whole week. I’ve been keeping track of my meals through the Two Grand app:

twogrand

Lucky for me, Troy is an amazing cook and he’s thought up some delicious paleo/Whole30-approved meals. Here’s just a sample of some of the stuff I’ve been eating for the past 14 days:

whole30 meals

From top left:

  • Apple nut porridge – recipe from the Paleo Secret blog.
  • Creamy cauliflower and chicken soup.
  • Cioppino (made without white wine and butter).
  • Tuna lettuce wraps.
  • Sweet potato chips from Trader Joe’s (no additives, just salt).
  • Fish ‘n chips – cashew and coconut breaded fish with sweet potato fries and broccoli slaw.

In general, the detox hasn’t been so much hard as time-consuming. I haven’t gotten out of the house much in the past two weeks, except for this weekend. I actually left the house on Saturday to help judge the Style Competition at Salvage. It was so fun and I felt so lucky to be a part of it. Plus fellow blogger and foodie, Elizabeth Chai, was one of the other judges. It was so nice to see her and I got to meet Tranae Harris, the third judge and fellow lifestyle blogger (see her awesome recap of Salvage here).

salvage judges

Image via Chaiamericano’s Instagram 🙂

Salvage style contest

I can’t wait for this semester (and detox) to be over just so I can go to more things like Salvage – and have a glass of wine 🙂 Plus, it always pains me not to be blogging on a consistent basis. Skyping, writing this blog, and Instagramming are the few things that make me feel close to you. Hopefully in a few weeks I can spend a lot more time doing those 3 things!

Love, Cath