We’re going into day three of our snow days in Atlanta. The snow started falling Sunday, then there was freezing rain on Monday and it’s stayed below freezing ever since. With only a couple inches of accumulation on the ground, this would be nothing for those of you up north. However, considering that the City of Atlanta only has two snowplows (that’s right, TWO), everything has remained frozen and almost every secondary street has turned into an ice skating rink  -schools are closed again tomorrow for the third day in a row.

Lar and I took these photos a few hours before it began to snow on Sunday. It  really wasn’t that cold outside, so I scoffed at all the southerners stocking up on milk, bread and eggs. That was before I realized that Atlanta only had two snowplows and no one down here seems to have any salt or sand of any kind. A co-worker picked me up in his snow chain equipped SUV on Monday, but I’ve been working from home ever since. Hurrah for the internet! Kind of. . .

These outfits are basically two takes on cold weather wear – and I’ll be the first one to admit that Lar’s is by far more elegant: her hat is a recently thrifted purchase, scarf from Vivid (a local boutique), coat from Victoria’s Secret, jeans? I have no idea, and Frye boots. My coat is from Delia’s ages ago, Cheap Monday jeans and Lar’s H&M boots.

Here’s proof that the south is (or at least Atlanta) is frozen over. (My leather Frye boots have held up pretty well in the snow and ice). Troy and I shuffled about half a mile to our local pub this evening. Nothing like a pint to warm you up and I didn’t even fall once! Do you like my Team Zissou hat? It’s Troy’s roommate’s hat. I snatched it before we headed out and hate how it clashes with my pink plaid shirt, but was so grateful for the warmth. I usually can’t relate when people say they choose comfort over fashion (bring on the 5″ heels!), but when it comes to icy weather I could care less that I’m wearing a brown scarf with black accessories, a coat that would fit a high schooler better and a red hat that gives me terrible hat hair.

For those of you like my sis who can stay stylish when the weather is nasty, I salute you!

On Cath: shirt, thrifted; skirt and tights, AA; black oxfords, H&M; bracelet, Aldos. On Lar: hat from a small shop in New Orleans; thrifted Michel Kors rain jacket via Finders Keepers; tunic from Forever21; boots from Asos.com; purse from Ann Taylor.

Cath and I are spending the holidays in Tybee Island/Savannah with friends and family. We’ve rented a big house near the ocean that has porches off of every room and a gorgeous view of the sunrise. It’s kind of a zoo here, we have three doggies, eight people and lots of stuff packed into this marsh house on stilts which makes it feel pretty perfect for a cozy Christmas.

Tonight we’re going to midnight mass in the historic part of Savannah: hanging moss, old stone buildings, and Christmas carols – I can’t wait!

We hope you all are having a wonderful break be it for Christmas or just a holiday heading into the new year!

xoxo,

Lar (and Cath- who is currently driving down from Atlanta to meet us- get here soon, lady!)

A few months ago Tea, purveyor of beautiful clothes for children and babies, contacted us about styling some of their clothes on our blog. I did a little happy dance when I got their email because I had seen Tea Collection before and loved it. This is surprising because 1) neither Cath and I have children of our own and 2) I’ve just recently become comfortable around little people, and Cath is still working on her comfort levels.

So how did I know about Tea in the first place? Well, their approach toward children’s attire was so unique, I had stumbled on to their site because their ads were so pretty. And for the first time in years, I wished I were shorter – so that I could fit into their clothes. In a nutshell, Tea is like Anthropologie for 0-12 year olds.

But as we all know, what is the next best thing to shopping for yourself? Shopping for the cute little bebes and children in your life that look way better in clothes than you do anyway. Cath and I are heading into the age of friends settling down with little ones, and now we have a place to go to get the cutest stuff (and stare enviously at how much better said little ones look in stripes and patterns).

Hope you guys enjoy the photoshoot below! Let me know what you think. I’d love to get my hands on more styling projects.

Stylist: Lar, AsianCajuns
Photography: Pam Crane, Pam the Nomad Photography
Model: Liam
Clothes: flannel, tee shirt, and pjs by Tea Collection. Other clothing items are model’s own.
Art Direction/Layout: Lar, AsianCajunDesign

Boys Clothes: Village Plaid Shirt

Boys Clothes: Tea T-shirts (shown tee no longer available)

Boys Clothes: Cityscape PJ set

Thanks for getting in touch with us, Tea! Pam, Esther and Liam, thank you for your help on the shoot!

p.s. Decaturites, Tea is available locally too- at Wiggle!

In the spirit of consumerism the season, Lar and I thought we’d post a list of our favorite online shops:

• The Cookie Studio
• Heliotrope
• June Shin
• Moxsie
• NOVICA
• Ramona West
• Shopbop
• Warby Parker

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a great one that involved lots of delicious food and lots of dish washing!

Need a little weekend break? Cath and I made this little video while we were in the mountains of North Carolina a few weekends ago with Ali (the gorgeous blond in the video). Want a bite of caramel apple? A steaming spoonful of chicken soup? A drive through the mountains, sniffing the crisp autumn air? An encounter with a bear (or maybe that’s me in my faux fur coat)? Play this little video:

p.s. The music in the video is by Camera Obscura. an entirely underrated Scottish band.

Happy, happy weekend, everyone! Let us know what you’re up to and if you came on our vlog-cation with us (cheesy, I know, I’ll work on it ;)). If you are anti-vlog, you can see “the stills” from our mountain vacay in this post.

Lar and I have figured out that if we meet up after work, we can manage to get a few outfit photos in for the blog.  I was working late today so she came to visit me at my office.

I love Lar’s color combination of red and turquoise – gorgeous! Her dress is from Ramona West, Old Navy cardi, J. Crew belt and Frye boots.

She found this awesome clutch at a second-hand shop in North Georgia. I think it’s the perfect over-sized clutch.

I started the day out with my nude pumps, but I had a couple of errands during the work day so the chuck-t’s came out. The sweater is from J.Crew (ages ago), the scarf was picked up in Egypt by my lovely friend Ali, Michele watch and Gap pants that are supposedly “cropped” pants. . . hmmmm. . . .

Hope you guys are having a good week. Mine has gotten much better now that I have the GRE behind me ( I took it on Monday and have been studying like a mad woman) and Lar came over to, er, help me at the office.

Lar is a graphic designer and I’m a municipal government worker. We almost never have to wear suits to work, but we try to keep some level of professionalism with our office wear.

On Lar: secondhand jacket, Blank cords and Frye boots.
On me: H&M cardi, silk tank from Jac Boutique, Alexandar McQueen for Target pants, Dolce Vita shoes.

Here’s how we would react if you told us that we’d have to wear a suit with pantyhose and pumps to work.

Halloween has come and gone. Bring on the holiday season! Lar and I are buying each other the same pair of booties for Christmas, but I’ll save that for another post 🙂

So after Lar’s trip to Scotland and my trip to L.A., we were finally reunited last weekend and made sure to make the most of it with some quality sister time. Sister time usually involves a lot of shopping (mostly of the window variety) and eating at our favorite Atlanta spots. For example:

1.) Drinks and dinner at Leon’s. We’ve mentioned Leon’s a couple of times mostly because we love any place that serves bacon in a glass, but the pub also has a great selection of beer and an amazing mixologist. We tried out the all new Decatur-based Wild Heaven beer. Sooooo good.

2.) After a big brunch on Saturday we headed over the North Highland/Little Five Points area for shopping. Very little slows us down when we’re on a shopping mission, but the smell of Top Chef’s Hector Santiago’s burritos stopped us in our tracks. Every weekend he sets up shop across from his restaurant (Pura Vida) and sandwich shop (Super Pan Latino Sandwich Shop) and makes the most delicious burritos ever. We were still too full so Lar and I sipped on some aqua fresca.

3.) We’re suckers for used book stores. The Book Exchange on North Highland is one of our favorites. I’m a borderline neat freak, but something about a space that’s completely covered in books makes me feel right at home.

4.) You can’t walk along North Highland without stopping for the King of Pops. Atlanta locals know all about these $2.50 Popsicles – homemade deliciousness worth every penny. Lar had the Mandarin orange basil and I gobbled up my blackberry mojito pop.

I realize now that we really only took photos of what we ate last weekend, but rest assured that we were successful in the shopping portion of our sister time too.

Alas, this weekend Lar and I are separated again – boohiss. I’m at a conference in Fort Worth and she’s traversing the North Georgia mountains with some friends. Hope you’re having fun Lar! Do you want me to bring you back some cowboy boots? How ’bout a pink cowboy hat with a tiara on it?

So this is AsianCajuns 3.0. What do you guys think of the redesign?! I wanted to create our own AsianCajun theme – so I did! And when I say “I” I mean my master programmer friend Chris did all the coding behind the scenes and I got to make it pretty (my day job is Graphic Designer). I mentioned this change a few months ago, but finally got my act together this weekend.

I was probably inspired by this guy on Friday night:

And tadahhhh.

Scott and Garance (first-name basis now of course) were both wonderful just as you all said they would be. Thanks for convincing me to go! And everyone who I met at Hagedorn, it was so nice to see you in person and not just on the internet. Cath and I would love to have a real meet-up some time.

I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend too! What have you been up to? Do tell!

As I’m writing this Lar and her bf are flying across the Atlantic to Scotland – my favorite place on earth. They’ll be meeting up with friends and staying in a cottage on the west coast north of Glasgow and finishing their trip in Edinburgh. Not only am I insanely jealous, I also already miss Lar like crazy.

To distract myself I’ve decided to focus on some fun stuff.

1.) AsianCajun playlist on Songza!
Songza is like Pandora and every social media site all rolled into one. You can create a playlist and then friends can add their own songs to it.  Listen to the AsianCajuns Songza Playlist and add your favorites to our hodge podge of songs. I’m obsessed with this site and listen to it at work all the time now.

2.) New Ann Taylor Concept Store in Atlanta
In honor of the store opening, our Atlanta readers will receive a 20% discount at the new Lenox mall store when they say “There’s a new Ann in town” at checkout. The deal ends on Sept. 5. Make sure you get over there – I’ll be visiting tomorrow!

3.) Atlanta Bocce Ball!
The inaugural season of the Atlanta Bocce League starts Sept. 15 and continues every Wednesday night at Piedmont Park. It’s a co-ed league with league bars and drink specials every week. On top of all that, Whynatte and Esperanza, two of our favorite local companies, are league partners.

4.)Imogene + Willie
I’m trying to figure out when I can make a special trip to Nashville just to check out Imogene + Willie. The store sells the designers’ premium denim (they suggest washing denim in the tub or a creek) and other lovely Americana items, like vintage cowboy boots, in a beautifully retro-fitted gas station. I love the videos on their website including this one: