Reasons you HAVE to attend Her Conference 2017!

So, I have had a lot of people ask me about my blogging hiatus, and truth is– I was busy with school, and life just took over! But have no fear, Defining Danie is back and ready to tell you why this summer, you MUST attend Her Conference 2017.

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Me and my friend, Sarah at last year’s conference! We love a good step-and-repeat!

If you are a PR, marketing, journalism, English, writing or communications major, or anything related to these majors, this two-day conference could be life-changing for you. This summer will be my third time attending the conference, and let me tell you, I leave more inspired to become a better overall person each year!

So, what is Her Conference?
Her Conference is a two-day event coordinated by Her Campus, my favorite online magazine, that is filled with amazing speakers, great career advice and inspiration! Her Campus is all about women’s empowerment and educating college women, which is so apparent throughout this weekend full of famous speakers and leading women in the industries that we cannot wait to enter into.

There are breakout sessions after each keynote speaker and it’s spectacular because, after each breakout session, the women speaking on those specific topics stay a little longer so you can network with them and they can answer any specific questions you may have! (Make sure you bring your networking/business cards, ladies!)

Who are some of the past speakers I keep talking about?
Let’s see… Rebecca Minkoff (and I got to meet her!), Nastia Luikin, Joyce Chang (former EIC of Self magazine), Samantha Power (U.S. United Nations Ambassador), Vanessa De Luca (EIC of Essence Magazine) are just some of the cool keynote speakers. There are also hundreds of women from cool PR/marketing companies and leading magazines there for the breakout sessions. Last year, I got to meet and keep in touch with the former marketing director of Glamour magazine. She offered me a ton of career advice that I used to help me get my internship for this summer!

Hearing these women speak gives you a boost of confidence because you know they had to begin where we are starting now!

What are some of the panels that you could attend?
Some of my favorite panel sessions that I attended last year were:
Blogging 101: How To Grow Your Following and Engagement
How To Kickstart Your Career In Marketing
What Working In PR Really Means- And How To Do It!

There are so many awesome panels both days and sometimes it’s hard to choose which one to go to during each session because they have multiple you can choose from at a time.

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Me, Sammy, Sarah and Tori- who is a PR manager for Soul Cycle! She was a speaker on one of the panels!

Who are some of the speakers this year?
Her Campus just annouced two of the keynote speakers- they are: Amani Al-Khatahbeth, Founder and EIC of Muslimgirl.com and Gretchen Carlson, Acclaimed TV journalist and Women’s Empowerment Advocate– sounds amazing, right!?

Where is the two-day conference?
In the heart of NYC! It’s so fun because after the day is done, a lot of the women attending will grab dinner or drinks together.

If this conference didn’t already sound amazing, every year when you arrive, each person gets stuffed swag bag full of goodies and a notebook so you can take notes in each session! The notebook also includes a bio about each speaker, it’s so convenient!

If you want to see the schedule for this year’s conference, you can do so: here and for more information and tickets, make sure you visit their website! You can also find out more information by following Her Campus at @Hercampus on all social media.

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I really hope I see you all there, I am so excited!

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Making The Most Of The End Of Summer

I cannot believe it, but the summer is sadly winding down. I recently invited a few friends of mine over and we had a whole day of what summer is really about: sunshine, being outside (of course in a pool) and making memories!

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In 10 days I head back to my second home, Kent State, for the next four months, which is why I have decided to make the most of my time while still at home.

Most of my plans for the rest of the summer consist of spending a lot of time in my pool, but I also have plans to see as many of my friends from home as possible because I don’t get to see them often.

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I am also planning on going up to Baltimore this weekend with one of my best friends, Jake, my sister, Payton and my mom to a peach festival! I do not really know what this peach festival entails… but I am hoping there will be some awesome peach cobblers and homemade ice cream!

It is so important for college students to have some relaxation time during the summer because we know as soon as we get back to school, it is time to hit the books again. I cannot even begin to think about the group projects that are ahead me this semester!

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Annapolis, Baltimore and D.C. have so much to offer in the sweet summer time. I live so close to Annapolis, and go everyday, so I have decided in my final week at home, there is one thing in D.C. I want to do and one thing in Baltimore I want to do before I head back to Kent.

In D.C. I want to head down to Georgetown to shop and then grab dinner in Dupont Circle at my favorite restaurant called  Mission. And in Baltimore I want to go with my mom to this awesome place my mom showed me on Instagram, Graffiti Alley.

Although I definitely enjoyed the  majority of my summer in NYC , I could not ask for more for the end of my summer in Annapolis.

Now I am going to go jump into the pool in this heat wave!

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NYC Will Always Have My Heart

I cannot believe it, but my NYC summer experience has come to an end. Unbelievable, right?

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New York City became my home this summer and I feel like I legitimately left a piece of my heart there. When I first arrived in the city, I kept saying “I think I am going to have a great summer but I definitely do not see myself here after graduation.” WELL, I WAS WRONG. This summer my heart grew fonder as the days went on.

From learning the subway to mastering the different areas of Manhattan, to becoming closer with girls in the classes and internship to discovering so many amazing restaurants, my summer in NYC is one I will never forget.

I lived in the Upper West Side, which I always compared to the suburbs of the city. My internship was in the Flatiron District and my classes were in Midtown. I loved my classes and I definitely learned a lot of about myself and what I want out of my future at my internship.

I interned at a fashion PR firm, which was definitely an experience I always dreamed about. For the past three years I have said my dream was to work in fashion PR, but after interning in a fashion PR firm, I learned that I LIKE fashion PR, but I don’t LOVE it. I am so grateful for the experience I had at the agency I interned for. I was able to work at both New York Men’s Day (the opening event for NYFW) and at New York Men’s Fashion Week.

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This summer was amazing, and I think one of my absolute favorite things was getting to try all the different trendy foods that were all over Facebook and the internet this summer. For example, Frosé, the roll-up ice cream and I went to the bakery , Union Fare, which sells the rainbow croissants, but they were sold out by the time I got there so I tried their cookies and cream croissant, which was just as fabulous!

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Exploring was also amazing. You would think in the eight weeks I was there, I would have been able to do everything I wanted to, but I didn’t. If I did not have class or my internship, I probably could have, but I know that I will definitely have to do the things I wanted to do this summer first as soon as I am back in the city!

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Another thing I loved about being in NYC, everyone wants to come and visit! My sister, Payton and best friend, Amanda came twice, my friend Mary came with Payton and Amanda on their second trip and my friend Erin came up for a weekend trip. The FUNNIEST thing was Erin and I sleeping in my twin sized bed in my dorm room, haha!

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During my friend’s visits we explored all around Manhattan and went to Brooklyn! In Brooklyn, we adventured in Williamsburg and DUMBO, which is in the picture below.

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DUMBO: Down Under the Manhattan Brooklyn Overpass 

Dumbo was gorgeous! The architecture, the view of the Manhattan Skyline and the view of the Brooklyn bridge are out of this world. The area is located right in the middle of the Manhattan bridge and the Brooklyn bridge.

This summer also included going to Her Conference. Her Conference is a conference hosted by Her Campus, an online magazine for women in college. I am a writer for Her Campus Kent State and I am also in their blogging network! They hosted a kick-off event, hosted by Rebecca Minkoff. I attended the event and had the chance to meet her. I fan-girled so hard! She was so sweet and even signed the inside of the bag I purchased that evening.

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I cannot believe all of the things I did within these past eight weeks. These were just a few highlights from my summer. I truly cannot believe this summer is almost over. Summer 2016 is definitely my favorite summer yet!

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BYOB- Build Your Own Birchbox! + A Giveaway!

Birchbox is the queen of all monthly boxes! We all know how popular these monthly boxes have become over the past year, and there is no stopping them.

I am fascinated how Birchbox continuously revolutionizes the monthly boxes and how customers try new products. I know so many who subscribe to their boxes, and now I am one of those people after visiting their store in Soho. In the last week, I have visited the store THREE times…you could say I am addicted.

This past time, I went with my two new friends, Morgan  of Mostlymorgan.com and Lara of Seafoananddiamonds.com! We went and created our own, customized Birchboxes.

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Me, Morgan (Middle) and Lara (Right)! 

Let me just start off by saying how adorable the Birchbox store is! Take a look at these pictures:

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Can you see all of the yellow? You all know I am in LOVE with the interior of the store, I mean how could I not be? It is YELLOW and MAKEUP!

After Morgan, Lara and I wondered around the store for a little bit, we decided to get to cracking and build our own boxes. Let’s take a look at the process~

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First, you choose one of the extremely cute box to put all of your items in, I chose the one in the middle!

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Second, look through all of the products and choose one from each other their sections: makeup, hair, fragrance, skincare and body.

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If you ever get the experience to go to the store, you will need at least 30 minutes to build a box because they have so many great products, it’s insane.

Here is a preview of the boxes that are full of sample size products for you to choose from!

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Birchbox has so many amazing options to choose from, especially things that you would be too nervous to buy a large bottle of, like a bee venom face mask.

We had a blast making each of our boxes. It was difficult to choose from each area of products. The only area that was not difficult for me was the hair section, because as most of you know, I get my hair washed once a week, so I do not need my own shampoo and conditioner etc., but I got this amazing hair tie made by L. Erickson.

At the end of a really fun hour and a half in the store, we had three amazing completed boxes! Lara’s boyfriend joined us and even made his own customized box in the Birchbox Men section of the store!

My box included: a Banana Hand Milk cream, a Stila liquid lipstick in the shade Fiore, a Ceramidin liquid skin moisturizer, which I used this morning and it is AMAZING, my L. Erickson hair tie and a Sud Pacifique Vanille Abricot perfume.

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We love our boxes so much that we have decided to gift one to our amazing followers because we love you all so much! <3

We are gifting one of the Radiant Finish Kits. The picture below describes all of the products inside of the box. The summer is the perfect time to have that dewy, luminous skin that we all want! It even has a full-size beauty blender!

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To enter to win the Radiant Finish Kit all you have to do is enter down below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The giveaway will start today at 6 p.m. and go until July 13 until 6 p.m.!

We are so excited about this giveaway and we hope you all are as well. I will announce the winner on July 13 on my Instagram: @Danieminor13.

After our trip to Birchbox, we had an amazing afternoon full of yummy food and photoshoots! I am so glad that this summer I met these two amazing women! I cannot see where the future takes our friendship.

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Cannot wait to announce the winner of our giveaway!

XODanieSparkle

Thrifty Thursday: Getting Ready for Vacation!

I cannot believe I have not done a Thrifty Thursday in over two months! To be honest, I had to take a break because at school my closet was overflowing with the awesome deals I was finding! This week I decided I would head over to my favorite consignment store, Oh My Darling in Annapolis, Md. to see what deals they had going on.

They recently posted on Instagram a photo of a few pairs of pineapple earrings and I knew that I had to have these for the summer!

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Amy, the owner of Oh My Darling also posted today about a sale she had today if you mentioned you saw it on her Instagram.

Even though I originally went to the store for just the earrings, I knew I would not only be leaving with just one thing… I also found the perfect dress for a trip I have coming up this weekend to the Bahamas!

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The dress is made by Just Be… I tried to find how much the dress was sold for originally, but I was unable to find it. I can tell the dress is made with a quality cotton though, so I am guessing it was definitely sold for more than I bought it. I purchased this dress for $16!

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The lightweight cotton will be perfect for the hot weather in the Bahamas!

Out of the two things I purchased today, I would definitely say the earrings would be my favorite. I am in love with the pineapples. I am currently obsessing over anything pineapple related!

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I also love the earrings because they were made by a local jewelry designer! Here is her information if you are interested in purchasing this pair of earrings or looking to see if she sells something similar:

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I left the store today only spending a total of $45!

For all of my Annapolis area readers, Oh My Darling is having their biggest shopping event yet that you will not want to miss! Coming up on June 20, they are hosting an event called The Longest Day, which is raising money for Alzheimer’s awareness.

Leading up to the event, they will be having their #30DaysofDresses fundraiser. For every dress sold from May 21-June 20, Oh My Darling will donate 10 percent of the sale to their Longest Day team. If you go into the store and try on a dress and use the hashtags #30DaysofDresses and #THELONGESTDAY, they will donate $1 to their team.

 

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If this didn’t sound intriguing enough for you… on June 20 if you make a $5 or $10 donation to their team, you will receive an empty Oh My Darling shopping bag, which you can fill with anything you can fit into the bag and receive 10 percent or 20 percent off of the items in the bag!

For more information about the event you can contact Oh My Darling’s owner, Amy Darling at amy@shopohmydarling.com!

It felt so great to thrift again! I am glad that I broke my thrifting drought at Oh My Darling!

XODanieSparkle

 

 

21 Things You Should Know About This 21-Year-Old

I cannot believe that I am 21 years old! I have been 21 for a month and a half and I have really thought a lot about 21 things about me that my readers may not not know about me!

But first I want to talk about what I did for my 21st birthday! I was able to celebrate two times, once with my friends at school and then another with my family and my friends in Maryland.

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With my friends from school:

My friends set up a “Bar Appearance”in downtown as we called it because I was really nervous about making it a bar crawl. I did not really want to go to a ton of bars, so we chose the two that we through I would really enjoy and stuck to those!

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My birthday happened to be the same day as “Fake Patty’s Day” in Kent, Ohio, which is why everyone is wearing green!

With my friends in Maryland: 

My sister set up an amazing birthday celebration! She set up a party bus for me and my friends to ride from Annapolis into D.C. for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants called Mission. It has amazing Mexican food. It was great because I not only got to see my great friends from Maryland, I also got to see my best friend, Jake, who I know from Kent State. The party bus was SO fun and dinner was great.

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I would definitely say that I had two amazing birthday celebrations.

21 things about myself that you may have been wondering: 

  1. I currently have two torn ACLs in my knee.
  2. I will be taking classes in NYC this summer for my minor, along with interning at Agentry PR firm!
  3. I love to travel. My favorite place I have been to is Madrid, Spain.
  4. I LOVE the color yellow. A lot of people ask me all the time why my whole blog is not yellow, because I love it that much.
  5. I am obsessed with psychics.
  6. I take my zodiac sign seriously, like really seriously.
  7. I  am pisces.
  8. I cry all the time, no matter if it’s a happy or sad cry.
  9. I have a cat name Angel. She is the cutest.
  10. I think everyone should go to therapy, it’s helped me a lot.
  11. I have anxiety.
  12. Thrifting is a huge stress reliever for me, but I haven’t gone in a few weeks because I have been so busy with classes.
  13. I am a public relations major.
  14. I am double minoring in fashion media writing and marketing.
  15. I LOVE Kate Spade.
  16. Coffee will always be running from my veins.
  17. I am extroverted.
  18. I always try to be positive, even if everything is falling apart.
  19. I have one younger sister, named Payton.
  20. I talk to my mom at least 3 times a day, and I would’t have it any other way. (I talk to my dad, too! don’t worry! 🙂 )
  21. I decided to start blogging because of Beautycon, a convention for all lovers of beauty, social media and gurus!

 

I hope this gives you a little more insight of who I am! I would love to get to know each and everyone of you!

 

 

Beautycon Monthly Subscription Box Unveiling!

So, I have written about Beautycon before, but to refresh your memory it is a convention that combines social media and beauty into one! There is a panel of social media influencers who speak about various topics throughout the entire day and you can also buy products with brands who attend and have a booth.

It is always a GREAT day. I have been to one in London and one in NYC! Well…They created a monthly subscription box that is curated each month by famous social media influencers with some of their favorite products and I wanted to share my box that I received with you. 🙂

Let me know what you think of this video! If you want to see more like this, please comment below. I had a lot of fun making this video. I hope you have a great week ahead of you.

 

XODanieSparkle

Quit Tanning Before You Even Begin!

As we are gearing up for the last few weeks of the semester, we are getting ready for some summer fun! During the past few weeks of school, I had so many friends talking about a very common topic that comes about during this time of the year…tanning. I know I have talked about this before, but I really felt the need to again.

When my friends talk about tanning multiple times per week (or even at all) it honestly terrifies me because I know that my friends and so many young adults know the harm that tanning can cause them, but they continue to do it every week.

I wanted to share some facts with you all:

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Other than skin cancer, tanning leads to so many other harmful side effects. If you look at many people who have tanned for a long time, you can usually tell that they have been effected by it based off how their skin appears. They have spots and more wrinkles at their age than they probably wouldn’t have had if they did not always strive to be tanner than the rest.

If you are currently someone who tans, do NOT think that skin cancer and melanoma are something that cannot affect you now. On my last post about skin cancer, I talked about how I have never tanned before but I had surgery on my back because I had a mole that was “pre-melanoma,” also known as an atypical nevi.

During my surgery I was not put asleep and they just numbed my back. When I asked how many stitches I had, my doctor estimated somewhere around 250, so it was not just as simple as removing the mole and then I was done.

While skin cancer is the most treatable of all of the cancers, it is also one that spreads very fast if not caught early enough. I am so grateful for the doctor who saw the mole on my back and realized that it was not a healthy mole.

I know that for a lot of people they “don’t care” what happens to them as long as they are tan, but I just wanted to point out some facts for you incase you did not actually know some of the harmful side effects!

Also, one last thing…in my opinion fake tanning does not look good, people are either orange or they look burned.

I would love to hear your opinions of tanning in a tanning bed!

XODanieSparkle

 

The Creation of my Online Portfolio

Happy Friday!

So, I am currently taking a class called Online Tactics. Within the class I have been tasked with creating an online portfolio to showcase my work that I am doing in school to show my future internships and hopefully one day….a job!

An online portfolio is definitely something to consider for yourself, but you may not need one if your major is not something that requires any samples, but in PR I will definitely need one!

If an online portfolio sounds like something that might interest you, keep reading to see if this is something that could benefit you:

I made mine on Weebly. It was easier to make a quick online portfolio on rather than WordPress, even though WordPress will forever have my heart for any blogging needs that I have!

Lets take a look at Danieminor.weebly.com~

My homepage: 

I went with a very basic theme so it was very easy to understand and was straightforward!

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Something that I do not LOVE about Weebly is that it is not extremely customizable. I was hoping to brand myself a bit more with Defining Danie’s colors and fonts, but I had to go with something that was just close to it.

I kept my personality into my online portfolio but of course stayed professional!

Next I posted my Resume:

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One thing that I do LOVE about Weebly is they have a very easy-to-use set up for the pages. For me to upload my resume, it was very simple.

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Where it is circled pink, I dragged that element on to my actual Resume page of                      my online portfolio.

All I had to do was drag the element “Document” onto the page and then it let me upload any style of document I wanted, and then it uploaded into a Scribd document, so someone could scroll through and read my resume!

The third page that I have on my online portfolio is my section with my writing samples! This part took me a little while to figure out how I wanted it to look. I changed the style about three times.

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I finally figured out the best way to show some of my writing samples…I did it in a slideshow where you can preview the story/article I have written and then click on it if you want to read the rest of it. I linked each photo to go to the page where the story is located!

And finally, my Defining Danie lovers… I have a Blog Portfolio! I love writing this blog so I definitely wanted to include some of my favorite posts to showcase my writing skills.

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For my blogging portfolio, I made it look like a mosaic of photos where you can click any of the photos and have them take you directly to the link of the blog post! I thought it was a creative way of putting the posts on here rather than having just clippings of the articles.

This online portfolio is definitely a necessary thing to have if you are looking to go into public relations or any other field of work where your writing MATTERS.

I have been meaning to create one for a long time now, so having it as a project for class was just a way to give me a “kick in the butt” to get it done!

I hope this inspires you to showcase your own writing. If you create one, please share it with me because I would love to read yours!

 

XODanieSparkle

Thrifty Thursday Fall Fashion!

Fall is more than football games, pumpkin spice lattes and leaves changing. Although I love all three of those things, just like most, my favorite thing about fall is the fashion. I love vests, knee high boots and feeling a little chilly.

On Sunday, I went to Value Discount Outlet in Akron, Ohio and they were having the best deals! Just like Goodwill, Value Discount Outlet has various color tags attached to the clothing, which lets the store’s staff know when the clothing came into the store. …This also allows for fun things like having certain color tags be a certain price that day!

For example, this Sunday was any green-tagged item was only $1, yellow-tagged items were 50% off and I also received 20% off because I had my student ID! It was a really good thrifting day.

Lets see what I bought!

Right as I walked into Value Discount Outlet (VDO), this yellow vest popped out at me from the 1000s of racks of clothing! My absolute favorite color is yellow.

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The vest had a small patch that was sewn on it, but I knew it wouldn’t be an issue to remove it with a seam ripper! This vest is honestly perfect for Kent State football games. I paired the vest with one of my favorite Kent State shirts!

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I then found this gorgeous pink shirt! This shirt can totally be work with jeans, as pictured or I can definitely wear this to my sorority’s chapter meetings, where we have to dress up. I love to thrift things that can work in my wardrobe for many occasions.

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I was a little worried that this shirt was a little too much of a summer color, but then I just said “ehh, I’ll make up my own rules!” and bought it anyways. 🙂 This shirt only cost me $8, and it was brand new with tags on it! It was originally around $35!

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This next outfit features two purchases! I bought both of these times for only $1!

ttleafsweater1The dress shirt was being sold because it had a small stain on it, but I washed it as soon as I got home and it came right out! I pared it with this sweater that has leaves all over it. The sweater is a yellow-green!

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I can definitely see this sweater becoming a staple in my wardrobe! I cannot wait to wear it with my black vest and pearls, which will make for a super fall outfit!

I love fall so much! I cannot wait for later October when it comes time for Halloween outfit shopping. Keep your eyes out for upcoming Halloween thrifting adventures! Happy fall!

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P.S.: My amazing friend, Mara did an awesome job taking these photos for me this week! Thanks you so much!