Hello friends! Many of you may already know this, but as of 4 pm eastern standard time, I am in New York City for a week! I have a chock-full schedule and plenty of photo fun planned, so stay tuned!

The plane ride was a pleasant 5 hours, and we arrived into JFK at 3:45 as planned :)

My first purchase...Dunkin Donuts! First DD experience (we don't have them where I'm from in California!)

My mom and I checked into our hotel after a grueling 2 hour traffic jam, took a nap, and then had a late dinner in Midtown at Sacco's 

 There's nothing quite like New York City at night...

All of these awesome images were taken using my favorite iPhone photo app, Instagram! It's too fun.

Anywho, tomorrow is shopping and Broadway! Hope everyone is lovely.

-xo maryclaire

free at last!

happy wednesday everybody! today i had my final class of the semester (class = turning in the final paper) and so i am now officially on summer break! it's been a long time coming, so i dressed up today to celebrate. pink lips, a new dress, and some heels can add happiness to any girl's day :)

 

forever 21 dress (22.80 & it came with the belt!), steve madden wedges (49.95 at nordstrom rack!), old school men's american eagle cardigan (39.95) for when it got chilly.

lately;

my wonderful cousin audrey graduated from cal state university monterey bay back in december, and she asked me to take some photos of her for her grad announcements! my good friend mia came along to help out with lighting and assisting. we had fun!

i snapped this hilarious photo of mia after i jokingly named her "my slave" 

look at those purple tones. gotta love film ♥

and don't worry, i managed to get at least one good shot of mia too :)

this past weekend, one of my best friends, jen, came home from college for the summer! we spent saturday afternoon watching silly specials about sandwiches on pbs, eating donuts, and surprising our other good friend leah at school and taking her out for dinner and a movie!

we ate at macaroni grill and saw the movie bridesmaids! it was amazingly hilarious. i highly recommend seeing it!

on sunday, jen and i grabbed starbucks and headed of to fashion island to get some much-needed friend/shopping time, and grab some essentials for the vacations we both have coming up. jen is heading to hawaii this weekend, and i'm off to the big apple the following weekend!

a few of the goodies i picked up: MAC coral lipstick Vegas that i've been yearning for, two tops, a dress, and jeans from forever21, white braided skinny belt from forever21, and Revlon's Va Va Violet lipstick!

we magically happened to spend the exact same amount of money at forever 21 so i snapped a photo of the receipts with my iPhone & the app Instagram! 

on the way home from our shopping adventure, we made a quick photo stop to finish up the roll i had left in my camera.

jen took this one of me:

later tonight i'm going with my mother to the mall to pick out new frames for my most recent eye prescription, as it's becoming a terrible pain to receive roll after roll of film with at least 50-60% of the photos blurry :|

oh, by the way: you can leave me a comment down below letting me know what you'd like to see more of on this blog! make-up tips, hairstyling how-to's, playlists, more fashion & shopping deals (a few of which amanda and i already have planned!), fun and easy diy's? i'd love to hear from you!

have a wonderful wednesday night, followers!

lots of love,

maryclaire

what i'm wearing - 5/11/11

another outfit post! lately i can't get enough of high-waisted anything paired with cropped tops and heels. it's such a classic, summery combo.

i picked up these shorts at the salvation army on monday and they fit me like a glove. isn't it just magical when that happens? i rolled cuffed the ends of the shorts twice because they were an awkward length. 30% off of $4 made these beauties less than $3!

the accessories: beads were a gift from my sister a few christmases ago, i love how colorful they are. they go with virtually every color scheme because of how rainbow-y they are! the earrings are years and years old! i went through a phase for about 3 years where i just bought and bought earrings - i have hundreds of pairs! i think these were from h&m.

and just another detail shot of my shorts. love the pleats :)

lastly: the SHOES!! i am going through a shoe obsession lately! i blogged about these in my last post, but here they are actually coordinated into an outfit. for $35 on sale? i couldn't say no! my white crochet crop top was $12.95 at h&m :)

i've been lusting after these jeffrey cambpell platform wedges for quite some time, but my working student's budget doesn't like the sound of $130. 

i found these at forever 21, and although they're not exactly the same, $25.80 is do-able and they will suffice until i can bring myself to splurge on the JC's!

i'm also loving wedged oxfords this season, and free people has a sale on these dolce vita suede ones that i might have to grab come friday (payday!)

hope everyone is having a great day! and remember. fashion doesn't have to break the bank.

XO

maryclaire

the beginning of this past week was ridiculously warm & nice out, so i took the opportunity to make one of my favorite summer thirst-quenchers - sun tea! it's super easy. 

fill a pitcher with cold water, throw in 5 or 6 teabags (i used 3 peach & 3 black currant for a fruity mix), and set it out in the sun for the day. i put it out before work around 11, and left it out until i got home around 8. the heat from the sun will brew the tea for you without using the stove during the summer - saving gas & electric, and keeping your house cool in the summer heat. :)

on friday afternoon, i went to the mall with my girls amanda and leah and we did a little shopping. milano shoes was having a buy one get one 50% off sale, so amanda and i took advantage and we each got a pair and saved some money! i also had a bit of luck at forever21 (like always, hehe) with this cute floral top (check out the detailed back) and polka dot tunic. thanks to my lovely sister grace for modeling my finds for me :)

friday night us girls headed to our friend ava's house for one of her fabulous get-togethers:

ava and me! we always have so much fun. isn't she gorgeous!?

on saturday, amanda and i helped lacey and nikki get ready for their prom, and then helped take photos of them before the dance! the girls looked beautiful:

   

nikki's dress was hand-made by a family friend and designed by nikki herself! i was so in love with it.

today is mother's day, and we spent the early afternoon by gardening as a family. my house is now full of wonderful fragrant flowers :)

roses from our front yard, wild sweet peas from the flower fields, and the bouquet i gave my mother for mama's day!

i hope everyone had a fabulous weekend, i send all the mama's, grandmama's, and mama's-to-be giant thank you's and love ♥

-xo mcr

p.s. if you'd like to see any of the photos larger - just click on them! 

well hey! my first real blog post on this blog! the last three days have been wonderful. i worked every day for the last two weeks, so i finally got a nice (and deserved) 4-day break.

friday i took the opportunity to sleep in, and boy did i. made up for every 7:30 am alarm clock in the last month! around 12:30 i pulled myself out of bed, made some coffee, and cleaned up my room a bit.
i headed out around 2 for an relaxing afternoon of driving with the windows down (to this playlist), errands, thrifting, taking myself out for coffee, and just generally much-needed alone time.  while thrifting i picked up a few good things!

this dress was half off (everything i bought, was!), making it $4.50. now i just need a place to wear it!

the shorts are classic mom shorts from the 90's, $1.50! so excited to put these to use.

and yes, i know it's almost summer, but i can't resist a floral print sweater that's less than $2, okay!?

i got home, putzed around a bit, and took some self portraits:

then i met up with my best friend amanda for a girly date night! it's sort of becoming a tradition. we went to california pizza kitchen last weekend, but this night we went to BJ's brewery! it was delish - we split a small deep-dish artichoke/roasted pepper/cheese pizza with a side italian market salad (complete with feta cheese, garbanzo beans, artichoke hearts, and crispy iceberg & romaine lettuce!)

after dinner we grabbed a movie from red box and got accosted by a homeless man, no skin off our backs, yo. we changed into our pj's and sat down to enjoy a night in, full of leftover easter chocolate & easy a. love emma stone! 

saturday i met up with my girl madeline for some shopping (retail therapy, hello) and lunch! i always have fun when i'm with her, friends that you can laugh with are the best. i grabbed some amazing things at my favorite - forever21. 

i saw this dress on the hanger and thought - pair this with some classic white keds and you're set! so glad it fit. and for $22.80? i couldn't say no ;)

around summer time, i'm always looking for new skirts to add to my wardrobe. i'm not much of a shorts person, and i love dresses, but i need something to wear with my blouses! this multi-colored patterned high-waisted skirt is elastic and only ran me $11.80 :) oh, and it has pockets!

now this photo doesn't do this skirt justice... it's my favorite out of my purchases. i LOVE this color and i don't own hardly any of it, so i was STOKED when it fit perfectly. i'll do an outfit post on this one very soon! $14.80. can't beat f21's prices.

i also picked up a little travel make-up brush set while i was in line (that's where they get ya) but it was only $7 and i've been talking about needing new brushes anyway!

driving home, i decided to take coast highway instead of the boring old freeway. it was SUCH a beautiful day that i rolled down my windows and let the sunshine and salt water waft in.

madeline was kind enough to let me borrow her 50mm f/1.8 lens to test out on my new (old) canon eos rebel xsi, so i took my sister down to the beach to try it out! i'm so happy with the results:

saturday evening closed with some always fabulous chipotle, iced tea, and good music.

sunday i had a photoshoot with mia! mia is one of my closest and oldest friends, and my original model. before she had an agent, before i even had a dslr. we made magic even then, but that's not to say we haven't come a long way, as individuals and as a team!

we met for hair, make-up, and wardrobe consulting around 1 pm, and departed for the flower fields in carlsbad, ca around 3:30. with a small detour to the outlet mall to pick up new jeans for mia, we ended up shooting from around 4:45 until the light went down at 7:30! i have only just base-level edited, but here are a few previews from the shoot:

lucky for us when we got kicked out of the flower fields at 6:30, the beach was just a short drive away

talk about cramming a life into my 3 days off! i have today off of work as well, and i'll probably spend the rest of the day editing photos and drinking lots of coffee (but what's new?).

oh, and if you read all of that, thank you ♥ (and welcome along for the journey)

xoxo maryclaire