Quite Cute by MAC

 MAC has announced the launch of a new spring collection targeting teenagers everywhere: Quite Cute, which will feature the cutest make up items, in pastel colors and friendly prices.

It’s a very girlie collection including nail polishes, lipsticks, blushes, eyeliners and much more! It will hit the stores on April 7^th with prices starting at $13! Can’t wait!

Preparing for vacation – 17 days left

I have a couple of outfits laid out for our trip but still have not decided on key pieces such as the dress I’ll wear to my cousin’s birthday bash and the swimwear I’ll be taking to Maceió. But, the travel outfit is ready!

The most important when facing an 18h trip is how comfortable you dress while travelling. I refuse to wear heels, jeans, anything uncomfortable and have to say that Uggs are my favorite travelling shoes.

But, when flying to Brasil, there is no reason to wear Uggs, Brasil is really, really hot always! So, this time, I’ll try to look a little bit more put together (believe me, this is very basic, by a super effort to stay away from the Uggs/lounge look):

1-     Cotton leggings by Zara – It’s very, very hard to find quality cotton pieces in the US. This legging by Zara is amazing! Great quality cotton and super comfortable pants.

2-     Black stockings by George – I always use stockings underneath my pants for most of the year, except for summer. Since it will be cold in the plane, layering is a good option! Once we arrive in hot, hot Brasil, I can take the stocking off.

3-      Long undershirt by H&M – One of the very few places that offer quality cotton. It’s my option in case it’s really hot in Brasil, I have a long top I can show off!

4-     Long Sleeves cotton t-shirt by H&M – I like the white and back and grey color blocking.

5-     Striped long sleeves sweater by Yessica – C&A – There is no C&A in the US, this is a swiss brand that I love and it’s very popular in Brasil!

6-     Long black sweater by Max Azria – This sweater will keep me warm during the flight, and I can wrap the long ends around my shoulder if I get really cold.

7-     Dolce Vita for Target boots – my favorite boots currently – and they are on a great discount!

8-     Michael Khors purse – I got this one at a sale in a TJ Maxx in Atlanta (I think…) and I love it! It’s not too big and can carry everything I need!

There will be a lot of layers and I still need to add a jacket to this ensemble, since it’s going to still be chilly in Denver and I’m sure I’ll be freezing during the flight! The benefit of it is that after we land in São Paulo, I can pack a big part of this outfit and feel comfortable the whole day!

Dolce Vita Spring Collection for Target

I’ve been in love with the Dolce Vita collaboration with Target since the first edition last winter. They created one of my favorite boots in the whole world. All pieces are made with leather and with the Dolce Vita quality and Target prices. Just the perfect combination, isn’t it?

These are the pieces I picked up a few weeks ago! They are so comfortable, like walking on clouds (cushioned insole) and super cute! I bet I’ll use both pairs during the whole time until fall is here!

Love my new sandals.

Preparing for vacation – 18 days left

One of the most important things for a very long air trip is the organization of your necessarie and hand-luggage. Organization is the key to a calm and peaceful long trip. So, I have put together a guide to the best necessaries (coming up!) and hand luggage pieces and how to organize them – to help all of us land in our destination looking good and with everything in place!

1-      Luggage:

If you travel a lot – in our case, we travel at least every other month, be it for leisure or work – it’s not worth it to invest in designer luggage. Within a couple of trips, your bag will be destroyed, dirty, with the wheels broken, a total disaster and you will really regret the investment.

My alternative is to buy a very good, strong luggage in stores like Marshalls, TJ Maxx or Nordstrom Rack. I found my current DVF luggage set in a local TJ Maxx in NJ and I could not believe it: $40 for a DVF leather luggage! Amazing!

My boyfriend invested in a Swiss Army luggage that broke after a few trips. The wheels are destroyed – he blames me and the amount of stuff I carry around – and even though it’s an amazing piece of luggage, unless we change the wheels it’s useless now. We need to pick something new for him before we leave.



The DVF luggage I got at TJ Maxx



2-      Identification tags:

Victoria Secrets' sells very nice (and girlie) identification tags. This is something you will probably use for a very long time and worth the investment, specially if you research the statistics on how many luggage pieces the airlines loose per flight on average. It’s always important to have all your information along with your precious bags. In my case I use my personal information and a business card, just in case...

Victoria Secrets' Luggage Tags

3-      Document’s organization and wallet:

I got a special wallet, with zipper, long and spacious, so I can fit my passport, boarding pass and all my Brazilian documents. Usually, I bring two wallets, dividing the money and the cards between the two of them, just in case I loose one, I still have some back up in the other.

Some people also prefer the leather passport covers; they are charming and very useful. Also, don’t forget to bring all your fidelity/loyalty numbers to use with shuttles, hotels, airlines and car rentals. You might as well make the best out of your trip!

I use a Coach Zipper Wallet in black for the passport and boarding pass.

And a Coach Leather Wristlet as my back-up/everyday wallet.

4-      Notebook and itinerary:

I always like to bring a very cute notebook and my printed itinerary ( I spend months working on our itineraries, which includes all information possible: from flight information to hotel address, from shuttle pick up times and receipt to all the restaurants I want to try, from every single interesting store in town to cultural attractions and museums.

For cuteness, I recommend the Oh Joy notebooks for Target. They are designed by Joy from Oh Joy! Blogs and are absolutely cute!

5-      Extra clothing change:

This is really about me been very neurotic? Maybe! I always bring a change of clothes in case my luggage gets lost. Once it happens to you, it’s not that much fun. It’s like to have, at least, an underwear change with me, before I have to head into town to by new clothes because everything is lost.

6-      Diet:

It’s very important to pay attention on your diet at least during the day of the trip, avoid anything fried or soda. Because of the pressurization of the airplane, you tend to get bloated and who wants to feel gassy and uncomfortable during a long flight?


Here are some tips on how to pack your luggage efficiently by Learn Vest!

French Connection for Sears

All these new collaborations between the various apparel retailers are very exciting, especially for someone like me: lost in Colorado where, of course, there isn't a French Connection store. Now, I can shop a limited UK Style - French Connection collection for Sears!

Preparing for vacation - 19 days left

We are absolutely terrified with the amount of hours our trip from Denver to Brasil will take: 18 hours. One of the biggest negative points of living in Denver is that, being in the absolute west does not help anyone with any travel (unless you are going to California, Hawaii or Japan). 

In our case, any trips to Europe or Brasil just increased an incredible amount of travel time. In order to go to Brasil, our best option is to travel to Houston and then follow to São Paulo. There are no direct flights to most places. But, going to Houston is not an option, when you are flying using your miles. Since the airlines insist that the best use for your loyalty is to send you the worst and longest way possible to your destination (oh, the price of loyalty...) hour total flying time is 18 hours. 

My boyfriend will leave early in the morning and fly to Washington, D.C. and wait for me there. I'm going to work and in the end of the afternoon I'll fly to Dulles and meet him. I have less than 40 minutes layover and than we will follow to São Paulo. Another 9 - 10 hours inside the plane. 

So, besides bringing our laptops with hours of TV and movies previously downloaded into them, we both chose a new book and want to read and are bringing it along. 

His choice was The Social Animal from David Brooks. I could not read a serious book in such a long trip. I'll be cranky and bored, so I chose Tina Fey's Bossypants and Chelsea Handler's Are You There Vodka? It's me, Chelsea - I'll probably be drinking vodka to make things easier, so I thought this was very appropriate. :)

And, if you think this sounds like an nightmare, it gets worse: on our way back home, we will fly São Paulo --> Houston --> Colorado Springs (where my boyfriend has a 3 hour layover) --> Denver. 

Tomou? :)

MNG by Mango @ JCPenny

Now, there is a Mango store near me! Yay!

Did the big fast fashion retailers woke up to the Colorado crowd? 

No! 

But, MNG by Mango is now available at JCPenny stores and that's always very good news for everyone! 

Preparing for vacation - 20 days left

I had to stop by Target to pick up a new set of Space Bags in order to be able to pack and fit everything we are bringing to Brasil in four gigantic luggage sets and two carry-ons. I don't know how my mother ended up with all my Space Bags and I have nothing left at home. 

But, the truth is, Space Bags can help a lot. Specially in our case: I'm re-decorating by bedroom in Brasil (pictures coming soon) and I'm bringing a lot of pillows and comforters - material that does not weight anything, but it takes a lot of luggage space and in this case, and the Space Bags are super useful. 

Now I need to start organizing my luggage! 

Preparing for vacation – 21 days left

Today, my boyfriend took my old 13" Mac Book to the Denver Mac Repair store. The battery was totally gone and I could not turn the computer on, unless plugged to an outlet. So, we changed the battery to a brand new one and everything seems to work perfectly.

The reason I’m bringing my old Mac Book is:

1-     It’s a 13inch laptop, much easier to carry than the gigantic 17" widescreen I will leave at home.

2-     I like to assume that, if while in Brasil, somebody decides to steal my laptop, at least this is the old one.

So, now, I only need to back everything up and download loads of movies. I hate the long flight and I’ll be watching a lot of stuff.

I'm thinking I'm going to download the 5th season of Friday Night Lights!

Any recommendations?

Foster the People

Foster the People will play in Denver this week at the Larimer Lounge and I can't wait to see them! In preparation for the concert, I'll spend the weekend listening to their songs!

Enjoy! This is Pumped Up Kids. 

Some weeks are just not fun at all...

It’s Friday: the best day of the week! We should celebrate!

{insert a little dance here!}

This was not, by any means, a good week. I did not sleep from Sunday to Thursday, and ended up looking like a zombie, with my eyes burning. On top of that I started my vacation diet and exercising routine. What a miserable time to be me! I don’t understand people that say they feel good exercising. I think they are all big, big liars. I feel like shit and count the seconds so the torture can end. I feel good in my couch, with a pint of ice cream.

Some people really don’t know how to live life! J

To top it all, we have only three weeks until vacation, which means we will be working non-stop, including all weekends and there will be no rest so we can get everything done before April 15^th.

We have a gigantic corporate event coming up in Denver (last year we got to travel to San Antonio, TX), so I want to be ready and prepared for it!

 Oh, and I lost itinerary that was ready for my May short vacation.

This is a great Havaianas campaign I saw in one of the many magazines I subscribe to: trying to get in the vacation mood!

Once on never off - I own a gazilion pairs of havaianas, but I'm dying for the Missoni edition - I need one!

Plans for the weekend?

What weekend?

I have spring cleaning in front of me. I need to finish my taxes, cut a lot of services we do use [I try to cut expenses quarterly, there is always stuff we don’t use and we still subscribe to] and organize everything for our trip! Fun, hun?!?

I’ll send my winter wardrobe to storage, create a very nice spring wardrobe, receive some of the pieces I ordered lately and put together the outfits for the trip to Brasil.

And I need to get some sleep!

It should be fun! 

It's Friday!

Good morning, lovelies, it's Friday!
And here is how I see the sunrise everyday:

Corner of Lincoln x Meridian in Englewood, CO

CB2 vintage-inspired modern city bikes

Have you seen the new CB2 vintage-inspired modern city bikes? They are to die for and even I, the laziest girl in town, want to exercise with these beauties!

Images: CB2

Inspired: greelow flower vase

Isn't this vase just the perfect grellow flower vase? 

{yes, I'm still obsessed with yellow + green}

Image: CB2

It's time to celebrate!

We are celebrating over 1,000 visits to the blog in it's first month (!) and 80 followers to our twitter account.

If you want to follow us on twitter: @thatsafirstblog and we are here on Facebook (click here).

Thank you for following us! We are so honored to share a little bit of our lives and the things we love and that inspire usevery day with you!

A special "Thank You" to Move2Denver for all the support!

Rue Magazine - Issue 4

The 4th issue of Rue Magazine, maybe one of the coolest, most interesting design magazines ever, is out! It's been a long time waiting - or at least feels like it - and this issue looks amazing! Check it out:

The awesome team Rue!
 

A feature on the gorgeous Chicago home of blogger Baily McCarthy from Peppermint Bliss:

And one of my favorite photographers in the world: Noa from Feather Love Photography open up the doors to her studio and her Darko Weirdo party:

Enjoy the read!

Inspired: Retro Shoes by Nordstrom

Beautiful retro shoes by Nordstrom!

What's old is new...again!

Berty Sandal

Miz Mooz Sandal

Corso Como Sandal

Images: Nordstrom

Denver Home Show: Total Failure

What a disappointment it was to visit the Denver Home Show this past weekend! This is an event largely sponsored by HGTV and I thought that it would bring amazing interior designers to town, have incredible booths with interior décor, antique furniture exhibitors and expected the traditional construction booths that every home show has.

Much to my consternation the show was a failure in every single aspect: location, exhibitors, consistency, quality and more.

After traveling on the awful highway that cuts Commerce City and likely the only part of Colorado that smells like pollution we arrived at the Western Stock Arena (or something like that) and you can imagine what kind of crowd this type of location would attract...

Once inside, it really hit me: Denver is really a cow town and here I am: lost in the middle of the farmers.

Usually we tend to keep to the areas of Denver that show minimum signs of civilization, so visiting this show was really a shock back into reality.

They had very few vendors that had anything to do with home décor or interior design. Instead, there was an abundance of teeth whitening booths, Sketchers Shape Ups, food of all kinds, and everything else you can image that had nothing to do with mine or anyone else's home.

Nearly all of them catered to the people who dwell on farms, with antlers and horns glued, nailed, possibly velcroed to everything.

I was so in shock with how absurd and cheap everything looked, we ended up leaving very, very fast.

What a disaster of a trade show!

This was a great opportunity to have fabric vendors display their materials to people who have brand new homes or are still building. I was expecting tiles in different colors and shapes, new and old furniture, everything for the home that did not involve wild animals. What  an abysmal failure.

Here are the pictures that prove my point:

Images: @thatsafirstblog