Pretti Please

by Jacqueline

Categories: Lifestyle, Style, travel

My City, Through A Fresh Pair of Eyes

As promised in my last post, I am sharing the details of my “staycation” – AKA the week I spent as a wannabe tour guide! I had so much fun rediscovering my two homes (Los Angeles + Orange County) with my best friend, Alex, who was visiting from Mississippi.  Alex had never visited the West Coast before, so I made an ambitious list of activities for her weeklong visit. I really wanted to give her the full LA experience and we covered SO much ground in just a few days!

We went to places all over Los Angeles and Orange County, including “super LA” dining spots such as The Ivy, Perch, Bottega Louie, and The Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. We went to the Santa Monica Pier, the 3rd Street Promenade, Rodeo Drive, The Grove, Fashion Island, and peeked into a ton of shops on Melrose and Robertson Blvd.  As you can probably tell – it was a busy week!  We knocked out a ton of historical LA/Hollywood locations while on a bus tour of Hollywood, which was really helpful since the days were packed enough already.

We spent one day Orange County, where we met up with my lifelong friend, Shayna.  We walked around Balboa Island and then visited The Pelican Hill Resort & Spa for a yummy dinner at the Coliseum Pool & Grill restaurant.  Overall, I think my favorite part was showing Alex around my college campus at USC! I showed Alex the buildings I had classes in, explained who the heck Tommy Trojan was, and even pointed out the huge statue of Traveler 🙂  (Alex could probably tell that I am already sad that my time at USC is only months from being over! But that’s a long sappy post for another day…haha).  As I mentioned in my last post, Alex and I received our acceptance emails from Teen Vogue Fashion University on her last day in California.  That was a fantastic way to end the week! We left off saying “I’ll see you in March!” instead of goodbye!

I had a ton of fun being Alex’s tour guide for the week.  I’ve realized that seeing my everyday surroundings from someone else’s point of view really deepened my appreciation for the places & spaces that I sometimes take for granted.  I hope you all enjoy taking a peek at our weeklong adventure in Southern California!  Enjoy!

IMG_6627
The Ivy, Beverly Hills

IMG_6542
The Santa Monica Pier

IMG_6596
Benihana, Santa Monica. Julian picked this place – we had a great time!

IMG_6605
The Santa Monica Pier

 

IMG_6628
Lunch at The Ivy, Beverly Hills.  My friend Maegan from USC joined us!

IMG_6635
The Ivy, Beverly Hills

IMG_6636

IMG_6640
Shopping on Melrose

IMG_6890
Heading of to Perch, in Downtown LA.

IMG_6647
#Twinning

IMG_6661
Spotted these beauties at Fred Segal while shopping on Melrose!

 

IMG_6672
A quick stop at The Roosevelt Hotel while on our Hollywood Legends tour.

IMG_6676
A quick stop at The Chinese  while on our Hollywood Legends tour.

IMG_6705
We had a great view of Los Angeles from this wonderful viewpoint while on our Hollywood tour!

IMG_6724
Being super touristy with the Hollywood sign! We really loved going on this Hollywood tour!

IMG_6740

IMG_6774
Balboa Island

IMG_6778

IMG_6779
Balboa Island

IMG_6788
A beautiful sunset outside of Fashion Island!

IMG_7107
Dinner at Perch in Downtown.

IMG_6802
The pool at The Pelican Hill Resort

IMG_6810
Dinner at The Pelican Hill Resort.

IMG_6818

IMG_6833
Walking the red carpet at The Beverly Hills Hotel!

IMG_6835

IMG_6836
Inside of the Beverly Hills Hotel

IMG_6881
Having a “star moment” outside of the Beverly Hills Hotel!

IMG_6887
The beautiful pool area at The Beverly Hills Hotel

IMG_7061
Ok, so we even stopped by the pool restaurant for iced coffees after lunch at the Polo Lounge! Clearly, we couldn’t get enough of the Beverly Hills hotel 🙂

Feel free to leave your favorite Los Angeles/Orange County locations in this post’s comments! I’d love to stop by anywhere that we might have missed out on. Thanks for stopping by!

signature

Categories: Lifestyle, Style, travel

Teen Vogue + San Francisco

 

 

TEEN VOGUE UNIVERSITY, HERE WE COME!

I have some super exciting news that I have been dying to share with Pretti Please – I have been accepted into the Design/Styling major at Teen Vogue Fashion University! I applied back in November and have been anxiously waiting to hear back from Teen Vogue. I am absolutely thrilled about being accepted!  In March, I will travel to New York City to attend classes and hear first-hand from the top names in the industry about their experiences in navigating the fashion and business worlds.  I can’t wait to share my experience with Teen Vogue with all of you! This year’s speakers include Rebecca Minkoff, Zac Posen, and Jessica Simpson! This is a huge dream of mine and I am so so excited that it is becoming a reality.

I am also thrilled that my equally fashion-obsessed BFF, Alex (in photo above), has also been accepted to the Design/Styling major. You might recognize her from my “Parsons Experience” post about the time I spent in Parson’s Summer Intensive Studies program in Fashion Design. You also might have seen her over on my Instagram account last week while she was visiting me in Los Angeles! Alex is from Mississippi and had never been to the West Coast, so I gave her a week-long tour of all my favorite Los Angeles/Orange County locations. It was super fun! We received our acceptance emails at the same time on the day that she flew back home, so it was a great way to end her trip. We immediately went out and bought copies of the magazine for a little photoshoot on my college’s campus, of course!

Stay tuned for a fun post coming later this week about all of our SoCal adventures!

Today I’m sharing some pictures from my wonderful trip to San Francisco with my boyfriend, Julian. We went to Fisherman’s Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, The Rotunda restaurant at Neiman Marcus, and Union Square (just to name a few spots!).  We rang in the new year at a huge  New Year’s Eve party held at the beautiful Fairmont hotel. The event planners hired circus performers come entertain the guests, which had Julian and I cracking up all night. When the clock struck 12 they released hundreds of balloons from the ceiling! It was a beautiful night.

My favorite part of the trip was just walking around and looking at all of the shops while enjoying the end of the holiday season. The city looked magical with all of the Christmas lights and Christmas trees still up! I must have photographed at least ten trees while on this trip, so I had to narrow the photos down to a couple favorites, which you will see below. I hope you all enjoyed your New Year’s Eve celebrations and are off to a happy & healthy new year.

Thanks for stopping by! 

IMG_6440Screen Shot 2015-01-09 at 9.00.39 PMIMG_6154Screen Shot 2015-01-09 at 9.03.56 PMIMG_6434
Sunglasses
IMG_6430IMG_6218
Scarf | NARS Nail Polish
IMG_6197IMG_6390IMG_6399
Dress (MY FAV!) | Tights | Heels
IMG_6364
Sunglasses | Scarf | Coat
IMG_6359IMG_6341Screen Shot 2015-01-09 at 9.52.40 PMIMG_6354IMG_6258IMG_6309IMG_6256IMG_6255IMG_6201IMG_6169IMG_6162Screen Shot 2015-01-11 at 1.11.25 PM
Prada Bag (similar) | Scarf | Necklace
IMG_6452

signature

Categories: Lifestyle

A Southern California Christmas Eve

In the spirit of Christmas Eve, I’m sharing a few shots of my favorite Christmas decor – photos of my own home, my favorite public spaces, and my sorority house at USC. It is so nice to be relaxing without any schoolwork to worry about! 

Below you’ll see that Southern California is doing its very best to look cozy and “Chrismassy,” despite the fact that its been pretty warm this week. We’ve had temperatures reach 84 degrees in LA, to be exact! So this post should be a breath of fresh air if you’ve been drooling over everyone’s perfectly snowy Christmas posts on Instagram, just like me! I hope that you all have a very merry Christmas – no matter where you are!

photo 7photo 5IMG_5618
Taken before everyone got home to decorate the tree! IMG_5562
How fun is this gingerbread house decoration that my mom picked out?319059_10151193573319010_2116012762_nFullSizeRenderFullSizeRender-2IMG_5624
Fashion Island, Newport Beach
IMG_4965
USC Alpha Delta PiIMG_5360
Downtown Los Angeles
IMG_5214 IMG_5780
The Grove, Los Angelesphoto 2
Muffin, looking a little guilty! photo 3
South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesaphoto 6IMG_5196IMG_0436
Like I said – Southern California is “trying its best” to look cozy!IMG_04331497595_10151891108224010_590899088_n

Merry Christmas, from my family to yours! 🙂

signature

 

Congratulations to Alexandra Nicole T. on being the winner of the “As Good As Gold” Giveaway! Thank you to everyone that entered into the contest and I hope you enjoyed the “Gift Picks Under $15” post!

Categories: Lifestyle, Style

#TBT: Cookie Lee Fashion Week!

I decided to share this fun “Throwback Thursday” style post with my readers after a few gals asked where I found the amazing necklace I’m wearing in my blog’s Bio picture. I know a lot of you were pleasantly surprised when you discovered that it was from Cookie Lee’s Fall/Winter Line (and only $48!).

I’ve had such an amazing experience with Cookie Lee and am so excited to share a little bit about the time I have spent as an intern in their corporate office. My absolute favorite part of my internship was attending their Fashion Week 2014 event at Hotel Irvine in Orange County. I learned SO much about the direct selling industry at this event! I enjoyed taking photos, learning from guest speakers, browsing all of Cookie Lee’s fabulous new jewelry, and networking with the other fashionable & business-minded women in attendance. The highlight of the event for me was hearing from the award-winning keynote speaker and network marketing expert Rita Davenport! I also loved seeing the consultants get fired up about the new look and feel of the company, including the Fall/Winter 2014 catalogue that I had helped work on.

To get a taste of the new direction that Cookie Lee is heading in, take a look at my photos below from Fashion Week 2014! The event had a super cute candy bar and gorgeous floral arrangements to compliment the accessory displays.  I also want to invite you to visit their new & improved website where you can browse & shop the latest Cookie Lee jewelry pieces, scarves, and sunglasses!

IMG_0676IMG_0763IMG_0804IMG_0504 IMG_0618IMG_0815IMG_0655IMG_0549 IMG_0625IMG_0559 IMG_0573 IMG_0580   IMG_0552 IMG_0622   IMG_0670       IMG_0820

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my amazing experience at Cookie Lee Fashion Week! 🙂

Also, don’t forget to enter to win my “AS GOOD AS GOLD” giveaway by clicking HERE.

signature

Categories: Lifestyle, Style

{ Cute & Cozy }

HOORAY – today is my first day of Christmas Break! I couldn’t be more excited that we are experiencing rain in Los Angeles – again. I’m taking this {rare} rainy day to catch up on a few episodes of Law & Order SVU and spend some time organizing my room.

As you can see, today’s weather has certainly inspired me to focus on a couple cozy & cute items for today’s post! Check out my favorite sleep, lounge, and home decor items of this holiday season at all different price points below. I’m really loving the fun pink candle by Voluspa and the festive
glitter slippers from Nordstrom Rack, which are on sale right now for only $19!

 

signature

Categories: Lifestyle, Style, Uncategorized

Insta Lately… || @pretti_please

I hope that all of you are enjoying your last week before the Christmas madness really heats up!

I’m in the midsts of finals “week” (which actually feels like forever to me because my final exams span two weeks instead of one), so I thought I’d do a little round-up of my latest & greatest Instagram posts. Links to featured items can be found below each picture! Also, feel free to leave any questions that you might have in the comments along with links to your own Instagram accounts – I’d love to check them out.

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.22.23 PM
Keds for Kate Spade

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.22.47 PM
Boots (sold out, THESE are my new favorites!) | Hat (also love this)

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.23.07 PM
Burberry Rain Boots (mine are a few years old and sold out, but I love the ones I liked!) | Cheaper option 

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.22.56 PM
Sweatshirt

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.23.56 PM
Heels (ankle-strap style is sold out – SIMILAR)

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.25.59 PM
Knockout Crop (LOVE the cut and fabric of these! Just as good as Lululemon, but cheaper!)

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.25.44 PM
Ahh!-Larm (Personal Alarm)

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.25.31 PM
Heels (these are SO comfy and come in SO many different colors!)

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.25.21 PM
Riding Boots // Puffer Vest // Scarf

 Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.24.10 PM
Platform Sandals // Camera Strap

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.26.20 PM
Tassel Garland (SO OBSESSED!!!)

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.26.29 PM
Tory Burch Small Marion

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.27.35 PM
I was SO excited to open my mailbox and see this awesome hoodie from @fight2breathe!  Please check out Caleigh’s AMAZING story & support/follow her on her journey to receiving a double lung transplant! Click HERE for details.

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.27.58 PM
Robinson Chain Wallet

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 4.28.42 PM
Heels sold out, SIMILAR (flats version!) | Bag (Large sold out, HERE is the Medium size that features a handy strap!)

For more of Pretti Please on Instagram, click HERE
Thanks for reading, Pretties!

signature

Categories: Lifestyle, Style, Uncategorized

Life Lately, In Pictures…

With my senior year at USC starting, Sorority recruitment, football games, weekend trips, Birthday festivities, and everything else going on – it has been a CRAZY month! Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I’m sharing my favorite Insta posts (@pretti_please).  I’ve linked photos to the websites I purchased them from and will be happy to answer any questions in the comments! Enjoy! 🙂

Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.56.41 PM
Visit my Instagram and tap this photo once to see where I found individual necklaces!Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.49.04 PM
My 22nd Birthday was on Sept. 10th! It wouldn’t have been complete without this absolutely amazing cake from Cindarella Cakes, Laguna Niguel!
Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.55.24 PM
Flats
Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.56.09 PM
Tray (Michael’s) // Carpet

Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.54.25 PM
Candle
Screen Shot 2014-09-22 at 5.05.42 PM
I recently traveled to Palo Alto with my boyfriend, Julian and my brother, Alexander for the big Stanford VS. USC game! Here’s a shot of the mark we left on Palo Alto…
{Don’t worry guys, it’s just a quirky dry-erase wall!}
Screen Shot 2014-09-22 at 5.04.59 PM
Another photo from Palo Alto!Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.54.13 PM
Marilyn Monroe Journal (Mashall’s)Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.53.55 PM
Tray (Marshall’s) // Blue Necklace (Nordstrom, “Natasha”) // Gold + Blush Necklace (Cookie Lee) // WedgesScreen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.53.13 PM
Earrings (Cookie Lee) // BenetintScreen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.52.59 PM
Leggings (Lululemon’s Secret Garden Print Capri pant)Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.52.52 PM
Kitson LA
Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.52.38 PM
KRYLON Metallic Gold DIY – I highly recommend this spray! I got mine at Michael’sScreen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.52.22 PM
Stapler
Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.52.15 PM
Earrings on Left (Cookie Lee) // Earrings on Right (Forever 21) // Tray (USC bookstore)Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.52.04 PM
Tea cups (Marshall’s – only $9 for the set!)Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.51.55 PM
White Bracelet // Hot Pink BraceletScreen Shot 2014-09-22 at 5.05.59 PM
My Grandpa kept this on his porch for 15 years, but I remember my mom and I making it for him like it was just yesterday! When my Grandpa passed away last month, my mom and I decided to put this into our own yard as a memento. It is a beautiful reminder of my Grandpa! <3Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.51.45 PM
I LOVE my new coffee table set up! Everyday I get to see my mom & my Grandpa smiling back at me!Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.51.35 PM
USC Alpha Delta Pi’s Bid Night 2014! How amazing was this set up?Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.50.30 PM
Bid Night had THE MOST adorable desserts!Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.51.03 PM
My sorority’s first sisterhood event was a day in the sun {complete with a GIANT Ferris Wheel} on our sorority house’s great big lawn!
Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.50.53 PM
Flats – Old, Tory Burch // Bracelet – Old, J. Crew  Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.49.22 PM
Magazine Rack (Office Depot) – Spray paint DIY with Krylon’s metallic gold.Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.49.30 PM
I’m obsessed with this amazing package Victoria’s Secret Sport sent me, courtest of Influenster! {Sign up here}.
Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.50.00 PM
I loved the view from Perch restaurant in Downtown LA for my birthday! Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.50.10 PM
Necklace (Cookie Lee)
Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.48.53 PM
New obsessions: Versace’s Bright Crystal (gift) and Sally Hansen’s GEL {No Light} polishes!Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.48.46 PM
Planner
Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 2.48.29 PM
Top {Nordstrom Rack} // Necklace
IMG_2045
Cheering on USC at the USC VS. Stanford Weekender game! (Dress, ASOS)
IMG_2367

Between my friends, family, & boyfriend – I think I must have celebrated my birthday {at least} 5 times! I’m sending a huge THANK YOU to everyone who made my birthday the best one yet! 🙂 I love you all!

signature

FOLLOW @jacqueline_bridgford