Revamped Summer Look with St. Ives + Target $100 Giftcard Giveaway

"Summa, summa, summatime. Time to sit back and unwind." Taking a cue from DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, summer is officially here! (Woooooo!) I love this time of year because the weekends are filled with barbecuing, beach volleyball, and bonfires. Now that's a summer trifecta! Winter is over, the wool sweaters are coming off, and the tank tops, swim suits, and upcycled muumuus are getting worn!! I partnered up with St. Ives® to create a fun little video to chat about their brand spankin' new Fresh Hydration Lotion Sprays that are here just in time for summer!

The scents make you feel like you're on vacation (Energizing Citrus & Vitamin C, Naturally Soothing Oatmeal & Shea Butter, and Naturally Indulgent Coconut Milk & Orchid Extract) and the 360 degree spray factor, allows for a nice coating of lotion to hit your skin without feeling heavy, super greasy, or thick and goopy.

Get Moisturized!

With new, moisturized, summery skin comes a new, reinspired muumuu-turned summery dress.

My before look was just a tired muumuu that I found sitting at the bottom of a garage sale pile of my neighbor's cast-off clothes.

Muumuus happen to be my jam because the patterns are so colorful and they really just scream summer.

They're not the chicest pieces of clothing, however with some seam removing...

...pinning...

...and stitching...

...they can become a summer staple.

With my new upcycled dress (cinched at the waist) paired with some mules, a beach bag, and a spritz of St. Ives® Naturally Indulgent Coconut Milk & Orchid Extract Fresh Hydration Lotion - not only because it matches my outfit :)-  to freshen up and moisturize my skin, I'm ready for a Saturday in the sun.

I want everyone to get in on the summer action, so to celebrate the summery season and all the goodies that need to be purchased to keep your skin glam, BBQs well stocked, and wardrobe filled with beach necessities, a $100 Target giftcard is up for grabs! To enter, leave a comment below of one of your favorite summer staples! Perhaps it's a trip to the Jersey shore, a vintage crocheted swimsuit cover-up, or the fudgy-wudgy bars that are sold at on the beach. A winner will randomly be selected on 6/30. Good luck! 

For more information on these products you can visit the St. Ives website or Facebook page!

Sweepstakes Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. The notification email will come directly from BlogHer via the sweeps@blogher email address. You will have 72 hours to respond; otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 6/2-6/30.

Be sure to visit the St. Ives brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ posts!

Save the Date Book & $100 Gift Card Giveaway!

I'm such a sucker for fun, summery reads. There's nothing like a Saturday at the beach, under an umbrella (I gots to shade my skin!!), with a fun book to take your mind off of things. Growing up on the East Coast and being 10 minutes away from the beach, I always had a Judy Blume (hello, Summer Sisters) or VC Andrews (Flowers in the Attic!!) book in tow. The beach is just as close in LA, so when I have free time on the weekends to meet up with friends, we'll head to Malibu, grab fish tacos on PCH, and then lay out our towels for a day in the sun. I always have three things with me - sunscreen, a cover up, and a book!

To kick off the summer, I received a copy of Save the Date. It was like an invitation to start my summer reads in my solo book club! (Last year, I was in a real book club for a bit, but then it dissolved because of everyone's varying schedules. Sad face.) I'm a total romantic at heart, so I love Bridget Jones Diary, The Devil Wears Prada, Something Borrowed...they're my total dreamy, guilty pleasures, however I do love me some darker fare (totally obsessed with Stieg Larsson), but I'll just reserve that for winter!

This book takes place in Savannah (one of my favorite spots in the US!) and the lead character, Cara, is a florist who works weddings - basically in my dream world, I'd live in the south and floral arrange. So, right off the bat I was in. It's the story of girl works weddings, girl doesn't believe in love, girl comes to the rescue to really figure out if happy endings exist. There's a bit of bridezilla action, an abundance of wedding day dramatics, and even a dog. I mean, who doesn't love a dog to stir up some shenanigans?

Whenever I think of weddings, my first thought is "what do the bridesmaid dresses look like"? To be honest, that's my favorite part - I always love to see what the bride picked out for her maids, be it good or horrendously bad. I found one of those "horrendously bad" dresses on a recent thrift trip and just had to pick it up. I think this dress might have even had a home in Savannah at one point!

Tune in tomorrow to see what I transformed this dress into, however in the interim, RSVP to the giveaway below! (OK, wedding pun...) Enter to win a copy of Save the Date along with a $100 Visa gift card by leaving a comment below mentioning one of your favorite locations of a wedding that you attended! Perhaps a girlfriend got married in wine country, your sister wed in the backyard of your childhood home, or maybe a colleague got married at City Hall. A winner will randomly be chosen on 6/30. Wedding bells will be ringing for one winner, so good luck!

For an excerpt from Save the Date along with fun recipes inspired by the book, head over here!

Sweepstakes Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. The notification email will come directly from BlogHer via the sweeps@blogher email address. You will have 72 hours to respond; otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 6/3-6/30.

Be sure to visit the Save the Date brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ posts!

Goodebox Giveaway

Happy holiday weekend, friends! I've been a bit behind in posting as my amazing dad just had an operation yesterday. I've been in a different mindset over the past few days, however everything went well and he's recovering like a champ! So, there's lots to celebrate :)

To kick of the weekend, my wonderful friends over at Goodebox are offering a fab giveaway for you guys! They are an awesome subscription service that sends out monthly boxes of eco-friendly, organic, natural, eco-sensitive health, beauty, and wellness products to try out.

I've never actually tried Tom's toothpaste, so it was awesome to get a full-sized tube (along with a coupon) to try it out. Plus those organic cotton socks...

...are now my new favorite pair!

I've been playing around with all different kinds of eye cremes and there was an awesome Pangea Organics sample that I lathered all around my washed/pre-bedtime eye area!

Because everything is small and totally tote-able, I brought these with me on my San Fran road trip.

The Eco Armour shave foam (in that cute green bottle) is my new favorite now - there are a bunch of essential oils in it that not only smell really good, I think they've helped me with the ingrown hair front as well.

So, it's time for you guys to get your hands on some goodies of your own! One lucky winner will get a three-month subscription while another lucky winner will win a box of May's goodies.

To enter, follow the details in the rafflecopter description, and leave a comment with your favorite sustainable beauty routine/product/regiment. I've started to use real aloe from the plants in my yard to soften my skin - it seems to grow everywhere in LA, so I've taken full advantage of adding it to my daily skin care routine as well as adding it into my fruit/veggie smoothies!

a Rafflecopter giveaway