Badlands Photos + Earth Day Deals

In honor of Earth Day (today! wohoo!!) I wanted to share a few photos from a recent trip to the South Dakota Badlands. Round trip, we took a ten hour detour to see this legendary space - smack dab in the middle of the Prairie States. We were there for about 45 minutes of Magic Hour. It did not disappoint.

Seriously, Mother Nature. Show off, much? This world. I swear. It can take your breath away.

Gush.

Anyway, hi guys! How's it going? Man last week was busy! I took a red eye home Saturday night/Sunday morning & have spent the last 72 hours recovering hard core. Part of that recovery included spiced vegan chickpea wraps (yum!) & while we were picking up ingredients at Fresh Thyme I noticed some Earth Day Deals on the schedule. So here's a little run down, be sure you take advantage! Let me know if I missed anything. xoxo

Fresh Thyme Bulk Sampling + Sale (Oakley)

The rest of these aren't really on sale. But I do love them & they're kinda earthy.
Star & Moon Necklace (etsy)
Hydrangea Petal Earrings (etsy)
Antler Necklace (Jane Divine) 
Zodiac Zing Top (modcloth)
Take a Hike Tee 
Klean Kanteen Water Bottles

Happy Monday!

Hi guys! I'm on the last leg of a long work trip. Here's the rundown:

• Flew to Denver. Hosted a client program & made some site visits. = 2 days
• Flew to North Dakota. Crossed it off my co-worker's 50 state list. = a few hours 
• Drove to South Dakota. Made a 5 hour detour to The Badlands. Hit it right at Magic Hour. Took the photo above. = 10 hours
• Spent the night in Sioux Falls. Hosted a client program. Ate lunch. Found an amazing Boutique & splurged on some fun accessories (coming to the blog soon!) 15 hours
• Drove to Minnesota. Hosted a client program. Ate dinner at my co-worker's brother's. 1 day
• Today we have some site visits. & tonight I'm flying back to Cincy! 

Whew! What a whirlwind. I cannot wait to get back into my studio. How was your weekend? What'd you do? I hope you had mimosas on the patio because I heard the weather was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.  

Just wanted to check in & say I love & miss you all. Can't wait to catch ya in the 513 soon.

Talk Cropping to Me: cropping photos for instagram

How do you serve up your insta pics? Bright, light & SQUARE. Amiright? Yes, I'm right.

Today I thought we could talk a little about instagram. Particularly, the pics before the pics. Time to, talk croppy to me. (If you're playing this song in your head right now, that's exactly what I was hoping for.)

BEFORE:
You can probably tell from this before pic that I was planning to have the donut take cake. (Pun intended.) I have it aligned over on the left of the frame. But, after I scurried away from the office kitchen wondering if anyone saw me playing with my food, I decided the focus needed to be even more emphasized.

CROPPED:
Most of my hand. So your eye will immediately focus on this glorious fried dough. 

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BEFORE:
Not bad, not bad. I was aiming for a detail shot. But one of my hands is super dry & distracting. Also, it's placed weirdly. Who stands like that?! Now you're questioning why I'm standing like that. I tricked ya, because I wanted to point out you are NOT focusing on this awesome skirt print.

CROPPED:
Half the outfit. This way I can get a mega-detail close up shot of the skirt print, crop out my distracting hand & also appear to be standing like a normal person. WIN!

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BEFORE:
Awww. This one was a blooper. Anjali (remember my roomie for life?!) has her eyes closed & Dave is squinting in the sun. But I had just learned how to wrap a bouquet & I loved the way these red roses contrast with Anjali's crisp white shirt. &  I really, really wanted to show off her brand new ring (they just got engaged!).

CROPPED:
Everything. There's so much going on in this picture. Don't be afraid to zoom in on the details. When I stopped looking at their faces (rude), I realized how perfect Anjali & Dave were standing (sa'cute, right?). I used the "constrain to square" crop feature on iPhoto & was able to square-crop this baby before I even but it up on insta. 

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BEFORE
I was shooting with the rule of thirds in mind. But what are you focusing on? The tree branch, right? 

CROPPED
The wall. Rule of thirds? More like Rule of Thirteenths. 

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BEFORE
Sometimes I don't want to crop anything out of a photo. That's what happened here. I really loved the way my green sweater added to the frame (expertly rolled sleeves, thank you very much). The color was a nice balance, but the dang thing wasn't square.

CROPPED
My arm. I decided the flowers were more important. I know it's not a huge change, but I just wanted to show you that not all is lost when you have to crop a photo you love to fit it into insta.

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Last but not least... 

BEFORE
Not too bad, but it looks a little awkward in the frame. You can tell I'm not directly above the bowls because the one on the right has a funky dimension.

CROPPED
The sides & top of the bowl on the right. It gives the illusion of a perfect aerial shot.

Cropping can change the whole feel of a picture. & once you find your style, it'll take less & less cuts to get that perfect frame.  One of the awesome blogs I read is Chocolate Covered Katie. Her "behind the scenes" post several weeks ago inspired me to talk cropping with you guys.  Do you have other cropping tips or tricks? Let's hear what you know! Drop some knowledge on me.

xo

P.S. Do you recognize some of these pictures? Here are the Ida Street posts they came from:
Styling a dress that's a little too tight
Northern Kentucky's Velocity Bike & Bean
Wrapping your own bouquet
Spicy Veggie Chili

& you can follow me on insta here, if you'd like!

Styling a dress that is a littttttle too small

I have a problem. Sometimes I buy cute clothes that don't fit me. Take this daffodil dress:

Brand: Alice + Olivia
Size: 0
Annie's Size: NOT zero

I wasn't a zero when I bought it either. But there it was at TJ Maxx, just languishing in the final sale rack. I can't afford Alice + Olivia in real life. Not even close. & it was sooooo stinkin' cute. I tried it on. It was tight, I'll admit. But, hey, incentive to work out, right?

Wrong. I bought the dress 10 months ago & haven't worked out in about as long.  But now it's spring & high time to find a way I can wear this gorgeous daffodil dress. What to do when you're styling a dress that is a little too small?

Answer: you layer.

Too tight dress + sweater = pencil skirt & adorable shirt combo. 
I haven't done math as friendly as that that since  the jumpsuit/crop sweater post a few weeks ago ;D

Here, let me push my glasses up real fast because that was fashion-math nerdy of me. 

Really though, layering has saved a lot of cute clothes in my closet. & you don't only have to layer when your dress is too small. My friend CincinNatalie can tell you that.

In other news: I'm leaving for Denver tomorrow. From there I fly to North Dakota, to South Dakota, to Minneapolis. (You all can keep up with my travels if you'd like on instagram or twitter. I usually run into some pretty comical situations.)  Easter was really lovely & so was my Madewell Event! Yesterday, Cincy Chic published an article about Thread Cincinnati (remember that group of amazing fashion bloggers I've been talking about?). We have more plans for Thread coming up :D

I hope you are having a really awesome spring & going crazy with color in your wardrobes. Send me snapchats of your bright outfits (anneabutler) & I'll send you back some love. 

xo

Dress/skirt: Alice + Olivia 2013 via TJ Maxx (similar via Alice + Olivia) (similar via Michael Kors) (similar via Talbots)
Sweater: Banana Republic 2014 (similar)
Sneaks: Jack Purcell
Photog: Jacob Heath

Wrapping your own bouquet

Dang, I love flowers. So much. But I'm also a girl who's been on a budget her entire life. So I think I've stepped into an actual florist maybe once --- to buy a boutineer  for my date to fall formal circa 2005. 

Here's a flashback :D 
(We were too shy to take photos together, so I obviously got one with my true love instead: spaghetti.)

But, you know what gets a bad rap? Grocery flowers. They're so accessible. You can literally ring them up in the self check out line. Plus, it's so fun to walk around with cute little flowers peeking over your cart while you finish your other shopping.  Today I'm going to share a trick to make those grocery store blooms feel fancy as fancy pants. 

 Ready?  I can show you in just 60 seconds. 
Click below.

Cool, right?! I've been practicing with hyperlapse the instagram app. I'm hoping to be able to incorporate more video into Ida Street for you all. The easiest way to start is with my cell phone, I figure. 

But photos are what we're used to around these parts! So I broke the process up again, into three easy wraps. See the photo-documentation below:

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Wrap one: paper towel

Wrap two: Plastic Wrap

Wet a paper towel so your flowers have some drank... 
& then wrap it up... 
& tie. 

You're going to want to wrap the paper towel in plastic wrap so 1) the water stays in & 2) the water doesn't get onto things it shouldn't.

Wrap Three: Paper

Wrap the whole thing up (stems + blooms) into some kind of paper. I think newspaper would be adorable, but my student subscriber discount ended three years ago. So I used wrapping paper I had in the closet...

& That's literally it! Add a piece of tape to hold the paper together. Cover that up with a ribbon. & then surprise a friend or hostess with an adorable bouquet. 

The grocery store part will be our little secret.

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Wishing you all the happiest Easter if you are celebrating. Send me pics of your bouquets.  I'd love to see. xo

Photog: Moi & Jacob Heath
Video: iPhone & Hyperlapse & iMovie
Song: No you girls/ Franz Ferdinand
Flowers: Teddy Gumbleton*

*ps. my beautiful flowers were NOT from the grocery store. Teddy ordered through a florist. But I did try this trick last weekend with a dozen Kroger roses & it was adorable. p.p.s I definitely saw  a post like this on another blog I follow & cannot for the life of me remember who :/ but credit where credit is due, anonymous floral blogger.

xo