currently.

feeling anxious/excited/nervous/happy/all the feels about my two week Eurotrip that starts on Wednesday (omgomgomgomg).
running around like a chicken with no head trying to pack + prep for this trip.
deciding whether four pairs of black leggings is too many to bring?
craving a really good grilled cheese with bacon.
wearing the same pair of denim shorts every single day.
wishing american eagle made them in more than one wash so I didn't have to look like I don't have other clothes.
listening to Ed Sheeran's amazing new album & the new (and first) American Authors album.
obsessing over the fact that you can buy a physical disc on amazon but also download it straight to iTunes. It's the best of both worlds for CD lovers like me (aka people with cars with no AUX plug, xm radio, or bluetooth #firstworldpains).
smelling like this perfume.
reading The Hundred-Foot Journey on the plane this week.
needing a manicure desperately.
enjoying BBQ season and grilled everything.
watching Frozen whenever Max will let me put it on.
finding it hard to believe that it's already July tomorrow and that 2014 is half over.
realizing more and more that life passes you by whether you're prepared or not, so best to enjoy the ride every second.
being philosophical, apparently.

project life 2014 // week twenty four.

June 9 - June 15. I can feel my gears slowing with this project, but it's still so important to me, so here we go #keeponchugging.What went on this week: Monday was my best friend's birthday, so we went out to dinner for that. Also on Monday, Max's school had an ice cream truck come for the second to last day of school and his teacher sent a picture of him filthy and loving life. His last day was Tuesday so the rest of the week went kind of slow with no school to break up the day. On Saturday I went out with some of my girlfriends and Meagan and her boyfriend to Freeport's Nautical Mile and watched the Italy v. England game over fishbowls and loaded coronas, which was perfection after a long week. Sunday was Father's Day, so I spent the day with my dad and the rest of my family.About this spread: I didn't take that many photos this week, so Meagan's birthday and Freeport both got three pictures in the spread to make up for the lack of photos from the rest of the week. Details + interesting tidbits: This spread is so not cohesive. I used yellow, orange, and pink cards from Hello, Hello in all of my non-photo slots even though they had zero coordination with my photos, but I loved all of the cards and it worked for what I needed them for this week, so it's fine.Photo breakdown: phone photos: 11 // canon t3 photos: 0 // polaroid photos: 0. Taken by me, the self-timer, and shutter remotes. Photo of an ice cream covered Max taken by his teacher.
Materials, supplies, and tools I used: design A pocket pages, studio calico hello, hello monthly kit (journal and week cards), less is more stamps, fiskars corner rounder, fiskars paper trimmer, staz-on jet black ink, hp everyday photo paper, smash date stamp, zig writer for vellum marker in black (on photos), zig writer marker in black (on journal cards).

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Project Life is a simplified solution to scrapbooking created by Becky Higgins that helps you to record the memories of everyday life. Document your story either physically or digitally along with me and so many others. Find out more here, how to start here, & see all of my PL 2014 posts here.

june beauty faves.

1. Tarte Clean Slate Poreless Primer // 2. Urban Decay Eyeshadow in "Easy Baked" // 3. Tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Blush // 4. Maybelline Great Lash Clear Mascara // 5. Duri Rejuvacote Base and Top Coat // 6. The Body Shop Almond Body Butter // 7. Elizabeth and James Nirvana Black // 8. Elizabeth and James Nirvana WhiteThis month I became a Sephora VIB because I spend entirely too much money in there. But shame aside, the membership comes with a bunch of coupons that I obviously felt the need to use as soon as I got them. I ordered items number 1-3 from above, and got the two perfume rollerball samples as point rewards from the purchase. Both the black and white perfume smell amazing, but I think the black one is a little more me. Though now that I've committed it to writing, I'm not sure I can decide which one I would repurchase once the sample is finished.The eyeshadow was definitely a splurge because palettes really are the way to go, but Urban Decay really has their eyeshadow formula nailed, so I decided to pick one up in a color that I know I'll get tons of use out of. The blush is amazing as well, and comes in so many amazing colors. I picked it up because Essiebutton raves about Tarte all the time and I needed a pinky blush for my collection. I decided to go on her recommendation of Tarte and try their primer as well because my pores on my cheeks are nuts. My friend is an esthetician and even she can't figure out why I have so many #girlproblems. I love the primer even though I'm normally not the type to use one, but in these hot months it is definitely keeping my makeup on longer, so winning.I've been into shaping my eyebrows lately, so the clear mascara is amazing for that when I don't necessarily want to fill them in as well. It just keeps them in place and it's colorless, so it can be used on top whether you fill them in first or not. The body butter is really just ridiculously awesome, and The Body Shop has a half off sale on all of their body butters right now, so I highly suggest trying one out if your skin is dry or you just love slathering yourself in delicious smelling lotion all year 'round. And last but not least, that base coat and top coat is almost the only thing I've been wearing on my nails for the entire month because I've been into naked nails. I swear this stuff has made my nails stronger, makes polish (if I put it on) stay on longer, and it adds great shine. Rant over.

how I print photos for project life.

Though I'm lusting after this printer, I have a typical HP printer that spits out 8.5" x 11" pages pretty decently. I can't get it to print on 4"x6" without borders, or any other size for that matter, which is frustrating, but I've worked around it and figure there are probably people out there who are dealing with a similar chunk of plastic in their home and could benefit from me sharing my method.

When I print my photos every week for project life, I am normally dealing with seven 6"x4" photos and four to five 3"x4" photos (for a design A page). I choose my images from the week, open them all up in photoshop (I use PSE9), and crop them down to size. Then, using two different sized templates, I drag my photos on and arrange them so that they are ready to print. The first template is a 9"x8" template (that I use twice) that fits two 6"x4" photos and two 3"x4" photos:The second template is for the last three 6"x4" photos, so it's an 10"x8" template with room for two horizontal photos and one placed vertically. Both templates leave enough room for a printer's automatic border, but makes it easy enough to put all of your images on one sheet and ready to trim down.I created a little how-to video with my microphone voice (read: electronic man voice) below to demonstrate exactly how I put the templates together and get them ready to print. Go easy on me if you watch, it's my first time really making a video to put online and editing it myself (editing as in removing all of my awkward pauses and unnecessarily chatty segments), but I personally love having a visual and enjoy watching these types of tutorials on other peoples' blogs just to get a better idea of what their method is.

Project Life Templates in PSE9 from alessia santoro on Vimeo.

To download the 9"x8" template click here, and to download the 10"x8" template click here.

friday link love | 6.

OITNB is back with season two, which I've obviously already finished and am grieving, and I am loving all of the buzz about it, including this amazing BuzzFeed post that had me cracking up, and this Litchfield prison nickname generator complete with tattoo accomplice.

John Mayer did a cover of Beyonce's XO and I literally cried.
After years of complaining about the lack of certain emojis, there are finally going to be new ones (though based on the list I think only one of the ones I've ever complained about is going to be on it #youwinsomeyoulosesome).
I need to try to make these weird but delicious looking donuts.
This tweet cracked me up.
Grace Helbig makes me laugh out loud on a daily basis, and this video was no exception.
Passenger released a new album last week, and this version of his song Heart's On Fire with the one and only Ed Sheeran is just beautiful. They are the most amazing duo ever.
Speaking of Ed, his new album drops (drops? Suddenly I'm a radio DJ) on Monday, and I'm so excited. However, he's been tiding his fans over with audio versions of some of the new tracks for the past week and a half.
I ordered this sweatshirt for my friend's birthday and as soon as I saw the quality and felt the soft interior, I bought one for myself.
This BuzzFeed video is a real eye opener.
Jennifer Lawrence is my spirit animal and this compilation of 61 of her most hilarious quotes is so perfect.
I shamefully admit that I'm always behind on world news, or completely in the blind, and this daily email service from theSkimm is helping me become more informed in a quick and witty way everyday.
This girl has some set of pipes and her original song, "The Drunk Song" is so hilarious and fun.
Baseball season continues, and to celebrate I wrote a post to prove why baseball butts are the best butts.

30 days of: handwriting.

For this month's "30 days of:" installment, I decided to do handwriting. I'm obsessed with everything about handwriting, whether it be other peoples', adapting my own slightly, or writing in different "fonts" of my own. I love it all. I knew when I began creating a list of things that I could take photos of for thirty days that handwriting would be one of them, because even though (as the photos will show) I usually find my handwriting from day to day in my planner, I make a lot of lists on sticky notes and do a lot of writing for project life, so I knew I would have some variety. However, like I said in my first two thirty day photo projects (selfies + coffee), it's all about getting a different perspective on something you see or do every day that makes this project fun.This month, like last month, I posted some of my photos on instagram with the hashtag #30daysofhandwriting, which only had one post before mine on it. Butttttt, I kind of failed with that. It turns out that I don't really post things with my handwriting on it to instagram all that much, so I ended up minorly forgetting about posting a few, even though I was physically taking the photos every day. Ah well.Though I probably enjoyed the last project photographing coffee a little more because I seriously cherish my morning coffee, I did like this project. I think handwriting is kind of a dying art because of all the texting and computer usage, so I like going out of my way to write things down sometimes and keep it alive.My next installment of this monthly project will be held off until after my vacation coming up in two weeks from today (!!! details to come), but I have decided to do 30 days of: Lucas because I love photographing my pooch. He's a little bit camera shy at first so it will definitely be a challenge to get him into model mode every day, though I can't guarantee that half of the photos won't be giant blurs #challengeaccepted.

warby parker sunnies.

In December I ordered a pair of glasses with my prescription from Warby Parker, because not only did I fall in love with a bunch of their frames, they have an at home program for you to give five frames of your choice a test drive for free, and they donate a pair of glasses to a person in need every time you order a pair (like Toms, but for glasses).I did the at home try-on program back in December, and even though I ended up with the pair of glasses that I knew I would love, I'm glad that I was able to give them a test run free of charge. I decided a couple of weeks ago that since it's always sunny now and I usually wear my glasses to drive, it would make sense to have a pair of sunnies with my prescription. I picked out five different frames in the colors I thought would look nice, and I had them sent to my house (again, fo free!*) These are the five I chose:1// Madison in whiskey tortoise2// Reilly in marzipan tortoise3// Raglan in revolver black4// Everett in gimlet tortoise5// Lowry in whiskey tortoise

Totally leaning towards the Madisons, but another at home try on may be an option because I didn't feel completely sold this time around.

*This is not a sponsored post, I just think WP is awesome and love their mission.

tunes tuesday // june playlist.

So. Much. New. Music. This past month I've discovered a new band, This Wild Life, I've gotten so into Sam Smith, Birdy, and Rixton, and a few of my already favorite artists like Passenger and Ingrid Michaelson released new albums. The TFIOS movie soundtrack is also amazing, and while not every song is on Spotify yet, pretty much all of the ones that I was obsessed with throughout the movie are on there (minus Ed Sheeran's song, which I still have to play on YouTube on repeat). To get on my level, listen to this playlist about three million times.

project life 2014 // week twenty-three.

June 2 - June 8. Though October is my favorite month, June is looking pretty damn good so far.What went on this week: This week the weather was pretty good, which made for some great outdoor shots, some wardrobe change-ups (finally), and great play date options. Max didn't have school on Wednesday so we hung out with his friend and they took the most adorable photos together, I just had to include two of them. Watching them grow up together over the last year and a half has been so amazing, and these photos are really a great measure of how far they've come since those tiny 19-month-olds I met last year. On Saturday my best friend celebrated her college graduation and her 23rd birthday in one huge party, and prepping for that day was the majority of the weekend (I made those delicious looking chocolate PB cupcakes for the party, recipe here). Once the dust settled after the amazing party, we all decided on Sunday night to sit in a movie theater and cry our eyes out at The Fault in Our Stars. If you haven't seen it yet, do (but read it first).About this spread: I got my Hello, Hello kit in the mail this week, so I used it for this spread along with Office Hours. The photos were kind of all over the place in terms of colors and lighting (which is kind of what happens every week, but what can you do) so I tried my best to tie the cards together and leave things semi-simple. Sometimes I like just using a kit because it makes life easy and makes me actually use all of the awesome cards that I have but am "saving for another time". Details + interesting tidbits: I used a lot of that seafoam color again this week because of the NOW card and the interests date card from Hello, Hello for my monthly currentlies this month. I loved the interests date card from this month's kit. I've seen a million different versions of it, but have never actually had one in my possession, and I think if I can make my own it might replace the way I do my monthly currentlies (and Max's). I used the stars card from Office Hours because I've loved it since I received the kit but couldn't figure out a good time to use it. I figured pairing it with a star paperclip and my ticket stub from TFIOS movie was a great option though cheesily literal (cheesily is a word. Don't look to google for proof though).Photo breakdown: phone photos: 5 // canon t3 photos: 5 // polaroid photos: 0. Taken by me, the self-timer, and shutter remotes. Group photo on the bottom of the right page taken by a friend on his phone the size of my head.Materials, supplies, and tools I used: seafoam core kit, design A pocket pages, studio calico hello, hello monthly kit (now and interests cards, week card, "7" washi sticker), studio calico office hours monthly kit (star card), less is more stamps, elise joy stamp, elise joy calendar card, gold star paperclip (similar), American Crafts metallic silver marker, fiskars corner rounder, fiskars paper trimmer, staz-on jet black ink, hp everyday photo paper, smash date stamp, zig writer for vellum marker in black (on photos), zig writer marker in black (on journal cards).

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Project Life is a simplified solution to scrapbooking created by Becky Higgins that helps you to record the memories of everyday life. Document your story either physically or digitally along with me and so many others. Find out more here, how to start here, & see all of my PL 2014 posts here.

chocolate peanut butter cupcakes.

My best friend Meagan was throwing a college graduation/23rd birthday party this past weekend, and I decided to follow through with her wish for chocolate cupcakes, but with a twist. I saw this recipe and knew that it was the one. I adapted it slightly to create my cupcakes, and added a little something on top so that the graduation aspect of the party would be represented.For the cake batter:
// 3/4 cups flour
// 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
// 1/2 cup light brown sugar
// 1/2 cup granulated sugar
// 1 tsp. baking powder
// 1/2 tsp. baking soda
// 1/4 tsp. salt
// 1/3 cup vegetable oil
// 1/3 cup milk
// 1 large egg
// 1/4 cup sour cream
// 1/3 cup hot water
// 1 tsp. vanilla extract
// 12 mini Reese's1// Preheat the oven to 350*.
2// In a mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, both sugars, cocoa powder, baking soda & powder, and salt), then add the vegetable oil, milk, egg, vanilla extract, and mix until combined. Add the hot water, then the sour cream.
3// Coat the bottom of each muffin tin with a little bit of batter, then place a mini Reese's in the center of each tin. Pour the rest of the batter over top of the Reese's until covered and filled about 3/4 of the way.
4// Bake the cupcakes for about 16 minutes, of until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs on it.
5// Allow to cool completely on a cooling rack.
(Yields about 15 cupcakes)For the peanut buttercream frosting:
// 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
// 3 tbsp. heavy cream
// 1/2 cup (or 1 stick) butter
// 1/2 cup peanut butter
// 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
// 2 tbsp. sour cream1// whip the butter and peanut butter in a stand mixer until fluffy.
2// Blend in the vanilla, sour cream, and powdered sugar until combined, then add heavy cream as needed and continue to mix (final consistency should be fluffy and pale).To make the grad caps I dipped a mini Reese's in a dot of frosting and "glued" it to a fudge graham cookie. To harden the frosting I put them in the refrigerator for a half hour and they were good to go. I had them in the fridge up until serving because of all of the meltable chocolate, but an airtight container at room temperature probably would have been okay if all you had was the frosting on top. To be completely honest, after licking the random drips of batter and frosting while baking I could only stomach one bite at the party, but it was a pretty damn delicious bite.

#fitfam
#eatclean
#workforthatbody

(just kidding).

project life 2014 // week twenty-two.

May 26 - June 1. The official month of summer has arrived, and this project continued to document how epic life is in the unofficial summer.What went on this week: This week I was home on Monday for Memorial Day and had a bagel and coffee at home with nothing to do the whole day (which is my favorite kind of day). I did a lot of photo taking for the blog and I started a new workout program called the Bikini Body Guide so that I could get myself motivated to workout again. Then on Tuesday I had to call out sick from work because I think a mixture of allergies and a virus took me out of the count for the next few days, so the rest of the photos were from two days at work and the weekend, which was spent celebrating one of my best friend's birthdays (recipe for that delicious looking pancake here, and book report here). On Friday Max was "Shabbat King" at his nursery school, which was so cute. I didn't know any of the prayers or anything, but hearing the kids sing in Hebrew was so freakin adorable, and Max loved that it was his turn to be the "King" and he got to do all of the little rituals before and after the prayers. The kids all loved it, and I thought it was just about the most adorable hour of my life.About this spread: Since I took a lot of photos on Monday, everything on the left page is from Monday, and the right page is the rest of the week. On weeks when I get myself together and take photos for this blog, I always have more photos taken on my canon t3, and I love those weeks so I really need to just start carrying it with me a little more so that the quality of those shots can be a more every day thing. This week was the last full week of may, so there's a "monthly bests" journaling card to highlight my favorite things of the month.Details + interesting tidbits: There was a lot of color in this spread again, like last week, but I decided because of some of the complimenting colors that I would do my favorite kind of spread, a seafoam (in color) spread, which happened to only use the seafoam edition for journaling cards, but camelot's monthly kit had such good embellishments in that color as well, so it all came together and I love the way it looks.Photo breakdown: phone photos: 7 // canon t3 photos: 4 // polaroid photos: 0. Taken by me, the self-timer, and shutter remotes.Materials, supplies, and tools I used: seafoam core kit, design A pocket pages, studio calico camelot monthly kit (* stickers, banner on top right photo), less is more stamps, elise joy stamps, fiskars corner rounder, fiskars paper trimmer, staz-on jet black ink, hp everyday photo paper, smash date stamp, zig writer for vellum marker in black (on photos), zig writer marker in black (on journal cards).

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Project Life is a simplified solution to scrapbooking created by Becky Higgins that helps you to record the memories of everyday life. Document your story either physically or digitally along with me and so many others. Find out more here, how to start here, & see all of my PL 2014 posts here.

project life 2014 // week twenty-one.

May 19 - May 25. The beach happened this week, and this project documented how epic life is in the summer.What went on this week: For starters, you may notice that almost every picture in this spread has a pair of red converse in it. I bought Max converse for his birthday because he is obsessed with mine. I don't think that he knew they were an option for his tiny feet though until he opened them up. Needless to say, we did a lot of converse wearing this week. We had a couple of fun outdoor play dates, an inside one between Spiderman (Max) and Wolverine (his friend Brody), which were great, and over the long Memorial Day weekend it was finally warm and sunny enough for the first beach day of the year #winning.About this spread: Like I said, there were a lot of red converse moments this week, and a lot of outdoor moments, all making for very colorful photos. I kept the journaling cards in grayscale so as to not overwhelm what is already so overwhelming in the photos. I love the way it came together with all of the converse photos on the left side, and all of the other photos on the right.Details + interesting tidbits: I used a couple of Midnight edition's quote journal cards to keep things very simple, but also say so much about the spread. I did journal on a "this photograph" card because I wanted to go in depth with the red converse story, and I used the "a thought" card from the Camelot kit to express how amazing sunny days really are when you've gone through six months of harsh winter.  Photo breakdown: phone photos: 11 // canon t3 photos: 0 // polaroid photos: 0. Taken by me, the self-timer, and shutter remotes.
Materials, supplies, and tools I used: midnight core kit, design A pocket pages, studio calico camelot monthly kit (journaling card, wood tag), less is more stamps, elise joy stamps, fiskars corner rounder, fiskars paper trimmer, staz-on jet black ink, hp everyday photo paper, smash date stamp, zig writer for vellum marker in black (on photos), zig writer marker in black (on journal cards).

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Project Life is a simplified solution to scrapbooking created by Becky Higgins that helps you to record the memories of everyday life. Document your story either physically or digitally along with me and so many others. Find out more here, how to start here, & see all of my PL 2014 posts here.

summer nails: color lusts.

Summer is fast approaching, which means one big thing to me: sandals and exposed toes. Most of the fall and winter I paint my nails a dark color and kind of let them do their own thing under my socks because nobody sees them. Summer comes and it's like woaaahhhhh, you guys could use some polish and a pick-me-up. I tend to stick to blacks and greys all year until summer and then all of a sudden my nails take on new life.In the summer I prefer bright colors, pastel colors, or a nice nude. While most of these colors are considered "trendy" I really am a fan of coral, mint, and turquoise. The purple is really pretty and a good mix between bright and pastel, and the bright pink is a nice stand-out color. The metallic gold is something I've never tried, but it looks absolutely becautiful, and I'm sure that when the sun is shining on it the color looks amazeballs. Nude nails are a classic for me on my fingernails, and they look good all year round, which is a bonus. Also, gold glitter deserves an honorable mention because hey, accent nail. And who doesn't love scrubbing that crap off? #justkiddingihateit.cute as a button // turquoise and caicos // chills and thrills // sand tropez // haute in heat // mint candy apple // good as gold ・(I have no affiliation with essie, nor do I exclusively buy their polishes - this was kind of just an accident that started with the first five so I figured I'd keep it uniform. The links above are affiliate).