Happy 20

Today is this guy's (the one on the right in the blue) 20th birthday. It's so hard imagining your younger siblings growing up. Now he's attending the same college as Brea and I and soon we'll all be commuting back and forth between home together. Boy does time fly.

These photos are from last Wednesday when we spent a day on the river celebrating his birthday. Afterwards we went to his favorite Japanese restaurant for dinner. Then it was home to unwrap presents and have some cut glass cake. Just because I'm curious...has anyone ever heard of cut glass cake before? It's absolutely DELICIOUS!

Celebrating birthdays is always a fun thing in my family : ) Does your family have any traditions you do each year?

Photography Update: Tori Senior Photo

Sorry this post is a little image heavy  but I just couldn't edit! I had to get around 400 photos down to 90 and then down to 12 to share with you all!

For those that have been following my blog for quite a while know that I am also a photographer (see my photography website here: Streets & Stripes Photography). This week I had two senior photo sessions (one which I already shared here) and the other is this one! Tori is a senior in high school and plans on going to school for Financial Law. I'm so proud to call her my cousin : )

To see the full photo session click here. If you want to book me for a family, wedding, engagement, senior photo, or newborn photography session then send me an email!

New Season - New Styles

It's that time of year again! I have tons of new styles that I'm adding to my etsy shop and I'm so excited to share them with you! I'll be updating all this week so stay tuned : ) I'm also thinking of doing a giveaway here on the blog for one cowl...what do you think?

Style Files: August 23

I was SO excited to photograph and share this outfit because I feel like I hit the nail on the head STRAIGHT on when trying to find my new style. I love the muted colors, the stripes of the tank top and the straps of the sandals. It all comes together and fits with what I'm trying to turn my wardrobe into! My mom kept asking if I wanted to iron my skirt before photographs but I thought we were trying to keep it real here on the blog so I declined : )

Today was also my first day of school. Its kind of crazy to get back into that rhythm all of the sudden. I feel like I have so much to handle on my plate! It also doesn't help that I worked the first day of classes. Oh well. This year is going to be crazy insane but I need to work hard to make everything good and everyone happy. It's my last year at the University and it's going to be a good one!

The past couple days have been CRAAAzzzzy because of the storm. The girls in the bottom floor of my apartment got flooded and had to relocate. They had JUST moved in all their stuff and classes started the next day. Poor ladies! But it made for some interesting stories, ha.

Cardigan, Skirt, Top: Gap
Belt: Target
Shoes: a store in Jerusalem

Rain, Rain Go Away

Hey guys! Just wanted to check in with everyone and see how you are doing through the storm. I know a lot of people that were hit hard but thankfully everything is okay in my neck of the woods. The bottom level of our apartment complex was flooded but thankfully I'm on the second floor. The girls down there will be moving out soon to find temporary housing before classes start tomorrow.

I thought this photo was appropriate with all the rain we are getting. Today I'll be finishing unpacking and setting up the apartment. We still have some rain and wind but the worst is over. Stay safe!

Style File: Purple

Casual outfit, casual day. I am loving these v-neck t-shirts I got from Gap when they were having their 70% off sale. They are so comfortable! Also I wanted to thank everyone who keeps on commenting. I honestly do this whole thing for the community and it means so much to me to keep meeting new people so thank you :)

Top: Gap

Shoes: Target

Skirt: Francesca's

Keeping It Real

Shall we talk about the hair? I mean I like to keep it pretty real on the blog and this is about as honest as we can GET. Good thing this blog isn't about styling hair because that is DEFINITELY my weak point when it comes to getting dressed in the morning! But this outfit was easy and comfortable. Not revolutionary in any way, but just the way I like it : ) Plus these shoes give me some HEIGHT!

I still have SO much left to do before I leave for college this weekend. I've been applying to jobs like crazy and getting some good leads so I'm pretty hopeful about that. I also recently got the iPhone 4 and now I'm addicted to instagram even though I'm SURE no one gives a crap about every photo I dare to take...the app just sucks you in! I've also been crazy editing the past couple days because I had several senior photo sessions (which I'll be sharing later).

Hope you all have a great Wednesday!

Shoes - Target
Dress - a store in Jersusalem
Cardigan: H&M

It Must Be A MIRACLE

It must be a MIRACLE! How does a girl go from having curly frizzy hair to straight smooth hair? I used a HANA hair straightener called the Chi Iron. I was super excited to test out this product because I have extremely thick hair that takes over an hour to straighten with regular Target brand straighteners, but with the Chi Iron by HANA that was cut nearly in half. And with is ceramic plates it's even safe on damp hair! They also have some pretty neat curling irons I'd love to try out sometime.

*The opinions in this post are purely mine.

Style File: Leftovers From A Gap Sale

Everything from Gap except the shoes.

Last week there was some CRAZY sale going on at Gap. Most things were either 50% of 70% off! Isn't that amazing? Talk about a dream come true! All of these items (except the shoes) were from that sale. Thanks mom!

This week has been pretty crazy. I've leaving for school in a couple of days and it's getting down to the wire with packing. Today some friends are coming over for a goodbye summer party. It's also the first time I'll be able to see most of them since December when I left for Israel. It looks to be a good time : ) More pictures on that later....

Have a great Tuesday!

Monday Giveaway!

It's been QUITE some time since I've done a giveaway on this blog and I think it's about time! Sooo because I love you guys and want to thank you through sticking with me all through my time abroad, we're going to have a couple weeks with giveaways starting this week!

The winner of this giveaway will receive this lovely yellow brooch. A perfect accessory to pin on a cardigan, bag, or coat to add some color!

To Enter:
1. Follow Streets & Stripes (just click follow on the right sidebar)
2. Leave your name and email in a comment!

Extra Entries:
1. Tweet with the tag #ssgiveaway and leave a comment
2. Blog about the giveaway and leave a comment

The winner will be picked on Friday 8.26. Good luck!

Sunnier Days

I hope you guys had a GREAT weekend. Mine was filled with the usual day to day activities as well as starting to pack for college. This is my last year at university and I'm pretty happy about that! I'm ready to stop having that kind of school commitment and homework.

I was taking a look through some recent photos and found these again. They remind me of happier days when distance wasn't such a painful thing. Counting the days until I go back again....

More photos after the jump

Chase's Senior Photos

Earlier this week I snapped some photos for my brother's senior in high school. I can't BELIEVE its already here! If you're interested I posted some more over on my photography blog. Isn't he handsome?!

Redeeming Streets and Stripes

I would like to ask you to take the time to read this. I know we all hate too much text on fashion blogs but this is really important to me. However, if you are feeling like a more ligh-hearted post is in order for you today please refer to this one.


This past month has been very confusing here on the blog front. I took a break from Streets & Stripes and then came back. Then I started The Fieldbook and now have BOTH blogs to run. I'm pretty confused myself!  After reading this post written by Indiana about redeeming her own fashion blog I realized that's exactly what I should do with Streets & Stripes.

I fist closed S&S because I didn't want people in my real life to read what I'm doing. A style blog is already awkward enough, and the comments I was getting in real life were making me extremely uncomfortable .... enough to leave S&S. But after reading that post by Indiana things really came into perspective for me about style blogging.

Fashion ISN'T my life and I think that's a healthy thing. This blog is really more about finding personal style and learning to be creative and expressive through the way you dress.  But that's not the only thing Streets and Stripes is about. It's also about me as a person. My favorite kind of posts to do are the daily life posts. I love sharing images from my life and documenting it down so I have memories to keep and look back on. So that's why I'm going to even out the style posts and the daily life posts so I can accurately represent who I am and what I really value in life. While I really enjoy clothes and fashion there's also more to life. And having a balanced blog will help me remember that and hopefully help everyone else remember that as well.

So with that said it's back to regular blogging here on Streets and Stripes! This week is going to be exciting because I have a fun giveaway coming up : )

-Chaucee

Nazareth

I've been looking back on old photographs of my time spent in Israel (hard to believe these were taken just one month ago!) and it's making me miss the place pretty hard. It will always hold a special spot in my heart. These photos are from the time when I went to Nazareth with a few friends. I hope you enjoy!

Click through to see the rest of the photos