Happy Birthday to Me!

via Amanda Bee

We will have the bubbly on ice and ready to go to one of my favorite restaurants and bars tonight for the big 22! 

I am so excited to be turning 22! 21 was a great year that I will be sad to say goodbye to, but 22 has so much in store that I'm very much looking forward to what the new year has in store!

A big thanks to my parents, sister, the Bitties, my coworkers, my readers, and everyone else who has been a part of the last year and made it so special!

xxKatie

Happy Birthday Hannah!

I want to wish the happiest of happy birthdays to Miss Hannah today! A very long-awaited 21st birthday is upon us, and it's safe to say that everyone is more excited for Hannah's birthday than our own!

This picture is actually from one of the first nights I ever had the pleasure of hanging out with hSp, and we were doing 80s bowling for her sorority! 

We cannot wait to celebrate with you today for your special day and CHEERS TO BEING 21!!!!

xxKatie

Birthday Bliss!

So the Let's Be Preppy 5th birthday was a HUGE hit! A huge thanks to everyone who helped make it possible!

We were able to showcase the new Pink Sorbet renovations too, during the celebrations!

Our birthday spread was chock full of goodies to share with everyone!

My sweet Momma surprised me with cookies from a local bakery, Pink Magnolia Bakery, all the way in SC! The girls at Pink Magnolia seriously make the BEST cookies so it was MUCH to my delight that my Mom got them for us! How perfectly perfect are they?!?!?!

I had a bunch of fun pink drinkware that I brought with me to celebrate with!

We even celebrated with LBP Cruiseys too!

My boss surprised me with this Let's Be Preppy cake! Can you believe it?! Do you recognize that from a certain header and Facebook cover photo? I was obsessed. I was speechless for a few minutes because I really had NO idea that this was coming!!! Floor, surprised, shocked, honored, doesn't even begin to describe the feeling when I saw this cake!

This birthday was among the most fun I have been able to plan and celebrate! Thank you to my readers, friends, boss, co-workers, bakery, Mom and everyone else who had a hand in this wonderful day!!!

xxKatie

Happy Birthday, LBP!: On My Way to Pink Sorbet!

Hope to see you today at Pink Sorbet!

You are cordially invited to join me and the best ladies you could ask for at Pink Sorbet today!

Come shop the best that Lilly Pulitzer fall 2012 has to offer for fun, Gameday, YOUR birthday, and everything in between!

We can't wait to see you! We'll have snacks, girly drinks and maybe even a Cruisey or two to giveaway!

Drop by anytime between 10am-5:30pm!

xxKatie

You're Invited: A Quick Reminder!

In honor of it being "National Bowtie Day" yesterday, I made this invite in an app!

I sure hope that everyone can make it to the party!

RSVP HERE!

I am SO excited and hope that y'all can come out! September is right around the corner--can you even believe it? Five years is almost already upon us!

xxKatie

You're Invited: Let's Be Preppy Turns 5!

Early next month, Let's Be Preppy turns 5! Can you believe we've been going at this since 2007!? I think that makes LBP one of the oldest blogs on the preppy block!

I hope that everyone in town can make it! If you're going to be in the best college town in the South, Columbia, SC, head on over to Pink Sorbet on September 14! Mark that in your Lilly agendas--it's a Friday!

I would love to see you and I have a few fun, fabulous tricks up my sleeve for the people who can make it! If you can, RSVP on Facebook! Girls, guys, moms, daughters, y'all are ALL invited! I can't wait to see your bright, shining faces for the big birthday!

Happy almost birthday, LBP!

xxKatie

New Do, New You

I have SUPER short hair now!!

This is the last tagged photo of me from my friend Jami's 21st birthday! This was a few days ago so my hair was at the longest and most recent pre-haircut:

I'm sure most of y'all saw my tweets about the haircut yesterday! I went to a great salon in Columbia called Ashley's Alley, and my stylist, Keri, was wonderful. She was recommended to me by a friend and did a great job. She was SO speedy too--I was washed, cut, and blow-dried all in less than 45 minutes. The location is moving, but if anyone in Columbia needs a new hair stylist, shoot me an email and I'll forward you her details!

You can also see a bit of my new house in the background--a very small bit! Our AMAZING pink couch! One of my roommates had a HOT PINK COUCH that's now happily residing in our living room!

I am so excited about my new hair and can't wait to really see how it feels once I'm the primary stylist!

Have you ever made a DRASTIC haircut? Did you like it or did you want your old hair back?!

B-School Colors

Essie's new collection is perfect for all my fellow Business majors out there! Inspired by the business world (and I've heard maybe even the "Occupy Wall Street" saga) you'll love all their names! From left to right:

1. Navigate Her

2. A Crewed Interest

3. To Buy or Not to Buy

4. Tour de Finance

5. Olé Caliente

6. Orange It’s Obvious!

I pinned these guys a few days ago without knowing their individual names but the collection is just too much fun!!

xxKatie

P.S.: A big thank you for all the "Happy Birthday" tweets and comments! Y'all are SERIOUSLY the bomb!

Outfit of the Day: 21st BIRTHDAY

January 8 by letsbepreppy featuring a yellow gold bangle

This is my (finally) 21st birthday outfit! I LOVE LOVE LOVE my one-shoulder dress from Lilly Resort 2011. As soon as this dress came out, I knew it was right for me! I added in the crossbody bag that I got for Christmas and the "Gild the Lily" bracelet I got yesterday!

Here's to a fun and fabulous 21st! As I like to tell all my friends, Miss Lilly Pulitzer says, "Too much is never enough!" ...wink wink!

xxKatie

Gild the Lily

This was one of the beautiful gifts that arrived for me in the mail from one of the sweetest friends I have. 

I wasn't entirely sure of the meaning of this idiom, so I gave it a little Google search. I read the meaning and almost started crying. My favorite of the meanings was, 

"To make superfluous additions to what is already complete".

Thank you thank you Sarah and Kate Spade for the wonderful beginning to my birthday weekend!!

xxKatie

The Whitaker

This is my official 21st birthday dress!!

I couldn't wait to show y'all! I don't think I'm going to wear a belt with mine, but I'm going to pair it with these shoes from Resort a few years ago:

I am so excited because I think this is the perfect party dress! It's fun a colorful and what better a way to  celebrate my birthday than in a Lilly of course!!

xxKatie

Happy Birthday Emily!

To one of my oldest and longest friends, Happy Birthday Emily!

I saw this yesterday and thought it was fate because it was the perfect birthday greeting for you:

It's been among the craziest of friendship years for us, but I know your 20th is going to be great!

Happy Birthday!!

xxKatie

P.S.: A fun giveaway is coming tomorrow! Keep your eyes out to enter!!

Throw Some Glitter, Make It Rain

In the words of one of my favorite pump-up artists, Ke$ha, "Throw some glitter make it rain..."! I was just shopping yesterday at home and I was making the rounds to the usual places. One of my favorite places to raid is our local Ulta. Ulta has great sales and freebies for most popular products. Just yesterday I qualified for a free OPI topcoat or basecoat AND a freebie from Bare Escentuals. Ulta is also great because it's one-stop shopping. I made my way over to the Ulta brand cosmetics counter to check out what they had and it was full of bogo's. I opted for a 2/$6 for items that were usually $6 so it was basically buy one get one free. I picked up this nail color:

Pinata-Yada-Yada

It is a $6 alternative to one of my most lusted after colors out there, Happy Birthday by Deborah Lippman of Lippman Collection:

I just can't really bring myself to spend nearly $20 on nail polish...ok it's actually $18, but I digress. I was so excited to have come upon this other color that seems to be very similar! One of the big differences in the Lippman Collection color, atypical of other glitter polishes is it's very large pieces of glitter. Pinata-Yada-Yada has those exact same ones! There were a BUNCH of the bottles just like the one I snatched up (probably 9-10 left after mine) but it's not listed on the website so run to your Ulta to see if it's there!!!

I know it's not always the classiest, but glitter is SUCH a guilty pleasure of mine...if only you could see my toe right now!! 

xxKatie

Year of Birthdays

You're probably asking yourself, "Well, isn't every year the year of the birthdays?" Well yes, but this year I'm a junior which means the birthday that everyone gets the most excited about in college: turning 21! I often get questions about what to get for your friends for their 21st birthdays! Here are some of my suggestions:

Customized shot glasses: I got these for three guy friends last year and they all loved them! They all got 2 glasses: 1 personalized with their monograms and 1 personalized with something funny between us!

A season of their favorite show or a DVD of their favorite movie! This is ALWAYS a crowd pleaser!

Monogrammed Wine Glasses from The Cooler Girl (a fabulous friend of mine!)

Food gift cards! I know gift cards have a bit of an impersonal stigma associated with them, but give them a book of coupons and say you're taking them to the specific place. Need a reason to take this certain someone on a date? ...Sounds like a perfect plan to me!

The Bubbly! This gives you a fun reason to toast (or roast!) your friends at their birthday bash!

Local concert tickets! A bunch of my friends have birthdays the week before THIS GUY comes to town. Too bad I don't give away ANY birthday surprises! I do expect to see y'all all there though!

I saw this concoction on Pinterest a few days ago and it sparked my idea for this post! Too funny! Seems like something a Grandma might do!

What did you give your friends for their 21st birthday? Anything fun? 

xxKatie

Celebrations! Celebrations!

Tonight we're celebrating my Mom's 50th birthday with a party at the Naval Academy! We are so excited! All us girls will be in Navy/Blue Lilly dresses and my dad will probably be in "boy uniform"of a polo and khakis. We are so excited and have been looking forward to this night for awhile! My sister designed the invites which are too cute! This is the outside of the FABULOUS facility:

Just so you can picture where we'll be celebrating!

This is the outside from the ribbon-cutting ceremony! We won't have those ugly chairs outside since it's tonight!

We will be listening to this:

Momma's wearing this:

And she'll obviously be the belle of the ball!

I am SO excited for tonight!! We ordered a fabulous cake that I cannot wait to see and I would describe it more BUT Momma's an avid reader so I don't want to spoil the surprise :) Check my Twitter for some pictures as soon as I see it after work!!

Woo hoo party time!!!

xxKatie

Vote Vote Vote: Advice Needed

So this great gold, sparkly, glittery, fun, party dress is on Rue La La for about $60. 

It is the perfect 21st birthday dress, right?

I have credits enough to cover the entire dress AND shipping, meaning it's free. No questions asked free. It's also long enough that it would be perfect for me! Imagine it with black tights, some great shoes (that I could spend money on since I didn't have to pay for the dress) and me in a birthday crown singing 21st birthday karaoke. Perfect right? (10:44am edit: My birthday is in January! That's why I suggested tights and fun shoes--too cold for bare legs!!)

VOTE y'all! Let me know if you like it for a good birthday dress. 

After posting it on my Facebook fan page and Twitter, the score is:

Yes: 11

No: 1 (read: "too much fabric for a 21 year old")

"What are the other options": 1 (a fair argument)

Clearly I need more input!! VOTE VOTE VOTE and help a sista out!

xxKatie

Weekly Gratitude

So somehow I forgot to do this last week. RUDE. Here we go making up for it all!

1. Thanks to Amanda, Amy and Skyler for all having birthdays this weekend. Y'all RULE.

2. Thanks to all of them having a Lilly-esque theme. It was great to get dressed up and have everyone lookin' great!

3. Thanks to Bayside Bride for providing me with so much these past two weeks! So much to work on, look forward to, and plan for the rest of the summer.

4. Thanks to Scotty McCreary for recording "For Once in My Life". It's slowing becoming one of my American Idol faves!

5. Thanks to the Lilly Warehouse sale--you got me a bunch of steals to be proud of for the rest of the summer and into the school year since I got a few transitional pieces too!

6. Thanks to Country music for being better in the summer.

7. Thanks to all the Etsy shops that have made this birthday season fun. I don't want to give anything away yet since it hasn't arrived, but thanks in general.

8. Thanks to Costa del Mar for reaching out to me. Y'all look for a post coming up soon to hear all about it! Doin' big things this week!

9. Thanks to everyone who's been reading this week. I think we're all SO busy and the comments and tweets me so much!!

10. Thanks to Polyvore who told me I've been in both the 77th and 74th most viewed profiles on the site!!! SO exciting!!!

xxKatie

Happy Birthday (Party) Day, Miss Skyler!

So y'all have heard me always include Miss Skyler in my posts! Today is the start of her birthday festivities! Her birthday begins tonight when the clock strikes midnight (Cinderella style...except maybe a little later...) and will last until however long we decide!

How adorable is she?

Anyway tonight is her birthday, just a small gathering of family and close friends at a local restaurant and I'm SO looking forward to celebrating. Because I haven't gotten her gift from the mail yet, here are some clues to what it might be:

 AND

for a special little basket of goodies that screams sCe!

Cheers to you, Skyler! Can't wait to celebrate tonight!!

xxKatie

Outfit of the Day: P&G Party

Good friend Amanda (and her equally fabulous TWIN sista Amy) are hosting a Pink and Green throwdown birthday bash tonight! After work, I'm off to dinner with my sister and then we're heading our little selves over to the P&G party. P&G is a huge tradition for the twins and I can't wait to go to my first P&G party! This is what I will be donning for the shindig tonight:

June 11 by letsbepreppy featuring south sea pearl jewelry

I can hardly think of anything more appropriate than a P&G shift full of crabs! I'm looking forward to tonight and the wonderful theme of the party. I also can't wait to see what all the other guests are going to be wearing themselves!!

Ever been to a pink and green party? I can't wait!!


xxKatie

A Week in the Life of: Let's Be Preppy

I got this question on tumblr and decided to answer it in a real post. I want to turn it into a profile for a bunch of bloggers out there! Keep your eyes peeled (and your emails refreshed!)! My weeks are anything but typical. I've been lucky to have some kind of schedule this summer, but that is very rare for me. This is how my typical summer weeks have been running for the past month (which has FLOWN by if I do say so myself!). Click the days to check out an OOTD to accompany the day!

Monday: Get up around 8:30. Lounge until 9:00. Start getting ready for work. Depending on my dad's schedule sometimes he drives me, sometimes I drive myself. Work at the store from 10-5:15. Run to pick up really fast dinner and get to class by 6:00. With tourist traffic, this is sometimes difficult! Classes until 8:30-9 depending on how tired my Econ professor is. Get home between 9:00-9:30. Finish homework, answer emails. Tweet and tumble a little if time permits. Go "up" (which means to my room to lounge, read blogs, and answer more emails) around 11:00, asleep by about midnight.

Tuesday: Same as Monday!

Wednesday: Day off! Lounge until 10. Leisurely walk downstairs, eat brunch (this can vary from day to day) around 11:00. Watch TV, blog, do more homework. Lay out for about an hour and read Nudge while sunning if weather permits. Turn on SoapNet at 1:00 for The O.C. and watch One Tree Hill (as long as it's NOT the Nanny Carrie episodes. See this tweet.) until about 4. That is my absolute guilty pleasure of summer. Gluttonous, silly, fake TV shows. This 3 hour block I love. Start gathering things for school. Shower and change before class. Class from 6-9 again (I'm taking 2 classes, 12 hours a week!). Come home, do personal emails. Favorites include my chain with Holly! Play around on Pinterest for Bayside Bride or for myself.

Thursday: Wake up early, do tweeting and video uploading for internship #2. Check internet to see if website is working. Continue uploads and start getting ready for work. Work from 10-5:15 at the store! (Note: this Thursday I'm off to the Lilly Warehouse sale!!!!!) Go to school until 9ish again (you're really starting to get the idea huh? ...Yeah me too.). Blog, email, book summer plans. STAY ORGANIZED.

Friday: This is my day that tends to change all the time. Sometimes it's a day off. Sometimes I'll work the later shift at the store. This weekend, I'm working from like 2-7 then heading to a friend's Pink and Green birthday! Thinking about wearing that to the birthday since it's a little more formal and fun BUT if I find a gem at the sale I'm gonna rock that!! I usually have to clean and do more homework on my days off. Laundry is supposed to fit in there somewhere too, right?

Saturday: Bask in the glory of not doing anything school related! I usually work the late shift again and enjoy dinner with the fam. I get picked up by the knight in shining armor (my dad) and we all eat until late. Saturday nights we tend to on-demand movies and "go up" early.

Sunday: Church at 9:00. I work some Sundays from 11-6 or run errands all day. That includes but is not limited to, laundry, supply shopping, Target runs, blogging, shopping, Robek's, etc. You get the idea. They're leisurely. Then we all grill out and have a quiet night. I download a lot of music on Sundays and gear up for the week ahead. Another special event to this week is sCe's 21st! Love her--such a sophisticated celebration!

You can say I've been busy for the summer! School and work take up my time, but I'm SO SO SO lucky (as I type this, I realize I haven't done a Weekly Gratitude yet...!!!!) to have all these opportunities this summer! I have loved every minute of being home and think of all my fabulous friends in Columbia 24/7 y'all! (Miss you like CRAZY!)

We're in the midst of one of the crazy weeks, but I love it! What are your summer weeks like? Insanity? Fun? All relaxing? Anything like mine? Let me know!!

xxKatie