a day in Boulder

I have been posting a lot of picture posts lately, but I'm just so excited to play with a nice camera and I'm even more excited because yesterday (Thursday) we spent the day in Boulder. My parents finally arrived after their 11 hour drive that they split in to two days. Aaannnd... my bestie came with them! We all are going to spend a week out here exploring together! Couldn't be more excited. Without further a due here are some lovely pictures of our Boulder adventure.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch at Rio which of course included MARGARITAS! 

Abby (bestie) and I enjoying *knock you on your ass* margs

my beautiful sister enjoying her non-alcoholic mango marg! 

sooo many colors! American Apparel LOVE

assortment of chocolate from the European gifts store

into the mountains we go...

Some photos of how I spent my Wednesday. Luckily my aunt and uncle have a really nice camera that I can pretend is mine to play with while I'm out here. I am dying to invest in a new camera, however I am constantly saving to travel. (which I LOVE)

if you've never tried the toffee & almonds in milk chocolate bar, you MUST

adorable coffee cup!

my aunt and uncle got to spend the day with their 3 beautiful nieces

jam time!

moose hair pottery, simply gorgous

rocks rocks rocks!

I really wanted to buy this sign, I settled for a picture

mountains!

shop sign where all the above beauties were found

looking for some awesome sponsors!

Are you looking for a way to gain exposure to your blog or your shop?? I have just the idea for you. I am looking for some new sponsors for infinite illumination. I have 10 spots available. Your button will be shown on my side bar for 3 Months! What a steal. I have a *one size fits all* button option. Your button of 200 x 200 will be located in my sponsor section. (located on the lower right side of my blog)   Click here to purchase your spot!

use the code illumination when checking out to get a 50% discount on your ad spot. Only 10 spots available!

Ad will start as soon as I get your button after purchasing and will stay for 3 months.

this is what it is supposed to be like

(photo credit: Molly Johnson)

After wasting two precious days of my vacation on my death bed. Thursday morning I woke up magically (almost) 100% cured of my sickness! I spent my Thursday shopping with my aunt and sister at the outlet mall where I found many treasures. Mostly in the Nike store. I would live in Nike attire if I felt that I would truly be accepted in every situation. After a day of shopping we spent Friday lounging around where I continued to read the Fifty Shades of Grey series. I have barely put the books down. Saturday proved to be very appealing as well. We spent the morning at my cousin's soccer practice and then up in the mountains we went for a beautiful hike. It was such a beautiful day (although on the warm side). The hike was very rewarding. After being trapped in a car and then sick for the following two days it was so refreshing to get my body moving in a challenging way. I thrive for a challenge. At the top of our hike there was a gorgeous lake and a snow top mountain. We enjoyed dipping our feet in the freezing cold water and then continued climbing up higher into the snow. However, it was slippery and my shoes were not going to hold out for that. To my entertainment a group of probably college age guys came climbing up after us with their skis with all intentions of making their way all the way up and then back down on their skis. They were determined, beer in hand, to climb to the top. As you can imagine how entertaining that would be! They tempted us with tequila to follow. They had me at tequila ;). Buuuuut... we had to get moving on and back down the mountain we went. After the beautiful day of nature we headed to Idaho Springs to get some Beau Jo's Pizza. Which is quite like Great Plains (in Ames). Where you get thick crust pizza and dip it in honey after you eat the pizza part. All in all I would say it has been a great past few days and I thought that I would share it with you as I sit here and watch the England vs. Italy soccer game. Go England!


Here are some pics: 

photo credit: Molly Johnson + her iPhone

Seriously?? Vacation is supposed to be fun!

Oh hey everyone! Soooo guess what? I'm on my vacation in Colorado and the first full day I am here I wake up sick. Second day I have to go to the doctor where they tell me my temp is 102 and my pulse is 120 (yikes) and they proceed to swab my throat, prick my finger, and steal my blood! The outcome of all this...  MONO. Seriously?? So you can obviously tell I'm having a great start to my vacation. I have literally been on my death bed all day today. Hopefully tomorrow will be better I'm supposed to go outlet mall shopping! woo! Just thought I would drop in and give my sob story. Hope everyone is having a fabulous summer!

update on my life

It has been awhile since I have posted something about what is going on with me. So I figured I would give you all an update. The past few weeks have been pretty great! I celebrated my 21st birthday May 30th with some really great friends. It was a memorable birthday for sure. Some of the things I experienced my birthday week included getting margaritas and chips and queso (one of my favorite things to do!) and also my friend and I hit up the local wine bar. It was really neat! We tasted so many different wines and I found that I actually like some of them.

pink champagne cupcakes from my birthday

This past weekend I got to spend some time with some of my high school friends at a bachelorette party. Then the day after that I headed to a family reunion. I literally know 10 people at every family reunion and I always get so excited about family reunions only to be let down because I don't know anyone. I have no idea why I think it will be different every time.

Other than my birthday and spending time with friends and family I have been working like a crazy woman to save for my trip to Colorado. I leave this coming Monday and my sister and I are road tripping. We are staying out there for three weeks with my Aunt and Uncle. (they don't have any daughters, they are in for a treat ;) ) I am very excited to spend time out there. Hopefully I will get to do a lot of outdoorsy stuff!

Also, if you didn't see my life via instagram post already I have been doing a lot of crafting in my free time. When I am not at work I am usually at home in my craft room coming up with something to entertain me.

rosette headbands

Desert of Roses {Etsy Artist}

Hello lovelies! Today is Etsy Artist feature day! Usually you will see these on Monday but I was out of town yesterday visiting family. I am excited to introduce to you Nicolette who creates beautiful mineral makeup!

My name is Nicolette Jenkins and I am the owner and creator of DesertOfRoses, a mineral makeup shop on Etsy. The shop sells top notch, handcrafted mineral eye shadow that is 100% natural, eco friendly, and vegan. DesertOfRoses has unique, fashionable colors coming out every week.

How did you get started making makeup and what inspires you?

I originally started making mineral makeup for personal use. I had heard about all of the nasty chemicals (Check out this article on "The Dirty Dozen" cosmetic chemicals: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/health/science/toxics/dirty-dozen-cosmetic-chemicals/) in commercial makeup. I learned that somewhere around 80% of cosmetics on the shelf contain harmful carcinogens, pesticides, and other no good villains! I couldn't put that stuff on my skin anymore, so I started researching natural cosmetics. I read tons of books and articles and eventually decided that I had enough knowledge to start making my own products!

 

 

 

 

How did you decide to open an Etsy shop?

 

When I ordered my first batch of mineral makeup ingredients I had way too much for myself! At that point I decided that I couldn't keep the fun to myself, I had to share it with the world! Every woman deserves to look beautiful and they shouldn't have to fill their bodies with toxins in order to do so. Opening my DesertOfRoses on Etsy was a no brainer for me, I got to help women and do something that I love in the process!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out Desert of Roses on all of the following sites!

Etsy

Twitter

Facebook

Blog

Nicolette has kindly offered all of you a 15% discount in her Etsy shop with the code: SPRINGCOLOR

life via instagram

Wonderhand {Etsy Artist}

Happy Monday my lovely readers! Today I am really excited to introduce you to an Etsy shop called Wonderhand which as they say is the wonderland of handmades. As you may have noticed I have been doing Etsy artist features every Monday for a few weeks now and I have had some great artists. I am especially thrilled to bring this Etsy artist to you today because I feel strongly about the idea behind their business and I think you will too!

We are a young team of people from Istanbul, Turkey. Wonderhand consists of 3 professionals who hold different marketing jobs. Two of us knew each other from high school, then we met the other. We share our passion for fashion and combined it with marketing and voila! Here is Wonderhand.

There’s no concrete job description among the team but of course as in every team, we eventually do what we like and what we can do well. One of us has a double degree in fashion design and economy, so after we make a wish list, she gathers everything together and sketches the dresses. And the others follow the production process, marketing and branding ideas. This all happened naturally and everyone seems to be very happy with what she is doing and contributes to any process at any time.

How did your business get started? 

As citizens of huge cities and mass consumption, we wanted to design our clothes besides our day jobs. The whole designing and making process made us so excited and happy, we decided to share them with the rest of the world. We wanted to call it Wonderhand, because thinking about dresses; colours and playing with yarns became our ‘wonderland’ in the middle of this hectic place called ‘earth’.

How did you pick the craft of knitting?

Knitting had always been a part of the house when we were growing up... And around the time we were teenagers we thought it was ‘uncool’. However, by the time we understood the importance of handmade, we got interested in it and were fascinated with the idea of being able to design and make our own clothes. So we went to our mothers again, whom they learned the craft of knitting from their own mothers. 

What is your favorite material to work with?

We have different choices, for example P. likes to work with colourful yarns, regardless of the material. R. likes natural yarns, wool being her favourite. Z. likes playful ones, the ones with texture. 

What are some of your favorite items you have made?

From our winter season Provocateur is one of them: 

 

 

And the lovely Siren

 

We especially like how these two give an energetic feeling to cloudy winter days.

And from the summer collection our faves are

Simple yet elegant Drop:

  Diamond:

 

How did you decide to open an Etsy shop?

We were designing the clothes for our selves and friends and we always had so many nice feedback from people who saw the clothes on us. We wanted to sell them, without taking it to a mas consumption level and we started looking for platforms and we found Etsy and set up our shop.

Just a few more photos: 

 

 The lovely team of Wonderhand has generously given all of you a 20% discount code for their shop! The discount lasts for one week from this post date. Code:  INFINITEDISCALL20

To go to Wonderhand's shop click here