1st Official Blog Birthday

Exactly one year ago today I made the decision to start blogging again, but this time, full-time. I don't mean as a full-time job, per se, but more as I'd blog as much as possible and hopefully daily. When I started my blog in 2011, I focused on writing about fashion and the collections that I was loving. It didn't really take off and I pretty much quit once I started working for Everlane. Then a year later I started getting into makeup and skincare (thanks Nina) and something just clicked. This time around, I got noticed. Slowly and surely my blog got bigger and yesterday I hit 1000 Bloglovin' followers (best 1 year present ever?!).

A lot of things have happened to me in this past year:

· I dropped out of college officially to pursue my greatest passion: photography.
· I made some incredible friendships both here in the US and overseas (♡)
· I was featured in Lucky Magazine's 14 San Francisco Style Bloggers to Bookmark Right Now
· I bought the camera of my dreams (and am saving up for the lens of my dreams)
· I've gotten quite a few amazing photography gigs with the likes of Intermix and True&Co
· I've become so much more comfortable in my skin / I've learned so much about myself

And with that, a lot of thanks goes to every single person who reads my blog. Although this is a very personal blog to me, so much of this would not have happened without you guys.

I'm continually thankful for every comment, email, tweet, compliment that I receive. I promised myself in the beginning that I'd always stay true to myself within this little online space and so far, so good. This is more than just a blog to me. It's the one place I have full creative freedom. The one place that I can write to my hearts content about my life and everything that goes along with it, and for that, I am so grateful. To know that people care enough to read this all is still so crazy, but gah, thank you guys so much for making this past year absolutely incredible for me.

To show my thanks, I've put together a giveaway. I've been thinking about what to do for quite a while now and this is what I've come up with. I wanted to give away something(s) that actually had a bit of meaning — so what I've chosen to do is giveaway a handful of my all time favorite products ever. A little makeup kit, dauphine style. Because I know some people prefer certain makeup items over others, the winner will be able to pick between a soft-focus face powder or créme-liquid highlighter + a dusty rose powder blush or a peachy pink cream blush (+ you get the other things too). Here is everything I've chosen(!!!):

♡ BECCA Shimmering Skin Perfector in Moonstone or Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Dim Light
♡ NARS Douceur blush or Jouer Bare Tint
♡ MAC Era + Patina eyeshadows
♡ MAC Patisserie Lipstick
♡ Oribe Texturizing Spray (travel size)
♡ LUSH Silky Underwear Dusting Powder
+ a few little cute extras as a surprise!

The links above will take you to my reviews, for those that don't have links, I'll be sure to review them within the next month :3 even though I haven't reviewed some of them, I promise you they are in my all time top 10 favorite products! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway The reason this giveaway is until the end of July is because that will give me enough time to save up for everything I'm giving away, yay! This giveaway is international, of course, so anyone can enter! Also, let me know if you'd like me to do a face of the day post using these products.

I hope everyone is as excited as I am about this. I really do believe in giving back to those that have been here for me in the past year. So here's to another year of photos, makeup, and happiness. Good luck! ♡

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Due to unforseen life things — this giveaway is now going to be ending in September. I'm going to run this until the end of July (as I stated earlier), but the winner won't be receiving anything until Sept! Unfortunately life has it's silly way of making other things priority, so I hope you guys can understand. <3