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Cathclaire Lifestyle Motherhood

Styling Tips for Family Photos

3 Styling Tips That Will Take Your Family Photos from Bland to Glam

With the limitless options for shopping at any given moment thanks to the internet, it is easy to experience indecisiveness when choosing an outfit for any occasion: especially outfits for family photos…when you are responsible for styling more than ONE outfit. I think experts call this “decision fatigue.” Kevin, Phoenix, and I hadn’t had professional family photos since baby Phoenix was 1 day old in St. Francis Hospital (wanna shift gears from styling family photos to my birth story? Here ya go!) and I wore my fave Sleeper Pajamas with feathers because duh. **

See what I mean? Sleeper pajamas are pricey but they are fierce and serve as both a go-to FULL outfit and fabulous pajamas.

Fast forward 2 years and we finally made it a priority. (Phew! These things weigh on you, am I right? Why do we put things off when the results are so rewarding?)

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Lifestyle Mindfulness

How To Get Unstuck and Reinspired

our latest offering from The Crystal Press Uni can help you out here <3

the crystal press uni

feeling the dreaded influencer burn out?

feeling the pressure to keep up with the latest instagram trends?

feeling uninspired?

We’ve been there.

We started our blog in 2015, and within months we were working with major brands on huge collaborations and partnerships. For years, we worked during all of our free time on our fashion blog, The Crystal Press, doing what we thought we should be doing. We were making money and running a successful blog.

We didn’t even realize we were burned out until we went to create our class The Ultimate Guide to Getting Paid To Be Yourself. We took a step back and realized that we had strayed from our original blog goals. The class includes exercises for new bloggers like finding your mission statements and your WH.Y When we revisited these exercises ourselves we were a little mind blown. Without knowing it, we had caved to the pressure of comparing ourselves to others and put ourselves into the mold that instagram had created.

the crystal press uni

SO, we basically took our own class as we created it and along with the exercises there and the ones you will find here, we emerged two pretty different creators. Our personal blogs took off as we realized our individual passions, and The Crystal Press has evolved as well.

There is life outside of instagram. There is room on the internet for you to reach your full potential, and get paid to do so! We can help you get back on your inspired path with the help of a few easy exercises.

NOT A BLOGGER? Just suffering from general burn out? This course is 100% for you too.

We’re looking at you >> super moms, burned out artists and creators, friends stuck in miserable jobs ETC ETC ETC!

Course Curriculum Includes : Our Elevated Monthly Calendar for Manifesting, Guided Meditations and Visualizations, Affirmation creation and journaling prompts.

READY TO DIVE IN?

Fashion Lifestyle Motherhood Rebecca

Chic Maternity Brands

hatch collection dress

Dressing during pregnancy is not easy. No matter what. At the beginning, you can just size up and everything pretty much works.  But, the farther along you get, it is clear that there is a reason why maternity clothes exist.  Sometimes sizing up makes clothes fit weird in all the wrong places and you need something made specifically for your pregnant bod.

The kicker about stylish maternity clothes, though, is they tend to be a little pricier, but to me it is worth it.  If you get a few closet staples that make it just a little easier to get dressed each day, it makes all the difference.  Here are my favorite brands that make quality maternity clothes that will make you feel good in your *strange* changing, miraculous body.

hatch skin to skin bra

pink blush maternityPINK BLUSH MATERNITY

Pink Blush has a hugeeee selection of dresses for all pregnancy occasions, stages and events.  I have gotten some seriously fun pieces from here during this pregnancy and the great thing is, I can keep wearing them once baby girl comes! They are adding new styles and colors to their site almost daily, so you always have a great selection to choose from. Use code REBECCAPIERSOL25 to save when you shop at Pink Blush. (more…)

Baby Fashion Lifestyle Motherhood Rebecca

Abercrombie Dresses For Summer That Work with a Bump

abercrombie bump friendly dressI have been seeing these Abercrombie dresses floating around on my friends on instagram and was dying to know if they worked on a bump. After doing a real quick search to see if anyone had shared them on a pregnant bod, I didn’t find anything! SO, I ordered 5 that I had my eyes on so that my pregnant friends & followers could see how they look.

I 1000% endorse all of these to you guys, bump or no bump. Abercrombie has really stepped up their game and the quality matches the prices. All are definitely worth it if you ask me. Looking forward to getting a lot of wear out of these this summer. Which is your favorite?!

SEE THE DRESSES IN ACTION ON THE ‘GRAM HERE.

TRAVELER MINI DRESS 

This dress is ALLLLL over the ‘gram and high on the list of influencer favorites. I was dying to try it.  I was pleasantly surprised!! It has built in shorts, comes in a bunch of different colors and is super comfortable. I can see myself wearing it running errands and throwing it on to run out of the house during the summer. I ordered the Medium Tall for a little extra length because of the bump. (more…)

Lifestyle

Amazon Finds: Affordable Summer Dresses

These affordable dresses from Amazon are approved by moi. All of these are bump friendly, too. 

amazon dress bump friendly

Amazon can be the wild, wild west when it comes to shopping! For years, I shied away because it was overwhelming and there were just way too many options. But, over the past year I have been trying to find some actual quality favorites at affordable prices to share with you guys and here are a few of my favorite discoveries.

amazon summer dress

PRETTYGARDEN SUMMER FLORAL MAXI DRESS

This one shoulder cutie would be perfect for spring and summer weddings! You can’t beat it for $40.

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Beauty Cathclaire Lifestyle

Cathclaire Favorite: t3 Micro Curling Wand

T3 IS CURRENTLY HAVING THEIR SUMMER SALE!

t3 micro is a high tech hairstyling tool company that makes styling your hair not only fun but easy and the whirl trio is what I use everyday.

the crystal press t3 micro

I never knew how to curl my hair in a way that I felt proud of growing up. I tried sleeping in curlers, using hot curlers, and a wide range of different curling irons and I just couldn’t make it work! I am convinced that is because T3 Micro didn’t come out until 2003 and the curling irons I used were not user friendly. I swear, before t3 micro, every time I curled my hair myself or asked for curls in the salon, I came out looking – as Rebecca would say – “like a poodle!”

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Baby Lifestyle Motherhood Rebecca

Pregnancy Favorites from the Second Trimester

here are some of the products and things I have been loving in my second trimester

TIME IS FLYING BY AND I FEEL LIKE A BROKEN RECORD SAYING THAT, BUT IT IS TRUE! I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M HALFWAY THROUGH THE SECOND TRIMESTER. 

Yesterday was 21 weeks (baby is the size of banana blah blah blah) and luckily I am feeling great.  I truly have nothing to complain about.  Sure, I am exhausted and seriously emotional, but considering everything I went through to get here, I feel A-OK. My body is changing daily and I have to be sure to listen to it closely and take care of myself mentally and physically.  It can be reallyyyyyyyy easy to get wrapped up in my stress and anxiety but I am trying my best not to and that’s all I can do! One day at a time. One day at a time.

SO, let’s get to it. Let’s talk about some products and tings that have been a huge help during this trimester!

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Baby Lifestyle Motherhood Rebecca

Reb’s Gender Reveal Studio Photoshoot

gender reveal studio shoot the crystal press

IT’S A GIRL <3

Even though we have known the gender since December, I knew I wanted to do a studio photo shoot to commemorate and to, of course, share online.

Because we chose to do the genetic testing on our embryo, the lab was able to tell the gender before it was implanted. We asked our IVF doctor to get the results for us and put them in an envelope that we could share with someone once we figured out how we wanted to do the “reveal” to ourselves. My birthday is the day after Christmas and we decided this would be the perfect chance to find out. So we had a delicious bakery in Charlotte, Suarez bakery, make my birthday / gender reveal cake to cut together on my birthday in Highlands with my parents and best friend.

See the video here of us finding out we are having a baby girl. I was ELATED. I had a gut feeling I was carrying a girl and even referred to her as “she” but would have been thrilled either way. Or so I thought, lol. I think my scream in the video tells you that deep down, I really wanted a baby girl.

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Baby Lifestyle Motherhood Rebecca

Reb’s First Trimester Journal

Please give me a little grace here with my ramblings, stream of consciousness and overall disorganization. This is the best I could do 🙂 Here are some tidbits, hard things, good things and things i used and loved during my first trimester.

rebecca piersol ivf pregnancy

I am writing this at 15 weeks and really kicking myself for not writing it sooner.  Honestly, I spent so many days doing nothing during my first trimester, why couldn’t I have just written down some more notes? But alas, GRACE. Must give myself grace.

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Lifestyle

Treat Yourself: Gifts Under $100

because who doesn’t love an excuse to give yourself something GOOD.

treat yourself the crystal press

We love Valentine’s Day, but not for the traditional reasons. Of course, we love to celebrate with our husbands, act girly etc etc. But what we really love is an excuse to TREAT YOURSELF. To love YOURSELF. If you have been listening to anything we have said on here over the years, hopefully you are loving yourself on a weekly basis, but in case you need a little reminder, here it is!

We are working on a full post on our favorite ways to practice self-love, but for now here are some gifts under $100 to treat yourself to something tangible and materialistic 🙂 Sometimes shopping therapy is the best therapy and we all know you deserve it.

A few highlights:

L & M leggings – these leggings made by local Richmond, VA friends are *IMO* as good as lululemon and half the price! It might be my growing belly, but I have been living in them lately. Use code TCP10 to save!

JW Pei Bag – this lil mini cutie is SUCH a fun bag to have on hand! It is only $80, available on Amazon in a few different colors and makes a serious statement. See it in action here.

OUAI Scalp & Body Scrub – Cath discovered this a few years ago and it became a favorite of mine as well! Leaves your scalp and skin feeling silky smooth.

Charlotte Tilbury Pillow Talk Lipstick – This is a great neutral, everyday shade! We both wear this on the reg and it looks good on everyone.

~ pin for inspo later ~

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xx, Reb + Cath