Renwick Gallery

It's funny, I never really posted about Renwick even though I've already gone twice. I have posted the photos on my instagram though. Anyway, Renwick had reopened after a large scale renovation and the exhibits were just all over social media. I had never heard of it before but my friend had brought me to it and I have to say, I was really impressed.

The Renwick isn't a very large building and it only has nine exhibits. The most famous has to be The Wonder, which is basically a rainbow made of strings. I think because it is made of small thin strings, it most resembles a rainbow. It's an indoor rainbow. It's hard to capture how great it is on a phone camera. You will just have to see it for yourself.

The second time I went, I happened to be there the same day the Voice of America was doing a bit on the newly renovated museum. It was cool because I got to talk to the curator Nicholas Bell. You can see bits of me in the video and you can check that article out here.

Alex and Ani inspired bracelets

I have been really into wearing and stacking bracelets recently. I've been buying what I would consider my everyday jewelry that I could wear with any outfit. To continue with the trend, I have been mixing metals. I was recently looking into Alex and Ani and the type of charm bracelets they have. Their bracelets are nice, but there weren't any that spoke out to me in particular. However, these types of bracelets are all over Etsy. If I'm already going to pay $28 or so for a piece of jewelry, I might as well have it custom made.

Gold Legend of Zelda Triforce Bangle by SKatDesigns
Finding a Triforce bangle isn't too hard since the triforce symbol is pretty popular and also easy to make. It's just a bunch of triangles. Also, I like the simplicity of the triforce. Anyway, I really went for this one in particular because it also included three little charms on the outside in different colors. I think it represents the parts of the triforce, my brother says it reminds him of rupees. Either way, I like how they go together.

The product cost $11.00 with an additional $2.60 in shipping. It arrived very quickly, which it should since I am driving distance away from this seller. The packaging though was so cute. It came wrapped in a bow and it had a wax seal on it.

Custom Bangle by Toodaughters
I wanted a Lord of the Rings bracelet but I couldn't find one that matched what I truly wanted. Instead, I found some that have elements of what I wanted and went for a custom bracelet. This charm bracelet has two charm quotes, a compass quote, and three birthstone charms. The bracelet and charms are silver. It cost $28 with $3.30 in shipping, so about the same price as a regular alex and ani bracelet.

I was a bit disappointed when I received it because the three small birthstone charms were not on the separate part of the bracelet like I had described in our conversations, similar to the small charms of the bracelet described above. Other than that, the bracelet is beautiful and shiny and looks brilliant. The quote is "The Road goes ever on and on" from the walking song "The Road Goes Ever On", which as a quote is just something I preferred from the more well known ones. Of course, a compass charm in the middle. Then three small clear swarovski charms on the outer loop. I wanted them to symbolize the three silmarils.

I absolutely love my new bracelets and they go well together. I don't know yet if I want to get more bracelets although so far I've been buying in sets of two so this might be it for this style of bracelets. Recently I've been looking at coordinate bracelets but we will see. For now, these are a fun addition to my everyday look.

Gold Bangle from Colbydesigns

Although I love my soufeel bracelets, I felt like there was too much silver and not enough gold. Sadly they don't sell gold bangles, in fact most of the popular charm brands don't. Instead, I browsed through etsy. I came upon the seller Colbydesigns because the shop featured a lot of gold bangle bracelets. Although it is not exactly like the soufeel one, it is similar enough and would still fit the soufeel charms. The shop also had a lot of beautiful gold beads that could be used as spacers and ornate gold stoppers. I contacted the seller Jenn, who by the way was always very quick to reply, and asked for a custom order.

My order consisted of a golden bangle tightened to a 7 inch diameter by the seller, four gold beads, and four gold stoppers. The bracelet cost $18 and shipping was $2.22. Jenn completed the order and actually had it shipped the next day. It took a while to deliver because the blizzard basically made my house inaccessible for almost a week.

The package was well cushioned with bubble wrap. The bracelet also came in a very beautiful pouch. The seller also included a small package of extra charms as well as two business cards. I like it when sellers have a good business card. It makes the business look so much more professional. Personally, I think businesses should always invest in a good business card.

Combined the bracelet with my other charms. I love how it turned out. Now it is one of the bracelets that I wear everyday. I've recently gotten into stacking bracelets and such so expect me to be sporting quite a bit of arm candy in my pictures in the future.

The Winter Awakens

As many of you know, the northeast was hit with a blizzard not too long ago. I'm still waiting for the snow to melt away in my neighborhood. I was unfortunate enough to be scheduled for work that Saturday. Work doesn't stop for anything so onwards to D.C. I went. Needless to say, I was stuck in D.C. for almost four days. It definitely was an interesting ordeal.

Just in case, I booked a hotel to share with some co-workers for Friday and Saturday night, then I would stay with a friend Sunday night if I needed to. It already started snowing around noon on Friday, many places closed early and I do believe a lot of people left work early as well. The hotel I stayed at was the Avenue Suites off Pennsylvania avenue. My co-worker booked it so I didn't know what to expect. As long as I had a bed to sleep on, I was content. However the hotel was surprisingly very nice.

It had a stocked kitchen, a nice sized living room with a pull out couch and two queen beds. So at least all three of us slept comfortably. The snow came down hard over night. We left around 6 am to walk to work. The road was somewhat plowed but the sidewalks were covered. The snow was deep and made it a struggle to walk so we walked on the road. Still, seeing the city so empty and snowy was quite pretty.

I stayed inside at work all throughout the blizzard. Still had to walk through the blizzard after work though. Surprisingly, a lot of people were outside playing in the snow and taking pictures. At some points, the wind was so strong that visibility was terrible. It really did kind of look like Hoth. I wish I was able to have gone out to take pictures in the midst of the blizzard but oh well.

Sunday morning, I went out bright and early to the national mall for some pictures. Surprisingly, there were already quite a few people there. Although it wasn't actively snowing anymore, the scenery was still very beautiful.

There is supposed to be a road somewhere underneath all that.

It may look deserted in this picture but there are actually a lot of people around me. The steps were closed due to safety concerns. That didn't stop one guy though.

This is exactly what I came for. The sunrise.

Only one half of the path was well cleared. The other half was a struggle.

Literally fell for this picture. I had forgotten there is a metal plate on the floor but I didn't see it since it was covered in snow. Fell pretty hard. Gladly no one saw that fall, unlike the day before where my co-workers took a picture of my fall.

Independence avenue was not very well cleared and the path around the tidal basin along with the parking lot was not cleared at all. I struggle just to get towards the water and had to be careful about not falling into the basin. I am the crazy person who sat at the edge where there is no fence to take this picture.

The rare sight of an empty Constitution.

Snowball fight at Dupont.

Well I would have been stuck in D.C. up until Wednesday if my parents hadn't had such bad cabin fever and actually offered to pick me up from Ballston Monday night. The metro had been down all through the weekend, only went to underground stations Monday, still had the Silver line closed Tuesday, and didn't fully reopen until Wednesday. I might have gone crazy if it had come to that. Oh well, we will see if mother nature gives us another blizzard this year before winter ends.

Soufeel Charms + Etsy charms

I'm not gonna lie, I absolutely loved my soufeel bracelets.I loved it so much so that not too soon after new years, I bought myself even more charms. I did mention I had an issue when it comes to financial self control. I got the fruit cake charm for $15.95, the gift box for $19.95, the hot cocoa for $20, and the soufeel shopping bag for $20. This was also free shipping and came with a free grey packing bag and sterling silver stopper.

A word of warning with this though. Apparently Soufeel had a huge amount of sales and a whole lot of people's orders became mixed up. My order was sent to someone in New Jersey because they had put someone else's address on it. I was really irritated with that. Contacting them was a struggle. I did finally receive my charms but one was missing, there was no packaging bag, and the charms were in a tiny ripped up zip lock bag. I asked them to simply send me that charm, they wouldn't do it unless I made another order. So finally I asked for a refund, which took them days to finally reply to me. Although I do like their things, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with ordering from them again.

Instead, I ordered that charm, which is the hot cocoa charm, from amazon and it even came with prime shipping! So it arrived to my house in two days. It was the exact same price too, $20 and came with a brown pouch.

Anyway, I did want my bracelets to have more of a mixed metal look so I just bought some gold and rose gold beads as spacers from etsy.

The gold beads were $3.99 for a set of five, which I got from the seller BijouxBaublesBeads. They are huge but still nice though. The rose gold beads were a little more expensive at $5.50 for a set of three which I got from the seller natahoa. Both these sellers sell much cheaper versions of these bracelets also in their shops so if you are looking to buy these style of bracelets for someone who you think would not be able to take care of them as well as you would hope and are looking for an inexpensive alternative, for example for any young children or a dear friend who has a bit of a habit of losing things like me (I already lost one of the rose gold beads).

Anyway I will be on the lookout to where I can buy even nice and cheaper alternatives of these charms. I might even buy another bracelet if these get filled up. Who knows. But for now, I absolutely love my bracelets.