June 2016 | the crystal press fashion blog

rvaPin #3: Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

The rvaPin series continues to be one of the most meaningful and enlightening projects Rebecca and I have been apart of as The Crystal Press. From benefiting foster children to supporting youth art with local restaurants, the entire project has been really inspiring for everyone around us. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, Visit Richmond introduces a pin series supporting Richmond Cycling Corps in collaboration with Rappahannock Restaurant.

Even if you haven’t been to Rappahannock Restaurant or their new addition, Rapp Session, we are willing to be you have heard about it. There is no shortage of buzz about Travis + Ryan Croxton’s restaurants and for good reason. Rappahannock sits on a beautiful corner of E Grace Street in downtown RVA and serves beautiful and delicious entrees (and cocktails, see the picture below for proof) supported by sustainable farming techniques. From Travis Croxton being named “Restaurant World-Power of the Year” by Zagat to a Richmond Magazine Elby award, it’s safe to say Rappahannock has got it going on. Keep reading to find out how you can make the perfect excuse to try out (or indulge again) this fabulous establishment! (more…)

Lookbook Rebecca

A Summer of Accessories

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Cathclaire Lookbook

Color Pop

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Lookbook Rebecca

Box of Style

The combination of us moving into a new house + the beginning of the summer has led to some serious shopping sprees for me. Many of those shopping carts that had been filled up and abandoned, have been seriously revisited as of late. It has something to do with the epic feeling of new beginnings and the inevitable desire to update my wardrobe for the summer. With John being a teacher, he tends to make it home before I do and lately I can count on texts rolling in around 4’oclock asking me “what have you done now?” Countless Free People, Nordstrom & Victoria’s Secret packages have been arriving on our doorstep and what can I say – I just can’t help it.

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Cathclaire Lifestyle

Spark Joy with Minted

Last summer, I told you guys that I was beginning my adventure with the Marie Kondo method – aka trying to clean up my living space. It is almost a year later and I can tell you that the adventure is just that, an long adventure, but I am finally moving into the phase that involves changing up my art! I had so much fun scouring the minted website filling up my cart with way too many things, narrowing it down, then filling it up again. The decision between which prints was harder than I anticipated because minted is flooded with so many talented, independent artists but the process was so enjoyable!

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Cathclaire Lookbook

Doing the Unstuck

Nothing says Happy Friday quite like a good ole soliloquy on feeling stuck, because let’s face it: everyone has times when this blah feeling creeps into their life. There are different remedies depending on the stickiness of the situation, and if I had to make a comparison between concrete, quicksand (a phobia of mine since The Jungle Book), and mud – I would compare my recent sticky situation to being stuck in the mud.

That being said, I did what any person stuck in said metaphorical mud would do, and flooded all of my friends’/family members’ phones with questions asking for advice. While said advice was awesomely insightful, the conversations ended with me, myself, and that still very much stuck feeling (kind of like after a shopping therapy session at Barney’s). After a couple of tries at the getting-advice-game, I came to the realization that I was trying to get someone or something to pull me out of the mud. However, this time, I needed to use my own muscles to pull myself out.

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Lookbook Rebecca

A Glowing Aura

It’s hard to believe that we launched The Crystal Press over a year ago, and until now I’ve never mentioned how I came to be a fashion blogger. A bug in my ear by a major designer led to to a brainstorm session with Cath years later, and it’s a great feeling to finally be doing something that I feel so passionate about. Let me tell y’all how it all got started. (more…)

Lifestyle Richmond

For the Love of Blowouts

When you think of styling your own hair, what comes to mind? Knocking yourself in the head with a round brush or finishing with a sleek head of hair? Let’s keep this post from getting too mortifying and say the two of us fall into the knock-yourself-in-the-head-with-a-round-brush category.

Hey, at least we can admit it.

In contrast to our at home blowout experience, we love getting to travel to places like New York City and Los Angeles where the blowout bars put our at-home hairstyling to shame. While they are absolutely genius in their creation, we can’t find them on every corner here in the river city – as they might be in our dreams. It was like the hair-styling-gods answered our prayers when Mango reached out to us about their FreshDry program.

If you are a lover of feeling fabulous after a great blowout experience: listen up. Mango has a number of different blowout packages that are within the price range of blowouts offered in those fabulous big-city blow-dry-only bars. As if that wasn’t good enough, they have three locations in Richmond and offer AH-mazing head and hand massages to take the experience to the next level! The two of us got to experience this at the Short Pump location and can we just say: wow. We loved the staff, the location, the Bumble and bumble products and the overall experience. Keep reading for even better news.

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Lookbook

Archive by Alexa

Collaboration Supported by Marks and Spencer & Shopping Links but all opinions remain my own.

I’m sure all of you fashion freaks (I say this term with so much endearment because Reb + I are both in this fashion freak category) are well aware of Marks and Spencer collaboration with the style queen, Alexa Chung. She debuted it at London Fashion week and had everyone anxious to get their hands on it. With a few sell outs between then and now, Reb and I were excited to work with Marks and Spencer and check out Alexa’s collaboration and their summer collection. We both snagged pieces from the Archive by Alexa collection and the customer satisfaction on our end is off the charts. (more…)

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