Saving the Best for Last

Last week, my last spring break vacation ever, flew by me.  One second I was in California leaving for Cabo, and the next I was getting off the plane in Austin.  While I am sad that last week is now nothing but memories, I will cherish those memories for the rest of my life!

Where to begin...

Last Friday my friends and I made our way to San Diego, where we stayed at a gorgeous condo on Coronado Island. We started our vacation with a delicious meal (shocker) at Prepkitchen, and polished it off with acai bowls from Juice Kaboose.  For anyone who has not tried an acai bowl, go try one (or make one) NOW.  This set the tone for the rest of our weekend in California, as it revolved around trying fun new restaurants, exploring the city and cruising around on a gorgeous boat. After devouring meals at Hash House a go go, Point Loma Seafood, Herringbone and True Food Kitchen, I think it is safe to say we ate our way through San Diego, which was perfect for our spring break diet...right?

Monday morning we left for Cabo San Lucas. I have to say, I am not the most joyful and relaxing person to travel with.  If I am not anxious about getting on a plane, I am anxious about our reservations or the mere thought of traveling out of the country. As fate would have it, I had every reason to be so high strung.  We arrived at the hotel, along with 350 other college students, to find that our hotel was overbooked.  And not just overbooked, but they had the audacity to TRIPLE book each room. Perfect.

After dealing with this nonsense for hours, we finally found ourselves relocated up into the mountains at the stunning Montecristo Estates, which are a part of the Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach.  All I have to say is WOW.  While the location was not on the beach as we had planned, we were each put up in our own private villa. Each villa was not only a two story, three bedroom, stunning home, but each villa also had it's own private pool and hot tub.  Needless to say, I was in heaven.  Maybe our little overbooking mishap wouldn't be so bad after all!

Our entire week was spent on the beach. The resort was able to transport us back and forth to our original hotel everyday so that we were with all of our other friends. Being a guest at Montecristo meant that we even had our own private section on the beach with tents, chairs and unlimited food and drinks at our service.  I had the best time seeing friends from different schools, walking up and down the beach, sipping margaritas as if they were water, jet skiing in the icy blue waters and laying out in the sun.

As I sit here on my couch in Austin, drinking my morning coffee, and cannot help but think back on the memories and express how lucky I am- how thankful I am.  So, cheers to my last spring break ever, and cheers to the many more amazing traveling experiences to come.

Bringing in the Spring on Etsy!

Between classes (senioritis), exciting weekends, traveling and trying to make the most of my last semester in Austin, I have been working on fun and trendy new jewelry pieces for the spring.  My Etsy shop is finally growing, and I would love to be able to offer more than just 30 pieces at a time.  The past few weeks I have made new earrings, necklaces and bracelets that are perfect to "bring in the spring."

Here are a few of the new Hannah Claire Designs pieces I have been working on:

As always, I would love to hear your feedback and ideas on the jewelry and my Etsy shop.

Successful Dad's Weekend? Check!

How to have a successful Dad's Weekend:

1. Go outside.

On Friday afternoon, after our lunch at Hopdoddy (of course), we hiked up Mount Bonnell and sat at the top overlooking the lake. Saturday morning we walked from the hotel to Jo's Coffee for lattes and a breakfast taco. This may have been my dad's first time trying coffee from a coffee shop other than Starbucks, as he was excited to tell me, "Wow, this is so much better than Starbucks." Yes, dad...most coffee places are.

2. Spend time together.

We spent most of the day and night on Friday just us two.  We spent a few hours on Mount Bonnell and all of dinner talking about business, family and life.

3. Try new restaurants. Lots of them.

I love when my parents come to Austin because I get to host them and show them MY city. In Austin, they are my guests, so I want to show them the best time and, of course, feed them the best food. Dad and I tried and loved La Condesa for dinner on Friday, Jo's for breakfast on Saturday (and Sunday), Easy Tiger for lunch and beers before the UT baseball game, and Parkside for dinner with my friends on Saturday (even though we had been here before). We had a successful food weekend. That's for sure.

4. Go downtown. Drink. Repeat.

Since my dad is more fun than I am, we went out both nights that he was here.  Friday night we went to our favorite place, Cedar Street, for a drink after dinner.  Saturday night we went with all of my friends and their dads to Pete's Dueling Piano Bar.  We had the best time all together, and may or may not have polished off a few rounds of shots.  From here, dad insisted on bar hopping until the bars closed, which is when we took a pedicab back to the hotel. Poor pedicab driver...

5. Go to a sporting event.

Saturday we spent our entire afternoon at the UT v. Stanford Baseball game. Not only were we sitting with friends, but the game was intense and the weather was absolutely perfect.

6. Be thankful.

I am so thankful for times like these.  In fact, I wanted to thank my dad with a little surprise at the hotel, which included a bottle of Hendrick's Gin, Jalepeno stuffed olives, and bags of salted nuts and pistachios. Just a little something to thank him for coming to Austin for the weekend! Much to my surprise, he beat me to the punch and gave me a stunning diamond "love" ring that I have been wanting for forever.  Never taking that thing off.

Happy Valentine's Day!

May your day be filled with love and chocolate.

My favorite holiday is finally here! While I was on my arts and crafts kick, I decided to make small Valentine's treats for some of my friends instead of buying generic candy. And since we are all "trying to eat healthy for spring break," I knew it had to be something simple and not too crazy. I decided to go back to the basics of just plain chocolate...which I melted and drizzled into wooden spoons.

I love this "recipe" because it can be adapted for every holiday. All you need are spoons, bakers chocolate and sprinkles. Melt the chocolate as directed on the packaging (it is very easy to burn), pour it into the spoons, tap the spoons on the counter to spread the chocolate evenly, lightly place the sprinkles on the chocolate, and let cool. Simple as that!

Valentine's Week: Homemade Love Notes

Don't get me wrong, I love a good Hallmark card every now and then, but there is always something special about a homemade card. Not only is it one of a kind, but it comes from the heart.

This year I chose to make my Valentine's Day notes instead of buying them. I always love a good craft project and it gave me something fun to do this weekend. I ordered black and white prints of my favorite photos, bought every piece of Valentine's scrapbook paper at the craft store, and set about making personalized love notes.

PS... For those of you stuck in snow storms, this might be a spoiler, but at least you know you have a card coming your way!

Supplies included: scrapbook paper (reds, pinks and patterns), neutral cards and envelopes, tags (which I punched an extra hole in), hemp, a hole puncher, a paint pen and photo tape.

Happy almost Valentine's Day!

My Valentine's {Etsy} Wish List

As my favorite holiday inches closer and closer, I cannot help but be overly excited to celebrate.  No one quite understands why I love Valentine's Day so much, except my mother, who feels the same way about the holiday as I do.  Maybe it's because as a child our house would turn into a love shack on February 1 (complete with heart rugs, wreaths, lights, and garland...everywhere), or maybe it's because there were constantly baked goods and Valentine's candies in my house... who knows.  All I know is that as a 22-year-old with my own apartment, I am starting to build my own Valentine's collection (and luckily, my mother still shares hers).

Being an Etsy shop owner, I am on Etsy every day, without fail.  The creative people of the world are throwing these amazing things in front of me, pressuring me to buy all of their beautiful homemade goodies.  I may or may not have succumbed to the pressure and purchased a few items, but the rest are on my Valentine's Day Wish List.

Here are the Etsy items I am drooling over right now...

Welcome Back, Welcome Back, Welcome Back!

As I sit here, drinking my coffee, I cannot stop thinking about the amazing weekend that I had with my closest friends.  Before I tell you what we did, let me preface this post with a little background information.


My friends and I are all second semester seniors with a very, very extensive bucket list.  We have all watched the city of Austin grow and evolve since we were freshman, but we have yet to fully take advantage of everything Austin has to offer.  It is a small (but expanding exponentially) city with so much to offer- from restaurants and bars to historical monuments and outdoor adventures.  Let's just say that we have a lot of ground to cover, and thought it best to hit the ground running during our four (...five) day weekend.

We started on Thursday night by going to 6th Street- not my favorite place in the world, but always an interesting experience.  We all had fun going from bar to bar.... to bar to bar to bar!  Needless to say, Friday morning we all woke up in the mood for a very good breakfast from Counter Cafe.  Two crab cake egg benedicts later, we decided to spend the rest of the day relaxing and the spend the night eating popcorn and watching the movie 'Her.'

Saturday we woke up bright and early at 7 a.m. to get in line at Franklin Barbecue by 8:30 a.m.  We thought we would be early enough to beat the crowd, but when we arrived we were told we were in the "danger zone" and should expect our food around 2:30 p.m.  With such a large group (15+), we were just happy we "made the cut."  For the next six hours we talked, threw frisbees, ate breakfast, drank beer and just enjoyed the beautiful day.  For those of you who were wondering, the barbecue was amazing and definitely worth the ridiculous wait.  And if you don't believe me, maybe you should have a word with all the people in line who flew into Austin from around the country JUST for this barbecue. Hm.

From here we went to Abel's to watch the rest of the UT basketball game.  At this point, we were all still SO full and decided to rent a movie and get icees from 7-Eleven (all our stomachs could handle).  On Sunday, Cara and I ventured to the Barton Creek Farmer's Market to get the famous lobster rolls from Garbo's Lobster Truck.  They were absolutely phenomenal and I cannot wait to go back for more.  After lunch eight of us met to pamper ourselves with manicures before we spent the afternoon at Zilker Park.  Funny how everyone in Austin seemed to have the same idea as us.  To top this beautiful Sunday off, we had happy hour at Shady Grove and then went out to 6th Street, yet again.  How I managed to go downtown twice in one weekend... I will never know.

I know it has been a while since my last post, but being a second semester senior I now have the time to document my memories from my last semester in college.  Wow, time flies.

So welcome back to Austin, and welcome back to Pretty Little Things.