My Favorite Trader Joe's Products

Trader Joe's has something of a cult following... and I am unashamedly a part of that cult. There is just something about Trader Joe's. Is it the ambiance? The cute packaging? The fun signage? Probably a combination of all of those things. Plus, they have some one-of-a-kind food. I mean, Inner Peas? Besides being one of my favorite snacks of all time, it is also a brilliantly punny name for a product.

Maybe I am letting myself become too obsessed with a grocery store, but Trader Joe's seems like more than just a grocery store. It has so much character, its more like a cute coffee shop than a Safeway. Now that I think about it, it seems wrong that it should even be in the same category as Safeway, that cold warehouse of blindingly-bright lights and freezing refrigerator aisles and cranky cashiers and gossip magazines at the checkout. Getting groceries at Trader Joe's is actually enjoyable.

For this post I decided to round up a handful of my favorite Trader Joe's products and share them on the blog! I do have to say, however, that there is so much of Trader Joe's that I haven't had the chance to check out yet simply because I eat all my meals at the dining commons and don't have to regularly cook for myself. So my favorites mostly consist of snacks and desserts and tea, but those are some of the best things in life anyway, right? Besides, next year I'll be moving into my first apartment and, for the first time in my life, will have to learn how to feed myself, which I'm actually kind of looking forward to. So I'll provide an updated version of this post after I start making meals for myself on a daily basis in order to share all of my new findings.

My 19th Year Scrapbook

When I turned 18, I thought it would be a perfect time to start documenting my life year-by-year. I had the desire to start a scrapbook, and combining that with the fact that I was entering my very first year of adulthood and would soon be undergoing a major life change (college), the time was ripe to start recording my memories.

Because I celebrated my 19th birthday in March, and thus began my 20th year of life, it was time to start wrapping up my 19th Year Scrapbook. During spring break, I printed out my final batch of photos and filled up the last few pages. I put so much time into this scrapbook (literally hours and hours and hours), so I thought I'd share a few photos of some of my favorite pages here.

Dream Living Room with Arhaus

Happy Easter! Today I have a very special post to share with you! For this post, I collaborated with Arhaus on their Dream Living Room project. When they asked me to put together a dream living room, I jumped on the opportunity! It sounded like such a fun blog post to put together and will be a perfect source of inspiration when I move into my first apartment this fall!

Arhaus has a lovely line of products that you can check out either on their website or at one of their store locations, if you're in the U.S. (I'm planning to check out their store in Walnut Creek next time I'm there!) Their blog, Pinterest, and Instagram are also great places to find inspiration.

This post was the perfect excuse to window shop online for a couple hours and dream about how I want to decorate my apartment. I didn't plan anything ahead of time, but chose items as I went along and just went with whatever I gravitated towards the most. And I think it actually came together very nicely! I've only ever decorated my bedroom and dorm room, so it was really fun to branch out and try my hand at a living room.

The very first thing I picked out was the couch, since it was probably going to be the biggest item and would make for a great centerpiece for the room. I decided to go with a gray, sectional sofa from Arhaus because I thought it would look super fun with a bunch of colorful throw pillows! For the pillows, I gravitated towards pink colors, which coordinated well with the gray couch. My strategy was to pick two patterned pillows and two solid pillows. The two solid pillows helped bring everything together, and the two patterned pillows added some texture and color.

For decor, I chose a geometric, brass terrarium for the coffee table to house some cute succulents and also picked out a white ceramic vase to hold cut flowers, since succulents and freshly-cut flowers are two of my favorite things! I also found wall art on Urban Outfitters that coordinated perfectly with the pink pillows.

Another thing I wanted to be sure to incorporate into my dream living room was blankets! I love the look of blanket ladders, so I chose one from World Market, as well as a coral-pink throw to put on it. I would definitely include some quilts on the other rungs, both vintage and handmade. The two wire baskets would also be great for storing either more blankets or some reading material.

I also chose two bookcases from Arhaus to fill the space. Even if I don't have a book collection big enough to fill them both completely (yet!), it would be really fun to fill up the gaps with little knick-knacks (and maybe more plants!).

I hope you found some inspiration from my dream living room!! It was so fun to put together. I've linked everything I picked out below in case you want to check anything out for yourself.

Have a very happy Easter!!

From Arhaus
Gray Sectional Sofa // Telegraph Wide Bookcase // White Square Pillow // Vittoria Large Vase // Thia Black-And-White Rug // Palmer Bookcase

From Urban Outfitters
Fringe Bolster Pillow // Dreamy Houses Art Print // Printed Yarn Pillow 

From World Market
Wire Baskets // Blanket Ladder // Coffee Table // Geo Woven Throw

From Target
Brass and Glass Terrarium

Printable Carrot Cake Recipe

This carrot cake is so delicious!!! I'm a sucker for carrot cake in general (and cream cheese frosting for that matter!) and this recipe makes one of the best carrot cakes I've had. Thanks to the carrots, it always comes out super moist (I know people hate that word, but in terms of cake I think it's okay!) and the crushed pineapple gives it some extra sweetness. Plus, you can totally justify seconds since it has carrots in it. (That makes it healthy, right??)

I love this recipe so much that I've actually posted it on my blog before, all the way back in June 2015. You can read that post here. It includes a video of me making the recipe. (It's so embarrassing but I'm determined not to delete any of my old posts! So... enjoy that.) The recipe itself comes from the book Teens Cook Dessert, which I got for a couple dollars at a garage sale a few years back. Score!

Anyway, Easter is coming up and I thought I'd make a simple printable of my very favorite carrot cake recipe, since carrot cake is a classic Easter dessert. You can find the printable by clicking here!

Hope you had a marvelous weekend! See you on Easter Sunday!

My 100 Day Project

This year, for the first time ever, I have decided to take part in the 100 Day Project!! The 100 Day Project was started by artist Elle Luna in an effort to encourage people to pursue their creative passion everyday. The 100 Day Project is pretty simple: you just choose something creative to do every day for 100 days, preferably something that takes ten minutes and is not too involved. Elle Luna has set up a website dedicated to the 100 Day Project where she describes it in better detail. You can read her article on the 100 Day Project here if you're interested.