I wear these classic designer bracelets almost daily. They are so classic and versatile! The lighter brown wrap bracelet is Hermes, and I got it from Poshmark for $50! Bracelets like this retail brand new for around $300-400. The darker brown clasp bracelet is from Louis Vuitton, and is called the Historic Mini Monogram bracelet. This one retails for $270. The origin of this one is a littler more mysterious... My husband brought it back for me from an international work trip, but he didn't have a box, bag, anything. He refuses to tell me how we got it! I'm thinking he found it laying somewhere...but we will never know haha. Anyway! 

When you aren't buying designer items straight from the source, you always want to take extra care you are purchasing an authentic item. Here are a few quick things I look for when authenticating secondhand designer jewelry pieces:

Quality control is high in luxury brands such as Hermes and Louis Vuitton. Stitching will always be evenly spaced and straight. 

Many designer jewelry pieces will be stamped or engraved. Look for these details because if there are no stamps or engravings, it is provably fake. These stamps/engravings should be straight, deep, and consistent, even if they are on the inside and not visible when worn. 

Do research on where the designer brand typically creates their jewelry pieces. It is probably not China. After doing some research I found that Louis Vuitton often makes their jewelry pieces in Spain, as seen below.

Overall, the piece should feel heavy and as if it is made of sturdy materials. 

These are details I am usually looking for when buying secondhand jewelry. Hermes can be difficult to authenticate more so than other designer items because they often lack a lot of stamping or engraving. Real Authentication is a great tool to find out if your designer items are indeed authentic. You upload pictures and within a couple days they let you know whether the item is indeed authentic or not, which I highly recommend if you intend to resell these items. 

I did a little digging and found a number of similar Hermes and Louis Vuitton secondhand bracelets below at killer deals! A lot of these are under $100! They are sold through Vestiaire Collective and are authenticated. Just click the picture to see more details of them!

$70+ is still so much money to drop on jewelry, so I have found a couple dupes from Amazon that look very similar to the designer leather bracelets above!

When thrift stores (and pretty much everything else fun) closed in California for a couple months, I found myself with a lot more time on my hands. I decided I wanted to be proactive and started researching new ways to make money from home. Some of which are even passive! (i.e. you put in the work at the beginning, but then as time goes on you make money with no extra work) I thought I would share with you guys a couple of the easy ways I've started making some extra money on the side of reselling!

I'm really excited about this one, and I actually got the idea from tiktok! People make killer money selling mugs on etsy, and it is actually completely passive income. Essentially how it works is, there are a number of printing companies that are integrated with etsy. You create a design for mugs (or really any item!) through the printing company that is linked to your etsy store. When someone buys one of your items the order is sent directly to the printing company who fulfills and ships the item for you. They even update your buyer with the shipping info. After creating the design there is literally nothing else you have to do besides accept those direct deposits! (If you guys are interested I can share more about what this process looks like in a more in-depth post!)

I've kind of become obsessed with scanning my receipts into the Fetch app. How it works is, you get points from your receipts for certain brands of items. Mostly grocery items. Essentially, these brands want you to purchase their items so you can scan in more points. However, you can literally scan any receipt in. Gas, clothes, eating out, whatever! Even if your receipt doesn't have any of the participating brands, you still get 25 points per receipt scanned. Once you've received a certain number of points you can redeem them for gift cards. And they have so many gift card options! Amazon, Sephora, mall stores. For most gift cards, its around 1000 points for $1 of gift card. But if you are looking to buy those items anyway, its easy extra money! You can use my down load link HERE to get 2000 points right away!

This is something I've always wanted to do, but just never felt comfortable with. I wish the stock market had been something we were taught in school (also taxes..) BUT Acorns makes it really easy. You take a questionnaire at the beginning by what kinds of risks you are comfortable with, and what your longterm financial goals are. After that they round up your purchases from a linked card and start investing the change for you. Its been fun to watch the money we invest become more money! Also super passive. I check the app literally every morning. If you use code UC266F when you open an account, you and I both get $5 to invest!

A number of times through quarantine I ordered and tried out products that were of interest to me, and ended up not only getting free products, but also getting paid anywhere from $20-30 just for sharing my input! I use the site Ambassadher which has a lot of influencer style campaigns, but also many product review campaigns. A couple that I did were for beauty products. I ordered and tried out the product, and then filled out a survey about how I found the product. Easy! If you gave the item a favorable review, they may ask you to leave feedback on the site you purchased it from. You can check out Ambassadher HERE.

This is not necessarily something new I started doing in quarantine, but I did start applying to more campaigns! You really don't need a lot of followers to get paid to post, so long as you have decent engagement. One of my favorite sites for influencer campaigns is Heartbeat - they offer a lot of campaigns for stuff I am interested in and often share about already, like clothes, accessories, and yummy snacks. You can check them out and sign up HERE. 

This is a platform I am still researching and building, but does well for a lot of people! Essentially, you offer virtual skills that companies and brands can outsource to you. Personally, I am offering data entry and blog post writing skills. There are so many different types of skills being offered on Fiverr!

Thanks so much for reading, and I hope I was able to offer you some new, fun avenues for you to make some $$$.  The one I'm most excited about personally is the etsy mug shop, because its SO easy and passive. Would you be interested in seeing a better break down of how to start your own etsy mug shop? Let me know down below!

* This post was sponsored by Basic Invite, but the opinions stated in this post are my own. 

While other states have been open for weeks, the lovely state of California is still very much in shelter in place. I'm definitely bored, so what have I resorted to? Painting butts.

One of my favorite bloggers, Kathleen Barnes/Carrie Bradshaw Lied, shared on her instagram about this project she was doing to keep herself busy, and I loved it! I had been researching modern / abstract bathroom art, but redecorating is EXPENSIVE so I loved seeing a DIY project I could try. I definitely recommend practicing and drawing out a sketch butt with a sharpie before attacking a piece of paper with paint. Once you break down the picture into single lines, it's actually pretty easy! When it came time to paint I just traced my best sharpie practice butt. (I've never typed "butt" this many times and I'm loving it.) I think it makes for cool modern bathroom art!

The only paintbrushes we had were for walls and big paint projects, so I ordered this 10 piece set off Amazon for $7.99. I also got this frame set, 10 frames for only $33.99! Thats only $3.39 a frame, which is a killer deal. Great for a collage wall!

I had so much fun with the butt (lol) that I decided to get all artsy and take a stab at a few more paintings! A number of them went straight into the bin but I did like how two ended up! Hubs said we could hang them up in the garage (lol) but I convinced him to hang them in our living room. :)

Confession time - in middle school I plucked out nearly all my eyebrows :O I had only these tiny little lines above my eyes...I looked like a cartoon, and I can't stand to look at photos of myself from age 12-14. Due to this, my eyebrows are kind of patchy, and I rarely have to pluck because I'm thinking I caused some lifelong damage to the hair follicles...

Ever since then I have been obsessed with filling in my brows and trying to get them to *look* full. I have tried a LOT of products, but the one I've been using for the past 7 years that I've found to be the easiest to get full, bushier brows has been MAC's tinted brow gel. See the difference below!

Its super easy!

​This has been the only non-drugstore make up product I have been buying for years. I've tried drugstore eyebrow gels from Revlon and Elf, but they just don't seem to give me the same shape, and definitely weren't lasting all day. The MAC  product color and gel lasts all day, and the color spreads really easily and evenly. $23 is a lot for an eyebrow gel (to me at least) but the product really goes a long way. I typically only have to buy a new one every 4-5 months, plus I save up the tubes to return to MACs recycling program for a free lipstick. You can read more about that program and how it works HERE.