I'm over at Citygram dishing on what I'm most excited to see at the second annual Feliz pop-up sale. New to the mag? It's an essential interactive online read for any Austinite, so hop to it and download the free app! Check out the latest issue to get links to all the lovelies you see above, and be sure to mark your calendars for November 3!

When I attended the first Feliz last year, I was blown away by all the talent contained in one little room. It was a handmade haven of home decor, accessories, paper goods and beyond - and from the looks of the incredible vendor line-up, this year's pop-up is not one to miss. Get a taste of current and new collections from local favorites like Miranda Bennett, Fail and Oh Laszlo, and explore other talented designers, like Great Lakes and Tiro Tiro, from all over the country. A prime spot for holiday shopping, you'll be sure to find a perfect gift to give...that you just might end up wanting to keep for yourself, so stock up! 

People often tell me that "You're your mother's daughter." Aside from the fact that she doesn't like coconut (blasphemy), we are alarmingly similar. So similar, in fact, that I didn't write a single thing down when she was schooling me in the ways of making the world's best French onion soup. You see, dear mom keeps all her recipes locked up in the ol' noggin and freestyles as she goes. Actually, I take that back...I wouldn't call her onion soup recipe 'freestyling'. Instead, she uses years of experience (her specially trained nose knew exactly when the onions had the first hint of caramelization) to make sure the recipe is adjusted just so. So, now I'm recording this recipe so I have it forever and share it with my friends and family, just as my mom does and her mom does. The measurements aren't an exact science, which may really irritate some of you and give you extreme anxiety. Take a Xanax, drink some wine and chill....because it'll all turn out magical in the end. Alright, here goes.

Olive oil, enough to coat the bottom of the pot
Onions (preferably vidalia), one big bag
Sugar, 1-3 wooden spoonfuls
Dry white wine (good quality), 2 bottles
Low-sodium beef stock, 2 boxes
Crusty bread, one loaf
Jarlsberg cheese, the more the merrier
Stock pot (you need the big one...I thought my pasta pot would work, but no way once you slice up all those onions)
Food processor, optional but very smart to use


1. Look at the clock. Do you have 7 hours to cook some soup? Then by all means, commence reading this epic recipe. If not, sorry....do not pass go. You can't rush this process, and if you speed through it, your French onion soup will be mediocre at best, slimy mush at worst.

2. Coat the bottom of your pot in olive oil, and turn up the heat to medium high. Start slicing the onions with the slicer blade on your food processor, and toss the sliced onions into the pot as the food processor cup fills.

3. After each batch goes in, sprinkle in the sugar and stir to coat. When I say sprinkle, I mean dump in a wooden spoonful. We did about three large wooden spoonfuls of sugar for this batch, since I bought the wrong onions at Costco (regular yellow instead of vidalia...total amateur move on my part). Mom explained that she normally only uses about one wooden spoonful when using vidalia onions, but these needed some sweetening to take the acidic onion taste down and help with the eventual caramelization process.

This was when the onions just started caramelizing, and got their first one or two stirs.

3. Now, this is the part where I was goofing up. Once you have stirred in the sugar and the onions start cooking down, don't touch them. At all. When do we stir them, you ask? This is the tricky part where my mom's hound-like nose came into play. She smelled the faintest scent of caramelization, and knew to stir. For novices like you and me with useless noses, I'd give it about 20-30 minutes. Once you see the faintest bit of caramelization, turn the heat down to just a pinch below medium and give it a quick mix.

This was about half-way through the caramelization process

4. Keep stirring every 20-40 minutes or so until most of the liquid is dissolved and you have a nice, even, dark color. You want to give the onions ample time on the bottom of the pot to develop that color and sweet flavor, so try and feel it out for when you should stir based on their progress. It's important not to rush this process - don't turn up the heat to speed it up. Just let time and heat do it's thing. When you stir, be sure to scrape up any bits that get stuck onto the pot bottom. There's some super flavors in that.

After adding the wine

5.When all the liquid is gone, your onions are getting some deep color, and they need to be stirred pretty often to prevent burning, then it's time to bring in the wine. We poured in two bottles of white, and scraped up any remaining bits from the bottom. We then added our low-sodium beef broth.

6. Bring your soup to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Cover, and let cook for a few hours (our went for another 3 hours). The ideal goal is to get the liquid to reduce by almost half, so all those flavors intensify and blend together. Uncover in the last hour of cooking.

7. When ready to serve, slice up some pieces of crusty bread and Jarlsberg cheese. Place under the broiler, watching them carefully so the bread and cheese don't burn. When the cheese gets melted and bubbly, it's take to take them out. Place immediately in the soup using tongs (be careful not to drop it...the hot splash of soup will hurt!) and let it soak up that fantastic broth. Conversely, you can dish the soup into bowls that are oven-safe, put the bread and cheese in them, and place that directly under the broiler.

8.  Enjoy!

Note: My grandmother and mom both agree that it's best to wait a day to eat the soup, but you don't have to. Just make sure you have leftovers, because the day after is even better.

My faux leather moto jacket I bought in college is literally falling apart at the seams, so the second the temps dropped below 80 here, I had leather on the brain. I hit the ultimate jackpot when I went to TJ Maxx on a whim after work, and scored not one - but two - amazing leather jackets. It's a good thing I practice self control, right? I mean, otherwise I might have spent a shizz load of money on leather jackets. (Note to self: When are they going to invent that sarcasm font, anyways?) They are like butter, I tell you....I want to eat them with a piece of crusty French bread. A bit of a splurge (and hugely discounted off that online price, booyah!), and ehrmagerd I love them. Worth every penny.

My boss pseudo-jokingly mentioned that I looked like I member of a lady biker posse the first day I wore this shawl collar black one. Perhaps the combat boots, zip pants and tee I paired it with were a little tough looking....I mean, my goal for the day wasn't to give off the "I'll cut a bitch" vibe, you know? This time around, I paired it with a light chiffon snow leopard print dress that I scored for a cool $12 at a thrift store. I'm still all, "Great success!" months after I first brought it home. I slipped on my fave new black leather booties (something about this dip in the weather turned me into a psychotic shopaholic), and decided it needed just a little bit of razzle dazzle. Enter an edgy-but-pretty multi-layered blingtastic stunner of a necklace from Sheer Addiction's new holiday 2013 collection. The perfect piece to top off the look du jour.

Want to be twins and rock the same necklace? Well, head on over to Instagram to enter to win it and cross your fingers...it might be your lucky day! All you have to do is 1.) live in the USA, 2.) follow @sheeraddictionjewelry on Instagram, and 3) tag a friend in a comment on my IG photo. Easy peasy....just three simple steps to scoring a super sweet necklace. The more friends you tag, the more entries you get...so share the wealth, and enter before the giveaway ends on Friday, November 1.

Art print by Ammiki // Vase by ShadeonShape // Pillow by Bright July // Necklace by Sol De Sur

Not the most autumnally-inspired color palette, but I love the soft blues, greens, pinks, greys and gold in these little knick-knacks for the home and jewelry box.

1. Club Monaco Micaila Dress // 2. Clover Canyon Drawstring-Waist Rose-Art Dress // 3. Cynthia Vincent Long Sleeve Shift with Lace // 4. Charlie Jade Long Sleeve Printed Dress // 5. Mara Hoffman Printed Long-Sleeve Dress with Cutout Back // 6. Dolce Vita Valentina Lace Dress  // 7. Free People Long Sleeve Swing Dress // 8. STYLESTALKER Nothing But Net Dress 

Totally crushing on long-sleeve dresses right now....I wear mine with my leather jacket, my fave pair of ankle booties and a hat or braid for good measure.

Photo from my birthday breakfast!

Happy weekend, chickadees! I know it's been rather quiet up on this here blog lately, and well....I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed and energy-zapped lately. Wanted to squeeze this post in since it's Friday, woohoo! This two day respite is certainly welcome.

John and I are heading to a wedding on Saturday, followed by an all-day onion soup making session with my mom on Sunday. With a new-found and much-loved nip in the air (hooray for fall - finally!), John and I have been craving some. Her onion soup is legit, y'all. Every other onion soup recipe is total and complete rubbish. I am not even exaggerating in the slightest. I've had a few failed attempts at making my own, so I'm going to study up while observing the master at work...and if y'all are lucky, I'll get the right techniques and share my mom's recipe that makes all other onion soup recipes pale in comparison.

I also plan on wrapping up a few spray paint DIYs I have going on on Sunday while those onions get their caramelization on, framing pictures, planting our snake plant, and figuring out how in the heck to decorate our blasted dining room. It's an awkward unused eating/work/clutter collecting space...I have no freakin' clue what to do with it. We did hand curtains last week though, and....meh. Time to go down the black hole that is Pinterest and get a raging case of inspiration-hunting-turned-house-envy.

What are y'all up to?

If you know me, you know I'm a little obsessed with watching hair tutorials on Youtube. Chignons, braids, halos, fishtails, buns, Hollywood waves, pin curls....you name it, I've watched it at least 2242345 times. Ironically, I pretty much suck at doing my hair on the regular (hello, rushed mornings and thank you, dry shampoo!!!) and usually blow-dry it straight-ish. Time to step up my game a little bit, because it's getting B-O-R-I-N-G. Not even a recent (and good) haircut was able to spice up my same-old-same-old style rut.