tiny big moments

by Jade Meneguel

[tinybigmoments]

The family tradition moment...

Living abroad is not easy and I don’t think it ever will be. I mean, how could it, right? Every day that goes by give us more and more time to remember the memories we gathered at our home country. Especially times with the family, if they are still far away. In Brazil, we have a word for this specific feeling: “Saudade”.

But I don’t wanna get melodramatic here. I just wanted to share a fun fact. Today, I was looking at my hand and saw my ring that I wear every-single-day and, just by looking at it, so many memories came to my mind.

Let me explain. In Brazil we call these as “Graduation Rings” and it’s usually gifted to you when you graduate in college. This is a thing in Brazil but to be honest I have never seen this tradition in any other brazilian family or even in another country. But believe me, it’s a real thing!!! Each academic degree has its own gemstone and its symbols, and they are consistent throughout jewellers.

I graduated in Graphic Design. My ring has an old computer on one side and a set square with a compass on the other side. And my gemstone is a Blue Sapphire meaning “Truth, Wisdom and Accuracy”.

HOW CUTE IS THAT?! I absolutely adore it!!! And the fact that my grandma has been buying these rings since my mom was born, for all family members that graduates, it really is something special. So thank you Grandma for keep running this lovely tradition. Saudades! 💖

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first impressions of Paris

Beautiful. Gorgeous. Full of details! Paris is definitely a charm.

All the "cafes" and restaurants are lovely looking with chairs and tables outside. It was summer, super warm around 90F/32ºC so the parisienses were outside, always full of life, with baguettes in one hand and books in the other like there was no problems in their lives haha (i'm not kidding, they actually looove baguettes!).

In this post I selected random pictures from Paris' architecture, the famous art nouveau sign of the subways (metropolitan), the gorgeous stainless glass windows of Sainte-Chapelle, the Concierge and some random streets and canals. This is just a taste. Paris, you gorgeous!

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Disneyland

Even though it was a foggy day, it did not make Disneyland less magical! The first time we never forget...

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Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

what a lovely small city! I had the chance to visit Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay with my family in the end of last year, right before christmas. I have never seen a city so colorful, full of personality and HOT! Think about a sun shining at 110F/43C above your head. uf! These pictures are not in the best resolution because unfortunatelly I did not have my good camera with me due to a such short notice for this trip.

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Dress: Fashion Mia (ad) Sandals: Forever 21 Photographed by: Mila Simonovska

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Mirage house in Palm Springs

While in Palm Springs, below a 114ºF weather, we went to see Doug Aitken's mirage house which was insanely cool as you can see from these pictures I've taken. To get at this house in the middle of the desert, you actually need its coordinates, it does not have a proper address that you can just drop in your app and drive there. Here it is: 33°50'59.6"N. 116°33'57.5"W.  

It is a real-size replica of an American house, the sculpture is entirely composed of reflective mirrored surfaces, outside and inside. We got lucky because when we arrived at the guard-house the sign was saying "closed" and we thought we couldn't go until the top of the hill to see the house. Fortunately, we got our way in and we were the only ones there! That's why these pictures turned out so good, no other visitors were there. We got some kinda of VIP access haha.

If you are passing by Hwy 111 or traveling to Palm Springs, I definitely recommend go see this mirage! 🏜🌵

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I am so stoked about this post! I was in Palm Springs for the 4th of July weekend and I could not skip a visit to the uber famous pink door! Mostly known as @thatpinkdoor (or #thatpinkdoor) on Instagram. Everybody falls in love about this door and now I totally understand why!

I mean, it's a huge door! It looks like a chocolate bar AND IS PINK! 💕 In love already. The whole house is white popping up the pink door even more. And what I can say about these huge succulents next to it and the gorgeous handle? UGH. Definitely house goals.

There is nothing else to say, I get it, is only a door but yeah... It is beautiful! Located at 1100 E Sierra Way, Palm Springs. Go there, stare for a while, admire, take some pictures and of course, remember that it's a private house, be kind!

Shimmery top: Forever 21 Velvet pink sport shorts: Forever 21 Sneakers: Reebok (get yours here!)

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Outfit inspirations for summer days - LOOK #3

Hey guys!! I've been in New York last week both for fun and work and before going I noticed that the East Coast is already having a lot of sunny days, it's basically summer over there! I had to do some shopping before leaving the Bay Area, you know, leaving my trench coats in the closet and getting new tops and skirts! I wanna make a shout out to the online shopping that I discovered recently, tobi.com, for their excellent quality and service! I found most of my items there and didn't have to leave the comfort of my home to buy clothes before going to NYC.

Some of you guys were asking me about the outfits that I wore there because of course I've been posting them on my Instagram and other social medias. So here they are, three of my latest outfits with more details and info if you wanna get some of my keypieces for your own style! :)

LOOK #3

Sunday funday with a sporty-chic look. I love how the colors turned out in this outfit. Camel with moss green seems to be a great combination! I styled this casual cropped tank top with a more fancy mini skirt. Look how this curved hem detail gives my legs a nicer look. Not your typical mini skirt huh?

To complete my sport-chic idea I added a very sparkling slip on sneakers from Skechers combined with a minimalist choker and of course, a suede green cap.

Mini skirt: TOBI Slip on sneakers: Skechers Top: Vintage store in SF Choker: Bought in a Brazilian store Cap: Aldo

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Outfit inspirations for summer days - LOOK #2

Hey guys!! I've been in New York last week both for fun and work and before going I noticed that the East Coast is already having a lot of sunny days, it's basically summer over there! I had to do some shopping before leaving the Bay Area, you know, leaving my trench coats in the closet and getting new tops and skirts! I wanna make a shout out to the online shopping that I discovered recently, tobi.com, for their excellent quality and service! I found most of my items there and didn't have to leave the comfort of my home to buy clothes before going to NYC.

Some of you guys were asking me about the outfits that I wore there because of course I've been posting them on my Instagram and other social medias. So here they are, three of my latest outfits with more details and info if you wanna get some of my keypieces for your own style! :)

LOOK #2

Urban for the night! I am always super simple and minimalist when I am dressing myself. Less is more and an entire black palette outfit is always a win. I usually choose one garment to be my key piece in every look. In this case was this marvelous bodycon dress also from TOBI, which has an amazing off shoulders detail.   When you are wearing a bodycon you don't need much, your body curves will make all the statement for you. I styled with a big black ankle boots and long silver earrings.

Bodycon dress: TOBI Ankle boots: Express Earrings: Express Sheer silver pantyhose: Calvin Klein Sunglasses: Wearme Pro Lipstick: Nudestix - color: Greystone

[tinybigmoments]

Outfit inspirations for summer days - LOOK #1

Hey guys!! I've been in New York last week both for fun and work and before going I noticed that the East Coast is already having a lot of sunny days, it's basically summer over there! I had to do some shopping before leaving the Bay Area, you know, leaving my trench coats in the closet and getting new tops and skirts! I wanna make a shout out to the online shopping that I discovered recently, tobi.com, for their excellent quality and service! I found most of my items there and didn't have to leave the comfort of my home to buy clothes before going to NYC.

Some of you guys were asking me about the outfits that I wore there because of course I've been posting them on my Instagram and other social medias. So here they are, three of my latest outfits with more details and info if you wanna get some of my keypieces for your own style! :)

LOOK #1

Sexy for the summer! In love with this bodysuit from TOBI. It is so stylish that I didn't need anything else to pop in my outfit. A classic high waist denim shorts from Express and black mules from Madden Girl completed my look effortless. Just wait until you see how the back of this bodysuit looks like! AMAZING.

Suede bodysuit: TOBI High waist denim shorts: Express Mules: Madden Girl (get them on Macy's!) Sunglasses: Prada Wrist watch: H&M

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Review: Canon Lens 85mm f/1.8

Hey everybody! 2017 started insanely busy for me, which is good and I can't complain but I miss blogging more. I'm with two jobs now, working from 9am to 9pm, my family was visiting me and I did lots of road trips that were amazing and I will be posting soon about them. Can't wait to show all my photographs! Actually, this post is all about my new baby. I finally got a portrait lens that I wanted so much since college. I am still shooting with my regular 18-55mm for the blog but from now on, sometimes y'all will be seeing pictures taken with my 85mm.

I did a lot of research and read a bunch of reviews until I decided to get the Canon 85mm lens with 1.8 aperture. And may I say I am loving it! My other option was the 50mm f/1.4 and if you're asking why I went for the 85mm is because I like to photograph mostly landscapes. The 85mm has a pretty sharp result comparing to the 50mm when it comes to landscapes and for portraits the bokeh is absolutely stunning! The background gets so blurred and the front object very defined, giving me a really pro results. I have to be careful now because the scar on my forehead is appearing so much more with this lens hahaha. Also, it works really good at low light and it's really easy to choose what you want to keep sharp and what you want to leave blurred.

Take a look at these examples:

Landscape taken with 85mm f/1.8 and same image at 100%, this definition! 

Portrait taken with 85mm f/1.8:

Object with a beautiful bokeh in the background. Really good in low light.

Focusing option: Sharp background / Blurred first object (tree) or Sharp first object (tree) / blurred background: 

That being said, I am having GREAT results as you can see. Those were my first pictures trying out this lens, they are a little too bright and I am still struggling with how far I need to go to take a good landscape/full body portrait shot and how much of white lights it captures since it's a 1.8 aperture, but, I am definitely loving the shallow depth of field of its focus. Here are more examples of photos that we took. Hope this review is useful as the ones that I read on the internet. Will be back soon with my other adventures. And if you are wondering, all of these pics were taken in San Francisco downtown and the piers. See yaa!

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The road trip moment in California

I guess this was by far my favorite road trip! Maybe because it was the first one in California that was only my husband and I inside the car. Not that I don’t love to do road trips with friends but sometimes it feels good just you and your significant other, you know? Besides that I love to drive!!

It took me 9 hours to drive from San Francisco to our destination, Big Bear Lake. On our way down California, we stopped in incredible locations to rest and take pictures. One of the locations was this desert somewhere Interstate-5 before entering in Bakersfield.

The weather was freezing and very windy, but the sun helped warming us up a little bit. It was almost sunset, the sun was lowering down and giving us an amazing golden hour to take these pictures. As you can see, totally worth it! Another tiny big moment in life...

Knit Sweater: Sammydress Black Tank Top below: H&M Baby blue Jeans: Levi's Boots: Couro & Cia - Rented Car: Enterprise

Do you guys like road trips? Which was your favorite one? We are thinking about doing another one soon, any tips are welcome! And of course I will come back to show more photos of our adventure snowboarding for the first time in Big Bear, see you all in the next post! 🚗🌄

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The moment in Dolores Park

Alright, I already shared hundreds of pictures in this place through my social medias and also published here once on the blog some photos of this amazing park on the day that I found my favorite ice cream in the city.

This was a beautiful day in the Bay and every time I know I'll have sunny weekends, Dolores Park is definitely the place I will be! The park is located on Mission District and is always crowded with people playing sports, eating, reading, tanning (some naked people out there, beware!), walking their dogs, doing yoga or even getting high (welcome to California!) with a candy that I decided to call espresso-bomb (explained here).

Dolores is a great place to meet with your friends and disconnect from a hard week of work. It has a perfect skyline of Financial District to take a beautiful selfie and the famous Bi-Rite Market is right across the street (best fruits ever!). Also, sometimes the park offers movies sessions at night. I remember my first movie there was Clueless and it was so much fun! Don't forget your blankets - nights get pretty chill in the hill - your wine and your snacks! Tip: If it's possible, use the bathroom before the session begins. In the end of the movie the provided public chemicals restrooms always get busy and pretty yucky. 🤗🌳

Floppy Hat: Bought in a Thrift Shop in Savannah/GA Sport Bra & Sunnies: Forever 21 California Muscle Tee: San Francisco City Wear Black Jeans & Cardigan: H&M Purse: Kate Spade Sneaker: Nike

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Review: Shadesbox from WearMe Pro

Here comes my last post of the year with an amazing review for all of you! I just discovered WearMe Pro, which is a website that allows you to have trendy sunglasses for an affordable price.

Their SHADESBOX is a box that comes seasonally (every 3 months) including 3 pairs of sunglasses/clear glasses for a great price (less than $10 a month!). You can customize your box or take a quick quiz about your style and they will select the perfect sunnies for you. In one year you get 12 new pairs of glasses, I'm totally loving this!

For my first SHADESBOX I decided to go with the quiz, so I didn't know what sunglasses I'd receive. When my box arrived, it came in a lovely package, with stylish sunglasses inside and protective bags for each one of them, I reeeeally enjoyed!

I'm not gonna lie that I am not a fan of mirror glasses so I never bought one for myself. On my box I got two of them and I must say that they make any look more stylish and they seem to be more efficient on snow or brighter places. On my box I received:

Arianna Wire Through Frame Cat Eye Mirrored Lens, color Pink Lens.

Scarlett Street Fashion Cat Eye Mirrored Lens, color Pink Lens.

Mila Street Fashion Cat Eye, color Purple Frame  

SHADESBOX can be give as an unique gift for that friend that absolutely loves sunglasses!

Hope you guys enjoyed this review, you can find more stunning inspirations on Instagram with the hashtags: #wearme_pro, #SHADESBOX and #WindowToTheWorld. 😎

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Yeey, I finally had the opportunity to travel down to Los Angeles but I only had 48 hours in the city of angels. It was a quick trip but I did exactly what I had planned for those two days. I made a really good itinerary that I could visit the most important places of the town. I went to Abbot Kinney, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Griffith Observatory, Melrose Ave, Venice Beach, Santa Monica and a few more only in 2 days! So if you are wondering what to do in LA if you only have few hours, this video might help you!

Since I am a photo-crazy-person I took lots of pictures and decided to make a video instead of doing a huge post on the blog. I think it shows more easily everything that I've done in the city.

If you are wondering where are the locations of some of my photos, I put a list in the end of the video, but feel free to ask, leave a comment :)

Los Angeles was different than I was imagining to be, but since I am a huge fan of The O.C (tv show) I wanna try next time to go to Malibu, the mountains of Beverly Hills and Redondo Beach, these are the locations where the serie was filmed most of the times haha.

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Review: 6 great reasons to buy at Sammydress

Today I brought a site's review for people who are just like me and loves to buy online. Who are usually traveling sometimes don't have the time to go to their favorite stores or to actually go shopping. For me the best thing is online shopping but I also know this could be a scary thing to do, especially if you don't know who are you buying from.

I am here today to talk about my own great experience buying from Sammydress, which is a global online fashion retail company and I chose some of their clothes to go to a travel in Los Angeles.

1. Low prices

I'm gonna start with prices because their products have really low prices! But hey, that does not mean that they don't have a great quality too! I think price and quality should always walk together, and on Sammydress they are both great. I bought 5 item for $47 total, which is less than $10 for each of them, including a leather backpack!!

2. High quality

This is what we love! We have so many things to care about that we cannot afford a bad quality clothing. You don't need to worry about that while selecting your items on Sammydress. I bought a black shirt and it was really black, it was not lucid/transparent black. The fabric of my leather backpack is strong! I carried it all over LA with a pair of clothes, my digital camera, water, everything I needed and had no problems with it.

3.Clothes that are in!

It's all about fashion baby! On their homepage you will find the latest news in fashion. Right now they have lots of velvet dresses, pullover hoodies, off of the shoulder blouses and of course, Christmas sweaters.

4. Runs true to size

I always think twice if I should choose to Small or X-Small because I have big hips but I don't have a lot of boobs to fill in a dress, for example. Just take a look on their size chart (they have in inches and centimeters) and you will be good. Their clothes runs true to size, not so large and not so small. My velvet dress looks amazing on and got me lots of compliments.

5. Fast shipping

I chose Flat Rate Shipping which is the "slow delivery" (and the cheapest one), that means 8-15 business days for shipping to USA and I actually received my items in 7 straight days! That was super fast, I was really happy with the way they came. My clothes and my backpack were inside plastic bags, with labels and smelling good!

6. Real photos from real people!

A cool thing about Sammydress is that you can see photos from real people using the clothes/accessories. They have a Buyers-Show section which you can upload your own pictures and inspire others to buy the same thing you did. For me this is great! I can search for a girl with the same body type as mine and see how the piece actually looks like on a real body and not in a model.

Hope I helped you guys! I still have a great knitted outfit from Sammydress that I' still didn't wear but looks so good! And of course, more photos from Los Angeles to come. Be back soon. :)

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The moment with my modern Alice

I'm back in San Francisco! I missed this city so much while I was in Brazil. A lot has happened in those previous months and I was very away from the blog, but now I am back with a bunch of photos and cool places to show to y'all.

I am sorry for the low-resolution photos on this post. I actually wasn't thinking about making a post about this and all the photos were taken from my phone. However, I was feeling so good this day wearing this casual outfit, walking again on the streets that I adore, holding hands with my husband and every little moment on that day was worth it, so yes, I decided to post this outfit even with low-res photos.