LupRocks Gossip

Engagement Rings for Everyone

Though I'm sure you've heard plenty of news about infamous celebrity couples and their pregnancies, this LupRocks post comes to you forecasting a different trend.  Instead of popping out kids, it looks like this season more and more couples, both famous and not-so-famous, will be popping the question.   According to a survey by Modern Bride, November and December months account for 26% of all marriage proposals! Celebs included in the trend are Nicky Hilton, who we hear will be getting engaged to her boyfriend of a year, David Katzenberg over Christmas. 

If you want to seize this holiday season to propose to your honey, LupRocks is here to take a little bit of the burden off of your proposal by helping you pick the perfect engagement ring.  In this article from TheKnot.com, which also appears on MSN Lifestyle they note a few major engagement ring trends to help guide your decision.  At the top of the list is one of our favorites: natural color diamonds!  Included in their post is a breathtaking olive natural color diamond ring by LupRocks designer AMGAD. 

Also, to ease you in your hunt for the perfect engagement ring, LupRocks offers a complete virtual showroom of designers who specialize in Bridal Jewelry.  We have something for every taste, and every budget, so if you're still stumped, check us out.

Holiday Gift Guide Part III: Go Green

We bring you our final installment of the ultimate Holiday Gift Guide: Go Green. For those of you just tuning in here’s the scoop: We know that your server is on overload from all your favorite go to sources wonderfully crafted gift guides for Dad, Mom, your guy, your dog, your neighbors dog …Ok, maybe we are taking it too far, but you get the point. All mockery aside, New York Magazine’s host of different lists will help you no matter which picky relative or has-everything-friend you are shopping for, and even includes a “With Seconds to Spare” list by Aja Mangum & Doria Santlofer for the procrastinators out there (don’t kid yourself, you know who you are). So, we at Lup HQ decided to bring you the ultimate advice on what to keep, what to return, and what to re-gift.

We end today with Go Green! Sure you have given the ol’ eye-roll when hearing this term thrown around among the eco-friendly show-offs, but you too can partake in this recycling pretentiousness. No, you are not actually helping the environment by passing along gifts, but you are helping to reduce the use of the two most important resources: time and money. So consider re-gifting these holiday staple gifts and you will save yourself some shopping stress and money better spent on the $5 Pinkberry or Starbucks latte you insist on getting everyday, all while not tarnishing your rep as a smart gift giver.

1)Gift Certificates: Whether your relatives are lazy or your friends are just fed up trying to shop for you, gift cards with dreidles for Chanukah and trees for Christmas seem to pileup during this joyful season, thickening your wallet and pressuring you to go out shopping in the cold windy weather when you should be at home in your PJ’s with some hot cocoa. Not to mention the fact that between your expensive taste and your cheap family you will probably end up picking something more expensive then the value of your gift card. Also these are impersonal enough that your re-giftee will be non-the-wiser and probably very pleased.

2)Food: every year we promise ourselves we are going to limit the fatty fried and sugar packed treats we stuff in our bellys. Say it with me: I will not gain weight during the Holiday! (Repeat as many times as necessary.) Just remember, as a dedicated fashionista we know you have some fierce holiday cocktail dresses waiting in the closet, and it would be a shame to look bloated in the dress you bought pre-cookie season. Pass along all cookies, chocolate, and other treats even though it pains you to do so, and you know the receiver will be just as delighted as you were before you gave up your tasty, yet fattening, treats.

Any clothing, jewelry, or accessories that were picked out for you personally should be kept or returned depending on where it ranks in the ugly/fabulous scale. Hope this helped, and we wish you a very happy holidays to you and your loved ones!

Holiday Gift Guide Part II: Bling it Back

No matter how much time you spend sourcing out that perfect special something for everyone on your list, sometimes when it comes to receiving gifts, your cheery "Ho Ho Ho's" turn into woeful "Oh No No No's!"  This installation of our holiday gift guide reveals those ill-chosen gifts that absolutely without-a-doubt must go back to where they came from.  We hope we can relieve you of some guilt involved in returning these gifts, because when you bling them back, you'll find a much better use for the cold hard cash than letting those less-than-savvy styles slowly decompose in your closet.

1) "UGG"ly boots:  Though whoever bought this gift probably imagined you wearing these boots in all sorts of unfriendly weather, for all practical intentions, Ugg-boots and their offshoots (that means you too, Mucklucks and Emus!) have long since been ruled out as acceptable footwear.  They might keep your tootsies toasty, but unless you're living in an area that gets three feet of snow on a regular basis and you can spy elk passing by your window, we would advise returning these fuzzy monsters and using the cash to buy a much more practical pair of booties.
 

2) Flashy and Trashy:  We know you love your friends, but sometime their fashion sense may be a bit ambitious for your taste.  This winter, make your closet happy by blinging back anything that is a little too over the top.  No one wants to pull a Posh Spice, or even worse--a Britney, by revealing too much skin.  Also to be avoided is anything that takes the trends too much to heart.  This includes anything from jackets and dresses with too much metallic, to shoes and handbags with too much patent leather, to anything with a too high waist.  Taking "mom pants" to a whole new level are these jeans by Cheap Monday's, and more reflective than a solar panel is this trench coat by Gwen Stefani's line L.A.M.B., both of which you should bling back without a second thought.

3) Knock-Off No No's:  More than anything else, anything that smacks of a knock off has got to go.  Though a fake Louis Vuitton handbag is easy to spot, some other knock offs are a bit more subtle.  House of Holland is a sassy label that has made its mark by creating bright t-shirts with equally colorful quotations on them in bright bold lettering.  The clever catchphrases have inspired other companies like Urban Outfitters, Top Shop and Forever 21 to follow suit with somewhat less witty sayings.  Try to avoid these soon-to-be forgotten fakies.

Also, as any good accessories guru knows, a piece of jewelry with cubic zirconia is one of the biggest fashion crimes one could ever commit.  If you find yourself being gifted a piece with CZ as a present, you can politely (or sneakily) return it for a more tasteful option, such as a piece with rock crystal, Swarovski crystals, or other semiprecious stones such as freshwater pearls.  In the event of this fashion tragedy LupRocks already does most of the searching for you, providing for you a selection of Fashion Jewelry designers with much nicer options in our crystal and semiprecious stones categories.

We hope you liked our Bling it Back edition of our holiday gift guide! Check back for our third and final installment, with just the tips to help you go green, and save plenty of green by finding a brand new home for your less than perfect gifts.
    

Holiday Gift Guide Part I: Rock It

With Chanukah finally over, and Christmas looming on the horizon, shopping, gifts, and spending is all the buzz. However, what really concerns any real material girl during this Chrismakaha lapse is the age old question: Which gifts do I keep, which are on the fast express to returnville, and which will be re-gifted saving you time, money, and the bad publicly you’ll get if you keep it for yourself? So with all our Chanukah gifts already in and sorted, and all of our Christmas shopping completed (don’t be jealous, our OCD lead us to complete this inevitable task early this year), we here at Lup HQ are here to help you with those o’ so tough decisions. So today we bring you the first of three installments: Rock It, Bling Back, and Go Green. Check back each day this week for the remaining verdicts, and you’ll come out a big winner this holiday season!

Rock It: Seems you ditched the naughty fashionista in you, causing Santa or Bubbie to award your good behavior with these definite keepers:

1)Charm bracelets have reentered their long standing spotlight. So whether your mom gifted you with her vintage bracelet from childhood, (like the gold one I received for Chanukah), or you received more fashion forward bracelets, like ones from fresh LupRocks.com designers Gabriella Francesca's or Heather Moore, this holiday “present” is one you will want to rock out in the very near future.

2)April showers bring May flowers early this year causing florals to pop up all over the pages of our fave go to source for fashion gossip – duh! W Magazine. We especially loved the featured Nancy Hankin gold flower ring, but any floral adornment this Spring will prove you are envogue. Another way to bloom up on the fashion-conscious radar is by wearing delicate leaves like these Nicole Landaw gold leaf hoops, or the flowers and dragonflies Shaill ring available at Neminas.

Check in tomorrow to hear our list of Bling Backs – because it won’t be a season of ho, ho, ho if you are caught wearing or re-gifting these fashion no, no, no's.