Happy 2015

Wow 2014 just sprinted past me. I can't believe we are in the year 2015! It will be a great year, I can feel it.

For New Years Eve I went over to my sororities brother fraternity for a bit. One of the guys was having a Gatsby party so many of us showed up all dolled up. We had fun with dancing and watching the live feed of the New York ball drop.

I did not stay there for midnight because I had promised R that I would come to his house for the new year. It was nice to go to his house with the quiet and low key feeling. We celebrated with lots of food and out parents. It was nice.

I have been thinking about a New Year's resolution and I think I found something that I can stick with. I have promised to read more books that are not for school or "fun" books. I love reading so much and I miss it during the school year so this means I need to watch less Netflix and pick up more books.

Seems easy but I'll keep you posted.

How was your New Years Eve? Do you have a resolution?

XOXO

ZMH 

Insta-holic

I must admit, I am addicted to Instagram.

There is just something so mesmerizing about seeing all those nice square photos and double tapping your favorite one. Is this just me?

Well I thought since I spend so much time on Instagram I would share with you my recent activity on Instagram. I like to use the app as a way to update family and friends with what I'm doing and so that they know I'm safe and happy.

Without further ado here we go!

This past week our college had a challenge given out to all of campus by a visiting artist. Our challenge was to find one of these big pieces of green paper and create something on it. Our only rule was we have to keep it horizontal and had to keep it the same rectangular form. I am not an artist at all but I gave this challenge a try and I must say I am very proud of what came out.

Lately I have been missing all of my friends I made in Europe. I think it must be the travel bug in me getting restless but I my heart has been a little hallow lately. So I found the necklace my host family in Denmark gave me and proudly wore it a couple times this week. Having it on made me feel comforted and not as sad.

This photo came up earlier this week in my Halloween post but here it is again. My sorority mama (or big) and I went out with the rest of our sisters to celebrate and we had so much fun! Zoe and I also dominated a game of beer pong that night, we generally avoid this game because we are awful at it. I am however very good at flippy cup!

I have seen this blog planner used by some of my favorite bloggers and they fell head over heels about it. I decided to buy one for myself to help me get more organized with my blog and I must say it is working! I also announced to Instagram that I have a blog so that was a big leap for me since no one really knows I have this yet.

(Can be found at www.heartandarrowdesign.com)

And finally a shameless selfie. I really liked the green I had going so I thought I would document it and it turns out a lot of other people really liked it to!

Overall Instagram is my favorite time waster. I like to edit my photos and make them look really nice. My favorite editing app right now is Afterlight, so great! Other then that my captions are never the best but you can't be great at everything, right? 

Are any of you addicted to Instagram? Do you use other editing apps before you put your photos on Instagram? Who are some of your favorite Instagrammers?

XOXO

ZMH

Feel free to check my account out and follow me!

@zmhoover

Scallops and Lilly

So here in Holland it has been kind of a cold start to summer. We just can't seem to shake winter apparently. Well it is finally starting to get warm and even hot out! This weekend it is suppose to get up in the 80's but we will just have to wait and see if the weather people are correct on that.

About a week ago we had a super hot afternoon and I was so happy after going through a couple cold days. These cold days were in the high 50's so not bad for Michigan but after the winter we had I just want some nice hot days! This one afternoon was amazing so I took total advantage of it.

I got all dolled up in a new dress I had bought several days before. I was waiting for a nice warm day to break it out so I wouldn't have to wear a cardigan. So I got dressed up, picked up my boyfriend and we headed downtown. We enjoyed a late lunch of breakfast food, our favorite, at the Windmill Restaurant. After stuffing our faces we went over to the local screen printing shop to visit an old high school art teacher and some friends. It was nice to catch up with everyone since it has been awhile. 

After wandering around downtown I decided I wanted to get photos of my outfit because I felt super cute and preppy. I whipped out my iPhone and asked my boyfriend to snap a few photos. He tried his hardest to get good photos but I have to train him better on what I want. You would think being in art school he would know how to take really awesome photos but I guess that's one thing he has never tried out.

So here are a couple photos, once again sorry that they aren't fabulous but at least I have a few photos of the outfit!

So I fell in love with this simple navy blue scallop dress. I found it without even looking. I was at Marshall's with my dad and I was perusing random racks not really looking for anything and then BAM! This dress is amazing and totally embodies the preppy sense of style I have been trying to lean towards lately. I paired it with a fabulous Lilly Pulitzer bag, some costume jewelry from my grandma, a big floppy hat, and some cute wedges from Macy's. You can't really see the wedges detail but oh my goodness they are adorable! They are wicker around the wedge and have a very tiny pink and blue flower pattern on them that helped bring my jewelry's color in with my dress and bag.

Needless to say I am in love with this preppy outfit and you might see me in the dress many many times on this blog.

I hope you enjoyed today's post! 

XOXO

ZMH

Activation

I am so glad that pledge, or as we call it here Greek Orientation, is over. It was a long 5 weeks but also really fun. We learned all of our songs, met alumni, and got to bond as a pledge class. After that whole ordeal I feel so much closer to my girls and I could not have asked for a better pledge class to have gone through all of that with.

Now that that is all over activation has started. If you don't know what activation is it is basically 2 weeks of parties every night with the fraternities on campus. These are meant to help you get to know the guys on campus and to expose you to how each frat parties so you can decided later on who you enjoy partying with. It's so exhausting but a ton of fun. We have already finished our first week and our second week starts tomorrow. Each fraternity has a theme for the party and that's what I like most. I love dressing up and going crazy with it since I can't drink.

My girls and I take the themes very seriously because this is our first impression for most of the fraternities and we want to make sure they like us and have fun with us. We want to be invited to other events!

I only have a few photos and some aren't too fabulous because well we are in dark basements that don't have a lot of lights. I hope you enjoy them though!

This photo is from our first party with our fraternity brothers. Our brothers are the Knickerbockers and they are the sweetest and chillest guys on campus. As you may be able to tell the theme of this party was PJs. Some of us rocked the footie PJs. 

This is my girl Brittany and I at the Arcadian fraternity party. The theme was frat boy which meant half of us went as bro fratters and the other half did the preppy fratters. We tried so hard but man that was a struggle. I'd say though we pulled off the bro look pretty well. 

XOXO

ZMH