Small Business Saturday: Shop Small in a BIG Way

The holidays are around the corner (yes, it is that time of year) and with that comes the choice of where you'll be doing your shopping. As simple as that answer might be -- "where I'll get the best stuff for the best prices of course", I want to encourage you to think a little bigger this year. We have all seen the efforts by American Express to push the #shopsmall campaign, but we wanted to take it a step further and make our own efforts to get you to think outside the big retailers and online shopping, and encouraging you to shop locally! About two weeks ago, in collaboration with the Old Town Boutique District and our friend Sebastian Marin, we shot this video capturing the essence of what shopping in Old Town Alexandria is all about. The way we see it is simple. It's not just shopping, it's supporting this beautiful community while also finding the perfect gifts. So join us this holiday season and shop small in a BIG way!

Video By: Sebastian Marin

All Photos by: Julien Garman

To encourage you a little more, She's Unique is participating in Black Friday and Small Business Saturday discounts and promotions! Black Friday: 30% off 6-8AM / 20% off 8-10AM / 10% for the rest of the day Small Business Saturday: 10% off all day + gift with purchase over $50! This includes all designer brands such as Zoe Chicco, Jennifer Zeuner, Phyllis + Rosie, Alexis Russell, Melissa Joy Manning, Voluspa Candles, and much more! For a complete list of all participating stores and discounts visit HERE We can't wait to see you! Happy Holidays.

PS: Stay tuned for two amazing GIVEAWAYS we are soon having featuring She's Unique and Red Barn Mercantile

She's Unique + Rock Yo Rizos

When I got word that the BFF and Jess Hoy were working on kicking off the first ever Blogger Crawl event here in Old Town, I was ecstatic. Naturally, I've always been a huge fan of small businesses partnering up with local bloggers (I just so happen to be on both sides and understand the importance of these type of collaborations) and this was a perfect opportunity to bring both sides together in a beautiful fashion. Our blogger ambassador for the evening was the lovely Mel of Rock Yo Rizos. Mel and I met when she stopped by the shop this summer - we instantly connected on our love of fashion, jewelry, and curly hair. I absolutely love Mel's style and the beautiful aura she brings with her when she walks into the room -- I mean let's talk about that incredible hair and smile! She loved the look and philosophy of our shop as well as the product we offer to our customers - dainty, wearable, trendy jewelry. Our partnership for the event, and the outcome of the evening only solidified what I already knew, both of our brands together are a match made in heaven. I can't wait to collaborate with Mel again in the future and I hope you enjoy this little glimpse into our evening through the mini guide!

SCDC Lookbooks: Urban Picnic

Today is an exciting day for us at SCDC! We are so thrilled to finally share with you our first mini lookbook of a series of lookbooks that we will be releasing this year featuring some of our favorite things!

As most of you know, Spicy Candy DC started as a personal style blog. Like most style bloggers, we worked hard to take photos every week so that we could share with you our greatest finds, places we loved visiting, and our favorite looks. But after doing this for four+ long years, we decided to retire our style blogging career and add to our blog a bigger variety of topics we are currently passionate about aka present day SCDC Lifestyle Blog! We do however miss sharing our favorite looks with you since that is truly what makes up our blog's DNA + we realized you miss that too :) So we're switching things up a bit this summer. Instead of the daily or weekly style posts we are no longer able to fit into our schedules, we'll share with you what we are loving on a monthly basis. Yes this means fewer outfit posts of course, but instead we're taking it up a notch. These monthly posts will be visually presented as mini lookbooks with better photos, brands we truly love and want to share with you, as well as collaborations with other DC bloggers and more exciting content.

For our first project we partnered up with two fabulous DC bloggers, Julien and Jessica, and one of our all time favorite brands, Free People!

Jessica of Adventures of The Repatriate, who also happens to have one of the most amazing food and travel blogs in the DC area, did a fabulous job showing us how to prep an urban style picnic. We discovered there are three important elements to a beautiful picnic: 1. A great location - for this one Jessica chose the Netherlands Carillon which had an amazing open space and perfect views of DC monuments; 2. A delicious picnic style menu - visit her blog for details on those incredible muffins and all the rest of the deliciousness we munched on that morning; 3. The set up - believe us when we say that pillows and big blankets really make a difference at a picnic where relaxation is the number one goal!

We are also beyond excited to have found Julien who did such an amazing job with our photos and the lookbook layout design. Working with Julien is incredibly easy, fun, and just overall amazing so definitely expect to see more of this beautiful and talented lady on our blog, we have unofficially made her our lookbook photographer :)

And of course, let's not forget about the fashion. We couldn't have asked for a better brand to partner up with than Free People for our urban picnic. I don't know about you all but when we think easy, breezy outdoor fun, Free People automatically comes to mind. We felt like two silly girls running around in our flowy dresses that morning. Free People clothes are pure perfection when it comes to style, comfort, and quality. Needless to say we'll be rocking these dresses more than on one occasion this summer! To finish off our looks, we layered up on She's Unique jewels and threw on our favorite accessories … and voilà there you have your perfect picnic look!

We hope you enjoy this series and are happy to see us back in front of the camera.

Shop this Lookbook

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FREE PEOPLE

FREE PEOPLE

FREE PEOPLE

FREE PEOPLE

FREE PEOPLE

FREE PEOPLE

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Events: She's Unique Carnival Hosted by Natalie of TFB

I had the pleasure of attending the first She's Unique Carnival Hosted by Natalie of The Fashionably Broke and I am so glad I made (the surprisingly short) drive to Old Town.

We arrived to be greeted by these two fabulous ladies!!! Store owner Katya and Host Natalie were ready for a fun night of styling and shopping with the ladies (and a few gents) that joined us throughout the night!

How can you resist all this fabulous!!

One of my favorite part of She's Unique (other than of course all the great jewelry...) is the decor!! It is so cute and perfectly styled, it makes you feel like you're shopping in your best friends closet!!

Everything about the store, including the staff, is fabulous. There was shopping, and drinking, and shopping, and pop rock snacking and more shopping!!! And of course there was Instagraming!

Jewelry styling!

It was a great night out with a wonderful group of old and new friends!!

Why the price tag at my neck you ask? Well because Natalie suggested I turn around the beautiful piece and I couldn't take it off again!!! Can't wait to get mine with my shiny new crystal!

It was a great night and we hope to see you in She's Unique soon to get your own pieces!! But hurry cause part of the unique quality is that there are only a few of each!

She's Unique Turns 2

This past Sunday I had a total blast celebrating BFF's boutique - She's Unique - 2nd year anniversary!  Katya and I had so much fun planning this event together. We both knew that we wanted to serve mimosas so we decided to spice things up with a mimosa bar that included a mix of juices like guava and passion fruit + berries for garnish. We also served small brunch bites all made from scratch thanks to our food/entertaining contributor and good friend Jessica. For the small details, Katya found vintage champagne glasses from a local thrift store and we did lots of DIYs like the chalk board frames, photo props, and gift name tags.

All of the guests enjoyed an afternoon of sipping, shopping and also playing with fun photobooth props (as shown in the above photo). We are very thankful to everyone who celebrated this special day! We can't wait to plan more fun gatherings like this one in the near future!

Katya's stylish Mom Sibila helping Natalie who we now officially call She's Unique Ambassador :)

Happy Birthday once again SHE'S UNIQUE!! Cheers to many more years of beautiful success!

All Photos by Julien of It's Julien and Rosa of Rosa Loves