I've Made a Huge Mistake

Three gorgeous Anthro skirts showed up at my door today. Not seeing the problem? Well, my plan was to try on the three skirts (all on sale! Amazing!) and to send back at least two. I'd just pick my favorite and take the other two to the Nashville store.

Of course, you know the rest. Go ahead and say it with me: I can't decide.

Who could? So I'm putting the question to you, genius readers. I know you can help me in my time of need. Please please please leave an opinionated comment below! I'm hoping to take the others back on Saturday, so let me know what you think soon, please.

SO I was inspired to look for a pretty, full skirt this summer by a recent Ruche lookbook (unfortunately, the very tempting skirt is now sold out.) and this outfit from it:

I couldn't stand it. SO PRETTY. So I began my search. Here are the pieces I'm choosing from:

1. Picked Plaid skirt

      

2. Inkwell Skirt





    

3. Wallflower Skirt

     

    

Wow. If you have made it through all the zoom-in/zoom-out size changes with me, you really are a wonderful reader. But now I must call on you for a verdict. I need to keep only one of these lovelies in my closet - which do you think?

Note: I swear to you, I absolutely did NOT stick my butt out while taking the last picture of the inkwell skirt. Between the exact locations of the stripes and the fluff of the skirt, I didn't have a chance. Okay, okay, I really just have a great, big booty.  Please vote!

That Was Then, This is Now

Weird title? Perhaps. The point is, I have pictures of some crafts I recently finished (and sent off!) and a project I would like to start. First, the finished.

Pacifier clip: inspired by Disney. Burp cloths: inspired by Jill. (I also made a tie shirt, idea straight from Emily.) Hobo Bag: the perfect way to wrap it all up - the tutorial by Dana is great. Yay crafty bloggers for figuring out and explaining to me how to make great gifts for all my baby-makin' friends!!

Shirt: $1 Thrifted Banana. Skirt: $10 H&M. Birks: $40-ish.

I have had this skirt for  several years now, and it has only recently occurred to me that my wide-hipped shape is not particularly conducive to a low-slung a-line jersey skirt. BUT THEN I had this idea. What if it were a high-waisted skirt? So I hike the thing up, and suddenly it fulfills all my dreams to dress more like Rachel from Glee. (Total fashion icon. I love watching her clothes!) This is maybe my most comfortable outfit ever.

So that's the craft-to-come. I need to take it in, but I'm not sure how to do it exactly . . . on the side seams? I guess that's the only way to do it without creating a random seams in the middle back or screwing up the stripes. Get pumped for when you can see this outfit, but without the safety pin (as shown above) holding it in place!

Summer Skin

Okay, I don't have pictures yet. But I recently purchased this suit:

from ModCloth. And I haven't tried it out yet, but from trying it on, I could not be more pumped! It fits beautifully, and the coverage is such that I will feel comfortable updating this post (soon, I hope) with actual pictures of me in it! I love this suit. Love love love it.

Legs

You can see mine!

Scarf: $10 TJ Maxx, Shirt: $8 Old Navy, Skirt: $12 thrifted The Limited, Sandals: $10 Payless.

I loved wearing this outfit - the shirt and skirt are very comfortable, and the shoes are old and easy to wear. The only thing about it is the scarf. Extended exposure to Unusual Form has made me interested in owning a nice collection of silk scarves, so I recently purchased two. This is the smaller of the two, just folded in half triangle-wise and tied behind my neck. Do I look like a bandit to you? I'm sure there's a better way to wear this thing, but I realized as soon as I owned it that I had no idea how.  : P

Dress: $30 White House Black Market via Half of Half Store. Necklace: Mom's. Belt: $1 Thrifted. Shoes: $full retail Naturalizer.

There are bloggers who post the purchase prices of each of their outfit pieces in each post. I have long since been jealous of this, and I think doing so might help me recognize the value (not just monetary savings) of buying preowned and discounted items. And so I'm trying to get into it. There are still plenty of pieces of which I don't remember the cost, so you'll have to be patient with me, but I'm going to try.

Here's to affordable wardrobe choices!

This and That

A couple of outfits here. Blame it on my urge for efficiency and on the outfits not really being worthy of an entire post individually.

UO headband, Loft sweater and necklace and cords.

Wow. I love each of those pieces, but seriously. My shoes and headband were the only outwardly-visible clothing I had on that wasn't from Loft. That's a little embarrassing.

Necklace: Loft. Jacket: Kohl's. Vest: Urban Outfitters. Shirt: thrifted and altered J. Crew. Pants: Loft. Shoes: Call it Spring via Zappos.

Yes, I really wore this. I know, you can't take your eyes off how short the pants are. I can't, either. I actually love these pants - they couldn't be more comfortable. But they are extremely short. I'll have to address that soon. (I promise it's not as awful-looking when I'm not wearing black socks and shoes.) Nothing like highlighting your shortcomings!

BUT I really do like the top half of this outfit. I love the vest with the shirt, I like the necklace with both, and even the jacket. Hope you do, too!  

Oh, also, this is that J. Crew turtleneck that I thrifted and then cut its neck off. Fortunately, the photos aren't close enough to show you how lettucey the neckline is. But I still like the shirt. Hopefully I will find a way to deal with the exact finish of the neckline, but until then, I'll just disguise it by pairing it nicely.

Take care, all!

In Stitches

Welcome to an altered outfit!

Not 100%, but mostly. Check it.

Remember this skirt? I finally have pictures of its chopped state! (Don't worry, this one is 100% altered, now it's just me getting pictures up.) It looks SO much better. Honestly, I think I like the way it looks in the pinned-up pictures even better than the way it looks now, but I don't think I was at all really up for creating a bubble skirt. And I do like this one!

And the shirt is new, basically for EBEW's awesome floral day! Also it was cheap and cute and I think it may be my favorite piece of this spring. Its issue was that it has a zipper up the back (could do without, but it's fine.) and if I moved even a little, it pulled open. Not okay. So I sewed a hook-and-eye at the top to keep apparently enormous shoulders and back inside. I had a back view to show you the zipper, but it just looked like I wasn't paying attention to my camera. I didn't really keep a good show-off-the-shoes pic, but I'm wearing my pink flats. Happy!

Jacket: $7 with coupon, Kohl's. Shirt: $7.50, Target. Skirt: $1, thrifted. Shoes: Probably $20, SE Boutique.

Yay for outfits cheap enough to be worth (hah!) listing the thriftiness!

I decided to combine two necklaces before heading out the door - pink and pearls? How girly am I? Sheesh. But with the military jacket, I say this JUST MIGHT be unexpected and maybe awesome. (I didn't participate because obviously I'm way too late. But what a cool idea, Brittney!)

Okay, folks, my blog is officially in Spring now. (Which is good because it's 90 degrees here.) I hope your clothes are helping you get in the spirit as much as mine are!

Proud to be an American

Somehow when I woke up this morning, nothing seemed appropriate but red, white, and blue.

I wore this shirt untucked at first - a mistake I realized and corrected after one picture. Too bad that was after my whole day.

I LOVE this skirt. It's basically a tailored pencil skirt at JUST the right length, but made out of the material of sweatpants. I want to wear it every day, except it does this ugly bunchy thing on the front of me. *sigh*

I took this to show you my red earrings (thanks, mom!) but posted it to show you how brooding I can accidentally look.

Aaaaand the day I publish my cookbook (I will finally reveal my fantastic secret for toast, and all the recipes I stole from friends and Real Simple. All will buy.) this will be the author picture in the back. How cheesy am I? (Very. But it's okay, cheese will be a very important component of my cookbook.)

If you are interested in this outfit, I don't think any of it is still for sale anywhere, but shirt and skirt came from NY&Co. The shoes are Classified, also several years old, and the earrings were Mom's. 

Storytime: These shoes were pretty uncomfortable when I first purchased them, maybe three years ago. I had just about given up on them when, maybe last week, I forced myself to wear them again - no idea why. But this time, they really didn't hurt! Not even one blister! I have no idea why it took these shoes dozens of wears to cross that break-in threshold, but I am glad they finally got with the program. I hate working through that, but am so glad these shoes weren't just a waste of a perfectly good $15.

I hope all is well with you, reader(s)! Take care.