Sponsor Giveaway: Win a 50$ Gift Certificate to jessjamesjake!

I'm thrilled today to post about another of my March sponsors, jessjamesjake! It's kind of hilarious that after secretly eyeballing lots of the things in her shop, Jess and I finally realized that we live not far from each other at all! Since then she has been a wonderful lunch date, taking my outfit pictures when needed (stay tuned this week for another post with pictures taken by Jess), a thrifting partner, and a really wonderful supporter of my funny little blog here!

So this month, Jess and I have partnered to offer you lovely readers a 50$ gift certificate to her shop!

And then, this little guy will also find a home with the lucky winner:

Oh my goodness, look at him! I can't deal with it.

"I picked him especially for your lovely readers, assuming they also love cats and pins!! He's in overalls. Overalls! He's a copper-toned metal cat pin, circa 1960s - 70s, with a simple pin back and teeny-tiny shape. He's just over a 1/2 inch long and probably one of the cutest little kittens in town (aside from Minnow, of course). He'll ship with the winner's order, whenever she redeems her gift certificate."

To enter, visit jessjamesjake on etsy and leave a comment linking the item(s) you would choose if you won the gift certificate!

For additional entries follow Jess on...

the blog

twitter

facebook

Please leave separate comments letting us know if you do, for a total of four entries!

The giveaway will be open until Saturday night (March 31st) at midnight.
Winner will be chosen via random number generator and will be announced on April 1st.

Open to international readers as well!

Good luck everyone!

The Ballerinas.

This weather is bizarre. It's hot, like, summer hot all blazing sun and iced tea, but without the benefit of leaves on trees. They're getting hazy with buds so soon enough we'll have flora (I've been stalking the pollen counts). 

Dress: J. Crew, Shoes: Anthropologie circa 2009, Scarf: Vintage, Pins: Bohemian Bisoux

The upside of it all is I've been wearing the summer things that otherwise would be waiting for real live summer. I didn't love this dress the first time I saw it, although something about it made me keep looking. It's not the color--bordering on neon though it is--but something about the waist or shape of it. I tried it on and loved it for it's being prim and neat. 

After the dress everything else fell into place. The pins needed to go with the scarf, because the little ballerinas on each match just too perfectly, and the yellows seemed right together. I can't be a ballerina, but I can live vicariously though pins and scarves!

Two summers ago I wore my hair like this a lot. I'm not sure why I stopped, since I still wear scarves on my head with alarming frequency, but usually I pin them to my hair until it won't budge. I think I just forgot about this method, where I pull the hair over the scarf so that it hides my ears (I hate when they stick out) and does that loose-romantic thing that make up-dos less proper. I'm quite pleased to have rediscovered it.

Even if I did decide to take my outfit pictures in the windiest spot in the city.

The scarf is still one of my favorite finds of all time. I think it was about 8$, and I think I uh, got it for my mother as a gift and then it (as several things have done) ended up in my scarf drawer instead. It's really just a pooling of scarf resources.

March Sponsor: poshlocket and Shorts.

It's close to eighty degrees out today. I don't know what's going on, but I'm okay with that. Soon we'll have bud-hazy trees, allergies to accompany them, and the glorious sight of leaves. I've never missed leaves so much in my life!

Shorts: H&M, Shirt: Forever21 circa 2010, Shoes: J. Crew, Earrings: Posh Locket Hampton Drop Earrings, Belt: J. Crew

Just in time for said weather, I bought some new shorts. I have mixed feelings about shorts. I want to love them, wear them, run around and get things accomplished in them, but I just feel so exposed. And these are quite short, and I don't have tiny legs. But then, when I saw them sitting in the store, I thought there, those shorts, that print, they are just what I need.

You may have noticed that this month I've dipped a toe into the world of sponsors (over on the right-hand side over there), and one of these first partners is poshlocket. I'd been waiting for just the right outfit to debut a pair of earrings they sent along a week or so ago, but they just seemed so summery, and try as I might I just looked out of place in a summer outfit while it was still hovering around the 50 degrees mark.

Until today. 

Hampton Drop Earrings

I used to wear earrings all the time. I used to wear big, loud, obnoxious earrings until somehow I stopped, and I've missed them. I don't feel like being quite as loud with them as I used to be, so these are pretty much the perfect little thing. They're larger than I usually wear, but something said do it, they called to me. That's how I end up with a closet-full of bizarre things, but these have integrated well. 

And really, they go just so perfectly with the shorts, that the latter had to be mine. So I supposed that's how I ended up with an outfit centered around a pair of earrings.

I'm having a seriously difficult time taking my own pictures. Least favorite activity.

Hello, Minnow!

Sometimes I meet people out in the world who know me from this little blog (or twitter, or tumblr) and after a few moments of conversation, this new person is usually shocked to learn that no, I don't actually have a cat. I did, but as these things go we have been without her for a while now. That didn't stop me from making friend with every cat I've seen since, taking pictures of cats in windows, planning my walk to work so I could run into the usual suspects on their steps, wearing cat clothing, watching cat videos, and all the rest. 

But last week we brought home this little lady! I'd visited this particular shelter several times, mostly just to visit the cats and look, and I'd had my heart set about a year ago on a kitty (who has since been adopted of course) and had a little bit of a feeling that I'd want one like her. 

But then this gal was the first one I was drawn to, with her gigantic green eyes, sitting straight up in her little cage. I deliberated for a little while, wanting to give most of the cats their chance, but in the end she's the one we took home. 

She's much more active than our last cat, constantly in motion except when she's sleeping, and refuses to be in a room by herself. She'll follow you around room to room, although isn't too fond of being picked up, and sleeps under the covers. She sits and walks kind of funny, her legs sort of splayed out a bit like a ballerina or, less gracefully, like a penguin.

Naming was hard, as usual. The last cat we had didn't really ever get a proper name. We just called her several things, the main one being Baby, so this time I spent a good amount brainstorming things to call her. It's hard, everything seems either too twee, or prim, or too lady-like for her. At first I thought I'd name her 'Cake' because it seemed like it sort of fit, but after a few days it just didn't really seem to be working.

At the moment we've landed on 'Minnow' because I liked the sound of most names starting with M, and the word is fun to say or sing-song, with a nice kind of weird, slanted symmetry. We'll see if it sticks!