Bits and Bobs.

I'm terribly fickle when it comes to the weather. For a long time I tried very hard not to complain about the current season because I knew that when the winds changed I'd be just as miserable about that, and you can't do anything about it anyway so there is little use in even talking about it. But I can't help myself. Spring is difficult because I am allergic to a lot of things bursting with pollen, and so while I'm overjoyed at the green and lace-topped trees, I'm also busy blowing my nose and nursing a(nother) sinus infection. 

But I don't want to neglect this blog too much, so I thought I'd do a teeny little post about some small things I've accumulated recently.

It's all bizarrely girly. I'm really into pink and frills these days, I've a World is a Cupcake kind of mind going on I guess.

-Lace blouse. I've been thinking about buying this thing for months but I kept finding other dresses or blouses that were slightly more amazing at my favorite haunt for vintage. There are usually several items that I have in the back of my mind, and if they're still there on a trip where I don't find anything else, I scoop them up. Sometimes it doesn't work out and I'm destitute about all the outfits that could have been. This one worked out.

-The Beehive 'Alice Blue' perfume. I've been on a perfume kick lately. This is one of three I've been wearing lately. I might have bought it for the package (although really, there was another one that had a pattern on the box I liked more but it didn't smell as nice as this one).

-FrouFrous. I don't know if these are really called that, but when I was little my mom used to make me little hair thingies with netting flowers and glitter on them, so for me that's the name. These are from J. Crew and normally I'd feel stupid about forking over my hard earned cash for something I could probably make but I know I won't. I like to wear them at work when everything else I'm wearing is covered in egg white or flour to feel a little nice.

-Heart sunglasses. I know, they're super twee. But I was under the influence of a girl-date with some of my favorite ladies, and we were all three decked out in floral pastels, and it just happened. I'm okay with this, even if they are a bit typical and expected at this point.

-Bobbi Brown lipstick in 'Mod Pink'. I went in for a different color and found that one to be far too orange for me. I can't resist a good pink, and while I normally reach for NARS 'Niagara' for my every-day lipstick, I was in the mood for something a little bit different, and this one fit the bill.

For good measure, here is a little fish for your evening:

She totally puked on everything this morning, because cats will puke on all the nice things you own, but we still love her. I've taken to running around the house 'going fishing' to find her, or just calling her 'little fish little fish!' which might be sort of insulting for her, but I'm okay with that.

Little Bunny Foo Foo.

Easter Sunday is great because it means you get a new dress and wear as many pastel colors as possible and everyone just thinks you're being festive instead of ostentatious.

Dress: Custard Heart Vintage, Jacket: Vintage, Bag: Vintage, Shoes: Thrifted, Tights: J. Crew, Hair flower: J. Crew

I expect you'll be seeing more of this funny little jacket in the coming weeks, it's one of the few in my collection (I don't know, I keep buying cropped jackets in vintage stores that clearly once belonged to a set from which the dress is long since separated, thinking I'll wear them with everything and then I wear them never or hardly ever) that I can picture with at least two other dresses. It's made of a scratchy material that makes a really horrendous noise but look at the funny sleeves! And the print has hot pink in it, and impressionistic flowers!

My favorite thing about this whole Easter-egg ensemble though, is this shoes. The heel is scalloped and they actually, in a miracle of the kind I have not witnessed in an age, fit my ridiculous feet. Also they were twenty-five cents. I can barely conceive of it! I have that feeling where I want to wear them with every outfit, but I'm afraid of wearing them to smithereens. 

Happy Spring!

Ford, I think I'm a Sofa.

I have this feeling lately (which when I say it means more today and yesterday, maybe some days before but I can't be certain, everything is so long and stretching these days) that I want to wear as many patterns as possible. It's not that I want things to clash, but I want them to be pleasingly off-kilter. There are days I have a specific thought of what I want to dress like, and today I thought, yes, I would like too dress like furniture. A sofa, if possible, with a ridiculous pattern, mostly inspired by this coat from Bohemian Bisoux

Coat: Bohemian Bisoux, Pants: J. Crew, Blouse: J. Crew Fall 2011, Shoes: Nine West circa 2008, Bag: Aldo Summer 2011, Pin: Vintage birthday gift 

I had little to no interest in these pants until I thought about them with the coat. I might have actually thought the print hideous at one point (when I saw it on a skirt) but suddenly, as skinny cropped pants, it's exactly what I was missing. How could I not have realized it combines my favorite shade of ugly green with a little bit of purple, a combination I can hardly ever resist?

 My heels kept poking the little discs through the stairs and I almost perished for teetering!

It's funny how things work out wardrobe-wise. I always figure I ought to buy what I like, within reason (well, sort of), and eventually it will all go together in a way. It's not the easiest way to shop and build a wardrobe and so there are days when I think geez, if only I had been a bit more practical about the whole thing it would be much easier to get dressed.

Somehow it works out. This poor pin doesn't get worn as often as I should, mostly because it's quite huge and heavy, but the coat has a large enough collar that it now has a nice little home. After a while, things just start to fit together, even if some things have fallen apart.

Thanks to my mom for snapping these pictures!

Floppy Bow Headscarf Tutorial (kind of).

I've gotten quite a lot of questions about and requests for a tutorial on how I tied my scarf in this post. I got out of work early today for good behavior and decided to try and throw something together in under half an hour (the time constraint is so that I will go do things like fold my laundry).

I wear this fairly often, since I have to keep my hair pulled back at work. I'm usually just wearing jeans and a tee shirt, so I like to have something pretty on my head to make me feel a little less dressed-down. Plus the risk of getting egg white or butter cream on my scarf if it's on my head is minimal (though it has happened).

You will need:

A scarf (I prefer very thin silk or chiffon ones, as the bow is nice and floppy).

Some bobby pins (sometimes I don't need any, but you never know).

A hair elastic.

My hair is usually lightly curled (it's naturally pin-straight) and I find that helps keep it manageable. It's also nice to have the ends curled so that if they fall out or stick out it just looks romantic and wispy and on purpose.

Step one: Grab two sections of hair on either side of your head. A fistful is plenty. Keep these bits in front of your shoulders and away from the largest, back, section.

Step two: Situate the scarf (if it is a square you'll want to fold it into a triangle and then over itself so it's only an few inches wide) underneath this large section so that the ends of it come out between it and the two front sections.

Step three: Wrap the scarf around your head and tie in a bow. I normally slide it over to one side (I like the bow on the same side as my bangs). Once you have the bow in place you can arrange it nicely, pulling it out so that it's fluffy and moving it as you need. I have bangs so I try to keep those tucked behind the scarf while I tie it.

Step four: This isn't a step, it's just what things should look like at this point. This is not complicated so I feel sort of silly making a whole thing of it, but there you go. You could leave it like this with your hair down, but my ears stick out on the sides and it bothers me (that's why you keep the two sections of hair out at the start--you use them to cover up your ears).

Step five: Pull all the hair, the two front sections and the back, into a low, messy ponytail-bun kind of thing. I like to keep it quite loose. 

Step six: If necessary, pin here and there. I usually have to pin the front bits that hang down a little up a bit. I pin them to the scarf, and that helps the whole thing stay in place.

So there you go! Easy as pie! Possible this whole post wasn't necessary, but people asked, and pictures are much easier than trying to explain it all! I've done something similar with a higher top-knot type hairstyle, but the scarf often slides off. With this one the hair sections in the front keep it from popping off your head.

jessjamesjake Giveaway Winner!

Thank you to everyone who participated in the giveaway this past week, and of course, a big thanks to Jess of jessjamesjake for the gift certificate and pin!

The winner is Marisa Violeta at Green Grass Black Clouds! Congratulations!

In her entry she liked this 1960s blazer:

Nautical Blazer by jessjamesjake on etsy

For everyone who entered please feel free to use the coupon code  "allthishappiness25"  for 25% off at jessjamesjake on etsy running through the end of April. Jess updates the shop frequently, so keep checking in (I kind of stalk her listings and then get depressed over the thing that I missed that is now sold, which is the worst thing a person can do on Etsy) because things move fast over there!

Thanks again to everyone who entered, and of course to Jess!

Once it was Warm.

It's been a while since a real post--hopefully I'll get back into it soon, I'm afraid March was not a great month for me, so for now I'll post a slightly older outfit until I'm feeling more myself!

Remember when it was eight degrees out? That was weird. During a normal early spring I would be perfectly happy with these current somewhere-in-the-fifties temperatures we've got going on, but now my frame of reference for warm weather is all off. I keep running around with bare legs or no socks, my toes freezing by the afternoon.

Dress: Vintage from jessjamesjake, Shoes: Chelsea Crew, Bag: Aldo circa summer 2011, Belt: J. Crew circa 2009, Glasses: H&M 2011

These are from one of those warm days, two weeks ago now, when I couldn't wait to wear a new dress out and about. Ages ago, in middle school I think, I had a sailor tunic type thing that I loved but never wore. I've still got a soft spot for anything sailor-esque, especially vintage, although most of the 60s and earlier dresses that I love are often way out of my price range. I find most of the dresses from the 80s and 90s have collars that are so large all I can do all day is imagine Flying Nuns.

This one is perfect though. It's been sitting in the closet again now that it's chilly, but I'm pretty sure I'll be wearing it all summer.

Pictures taken by Jess.

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!