Gone Dotty.

All J. Crew, except the sunglasses which I got at Faces. I try not to wear an outfit from entirely the same place but, well, it happens.

I've been waiting ages to post this dress! Honestly, I've been waiting a while to wear it at all, and I had quite a different plant worked out for how to wear it (there were even more polka-dots involved originally) but it's nearing 90 degrees these days and most of the extras were just too much. Anyway, I feel like this is the kind of dress that is best left alone. I didn't even wear earrings!

I got it a few weeks ago when it went on sale, on a day when Jen was also in the store and we had a nice, quick little visit! I'm only just this moment remembering that this was the day I picked up the scarf as well, so I suppose they're meant to be worn together. It was a pretty exciting day!

I loved the dress, but it's seemed a bit long, especially to wear with flats. My mom hemmed it up just an inch or two a few days ago, and it made all the difference in the world. I still feel a little bit puffy and cupcake-y in it, the waist hits in a strange place so I think it looks a bit like a child's dress, but there was no way I could leave it behind! I suspect it'll be making a few appearances this summer, with different belts and other patterns, but somehow I like the first wear to be, in a phrase of immense pretension, about the essence of the dress.

 

I've been second-guessing myself a lot these days about my outfits. Suddenly I'm concerned with standing out and seeming too over-done. I feel a bit exposed these days, but maybe I'm just raw from big changes and break-ups. Red with black and white seemed a bit obvious here, but I just couldn't think of anything else I wanted to wear! It's the shoes really. I tried other ones, strappy and flat, other colors, but nothing really worked quite the way these persimmon colored kicks did. I suppose I'll just have to keep going with it until something else springs to mind!

Late Bloomer.

I always feel, when it has been a long time since an outfit post, that I should come up with something spectacular for it when I do finally post one. Then I put it off and off because I'm not in the mood to dress up that day, or it's raining, too windy, or I just don't feel quite right in the kind of outfit I had hoped to post next. After that it's just awkward. 

I've been living on the edge and rocking a frizzy-curled side pony for the past few days. Things were starting to feel a little too horsey with a centered one day after day.

I got this little jacket in an antique store while on vacation last summer (along with a dress I have yet to alter so it will fit). It must have had a matching dress that has long since gone missing. I probably wouldn't have ever worn them together anyway, but in my imagination it's the most perfect dress of all time. I missed most of the flowering trees this spring, staying inside from pollen-colds and heartbreak, but dresses and things with blooms will do for the next best thing.

Dress: H&M circa 2011, Jacket: Vintage, Bag: Vintage, Shoes: Anthropologie 2010ish, Pin: Vintage, Glasses: Random gift shop

I'm still on a mission to find a vintage version of this dress. Several perfect ones have popped up on etsy recently, but most of them are just tip-toeing out of my price range. this one is just fine for the moment, although the lining keeps doing this weird thing where it decides it is a good idea to be longer than the lace. Someday I'll hem it a bit so this problem is alleviated, but you've seen my mending pile so who knows when that fix will happen. 

The Mending Pile.

I tried to muddle up the bother to get dressed in something exciting today, but everything I want to wear calls for pools of sunlight and we've got very little of that at the moment. It's really the kind of day for staying inside and doing practical things, like laundry and dusting. Or, struck but a sudden bolt of productivity, for attacking the mending pile.

Everyone's got one, but I think if you tend to shop thrift or vintage it's usually larger than the average. I can't leave anything behind, I feel bad for it, so I've ended up with a funny pile of sweaters and skirts with more holes than should probably be acceptable. I always think I'll fix them soon, and then don't. There's a blouse I own that has a tear in the back for years that I've never fixed. It's quite a big one too, but I've found ways around the hole by throwing a sweater or dress on over the thing. 

My pile is a mixture of damaged goods (that were both acquired that way or torn through my own hard-on-my-clothes way of life) and things that need to be altered. I've finally started hemming on my own, but for the more complicated and difficult items my mother works her magic. These are just a few items, my favorites I suppose, the things I keep wanting to wear before I remember I can't. The whole pile is an overflowing laundry basket kept hidden in my closet.

The polka dot and blue floral dresses up there need to be taken in, while the pink striped one has a large tear near the zipper (it doesn't exactly fit, but I can get it on and it looks acceptable). Downstairs there is a dress hanging on a door that needs to be hemmed in a more complicated way than I'm equipped to do, and another not pictured that I bought with an unfinished hem two years ago not realizing it was also more of a complicated job than I anticipated.

This little lace vest is one of my favorite to-mend items. I got it during a thrifting trip with Jess that we have yet to top (you know that thing where you piqued one week and since then it's never quite lived up to that day? We're struggling with that) over the winter and have been thinking of ways to wear it ever since. The lace has a hole in it at the back, but thankfully that's an easy fix if I ever get around to it. I've been good with this one and not worn it for fear or tearing it more. 

I still call this my favorite slip even though I haven't worn it in about 5 years. It's stupid really, because it's the easiest of fixes and yet there it sits, blue flowers languishing. 

This dress (nightgown, thing) from last summer isn't torn anywhere, but I spilled tea on it and now it's got to be removed or dyed with more tea to hide it. In the meantime, until I get to it, I've hung it on my wall along with my Lawrence initial kechain that I've been wearing as a necklace. 

Today I'll do it. Some of it, the easiest bits. The laundry will stay on the floor (floordrobe) and there are teacups everywhere, but mending is a much more rewarding chore for the moment.

Sponsor all this happiness!

Brought to you by Minnow being a creeper-cat in a window.

Hello everyone! all this happiness is now accepting sponsors! I've dipped a toe in for the last two months, but seeing as this is the last day of April it seemed appropriate to make a quick post about it! 

You can check out some details here, but as this is cutting it pretty close to the beginning of the month I will be offering slightly discounted rates for the month of May. 

You can help me do responsible things like still being able to make my car payment while working a few less shifts during the week so I can do some honest-to-goodness blogging! I'd love to work with shops, other blogs, or just about anything that fits into my little corner of the web here!

Please e-mail me at allthishappiness@gmail.com for rate information this month if you're interested!

April Sponsor: jessjamesjake vintage shop on etsy

jessjamesjake on etsy has been popping up around here before, and I'm pretty pleased to wander through Jess's shop (well, wander through in the virtual sense) to showcase some of my favorite things she has in there at the moment! I whittled it down to six because originally I had so many tabs open for all the things I want (pins! so many pins!) that my computer started making airplane noises.

antique bisque doll// polka dot dress

50s basket purse// 1950s tangerine day dress

eyelet blouse// cuddling kitten brooch

I just had to get a pin in there, and this one has cats on it! The stuff in this shop is always beautiful and exciting, and I regularly have to keep myself from skulking around the things that have already sold because I just get sad about the things I missed.

Don't forget, as today is the last day of April (when did that happen?) readers can still use the coupon AllThisHappiness25 until midnight tonight for 25% off the entire shop!

Big Hair.

Today I feel almost human, and while I didn't originally have any particularly grand plans for my hair, once I saw this little thingy on the New York Times website I thought yes, that is just the thing! I slapped on some eyeliner to distract from the fact I'm wearing pants that are really glorified leggings (they're more like riding pants but I'm trying not to kid myself that I'm not pissing someone off while wearing them in public).

I went outside for about 2 hours and got all windswept and bedraggled, so this is what's left of the hair-do. It's held up nicely, although you can see my accursed bangs refuse to have any part in being team players and try to separate from the rest. I clamped them down with a headband.

 I suspect this is one of those hair-dos that looks really spectacular on blonde hair, or at least photographs better, but I might be doing this sort of thing when I have a serious case of third-day hair and need to throw it up for work in the morning.

Minnow heard the camera and ventured out from her laundry-bed, so of course I scooped her up.

But she isn't really a fan of being picked up, and the noise of the shutter is something horrible to her, so she staged a protest.

The upside is that the pictures with her show off the hair best, so now I can chronicle that along with even more evidence that I hang out with this cat more than people. 

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.