Do you remember this post? The infamous “tights” post where I was fawning over Kate Spade dresses? Well guess what? Kate Spade is a little closer to the Budget Retro price range. Hip-hip hooray! Currently on the site you can log-in for the sample sale–which is about 75% of regular prices, making it worth the investment to me.
I don’t really want to buy a dress that I can’t wear right now, but I LOVE this sweater and red never goes out of style. Shipping is also discounted to $5. So hurry, hurry, hurry and go buy beautiful dresses ladies!
p.s. To the two beautiful Jen’s at work who are looking for wedding shoes–I saw some lovely ones on the sale page.
Today is my 100th post! How fun. I feel so lame, I didn’t even prepare anything special. All I can think about these last few days is spring and my longing for warmer weather and sunshine. I don’t even need it to be hat, I just want a little sunshine!
I saw these shoes in Lucky Magazine this month (that photo was better too…), but I was hard pressed to find them available anywhere. They are part of the Cynthia Rowley line for Roxy. I will say, for the most part, I feel a little old to be rockin’ Roxy clothes, but these shoes scream warm weather and happy times. No matter how round my body gets this summer, I am hoping that my feet can still have fun and look cute!
I must preface this post by saying that I love high design. I love thoughtful, functional and hand-crafted items. I appreciate quality things that are made to last and span lifetimes. I also realize that, against my best efforts, I am middle class. Being middle class, especially living in large cities, you have to learn to balance all of your luxury wants with practical needs. For instance I love gastro-pubs and fancy food, but my practical need is that I really just need to eat food. I really love expensive shoes that are made to perfectly fit your foot, but I just need shoes that won’t fall apart and look moderately presentable. This realization kinda of stinks, no?
Well, I had another funny realization this week as I basked in my middle class glory. I had been looking for a floor lamp for our living room for a few months. Our apt lighting is harsh and gross and not what I want in my face in the late evening/early morning (the only times I am usually home.) I tried to go vintage retro, but frankly the really lovely lamps were pretty pricey and the affordable ones needed to much TLC. A gal at the vintage store said she saw similar lamps at Target, so off I went. I got a small, stainless steel floor lamp with a modern, petite lamp shade. It’s cute, but really just “okay.” The lamp only cost $40 and isn’t even featured on the site. Last night I received our CB2 catalog and found a similar, but more expensive lamp which I thought was kind of funny. I mean CB2 is kind of the poor man’s designer choice (I hope that doesn’t offend anymore–I love CB2!), so it got me wondering where this lamp really got it’s start. Just for fun I found a similar style at Design Within Reach for $500+. That is right, I can’t even afford to purchase the knock-off, I have stooped to the knock-off of the knock-off. *sigh*
p.s. Yes, the shades are different, but my shade looks more like the first one.
Sometimes in life I am just so grateful that all things are temporary. I can only tell you that my entire week, last week was trying and I really was doubtful whether or not I could actually make it through, I mean how much can one hormonal gal take? I was beyond meltdown mode. Well as it does, it got better. I had the best weekend I have had in ages. One of my besties, Jody and her husband were in visiting from NYC. It felt so good to have someone around who knows me and gets me and our husbands even seemed to like one another (not a simple feat–if you are married you will understand.)
We walked around the city and ate and just had fun. The rest of the weekend mirrored this lovely bliss, with finding our new favorite breakfast restaurant seeing a movie and getting to spend QT (quality time) with my man with no fighting (again, not a simple feat. ha!) I even got my entire apartment cleaned and all the laundry done. It was like god made this long weekend just for me.
So in honor of temporary things I am going to highlight something that my friend Jody brought to my attention over the weekend. Her and her husband have one of the few amazingly cool Brooklyn apartments that I have seen. It’s new and modern and void of any unsavory things left from previous tenants. They have been in the apt for a few years now and they were starting to get a bit bored–they wanted a change, but a change that would not cost them their security deposit. They found this amazing temporary wallpaper that they used in their kitchen which, from the pictures, really transformed the space. The paper basically works like a super-powered post-it note–you just press it and it seals, but apparently leaves no weird sticky residue. How fun? I am 100% considering this for my next apt (Matt and I have already started to look because this 2 bedroom may not be cutting it for 4 people with lots of stuff.
So here is a shot of the Tempaper in action. And a big cheerful sigh of relief from me that all things are not permanent.
Oh and it seems temporary things really are on my mind–check out my recent post for 24Savvy on FLOR modular flooring.
February, thus far, has been a pretty craptastic month. My husband got his hours cut at work, our car broke down (which resulted in us renting the stinkiest rental known to man!) and my hormones are making me cry at anything. I have had 3 food related meltdowns in the past week–I cried on Saturday night because I didn’t know what to eat and when I say cried, I mean like hysterical swollen face cry. (it’s pretty funny in hindsight, but my poor husband just looked scared!)
The future is looking brighter already; I have a long weekend ahead of me, one of my bestie’s and her husband and are going to be in town and we are one day closer to spring! Can you feel it?
I decided to just post a cute outfit that Iwould like to be wearing today. (I have wanted the shoes for months, but because my lovely friend and co-worker Renee already owns them–I refuse to be a copy-cat.)
I have a story that is just too good not to tell. I mean most of you already know that I am prone to ridiculous circumstances, right? I mean it is like bizarro scenarios just follow me around and wait for me to walk right into them. So I was back home in Ohio this last weekend visiting with the fam and my step-son, Milo. I begged my sister to go shopping with me because she has an eagle eye for deals and things that will fit me perfectly. We did some second-hand shopping and some maternity shopping looking for things to fit my in-between body. ( I found maternity tights for $8!!)
We sauntered over to the shoes because this particular store always has good vintage dead stock and quality stuff. As we were walking down the isle, I began telling my sister how the last pair of shoes that I got there had actually started to disintegrate while I was at work–it was summer and kind of hot and I had these BEAUTIFUL navy blue and white spectator heels on. I was just minding my own business sitting on a conference call when I uncrossed my leg to find half the shoe was stuck to my calf. ha! Totally gross. It was right about this time that I found a “brand new” pair of black, wedge spectators. They were in perfect condition and ready to be mine! So I swooped those little suckers up.
Let’s progress to Tuesday–The morning started with me battling my dress slacks and literally bending the metal clasps to make them fit. Then snow, so I wore my mountain boots to work. Finally I got to put on the new shoes and a new blouse and look mildly presentable. It wasn’t until about noon that thte shoes started to feel a little uncomfortable. I ignored it because I have a weird (oddly shaped) foot and shoes hurt a lot. Then I noticed that I kicked my file cabinet shut and it left huge scuffs on the door. hmmmm…. That’s weird. I invetigated and sure enough the leather felt uneven and kind of rippled from kicking (it was more like lightly pushing the cabinet shut). Next I am sitting in a meeting and look down to notice that my heel fell off the one shoe–mind you this is a wedge–how does that happen? The final straw came an hour later when I looked down under my desk to realize half the sole of the other shoe had completely fallen off. I looked around and realized there was shoe debris all over my entire cube area. How embarrassing!
I had actually thrown the shoes in the garbage when my friend Jess mentioned that I should do a post about it. Sadly I have no before pictures because I didn’t honestly think this would happen to me once let alone twice!! My sister said I jinxed myself by mentioning it while we were shopping–I think that particular shop may just store mass products in hot storage allowing lovely vintage to dry rot while maintaining it’s adorable exterior. Any theories?
The pics are from my iPhone, but should give a pretty good indication of the damage. I actually cleaned up the floor before this photo, so the remains are just a fraction of the destruction.
That is a really unoriginal title, but come on it’s 8:30 p.m. and I am choosing to post to keep you lovely ladies in the know. I just found a new (to me) site that has beautiful, Budget Retro-friendly, dresses. The shop is Conversation Pieces.
Were any of you already hip to this? If so, bring me in the loop next time–I or we collectively–almost missed out on a huge sale. The little ad is below, but basically you can purchase any 3 items for $80 with free shipping. Are you kidding me? That is a steal! But the sale ends in 29 hours!!! See, we almost missed it.
My top pick is the Ahoy, Sailor Tee. 
**UPDATE: I think the site timer was playing tricks on me–you should still have today and tomorrow to shop, but you still need to move fast because all the good stuff is getting snagged!
Lately I have been feeling the urge to accessorize again. As a young lass I took accessories a little overboard, i.e. I wore like 5 rings at all times, had 4-5 earrings in one ear and one perfectly placed little nose ring–this on top of necklaces and who knows what else. I started collecting vintage jewelery when I was probably about 11 and I have a pretty decent collection of stuff. It had all been stored away, safe and sound and just the past couple of weeks (as I have been trying make myself feel prettier) I have wanted to retrieve a few gems. One of the gems I am speaking off is my beautiful pendant watch given to me by my g-ma. It’s just nickel silver with a plain chain, but the face of the watch is so gorgeous–it has so much character and the quality would kick the butt of most modern day accessories.
That brings me to Swell Vintage and their amazing re-designed and re-purposed vintage jewelry. The proprietor of this lovely shop, Frankie, is absolutely adorable as well. I follow her on twitter (@swellvintage) and she is quite the treat. Below are two versions of her pocket watch necklaces that are a slightly larger version than mine, but just what I have been in the mood to accessorize with.
I know that you have all been dying to know how I am (kidding), but I am finally beginning to kick this cold–two weeks later–and I am returning to the world of the living. I even managed to peel myself of the sofa on Monday (three day weekends are the best thing, EVER!) and attempt a shopping trip. Feeling sicky has actually helped me to save money and conserve a bit, I have hardly done any shopping for myself in the past two months, but the Christmas gift cards were finally burning a hole in my pocket.
I set out to purchase a new winter coat to accommodate my swelling waistline–to no avail. I think I waited to long, but in reality I hadn’t even thought about it–that is until the inside liner of my coat completely ripped last week because my body was taking up more space than the coat was willing to give. ha!
Next thought was jeans–I don’t need maternity jeans right now, but maybe just a larger size? Yes, well I am 5’2 and if you start to buy too large and your legs don’t fill the other space you start looking like a really bad 90′s hip-hop video, so I aborted that search as well.
Onto the shoes–shoes always fit, right? Well now the question was “What do I NEED?” The answer was very obvious that I NEED comfy shoes to commute in and to wear on the weekends. Blah–who wants to spend money on that? I explained to my husband who has been sending me links to comfy shoes and trying his hardest to convert me, that “I’m just not that kinda girl”. I said it felt like I needed to wear a juicy couture jumpsuit with the comfy shoes–they weren’t my vibe. I also had to tell him this horrible story from my first year in NYC (apologies for my digression). I used to walk to my first job in New York, it was about 1.5 miles from my house and I was on a HORRIBLY tight budget, so it helped save money. I originally tried to make the walk in my cute shoes–bad choice, then i switched it up to my converse hi-tops and they gave me blisters on the bottom of my feet! Then my dad purchased me a pair of very white Reebok’s to walk in. They were hideous, but they were like walking on pillows of air. I could make the walk in no-time and completely pain free. The only downside to these new found pillows of air was that they looked ridiculous and I had to walk through the East Village to get home. I felt moderately dorky, but because I had very few friends it didn’t matter at the time–that is until walking home one day in my 9-5 clothes and my white Reebok’s I was spotted by an old friend I hadn’t seen in ages and asked to join them in a pub for a drink. The group looked effortlessly cool and I looked like Ugly Betty. I swore never again would I be caught looking “that” comfortable.
Fast forward “some” years and now I try to balance cute and comfortable–I wear kitty heels and flat boots and I can get away with wearing mountain boots on my winter commute (gotta love Chicago!). If I need to wear comfy shoes I usually opt for my saddle shoes or Jack Purcell’s. But the times they are a changing and to be frank, my feet hurt! After lots of painful thinking I decided to get two new pairs of shoes and both needed to fall in the “I can totally wear these all day” category. Please see my choices below and try not to point and laugh. The Pumas were the least offensive running-type shoe that I could find and I have been looking for about 8 months and the Born shoes are totally the cute t-strap that I love, but they are filled with pockets of foot love on the inside. They are like grandma orthopedic shoes, disguised as casual chic.
Thoughts? Did I do good or I am on a slippery slope to mom shoes and leaving the house in gym clothes?
It’s cold outside, the sidewalks are covered in ice and I SOMEHOW, on top of my pregnancy sickness, managed to contract the cold that stomps all other colds in the face then asks if they want more. Maybe it’s the Bubonic plague? But am I letting that hamper my day dreams of summer days wearing a cute little dress, my saddle shoes and riding my bike? The answer would be no, my day dreams are still alive and kicking even though Sherry the Schwinn is currently freezing her tires off outside on the porch. I am thinking about her too though, and ways I might be able to pimp her out next summer. I have been trying to find the right basket for her for ages, we tried the saddlebag baskets that go on the back (very harley davidson), but they didn’t bolt on right and most of the front-loading baskets totally cramp her style. I mean Sherry is a tough, black, pin-stripped, white walled, riding machine–she means business she can’t have some wicker basket bringing her down. Don’t you agree?
So to remedy the situation I found the Handlebar Bag and, low and behold, it is made in stinkin’ Chicago! (This city does manage to grow on me a little more everyday.) I can’t even tell you how I found them, but somewhere through a labyrinth of other blogs and links while doing research for work this little gem Po Campo popped up.
Cute bags, made by cute girls in cute Chicago–sign me up!
