Black and white all over!

From Anthropologie, Feb. 2010

Why hello there, world's most perfect pair of black-and-white striped wedges! Would you like to come home and live with me? Yes, I think you might!

The Most Perfect Dress Ever

Just a quick note to say that this new dress from Anthropologie may just be the most perfect dress (for me) ever.


Let's review, shall we?

1. Bright, rich, jewel-tone color? Check!
2. Flattering wrap-style bodice and ruffled peplum? Check!
3. Easy-breezy jersey fabric? Check!
4. Curve-enhancing straight/pencil skirt? Check!

Oh, Anthropologie, how you tempt and torment me...!! And see, they KNOW it's the perfect dress. They even named it the Plum Perfect dress. *siiiigh*

A long weekend, Mother's Day, and a birthday

Whoa, do I have a lot to blog about! I suppose I should have been blogging all throughout the whole weekend, because now I have to shove three days' worth of interesting things into one post!

Well, first off, this was a long weekend for me. My birthday was Monday and I've always thought the best gift you could give yourself is a day of relaxation...so I always use one of my vacation days when my birthday falls on a workday. Three day weekends are always awesome, of course!

On Saturday, the husband and I went out to the Volo Antique Mall. I love that place...it's huge and rambling and, even though a lot of the merchandise remains the same between visits, there is always something new to fall in love with. This time was no exception! There were quite a few things that itched to come home with me, but I resisted most of them...mostly from lack of a place to put them once I got them home, ha! There was a cute wooden recipe box that I briefly daydreamt about refinishing, a collection of adorable canning jars, any number of vintage cameras, a wonderfully adorable charm bracelet on which all of the charms were shaped like fruit (Was it Carmen Miranda's bracelet, perchance?), and a little chain garland hung with painted metal hearts. All I ended up bringing home with me, however, were a pretty orange-and-yellow metal bangle bracelet and an adorable kitchen scale with vintage-style foods painted on the dial. My husband bought a cool old photography book to add to our collection and a book of Patrick Nagle's artwork. How 80s of him!




Saturday night, we went out to a restaurant called the Kona Grill for my birthday dinner. We stayed in Kona, Hawaii for part of our honeymoon, and had been meaning to try this place out for a while. The food is contemporary Asian-fusion with a Hawaiian twist, and it was EXCELLENT. A wonderful experience all around, topped off with a passionfruit creme brulee for dessert. Divine! And a great excuse to get dressed up, too!




Then Sunday was, of course, Mother's Day, so we headed up to see my parents. (His live farther away, so unfortunately we only ever get to see my parents with any frequency.) We grilled out and snarfed hamburgers, hotdogs, potato salad, and chips...a nice all-American type meal. Then, of course, birthday cake! Chocolate with chocolate icing, of course! My parents got me some nice presents...mostly clothing which I had carefully marked in catalogs, along with size and preferred color information--a strategy which I instituted in late middle school in order to stop receiving my mother's idea of what would look cute on me and start receiving something I actually enjoyed, ha!

Monday morning at exactly 12:00 am, when it officially became my birthday, it was my husband's turn. First, he handed me the sweetest and most amazingly perfect card ever. I actually teared up a bit reading it, and he congratulated himself...apparently, he'd predicted the card would make me cry, and it did! The goof! And then, two lovely presents to be added to the ones he'd given me early (the Movement-of-Waves bag from Anthropologie and the Fuji Instax 200 camera)... a print of a painting by artist Stella im Hultberg, whose style I adore, and "Plantworlds," a photography book featuring rich, lush macro images of flowers and plants. I'd seen the book in the store and fallen in love...it's exactly the kind of thing I do, and strive to do, in my own flower works. But art books are pricey and I talked myself out of buying it. So what did he do? He went right back to that bookstore the very next day and bought it for me, the wonderful man!





All in all, a wonderful weekend and a wonderful birthday. Since this post is already quite long enough, I'll stop here and post another time about the gifts I bought for myself at Anthropologie using the 15% off coupon they sent me for my birthday. So, a post to look forward to, right? :-)

Anthropologie 2009 Swimsuits

I shudder just as much as the next girl when the dreaded words "bathing suit" or, god forbid, "bikini" are mentioned, despite my general love of summer, swimming pools, and the beach. There's just something so scary about the idea of baring so much winter-pale and winter-chubby body to the world! But then, it does seem that bathing suits have gotten itsy-bitsier and barely-there-er over the years. Those 1950s pinups and bathing beauties didn't have to worry quite as much about it, because their suits were cut to actually flatter and provide a bit more coverage...not like those of today, many of which require a Brazilian wax just to let you feel comfortable dropping the sarong.

So, all that said, I'm awfully excited about Anthropologie's swimsuit line this year! Most of the suits are vintage-inspired and absolutely sizzle with pinup-girl sex appeal. If I hadn't just bought a new suit last fall for our honeymoon trip to Hawaii, I'd be snagging one of these, for sure! Hmm..but then, that was a one-piece. I don't have a nice bikini.... ;-)

Some of my favorites from the collection:

The Majesty Palm Maillot--I'm a sucker for graphic black and white, I love the green belting, and the deep neckline would show off my best assets, ha!



The Taffy Stripe Maillot--Oh, those candy colors and those ruffles!!

The To-The-Beat two-piece, with the Skirtlet bottom -- Cute ruffled skirt! Bright color! Yum!

And finally, the Vargas two-piece-- I love that it's named for a classic pin-up artist, and it is sooo pin-up and perfect! The stripes! The shape! Throw on a pair of high heels and pose for the camera, gals!

Happy Early Birthday to Me!

My birthday is in May, and I've already received three lovely gifts. The first was that wonderful yellow purse my husband bought for me and which I've probably bored everyone to tears talking about already, ha!

But the second and third were from two of my favorite places: The Limited, and Anthropologie! That's right, I got gift cards from them, both of which are good for 15% off any one purchase made in the month of May.

The Limited is wonderful for work basics. I love their pants, but was always reluctant to buy there since I'm short and most of the pants...well, aren't! But a savvy salesgal completely sold me on getting the Limited credit card a few months back, for one very compelling reason: if you make a purchase with the Limited card, you get FREE hem service. That's right. You can buy a pair of pants that's inches and inches too long, tell them how long you want them to be, and they customize 'em for free. That's pretty much the only thing that could ever induce me to get a store credit card, actually. Savvy, savvy salesgal. I'm telling ya.

So basically, I'm pretty sure I'll use the Limited 15% off card on a pair or two of new pants. Maybe even some denim.

But Anthropologie is great for work AND fun clothes, and that makes my task harder...I have so much to choose from! And 15% off is great, but when the clothes are as $$ as they are at Anthro to begin with, the price after the 15% off is still a lot! Hhmm...decisions, decisions!!

But what really impressed me was the lovely packaging for the Anthro gift card...a little fabric bag in an undyed-natural color, decorated with a row of fun, mismatched buttons. It's cute and would actually be useful, too. I could keep business cards in there, as my husband helpfully pointed out.

See how cute?

Who knew yellow was so versatile?

So, you remember that wonderful yellow purse from Anthropologie that I posted about a little while back?

Well, my wonderful husband went out and bought it for me!! He gave it to me yesterday. (Don't I just have the best husband, gals?!)

And so far this morning, I've been going crazy on Polyvore, putting together various looks with which the purse will be amazing. And a variety it is, indeed!

My favorites:

Simple, glamorous elegance!

Grey is my current favorite neutral!

With the jacket, work ready. Without, dinner date!

Perfect for running around town doing errands.

Weekend Rundown

I'm not really feeling very bloggy just now. It's been a grey, rainy, cold day, and that always tends to leave me feeling rather uninspired. But I did have a lovely weekend, so instead of blathering on, I'll just post some images.


On Saturday, I met up with a girlfriend for brunch and a shopping trip. I didn't really spend too much...two spaghetti-strap tanks that were buy one, get one 50% off and two cardigans that were 40% off. A cardinal rule of fashion is that one can never have too many tanks or too many cardigans, after all. But I fell completely in love with a purse at Anthropologie. I didn't buy it. But I love it dearly and muchly.

It's big and yellow and bright and springy and made of buttery-soft leather. It would be a real investment bag for me, though. I don't usually spend more than $50 on bags because I tend to be hard on them, throwing them about and all, and I don't want to waste money on something I'm just going to damage or dirty later. But for a bag like this one, I'd have to just plain grow up, act my age, and learn to be much more careful with my things, ha! It would go with everything and would make me happy. Pondering...pondering....


Then on Sunday...also known as "Easter" to some people...my husband and I went to the little restaurant around the corner where the staff and owners all know us because we go so often, then headed to the Chicago Botanic Garden to enjoy the sunshine. We're not religious people, and we have no children to entertain, so to us, a day like Easter pretty much just means everything's closed and everyone is posting pictures of eggs and bunnies online. But the Botanic Garden is open every day but Christmas, and it's been long enough since we were there last that there were plenty of new blooms.

From the back garden you will be able to see the wild wood...

Diamonds and Roses

Primary

Mum's the word...

Saffron

Hmmm. Look at all those bright colors....the bright yellow purse, the brilliant colors of the flowers...hmm. You know, I see wonderfully soft, dreamy, pastel-toned Polaroid SX-70 shots and the like around a lot these days, and I do like them. Often I even love them. But I think that for me, brilliant shots of pure color is just where it's at!

A Signature Style

Okay, when it comes to fashion and style, I really only have one hard-and-fast rule: If I don't feel confident and sexy when I'm wearing it, I shouldn't be wearing it. (Well, I also have rules about never wearing acid-washed jeans or turtlenecks, but that's a whole different story!) Otherwise, my actual style has been somewhat in a state of flux over the last few years.

Working in a library as I am now, I'm striving to balance the fact that I tend to lean towards punk-rock, tough-girl looks with the necessity of being at least somewhat more professional at work, while at the same time finding a new way to be myself while dressed casually, too. (No more jeans and snarky cartoon-character teeshirts for me!) And, of course, despite a certain fondness for studded bracelets, leather jackets, and motorcycle boots, there is the fact that I also adore both old-fashioned elegance (Victorian lace! Velvet!) and softer, girlier looks with lots of bright colors and flowers.

How does one balance all of those looks at once? Well, of course, the answer to that is that sometimes, one doesn't...at least not all in one outfit! But all in one closet is certainly possible. Victorian lace looks wonderful under black leather, and there's nothing wrong with pairing studs with flowers, in my ever-humble opinion! But I've been trying to fill my wardrobe with pieces that do double or triple duty...shirts that can go to work under a blazer, out to run errands under a casual jacket, or out to a nice dinner when paired with fancy jewelry. That kind of thing.

Recently, I've fallen completely in love with the Glittering Depths blouse from Anthropologie. It's a wee bit on the expensive side, but it's perfect for my dream wardrobe in so many ways! I even dreamed about wearing it last night...I'm that obsessed! I love that it is soft charcoal grey, rather than a harsher black, that the sequins can read as either romantic or totally rock-n-roll, and that the soft silk can be dressed up or down just as easily.

Trying to get it out of my system...or at least to figure out if the blouse would actually work for me, anyway...I decided to play around in Polyvore and put together an outfit around the blouse that would fit in with my sense of style. I paired it with dark-wash straight-legged jeans, a bright-colored slouchy hobo, a pair of aviators (these I already own), some nice simple silver gladiators (again, already part of my wardrobe), and bright-colored, girly accessories. And damn, if it doesn't work. I can totally see myself running around town in this outfit. *SIGH*





If I hadn't already spent so much money this month, buying this shirt would be a no-brainer! As it is...um...honey, if you're reading this, I have a birthday coming up and I wear a medium! HA!