mustard at last

sweater - american rag, skirt - thrifted, tights - target, bag - coach, shoes - target

I know I've shown this particular spot behind my work a billion times, but there's this heron that hangs out here. You can see it, although it blends in a bit, in the bottom picture, sitting on the second log. I like when I see this him, he sits so still on that log, it kind of relaxes me.

The sweater I'm wearing I bought a few years ago but I've never worn it much. It's kind of a difficult piece for me, with the big kimono sleeves and gathered waistband. I've worn it with jeans in the past but always thought it looked kind of funny that way. The proportions were off. Finally, the other day I decided to try it with my fav gray wool skirt, and um, I'm pretty sure everything goes with this skirt. Seriously, this is the first time I've been totally happy with this sweater, so...YAY.

happy halloween kids!

Well, a week or so late...but what where YOU this year? I was David Gahan from Depeche Mode of course, and Justina went as Robert Smith of The Cure. Of course we had to pose with our friends Casey and Jordyn who were dressed as Prince and Lady Gaga. No one really recognized me, which wasn't too surprising, but I think it was a good last minute costume. I had intended to be Scary Spice but we lost our Posh and Baby and decided to skip it for this year. Maybe another time!

We went to the High Dive to see Liam's band, the Fabulous Downey Brothers play. They're always fun but they were especially great dressed as giant eyeballs. They're fantastic, and I think everyone should be listening to them! After we went to a party in West Seattle? I think, thrown by some people Liam and Jordyn know. It was pretty ridiculous and I drank entirely too much and felt miserable the next day.

To work, I wore not a costume, but a spooky themed outfit. Black velvet, lace, and a spiderweb fascinator, with eye encrusted shoes. Yeah, the fascinator is a cheap halloween decoration from work, simply bobby pinned to my hair, and the shoes have googly eyes glue all over them. They were a hit at work, with my boss even taking a picture of them so we could use them next year. To sell googly eyes, of course. I think they're rather fun, and from a distance have a sort of crocodile skin texture.

velvet dress - thrifted, lace shirt - target, purple and lace tights - target and somewhere, fascinator - bf, shoes - diy, purse - vintage coach

Should you ever want to make your own such shoes, whether with googly eyes, sequins, buttons, plastic gems, happy meal toys, or whatever you can think of, just make sure to use E600 glue. Not a single one came off all day. I used two packs of 200 assorted size googly eyes.

I'm back!

. . . with heavily edited, vintage looking, hopefully dreamy, autumnal photos.

To me, early fall is one of the best times for vintage. There's the always awesome back to school vibes, the nostalgia of the summer ending, falling leaves, it's all kind of dreamy. And I love fall clothes and colors, mustard and knits and corduroy and gray and all those lovely things. Later in fall, like now (these were taken in early/mid September if I remember correctly), I start feeling more gothy. My grays turn from soft to deep charcoal and start getting paired with blacks and I start wearing dark lipstick again. Unfortunately, I seem to miss the best of this season, the early fall, each year. I jump too quickly into the dark late fall, which is really unavoidable after daylight savings time ends. This year especially, since I didn't have a camera for much of it (I'm now borrowing my stepdad's, until he notices and asks for it back), I feel like I missed.

dress - thrifted, belt - vintage, tights - target, shoes - steve madden

But I had a few good days, and a few good outfits. I had many more outfit ideas that I didn't get around to using, but hopefully next year I will really grab onto that month and a half period of loveliness. This dress is new, I found it while shopping in Seattle with my cousin and his english wife. They were only here for a day, so I took them to Pike Place Market and Capitol Hill. We came home to meet my parents for dinner at the Grange, which is a lovely restaurant with really fresh, seasonal, and local food. (Do excuse the wonkiness of this photo, I think my cousin was trying to be arty.)

tank - gap, skirt - thrifted, tights - ??

not dead yet

My lovelies, this sucks. Both my camera and my computer are currently out of commission. I feel like every other blog post these days is whining about why I can't post. I swear, the second I get these things fixed, I'll get the ball rolling again. I really do miss blogging. In fact, I feel so guilty about not doing it that I haven't even been able to read my favorite blogs, so I'm also missing my bloggy friends. Posting should resume soon! In the meantime, I'm drinking wine in the bathtub while reading Infinite Jest and finding cute art in dive bar bathrooms.

summer's end

dress - vintage (london), belt - thrifted, shoes - steve madden

Although I think we're going to have a lovely fall, with warm days turning into brisk nights, a sort of bright and energetic fall, I'm already missing summer. But I think I'm missing the summer that I didn't have, the summer I only glimpsed in fleeting moments like this, twirling alone as the sun went down. I think I spend too much time being wistful, dreaming about things to come or times that have passed, while I miss what's going on right now. So while I will certainly be posting some end of summer dreamy nostalgia posts, hopefully I'll simultaneously be looking forward to fall and enjoying all that comes with that. It is a great season.

desert sun

I don't know why I never can blog in real time, you know, actually post things close to when they happened, but here I am now talking about my mini-trip to E.WA. It was really nice to just get away, away from the stress of having to things. It was nice having people feed me and take me places and show me things and to just chill and say, read a magazine or whatever. It was great to see my cousins, they are getting so gorgeous and grown-up it's just insane. The girls are starting high school and middle school this year and it's like...I remember when they were babies. Shamefully, considering that they're only four hours away, this was the first time I've really spent time with them in quite awhile, so it was good to sort of get to know them again. Arielle, the older girl, is turning out to be such a beautiful and sensible girl, I know things are going to be great for her. And Emma is so mischievous and fun, she cracks me up.

dress - target, sandals - gift from a, purse - thrifted coach, denim jacket - thrifted, lipstick - revlon cherries in the snow

In the evening of the one full day I spent in Benton City, Arielle and I went on a little walk on the trail behind their house. I think it's an old railroad? It was beautiful, hot but with a dry breeze. It's dusty in a fragrant way and even though it's not super flat (there's a mountain behind their house and some trees and stuff) it feels HUGE. I kind of felt like I could take deeper breaths than I can at home and I looked up and out more. I don't know if that is just the landscape there that made me feel that way, or the vacation mentality, but it did me so much good.

It makes me realize that I really need to take time and do the things I want to do and see things I want to see. There's so much SO CLOSE and I don't get out and explore. I mean, this was just two days in the middle of the week that I had off, and I often have those two days off, but I NEVER do anything with them. I need to start, every chance I get. I'm still super into world travel (seriously thinking about going to Iceland for Iceland Airwaves or Georgia, the country, to visit my friend Aly) but I kind of forgot about traveling in this country. I want to go on roadtrips and visit the South and all sorts of other things. I need to go back to NYC and I need to go to California and I just need to see this whole great big amazing country I live in.

thriftscores: dishes

I went to the thriftstore recently and found a BUNCH of really great stuff. I've been paying a lot of attention to the homegoods section of my local Value Village because lately they've been having some nice stuff. It's always one of my stops and I often find silly mugs, but lately I've been finding some incredible dishes.

First up is this absolutely amazing tray and dish set with orange flowers. Oh man, I saw this and my heart about stopped. I snatched it so quickly because seriously, how had no one bought that already. It's by Schmidt Porcelana out of Brazil and I think it's vintage though I'm not sure. It certainly looks it. I'm guessing it's some kind of hors d'oeuvres serving set and I almost just bought the large one (I'm planning on using it in the kitchen to hold commonly used spices and condiments) but I couldn't bear to break up the set so I bought the six little guys too.

Next are these adorable mini Pyrex baking dishes. They are SO small. The little red ones are probably about 2 inches square and the blue rectangles are like twice that. I love the solid color look on these Pyrex, instead of a pattern. I think it's kind of neat.

Finally, here are some of the fancy dessert plates I've been collecting. I like pretty mismatched dishes but in this case I've been buying twos. I kind of like the set of six I've collected, they look rather nice together.

I also bought a dress to alter and a few chairs. Hopefully I'll show you those soon.