Looking good on the cheap

I'm so excited about my outfit today. It looks good and it was reasonably priced. Half of my outfit came from the thrift store. And it was nice enough to wear to a weekend shift at work -- reporting outside for some Earth Day events on a beautiful spring day. :) Sorry the belt was a little crooked in the pic.

Outfit: Cardigan - H&M, Top - Thrifted for $1.50, Skirt - Thrifted and Rehabbed for $4, Belt - from another skirt, sunglasses - vintage from Mom's junk drawer, flats (not pictured) Toms, a Christmas gift.

My inspiration came from a couple places. First, I've kind of had a polka dot addiction. I stumbled upon this skirt from Modcloth. Love it. But then again, I've been spending way, way too much money on that website lately. So it was a sacrifice I had to make.

Luckily, while Mark and I were in Pittsburgh last weekend, we did some thrifting at our favorite shops. Found a maxi dress with similar polka dots. There was a huge hole on the bottom, but knew it had potential. Just snipped off the excess fabric and hemmed it in about 15 minutes. The result is what you see above. :)

I think I got the motivation through a few blogs I've been paging through: Refashionista and Fashionplate Cheapskate. Both very cool girls that look good on the cheap. Refashionista does rehab projects with thrift store finds, and the latter simply pairs awesome pieces together at reasonable prices. Need to be taking notes instead of dropping a zillion dollars I don't really have on clothes.

OK. That's all I got for now. Going to enjoy my one day off tomorrow. The life of a reporter. Ugh.

Homesick/Thrifting Binge

Hey, yinz. So, work has been stressful, wedding planning has been stressful, and life overall has been stressful as of late.

Thrift store shopping has been a longtime outlet of mine. You just never know what you may find. On top of the extra stress, I've been missing home a lot. I miss friends, places, just knowing a place so well. Pittsburgh is truly home and probably always will be.

So lately, I've been doing a ton of thrift store shopping. And I feel like when I miss Pittsburgh and I'm shopping, many random Pittsburgh items just show up out of nowhere that I LOVE. I might have a little bit of a thrift store addiction, but at least the outlet is relatively cheap. When I was in high school, it was the only thing I could really afford, so I made sure to have unique, quirky t-shirts. I guess it stems from that, except now, it's all about pairing the thrift store finds with other tasteful items I paid more than a handful of change for. Here are some gems that I found lately, over the last month or so.

Mark deserves credit for this one. He found this pierogie race t-shirt the other day for 88 cents while we were home over the weekend. The t-shirt is in my size. (Thank God) Being Polish, raised on pierogies, and with Pittsburgh having a strange obsession with the dumplings, it made me happy. It's from the Pittsburgh Pirates 6th inning goofy race they always do.

Mugs are another thing I love to collect. I've been trying to cut back since we don't have room for any more, but I couldn't pass this one up. I found this in Lima when I was particularly down a few weekends ago. It made me smile. I think it cost 72 cents.

Here's a dress I found in Columbus a few weeks ago with a crazy awesome print! 4 bucks! I think it does need a little bit of work, maybe with the neck line and the length. I already cut out the 80's shoulder pads, but I think this will be a great, fun work dress once I fix some tweeks.

This last one isn't a thrift store find, but just a general AWESOME find.

Sugar skulls dress! It's so cute, I love it. I got it from H&M while I was home over the weekend. It was $25... really not much for a dress, but it sounds like a lot compared to what I paid for the rest of this stuff. I think I'll pair it with some cute tights and a cardi. Probably not a great work print, but I don't care!

There are so many other things I've bought that weren't pictured, including a wonderful brown fuzzy sweater, and some nick-knack type stuff.

Sorry I haven't posted more. I'll be sure to do so soon!

PS Thank my new iPhone for the photos. Made this post go so much quicker, instead of carrying around my Nikon and uploading them to the computer. Woo technology.