Put a bird on it

This is a go-to work outfit of mine, and thought to post it because it's easy and effortless and still looks cute. Hoorah. The skirt is great for all sorts of weather, especially cooler and breezy, so it was perfect for today. I usually go without a cardigan, otherwise it looks just a little too librarian.

Normally I force Mark to take pics on my Nikon. But the battery died. So I apologize if you think I had a little too much fun with iPhone photo editing. :)

And if it hasn't become obvious yet, I have a weakness for cute prints. If it's not polka dots or a floral print, it's an animal. Last year, I got about four bird shirts... did not think of the Portlandia skit until wayyyy later. Ha. Whatever. I still love wearing them.

Outfit: Skirt - Modcloth, Top - H&M (last year), belt - Target, shoes - old old I can't remember.

Work & Play

Yay! I'm so excited about this skirt. I bought it half price during a Black Friday sale several months ago, but finally got the chance to wear it out for the first time now. I love it! So perfect for a lovely spring day, and it's long enough to wear at the office.

I had a half day at work today, so I just paired it with an old black scoop neck/square cut shirt in my closet and off to work I went! When I came home, I needed to get some other work done at a coffee shop. I really didn't want to take the skirt off, so I paired it with a Love Pittsburgh tee I just ordered, (as if my undying love for the city wasn't obvious enough) switched out the shoes and spent the afternoon in front of my laptop, sipping on some iced coffee. :)

For the work outfit, I think it would've been great to have a braided seed bead necklace, maybe a turquoise one for a bit of color pop. But alas, I didn't have one. Boo.

PS, Please excuse the pumpkin seeds on the deck from last fall we haven't gotten around to cleaning up. HA.

Outfits: Skirt - Modcloth, on sale for $27ish

Outfit on left: Scoop Neck Top, TJ Maxx; ballet flats - Toms, a Christmas gift.

Outfit on right: Tee - bought online here, Shoes - Modcloth from a few years ago (similar), sunglasses - vintage.

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.

Floral child

Not gonna lie. Last week was a very rough work week. Luckily, a difficult week evolved into a great weekend. Mark and I had plans to go home to Pittsburgh over the weekend -- always a sign it's going to be good. But on Friday, at the office, my boss was asking around to see who'd be interested in free Bob Dylan tickets. Me. Duh. Only problem was, he was playing in Bowling Green, and I wasn't planning on coming back from Pittsburgh until Monday. But we made it work. We were also able to catch a baseball game and shop at H&M before having to drive back. So now I'm lazing it up on the vacation day I scheduled. :) And cleaning. Hopefully. :)

This is the outfit I ended up wearing on the drive back and to the Bob Dylan show. Very comfy and functional! BTW, these tights are amazing. I've had them for a year and a half (and knock on wood) are still without a snag.

And for the record, the dress was worth the buy! I've already worn it to work, too, with a cardigan and ballet flats. Unfortunately, I'll be shipping the top back I bought in the same order. (See previous post) It was too short and too boxy.

In other news, Mark shaved his beard. I love the beard, but honestly, this is a refreshing change. He'll have the beard back soon enough, anyway.

Oh, so didn't realize it until now, but I legit look a little preggo in the pic with Mark, and kindaaaa have my hand on my belly. Just a weird angle, with the wind blowing after I ate. So no, no upcoming children. I love our faces in it so it's staying up. :)

See? A normal looking tummy again!

Outfit: Slouchy Hat, H&M; Dress, tights and shoes (similar)... all Modcloth. (This might be showing my slight Modcloth addiction...)

Look guys, I'm wearing a dress!

Dresses: I love buying them. I feel as though I can never have enough. Unfortunately, as my fiance Mark has repeatedly pointed out to me, don't I have enough of those? The thing is... I don't wear them hardly enough. Why?

I'm not really sure. I think there are many reasons. In the past, I've bought clothes on impulse, not thinking of occasions where I could where things, or what to pair them with. Now it's even tougher finding clothes that are work appropriate, since I pretty much live at work. Woof.

So, I found an awesome, versatile dress at TJ Maxx over the weekend that I loved. Hooray! Despite some problems, I was going to wear this thing, dammit. (and I did wear it to work today!)

Sorry, I have a bad habit of making a goofy face in every photo that's taken of me. 

So the near crisis: I found the LAST dress at the store, which happened to be in my size. I couldn't zip the awkward side zipper in the dressing room, but figured I could buy it and and have Mark help me with it when I got home. After 20 plus minutes of struggling back at the apartment, nope. That sucker would not budge. It wasn't that I was too big for the dress, but the zipper was malfunctioning. So I dusted off my sewing machine (quite literally, it had been in storage at my parents' for awhile) and decided on a complete impulse that I was going to give this awesome dress a functioning zipper. After watching a few video tutes, I used a quilting needle as a seam ripper to take out the existing zipper (NEVER AGAIN) and pinned/sewed in the new one.

The end result isn't perfect or even beautiful by any means, but it works, and that's all I really care about.

I'm just glad it all worked out and I was able to wear it. I think I was particularly inspired to try out dresses again after reading over some frock-friendly style blogs over the weekend... like this one and this one!

I mean, HOW CUTE are these buttons?

Hopefully, I'll be able to bring some of the other dresses I have into rotation. Here's to having more varied style beyond scarves, all black and polka dots! (More on that later. At least I eliminated two out of three of my over played style habits on this outfit.)

Dress: TJ Maxx, Tights: Modcloth, Brown Leather Shoes: Thrifted