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...)

ModCloth.com: A love-hate relationship

Hi, yinz. Sorry for the lack of updates. Here's all you need to know:

Fashion wise, as of late, I've been a little frustrated. I have been pinning tons of outfits on Pinterest, trying to figure out what kinds of outfits I'd like and aspire to wear. Unfortunately, with my income, and my student loan debt, most of those purchases will have to wait. I've been doing a fair amount of thrift shopping, but haven't found too much. (Except for a wedding dress; I guess that's a whole other story.)

Anyway, despite me attempting to hold back, I did put in a ModCloth order, aka, that website is NOT cheap. I tried to be careful with my selection, as I kind of love everything on there and have gone a little overboard on there a few times. I think versatility was what I had in mind this time around. When three items cost more than $100, it makes me a little sad. But there are some things you just can't find in thrift and consignment stores.

I think I've been somewhat uninspired because I lot of the clothes I have are similar and I wear the same things a lot. I work a lot of hours and I'm always on the move -- sometimes it's just easier to have something that's easily functional and fashionable.

Anyway, here are my ModCloth purchases: A floral dress at 50 bucks. I thought it was something that was timeless and can be dressed for any season. I'm thinking that with a black cardigan, black tights and brown boots, it'll be cute and functional. And then there's the collared top. It's super cute, I love chevron stripes and the pointed collar, but not sure if it's worth 40 bucks. It looks like something that can be both work appropriate, perhaps tucked into a skirt, and casual, maybe with some brightly colored skinny jeans. Boozy Baker is part of a wedding gift I'm giving someone, so I'm not allll about just buying for me!

Another note: for the past few weeks, I've felt kind of vain doing this, searching for clothes, trying to figure out my style. But it's something I enjoy doing. Also, it's a good distraction. My job can be stressful, and depressing some days. Tomorrow night, I'm covering a candlelight vigil of a young, pregnant woman who was murdered last weekend. That's just one snippet into the kinds of assignments I cover. It's definitely the saddest events I've had to cover in awhile. All the murders here seem to be domestic violence related. It's awful. I think having hobbies that are light like fashion bring a little more balance in my life. And perspective.

So back to being pleasant: I'm hoping to get the shipment in the next couple of days, so I'll style something cute, just for you!

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.

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

Hello and Welcome

Hi there. I'm Kate. From a young age, I've been a fashion prodigy.

Don't lie. You're jealous of the Minnie Mouse sunglasses.

KIDDING. Although I'd love to dig up those sunglasses and wear them if they still fit on my face.

I am a 20-something living as writer in Lima, Ohio. I was born and raised near Pittsburgh. The town where I currently live, (Lima, pronounced like the bean, not the Peruvian capital), is without any major college population or even a Target nearby, and it's a pretty drastic change for me.

This is more what I look like now:

FYI: I have a scarf addiction.

I can't say small town living the worst possible thing ever for a 20-something, but it's difficult at times. The vast majority of my friends are spread throughout the country. Even the closest ones are at home, nearly 250 miles away. However, I do have some great things going to for me. My fiance, Mark, lives with me. He's my rock and my best friend that gets me through tough days. And of course, I have a killer job, writing general assignment and health stories for the local newspaper. Despite deadline pressure, I meet awesome new people everyday and talk to them and write about them for a living. It's a pretty sweet gig. Oh yeah. I'm also planning a wedding for this fall. :)

So here, I want to expand those positive attributes in my life. With my free time, I want to dedicate this blog to making lemonade from lemons. (In this case, making an awesome project happen, Limanade, despite living in Lima, Ohio. Catchy, right?)

Here's to doing all the things I put off doing because I told myself I didn't have time: scanning old photos for a digital scrapbooking project, getting more inspirational with my cooking (which I already do sometimes via The Pittsburgh Kitchen), and being more creative with my style (something I've been trying to do on and off since high school). My biggest fashion inspirations probably come from Modcloth and thrift stores.

As I progress, I'll post stories and photos to keep myself motivated, and maybe even inspire others, too.