MN Blogger Meetup

I know how I said this week would be thrift week but I was a big fat liar. I'm going to take pictures on Saturday so I can get the ball rolling. Anna emailed me and said she wanted to join in so hopefully I didn't piss her off too much and she still wants to do it. Go check out her blog and say sorry again for me :)

Back to the task at hand. I went to the MN blogger meetup on Saturday and it was so fun! I met so many great ladies and found a bunch of new blogs to follow. I hope a lot of these gals will be IRL friends too because they were really cool. My social awkwardness kicked in and so I didn't meet as many girls as I wanted to (next time!). Maria, Annie and I met up and carpooled over there. I'm so glad they were with because it was a bit hard to find and I might have turned around and gone home if they weren't with me. Everyone liked the peanut butter cup cookies I made (I can post a recipe if anyone's interested) and I got to show off my new dress and hair cut.

I really hope that we can all get together again soon!

Rebecca, Megan, Kimi, Annie, Maria and Amanda

Sara, Rebecca, and Christine

Kimi, Silke, Amanda and Megan

Annie and Maria were taking outfit photos and wanted me to take one of them together since they are both in the Delightful Dozen. I pretended like I was in it too and took pictures with both of them.

See how good I look when I try to be sassy... um.

Maggie, Emma, Allison, Megan, Kimi and Amanda. Loved meeting all of these ladies for the first time with the exception of Megan and Amanda who are old news. (j/k)

The whole group! Picture is by the lovely Mari!

I wish this was facebook and people would tag themselves... :/

Outfit Details:

Dress, shoes, belt - thrifted (take that thrift week!)

Earrings - boutique in Baltimore that I don't remember

Harry Potter Nerd Alert

I admit it, I'm a HUGE Harry Potter nerd. I have devoured the books and have been to the midnight showing of most of the movies. I have a couple of good friends here who are cool like me (28 year olds can love HP!) so I decided to throw a party before the LAST movie. I am really sad that it's all over but that is a whole other story...

I really didn't want to go crazy with the decorations but when I looked around in stores, there was NOTHING! I mean nothing. No plates, buttons, cups or anything. So, I decided to make my own.

I bought felt from the craft store and printed the crests on photo paper and then just cut them out. Lots of hot glue later and you have house banners!

I also made these larger banners to hang from the ceiling. The felt was super cheap so I think each banner was like $1 or something. I just free handed the letters and tried to make them look a little more "Potterish" by adding the points at the tops of each one.

This was blurry because it was already getting dark. For the snitches, I took a bunch of ping pong balls and sprayed them gold (this was really hard to do PS). I put pins in the top of each one and then attached fishing line. Once they were dry, I took gold foil cupcake wrappers and made them into the wings. I was proud of myself for this idea :)

I'm a big cupcake fan but I couldn't think of how I wanted to make them HP themed. So, what I did was pour the batter into all of the cups and then I put food coloring gel in the center and swirled it with a tooth pick. I made 6 of each color (4 different houses).

Because I used the rest of the gold wrappers, once they were frosted, you couldn't tell what color they were. This is very important. These are now called "Sorting Hat cupcakes" I came up with this on my own too. :) I also made the sorting hat by fashioning the eyes and mouth and then putting a dab of hot glue to keep the shape.

I had the sorting hat next to a tray of cupcakes, one of each color. Each person had to put on the sorting hat and then pick a cupcake. When she broke it in half, she saw the color of the cupcake and that was the house she was in. Pretty brilliant, right? I thought so. :)

Brooke was Slytherin!

Everyone loved the idea of being sorted, it made the party really fun.

Here are the rest of the decorations. We had goblin dip (like a taco dip), there was candy from Honeydukes and even Hedwig's cage. If you want any specifics on how I made things, let me know!

It was a really fun party and I would love to do it again!

The gals that went to the midnight showing!

Thriftastic

I know I'm sporadic in my posting and I apologize for that. When I found out today was Thrift Day over at Everybody Everywhere, I knew I had to get a post in. If you have read this blog at all, you know that I love to go to the thrift store. I wanted to wear everything thrifted in this post but I settled for 2/3 :) I love this skirt that I got from Amanda at their pop up sale (I can't wait for the one next weekend!). It is a tad too big and too long but I love it so I wear it anyway. If anyone has a tip on how to make it smaller and shorter without ruining the bottom, I would love to hear how it can be done. Maybe cut off the waistband and sew in new elastic?

Outfit Details:

Shirt, shoes, belt - Thrifted

Skirt -Two Birds/Salvaged Strawberry vintage sale (PELICAN'S people, does it get better?!)

Thanks to this inspiration, I wanted to do a special thing for you all. I came up with the idea for having Thrift Week next week. The idea is to try to wear the majority of things in each outfit that I have found thrifting and maybe even post some of my thrift tips or favorite thrift stores. I hope to do at least a couple of posts next week! (fingers crossed) :) If anyone wants to join me, feel free!

John Frieda Salon Tour

I got an email a week or two ago about attending the John Frieda Salon Tour when it hit the Mall of America. The weather was terrible so when Jill and I got there, there was no one there. There was some lightening and the salon was a metal trailer so the stylists had to evacuate a couple of times. Jill and I waited for a bit and then grabbed lunch. She had to go back to work but not before we got a couple of pictures! I went and saw the midnight showing of Harry Potter the night before so I had to rep it for all the Potter nerds with my Mischief Managed shirt. If you are a fellow fan, check out EvieTees. She was super nice and the shirt is really high quality. Shipped super quickly too. Love it!

Ain't she the cutest?

Our red carpet debut!

Soaked but still smiling :)

Outfit details:

Skrit, shoes - thrifted

Shirt - Etsy via EvieTees

So, after awhile I met up with my friend Liz and we actually caught a good weather window and were able to get our style transformations! The staff was really friendly and we didn't have to wait that long. I was expecting to get in right away because they were supposed to know I was coming. Oh well, water under the bridge. My hair ended up looking nice and I got a couple of tips too (and some samples!). Check out their website here and see if they are coming to your town!

Finding out our perfect shade!

Other people getting their makeovers

Liz's before picture

Me before

My transformation!

Grain Belt Brewery

This is a picture heavy post for two reasons: 1) I had Shawn taking my pictures so I got to move around a lot and 2) this is a gorgeous place (one of my favorite in the city). The brewery is no longer active at this site but the gorgeous buildings have been saved and the little gate house is even a library now. It is filled with a big architecture firm and most of the other buildings have artist studios in them. Such a cool place and it totally takes you back in time. I love to imagine what it would have been like to be in a place when it was in full swing. Pull up to that great big building in your carriage. What a cool sight that would have been!

I feel like a real blogger in this picture!

Doesn't it look like a castle?

Shawn thought I looked really small so I did this...

The building from the front

Outfit Details:

Shirt, shoes - Thrifted

Skirt - Two Birds Vintage

Necklace, sunglasses - Forever 21

PS, however much I look like a blogger in these pictures, my true nature will always shine through...

*Outfit photos by Shawn (thanks schweetie) and building pictures by me!*

YES!

Can I just say how freakin' excited I am for this...

My main goal of blogging was to meet new friends and have some of those friends share my interests. Now, I get to meet a whole gang of them?? AWESOME! Some of my newest friends will be there including Megan and Nora, Maria, Jill, Amanda (I think) and Annie. I've had so much fun meeting all of these ladies and I can't wait to meet more new friends.

If anyone from the midwest wants to come up for this, I will forward you the email! We will be Minnesota nice to all of you Iowans and Wisconsinites that might want to come :)