New All Over the Place

This is a dress that is new to the 'ol blog and I'm posing in a new alley. I'm just all about new today.

I bought this dress last fall at the big state fair Vintage Sale. I have worn it once or twice since then but haven't taken any official pictures as of yet.  This dress is so cute but really only works in the transition between seasons.  Since it is long sleeved, it is too hot to wear in the summer.  However, the material is a really lightweight cotton that is too thin to wear in the winter. I love it anyway. This particular day, it was nice and cool in the morning and warmed up in the afternoon. I was a bit warm while taking these pictures but I sucked it up for the sake of the blog. :)  This alley has much more traffic along the front than my usual one but I just love the brick on this building so I braved it!









Outfit Details:
Dress - Vintage Expo
Shoes, belt - Thrifted
Sunglasses - Target

Hopscotch

These pictures are from the day I broke my lens so they make me a bit sad and a lot mad. Don't you ever wish you could have a do-over? If I could, I wouldn't have put my camera on that ledge... Ugh. Oh well, at least it's being fixed! More of my improved photos to come. However, it is much harder to take pictures with this lens because I have to stand so much farther away.  I'll get the hang of it soon I hope. Needless to say, this is why I don't have many pictures for this post.  I really did like this outfit so I wanted to show you all.  Plus, I went all the way to park to take them. There were people playing football nearby so I got all nervous and didn't take that many :)

Well, back to watching Bollywood movies and listening to 90's pop. I lead quite the exciting life.

Outfit Details:

Top, necklace - Forever 21 (I think)

Shoes, skirt - Thrifted

Classic Film Club - Adam's Rib

My friends and I are starting up a classic film club.  Sort of like a book club but no reading involved :)  We are going to watch movies that we've somehow missed watching over the years.  You know the ones. The ones that EVERYONE has seen but you seem to be the only one.  "You've never seen War and Peace/Gone with the Wind/Citizen Kane/etc?!?!" So, we are going to compile a list, fire up the Netflix and get rolling.  I'm going to be posting movies we've watched on here if that's interesting to you?

To start us off, my parents and I went to The Heights the other night and saw Adam's Rib. The Heights is the oldest, continuously running theater in MN (opened in 1926). It is a beautiful theater and they play old movies on weeknights.  This month, the theme was classic comedy teams so of course these two were included.  To be honest, I've never seen a movie with both of them together but now you bet your ass I'm going to watch more! Adam's Rib is about a married couple who are both lawyers and end up trying the same case on opposite sides.  Katherine Hepburn is fighting not only to get her client off but also for women's rights.  She takes it to quite hilarious extremes and Spencer Tracy gets more and more frustrated with the antics.  I won't ruin the ending but their relationship is really the main focus of the movie and everything keeps tying back to that.  The supporting cast (mainly, Judy Holliday) was also very funny and really added to the comedy and even stole some of the scenes. The movie was surprisingly funny and touching.  I wish I could have a relationship someday like Hepburn and Tracy have in this movie. The outfits weren't spectacular like some old movies I've seen but I assume it's because Hepburn was a career gal.  However, there was this robe. Oh, I died.  Now, I really need a super pretty robe to prance around my house in.  This is the only picture I could find of it full length.

 

I can't wait to see more classic films now!

New Lens

You guys. I bought a new lens and now my pictures are a million times better. Only problem is that I already broke it... Typical. However, I sent it back to Olympus and it's getting fixed so I'll be back to having more awesome pictures like these soon.

I'm so happy with how these turned out.  For a while there, I was feeling really crappy and wasn't super interested in taking outfit pictures. Thanks for sticking with me! I hope my posts weren't TOO boring :)  The day I came back from DC, my sister and I went to old town Alexandria.  It was so cute! We stopped at this really great vintage store called Pretty People. Turns out they were having a sale so I got this top/mini dress for only 10 bucks. I love it!  I wore this to a blogger lady date with Emma, Allison, Maggie and Maria. Delicious food, cider and friends. What can be better? And yes, it was actually cool enough this day to wear both jeans AND a cardigan. Come on fall!

Outfit Details:

Top - Pretty People

Jeans - Target

Shoes - Thrifted

Cardigan - Not sure

Headband - I want to say Forever 21
Earrings - somewhere in Paris

Online Shop Love - Dear Golden

When I was telling you about the Paraders the other day, I was thinking to myself, "Self, why don't you share other cool shops you find with your readers." What a good idea I had right? ha!  Well, just like with the Paraders, sometimes you just find a shop through the grapevine and are blown away.  Such is the case with Dear Golden.  She has the most LOVELY selection of vintage I've seen on Etsy. So many fabulous dresses that are true vintage that you wouldn't find elsewhere. Not much 80's or 90's vintage but you can bet your behind if it's is 80s, it's fabulous. Her stuff is more on the expensive side but all of it is fairly priced in my opinion. I'm sure she does a TON of work finding these beautiful and very well preserved items. She also has great separates and accessories.  The only bummer is there isn't much in larger sizes but this is a problem with all vintage.  Below are some of my favorites!

This is already sold but isn't it FAB?!

I obviously love the 50s and 60s silhouettes but there are so many other decades in her store so go check it out here!  She also has a great blog so check that out too!

**Just like my other posts, I received no compensation for this post. I just want to share the love!**

DC Trip - First Lady

One last picture overload from DC. Since this is a lifestyle AND fashion blog, I thought I would share some stuff on the fashion part.  One of my favorite things in the American History museum was the room all about the First Ladies.  I couldn't believe how many of the inaugural ball gowns they actually had there. Sorry that most of them were blurry. It was pretty dim lighting in there so it was hard to get a good shot. Also, I wish I had gotten the names of the different FL's when I was taking the photo. I guess you will just have to look at the style and try to guess who's it was :)

I'm sure you all know who's this is!

I want to say this is Mrs. Johnson or Mrs. Nixon...

I think this is Mrs. Lincoln's!

I wish this wasn't so blurry, the beading was incredible.

That's 1920s dress!

 

Blurry again which is a bummer!

This yellow one was Jackie Kennedy's!

I hope you enjoyed my DC posts! I'll be back to regular programming tomorrow :)

Online Shop Love - The Paraders Collection

Sometimes it's just fate that you stumble upon something really neat. I found The Paraders through Scathingly Brilliant and I fell in love. How great of a concept is this? 

My goal with the first Paraders original collection as well as with each collection following, is to take the best elements of vintage clothing in each era, and create new garments inspired by these examples, but with a modern sizing structure.  For this collection, we're offering sizes Small, Medium, and Large, with the plan to add smaller and larger sizes in future collections.

There are so many creative and wearable vintage styles over the past century that need a revival. 

Such a great concept right? I loved how she focused on the quality and uniqueness of vintage items but added a modern twist. I can't wait to wear vintage inspired, quality items that actually fit! I have such a hard time finding larger sized vintage items so I can't wait for this collection to come out! If you want to help her meet her goal, please head over to the Kickstarter page. Here are a couple photos from the first line!

*I'm not getting paid or even recognized for this post. I just supported their project on Kickstarter and wanted to share it with you!

DC Trip - Museum Day

Like I said before, my brother and I ventured out to some Smithsonian museums one of the days of our trip. I was really blown away by the Air and Space museum! So many neat things to see and learn about. To be honest, I was expecting this one to be boring and something we could breeze through quickly. All I wanted to see was the Wright brothers plane and that was it.  We spent about 2 or 3 hours here and only left so we could squeeze in another museum.  We headed over to the American History museum after that.  We really saw some cool stuff here but I liked this museum a lot less. Part of the reason was because a LOT of the exhibits were closed for renovations and I felt like the remainder of them were a bit lackluster. However, it was free so I really can't complain too much. :)  Seeing two of these huge museums in one day was really exhausting but I'm glad we fit two in!

Original Wright brothers plane!

So excited about this one!

Patsy Cline's costume!

The joys of canning...

Original scarecrow costume from the Wizard of Oz