I'll Fly Away

Dang, I hate that it's dark out when I take my pictures now - I have every light in the house on, the 'backlight' on my camera on, and still, all the colours look muddy and dark. Where's my cute guy with the light reflector? I'm sure L won't mind, hee.

This is my new top that I got at Winners last Friday:
I am not usually one to go with pastels (this is mostly mint green), or those "slash" dye jobs, but I liked the purple, burgundy, blue pattern over the green and the top looked cute on. Okay, the $10 price tag also convinced me.

In case you can't tell, I'm wearing burgundy boots (last seen here), a brown lace skirt (last seen here) and a purple long-sleeved tee (I had also packed my navy underflounce skirt, but it was too short to show under this skirt). Hmmm...my "teeth" necklace barely shows. What's up with that?

I liked the sleeves on this tee - something a little different. I've got wings!
It's also been a year since I started doing pee-pushups (have you been doing yours? scroll down) and I love that my arms are nice and shapely and strong!

The stuff:

Mmmm...shiny red boots...

A close-up:

You can see what I mean by the "slash" dye job.

Tee (Casual Freedom), long-sleeved tee (Press), skirt (Planet), boots (Aldo outlet), earrings (gift from Elaine), necklace (The Bay).

Friday Hallowe'en Madness

Well now. I am a fan of Hallowe'en and dressing up in general (check out my Alice Cooper concert-wearing outfit here, and last year's non-costume outfit for Hallowe'en here).

My Book Club meeting was last night (check out Sherylyn's Severed Foot Cheeseball recipe over at Yummyland!) and we decided to do a theme night in honour of Hallowe'en: come as a literary character. I chose the Mad Hatter from "Alice in Wonderland":
I also decided that, despite the lack of morale in my department at work lately, I would dress up for work today in the same costume. Some of these pictures I took last night and some are from this morning.

The full costume:

The coat is the only thing I've never worn on the blog. It is Noa Noa and I got in the spring (it's been too warm to wear it up to now). It was regular $375, marked down to $79.99, with an extra 30% off, so $56.00. Not bad!

Last night, I used my shiny black purse to carry my book to the meeting:

All done up. I got some strange looks on the bus on the way there!

The thing I like about my costume is that I didn't buy a single new thing for it - I had all this stuff in my wardrobe or in the house. For me, that makes it more creative and special than going out and buying a costume. Here's how I built it ('cause I know you guys like to see how it's all put together).

First, I did my stripey tights (previously seen here) and my red vintage slip (seen here):

Then I added the blouse I wore to the interview a couple of weeks ago, and my flouncy Noa Noa skirt (seen here):

I gathered the black skirt up and pinned to the red slip to show off the red more. I also scrunched my hair up with a glob of volumizing mousse.

Then I added my plaid bustier (last worn here) for a nice smooth look:

Lastly, I put on my coat, tied a long scarf-belt (from an old skirt) around my neck as a floppy bow-tie, and put my hat on. And I added the boots (last seen here with the same black skirt):

I tied a long length of ribbon across my body, and draped a measuring tape around my neck.

Here's a close-up of the upper body details:

I copied Johnny Depp's makeup from the recent movie (it's not very good, by the way, but pretty to look at). Those are my lace cuffs from my "Never Seen" series (here). I raided my knitting box for various pins with fancy heads, my seam ripper and scissors (in the breast pocket). I also had a big needle threaded through the measuring tape, which was wrapped around the brown ribbon.

Some coat details are needed! The back is embroidered in cross-stitch: As is the breast pocket:

So amazing. I love details like that. I looked at this coat for weeks before I finally bought it - when I had that "what if it's sold?" panicky feeling, I knew I had to bite the bullet and buy it.

Here's how I decorated my vintage 80s top hat:

I tied my Smoking Lily obi around it, then started pinning things. I cut out a sticky note and wrote 10/6 on it (it's the one feature I made). I've had the feathered eidelweiss pin and the bug pin for ages. You can also see that I hung needle threaders on my hoop earrings. The starburst pin is the one on my skirt.

I also pinned one of my butterflies that I got at the Victoria & Albert Museum gift shop in London on the hat (seen on another hat here), along with a couple of straight pins:

I like how the ends of the obi looked:

Mom's old kilt pin (noted in the "Never Seen" accessories post linked above).

Here's a shot of the lace cuffs and my red fingerless gloves (it's a little chilly today). The gloves looked great with this.

And the tape measure...for good measure.

I hope you have a safe and spooky Hallowe'en! Let me know if any of you posted costume pictures - I'll link to them if you like.

By the way, I won my company's Best Costume contest today! I got a $35 Visa gift card.

Coat (Noa Noa), bustier (Le Chateau, consignment), blouse (Esprit, consignment), black skirt (Noa Noa), red slip (vintage, Suzette Lingerie, consignment), tights (Hue), boots (LaTianna, consignment), top hat (vintage 80s, Le Chateau, L's boss' wife).

Schlumpy Monday - Hated It

Gah. I bought this dress on Friday night - I love the brand (Noa Noa), and I love the fabric and I love the cut of it (it's very 50s housewife). However, what I do not love:
This dress on me. Wow, what a bad purchase! And there I am, trying to pose it into looking better. Yeah, NO.

I thought, "I can layer this! Put different coloured slips under it! Wear a really cool belt with it!" Believe me, I tried. I tried the red slip, the navy slip, the cream slip - none of them looked right. I ended up going with a cream half-slip and a pink cami. And a black bra. Whatever possessed me to wear a BLACK bra under a see-through brown lace dress is beyond me.

And the hem! It does a weird bubble thing! At an unflattering length too, I might add. And the dress is too wide in the shoulders, and the waist is all wrong, and I look like I've gained about 30 pounds.

This dress is going straight into the consignment bag. Hopefully, I'll get a good return on the $45 I spent. Bah! Bad dress, bad, bad dress!

The stuff:

Not even normally good stuff worked. The rose was the wrong colour and looked asstastic. The shoes were wrong. The scarf-as-belt: *buzzer noise*.

Okay, it's going to take a serious effort to wash the taste of this out of my mouth tomorrow. What will it be...? What would YOU wear?

Dress (Noa Noa), cami (Jackpot), scarf (thrifted), rose (Roberta's Hats), shoes (Circa Joan & David, thrifted), half-slip (thrifted), necklace (Plum), pearls (Eaton's, 80s), ring (Guess).

Back to School - The Keys to Education

Football season has started, so I must be quick!

New jacket, nice and plaid-y:
The jacket is cotton with Spandex, unlined and really stretchy. I liked that I could shove the sleeves up. It was $6 in a thrift store.

I wanted to wear it done up, but it's been warm today. But see how nicely it hugs?

I haven't worn this skirt since last December! Crazy.

Check out the back of the jacket:

I love how it dips down a bit, like an English riding jacket.

The stuff:

The vintage mink pin was worn on the back of the jacket (see it in the picture above?).

I had many people ask me today if those keys opened anything. What is it about keys?

When I got this jacket, it only had two buttons on the front - and they were held on with safety pins! I rooted around through my button tin (everyone has some sort of button tin, right? Where you put all the extra buttons?) and found these:

The bottom one is an original, the one on the right is brown, and the top button is a dark red (the plaid has a brown and dark red thread in it). I hate sewing, but it was necessary!

Jacket (Armour Jeans, thrifted), lace top (Noa Noa), cami (InWear), skirt (Planet), shoes (Steve Madden, thrifted), necklace (Aldo Accessories), key earrings (some gift shop), brooch (vintage, thrifted).

Casual Friday: Acid Wash and Snakeskin

Woo hoo! It's Friday and a long weekend (BC Day)! I am so happy!

Today's outfit brought to you by my acid wash denim skirt:
I swear, it'll make a comeback, wait and see! This is the second wearing of my fabulous snakeskin shoes (seen here). I got a lot of compliments on them today, including from a "fragrant" man on the bus.

Nothing really special about this outfit: a little vest (it will have to be replaced soon, as the fabric is pilling a bit on the sides), a little sheer top, and a belt.

The stuff:

The shoes are so darned cool. They've really grown on me.

A close-up:

Hee, I get such a kick out of the acid wash. My dear friend Cat made me that necklace.

Vest (Vero Moda), blouse (Noa Noa), cami (Plum), skirt (Cache, thrifted), shoes (Fergalicious), belt (Plum), necklace (handmade, gift from Cat), earrings (Plum, gift from L).

Weekend Outfits - Plain Old Me

Ah, a nice quiet weekend is almost at an end. And this is what I wore, plain, unvarnished and without make-up or even styling my hair.

Weight Watchers outfit:
This doubled up as my "after Ultimate" outfit for lunch and a bit of thrift/consignment store shopping yesterday.

Dress (Vero Moda), sandals (Rinaldi), gold hoop earrings (gift from L).

Last night, L and I strolled to town for dinner:

We had Thai food - yum!

Dress (Hale Bob), shoes (Joan & David, thrifted), scarf (Smoking Lily, gift from Janet), purse (Aldo).

And after a lazy day of uploading new songs onto my mp3 player, we went to see "Inception" with Kelly. I wore a jacket because the theatre is always freezing:

Good movie! We had a beer and a slice of pizza after, then walked home. A lovely weekend!

Jacket (Bebe, second hand), t-shirt (Truly, Madly, Deeply..., consignment), skirt (I.N.C., consignment), shoes (Stonefly, thrifted).

Hope you had a fab weekend!

Casual Friday: The Circle of Blogging

As I said yesterday, I had a bit of Major Excitement: a package in the mail! It contained this lovely skirt that I'd admired on Kasmira's blog. Inigo immediately sat on it:
Kasmira was the first fashion blogger I ever read, and here I am getting a skirt from her - and a lovely card too, thank you so much! I really appreciate it and will make every effort to do your skirt justice. I hope I succeeded today:

I've been looking for an outfit to wear with this navy sheer net flounced underskirt - I got it a couple of weeks ago at Dots for $19.99. I didn't want to go too girly, so I picked a graphic tee to go with it. And since it was Casual Friday, I did the denim vest.

Back in October, I was out thrift shopping after lunch on a Saturday - I was in my Ultimate gear, no make-up, unwashed hair under a ball cap - and I was recognized by reader Jennifer, who happens to live in my city...who found my blog through Kasmira!

And guess who saw me again at the waterfront pub yesterday? Ha! It all comes back again - I'm so glad I was dressed nicer, hah! I wish you'd said hi, Jennifer! Next time!

I really love the deep red colour of this skirt and the lace trim and V insets. However, the lining is cotton (arg! why do they do that?) and it crept up a bit when I had my bag on my hip today. I'll have to make sure I wear a slip with it in winter to ward off the dreaded Tight Creep.

The stuff:

Every time my boss calls me (he works at one of our US offices), he demands to know what shoes I'm wearing. He was disappointed that I was wearing flats today.

A close-up of the bling:

I wore the snake pin on the side of my vest, just above where the skirt ties at the waist. I've had the rings and pin for over 20 years: I bought the snake ring for myself in 1985 for $35 (a lot back then!) when I volunteered at the local museum gift shop; Mom and Dad gave me the spider ring for Christmas sometime in the late 80s; and they gave me the snake pin for Christmas in 1984 or 85. It used to have a red crystal drop hanging from the head - I cut it off immediately.

I totally forgot I was wearing my chainmail necklace when I took those pictures - it warms to your body temperature:

I bought that for $14 in an online charity auction - it was handmade by one of the employees in my company.

Vest (Bisou Bisou, consignment), t-shirt (Plum, gift from L), skirt (Eddie Rodriguez, swap from Kasmira), shoes (Franco Sarto, consignment), necklace (handmade), snake ring (vintage 80s, gift shop), spider ring (vintage 80s, gift from Mom & Dad), earrings (don't remember).

Double Velvet - and Downgraded to a Silver

First, I have to apologize for incorrect information in yesterday's post: I did not win a gold (I won a silver) and I did not come in 3rd overall (I came in 6th overall). My source was not quite correct (*ahem*Mom*ahem*). But I was only beaten by 1 minute for the gold! Ah well, next year.

Damn. I wanted that gold.

Anyway, moving on! I got this vest a couple of weekends ago:
It's a classic late 80s/early 90s vest - I had a couple like this back in the day (I love vests - they are just so flattering on and they suck everything in nicely). I love the black velvet, so what better to pair with it than more velvet?

The skirt is sort of new - I've worn it once, here. Today, I had fun with texture. Velvet with lace, with the tough rocker chick accessories:Inigo helped with the pictures.

Second wear for these shoes, too - I last wore them for the Wardrobe Challenge in March. Man, they are comfortable.

I love the way the snakeskin looks with the lace and velvet.

A close-up:

I was cleaning out some of my old stuff and found that scrolly cross necklace in a drawer. I bought it for a party many years ago and totally forgot about it.

I'm actually wearing tights:

They're sort of a pebble-y fishnet. Great at hiding varicose veins, haha!

Inigo also got involved in the leg pictures:

Hee, look at his pink belly.

Caught Othello this morning in his favourite chair:

I can see he's watching me.

Vest (Surrey Classics, consignment), lace top (Noa Noa), cami (Plum), skirt (Club Monaco), shoes (Aerosoles), cross (Claire's), necklace (Plum), cuff (old).

Pale Neutrals

First day doing my hair after the cut - it's a bit windblown from my three toque-less walks today (yay! it's finally sunny and warm!). Today's new item is this Noa Noa top:
The seaming under the bust is a little unfortunate - I wish it had another seam right across the ribcage under the boob seams, just to define the waist a bit more. And I probably should have given this outfit a test-drive before I packed it up for work. Ah well, live and learn.

The thin sweater underneath the lacy top is also new-to-me: a gift from Caro (I think it's her mom's). It goes well with the lace top.

Inigo was rolling around near me while I took pictures, so I grabbed him for a cuddle.
Aw, big ol' lovey kitty.

The lace top was $19.99 with 20% off. As you can see, it's "sugar" coloured.

I can also see that the delivery would have been for late spring/early summer 2008 in stores.

The stuff:

Fab shoes! Oh, the wicker bangle is also new - I grabbed that at Club Monaco about a month ago - it was $9.

A close-up:

You can see the nice trim on the lace top, which is from the "Penniless Net" line. The earrings are Grandma J's (research here).

Top (Noa Noa), cami/sweater (Ellen Tracy, gift from Caro), skirt (Kensie), shoes (Le Chateau), bangle (Club Monaco), necklace (Plum), earrings (vintage 50s, Grandma J).