Outfit Of The Day: Autumn Double Outfit Post- Last Weekend Until Halloween

This past weekend was a fun filled one with two outings each day of the weekend!

On Saturday I went out with my ladies to a vegan restaurant called Soulfully Vegan in Oakland. The food was excellent (much better than I expected ) ;) and the company, as always, was great!

Then on Sunday Tim and I went to a pumpkin carving party at our other friends' house. We had lots of fun hanging out with good company and good pumpkins!



Outfit of the Day:

On Saturday I wore my Havana Nights dress in Warm Toned Cabana Stripes by Pinup Girl Clothing. With its orange and purple stripes, I thought this was the prefect dress to wear for the weekend before Halloween! I paired this with a black cardigan, a maroon beret from Forever 21, and my favorite black flats from the Gap Outlet.

Pinup Girl Clothing Havana Nights Dress In Warm Toned Cabana Stripes- Front View

Pinup Girl Clothing Havana Nights Dress In Warm Toned Cabana Stripes- Front View

Pinup Girl Clothing Havana Nights Dress In Warm Toned Cabana Stripes- Side View

Pinup Girl Clothing Havana Nights Dress In Warm Toned Cabana Stripes- Front View

Pinup Girl Clothing Havana Nights Dress In Warm Toned Cabana Stripes- Front View

On Sunday I wore my Hell Bunny Emilie Black dress. I liked the easy wash and wear factor in this dress which I figured would particularly came in handy after a night of pumpkin carving! You can't be too careful carving pumpkins even in a skeleton printed apron! Actually, truth be told, I didn't do too bad and didn't get any pumpkin guts on my beautiful dress. :) I paired this with an Ethel of Beverly Hills vintage cardigan which I got from Etsy and my black flats from the Gap Outlet.

Hell Bunny Emilie Black Dress- Front View

Hell Bunny Emilie Black Dress- Front View

Hell Bunny Emilie Black Dress- Side View

Hell Bunny Emilie Black Dress- Front View

Hell Bunny Emilie Black Dress- Close Up

A Lucky Find! Another Trashy Diva Dress From My 2014 Wishlist

Trashy Diva is easily my favorite vintage reproduction brand.

While they can be pricy, what I really love about Trashy Diva is the prints on their dresses. Year after year they come out out with a selection of dresses in fun prints that won't be found anywhere else. Also, sadly, once that year's line of dresses are sold, it is unlikely you will ever see that print again. The upside to this is that if you have an older style print dress, especially if it's in a common size, it would not be too hard to find a buyer on ebay or through a swap and sell group online to make some of your money back when you are ready to part with your lovely dress (given that your dress is still in good condition). ;)

Another thing that I really love about Trashy Diva is that their styles are so unique, varied, and period appropriate. First off, they offer a great selection of dresses in 1930's, 1940's, and 1950's style mainly finding their niche in the 1940's era.

Secondly, while they seem to have a handful of styles that may come back into play year after year such as their Alison and Ashley dresses, some styles only come back after several years have past such as is seen with their Sweetie and 40's Flutter dress. And even with their staple styles, because their prints are so varied and not often reproduced, even when a new Alison or Ashley comes out it seems like a completely new dress. They come out with so many different things it's hard to get bored of their designs.

Last, I love that they release their dresses in mostly rayon which is very period appropriate for their dress style and cotton which is also a fabric which would have been used in the era they are trying to reproduce. I have never seen them use polyester. They used to have 100% silk dresses which I would have loved to see, but then again, I cringe at the thought of how much they would charge if they went back to 100% silk.

With all that being said, every year they come out with their new line of dresses and separates and every year I pine over several of their styles. This has been my biggest year of pining, but then again, because I only took my first plunge into buying TD two years ago, this is also my first year of watching their designs come out from day one of the beginning of the year.

In any case, when their Crepe Myrtle Ashley dress sold out in my size (as well as a size up and a size down from my usual size), I was resolved that it wasn't meant to be. But then one day, what do you know, my size mysterious popped back up on their site. And knowing that most likely that meant they only had the one dress in that size, and having a coupon burning a hole in my pocket, I decided it was now or most likely never and took the plunge again and bought it! While I'm still waiting to see if they will release Sweetie dresses in solid colors this year (they were expecting a summer release in this style), thus far, this rounds up my Trashy Diva wishlist for 2014 with the exception of a Streetcar dress in Cherries if I can find her. And here it is, another dress review!


Dress Review:

The Ashley dress is a 1940's style dress which features super cute capped and puffed sleeves, a slightly crossover v-neckline with small pleats at the shoulders and under the bust, and a thick, wide, fully-lined waist band. The back of the bodice is fully covered with a high collar, and also has small pleats just under the shoulders for easy movement. The skirt is flared yet slender as is the fashion for 1940's style dresses and this dress has a side zip. The print of this dress is the Crepe Myrtle which features white and very slightly bluish grey flowers with plentiful green leaves on a black background.

Trashy Diva Ashley Dress In Crepe Myrtle- Front View

Trashy Diva Ashley Dress In Crepe Myrtle- Front View

Trashy Diva Ashley Dress In Crepe Myrtle- Side View

Trashy Diva Ashley Dress In Crepe Myrtle- Back View

Trashy Diva Ashley Dress In Crepe Myrtle- Close Up

For reference, I bought this dress in size 12 and my measurements are 39-31-39, 5'3".

Sipping Warm Tea On A Saturday In October

In my last post I featured an Outfit of the Day for a Saturday of both tea time and a wedding. 

Well, since I do love blogging about tea time, here is my post on tea time with my mother-in-law.

The weather was fair and my mother-in-law and I had a morning of antiquing at My Friends And I during their annual Christmas open house. What makes it a Christmas open house you may ask? Well I asked the same thing, hence the reason I wanted to check it out. There didn't seem to be be anything super special about this day at My Friends And I other than the 10% off your purchase, larger crowds, and a few Christmas items out for sale. Still I had a great time browsing around and even picked up some vintage buttons and belt buckles for future sewing projects.

After attending My Friends And I's open house my mother-in-law and I went out to tea at my favorite local teatime spot, Tyme For Tea just a few doors down.

The food was delicious. The scones were detectible, the savories scrumptious, and the sweets decadent. It was everything I have come to know and expect from Tyme For Tea. I sipped on a nice warm pot of almond coconut macaroon black tea while leisurely sitting and enjoying good conversation and company.

The Table Is Set At Tyme For Tea, Niles, CA

Cute Teacup Napkin Ring At Tyme For Tea, Niles, CA

Tea Menu, Tyme For Tea, Niles, CA

Tea Menu, Tyme For Tea, Niles, CA

Warm Cuppa

Blueberry Lemon Scone With A Warm Cup Of Tea

Tea Sandwiches and Savories

(Photo Missing) 

Opps! I forgot to take a picture of the sweets. We were too quick to eat these. Petit fours, brown sugar cookies, and peanut butter honeycomb balls.

Time Well Spent

Outfit of the Day: Green Means Go- A Day For Teatime And A Wedding!

This past Saturday was a busy and wonderful day.

I started the day off with my mother-in-law in the nearby old town of Niles. We went to one of hers and my favorite antique stores, My Friend's And I, for their annual Christmas open house. Then after browsing around and picking up some vintage buttons and belt buckles for me and some other goodies for her, we went out to tea at Tyme For Tea just next door.

The lovely day continued after a dress change when Tim and I got to attend our friends' wedding in the beach side town of Monterey. The event was beautiful, the venue gorgeous, and the weather perfect! We felt very fortunate to be able to celebrate this wonderful event with them. It was a beautiful occasion!

Outfit of the Day:

For the open house and tea time with my mother-in-law I wore my Bettie Page / Tatyana green circle jumper with a black cotton shirt I got from Nordstrom some years back. I paired this with my trusty flats. Although I wasn't expecting too much walking to go on, I didn't want to tire my feet out before going to the wedding later that day.

Bettie Page Green Circle Jumper- Front View

Bettie Page Green Circle Jumper- Front View

Bettie Page Green Circle Jumper- Side View

For the wedding I got out my Stop Staring Timeless dress, one which I've been saving for a special occasion. I couldn't think of any occasion more special than our friends' wedding! I paired this with my BC Cat Kitten heels (In The Winner's Circle heels) because it was too hard to resist wearing them! I also wore a black fascinator to add a touch of extra fancy dress to dress up for this occasion. When the night got cooler I had my Trashy Diva Courtney Dress Coat to keep me warm!

Stop Staring Timeless Dress In Green- Front View

Stop Staring Timeless Dress In Green- Side View

 

BC In The Winner's Circle Heels In Animal- Close Up

Trashy Diva Courtney Coat- Front View

Trashy Diva Courtney Coat- Front View

Trashy Diva Courtney Coat- Side View

Matching Your Dress To Your Teaware, Part 7 Polka Pairing!

In the vintage lover's world, who doesn't love polka dots?!

Polka dots are so wonderfully retro, classic, iconic, and fun! When I first saw the Hell Bunny Red Madden Polka Dot 40s dress pop up on the Cats Like Us website I immediately recalled how I saw a beautiful and perfectly matched teapot on Stash Tea's website.

Hell Bunny's Red Madden Polka Dot 40s dress is a 1940's style bright happy red dress with large white polka dots all over. This fit and flare dress has a high neckline adorned by a decorative collar which itself has decorative silver buttons. Furthermore, this dress also has cute puffed sleeves with faux cuffs, flattering and form fitting pleating under the bust, and a fitted waist that flows into an A-line skirt.

Pair this with the Polka Dot Teapot at Stash Tea and you have a perfect duo for a retro themed tea!

The Polka Dot teapot is a classic brown betty shaped teapot in a bright, uplifting cherry red color. It's spherical body coordinates flawlessly with its white polka dot motif. The lid of the teapot is brilliantly and simplistically topped with a round knob continuing on with the dot motif of the teapot.

Hell Bunny Red Madden Polka Dot 40s Dress,
photo: http://shop.catslikeus.com/products/hell-bunny-red-madden-polka-dot-40s-dress

Polka Dot Teapot, photo: http://www.stashtea.com/Tag-Polka-Dot-Teapot/dp/B004IC6UHS?class=quickView&field_availability=-1&field_browse=2861425011&id=Tag+Polka+Dot+Teapot&ie=UTF8&refinementHistory=subjectbin%2Cprice%2Csize_name%2Ccolor_map&searchBinNameList=subjectbin%2Cprice%2Csize_name%2Ccolor_map&searchNodeID=2861425011&searchPage=2&searchRank=salesrank&searchSize=12

These two make a perfect paring! After all, in the vintage lover's world, who doesn't love red with white polka dots!

Sale On Sale Find From Trashy Diva!!!

I love sales! But I especially love a good sale on sales!!!

I haven't caught on yet if there's a particular time of year that sales on sale items occur or if they just occur throughout the year at the end of each Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer season when new stock is ready to come in. So far, the end of summer has been a good time for these sales. Pinup Girl Clothing just had a fabulous string of sales on sale items... you can see my awesome finds from this sale here. Trashy Diva also recently had their own sale on sale items!

As some readers might have noticed I've been buying quite too many Trashy Diva dresses as of late... some might even say too many dresses in general but I do have a hard time resisting a good sale! During Trashy Diva's sale on sale I picked up a purple Varga dress for almost 70% off the normal price. Plus, I was lucky to also get free shipping! Such a steal is hard for this girl to resist!


Dress Review:

The Trashy Diva Varga dress is a 1950's style halter dress with wide halter straps, a plunging sweetheart neckline, gathering at the bust, a very fitted waist, and a nice full flared skirt. The bust and waist is fully lined and the bodice has an elastic back to help get a fitted look. I knew that this dress tends to fit a little loose in the chest so I ordered it in the smallest size my waist would fit, size 10. Even with the elastic back and the smaller size there is still some room in the chest. For the price and the beautiful rich purple color of the dress though, it's definitely a keeper!

Trashy Diva Varga Dress- Front View

Trashy Diva Varga Dress- Front View

Trashy Diva Varga Dress- Side View

Trashy Diva Varga Dress- Back View

One thing that I really love about this solid color purple dress is that it is easily dressed up or down!

Trashy Diva Varga Dress- Close Up

Trashy Diva Varga Dress- Close Up

For reference my measurements are 39-30-39, 5'3" and this is a size 10.

Outfit Of The Day: Getting Out More Black And White In Preparation Of Halloween!

Halloween is one of my favorite times of year!

It is a month long celebration in my book!

Actually, some might say I celebrate longer than just one month since I usually get my Halloween decorations out in September and am still watching horror movies and eating Halloween candy well into November. In actuality though, horror movies and candy are year round for me! But I do like to indulge a little more around Halloween ;)

In any case, on Saturday Tim and I had some friends over for dinner. I donned on a pretty black and white dress, put on my skeleton bones apron and got cooking! After dinner we went out to the movies and saw Annabell which I enjoyed immensely even though I didn't particularly care for the end. This movie joins the list alongside Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and Possession of recent big box office horror favorites.

To continue on with my Halloween tradition I'm currently reading My Soul To Keep by one of my favorite horror writers, Tanararive Due, which will soon be followed by The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury (I can't believe I haven't read this one yet!). And I'm sooooo looking forward to visiting some Halloween haunted houses soon and on Halloween, taking my usual vacation day off from work, staying home baking pumpkin bread while catching up on the most recent season of A Haunting released on dvd. <3


Outfit of the Day:

For this day's activities I wore the Evie dress by Hell Bunny paired with my usual throw on and forget about black flats. I love this dress because it's a heavier weight fabric perfect for when the weather starts to turn cooler but because of the short puffed sleeves and collar detail which you wouldn't want to cover up with a sweater or jacket, it's perfect for early Autumn when it's still warm during the day.

Hell Bunny Evie Dress- Front View

Hell Bunny Evie Dress- Front View

Hell Bunny Evie Dress- Side View

Hell Bunny Evie Dress- Back View

Fourth Dress Of The Year Made By Me: My Sci-Fi Rockets' Missing Piece

I am so happy to announce I completed my sewing goal for 2014!

At the beginning of the year when I vowed to get back into sewing I made the goal to myself that I was going to aim to make four dresses this year. I started out strong with one dress completed in February but then really started slacking the rest of the year. Now, with almost three months of the year left to spare I finished my fourth dress!

For this dress I used Vogue pattern 8974 from their "vintage Vogue" collection. Since this was my first time using a Vogue pattern I wasn't sure how the sizing would be so I opted to sew the pattern one size bigger than my usual sewing size. After sewing though, I found the dress was too big so made alternations to make it smaller. Because of the alternations on it, the dress came out less than perfect especially at the back of the bodice. Additionally, I modified the pattern by using a side zip instead of snaps along the side of this dress. Another note on this pattern, I found that the length of this dress came out so much longer than the retro Butterick patterns. I ended up heming the skirt down by a good 5-6 inches!

Overall I'm very happy with the way this dress turned out!

Fourth Dress Of The Year Made By Me, Vogue 8974- Front View

Fourth Dress Of The Year Made By Me, Vogue 8974- Front View

Fourth Dress Of The Year Made By Me, Vogue 8974- Side View

Fourth Dress Of The Year Made By Me, Vogue 8974- Back View

Fourth Dress Of The Year Made By Me, Vogue 8974- Close Up

I chose this dress pattern with the intention of making a dress which would match well with a Trashy Diva Sci Fi Rockets Bolero. I bought this bolero during one of their sales. I was sad I missed out on their Sci Fi Rockets dresses and was happy I at least didn't miss out on this print completely. But while I loved the bolero the first moment I tried it on, I had the problem then of what to wear with it. Perhaps it would make a cute top with high waisted capris? Perhaps it still will but I'm happy I now have a dress to wear with this beautiful bolero!

For this dress I used a dark, though not quite navy blue color, trying to match it up as best I could with the blue on the bolero. To match the style of the bolero I used cover buttons where the shoulder straps meet the bodice to mimic the covered buttons on the bolero. I finished up with a cute blue vintage belt buckle I found on Etsy.

When I first saw this pattern I knew it would be the perfect dress to go with this bolero! I love how the geometric angles at the bodice of the dress compliments the over-sized geometric collar of the bolero. I feel that the whole cut of this dress is very complimentary to the cut and pattern of the Trashy Diva Sci Fi bolero! The sharp angles on the dress, both at the front of the bodice and the crossing straps in the back, go perfectly with the sharp angles on the bolero and all the sharp angles in the Sci-Fi Rockets print itself!

Fourth Dress Of The Year Made By Me, Vogue 8974 with Trashy Diva Sci Fi Rockets Bolero- Close Up

Fourth Dress Of The Year Made By Me, Vogue 8974 with Trashy Diva Sci Fi Rockets Bolero- Front View

Fourth Dress Of The Year Made By Me, Vogue 8974 with Trashy Diva Sci Fi Rockets Bolero- Front View

Fourth Dress Of The Year Made By Me, Vogue 8974 with Trashy Diva Sci Fi Rockets Bolero- Front View

Fourth Dress Of The Year Made By Me, Vogue 8974 with Trashy Diva Sci Fi Rockets Bolero- Front View

Fourth Dress Of The Year Made By Me, Vogue 8974 with Trashy Diva Sci Fi Rockets Bolero- Side View

Vogue 8974