Outfit of the Day: A Special Birthday Outing

This past weekend my husband took me out to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco for my birthday!

I've been wanting to go check out this museum for ages now and a birthday seemed the perfect occasion to make an excuse to go. While it isn't far from us, about 40 min on a light traffic day, we do tend to avoid driving to the city like the plague, so it's not really all that surprising that it's taken us years to finally check this place out!

The California Academy of Sciences has been newly renovated and moved from it's old location to its new location in Golden Gate Park. Of course when I say newly I mean like within the last 7 years. I totally don't keep up with these things!

While I knew about the museum from a field trip I took to it and also knew about it being moved to its new location in Golden Gate Park, I didn't really hear much about it until I read about in Hemispheres magazine on a United flight while on the way to vacation one year. The article really blew my mind! This museum showcases a living roof and an indoor rainforest! I read about how in the rainforest you travel up five stories until you are up in the tree tops. Once at the top you then get to walk across a suspension bridge through the trees! Now, when I got there while there was a living roof and an indoor rainforest, the rainforest was not 5 stories high, only 3, and there was no suspension bridge. How my mind remembered things so wrong! But there were tons of butterflies fluttering about all over and even some birds though they were much harder to spot. Overall the rainforest room was a lot smaller than I pictured in my mind though it was still cool to see. Also, with museums I always forget that it's usually all about seeing not touching so there was no tramping about the living roof. Though, at the same time it was pretty cool that there was even access to go up and out to see the roof up close.

Despite my many disillusions with what my mind made up after hearing about the newly renovated California Academy of Sciences there was still tons about the Cal Academy that I was not expecting such as the in house aquarium which was much larger than I would have ever expected it to be as well as the planetarium, all which were included in the normal price of admission!

While that was basically all we had time for since we made it to the museum a bit late, there was still tons left to be seen at the museum including all of the non permanent exhibits, as well as just about everything in the natural history part of the museum (African hall, the pendulum, the geophysical exhibits, an exhibit on human genes, and so much more!)

It would have been great to have more time to see everything but at the same time I'm so overwhelmed that we even got to see as much as we did! It was a great day outing and so much fun to finally get to check this place out!

Inside the Rainforest Room, California Academy of Science, San Francisco, CA

Birds inside the Rainforest Room, California Academy of Science, San Francisco, CA

Frogs inside the Rainforest Room, California Academy of Science, San Francisco, CA

And Butterflies! Inside the Rainforest Room, California Academy of Science, San Francisco, CA

More Butterflies, Inside the Rainforest Room, California Academy of Science, San Francisco, CA

The Living Roof, California Academy of Science, San Francisco, CA

Baby, It's cold outside! California Academy of Science, San Francisco, CA

Outfit of the Day:
Knowing there was going to be a rainforest room with real butterflies flying all about, I coudn't resist wearing the Butterfly dress I'm borrowing from a friend. In fact, as soon as I found out that it was going to be possible to borrow this dress I knew I would have to wear it for my birthday, and because I love dressing in themes so much this dress was actually the reason I decided on finally going to the museum to check this place out for my birthday outing! I paired this with my most comfortable flats, a pair of black ankle straps by Blowfish, and a cropped mohair black cardigan because I knew it was going to be cold in the city! Also, because this was my first time wearing the butterfly dress out and about I made it extra fancy and special by topping the look off with a brown and black feathered fascinator.

Butterfly print dress- Front View

Butterfly print dress- Front View

Butterfly print dress- Side View

Butterfly print dress- Front View

Butterfly print dress- Front View

Butterfly print dress- Side View

Outfit of the Day: A Very Special Meetup and a Dressy Sunday Movie Day Date

This past weekend was a very fun and eventful one! 

On Saturday I partook in a Trashy Diva dress club meetup. It was the first club meetup for our area. While it was a relatively small group of ten women, myself included, it was the first time I had never seen so many women in one place so gorgeously dressed up and everyone in my favorite brand, Trashy Diva! We went out to Trader Vic's, a tiki themed restaurant in Emeryville, and had a great time gabbing about dresses and eating good food! I'm so looking forward to the next meetup already!

Tiki Time at Trader Vic's!

On Sunday, Tim and I decided to go out and see the new Terminator movie (Terminator 5), Terminator Genisys. It was a lot better than I expected. To put all the Terminator movies in order of those I liked the most, I would say first, Terminator 2, then Terminator 1, then Terminator 5, then Terminator 6, Then Terminator 3. That's a whole lot of terminators! They brought something new to the table with this one though and were very heavy on the time travel. I liked it a lot! After the movies we went out to dinner. I wanted to go to the Macaroni Grill but as it turns out it was gone so we went out for Mexican instead.



Outfit of the Day:
Saturday:
For Saturday's super festive activity I decided to go with a Hawaiian themed dress to go with the Tiki theme of Trader Vic's. I wore my Trashy Diva Alison dress in Hawaiian Charm. I paired this with some mustard peep toe flats from Target and a cropped mustard cardigan by MAK which I got from Trashy Diva.

Trashy Diva Alison dress in Hawaiian Charm- Front View

Trashy Diva Alison dress in Hawaiian Charm- Front View

Trashy Diva Alison dress in Hawaiian Charm- Side View

Trashy Diva Alison dress in Hawaiian Charm- Front View

Trashy Diva Alison dress in Hawaiian Charm- Front View

Trashy Diva Alison dress in Hawaiian Charm- Side View

Sunday:
On Sunday I didn't go in theme but instead chose a dress I adore, my Trashy Diva 40's dress in Olivine Floral. This dress is special to me because it was one that came to me as a gift from a super wonderful and special lady. I paired this dress with nude flats by Easy Spirit which I got from Nordstrom Rack and a cropped green cardigan by MAK which I got from Modcloth. To be extra fancy this day I changed out my purse for a super cute vintage wicker purse I recently bought from Etsy. I thought it was fun to also change things up a bit and wore this dress with my Invader Zim earrings which surprisingly were a perfect match with the dress!

Trashy Diva 40's dress in Olivine Floral- Front View

Trashy Diva 40's dress in Olivine Floral- Front View

Trashy Diva 40's dress in Olivine Floral- Side View

Trashy Diva 40's dress in Olivine Floral- Front View

Trashy Diva 40's dress in Olivine Floral- Front View

Trashy Diva 40's dress in Olivine Floral- Side View

Trashy Diva 40's dress in Olivine Floral With Invader Zim Earrings- Close Up

3 Dresses For My 33rd B-day!

Not one, not two, but three dresses for my thirty-third b-day!

I do like to treat myself on my birthday. ;)

I know a lot of people who dislike birthdays and really hate the thought of getting another year older. I, myself, LOVE birthdays! A couple of years ago I started my own personal tradition of buying myself a birthday present. I find that taking part in some grand indulgence(s) makes birthdays all the more fun!

Because this year was a twin double digit year (3 and 3) I decided to follow suit with three dresses to make it a triple three!

With larger price tag purchases I find myself  usually being more prudent in deciding to buy a dress or not. I will take my time eying the dress and deciding if it's really a dress I want to lay down lots of money for. Therefore, I usually buy older season's dresses when they come from companies like Trashy Diva, Tatyana (formally Bettie Page Clothing), and Stop Staring (unless I find a super awesome sale, or I fall completely in love with a dress at first sight).

Also, just as a side note, I have the absolute worst timing with Trashy Diva. Last year, when I finally decided to take the plunge on their Annette French Quarter print dress, the day after I bought the dress they ended up having a 20% off sale! Ugh! Then, this year, when I finally decided to buy their Apple Pie Gingham dress (armed with a coupon code this time), the day after making my purchase they announced on Facebook that every order that day was going to come with a free goodie bag of fun things. Missed it by one day again! Also, as luck would have it, the two Trashy Diva dresses I bought this year both ended up going into their sale section and got an extra 50% off their sale price (the sale is still currently going on so check it out here if you haven't already!). I was not fortunate enough to get this great price on the two dresses though. But then again, I am just happy that I got these two dresses that where long on my wishlist in my correct size! ...once these two dresses went into Trashy Diva's sale section, my size had already been sold out.

And without further ado, here are my three birthday dress reviews!



Trashy Diva's Apple Pie Gingham Dress:

My first dress up for review is the Trashy Diva Apple Pie Gingham dress. I purchased this dress from Cats Like Us. I initially purchased it from Trashy Diva in a size 12 after seeing their size 8 and 10 were sold out. I had a coupon code for 15%. Usually I would have waited for a larger discount but the other two sizes selling out made me nervous so I decided if I wanted it, I'd better get it now. It is an older style dress so I knew once this is gone there is little to no chance this one will be restocked. I was dismayed when I saw that the size 12 was way too big! It was way too big in the bust and way too big in the waist.... I thought about how I could alter it and tuck in the sides and maybe even the bust darts myself to get a better fit but thought it still would not look right. I had two other options: 1- return this dress and get a smaller size from Cats Like Us. If I did this I would lose out on the shipping cost to me and shipping cost back to them and I would have to pay full price for the dress rather than have the 15% discount from TD... My other option was 2- send this dress in for professional alterations... because this dress is fully lined in the bust I figured it would be a good $35+ for the alterations and even then it might not look right. Also I figured the alterations cost would probably be about the same price, if not possibly more, as returning the larger size to TD and getting the smaller size from Cats Like Us... besides, I do like to purchase from the cats at CLU so I decided on option 1... I would have initially ordered the dress from CLU but I was thinking the size 10 would be too small. Too bad I didn't go that route to begin with.

Because of Cats Like Us' free shipping and their slightly smaller price tag for this dress, I ended up paying the same amount for this dress through them as I paid through TD with the 15% discount, though I was still out all the shipping I paid for the purchase and return from Trashy Diva. Anyway, to my complete surprise, I got the size 10 in and what do you know... slightly too small! I am still so surprised how a size 12 could be sooooo completely too big yet a tiny bit down to a size 10 could be too tight! It's a good thing I did end up purchasing the too big size from TD first because the too big was way too big and the too small was only slightly too tight though still wearable. If I would have first purchased the slightly too small one from CLU I would have sent it back thinking the size 12 would fit better and getting completely frustrated with all these dresses being shipped all over the place when I would have later found the size 12 to be way too big and the 10 being a better fit.

The moral of this story... Trashy Diva needs to open a store closer to me so I can go into the store and try things on before buying ;)

The Trashy Diva Apple Pie gingham dress is very similar to their new Apple Tart dress though with gingham instead of seersucker. Also, there is the obvious difference that rather than being gingham print throughout the body of the dress, as the seersucker is for the Apple Tart dress, the Apple Pie dress is a black dress with contrasting black and white gingham at the bust and on the pockets of the dress. Like the Apple Tart dress, this dress features a sweetheart neckline with a ruffled bust which I feel is the signature element to these two dresses. This dress is fitted at the waist and though the skirt of the dress is said to be a-line, it feels very full and has a good amount to body and flare even without a crinoline underneath. This dress is made with a light weight cotton.

Trashy Diva Apple Pie Gingham Dress- Front View

Trashy Diva Apple Pie Gingham Dress- Front View

Trashy Diva Apple Pie Gingham Dress- Side View

Trashy Diva Apple Pie Gingham Dress- Back View

Trashy Diva Apple Pie Gingham Dress- Close Up

Trashy Diva's Alison Dress in Hawaiian Charm:

The Trashy Diva Alison Dress in Hawaiian Charm is the second dress I got for my 33rd birthday. Like the Trashy Diva Apple Pie dress, this dress is one I've been eying for quite some time. What really drew me to this dress is the fabulous colors! I love the beautiful blue color with the darker maroon and green which is contrasted by the hints of yellow and lit up by the white! Also, I love the tropical flowers on this dress. This dress is made of a light weight rayon. It has a cross-over v-neckline in both the front and back, gathered shoulders, giving the shoulders and underbust identical ruching, a fitted top-stiched waist, and a nicely full and flared skirt. I read on reviews that this dress fit tight around the ribs so I picked out a size 12. The size 12 was very tight! Usually a 12 in Trashy Diva will fit slightly loose on me but this was a tight 12. This is another dress that went into the sale section at Trashy Diva but was already out of my size. Blue Velvet Vintage, which was my backup plan, also sold out. I was so glad to find this dress at Retro Glam and even got lucky to see they had a coupon code on their Facebook page out that day for 20% off! Even though it was shipping from Canada I found that shipping was not bad and their customer service was exceptional!

Also, for those Trashy Diva lovers out there... I noticed that the Alison dress and the Ashley dress are very similar at first glance... (the Ashley in Crepe Myrtle is another TD I've been eying) so I asked the ladies at TD what the main differences were between the two. Here is what they said:

The Alison has a taller fitted waist section and there's a crossover front and back, where the Ashley just has a crossover front. The sleeves on the Ashley are also slightly longer/puffier. Additionally, the Alison Dress is a little more forgiving in terms of fit. It's a more modern, 50's fit, and the Ashley is more of a 40's style. Hope that helps!

Trashy Diva Alison Dress In Hawaiian Charm- Front View

Trashy Diva Alison Dress In Hawaiian Charm- Front View

Trashy Diva Alison Dress In Hawaiian Charm- Side View

Trashy Diva Alison Dress In Hawaiian Charm- Back View

My favorite part.... These Chelsea Crew Shoes are perfect with this dress... completely unplanned too!

Trashy Diva Alison Dress In Hawaiian Charm With Chelsea Crew Madison Pumps In Red

Tatyana's Alika Circle Dress in Green:

The Alika dress by Tatyana (formally Bettie Page Clothing) is the third dress I got for my 33rd birthday! I've been swooning over this dress since it first came out years ago. At first I had my eye set on the red version but after I got the red version I started thinking maybe I would like the green better. Both are beautiful. I do find though that the red version just has more of a formal feeling to it. Somehow it just feels more dressed up, while the green one I feel has more of a option to wear it dressed up or dressed down. This dress is made of a nice stretch bengaline. The silhouette of this dress is a perfect fit and flair shape with sleeves. What makes this dress really stand out is the bold solid colors, in this case green, with a lattice style thick netting at the top which adorns both the neckline and the sleeves. The fitted waist has a bow and the full circle skirt ensures itself to be twirl ready! The fullness of the material makes it look great as is even without a crinoline. The material furthermore, has a good amount of stretch to it giving it a very comfortable feel and a great fit! This dress may be last on the list but it's definitely by no means a last pick! ;) I got really lucky with this dress and snagged it at a great price from Pinup Darling during a sale!

Tatyana Alika Dress In Green- Front View

Tatyana Alika Dress In Green- Front View

Tatyana Alika Dress In Green- Side View

Tatyana Alika Dress In Green- Back View

Tatyana Alika Dress In Green- Close Up

Tatyana Alika Dress In Green with Chelsea Crew Malibu T-straps

And so those are three presents I bought myself this year for my birthday. Birthdays are the best! For reference on sizing, my measurements are 39"-31"-38", 5'3".

Another year older, but also another year of life, another year of memories, and another year full of experiences! Looking forward to every day I get.