Internet ban

More coats I'm not allowed to get:


All via Fred Flare.

Plaid mad

Now that I can't buy wedding magazines anymore, I find myself returning to the shelter mag section, which is of course bereft of Domino. Elle Decor, Metropolitan Home, and Vogue Living are too schwanky...Fresh Home and House Beautiful weren't up to snuff this month...the British magazines are just too expensive. In desperation I picked up Country Living. And you know what? I think it's as close to Domino as you're going to get. With cozy recipes to boot. Reader, I bought it.

I have already been on an idle plaid-lookout since I saw this one navy-and-red coat at H&M (I am not, however, allowed to buy any coats unless they contain goose-down according to Chris, who is sick of me shivering through each and every winter). Then this Country Living photo spread made me want EVERYYYYTHING plaid. Plaid plaid plaid!

If you type plaid a lot of times it starts to look really weird.

Peachy keen

I thought I would DIE if I couldn't buy this dress. (We are on a shopping hold at the moment in our household, so even the fact that ModCloth is comparable in cuteness to Anthropologie, but at a quarter of the price, doesn't really fly.)

Then I saw that the lace doesn't continue onto the back, so I guess I won't die, but I WILL have to take to my bed with a hankie and smelling salts.

Love.

Guys, if I was spending money on myself right now, I wouldn't even blink at the price tag for this new shirt from J. Crew. How beautiful! I would get it in ivory, though, to stretch the wear across the dollar. I don't think that last sentence made much sense but I also didn't fall asleep until 4:30 this morning, so can you blame me?

Blooming lovely!

Chris is very patiently allotting slots on his Netflix queue to and sitting through (probably so he can clear UP his Netflix queue) episodes of Pushing Daisies with me, which, a little kitschy, a little silly, but possibly the coziest show of all time. I love it. I want to live in it. Well, mostly just in Olive Snook's floral wallpapered apartment and Chuck's floral vintage-style dresses. I don't know when I became such an English garden hound, but there is no recovery in sight.


Further to the preceding post, maybe we should have a reality show-type contest for the cake whereby you guys post pictures or links to pretty ones. I'm really hitting a wall. Two and a half months out and I have yet to order it! We don't have a huge budget, so it can't be large, and I don't think our baker does fondant, so it can't be elaborate. My mom had pearl dots on her cake, so I want something different. Maybe something either very very smooth or something very very textured. And while I do secretly adore pale pink cakes, I think I'll be the one pushing daisies if I try to talk Chris into it. Especially since he kindly didn't call off the wedding after Tables: To-Number-or-To-Otherwise-Designate Breakdown of 2009.

Pretty things.

Did I say I didn't like calla lilies? I take it 100% back.

Penellibelle on Etsy.

Best-dressed list.

Whenever I see pictures of badly dressed celebs, I'm like, WTF? because if I had the money they do I would want to look like THIS:


Via Go Fug Yourself.

Scavenger hunt!

Okay, Internet, I need you to keep your eyes out for me. As previously mentioned, I have an irrational desire for pale blue wedding shoes. But I'm having a really tough time finding any. I ordered a pair off eBay, but it turns out that despite the photos, "seafoam" in person is more green than blue, so I'm reselling them.

Here are my parameters:

Can be flats or low heels--no higher than 2.5 inches. (I love high heels, and Chris is a lot taller than me, but my dress is a certain length.) The heel can't be terribly thin because the wedding's on grass.
No cork heels.
Wedges MAY BE okay but only if they are super elegant.
I prefer an ankle strap.
I will not do slingbacks under any circumstances.
Any material is fine, although satin would be nice, and I'd rather not have patent leather or cotton (or canvas, obviously).
Almost any shade of pale blue and aqua are acceptable, but once it veers into turquoise and/or teal, that's too dark.
I need a size 10 or maybe 10.5 if they run super narrow. (No duck foot jokes please.)
I'd rather spend under $100, but will go to $150 if it gets to that point. (Although I'll probably go the dreaded dyable route before then.) I'll totally go low-brow too--not ashamed to wear shoes from Target or Delia's.
Latin dance shoes would be okay, too, provided they're the right color.

Here are pretty ones across the Internets that won't work.

These are too expensive.


The heel is too high.


I'm thinking about these, but they're way up at the top of my reluctant price cap. Also it's a European company, and I'm concerned they'll be too narrow.


Sold out, and they were too expensive anyway. J.Crew, in case you wanted to know.


Liz and I (not that it's my decish, haha) are thinking about these for Taylor Eve. Adorable, right?? Where's the grown-up version, that's what I want to know.

Spectating.

Actually what I had been on the lookout for was a pair of white pumps with a black cap toe, but the only ones I could find had either platforms or three digit pricetags. So then in the space of a week I won both of these on eBay.



The pumps still had their tags on, and are Isaac Mizrahi for Target, which means they're not terribly comfortable but I do like the low heel height. The oxfords are tattered Ralph Laurens, and I feel like a dapper '20s gentleman wearing them today with dark blue jeans, a cream ruffly tank, and a cropped tuxedo jacket bought for $15 off the H&M clearance rack. All I need to fully put on the ritz is a top hat. Oh, and a cane.

April showers.

Even when there's not much to say, I've decided I'm going to start giving you pretty things to look at :)



This is from Garance Dore, one of my favorite street style blogs. She's got incredible taste, always finding people who look fresh. There's a lot I love about this outfit: the way the brightness of the scarf and dress play against the muted taupe of the coat; the way the sleeves of the striped shirt poke out from the shorter jacket sleeves; the striped shirt itself--I have, at last count, five striped shirts, three of them alone black and white, and I wear them with EVERYTHING. They make EVERY outfit better--; the scarf itself, which looks like one I bartered from my mom. I also like it when people wear scarves bulked up around their necks.

I tried to pay homage to this outfit a month or so ago, with a navy-and-turquoise colorblock shift dress that someone had given me over black-and-white striped shirt (Norma Kamali for Wal-Mart, and I wish I'd bought more than one, as it fits perfectly and keeps its shape through washings) number one. Black tights, black shoes. Over the dress and shirt I ware a three-quarter sleeved chunky charcoal sweater coat. It was one of those days where I made an extra trip to the bathroom just to admire my outfit (not something I'm usually thinking about at work most days, but I'll take a jolt of confidence where I can get it). Wow, this post got really silly along the way. Silly is, however, better than whining!