the unimportance of style

Lately I've started to become annoyed when people put down a city or town for being unstylish. I mean, there are a lot of places that could be considered unstylish. My hometown of Anchorage was recently voted the worst-dressed city in America, and there's no doubt that there is more than enough evidence to back that up. But you know what?  I love it.  I love that in Anchorage people wear North Face jackets, jeans and snowboots most of the year. I love that the focus isn't on impressing others with style or appearance. I think that's kind of great. Sometimes people with style, myself included, can start to look down on people who don't consider style important. This isn't to say that I don't think personal style is a great thing. I believe personal style can give someone incredible confidence and I love how it can be a way to express individual creativity. I love when people take the time and effort to express themselves through the way they dress and I definitely encourage people in that. But at the same time, style isn't paramount. I would much rather live in a town full of kind, adventurous, independent, and nice people who wear hideous or dull outfits than in a city full of chic, stylish, beautiful people who wouldn't give me the time of day. This isn't to say that stylish people can't be nice, but to write off unstylish people as unworthy of our time, or as lesser beings is, quite frankly, kind of offensive.

plaid top/courtesy of free people :: top/scrapbook via cosette :: scarf/h&m jeans/blank nyc courtesy of modcloth :: necklace/courtesy of moorea seal shoes/courtesy of blowfish shoes :: jacket courtesy of asianicandy :: photos by Dan The more I think about it, the more and more thankful I am for growing up in a fashion-free environment. I was more concerned about going on adventures than what I was going to wear at school the next day.  I didn't feel pressure to look a certain way in order to be "cool." We all had to wear snow coats and boots anyway. Even in high school style wasn't that important. The only thing I really remember about style in high school was being annoyed by shopping at Pac Sun because everyone shopped there and someone else was bound to show up at school wearing the same shirt as me. Style wasn't what set people apart, it was their spirit, kindness, and character, not wearing the right outfit.

Now when people make fun of Anchorage for being unstylish I just get a little salty thinking about all the people wearing Danskos and outfits bought from Fred Meyer, because those are my people, you know? Those people have my heart.  In all of their 2-years-behind-every-trend glory, and dressing-completely-for-function practicality.  And there are many places around the world similar to Anchorage, in that they aren't fashion forward or cutting edge. But they're important. People who live there are just as valuable as people who live in Manhattan or LA.  Fashion just isn't on their radar.

In some ways I feel very behind on discovering my style.  There are personal style blogs out there now written by high schoolers and I didn't even start thinking about developing my personal style until college.  But I'm glad, actually.  I spent my youth adventuring instead of shopping and putting together outfits, and I like it like that.  I'm sure I'll have fun dressing my future child until they start having an opinion of their own on what they want to wear.  At that point I'm going to (try to) just let them take over.  I don't want to give my kids the impression that their appearance is what makes them worthy or important.  I want them to know that they can be an unstylish slob and I'd still love them just as much as if they were a fashion plate.  If they want to wear sweat pants and baggy t-shirts every day, so be it.  God knows I did...

fancy box cake hack

A while ago I found this "recipe" for making a box cake taste like it came from a bakery.  I was intrigued so I repinned to try it out on a later date.  I had some frosting left over from making pumpkin cupcakes and a spice cake with maple cream cheese frosting sounded like a good idea, so I bought a box of spice cake to test it out.  I didn't make a control group cake of undoctored box cake, so I can't really compare how it would've tasted sans doctoring, but it was indeed delicious.  I'd be interested to try it with something richer like a red velvet cake.  Unfortunately I don't really go to many events that require bringing cake and I'm certainly not going to just bake a whole cake so it can sit in my kitchen and tempt me.
I bought this vintage cake stand for our wedding cake but it ended up being too small for the cake to fit on, so we used it for caramel apples instead.  I'm glad I got to use it to hold a cake finally!  It's been sitting on my desk holding mason jars full of pens and other office supplies for the past year.  It needed something a bit more glamorous to sit on top of it for a bit.

Basically what you do is take your box cake and make it how it says on the box, except...
*Add one more egg (or 2 if you want it to be very rich),
*Use melted butter instead of oil and double the amount,
*Instead of water, use milk.

...and then just bake the cake how it says to on the box.  I think a spice cake would be a great cake to bring to Thanksgiving, and this box cake hack is a great option if you ran out of time and want to whip something fancy up to bring.

remix archives // plaid top

This free people top is definitely my most worn item in my wardrobe, simply because I wear it way more than it ever appears on the blog, and it clearly has appeared on the blog tons of times.  A plaid button down top is one of my wardrobe essentials.  I love that I can wear it in a cute outfit, or just throw it on with a pair of jeans when I'm feeling lazy.  This one is a bit more cropped than the other plaid tops that I have, so it's a bit more versatile.  Although, it's probably less cropped on me than someone who is more like 5'7".  I've worn it in all four seasons, buttoned up, unbuttoned, over dresses, under dresses.  I'm actually wearing it with some high waisted skinny jeans as I'm typing this!

featured sponsor // ji ji kiki

Ji Ji Kiki was founded in 2008 and is an independent online boutique dedicated to bringing you the best in cute, quirky and vintage jewellery, clothing and accessories by indie designers. Ji Ji Kiki is run by Emma, who does everything from handpicking all of the products sold on the website, to sending out orders and answering emails and questions and comments on Facebook and Twitter.  I asked Emma to share some fun things from Ji Ji Kiki and tell us about her favorite things about fall!  Hit it, Emma!

dress :: purse :: bracelet :: earrings

I really love this time of year-the crisp, fresh mornings, cosy knitted jumpers and lovely feeling of coming home to hot chocolate and warm socks after a walk through the crunchy, colourful leaves.
Colours always seem to be more vibrant this time of year as well, with the changing leaves and the way the sun catches the cobwebs and frost in the early morning.

A new season is always a great excuse to buy new clothes, accessories and little treats for the home. No matter how many jumpers and gloves I have, I always seems to need to buy new ones each new autumn (its like starting a new notebook at school!) and of course you can never have too many scented candles to light up the dark nights.

My boyfriend and I have just bought our first house, so my wishlists at the moment are full of pretty things to make our new house into a home. I love scouring places such as Etsy, or Folky in the UK, to find quirky little pieces!

dress :: purse :: bracelet :: fascinator :: brooch

late night thoughts

You know that thing where you go on vacation, it doesn't have to be a long vacation, just long enough to make you forget about your daily grind and all the shit you somehow manage to fit into a day, and then you come back from vacation and you're all of a sudden behind on everything, even though you knew you were going on vacation, and the prospect of tackling the pile of things-to-do is so stressful that instead of doing any of it, you do the opposite and pretend it doesn't exist?  That.  Oh, and also that thing where you need a vacation upon coming back from vacation.  I'm mostly exaggerating, but still, that stuff is annoying, amirite?  It's also kind of amazing how just a couple days in the rainforest can make you totally forget about all the stuff you do every day.  All that stuff that can get piled up if left for just a couple days unattended.  The unread emails, the tweets unseen, the comments unread, the posts un-composed, etc. etc.  It's kind of crazy.  And bizarre that all of that is just normal life.  Sometimes it makes me want to just unplug permanently.  Find some job that's 100% offline, live in a place where there's only dial-up, and just breathe in the fresh air.  It's so weird to me that all of this internet stuff has only just begun in the last couple decades.  That cellphones weren't even a thing until the late 80's, and that if we wanted to communicate we did it via mail, landline, or face to face.  I kind of want to go back.  And I'm a little sad that my kids will never know what it's like to live in a world without cell phones and mobile internet.  While I love the connectivity, especially as someone who lives thousands of miles from family, I'm afraid we're addicted to the connectivity.  We can't even imagine life without cell phones any more.  I don't know.  I should add a disclaimer that this is sleepily written, stream-of-consciousness style, at 1 am.  But really, maybe our ultra-connectivity isn't that healthy for us?  Are we addicted to the connectivity?  Is the internet giving us a false sense of connectivity to other human beings?  We tweet, and blog, and facebook, and instagram, and text but we're not meeting our neighbors, or the other regulars at our local coffee shop.  We're chatting with thousands of random people around the world, but walk down are local streets with our faces buried in our cellphones.  We "communicate" in 140 characters, whittling our language down to abbreve's to fit our ideas in.  Sounds a little double plus ungood, to me.

Anyway, all that is to say, I guess, that I like blogging and this whole online community internet thing, but I'm a little afraid of it at the same time.  It's probably a bit too conspiracy theorist to get all Orwellian about it, but I value things like true communication, and real live human interaction, and long theological discussions late at night in art buildings, and dates where no one checks their phone or instagrams food pictures.  Blogging and online communities are meant to bring people together, but I think they can also do the opposite.  I have no neat conclusion to tie up this basket of thoughts, just thought I'd throw that out there and let you do with it what you may.  Enjoy some rainforest induced thoughts on your Thursday.