the new girl

These days I rarely wear my hair straight, or even just straighten my bangs, but it's always funny how many, "you look just like Zooey Deschanel!" comments I get on those days.  When I would straighten my bangs on a daily basis I would get at least one Zooey comment per day. Or, "hey, you look like that girl from Yes Man/500 Days of Summer/Failure to Launch" (this was before her new show New Girl came out).  I'm actually glad there's a celebrity out there with a similar look and style to my own.  When I was a kid/teen I could never identify with any celebrities and I certainly couldn't come up with someone who was my celebrity lookalike.  I think the closest I ever could come up with back then was Helena Bonham Carter.  It wasn't until I cut bangs after college that all of a sudden the resemblance with Zooey was realized. People rag on Zooey a lot for her feminine style and girliness, but I appreciate that she does her own thing in spite of the criticism.  "I'm just being myself. There is not an ounce of me that believes any of that crap that they say. We can't be feminine and be feminists and be successful? I want to be a fucking feminist and wear a fucking Peter Pan collar. So fucking what?" You go, girl. Preach.  My hair is so much longer when it's straight vs. curly.  Of course, by midday my curls had already started reasserting their dominance.  So it goes.  I usually don't like the way my hair looks straightened, probably not due to any fault of my hair's, I'm just so not used to seeing my head with straight hair on it.  It's like someone else is looking at me from the mirror!



art admirer top/courtesy of modcloth :: jacket/courtesy of tulle :: boots/courtesy of blowfish necklace/courtesy of moorea seal :: pants/thrifted :: hat/courtesy of yiskah knits I've been toying around with the idea of doing a scrapbook type thing to document our first house and all the fun projects/renovations we're doing.  I'm always nervous to start stuff like that because I usually end up forgetting about it after a week or two and then it's just unfinished and taking up space and staring at me from the shelf saying, "why didn't you finish me?!"  Or I'm too much of a perfectionist and if it doesn't look just so, I'm unsatisfied.  But I want something fun and physical to document our first house, so I bought a little scrapbook type thing and I'm gonna give it a go!  I've been inspired by seeing other people's project life albums (like Kam and Elsie and Elise), and while I don't want to do project life, I do want something similar for our house.  I remember my mom made a little scrapbook documenting their home renovations and I like being able to flip through and remember how that house was when we first moved in back in 1997.  So many changes!  It's so special to be able to look back and see how far things have come.  Even just looking at the photos of our kitchen from a couple weeks ago it's mindblowing to see how things have improved!  
Do any of you guys do project life?  I love how simple and easy it looks, very straightforward.  I think scrapbooking would overwhelm me with the options, but something with little sleeves for pictures and stuff?  I'm for it.  We'll see how this project goes!  I'll call mine "Project House", haha.

Q + A // retro decor that doesn't clash

The main thing when you're going for a retro aesthetic is to decorate with a color scheme in mind.  Pick two to three colors you like and work with those, and then incorporate neutrals (beige, white, etc) to keep things from getting too crazy.  There are lots of vintage color schemes (

pink

,

turquoise

,

avocado

,

mustard

,

orange

,

mint

, and

more

!) that you can go with.  Instead of buying vintage stuff willy nilly, make sure to pick out vintage items that have a simliar color story.

If you already have a few favorite pieces, pick out the main colors from those and work with that color scheme.  If you haven't started decorating yet, start brainstorming what color scheme you'd like your room to have.  Start a pinterest board to get all of your inspiration together!

Create little vignettes to give your room some focal points.  Having focal points in your room will help to keep things from looking too crazy and overwhelming.  The eye naturally will want to find a place to rest and if everything in the room has equal visual importance, your eye will bounce all over the place trying to figure out where to rest.  For a living room, a couch or hearth are natural places for a large focal point.  For a dining room, a table works great at a focal point.  The bed in a bedroom is a natural focal point.  Once you've defined your main focal point in your room you can work on creating smaller vignettes for the eye to move on to.  The eye does like to move, but it likes to know how to move.  It wants to know what the most important thing in the room is to look at (your main focal point), but then it wants to explore other areas, so help it out by giving it interesting areas to go.  Create a little gallery wall with art prints, decorate a shelf with cute knick knacks, make a cool corner where you have your record player and albums displayed.

If you're afraid of having things look too clashy and crazy (vintage stuff has

lots

of prints), maybe go with one statement printed piece and then have everything else be solids.  Have a crazy vintage couch with a bold floral pattern, but then keep the rest of your furniture simple.  Don't feel like you have to have everything be

truly

vintage.  It's pretty easy to find modern pieces that can fit seamlessly into a vintage inspired room.  And remember that thrift stores are your friend.  You may have to go thrifting a lot in order to score great pieces, but there are often some amazing gems to be found at great prices!

The retro aesthetic is naturally pretty busy and visually dense, but that doesn't mean your room has to look like 1973 threw up in there (unless you want it to!).  Vintage style is pretty popular these days so there's lots of inspiration online.  The ladies at Oh So Lovely have a

great decor category

where they share

their home decor

and other inspiring rooms with vintage decor (and

some tips for vintage decor

).  You can also find some good retro-modern home inspiration at

Smile and Wave

 (Rachel also made a

great home decor e-course

if you want to sign up!),

Thompson Family

 (and Danielle's 

pinterest

), 

A Beautiful Mess

and sometimes at

Design*Sponge

.

top two photos via

Thompson Family

,

third

and

last

photo via

Smile and Wave

.

albion fit giveaway!

Hey there everyone, today I'm hosting a giveaway from my new featured sponsor, Albion Fit!  Albion Fit makes some great fitness wear, including tops, bottoms, sports bras, and swimwear.  I just got a package in the mail from Albion with some of their items to review and so far I absolutely love them!  In addition to creating great fitness gear, designed by women, they're also committed to the environment and community by striving to make their manufacturing facility greener each day and by using earth friendly materials in their products. They also follow fair labor practices with all of their employees and business partners to create a sustainable work environment, which is great!

Today I'm giving away a $175 gift certificate to Albion Fit so you can pick up some of their great clothes for yourself (and maybe help get back to that fitness new years resolution, haha).  Just follow the directions below to enter the giveaway!


a Rafflecopter giveaway


Find Albion online at their shop // facebook // twitter

remix archives // blue stripes

I sold this dress a while back, but until I went through all m photos to put together this remix post I didn't realize how much I remixed it!  My favorite outfit of all of them is that top one.  The blue floral matches the blue in the striped dress so perfectly.  It was a nice, simple dress that was easy to wear and was great for wearing as a top by layering a skirt over it.  I would still wear that top outfit any day.  Unfortunately the only thing intact in my closet is the orange shoes, which are actually my favorite summer espadrille wedges!  They're probably hiding in the Winne like all of my summer shoes.  I'm trying not to get too excited about summer quite yet as it's still a few months out, but it seems like the blogosphere is all atwitter about spring now that it's March.  I might have to find a nice, simple summer dress like this striped one.  It's a good summer staple.





 

the waiting game

I bought the exterior paint for our house today, so now we're just eagerly awaiting a break in the rain!  Watching the forecast like a hawk.  It'll be so awesome to finally have it all painted and finished!  Siding and painting will definitely be the biggest project we'll do on the house for a while, I think.  Assuming the pipes don't burst or something and we have to re-plumb the whole house.  It'll be nice to have the exterior of the house done so we can move on to other more fun projects.  I'm not getting my hopes up for spring to arrive anytime soon, but I am excited to start gardening!  I might get some little pots to start a few herbs and veggies indoors so I can transfer them outside when the temperatures are more plant-friendly.  We briefly had a veggie garden back when I was a kid and I remember loving to eat the veggies we grew.  I think especially as a kid it's kind of a magical experience to watch vegetables and fruits grow, certainly more so nowadays when most kids' only experience of fruits and veggies is seeing them stacked up neatly in the produce section of a grocery store.  I'm still convinced there's almost nothing as delicious as a freshly picked, homegrown strawberry. dress/courtesy of mata traders :: cardigan/thrifted :: shoes/payless  necklace/handmade :: raincoat/courtesy of mrs. prints tights/courtesy of the stylish fox :: umbrella/courtesy of modcloth :: photos by Dan