What I Wore: The Simple Things Edition

I am going to preface this post by saying that I am not an American Apparel girl. Generally, I think they are totally over-priced for basics. That being said, I spent way too much money at American Apparel the other day. Even though I know I can get most of the same stuff for way cheaper, they still suck me in some times. This was one of those times. I'm not a big "pants" person. If you follow my blog, you'll see that I mostly wear dresses and tights or leggings. This isn't because I think they look better on the blog, it's because I hate pants! They're constricting. What's the point when I can be in tights all day? However, I do have an unfortunate affinity for mom jeans. I think it's my irrational fear of the muffin top. Anyway, they don't make a lot of mom jeans that make me feel like I'm working it. The American Apparel Easy Jean is one of those.

Vintage Love: Baubles and Jewels

I love jewelry. It's one aspect of my outfits that I can never omit because I think that accessories really are the topping on the cake. Jewelry, shoes, etc. can make or break an outfit, so I have an absurd collection of rings, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings. And especially since it's trendy to wear tons of these at once, it just gave me an excuse to collect even more. Most of mine is pretty cheap and costume-y, but that doesn't matter to me (as long as it doesn't turn my neck green). Long story short, I love jewelry and I feel naked if I leave the house without it.

Now, I collect a lot of vintage clothes and accessories both for myself and the shop and a lot of times things that I pick up for the shop end up living in my closet (sorry guys!). Jewelry though is something I have never been good at picking up at estate sales or thrift stores, so I really admire vintage Etsy sellers that have a large collection of vintage jewelry. Clothes is one thing, there's almost always a tag to help you figure out what era a piece is from, but with jewelry it's such a crap shoot. I'd love to expand my collection, but I hate putting things in the store that I can't date. So anyway, today I pulled together a collection of vintage jewelry pieces that I though were really awesome and definitely amazing finds. I'm jealous of every last one of these. Anyone know where to find cool vintage jewelry in Chicago?

'Retro Baubles and Jewels' by StrangerThanVintage

Vintage Natasha Stambouli Go... ATestOfTime $55.00	Vintage Necklace Purple Glas... boylerpf $35.00	Vintage Southwestern Tiger&#... antiquario $115.00	Vintage Floral Brooch - Milk... PinkAstilbe $12.00
Lily // Vintage Molded Glass... FunWithVintage $65.00	Vintage Sterling Silver and ... VisforVintageO... $175.00	Sterling Silver Enamel Pheas... Elsewind $95.00	50% SALE - KJL Frog Earrings... BentenDesign $75.00
Vintage Turquoise, Coral, an... VisforVintageO... $95.00	Rhinestone Earrings Couture ... EmbellishgirlV... $450.00	TAKAHASHI BLUEBIRD Brooch H... Cleoras $175.00	80s Dark Purple Square Earri... StrangerThanVi... $5.50
Lovely Deco Pink Star Sapphi... acrazeelady $120.00	Vintage BEAUJEWELS Rhineston... RaeOfLight $9.95	Vintage Gay Boyer 4 Strand G... CherryOrchardA... $65.00	LARGE 14kt Carved Shell Came... vintagebitsbli... $595.00

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Do you ever buy vintage jewelry? What's your favorite type of jewelry to wear?

Huge Vintage Haul for the Store!

I am so excited about the stuff I picked up for the Etsy store a couple weekends ago that I just had to share some of it with you guys!

For those of you that don't know, I run a vintage Etsy shop with the same name as this blog. So a few weekends ago I was very graciously invited to a private selling event by Take 2 Vintage and I knew I needed to at least check it out. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was so glad I went! I picked up some amazing pieces to add to the store!

After that, I was totally in the mood to go thrifting so I hopped by a few of my favorite spots and picked up a few more amazing pieces to add to my vintage haul (along with a couple things for myself). All in all it was a great weekend for the store.

Of course, with my GRE test finally coming up this Saturday, I haven't hada a whole lot of time to edit photos so none of this is up in the store yet and all of the photos of the vintage clothes need some seriously lighting help. This is just the super secret sneak preview. Feel free to leave a comment if you see anything that you definitely want to call dibs on. Otherwise, check back in the store next week for all the items from this vintage haul!

I try on all of the clothes in the shop when I'm measuring them to get a gauge for how they fit since vintage sizes have changed so much over the years. It can be hard to list something as a size 12 when it really fits like a 6, so I just plop everything on over my clothes to give a Small/Medium/Large reference. This is why I'm wearing some of the clothes from the haul. This pink dress above is one I almost kept once I put it on (a horrible hazard of owning a vintage shop). It's so cute! The cut is totally Joan from Madmen and the tiny dark pink print on the light pink give it just a little something extra to not be borring. 

I love this top! This shape is actually really popular this summer, but it just makes me think of picnic photos from the 1960s. Add some high-waisted jeans and a bandana in my hair and I'm ready!

Don't these two make a sweet combination?

How 60s boho-chic is this vintage orange floral tunic?

And that's just a snap shot, I still probably have double this amount to put up and 5 or 10 things that I haven't even photographed yet. Phew. Once this GRE test is finally over I'm going to dedicate a day just to getting the store in order. It's going to be a lot of work, but hopefully it'll all be worth it. 

I hope you saw something you liked! If it's not in the store soon, yell at me in the comments ;)

What I Wore Wednesday: I Love the 90s Edition

Today's outfit post is brought to you by the number 9, as in the 90s! It was 90s night at a club that some of my friends were going to so I decided to use that opportunity to pull together my best 90s outfit. I, of course, thought that had I been older in the 90s I would have definitely gone the grunge route. I have to admit that even when the 90s were well over, my high school style still pulled a lot of my favorite elements from the 90s. I was always all about mini dresses, big shoes, fishnets, and dark lipstick (and a whole lot of leopard print, but that's a different story). I guess there are some things you never grow out of.