Cherry Sundae

I'm just realizing how quickly this year went by. It's hard to believe Christmas is only a month away! The warm weather makes it feel like it's still summer. We had 90 degree days here well into October, but it's cooled down these past few weeks. The drop in temperatures can only mean one thing... the coats, boots and colorful tights can finally come out! In the meantime, I'm still enjoying the last bits of the warm weather with this beautiful sundae print Bernie Dexter dress :). I thought my cherries necklace and strawberry red heels were the perfect additions! Pictures below...

Outfit Details:

Dress: Bernie Dexter

Shoes: Ruby Shoo

Petticoat: Leg Avenue

Necklace: Modcloth

Hair Flowers: Sidecca

Close up of the cherries and sundae print!

I'm so excited for the holiday season and transitioning into fall/winter outfits! I'm planning on being a little creative and mixing/matching pieces from last winter to make new outfits. Is anyone doing anything special for the holidays?

Dog Days of Summer

As a dog lover, this Bernie Dexter Dog Print dress had long been on my wish-list. I was super lucky to finally get my hands on it a few weeks ago. I pulled it out yesterday and wore it with my black cropped cardi and patent black Mary-Jane heels. My Henry's Delightful Duo brooch from Erstwilder was the most perfect finishing touch. I can't imagine wearing a more appropriate brooch with this dress!

Outfit Details:

Dress: Bernie Dexter Dog Print dress

Cardigan: Sidecca

Brooch: Erstwilder

Headscarf: Vintage

Petticoat: Leg Avenue

Heels: Chinese Laundry

I love all the different dog breeds included in this print!

I've had my hands full with a million different things lately; standardized tests, pre-req classes, volunteering, grad school applications, and working part-time. That's no excuse for my lack of blog posts, I'll admit I do get lazy when it comes to taking pictures of my weekend outfits. This 100 degrees SoCal weather has not been helping my motivation either!

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

Happiest Place on Earth

Last Friday I went to Disneyland with Edwin, my sister, and a few of our friends. We had two June birthdays in our group; what better place to celebrate than with some Disney magic? And, what better piece to wear than my train border print Jenny skirt from Pinup Girl Clothing? I was so lucky to score this skirt at the PUG Yard Sale a few weeks ago! I had it taken up 3" to hit just below my knee and now it's perfect. I'm glad there was about 6" of fabric below the lowest part of the print so hemming it didn't cause the print to come too close to the edge. Ideally, these pictures would have been taken in front of the castle in Fantasyland, but the lighting wasn't great at the time we there so I had them taken here, in front of people's strollers... at least the lighting was nice!

Outfit Details:

Sunflower Mouse Ears: Little Crafty Queen

Top: Le Bomb Shop

Cardigan: Sidecca

Belt: borrowed from another dress

Brooch: Erstwilder

Skirt: Pinup Girl Clothing

Shoes: Restricted via Modcloth

It's so much fun spinning in this skirt :). And I just love the details of the print. This was my first purchase from the Mary Blair collection and I want all the different prints now.

Closer view of my top half, including the lovely Ula the Unicorn Erstwilder brooch!

Me with my Goofy!

One of the great things about Disneyland is the whole magical Disney vibe everywhere you go. The rides, the shows, the characters, the shops, the food, it's difficult to feel anything but happy! Right now Disneyland is celebrating their 60th diamond anniversary so a lot of the attractions are special edition, such as the beautiful "Paint the Night" Electrical Parade that we ended our day with. Even though we were exhausted by the end, I had an absolute blast and can't wait to go back again.

Do you have anything fun planned for this summer?

Critters on Bikes

I knew I had to have this orange Knitted Dove gingham dress the moment I saw it! It has the cutest print at the hem: owls and squirrels sitting on bicycles. I wore it a few days ago and paired it with my "Grouchy Bear" Erstwilder brooch; a bear riding a bicycle couldn't have been a better match for this dress!

I discovered Erstwilder a few months ago when I saw other bloggers wearing cute little critter brooches with their outfits. I was lucky to get my first Erstwilder brooch, Paige the Prancing Poodle, as one of the winners on Unique Vintage's giveaway contest on Instagram (thanks UV <3)!!! I loved my poodle brooch and ended up purchasing a few more from an Australian eBay seller. My collection has slowly been growing since :).

I initially took these photos at a park close to where I live. It was the first time I went by myself with a tripod and used the camera's 10-second timer feature. It's one thing when you're with someone else and they're taking pictures of you, but it's a whole other thing when you're by yourself setting up the camera, clicking the shutter button, and running to pose in front of it. I have to say it got pretty awkward at times with people staring as they passed by. I didn't get too many nice shots at the park (plus it wasn't the best time of the day for ideal lighting) so I just had my sister take some with my iPhone later... so much easier and faster too! I commend all you ladies who take outfit pictures by yourselves...

Outfit Details:  Brooch: Erstwilder
Dress: Knitted Dove
Cardigan: Unique Vintage
Petticoat: Leg Avenue
Shoes: Loly in the Sky
Hat: Kaitlyn Bag: Michael Kors

Summer is fast approaching, which means applications to grad schools are opening up soon! That is probably the part about summer I'm least looking forward to. Anyone have any fun summer plans in the works?

An Apple A Day...

It's good to be back! After my last post, I went on an un-announced haitus from posting on here (I HAVE been posting somewhat regularly on my Instagram and Style Gallery accounts, though!). So, what have I been up to these past few months? Well, in a nutshell, work and classes. We've had some major holidays like Valentine's Day and Easter in the past few months so there's been family gatherings, church events, and friends/boyfriend outings mixed in there. For the most part I've been balancing two classes, two part-time jobs, and volunteering once a week. It's been pretty manageable actually; I think what drains me the most is the commute! I live about 20 miles from West Los Angeles, where I work. It not so bad distance-wise, it's the frequent stop-and-go traffic that makes it a little daunting sometimes. So a lot of my day is spent driving. Thankfully my playlist of Christian music makes the drive more enjoyable :).

I have a back-log of photos that I'll be sharing over the next few weeks! I want to start with an outfit I wore back in February for Valentine's Day and also a few days ago on Monday. I didn't have my usual Monday class since it was spring break this week (and Edwin took the day off from work) so we spent it together with lunch and a relaxing visit to a local park. It was a much needed break! 

Below is the outfit from Valentine's Day:

This dress was my third Bernie Dexter purchase in the Veronique cut. I've mentioned before how much I love this cut, and the print on this one was way too lovely to pass up (which BD print isn't lovely?!). It features a valley/forest scene with a running stream and cute details like a boat, bridge, and even a tiny squirrel! And, how cute is this apple bag by Nila Anthony? I'd been looking for a new red purse for a while now, and when I came across this one I knew I had to have it. It's red, so it goes with so many outfits! And I always get compliments on it :).

These last two pictures were taken this past Monday. My outfit is generally the same as above, except I wore a woven sunhat and my blue BAIT Ida heels instead of hair flowers and red pumps.

 Outfit Details:

Dress: Bernie Dexter (different cut)

Cardigan: ModCloth

Purse: Nila Anthony via Unique Vintage (on sale!)

Red pumps: Aldo // Blue Spectators: BAIT Footwear (similar)

Hair flowers: Hand-made // Sunhat: ModCloth

I hope everyone has been doing well! I can't wait to catch up on my reading list this weekend and see what you've been up to :).

Scaredy Cat

I've really been into gold accessories lately. I feel like the sparkly, "shimmery-ness" of gold really breaks up the solid colors of an outfit. Over the weekend I wore this super-cute kitty print dress with, you guessed it, gold accessories. I'm normally a dog person (omg-- I can never have enough of dog print ANYTHING), but this was too adorable of a dress to pass up. I mean, the kitties are at the theaters, and they are watching a scary movie! How cute is that!

My favorites are the orange kitty who is knitting, and the gray kitty eating "kitty corn" with her cute purple purse. And oh my goodness, the brown kitty closing his eyes! And the two holding each other. They are all so cute!

Outfit Details:

Dress: Retrolicious by Folter via ModCloth

Cardigan: Unique Vintage

Necklace: ModCloth

Hair Bow and Belt: Sidecca

Purse: Vintage (my mom's)

Tights: ModCloth

Shoes: ModCloth

I hope everyone has a blessed Sunday <3.

"But Jesus looked at them and said to them, 'With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'"

Matthew 19:26

Birds of a Feather...

Another bird-printed dress, you say? It really should come at no surprise by now that I love birds and other animal prints on my dresses :). I saw this dress on ModCloth last year but missed it in my size. I was so excited when I found out that my local Unique Vintage store had it! I was able to buy it at a Black Friday discount a few weeks ago. In these pictures taken last weekend, I am wearing the dress with red Ruby Shoo shoes.

I've been meaning to do this post for a few days now, but I got really sick on Wednesday and didn't feel like doing much aside from sleeping and watching Netflix. Thankfully I feel a lot better now; lemon tea and DayQuil can do wonders! Last Thursday, I took my anatomy final and a few days afterwards I found out that I got an A in the class (yay!). I'm off from school until spring semester starts in mid-February which is when I'll be taking physiology and possibly a second class. Until then, I'll be working and enjoying the holiday season, meaning soon I'll be posting more winter/Christmas-y outfits :). And, Edwin is in LA until January 5th so I'll get to see more of him too! Because he lives in San Diego, we only see each other on the weekends so it's nice to have him back for some time during the holidays.  Speaking of which, about two weeks ago he surprised me with my (early) Christmas gift-- he got me my absolutely most-coveted wishlist item, this beautiful Bernie Dexter Winter Wonderland dress. I was so excited and I cannot wait to do an outfit post with it!

Some more good news: the physical therapy clinic where I've been volunteering once a week has offered to hire me part-time starting January as a therapist aide! I'll primarily be responsible for leading patients through their exercises, helping with charts/administrative things, setting up rooms for evals, and essentially assisting the therapists as needed. I'll still be working at the research lab part-time, but between the two jobs I'm excited to be transitioning over from a research setting to a more clinical, patient-interactive setting and getting the necessary experience to apply to grad school later this year.

Outfit Details:

Dress: Unique Vintage

Shoes: Ruby Shoo Loretta

Necklace: Sidecca

I need your advice! You may have noticed that I've added a copyright text to all of my photos. The reason is because a few days ago, I found out that a user on the website Deviant Art had used one of my outfit photos on her page, claiming it as her own photography. Of course I reported it and it was taken down, but I promptly went back through all my photos and added the copyright to each one. Has anyone been in a situation like this before? How have you handled it? I don't necessarily like putting text on my photos and was wondering what alternatives there are or what suggestions you may have!

I hope everyone has a lovely upcoming holiday season!

A man’s heart plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps.
Proverbs 16:9