Orange and Purple

Shockingly enough, I'm wearing quite a few mall items in this outfit.  I, for the most part, buy items through thrift shopping, but if there's a good sale anywhere, I cannot resist.  On Monday my  mom and I went to the Philadelphia Premium Outlets to do some sale shopping, hoping for good fourth of July sales.  Although I was not overwhelmed by the sales, I found some excellent items (an $130 chunky scarf for $8.50, new boots, etc.), including the skirt I'm wearing in these pictures.  I have never been much of a Gap shopper, besides a few inexpensive purchases over the years, but I snatched this skirt for about $6, and a nice pair of pants for cheap (less than $10), as well.

The shirt is something I purchased quite a while ago while on a trip to the mall with some friends.  It was extremely cheap from Wet Seal (a store I usually don't shop at), and I have gotten quite a bit of use out of it over the past few years, all-in-all impressed by it.

Okay, and these shoes... $1.50.  Yes, I'm serious, they were $1.50 at the goodwill outlet, and I was overjoyed to make them mine.  Pretty awesome, if you ask me.

Shirt: Wet Seal
Skirt: Gap, Philadelphia Premium Outlets
Shoes: Rocket Dog, thrifted
Skirt: Fossil, thrifted
Belt: Etienne Aigner, rummage sale

currently listening to: Beach Fossils-The Horse

Yellow Espadrilles

 

Yikes! I haven't updated here since April...
Well, this is a look at what I wore to the velodrome on Tuesday night to watch some racing.  For those of you that don't know, a velodrome is a slanted oval track for bicycle racing.  I live just 15 minutes from the Lehigh Valley Velodrome, or more recently referred to as the Valley Preferred Cycling Center (I pretty much refuse to call it that, though, hah).  I was a competitive cyclist for quite a few years on both the track and road, so ever since I was 10 years old, the velodrome has been my summer hotspot.  Even though I don't race anymore (though I have considered getting back into it for fun...), I still spend quite a few nights out there on Tuesdays and Fridays to watch some racing and catch up with friends and teammates. 

The outfit I'm wearing is entirely thrifted and hand-me-down items; my favorite would be these espadrille wedges which were brand new when I thrifted them, as a shoe store that closed seemingly donated the rest of their inventory to the local Goodwill. Score!

Dress: Ralph Lauren, thrifted
Shoes: Franco Sarto, thrifted
Belt: G.H. Bass & Co., thrifted
Sunglasses: vintage, mom's
Purse: vintage Etienne Aigner, mom's

Strange

yes,these are pretty goofy pictures

Wow, the last time I posted was in February.  I hope to update on here a bit more often, and since my semester in school is coming to a close (2 weeks of classes left!), I will soon have more time to update.  The past few weeks have been kind of weird, for some reason.  The weirdest thing lately though was watching 16 and Pregnant, because I went to high school with the girl and elementary school with the guy on the show.  It was just plain weird to watch.  Strange, funny, weird, and I must admit that the other kids from my old school’s commentary was pretty entertaining (I had to follow everything on twitter, of course).  It is really, really weird that I went to school with them, and bonus points for the fact that my family’s old house is in the background of some of the shots on the show (seriously, the entire episode is of things in my town), haha!  

Anyway, in regards to what I’m wearing, the shirt and shorts both used to be my mom’s years ago; the shorts I found in a box in our attic, and the shirt I saved off of the donate pile at some point, and it has easily become one of my favorite lazy day shirts (though it can be dressed up really nicely, too).  I’m really lucky that my mom kept a lot of her old clothing, because I love discovering and wearing what she used to wear.  Oh, and I also steal my dad’s old things, too.  Vintage tennis sweaters, and over-sized button downs for over dresses?  Yes please!  Oh, and as for the booties I’m wearing, I thrifted them yesterday for less than a dollar---they are quite nice.  

Don’t you just love discovering your parents’ old things?

Shirt: mom’s
Shorts: vintage Wrangler, mom’s
Cardigan: American Eagle
Shoes: thrifted
Belt: G.H. Bass & Co., thrifted
Backpack: vintage, thrifted
Glasses: Bonlook, Simply Fabulous, won in giveaway on The Clothes Horse

currently listening to: Quilt-Young Gold

Mild Winter

This winter has been strangely mild in Pennsylvania, meaning that I don't quite get to wear all of my pretty sweaters (I just thrifted so many awesome ones, so it's quite a bummer), but I do get a bit of early spring weather; I didn't even have to wear a jacket today!  I kind of wish it would snow nicely at least once (the last real snow we had was in October), but for now, I'm loving this weather.

My mom stopped in an Urban Outfitters over the weekend, and apparently they were having an awesome Presidents day sale, so she picked up this cardigan (it was marked down to super sale because it was missing a button), and these socks (which were marked down by at least $10, I think they were about $5, or less) for me.  Thanks, Mom!  So anyway, the remainder of the outfit is of thrifting finds including the button down, skirt, glasses, back pack, and shoes.  I'm always looking for basics staples to add to my closet, and button downs are always something to look for; they can be dressed up or down very easily (even in bright pink!).  The shoes were brand new when I thrifted them, it seemed like an entire shoe store closed because they had quite a nice selection, and I was happy to have been able to snatch up these loafers.  Oh, and don't get me started on this backpack, I am seriously in love with it.  I thrifted it just before the semester was starting in January, and I use it every single day for classes.  I mean, I get a lot of use out of it, and it was only $3, so I'd say that it was an excellent deal. 

Thrifting is quite the addiction, isn't it?

Button down: Ralph Lauren, thrifted
Skirt: American Apparel, thrifted
Socks: Urban Outfitters
Cardigan: BDG, Urban Outfitters
Shoes: Eastland, thrifted
Backpack: Vintage, thrifted
Sunglasses: Vintage Ray Ban, local consignment shop, The Attic

currently listening to: Belle and Sebastian-The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner

Plaid

 

This vintage plaid blazer is definitely one of my favorites.  I don't tend to wear it too often, as it is one of those special statement type pieces that are meant to be worn perfectly.  I thrifted it last year, and as I recall, I ran across the store to see this beauty of a blazer.  It also has a matching skirt, but I'm afraid it is way too tiny for me, and I'll even admit that the blazer is a tad bit too small (don't ask me to raise my hand, hah), but hey, I couldn't pass it up! Although it might not always be wise to buy items that don't fit perfectly, this blazer was so special that I couldn't pass it up.

Dress: B. Moss (thrifted)
Blazer: vintage (thrifted)
Shoes: Relativity (thrifted)
Tights: Target

 currently listening to: Sharon Van Etten- Give Out

Lola

I have introduced Lola on my blog before, but it was only a brief introduction in my first post, so here is an official introduction to my sweet pup.  Today we took her for a walk at the Trexler Game Preserve.  I live less than 5 miles away from it, so visiting it is a nice change of scenery from walking my dogs in the same old places all of the time.  Although the zoo is also at the same location, I haven't visited the zoo itself in years, but it was a frequent location of field trips and outings as a kid.  The game preserve, though is such a nice place to visit frequently with many walking, hiking, biking, and horse trails, and is, in general, a nice, serene environment.

This happened to be Lola's first time visiting the Game Preserve.  She isn't the best with car rides, as she tends to get car sick (we mainly stick to walking her on the roads by our house...), and even on the short drive from my house to the game preserve, she wasn't doing too well.  Once we got there, though, she had quite a bit of fun sniffing around (she's a scent hound, for sure), and even met another cute dog (who she was afraid of at first, but warmed up to a bit... it's hard to tell that she's actually the bully at our house, haha!).

As for this outfit, please excuse the excess of dog hair.  It's terrible how much my dogs shed, and people tend to give strange looks, as the amount of fur that I have attached to my clothing is probably enough to make an actual fur coat, haha.  The dress is a Ralph Lauren which I recently acquired thrifting; it is a simple, yet quite versatile dress which I'm looking forward to wearing frequently as an easy outfit for spring and summer.  The boots are also a favorite of mine.  I purchased them at the Nike outlet at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets almost 4 years ago, and they're quite comfortable, and cute.

Dress: Ralph Lauren (thrifted)
Cardigan: Pink by Victoria's Secret (Victoria's Secret)
Shoes: Nike (Nike Outlet at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets)
Tights: Target
Jacket: Jones New York (rummage sale)
Scarf: handmade (Indiemade Craft Market, Allentown, PA)
Glasses: Bonlook, Simply Fabulous (won in giveaway on The Clothes Horse)

currently listening to: The Kinks- Lola

dress shoes

Today was basically my first day out of the house since I got sick last week.  Despite not feeling 100% better, I, surprisingly, felt like getting semi-dressed up.  When I put this outfit together, I was basically thinking about what to wear with this blazer.  I had been looking for a blazer similar to this one for a while, and while at the Punk Rock Flea Market (which I talked about a bit in my last post...) in December I happened to find this one for $5! 

My other favorite element from this outfit is my shoes.  They are actually a pair of vintage men's dress shoes, and because my feet are kind of large (size 10), they actually fit perfectly!  I was amazed that they were the correct width, as well, because men's shoes tend to be quite a bit wider than women's.  Not only were they the perfect shoes, but this thrift store has amazing prices as well.  It's run by quite a few old lady volunteers who love to chatter (the best kind, right?), and they also like to pretty much give things away (once I got an amazing 1950s American Tourister carry on bag for free because they thought it was a cheap bowling bag!).  They always have a $4 bag sale, and since I buy quite a bit there, usually each item then amounts to costing less than $1.  A pretty good deal, isn't it?

Glasses: Bonlook, Simply Fabulous (won in giveaway on The Clothes Horse)
Blazer: Apostrophe (Punk Rock Flea Market)
Blouse: Ann Taylor (thrifted)
Skirt: ? (thrifted)
Shoes: vintage men's dress shoes (thrifted)
Tights: Merona (Target/Thrifted)

currently listening to: Titus Andronicus: Theme from "Cheers"