On the fence

I'll be honest with you guys: I'm on the fence about this outfit. There are parts of it that I really like, such as the green on green with the vest over the dress, but then there are parts I feel meh about, like my whole leg area. (I'm thinking knee-high brown boots would have looked better.) But instead of indulging my insecurities and not posting it, I thought I'd ask all of you - what do you think about this outfit? What parts of it (if any) do you think worked, and what do you think I could have done to improve it? (Gosh, I feel like that question belongs on a test or something!) I know most comments that are left on fashion blogs are along the lines of "Great outfit!" but I promise you won't hurt my feelings if you tell me you don't like it :)

Dress: free from aunt

Vest: Anthropologie

Shoes: Aldo

Hat: from my dad

Necklace: Dress Barn

Belt: thrifted from Goodwill

Purse: Michael Kors (!) thrifted from Salvation Army

It's a jungle out there

It may be hard to see two of them, but this outfit is showin' some love to three different animals: leopards, spiders (the necklace), and elephants (one of the bracelets). I'm not a huge fan of real spiders, but I was immediately sold on spider jewelry as soon as I saw this cute necklace at Bauble Bar. (Where, by the way, you can get $10 credit towards any purchase just for signing up! That's how I ended up getting this necklace for only $12, which is a steal in my opinion.)

Sweater: can't remember

Pants and bag: thrifted from Salvation Army

Shoes: Urban Outfitters

Hat: from my dad, from a hat shop in York, England

Sunglasses: Oscar de la Renta from TJ Maxx

Necklace: Bauble Bar

Bracelets: InPink

Frugal hippie environmentalist

Despite the rain we've been having here in Portland lately, the temperature has been fairly pleasant, so I wanted to get in an outfit with bare legs while I could. This dress was a great one to wear during the summer (here and here), and I think it will work well through fall and maybe even winter as long as I have layers. Yes, I'm wearing the sweater I wore on Monday, but it's new (though thrifted) and oh-so-wonderfully-grandma-ish, which means I will be wearing it a lot for a while.

I feel very pleased that more than half of my outfit is thrifted! While I do love buying brand-new things every once in a while, at heart I'm a frugal hippie environmentalist, which means I love to buy inexpensive, previously loved clothes.

Dress: thrifted from Village Merchants

Cardigan: thrifted from Rerun

Hat, necklace and purse: thrifted from Red, White and Blue Thrift Store

Shoes: Jessica Simpson Dany heels from Macy's

Sunglasses: Oscar de la Renta from TJ Maxx

Bracelet: InPink

Hair tie faux pas

One of the annoying things about taking photos for a fashion blog is that sometimes you spend five minutes in front of the mirror making sure the brim of your hat is tipped at just the right angle, and then you end up leaving your hair tie around your wrist in photos. Whoops.

I feel like I have a pretty substantial collection of hats (twelve, as soon as this baby arrives in the mail), and yet I could not find one that coordinated with this outfit in a satisfactory way. All my hats are neutral colors (black, brown, gray, cream), but I think I need to start adding in some reds and blues. I went with the gray hat, which doesn't look too bad, but I think a dark blue hat would have looked better. What are your thoughts on the matter?

Top: thrifted from The William Temple House (for $1!)

Skirt: thrifted from Crossroads Trading Co.

Tights: Target

Shoes: Lulu's

Hat: Fred Meyer

Sunglasses: Oscar de la Renta from TJ Maxx

Necklace: Dress Barn

Bracelets: H&M

City girl

I am very much a city girl. I like being surrounded by people when I walk outside. I like hearing the comforting hum of the nearby freeway in the middle of the night. I like being able to walk to the bank, post office, library and grocery store. (And maybe Anthropologie and H&M.) I just like knowing that everything around me is buzzing with life. When Josh and I go visit his family in the countryside, it always freaks me out a little. Everything is so quiet, and the nearest thing you can walk to is the neighbor's house half a mile away.

That being said, there are times when I seriously reconsider my desire to live in the city for the rest of my life. Like on Saturday - my family and I went down to The Oregon Garden in Silverton (which I highly recommend to anyone who lives in or is visiting Oregon - it's well worth the drive and the admission fee), and the hour-long drive down there through the rolling hills of the farmlands, and the dozens of beautiful acres of the garden itself, made me kind of wish that I lived a little bit closer to nature and a little further from traffic congestion and noise.

* Many thanks to my mom for taking these outfit photos at the garden! She was a saint putting up with me making her take more outfit shots in every new section of the garden we went to. *

Dress: Target

Cardigan: thrifted from Rerun

Tights: Fred Meyer

Boots: Urban Outfitters

Sunglasses: Oscar de la Renta from TJ Maxx

Watch: thrifted from Village Merchants

Bracelet: InPink

Because I didn't want to force any of you to look at tons of photos from The Oregon Garden if you didn't want to, they're here at the bottom of the post!

(The garden even had a hobbit hole that kids could climb through!)

Fashion love

There is just not enough happening on the internet on Saturdays. I keep up with all my blog reading during the week (one of the perks of only working part-time!), and then on Saturday there's nothing to read. In an attempt to fix this (be the change you want to see in others?), every once in a while on a Saturday I'm going to give you a roundup of fashion bloggers whose outfits I particularly love. I did this once before (here), and here's round two!

Top row: The Clothes Horse, Sunday Crossbow

Middle row: La Vie Petite, Kansas Couture

Bottom row: Feminine Bravery, Black Hair Style

And here are some entertaining/thought-provoking linky links from around the web:

This just warms my geeky, fashion-loving heart.

Must do this to my hair next summer.

A really excellent article about beauty in the fashion blogging world. (Here's part two.)

These photos could not be more perfect.

I've done a lot of interesting things with my hair color over the years, but this tops them all. You may see it on me soon.

La Tour Eiffel

The other day I finally found a pair of skinny jeans that do not do disgusting things to my thighs and butt (skinny jeans are not a friend to curvy girls), and for their first wear I thought I'd keep things simple. I've never worn skinny jeans before, but from what I've observed on other people it seems to be best to wear something looser on top to balance out the fitted bottom, so I went for this oversized white button up that I stole from was given by my dad a while ago. For something that is so overwhelmingly gigantic on me, I sure have worn it a lot. (Here, here, here and here.) It's definitely something that needs to have definition at the waist, whether tucked into a skirt or with a belt over it, so this time I grabbed a pretty thrifted scarf to use as a belt. (Making sure to carefully fold it so you could see the Eiffel Tower, of course! I do love a good excuse to use French in a blog post title.)

Shirt: free from my dad

Jeans: H&M

Shoes: Urban Outfitters

Sunglasses: Oscar de la Renta from TJ Maxx

Scarf (worn as belt): thrifted

Bracelets: InPink