Leanne Marshall Spring 2013 Bridal Collection

I have been a Leanne Marshall fan ever since she was on Project Runway. (She won Season 5- yea!) I love her architectural-yet-ethereal designs and am a big fan of her bridal collections. If my wonderfully talented mother was not going to make my wedding dress I would definitely want an LM creation. She just posted a few dresses from her Spring 2013 collection on her blog so I thought I would share:

I also love her ready-to-wear collection of pieces for daily use...

(well, daily use if your life is fancier than mine!):

Those pockets are awesome and the tailoring is exceptional! I could wear these to brunch or out on the town.

I would throw myself a party just to have an excuse to wear this if it was in my closet....

Lovely, right?! Check out her Etsy store for more of her dresses and ready-to-wear items. Are you a Leanne fan, too? And does anyone still watch Project Runway? Leanne's season was the last one that I watched religiously, but if there is another must-see season, let me know because I have not had a good Netflix marathon in months :)

Hello, Again! Come Shopping With Me!

I took a break from blogging these past few weeks, (I know, I know, from posting once a week, big deal), but things have gotten crazy with work, out-of-town guests, a wedding to attend in another state and a trip to Chicago. Now that I am back in my usual day-to-day routine, I have obviously started thinking about shopping! (One track mind? Yes.) I have been searching for work appropriate dresses and finding a knee-length option that hits at or below the knee on a tall girl is not the easiest task, but that is not to say I haven't been enjoying the search :)

I love Pixie Market for finding items that are a little outside the box and, as I should have guessed, my search for work dresses quickly disintegrated into finding other cool things:

Stripe side pants from Sass and Bide

 

Graphic print shorts

Mykonos dress

Geometric maxi dress

Martin Lamothe "The Artist" dress 

I think "The Artist" is my favorite. See how quickly I get distracted?! Well, if I do find some summery work dresses I will certainly update you, but do I have any tall ladies out there who have had success at certain retailers? Hope you are all having a wonderful summer and that you aren't completely overheating!!!!!

DIY: Yarn Vases (Better than it sounds, trust me!)

***This post will start wedding-related, but don't worry, it is also an everyday DIY***

I don't want to become a Bridezilla so I constantly remind myself to keep things calm and simple. Weddings aren't cheap and I don't want my guests hungry and bored but I would rather save for our next house or have a fantastic honeymoon than a flashy wedding, so I think I will cancel the flying trapeze act. That being said, I like things the way I like them, so how am I going to reconcile my taste with my self-enforced budget? DIY projects! (Not too many or I will probably dream that I have gone to a hell where Martha Stewart forces me to make individual pieces of confetti from organic paper sourced from sustainable trees that were felled with butterfly sneezes instead of saws and each bit of confetti will have to be stamped with certification that no butterflies were harmed in the process of making said confetti. This is if I get to sleep the week prior to the wedding, which does not seem likely when I am planning long-distance.) A little crafting is relaxing in a zen-like, repetitive way, so I have dabbled a bit in crafts found on Pinterest:

This pin of bottles wrapped in twine made me think about different color options of yarn and since I had an empty wine bottle (it was empty from the night before, Mom, it was not breakfast) and an empty salsa jar, I thought I would start (w)rapping. hehe

All you need for this project is yarn/twine, a bottle or two willing to participate and some craft glue. I would also wash your jars thoroughly so your projects don't carry the faint odors of booze and onions, unless that's your thing...

Glue the end of your string to the bottom of the bottle and let it set for a few minutes so further wrapping doesn't tug it loose. I made zigzags of glue on the bottle's surface and then wrapped it. The wine bottle (left pic) turned out alright but I was not excited about the sporadic discolored blobs caused by my overzealous glue usage. For the salsa jar (below, right) I used the same process but I stuck my hand in a ziplock baggie and used my index finger to smooth out any glue bumps before wrapping the jar, so that one had much more even texture.

I love ranunculus flowers and envision them for the wedding, blah blah blah, so when I was at Trader Joe's, I picked up a bunch and viola, the jars are complete! (Ignore the TV and surround sound towers in the background, but not the coiled rope pot form Anthropologie that inspired my interest in textured vessels).

I left the wine bottle on the coffee table and moved the salsa jar to the dining table and added my brass cricket (from here) to make a quick centerpiece:

I am pretty sure I live in a cave because I had all the lights in the house on and my pictures still came out so dark! Anyway, what do you think of the vases? Any other variations I should know about? Is anyone else out there DIYing his/her little heart out?

Wednesday Whining and Online Finds!

The Midwest is trying to kill me. Kidding, it only hates me. "Whoa, lady," you say, "why would you say something like that?" I am sick again! I love making new friends, but I think I will pass on getting any more familiar with germs. I am sure I haven't been a good roommate to the fiancee (he's a brave soul to step foot in this house-of-illness after work everyday) and I have been slacking on doing anything creative or productive (ie, find a job! or spring cleaning!) but there are positives to being sick... umm.... I can't think of any except for being justified to waste time online all day (ahem, Pinterest and Bloglovin!), so let's go with that.

Here's a (germ-free) taste of what I've been ogling from my perch on the couch:

Summer haircuts are popping up all over the place and most of them involve sumptuous, Gisele-esque waves, but I am still a sucker for a short bob.Think choppier and funkier than Anna Wintour for a more modern look, like the one above...

I spotted this wedding dress and was ecstatic because it is a fun and funky take on lace and around $500, but they carry a very limited size range?! Is it worth looking into special ordering?

I want to live here. I don't know where this is, but I don't care. Gardens and glass doors = gorgeous!

I love these coiled pots at Anthro and now they are on sale! I got the little teal one and don't even care if I put a plant in it because it looks so cute. I was thinking these could be a great DIY project, too.


(I got the majority of these photos from my Pinterest boards, but you know I am big on crediting original sources, so you can get to the original sources from Pinterest quite easily... I might be spending too much time on there, perhaps?)

Today I'll be looking for gardening tips (I want a veggie and herb garden this summer-- wish me luck!) and searching craigslist for the perfect bar cart and maybe a bicycle! What have you been looking for online? Any gardening tips you'd like to share? Feel free to send me vitamins as well ;)
Happy Wednesday!

I Had Mexican Food For Lunch and I Got Something That Wasn't Indigestion!

Love  and delicious Mexican food were on my brain when I was back home in AZ with Mark-a-licious. His mother lives in AZ, but an hour and a half from my parents, so we had separate Christmas celebrations with our respective families and were excited to see each other the following week. We had lunch at a cute Mexican food joint where we had our first date (doesn't look like much, but it's pretty legit, just in case you are ever in Scottsdale and have an enchilada craving!) and then ambled around Old Town Scottsdale for a while. There are so many cheesy, tourist boutiques brimming with bolo ties and kachina dolls and it is quite entertaining to take it all in. I brought my camera in case I saw anything cool, like this giant reproduction of a Marco Polo sheep:

Or ram. Whatever it is.

On our walk, we also stumbled across the giant L.O.V.E statue. It's a reproduction of the classic 60's design by Robert Indiana and several of them around the world (Philly and NYC are the US locations that come to mind). I decided I needed a few snaps of my outfit for this blog because I can't remember the last time I did an outfit post.

You can't really see me, but for once, it wasn't due to my photography skills. Or lack thereof!

And that's the last photo of me as a single lady. He proposed right after he took two photos-- I had to come down and check them out and he happened to be on his knee to get the right sun angle (yeesh, I can't believe I didn't see it coming!) and the rest was a blur of adorableness. It turns out that the whole "aimless" walk was totally orchestrated and I had played into his plans perfectly by requesting a picture near the statue. In retrospect, I think it was the perfect moment because although there were lots of people out walking in the park that day, we were alone at the statue at the moment he popped the question (which was nice because I am shy and fearful of attention in public....which is why I have a blog and not a TV show, hehe).

My only regret about the whole day was that I did not have a passerby take a photo of the two of us together. I was so surprised and excited it slipped my mind until much later. But I do enjoy that the formerly-known-as-cheesy statue makes me smile when I see photos of it now.

Yes, yes, I have learned how this goes, everyone always asks about the ring, so here it is:

It is from the early 1900's and belonged to his great-great aunt. I am very honored to have been entrusted with it and I am nervous about taking care of it! It is funny that the ring was not designed for me, but it is definitely something I would have picked for myself, so I feel very lucky.

Lastly, this won't turn into a wedding blog, don't worry, but I have been going crazy on Pinterest, and my wedding board is growing exponentially. Check it out here!


Any advice for weddings? Did you see the proposal coming? If you did, I want you to pick lotto numbers for me ;) Hehe, have a great weekend and give someone you love a hug today!

BHLDN Update

For anyone who read my post on Anthropologie's new bridal collection and was interested, Emily from CupcakesAndCashmere was invited to the pre-launch party and posted some pictures on her blog. Click here to see the gorgeousness!

Bridal Bliss

I am not getting married, but something about spring makes me think of wedding gowns... Maybe the season of renewal makes me think about the start of a new life you are married? I don't know what it is exactly, but I do know that I got super excited when a friend reminded me that Anthropologie is launching their bridal stuff on Feb 14th!


You can register for email updates here.


I also registered for theaislenewyork.com to see what that site has to offer, but my membership request is still pending (maybe I am not cool enough?!), is anyone else a member?

Also, do all those frothy confections floating down the spring runways remind you of bridal? Or do I need therapy? Someone warn my Bf that I have white dresses on my brain....!!

Holy Hiatus!

It has been WAY too long since my last post, but life has been crazy with work and "wedding season" as I call it. I am back at home now and ignoring the mountain of laundry (it will be there tomorrow, don't worry) with a stack of Sept issues. I am revisiting some of my favorites (Harper's Bazaar was full of stuff I swear I need!) and getting into that fall frame of mind. BUT, it is still 100+ degrees here, so I will have to wait to bust out my boots and scarves for a bit longer. There are a few things that make the warm weather more enjoyable, like this pin from JCrew. This is my favorite color (it will go with my aqua and chartreuse cardis perfectly) but there are others and -delighted gasp!- they are on sale right now.... time to go shopping, more posts soon!