Picnic Blanket Pattern

Outfit Details:

Top: Gift from Mike bought at a Salvation Army in Europe...he read my blog and remembered that I liked "picnic blanket patterns"!! it's actually an H&M shirt!

Skirt: Thrifted

Sunglasses: UO

Watch: Birthday gift from my Mother Darling :)

This was my first semester back in school after a two year hiatus and, although I still have lots to learn in the time management department, I'm pretty proud of how well I've done. I just got my first grade back for the semester, an A- in British Literature up to the year 1660! I am still waiting on my Intro to Literary Study grade and am writing my final for American History post Civil War tomorrow!

Needless to say, being a first semester University student at age 23 can be slightly discouraging at times...it's never fun to hear yourself mutter "I should have listened to my parents"...but I am more confident than ever in my ability to get through this as fast as possible and start the little life I've been planning for myself since I was a little girl!

My summer classes start on Monday and I am totally excited for the fresh start of a new semester, and applying all the things I learned about staying organized this term to my new classes and doing even better!

If any of you are also struggling to keep up in your end of semester crunch, or if you remember what that's like from when you were there...feel free to share any of your coping strategies and tactics!

xo

Everybody is out high hattin'

Outfit details:
Romper and shoes: thrifted (the Romper just went up for sale in the shop!)
purse: H&M
sunglasses: UO

The weather here has been too nice to be sitting around blogging! Mike and I woke up early both days this weekend to take full advantage of the beautiful sunshine! We even drove across the bridge to sit on the grass at the marina and catch some rays with our feet in the water. As you can guess by the blinding color of my skin...I burned!
Oh well! this weather is entirely too wonderful for me to find anything to complain about! I even got to walk home from work in just a skirt and sleeveless blouse!

My last exam is this friday and then I start my summer semester, which is the last leg of stress in my life before my much anticipated summer vacation! i'm almost nervous for the time to come, since I remember how quickly my November Europe trip came and went!

I hope you're all getting as much warm, happy sunshine as we are here!

New Items at Red Letter Days!

The warm weather is upon us here in the Northern hemisphere, and if it hasn't hit you yet, I know that it will soon! I've added a bunch of Spring and Summer time dresses to the shop to celebrate the sunshine!
Make sure to check it out!

You're Never Fully Dressed..Without a Smile!*

Today is the first of the three sunny and warm days the weather man is promising us here in Montreal! I've spent the afternoon shopping for fresh groceries and baking a Strawberry chocolate pie for my beloved roommate and best friend, Stef!

In other news, it's official! My Sister and I are moving into an apartment together in September! The whole thing is a little bittersweet, since I'll be horribly sad not to wake up to the sound of Stef talking to the cat while she makes her instant coffee, but with a 10 year friendship like ours, it doesn't worry me!

I have been so busy enjoying the weather and playing outside with Mike and Lola, I've barely been able to come up with anything interesting to write on this blog! But inspiration comes and goes, and it'll be back! Hopefully when I'm not being so frugal anymore, I can head out and do some thrifting again and put some new stuff up in the store!

have a lovely weekend! xo

*Fully Dressed from the Annie soundtrack!

Online Shopping

Sucked me back in! I was doing really well for awhile, and in my defense, I'm doing really great saving for my trip this summer.
Anyway, I guess I'll just have to go back to being frugal after this slight lapse in self restraint (you can't blame me, this girl's shop is just the greatest!)

Here are the three dresses I purchased for very reasonable prices today!

*Purchased from Die Golden Gans on Etsy

HBO's Grey Gardens

Last night I traveled to my parents house with Mike to watch Grey Gardens on HBO (and eat delicious home cooked food in hopes of murdering this horrible flu I have)...
I've been having trouble starting this post, because I have too many wonderful things to say about the movie and each time I start to write them out, they get all jumbled and it becomes this chaotic mess of words and exclamation points.
I'm really excited to hear what everyone else thought of the film, since I'm sure I wasn't alone in anticipating it for weeks and weeks before it played!
I'm not the greatest at finding movie stills, so I stick to google image search usually...here are two collages, one from the original 1975 documentary, and the other of the HBO film with Drew Barrymore looking stunning, and Jessica Lange who both portrayed the Beale ladies perfectly in my opinion!

If you have the chance to watch these films, do so! Both are wonderful in their own way! And although I felt that Drew and Jessica did excellent jobs, the impact the original film has is really just amazing after watching the HBO version which felt so much more like fiction! Those two were looney tunes in the best possible way!

The Felix House

Wednesday morning Mike and I woke up determined to turn our day off together into an adventure. The weather could not have been more cooperative providing us with a windless, rainless , warm sunny day!
First stop was Ste Anne de Bellevue, a little town by the water where Mike went to college. A seafood lunch, extra large coffees, little used bookshop and walk around campus later, we got back in the car and drove down Chemin Senneville where all the old turn of the century mansions are! I forgot to snap any pictures, but we did look some up on remax later only to discover they are well out of even our imagined budget!

Our next stop was supposed to be Mike's (late) Great Uncle's old property down by the water in Vaudreuil, but that plan got rained on when we saw the big government signs that said no trespassing all around the property! I was definitely too chicken to sneak onto it, and so we settled for skipping rocks and walking by the water down the road where it is completely legal!

Finally, I asked Mike if we could go visit the old Felix house where his stepdad used to live before being evicted because the Historical Society in the area didn't want anyone living in it! (It used to belong to the writer Felix Leclerc*).
I really didn't expect such a heart breaking scene when we pulled up! It turns out the historical society couldn't get any funding from the government and they haven't had the budget to maintain the house, so it's basically just rotting away! The house itself is facing the water and has about a million acres of field behind it. It's got four barns surrounding it, one that used to be a blacksmith's shop, the other storage for the carriages, the third where they stored the farming tools and the fourth, the old delapidated one you can see in the pictures, was a stable for horses!
Sneaking around through all the old abandoned buildings definitely satisfied our adventure cravings and we happily settled onto the couch at Mike's mom's place afterwards to enjoy some pizza and James Bond with the kids!
I'm still a little heartbroken that the Felix House will probably just stand there until they declare it condemned and are forced to tear it down! But I'm glad I got to visit it before that happenned.

*I feel like a total dummy, because I have somehow been under the impression that Felix Leclerc is a painter my whole life and just recently was informed (thanks Guillaume) that he is actually a poet/writer! In my defense, I think my elementary school may have mislead me because my sister thought the same thing as me!

Red Letter Days

Here is a little teaser of the new items I'll be putting in the shop tonight. There are lots more, but my eyes hurt from editing photos at the computer for two hours without my glasses!
I'd really like to thank everyone for making Red Letter Days so successful! It's going so much better than I could have ever asked for!

Oliver Peoples

Found Here (the Riley's are the in the bottom picture)

This post may make me seem obsessed (or reveal that I actually am obsessed...) with Zooey Deschanel, but I'm just about positive that every girl - or at least every girl who reads this blog - is equally in love with her, so I don't feel too bad.

I recently discovered (and am probably years behind, as I usually am!) Oliver People's eye wear. It's ridiculously overpriced and way out of my price range, and most of the stuff isn't really even all that special, but this one campaign video makes me love the company a little bit, and also makes me want the Riley glasses they have on their website!

As usual, I will be working my hardest in the next few weeks to find the closest knock-off replica I can, since I need to get new glasses anyway! If anyone knows of any more affordable versions of this model please let me know!

I hope everyone had a happy Easter! Mine was wonderful, and so fun-filled I didn't even think once about taking out my camera! But next week we're celebrating again with Mike's Mom's side of the family and that is when we're doing the Easter Egg hunt, so I'm sure I'll have a pretty pastel colored Easter post at some point soon after that!

Hair Inspiration : Gibson Girls

Organic's Depression Chic look found here; Gibson Girl via image search; Luella SS09 Collection

I think I may be repeating myself on this one, but I am really in love with the Gibson Girl inspired pile-all-your-hair-on-top-of-your-head look.
I'll admit, when I have the time, I enjoy spending an hour or so doing my hair and trying out new things, but for the most part, I just don't have time and get frustrated really easily with my hair, and this seems like the perfect solution. Lazy yet elegant!
For now I still need several bobby pins to actually keep my hair up, but soon, soon my hair will be long enough to just lazily throw it all up there and stick it with a pin!
How perfect is having all your hair off your shoulders on hot, sticky, summer days?! (If they ever decide to arrive!)

On another note, two very exciting new Zooey movies are coming out in the next few months...the first brought to my attention by Isabel, and the second by Stef:

Guilty Pleasures

* Disclaimer * I'm feeling loopy to say the least from all the decongestants and lack of sleep...I have not proof read this post...it may or may not make sense! If, after recovering from this demon-cold I realize it makes none whatsoever, I may just choose to remove it!


Being sick is prime time for indulging in guilty pleasures. Things that you are ashamed to say you like, but find enormously comforting. For me, that guilty pleasure is television high school dramas. As far back as I can remember teen-soaps like Degrassi (for my fellow Canadian readers) 90210, Dawson's Creek and even One Tree Hill have been my brainless-couch-potato favourites! Though I'm glad to say I'm nowhere near as emotionally attached to the characters as I was at about 14 or 15 years old...I still get the urge to lie on the couch with a bag of potato chips and zone out to Dylan and Brenda whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears.
Let me get to my point...I didn't bring this up just to ramble about how bitchy Dawson's new neighbour is!
For more than a little while now, I've been reluctant to give into the 90s revival that's taken over the world...or at least the tiny pocket of the world I actively participate in...Although there were lots of things I loved about the 90s (i.e. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Skip It!), there were also lots of things I really hated (i.e. oversized blazers, off-the-shoulder mini dresses, and red lipstick worn with everything...). Ironically, all of those things I really really hated throughout the decade, are now things I find creeping into my wardrobe one by one!
Floral print mini dresses, little jean jackets, bright colored lipstick and nailpolish...all of these things can be found in my closet at the moment!
I guess this brings me to my point, that my aforementioned "guilty pleasures" are slowly becoming just "pleasures" as I'm suddenly watching the original 90210 series with the same excitement I watch silent films with! Keeping my eye out for outfit inspiration and writing lists of what I'll look for on my next thrifting trip!
That being said, I'm still just as in love as always with frizzy silent film star hair, 1940s shoes, 70's blouses with chambray bottoms and frilly white sundresses! I guess I'm just saying...why discriminate?!
I move to incorporate 90's fashion in with the rest of my inspirations and hope it has the same mismatched effect as the clashing patterns Marc Jacobs used in his recent collections!

P.S. Having admitted all of this to you guys, I feel it important to mention, that I still have absolutely NO desire for men's fashion from the 90's to come back! Those hawaiian shirts can stay far far away from my boyfriend thanks!

Whiskers on Kittens

Little girls & Brown paper packages found here; Still from the Sound of Music; Bright Copper Kettles found here

It would seem that my A.P.C. summer inspired outfit displayed here recently was a little bit eager on my part.
I have, as a result of under dressing too early in the season, come down with one of the worst between-season colds I've had in a long time, complete with stuffy/runny nose, sore throat, a cough, sneezing and fever! If it wasn't for taking on more hours at work to pay for my trip this summer as well as the upcoming exam period rush, I'd probably run to my parents house crying, and spend a week curled up in my old bedroom watching Hitchcock films with my dog and a hot water bottle.

Bright copper kettle and warm woolen mittens really are a few of my favourite things right about now....but then again, so are brown paper packages tied up with string, three of which I will be sending out to three lovely ladies first thing tomorrow morning!

Red Letter Days

Sound the trumpets! This is the official (re)opening of Red Letter Days! I apologize to anyone who is fed up of hearing about it! I launched the store a little while ago, but didn't have the time or energy to post new items, so those same 4 dresses sat in there for about a month! Now I'm back! I've posted about a dozen new items and will be adding more every week!
Here are the items I've posted to the Etsy shop so far! There are tons and tons more to come, but I wanted to see how succesful the first batch would be before adding all of my items at once!
If anyone (buyers and sellers alike) have any feedback to give me it's always appreciated!
Constructive criticism is the only way I'll ever make this little business a success!

"Pardon me while I have a strange interlude!"

Outfit 100% thrifted from the hat down to the shoes...
Inspiration: Sienna Miller in The Edge of Love

This being the first weekend Mike was back from his month long Europe tour, I had intended for it to be packed with adventure!
Unfortunately, our big plans took a back burner to the serious lack of sleep we were both suffering from, and we spent most of Friday night and the beginning of Saturday lying around in bed trying to nurse what felt like the beginnings of a nasty cold!
We didn't end up going to Griffintown Cafe to see the live blues band that plays there on Fridays...and I missed the two estate sales I was hoping to check out yesterday morning...but we DID take about 65% of the pictures I wanted to take for my upcoming Red Letter Days post, and we DID go to the Sugar Shack for my Grandmaman's 86th Birthday!
Despite the cold, gray and wet weather we've been having ever since that one lovely sunshiney day, we managed to have a fantastic day! The food was amazing, we all made ourselves sick with snow toffee and we saw a couple of bearded goats hiding in a corner of a barn!
I'd say the only disappointing part of the day was the weird club-DJ playing Lady Gaga twenty times too loud in the place of the old accordion and harmonica house band I'm used to seeing at those places!
Now I'm back at my apartment after a lovely dinner at Mike's Mom's and have been listening to Abbott and Costello skits on this online radio stream while cleaning up my room!
Only one more week of class! Hang in there fellow University students!!!

*Title is a quote from Groucho Marx in Animal Crackers, which I'm about to watch!

A real Spring day!

Chambray Sleeveless top: Thrifted; Denim Skirt: Made by Grandmaman; Scarf: Thrifted; Shoes: Goodwill; Boater Hat: Goodwill

It was so nice and warm outside today that I finally felt motivated to walk to school like I did with work all last summer!
On my way back from class, I stopped in at all my favourite antique stores on Notre-Dame as well as a quick stop at Goodwill and a not-so-quick stop at my very favourite Montreal vintage clothing shop, E.R.A. vintage. I usually kind of avoid stores like this one, but Elaine, the owner, just happens to be the sweetest lady that I ever did meet! And she has a strict no designer labels policy, because she doesn't want to attract snobs! I always end up spending about an hour in her store just playing dress-up and laughing with her, and this time was no different! The only thing I did do differently was not spend more than I could afford! I bought one pair of perfectly fitting yellow pleated shorts, incredibly similar to the pair in the A.P.C. summer collection!
Feeling suddenly inspired by the collection, which I originally thought was a bit too plain, I checked Goodwill for some Granny Sandals, which I found, in exactly my size, at exactly the right price (as is everything at Goodwill!)...
And that, thanks to good weather, an afternoon off and some A.P.C. inspiration, is how this little outfit came to be!

Heather Benning Made my Dreams Come True!

I recently found out that issue 8 of Lula is available in Canada. I'm glad I waited however, because my precious prince of a boyfriend came back from his month long europe tour with a copy straight from the streets of Paris! As if the issue wasn't already good enough (my favourite issue so far I'd say, though I still hold a soft spot for the Kirsten Dunst issue), knowing he bought it for me in my favourite city in the world has made it all the more special to flip through.
At first I didn't know how I'd pick which editorial to talk about here...but then I found Heather Benning's doll house!
The house itself, where she found it and the fact that she asked the neighbours for permission to use it already make for the most magical art project I could imagine...but what she did with this crumbling old farm house breaks my heart in the best possible way!

The whole thing just makes me want to pack up everything I own and start fresh somewhere new with nothing at all! (Which I'm actually doing in a way...but I'll address that in a second...)
The simplicity and minimalist way in which the room are set up seem just perfect to me and it makes me feel like I collect far too much junk! I'm starting to feel that Spring-Cleaning urge to just give away everything I own and clear out all those dusty corners of my room...

I wanted to drive out to Saskatchewan and see it for myself, but it's a bit of a longer drive than I expected and I don't think I'm ready to be taking any casual 48 hour drives across Canada anytime soon...so I'll have to content myself with rereading the interview and gazing at the pictures over and over again.
Who knew that my favourite editorial in a magazine like Lula would have nothing at all to do with Fashion!


Now, onto what I said before about clearing out my stuff...I have a bit of a weekend project planned with the help of my most precious of men...he will be helping me do a massive "photoshoot" for my etsy shop. I started Red Letter Days at least a month ago now and haven't put an ounce of effort into the shop, which I'm sure isn't helping boost sales at all!
So I will actually be selling pretty much everything I own in the store as of about Friday of next week. I'll post about it here, but if any of my previous outfit posts have caught your attention, be sure to keep an eye out for that!

I am just about to enter the dreaded exam period at school, so aside from this project which I am hoping will be a success, I don't know how much time I'll have to put together very interesting posts...
but, I always find time to read all of your blogs every day with my morning coffee, so thank you all for providing me with my very own version of the morning paper! Only better! because it involves pretty pictures, inspiration and wonderful people!!!