Almost like PJs

I really liked this outfit. It was comfortable and cute and I will wear it again. It almost felt like pajamas and slippers!



That moto jacket has to be my favorite so far. It’s very plush and soft and warm. The Forever XXI ones are nice as far as looks and style but they don’t offer the warmth or comfort this one does.



And it has been a while since I gave you a close up of my talon…



I feel almost silly for pimping something so hard that I didn’t make, but I’ve just really fallen for it. And it was so affordable. I am saving up to buy the sparrow claw as well.



I had a look yesterday and you can get this in necklace form from the seller. If you have someone to split the earrings with and you have chain and a clasp available, it’s cheaper to do that, but the necklace version is certainly affordable as well, and it’s very high quality.



Dress, American Apparel
Jacket, Converse One Star for Target
Leggings, Target
Boots, Vintage
Talon necklace, Talonalia
Bird skull necklace, cast skull by mrd74 at Etsy, restrung from earrings by me

So Fashion Bloggy

This outfit is so "fashion bloggy" to me. All of it. The vintage boots, the shorts + leggings, the rock and roll tee, the jacket, the handmade jewelry…all of it.

I don’t think without fashion blogs I would have gotten on the denim shorts plus black leggings (or tights) train. I didn’t really believe in it until I saw it on real girls. But I’m glad I did. One of my favorite looks for myself is a long skinny black leg. And this enables me to wear that look with even the most casual of outfits, plus you can always go the other way and dress it up.




I will tell you a story about those shorts though. I tried on a different pair first, but Bernadette didn’t like the wash. She was right, it was a bit…dirty looking. So I tried on these in the SAME SIZE and they would not even go over my hips. I had to go up not one, but 2 sizes from my normal pants size in these shorts. I know Old Navy clothes are just cut really poorly, which is why they are so cheap, but man. Even for someone with as much sense as I have about body image, it was a little brutal. I plan to cut out the tag. The good news is because I had to go up, I can wash AND dry them. I never dry denim, but these are going to stretch enough that I’ll be able to because, again, cheap.



Anyway, shorts trauma aside, love this look. And since I’m in Dallas, where it never really get super cold, I’ll be able to wear it for a while. I can wear one pair of leggings now, and two pair when it gets a bit colder.





I failed to get a detail shot of the necklace I created from my bird skull earrings, but these are the earrings…



I found I just wasn't wearing the earrings, but I love these skulls. They are so well made and beautiful. I put each skull on a chain, gold filled for me and silver for Alannah. I made them pretty long. The skulls are so delicate I really like them as necklaces. Alannah and I have had a few different “BFF” type necklaces over the years, but this is by far the most grown up. I can’t wait for her visit (November 19th!) so we can get pics together.

Tee – Black Angels concert in Dallas (but if you like the fit, it's by Alternative)
Jacket, Converse One Star for Target
Shorts, Old Navy
Leggings, Target
Boots, Vintage
Talon necklace, Talonalia
Bird skull necklace, cast skull by mrd74 at Etsy, restrung from earrings by me (I’ll get a better pic of this soon)

Circle of Clothes is back up and blogging

So it seems she has been back, but no one told me, so I am telling you!


Stepanie N (her own photo, not mine)


Stephanie N. at Circle of Clothes is blogging again. She is one of my favorite reads, she's great at Wardrobe Challenges and remaking things to suit her needs. Check her out!~ I’m so glad she’s back.

Swap - The Recap!

I looked adorable yesterday, but the weather was nasty, and I hate to photograph indoors. So how about we just talk about the Swap instead?

So I’m sure you noticed, but we had a last minute change of plans as far as location. That was…well stressful to say the least. It meant that we had to throw a lot of careful planning out the window and start over with about 24 hours to go. I’m not good with last minute changes and Friday was a really tough day for me. But we pulled it together.

We got to the hotel and they had set up some tables for us. We labeled the tables with sizes (0-2, 4-6, 8-10, ect) and we also had a table for accessories and one for jewelry. Shoes were on the floor.



The tables got piled super high really fast and got really messy really fast once the trying on process started.



We had two full length mirrors available. I was impressed that all 13 girls who showed up were willing to change in front of one another. I was so proud of the level of self confidence in the room! Everyone looked great, and they knew it. The trying on process went really well. LOTS of “that looks great on you” and “you are totally going to rock that” and ZERO rudeness or cattiness.

Because we were in hotel space, we had a limited amount of time, so we had to change our plans regarding tickets and taking turns and instead we used an honor system for how many items you brought in vs how many you took. We still allowed about an hour for browsing and trying on items, then we had swappers select items in groups of 5, 3 items at a time.





We went a few rounds like this and at that point we did a brief show of hands, asking who still needed to take turns, and it seems everyone had that one item they were dying for at that point so we just sort of opened up the floor for free selection.

Of course we also had cake balls, and lots of great food. (Those little chicken minis were a huge hit, Jen!)



We ended up with a pretty sizable donation for charity,



…and everyone seemed to find lots of great stuff to take home.

I am really proud of the work we did, and I am I was so glad to have spent all the time with Tina , planning. She is such a joy and so much fun to be with, she is a great listener, never judgmental and has great style to boot. I may not be ready to take on another swap just yet, but I would take pretty much any excuse to hang out with Tina again.



A special thank you to all our participants
Monica
Kelly
Wendy (who helped with space and was a great co-host)
Maria
Laurie
Connie
Anjolee
Bernadette
Jen Mauldin
Ann
Becky

For Leina

The Swap went really well, I think. More on that later. But for now, I have some pictures of the sparkle butt leggings. I decided to style them with the vintage Spice Girls tee, because Leina loves them as well.





I loved this look. A bit Glam, a bit Casual.



The tee is not really as faded out as it looks, but it is pretty faded. I cut the neck and arms to give it a bit more edge.



These leggings are so thick I was totally comfortable wearing them as pants. They do get a tiny bit baggy over the course of the night but not horribly so.





This is one of my all time favorite Spice Girls promo shots.



I’m still crazy for the Talon necklace. It just seems perfect with everything.




I added all these spike to this clutch. It took forever, FOREVER and it gave me blisters, but I love the way it came out.



You can just about get a house key, a drivers license, a credit card, a gloss and a blackberry in there. Bare minimum for me, but I can handle it.

Spice Girls Tee, Vintage
Hoodies, American Apparel
Jacket, Forever XXI
Leggings, H&M (gift)
Boots, Steve Madden via Zappos
Handbag, craft fair, embellished by me
Bone Bead Necklace, Love Erin Designs
Talon Necklace, Talonalia

Less Fashion, More Cake Balls Part 2

*IMPORTANT ANNOUNCMENT REGARDING THE DALLAS FASHION SWAP*

Oh my gosh. Sorry for the yelling. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have moved venues. The new venue is the Crowne Plaza just across the street, so it should not change your plans. The address is:

7800 ALPHA ROAD,
DALLAS, TX 75240
UNITED STATES
Tel: 1-972-233-7600

Wisw words from Tina..."Don't forget to wear clothing that allows you to try on things in a communal environment. (I'm going to wear a tank top and leggings under a wrap dress, so I can just pull off the dress and try on the things over the tank and leggings."

Cake Balls have been cutting into my reading time, so I have to get what I can when I can.



But at least I look cute!



So part two of the saga begins with pulling the cake balls out of the freezer, and dipping them in melted chocolate. I melted the chocolate chips (I needed 3 12 oz. bags (3!) for each cake mix) in a microwave safe bowl, for about 2 minutes total, stirring every 30 seconds. The white chocolate only took about 1 minute 30 seconds.



Drop the ball in the chocolate and roll it around until well coated, but try and do it in as few strokes as possible so that the ball remains intact.





Set them on a cool surface, on waxed paper to cool. If you are adding a topping, don’t wait too long or the chocolate will cool and the topping will not stick. I did about 3 balls and then sprinkles.





It took about 2 hours I think, to do a 100 cake balls or so. The white chocolate was much harder to work with, I’m not sure why, and took longer to set.



CAKE BALLS!~

Chocolate Strawberry with sprinkles…





(sorry my hands looks dirty, it’s just melted chocolate and sprinkle dye)
Cream cheese carrot cake with white chocolate and a cinnamon dusting…






I had the office test them today and they got a thumbs up. Total time? about 8 hours. I'm not kidding.

Dress, Target
Jacket, Forever XXI
Tights, Target
Boots, Steve Madden
Bag, Thrifted,
Talon Necklace, Talonalia
Book, Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr (book two in her tales of the Faeries, and stinking GOOD)

Less Fashion, More Cake Balls, Part 1

Last night I stated the two day long process of making cake balls for the Dallas Swap (This Saturday!~ Please see Monday’s post if you are interested, we would love to have you). Cake Balls are kind of like a truffle, but the inside is a mix of cake and frosting.

Let’s begin with proper baking attire…



The vintage Spice Girls tee is not required, but recommended if available. We ordered this back in 1999, in our first year of marriage, from a catalog. It was $24.99, which was an outrageous amount for us to pay for a tee shirt back then, because we were living off my work study money, but even then I was very devoted to my pop groups. I remember thinking that this was a “fitted” tee. Isn’t that crazy?

The vintage apron was my grandmothers. I love aprons.

I gathered my materials…



Basically, I went with a sort of hybrid of two recipes. But they all start with just a cake. Any cake. I went with boxed cake mixes. I used one strawberry and one carrot cake. My pictures are all of the strawberry cake.

I don’t have a mixer. Well, I will now. My hand mixer, which is an endless source of amusement for my friends has always been fine. But last night it sort of gave up on me during the carrot cake. Which means I need to replace it and I think I will go with a hand held electric this time. I so do not need a big ol mixer like most people have, since I almost never bake. But here it is, one last time for all you kids, my hand mixer…



So you make the cake the same as always. And then you let it cool. I let the cakes cool for about an hour. This way they were still a bit warm, which comes in handy in a bit. After you let them cool, you crumble them up into cake crumbs.





To the cake crumbs, you add one jar of frosting. It helped for them to be warm, which made the frosting stir in easier, I think. I used strawberry for the strawberry cake and cream cheese for the carrot cake, which is not terribly creative, I know, but like I said, I don’t bake.



Just stir it all up.



Now that mixture goes into the fridge. We (Nathan and I) let it sit about an hour and a half.


Then we ran our finger along the frosting jar to make sure we didn’t miss any, and we licked that sucker clean.



P. Bitty helped.



Once the mixture is firm and cold, scoop out melon baller sized pieces and ball them up, just like a meatball. In fact, the mixture itself looks like meat. So did the carrot cake mixture.









Once we had balled up all the mix, we put it back in the fridge. We let it sit overnight and at noon today Nathan will move it to the freezer so it will be nice and cold for the next step, which is when we coat them with melted chocolate for the hard outer shells. Stay tuned!