Thrift Style Thursday - Off Book

Well, it's Thrift Style Thursday and the theme this week is super fun - Beach Wear - but I'm going off book for a couple of reasons - I really don't have any thrifted beach wear and also, I'm not really going to the beach anytime soon!  Instead I went more for a "this is what I'd wear to a picnic by the water" kind of look today.  And oh hello, office selfies.  We haven't done this in awhile!  Best laid plans on getting pictures elsewhere, so I figured I'd cuddle up to my friend the Shred Bin for the first time in a while.  Keeping it real folks!

I was inspired by Robin from Frannie Pantz to wear my denim vest with a sundress.  I haven't done this look in awhile and yes, it does feel a little more 1995 than 2005, but maybe we'll say I'm doing Throwback Thursday for Thrift Style Thursday?

Dress - Old Navy (thrifted), Vest - Vintage Lee (Mighty Swell Vintage)

Bag - Merona (Target), Scarf - Target, Sandals - Marshalls 

Whatever vibe I'm channeling here I liked the look, it's comfy and fresh for summer.  And I'll just dream of being at the beach instead of the office!
Check out the other ladies below and see their beach inspired looks!

Thrift Style Thursday - Like, totally 90s

Once again I thought I might have some trouble pulling together something for this week's Thrift Style Thursday - our theme is Nineties Nostaglia and while I am a total 90's girl - I didn't think I had much in my closet that would fit the theme.  Oh how wrong I was.  I set to playing around with a few things and realized this was easier than I thought. This was fun to put together!

So this sundress isn't necessary something that screams 90's - but then start adding pieces like the denim vest and we're getting there.  For fun I also added floral sandals, a daisy necklace (I seem to remember daisy things were big then) and a butterfly barrette in my hair ala Sarah McLachlan in her Lillith Fair days. Oh and we can't forget my tied flannel shirt - had to throw in some grunge too.  I always had a flannel tied around my waist in the 90s - even in the summer with my shorts.  I never said I was cool back then!  The whole outfit is finished up with one of my vintage Coach bags (that I'm pretty sure is a 90s era bag - makes me old to call something from my teen days "vintage").  Overall I think I'm pulling a pretty good mid-90's era feel here!

Sundress - thrifted, Vest - Vintage Lee (Mighty Swell pop up sale)

Necklace - Butterfly Boutique, Flannel - Old Navy

Sandals - Merona (Target), 

Bag - Vintage Coach (Tandem Vintage pop up sale)

And funny story - while I was driving Oliver to my parents this morning, the radio station I was listening to was doing their daily "guess the celebrity birthday" game - and it happened to be Melanie B (aka Scary Spice) from the Spice Girls birthday today.  So then naturally they played "If You Wanna Be My Lover" and my transformation to my teen years was complete.  Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

Head on over to these other thrifty gals blogs for some other 90's flashbacks!

Spoolish//Sandpaper Kisses//Sincerely Miss J//Confessions of a Refashonista//

Alligator Toe//Buttons&Birdcage//Snippets With Alex//Eclecticity//Being Zhenya//

Erika's Style Diary//Sistas from Cali//Rachel's Lookbook//Muddy Flowers//

The Two Cent Chick//Lipstick And Yarn//Nuttier Than Nutella

Inspiration Monday - Rockin weekend

Good morning bloggy peeps! Did you all have a nice weekend? I did, went by way too fast once again.  Friday we were off for the Fair as I mentioned last week.  We had a great time - definitely ate a ton!  The rest of the weekend was good too - more on that in a moment, but first, here is today's Inspiration Monday - Selena Gomez.

This mama isn't doing any mid-drift baring shirts these days, but I still managed to semi re-create this inspiration for a girls karaoke night on Saturday with none other than our Inspiration Monday hosts - the lovely Megan and Nora of two birds!

It was fun, a couple of other gals I've been lucky to meet through blogging - Kimi and Erin, came out for the fun too along with a couple of other gals the birds know. And let me tell you - those ladies know how to rock it and have a good time!

Dress as skirt - American Eagle (old)

Shirt - Motherhood Maternity (thrifted)
Vest - Vintage Lee, Mighty Swell Vintage

Jewelry - Stella and Dot

Shoes - Target

Kimi was nice enough to take some pictures for me before we left Megan's house - can I just say her house is seriously the most adorably decorated house ever?  I absolutely love this wall up above here!

And yes...this happened -

I was joking that I usually need a little more liquid courage to get up and do karaoke, but they all were having so much fun that I just gave it a go.  Sang a little Sarah McLachlan and also some Walking on Sunshine.  Not my standard fare - hard to sing pop when you're not used to it, but it was still pretty fun, I will admit that.   The others are definitely better at it than I am - I'll have to practice a bit more for next time!

And finally, you have to see this adorable gift that Megan and Nora gave me for the baby.  I laughed so hard and when he saw it, so did the Pants Monkey.

A Diaper Monkey onesie in honor of his Pants Monkey daddy.  Too funny and too cute!  It was so sweet of them to do that - thanks again ladies!

The rest of the weekend I pretty much laid low, it got very hot on Sunday.  I am so glad we went to the Fair when we did - this whole week is going to be miserable!

For more Inspiration Monday outfits, check out two birds over here.

Pinspired again

It's been awhile since I've taken an outfit I found on Pinterest and recreated it.  I was feeling like I just didn't know what I wanted to wear the rest of this week and feeling a bit uninspired, so I took to my boards to see if there was anything I could attempt even with the challenge of the bump.  I found this one I pinned of Jessica Alba and I realized, yes, I can do this!  Here's the outfit:

It's funny, I was just thinking about wearing my denim vest the other day.  I haven't gotten nearly enough use out of it this summer, so this was the perfect excuse to wear it.  I'm also still crazy in love with this dress - worn as skirt again - that my friend gave me.  It's just so darn comfy, I want to live it in every single day!  I also busted out this cute owl necklace that I hardly ever wear.  I'm not sure why I never wear it, I adore owls!

Completing the ensemble is my Jenna Lou bag.  Still one of my most favorite bags of all time.  And there you have it.  I think I did pretty darn good with this inspiration!  It's funny, the last time I wore this dress was at my garage sale a couple of weeks ago - my mom said it made me look kind of like early Phoebe from Friends. I can dig that, it does sort of have that 90's bohemian type feel to it!

 Dress as skirt - Cliche Mpls, from friend

Shirt - Old Navy

Vest - Vintage Lee, Mighty Swell Vintage

Necklace - Charming Charlie

Earrings - Stella and Dot

Bag - Jenna Lou Designs

Sandals - Clothes Mentor

I know I usually do my bump shots on Fridays, because that is technically the day the gestational weeks change, but I thought this outfit would show it off better, so here you go. We'll be 22 weeks tomorrow.  I am planning another Pinterest inspired look for tomorrow too!  Keep my groove going!  I'm feeling much more inspired again.  Where do you look for inspiration when you feel like you're in a rut?

Inspiration Monday - Waterlogged

Whew.  What a wet weekend.  I had taken Thursday and Friday off of work because I was running ahead on time off again and because the Pants Monkey and I had originally considered having a garage sale this last weekend.  I am so glad we didn't.  More on that in a minute.

First up, it's Inspiration Monday with two birds and today we have Gwen Stefani in a chic looking outfit with a denim vest and awesome yellow shoes.

I don't have awesome yellow shoes, but I do have a fun denim vest, so I did my best on this interpretation!  And as you can see, it's very wet in my yard.  Starting Thursday night it started raining and pretty much continued off and on throughout the whole weekend.  Pouring at times.  I am so thankful we weren't ready for our sale yet!  We're hoping to try again in June or July, so here's hoping by then we have sunnier weather!

Vest - vintage Lee, Mighty Swell

Shirt - Maurices

Skirt - Cliche Minneapolis

Shoes - Anne Klein, from cousin

Jewelry - Stella and Dot 

There were a few sunny breaks in the weekend too but they seemed few and far between.  I guess there was enough of them though that the Pants Monkey was able to fill a couple of more yard bags of leaves and we finally had someone look at our downed tree limb in our backyard, so at least it wasn't a total washout!  We grilled dinner on Saturday night too.  But for the most part it was just so wet all weekend!

Anyway, enough about my weather woes.  For more Inspiration Monday outfits head over to two birds over here.

Remembering a sunnier day

Today is another lovely day in MN - in fact the worst of the storm is today - so I'm bringing you an outfit from a much warmer sunnier day two weeks ago instead of depressing you all with snow photos.

So remember when I said yesterday that I swear Heather from Style Journey is my style twin?  Maybe she's my muse instead - the following outfit is one I stole from her.

I wore this on my nice sunny day off a couple of weeks ago.  I met a couple of friends for sushi lunch and we ended up doing a little shopping that day as well.  It was nice enough I didn't need much more than this - I just added a light jacket.  I saw someone say yesterday that there are some people that are hating on the denim vest trend - but I say bring it on.  I loved it in the 90's, I love it now.  It just adds a little something to an outfit.

Shirt - Eddie Bauer

Vest - Mighty Swell Vintage

Jeans - Old Navy

Shoes - DSW

Scarf - S&D

Oh look at that nice sunshine.  It will come back again someday, I know that it will!  In the meantime, I have started digging back out some of those sweaters and boots I put away last week....sigh.

Inspiration Monday - I'm baaaack!

Hello everyone!  I'm back!  It's good to be back.  I have to give a round of applause/standing ovation to all my guest posters for last week - thanks so much Megan, Callie, Ally, Jess and Maca!  I hope you all enjoyed their posts and will check out their blogs too.  It was a nice break, even though I was home part of the week, I wasn't wearing much anything more exciting than jeans and a t-shirt!  But it really is good to be back, I've missed this and I've missed all of you! More on my vacation in a bit, but first, let's start off right here with this week's pick for Inspiration Monday - Elizabeth Olsen (god I feel old, I remember when her famous sisters were babies on Full House....)

This was pretty easy for me!  I was more than happy to pull out this dress that I love, I thrifted it last year and have worn it quite a bit on the blog, but it's been awhile.  I think of these colors as fall/winter colors.  And we're getting late into August here and getting close to fall, so it felt right.  I loved adding this denim vest to give this a whole new look!  I don't have booties yet - I had some light colored cowboy boots that I tried but they just didn't look right, so I stuck to sandals today.

So back to my vacation - it was lovely.  We spent four days in Itasca State Park with the Pants Monkey's family and the weather was perfect.  We were able to build a fire every night.  We went on a fun boat ride, we golfed a bit and on the last night we went down by the lake and watched the stars.  I even saw a few shooting stars.  I swear, Northern Minnesota is heaven.  If any of you ever come to visit MN I will insist on getting you out of the city for just a day or two, Minneapolis is great, don't get me wrong, but the Northwoods is what makes me heart Minnesota so much.  I love that I can escape there so easily!

After our return on Wednesday we still had a couple of days to enjoy.  Thursday we were pretty lazy, but we did go buy Mr. Monkey some new clothes.  He has lost some weight (on purpose, so proud of him!) and needed some things that would fit instead of hanging off his body!  Friday we brewed some beer.  Saturday we had bought a Living Social deal that allowed us to go on a bus ride to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin to tour the Leinenkugel brewery and go tubing down the Chippewa River.  It was a blast, we had no idea what to expect going in but we had a good time.  And then Sunday we totally vegged.  Now we're back to the grind!

It's tough to be back but it's another short week actually - we took this coming Friday off to go to the Minnesota State Fair!  I can't believe it's Fair time already.  Where did this summer go again?  I wish it would never end!

As always, please head over to two birds to check out the other Inspiration Monday looks!  And big congrats to Nora Bird on the birth of baby Ben!  Megan's rocking it solo over there for a bit, so make sure to show her some love!

Outfit rundown:

Dress - Axcess by Claiborne (thrifted)

Vest - Vintage, Mighty Swell

Sandals - Italian Shoe Company (DSW)

Necklace and two bracelets - S&D

Other bracelet - Bead for Life

Tie in a knot, tie it in a bow

Well hello there Friday!  Welcome back to my world.  I love how reliable you are and so appreciate you returning to me each and every week.  

I'm silly, I know.  I'm glad it's Friday though.  It's a rare Friday with nothing going on, so Mr. Monkey and I will probably have a date night tonight.  Usually we make Saturdays our date nights, but that isn't going to work out this weekend anyway as we have a birthday party for a friend, so I'm really glad tonight ended up free!  We try to do weekly date nights as much as we can, I always offer up as advice to newlyweds - make sure you keep "dating" each other - it keeps your relationship fun and alive!

This shirt was a steal for me, it was on a clearance rack at the Mighty Swell Vintage sale last weekend for only $2.  I feel like even if I only wore it once it would be justified!  The good news is I'm pretty sure I have other things to wear it with and the cute little bow tie is kind of on trend right now.

I tried something different with the picture below here, I made a little collage style picture so you can see the detail of the shirt.  Being so light colored it's very difficult to get a good picture unless I did one up close!

I love that the fabric in this shirt is super lightweight too.  I could also see myself wearing this shirt under a lightweight blazer or something too though.  It'll be fun to play with at any rate!

The weekend is kind of full as I said.  Not only do we have a birthday party tomorrow night but I'm also singing for a wedding - first time in a few years I've gotten hired to do so and I'm so excited about it!  It's such a nice way to make a little extra money!  Sunday there's a pretty awesome event going on close to my house called No Coast Summer Craft-o-rama.  My very good friend Jes will have a booth there and so will the fabulous Erin of Babes in Thriftland.  If you're local and you love homemade/craft goodies you should definitely check it out.  Not to mention the park where it's being held is is a lovely treasure in the middle of our city and I love that it's within walking distance of our house.  After that we're heading to another birthday party, a pretty special one, we have friends who have a baby girl that came into the world super early last year and she has just turned 1, so they're having a big bash to celebrate.  It'll be a crazy weekend but I'm looking forward to it!  I am most excited about my date with my hubby though, I won't lie about that! Have a great weekend everyone!

Outfit rundown:

Shirt - Mighty Swell Vintage

Skirt - Cliche Minneapolis

Sandals - Marshalls

Necklace - Butterfly Boutique

Party like it's 1995...

I am totally channeling the 90s in my outfit today.  I am pretty sure I owned a very similar sundress to this one in 1995.  I don't care though, when I saw this dress at the two birds garage sale I just had to have it.  And I've been crushing on denim vests I've seen other bloggers wearing for awhile now too, so I found this one at Mighty Swell the same day I bought the dress and when I saw these next to each other, I knew I had an outfit to wear.  Even if it makes me feel 13 again.

It's weird, summer often makes me nostalgic for my youth a little bit.  I mentioned yesterday I've been watching old Blossom episodes on YouTube.  While making dinner last night I seeded my iTunes Genius with a Cranberries song.  At dinner the Pants Monkey and I were marveling at the fact that you can hear Smashing Pumpkins playing on the radio again. I also hear No Doubt is back together too.  Yes, all these things do make me think fondly of the good old days.

I wouldn't actually go back to the 90s for anything though.  I was a pretty awkward pre-teen, so really, we don't need to relive those days!

I laughed when I came back in the house after taking my pictures this morning and found Disapproving Taylor hiding under the chair here. It's like she's saying "Mom, you aren't a teenager anymore, it's not 1995!"  Too bad Taylor, I like this outfit anyway.

Before I go, I will also share one of my favorite 90's music videos.  Remember those?  You know, singers and groups would make a little mini movie out of one of their songs and then these cool TV stations called MTV and VH1 would play them all day long.  Oh you've heard of those channels?  Yeah, I know, they just play reality shows and movies.  No such thing as music videos.  It's sad really. (For real, MTV should just drop the "M" from their name.  Oh and do you know what VH1 originally stood for?  Video Hits One.  Hmm...) Anyway, thanks for indulging me on a trip down memory lane!

Outfit rundown:

Dress - two birds

Vest - vintage, Mighty Swell

Shoes - Merona, Target

Necklace - Butterfly Boutique