approaching joy

mad monday :: lace lovin

1- Dorthy Perkins 2- Scout and Catalogue 3- branchbound 4- Indie Jane 
5- A Beautiful Mess

This week I am mad for all the lace stuff that is streaming across my Pinterest feed.  It adds an instant femininity to everything it touches (which I like) but it's not too fussy (which I like even more).

1- Isn't this dress gorgeous? Simple, elegant, and the flirty little sleeves... I could wear this to the office or a date.  This puts this dress into "amazing" territory.
2- And as much I like the dress, I like this clutch even more.  The roughness of the leather paired with the delicate lace: total adoration.  I do believe I could carry it everywhere with everything.
3- This adds the old school tweets (i.e. birds) from a couple weeks ago and pairs it with this week's lace.  I'm thinking a fitted t-shirt, skinny jeans, tall boots... and this necklace.  A feminine/fun/vintage detail on top of an otherwise {ho-hum} outfit.
4- These are DIY!  Amanda over at Indie Jane made these amazing little lace inspired flats with doilies and spray paint.  Genius, dude.  Genius!
5- Speaking of  DIY... here is another project made by the lovely Kinsey and Elsie over at A Beautiful Mess.  (Yes, I'm still Blog Crush-ing...) And though it doesn't exactly go with my aesthetic, I am all about tearing stuff apart to make it more beautiful.  High fives for lovely lace destruction!

I hope that everyone has plans for an amazing week!  It is the week before Spring Break for me so I don't plan on any negativity distracting me from my goal for the upcoming amazing break.  I'll let you know how that works out for me...

mad monday :: nautical stripes

 

1- Kate Spade & Kate Spade 2- Shop Kitson 3- Decorpad 4- Anthropologie 

For today's Mad Monday I am mad about nautical stripes. This is actually a fashion shout-out to my roomies Jen and Robyn (you can find Robyn at her blog "Keep Calm and Eat Your Broccoli") - both of these ladies have been working their own sets of stripes for a while now... and I'm just now realizing the benefits of this inspiration from old school sailors.

 1- I know that "matchy-matchy" is generally looked down upon but goodness gracious if  I could pull off yellow, I would probably wear this scarf and drink my green tea from this mug 6 days a week.

2- Sore muscles can be a thing of the unfashionable past with this little cutie!  It's a hot water bottle alternative and it smells of  lavender!! This gets this award for most functional cute thing ever.

3- I am a confessed home decor commitment-phobe.  These stripes are very permanent but there's something about them (maybe the neutral of the grey and white or maybe the simple shape of the head board) that I'm really digging.  And the fact that they're getting mixed with florals screams adventure, but it totally works because it's in the same color realm.

4- And let's talk about this dress! I am currently obsessing over the arrival of spring and this little dress would be the most perfect thing to welcome the new season.  Add a pair of your favorite espadrilles and you'd be ready to go.

How do ya'll rock out stripes?
Do you prefer wide? Horizontal?
Skinny? Thick?
Bright colors? Neutrals? 

There are so many options!! Share!

mad monday :: old school tweets

1- Terra Studios 2- Portlandia 3- Carolina Herrera 4- All Modern & All Modern 5- I Dream I Can Fly

Have ya'll seen the "Put a Bird on It" video that's been... fluttering... around twitter? 
(wow, that was a bad pun.) 

I actually saw a couple references to it before I saw the actual video but it's a funny reference to the recent trend of putting birds on everything in the last couple of years. 

Confession: I think using birds to "prettify" things is totally acceptable.  So, in that vein, here's my mad monday bird edition:

1- This is not a trend.  This is something that I've grown up seeing on the windowsill of my grandmother's kitchen my whole life.  These simple little glass birds are made about 30 miles away from where my Mister lives and, according to their website, they offer pottery classes, live music and of course pretty blue birds.

2- This isn't so much about the birds as it is the show.  I haven't seen anything but short clips on YouTube.  Are there any IFC subscribers out there that can tell me what it's about?

3- I first saw this dress in a magazinge ad and didn't even realize that these were birds at first.  When you just glance at the dress is looks like elongated green and yellow triangles.  Definitely doesn't scream, "I'm following the bird trend," and I like it.

4- I am all about a pop of color and I think either of these (especially that yellow one) would look great in a neutral non-bird themed room for a bit of surprise.

5- This necklace is A.DOR.A.BLE.  It follows the same simple lines of the bluebird above and is solid sterling.  I can imagine that the weight of this is what turns this piece from a necklace to a piece of jewelry.  (p.s. You must check out the Etsy shop where this little bird resides.  Jo's design and craftsmanship kind of blow my mind.)

mad monday :: glittering gems

1- Dannijo & The Man Repeller 2- Sabrina Dehoff 3- BHLDN 4- Danijo

Doesn't this bling just make you smile?

I'm not really a jewelry girl (it's another thing to put on while I'm already running out the door 10 minutes behind schedule) but I'm thinking these could be a start at my conversion process. This week I'm mad for:

1. The thought of a "party for your arm" consisting of a ridiculous amount of over-the-top bracelets is the grown-up version of the Chinese good luck bracelets that I embraced in the late 90's.  I heart this new schmancy version.

2. Part bangle part distracting calculus problem.

3. Lovin' the juxtaposition of the heavy chain with the dainty stones.

4. My grandmother had a PILE of costume jewelry that I used to play with on a regular basis.  These remind me of those... without the ear-lobe killing clip-ons.

Happy Monday!

 

mad monday: ombre obsession

#1-earrings #2-art #3-dress #4-kirsten bowers #5-toolbox

I was standing in line to get coffee, flipping through Instagram the other day I came across *Kirsten Bowers' (@kirstenbowers) UH.MAZING nail job (#4 above) with the note "Ombré nails. Tony gave me a February surprise and told me not to look..."  Two immediate thoughts popped up in my head:
#1 Who the heck is Tony and where can I find him? and
#2 What is this ombre you speak of?

Turns out I had been seeing "ombre-ness" all over my Pinterest feed, I just wasn't aware that it had a name cooler than "color gradient" or "SJP hair" (which is what I had been mentally referring to.)

What's your take on ombre?  
You think it'll last through the summer?

*Kirsten Bowers is the owner of Riffraff, an amazingly fun boutique in (my home away from home) Fayetteville, AR (i.e. where my Mister lives).  For more information about her shop visit their blog: http://shopriffraff.blogspot.com/