Through the looking glass

Outfit: Dress as skirt: American Apparel/ Shirt: Urban Outfitters/ Shoes: Chelsea Crew via UO/ Necklace: Ruche/ Earrings: Self-made/

I'm not sure if I feel super about this dress when it's worn at a skirt, but I love having an extra way to wear something and the extra length that pushing it down gives me, since apparently this has turned into the summer of longer length skirts.  I don't know how much of this change is just the subtle way that trends influence you, since even when your immediate impulse is not I-need-that-and-need-that-right-now, you still get used to seeing trends around and they become more familiar.  Another part of this shift in length might be that in the past I've kept a firm grip on leggings to add a layer of comfort and modesty, even in the summer.  Over the past few months of taking pictures of myself and scrutinizing myself to figure out what gets posted, I've grown more comfortable with the way that my body looks and more at ease with wearing things that fall outside of my comfort zone of personal rules of flattery and more okay with baring the skin that comes with leaving the leggings off. 

Or it could be that I'm overthinking this, and I'm just getting old :)  And well, it's not a good idea to wear any more clothing than I absolutely need to and biking in Houston summer.

Momentous moment

Outfit: Dress: Gap
Shoes: Chelsea Crew via Urban Outfitters
Bracelets: Self made and Hawaii Airport
Ring: Self made
Bag: Jess LC

Hey look! My first (real) maxi!  Believe me, it's not the first one that I've tried on, but it is the first one that I felt reasonably suited me- and a lot of that is due to the glorious color and feel of the fabric.  I've still got plans to make a couple of long-skirted things, which would allow me to combine the things that I like about maxis without dealing with some of the things that make me leery of them (seriously, why do so many of them have those triangle tops? That is eeeevil).  I'm not sure how practical this baby is for work (or biking into work- I ended up knotting it at the bottom to avoid gear entanglement and sadness), but I'm looking forward to seeing how much I can do with this (mostly because I'm head over heels with the color.  And the fabric.  And the fact that it's long-as in long for a maxi, since I was able to buy this in a tall size).

Other things that I'm excited about?  It's something that I've been thinking about for awhile now, but after making up pieces to sell at my school's Art Show, I'm now gearing up to open an Etsy shop.  My first (and now that I think of it, my last) endeavor into selling jewelry was in elementary school (I made those totally rad daisy chain beaded bracelets), but I've been playing around with things people might want to wear for years, and I'm excited to be moving in this direction.  Most of the things that I've been working on lately are wire-wrapped jewelry (like the bracelet and ring I'm wearing above), which I couldn't have done without taking an excellent class by Alicia of Dismount Creative, and I've also been messing around with headbands and other accessories.  I'm a little nervous about putting my stuff out there and whether it will sell, but for now I remain cautiously optimistic.  Have you made a leap into the business of selling things that you make, or other endeavors of the self-employed nature?  Any advice?

Love letter

 

Outfit: Sugar work skirt from Anthropologie/ Shirt, sunnies, and shoes from Urban Outfitters/ Necklace and bracelet from Modcloth/ Scarf from packaging from Clyde's Rebirth/

I threatened my friend earlier with the possibility of me being able to devote a love letter of a blog to her, and that's pretty doable- I feel like I could easily start up a whole new blog of love letters to the people in my life that I love, the people who inspire me on the interent (like the woman who's blog I'm dependent on for making interesting food and stylish ladies like Kendi and Monkeyface and a ridiculous amounts of other people), and the things in my life that I appreciate.  Right now though, a lot of my love might be taken up by this outfit (the cats woke me up in the middle of the night, so they're out).  After I threw it on, I thought I'd go up and take pictures, but was 90% sure that I'd end up changing out my skirt and shoes (because if we're being honest, the skirt is a little tight on me since I was so blinded by yellow skirt lust that I kept it even though it's a smaller size than what I need).  But after flouncing around in it, it won my heart, and I found I couldn't take it off.  Plus the shoes helped me to nominally tie in the scarf, which I've been sitting on since it came wrapped around my Clyde's Rebirth jewelry (which is a totally genius idea for packaging).  Again, I was totally charmed since normally I find it next to impossible to get things to stay put on my head when they go all the way around it (also it was the perfect answer to the question of whether I really needed to wash my hair this morning- it's cool, I washed it tonight after dance class).  Also one of the guys in my lab complimented me on my hair thing today, which means that it totally worked as a distraction from the actual hair (win!).

Beauty is painful

Outfit: Dress, belt from Target/ Shoes from Urban Outfitters/ Bracelet from Hawaii airport/ Bag from Ruche

This is definitely one of those dresses where I feel infinitely more awesome in it than I feel like it photographs, I think in part because it's a different silhouette for me and makes me feel slightly more like a grown-up (even though in real life it is also still terribly wrinkled).  But let's talk about something that hopefully distracted people from my wrinkles instead!  A couple times a year I get hit by the impulse to make my hair look intentionally pretty (what I now mentally think of as Monk's style) and pull out the curling iron.  And then I burnt myself on the chin (fortunately the bottom) typical Heather style (I'm known for injuring myself in creative and unusual ways and my boss jokes about Heather-proofing parts of the lab).  I was complaining relating the story to a friend who replied "Did your hair turn out? If so, worth it!"  I still feel like a bit of an idiot, but at least it's not a super obvious mark, and I have photographic evidence :)

I'm not going to lie, I am really glad that today's Friday, more so than usual- I know everyone's busy, but I find it really hard to reset sometimes when I have to been in lab every day for a couple weeks straight (which happens all too often to grad students), and after completing a time/labor-intensive first stage of an experiment, I'm (at least in theory) planning to spend most of tomorrow not at work, so that A) my Dad doesn't tell me I shouldn't be staying in lab until 10:30 multiple weekend nights and B) I get to spend some time with the boy before he takes off for a week and a half of traveling.  Instead of being good grad student Heather, I'm hoping to be the Heather that manages to do laundry and clean the bathroom and maybe fits in some time at the sewing machine- I'm half done with a dress reconstruction that I've been thinking about for at least a year, and I'm super excited to finally be doing something about it!

Dressing my best part 1

In the days before I started my own blog, there were a couple community challenges that I really admired and had wished I had a blog so that I could participate in them- one of these was Kendi Everyday's 30 for 30 remixing challenge (which I've participated in previously), and the other was the Academichics Dress Your Best week:

My first favorite part (that I don't really know how to dress, but wanted to highlight):

Eyebrows!

Admittedly, I'm starting off the week with something that has always been easy for me to love-  I grew up entertaining the family by wiggling em at dinner (seriously, I would do the "can-can" on request), and once my mom sweet-talked the hairdresser into giving them a shape at the tender age of 12, I've never really looked back.  So for today eyebrows, I'm getting my bangs out of your way and giving you some sunglasses to peek out from behind.

Outfit: Shirt, Dress, Shoes, Sunnies: Urban Outfitter, Belt: BR, Headband: Modcloth

I tried to take pictures of me wiggling my eyebrows, but it turns out that A) eyebrows look weird in isolation, B) it is difficult for me to hold that pose long enough for the camera to take a picture outside in bright sunlight without looking like I'm in pain and C) I'm much better at raising my left eyebrow than the right.  On a completely unrelated note, looking at these pictures now kinda makes me feel like I look like I just escaped from a pirate ship.  Thoughts?

Home

Outfit: Skirt: Ruche, Shirt, Shoes: Urban Outfitters, Necklace: Clyde's Rebirth, Bracelet: Hawaii Airport

I hadn't planned on there being so much time between this and the last posts, but we wound up with a slightly longer vacation in Mexico than had been planned.  Spent mostly in the Cancun airport.  After having a hard time getting out of the country (we missed getting up to the check-in counter by a couple minutes and had to be on stand-by all day to get out to Cancun) I was less than delighted to have to do the same thing heading home (this time it wasn't our fault- the flight got canceled and they didn't schedule us to go out until two days after our original flight).  Needless to say, I'm delighted to be back home and getting back into the normal routine, or I will be just as soon as I recover from my vacation :)  Mexico itself was pretty awesome, and my brother's wedding was amazing, I just wish I had spent more time on beaches and less in the airport!

Trendy

Outfit: Shirt: Urban Outfitters, Skirt: Loft, Shoes: Chelsea Crew via Lulu's, Necklace: Ruche, Bracelet: Self Made, Clutch: No idea, so there's a 90% chance it's from Target

I quite enjoyed wearing this shirt, even though the boxy cropped cut is way trendier, and less my typical silhouette (seems like I keep doing that), and I actually felt kinda cool (maybe its the whole mostly neutrals thing Sal over at Already Pretty was talking about the other day-I'd link up, but I'm actually doing this from my phone stuck in purgatory aka the airport).

Unfortunately, it makes the boy uncomfortable (reminds him of Beetlejuice), so I refrained from packing it for our trip to Cancun. Y'all, my brother is getting married this weekend, and I couldn't be prouder or more excited about it (except if we had been able to get on our original flight, and we were already on the beach with some snazzy umbrella drinks :)

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Outfit: Skirt: Anthropologie, Tank, shoes: Target, Cardigan: Delias, Necklace: Urban Outfitters, Scarf (head): Modcloth


Or actually, it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  Either that, or I just knew that I'd be finding a random pipe that matched my outfit.  My skirt might need some ironing (okay, a lot of ironing), since I may have gotten it in the mail and wore the skirt out straight away, but gosh I really love the way these shoes worked this.  I really need to remind myself to not just rotate my few favorite pairs of sandals and put my closet to it's best use!

Sunny shiney sunshine

Outfit: Dress, Cardigan: Anthropologie, Shoes: Gap, Belt: Ruche, Necklace: Urban Outfitters

I have long been a fan of flowers- getting them, trying to keep them alive on my balcony, photographing them, painting them, etc.  Since today is Floral Day on Everybody, Everywear (check out everyone else at the main site), I gleefully threw two of my favorite floral patterned items yesterday (I couldn't pick just one).  Now that we're on the cusp of the absolutely blazing part of summer, every morning when I get ready I want to wear the lightest weight thing possible, so it might not have been the best idea to wear both of these summer favorites at once, since they'll be seeing a lot of wear this summer, but I couldn't resist.  

I attempted to go one step beyond that and track down some florals for my backdrop (although getting them in the frame didn't work out as well as I would have liked, due to the lighting and not wanting to be in the way of foot traffic).  And then I got intimidated out of my spot by a teenager texting, staring at me, and continuously moving closer.  When she sat down on my bench I decided it might be time to leave (also there was a hot dinner waiting for me at home prepared by someone else, which is awesome).  On the side of making me sound like less of a coward, I was able to withstand the previous being stared at really hard (why yes, I do see you looking behind you to look at the weird girl taking pictures of herself.  All four times that you did it. Is it because you think her hair is fabulous?)  Actually, I did really enjoy trying out a new hairstyle (tutorial via Cup of Jo), which I think suits me more so than wearing both braids wrapped over my head.  The really exciting part was the part where the bf complimented it when I was getting ready in the morning- although it's not as bike helmet friendly as I would like.  Are the flowers blooming where you are?

Perfectly pleated

Outfit: Shirt: Urban outfitters, Skirt: Vintage via Etsy- Blue Barn Vintage, Shoes: Seychelles via Anthro, Cardigan: Victoria's Secret, Belt: Goodwill ($1!), Bracelets: Gifted, Necklace: Failed earring attempt from class with Dismount Creative

Pay no attention to the generally atrocious quality of these photos- it was too late to get good light, but I was deeply in love with this outfit (even though it's super similar to one from last week).  It also may have been, as you might notice here, ridiculously windy (also, ridiculously cold for Houston in May- amiright fellow Texans, what is up with the weather these days?)  But oh gosh, do I love the way that you can see the movement of this skirt.  I'd been eying a gray pleated skirt from Urban Outfitters, so I was delighted to stumble across this one on Etsy.  And the belt? Why do I not shop more often at Goodwill?

MOAR arches!

Outfit: Shirt: Urban Outfitters, Skirt:Vintage via TwitchVintage, Shoes: Lulu's, Necklace: Modcloth, Bracelet: Etsy via Friendly Gesture, Belt: Ancient BR
 

This is my serious face. Also the face that I make after I think I might have terrified a college student.  Unlike yesterday, this time when someone walked past me they walked very quickly with a look of terror, and then it looked like he had pressed his face up against the glass of the door he just entered (probably thinking wtf).  I was really tempted to throw the door open and say "haven't you ever seen someone taking pictures of themselves in their awesome new skirt before?" But then I realized that I would never be able to get it all out from laughing too hard, and the poor kid had probably been through enough already.

P.S. I just got this skirt in the mail from TwitchVintage's ebay store (she sells vintage and is totally adorable) and basically couldn't resist wearing the skirt as soon as I had opened the package. Win.

An ill wind

First- I wanted to say that I am in awe of your response to my EBEW post- from both regular readers and those of you who clicked over.  I'm pretty sure I have the best readers in the world, and I love that so many of you took the time to comment (and I know that I am not the best at responding to them quickly), since every comment I read is like a wonderful validation that what I'm posting here is being read, enjoyed, thought about, and so on.  I'm honestly still a little shocked that people read this (other than Vicki and Sarah and you guys know I love you lots) and so very grateful that you do.  I wanted to take the time to make that clear as a blanket statement how touched I am that you come here (unless you found me via the search "barney stinson penguins," in which case, I totally apologize- I love both of those things but don't really relate to them on a daily basis) and I hope to get better at making that known on an individual basis.

And now for an outfit with absolutely no bedsheets!  I'm pretty sure that Kendi has pointed this out before, but inevitably with a good hair day (or in my case, I've actually put a moderate amount of effort into my hair- okay, any effort) comes the wind.  I really loved the dress with the jacket (but it felt scandalously short without tights, and I liked the dress with the slip, but I'm not sure all three work together.

Outfit: Jacket: Urban Outfitters, Dress: Target, Slip: Anthropologie, Shoes: Liz Claibourne, Necklace: Jess LC, Bracelet: Hawaii Airport

In my head, this is what my hair was going to look like all day:

But then this kept happening: