Hi everyone! I just wanted to pop in and say that I’ll be taking a hiatus from the blog for the next two or three weeks. There’s a lot going on right now so between that and my schedule (AKA the lack of time to dedicate to the blog), I’ve decided that rather than half-ass posts, I’d prefer to wait until I have the time to sit down and write them as best as I can. I know, I’m bummed too. I really…
Hi everyone! Today’s post is coming to you (almost) live for my office — during my lunch break, of course! I lacked the energy to actually write this over the weekend as I usually do and thought I’d give myself a week off from beauty posts, but I have so many posts lined up that would never get up if I kept doing this so here we are. At least I don’t have to worry about getting this done in time,…
If you’ve been following my blog the last three weeks, then you saw the past two fashion posts featured photos by the lovely Kiersten, AKA my fairy photographer. Sadly, this is the last of the three looks we shot that day, but I saved the best for last (and we’re going to shoot together again eventually)!
I’m warning you right now, this blog will be the most photo heavy so far, but there were too many pictures I loved from this outfit not to share them all! For this look, I wanted to do something very elegant and classic to go along with this beautiful dress from YesterDaze, a vintage store in Tampa that is just too good to be true.
This dress is a 1950’s navy wiggle dress that I picked up at YesterDaze, turned to my friend and said, “Do you think this will fit?”
Well, for a total eyeball, we did really well, because once I went to the fitting rooms and tried it on, it was clear that it fit perfectly!
The dress features the most amazing neckline detail — I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, because I don’t think words will do it justice.
I’m sure none of you are surprised by the earrings in this post, once again from my lovely friend Kate’s Etsy, Winifred + Bramble. I just really love these earrings a lot, okay?!
The hat was a purchase on Etsy I am so happy about, because it’s such a beautiful but simple style and I think I’ll get plenty of use out of it… and one day, I will learn how to do pin curls and brush out my hair to get that perfect vintage hairstyle and this hat will look perfect then.
To finish off the outfit, I wore my favorite tan heels from Chase & Chloe (purchased on Amazon), which are probably the most comfortable pair of heels I’ve ever owned (never mind the fact that I discovered that day that despite being comfortable, they’re not suited for a whole lot of walking anyway). Lastly, I wore the What Katie Did seamed pantyhose, which sadly did not survive the day and were my last pair, so I’ll be looking for alternatives soon since I think their pantyhose are just too small for me in all of my 5’9 glory.
I was drawn to Disney’s Boardwalk Resort for this shoot and boy, am I glad! We found the most adorable little garden in the back of the resort which provided the perfect shoot location, between the relative quiet, the lawn that Kiersten could roll around in to her heart’s content and this adorable archway with the most beautiful and yummy-spelling flowers!
I honestly love everything about these photos, and I’m so happy to have friends like Kiersten in my life to do this for me! She’s incredibly talented, so if you aren’t already, please follow her Instagram, her blog and go check out her new Etsy!
Thanks to Kiersten for the beautiful photos and thanks to all of you for reading my blog. <3
Creepy Cute: March 2017 Boxycharm
Hi everyone! I’ll be honest, I haven’t exactly figured out what “Creepy Cute” means or why it’s our March theme, but it’s not a bad box so I’ll zip it. On that note, let’s move on to why you’re really all here. This month’s Boxycharm featured five full-size items (well, four and one travel-size), as it usually does, and while I’m not sure it’s the variation I was hoping for most, I’m pretty happy…
Summertime and the living is easy
I know you’re thinking, “Valentina, it’s not even summer yet!” Well, here’s the thing. I live in Florida, where it’s summer one week and winter the next. Last weekend, it was nice, sunny and warm, only for the temperature over the week to drop way down to (Florida) cold weather. So that being said, between our fluctuating weather and this particular look, well, it needed some type of summer…
Hi everyone! I just very belatedly realized I never posted my February ipsy bag, so I’m very sorry about that — but I’m back with my March one! And hopefully I won’t miss any months in the future. Overall, I’d say this was a good month for ipsy. I love the bag itself, and that illustration is so beautiful! I love when ipsy sends bags that are different sizes from their usual, because I feel like…
Do you ever have a brand that you look at wistfully, admire from afar and desperately wish to get your hands on? That was me with Collectif, a British repro brand who one of my favorite bloggers (Miss Amy May, in case you were wondering) showcases on her blog all the time.
After seeing her wear Collectif in several different blog posts, I knew I wanted to place an order, but between the exchange rate and the cross-continental shipping, I kept holding back. Recently, however, they had an additional 30% off their sale items and I knew it was time to bite the bullet and place an order.
And place an order I did — I bought two dresses, a skirt and two tops and it was around 100 USD, which I think is fairly impressive considering what each item retails for full price! I have a cart full of goodies waiting for another discount count so I can order some more, because I’m really very impressed with Collectif so far. Collectif, if you’re reading this… how about that discount code?
So with all that yammering out of the way, let’s get on to the actual outfit, shall we?
The dress you see here is the Saria blossom print swing dress, which features a fairly full skirt that can take a medium-sized petticoat, halter straps that tie behind your neck, a round neckline and a fitted bodice.
The dress doesn’t have pockets (sadly) but other than that, the only thing I dislike is the halter neck straps, because I find those always hurt my neck if I tie them too tight, but if I don’t, the dress falls down constantly. Thankfully, that’s an easy fix since the straps are long enough to convert to shoulder straps.
This dress, despite being black, screams spring to me, so I wanted the photos to convey that. My friend Kiersten, who is an amazingly talented photographer, agreed to take pictures of a couple of different outfits for me and I’m so glad that she did! I’ve managed to do well with my blog photos because most of my friends are good at photography, but this was my first time shooting with a photographer (as much as she will claim that she’s just an amateur) and the pictures are beautiful.
We went to the Port Orleans Riverside hotel at Disney, because it’s a beautiful resort, it’s huge and it has lots of gardens and hidden courtyards that were perfect for shooting these pictures. We found lots of adorable staircases and thus, there are probably too many staircase pictures in this post… I’m not sorry.
To accessorize the dress, I wanted to break out my What Katie Did seamed stockings for authenticity — because, you know, nothing screams vintage like seamed stockings! I also added my white mermaid scale earrings from my dear friend Kate, who makes the most beautiful earrings ever. I’ve mentioned her before in the blog, but I wanted to make sure to get a close up of the earrings this time so you could admire just how beautiful they are! I only have three pairs of earrings from her, but I’m absolutely planning on getting lots more.
I didn’t want a closeup of the gloves because a) there aren’t any details worth shooting up close, b) they’re a little stained and I didn’t clean it, but for what it’s worth, they were a purchase from my dear friend Kelsea of Lotty Dotty Vintage and I wanted to make sure I gave her a shoutout too!
Last, but certainly not least, is this beautiful vintage hat purchased on Etsy. Doesn’t it just scream spring? I’m not sure what decade this is, but if I had to make a totally uneducated guess, I would say 50s or 60s. I was a bit wary of this hat at first because the shape is just so strange to me, since it isn’t perfectly round, but I got over this fear and I absolutely love how it turned out.
Kiersten did an amazing job of making me look good (and I’m sure she had a hell of a time editing the pictures and seeing all the weird faces I make) and I had such a good time shooting with her! You should absolutely check out her Instagram and giving her a follow! She posts a lot of Disney (not that it should be a warning) but you can see how talented she is.
Wow, this post got lengthy really fast. Sorry for all my ramblings, if you made it all the way down here, you’re the best and I appreciate you. Thanks for reading!
Collective haul, or controlling the oil
Hi everyone! As I’m sure you’ve realized by the title, this post is a small collective haul from the weekend I was in Tampa. I’m a bit surprised at myself for not getting more, to be honest, but that may just be because I saved all my money for vintage shopping! Now that I don’t work in theme parks anymore, I’ve been trying to actively wear makeup more because I know I’m really bad at wearing…
Hi everyone! Today’s blog post is a little belated, since it was originally supposed to go up last Sunday, but as you read in Wednesday’s post, I took a little vacation from the blog since I couldn’t find the time or energy to write anything for the blog.
Well, now I’m back! I have coffee, a backlog of photos for weeks worth of beauty posts, and my fingers are ready to do some serious typing.
Up first: this beautiful 40s-inspired dress from Lindy Bop, which I purchased recently and I’m already madly in love with. Lindy Bop had a sale recently and it just so happened that they emailed me right after pay day, so how could I resist? I ended up with five new dresses, including this Bretta dress in the bicycle print.
Out of all the other prints, this one was definitely the least intimidating to me (and I don’t like the color of the polka dot one). I took the dress out for a spin in Tampa a few weekends ago, to do lunch and some shopping with a few friends.
Aren’t we cute? We all seemingly agreed on a pink/red color scheme without even planning it, and as each one of us showed up for lunch, we couldn’t stop laughing at the fact that it looked like we were purposefully color-coordinated!
After lunch, we went out for some ice cream and I couldn’t not take a picture of how pretty our ice cream looked with Lauren’s purse in the background! (My ice cream was forest berries and mango pineapple, in case you’re wondering, and yes, it’s delicious.)
I knew I wanted to get blog photos done, so I grabbed Elizabeth (on the left) and Lauren (who you’ve seen here before!) and we found a pretty spot with nice lighting to take pictures. It was actually a restaurant in the shopping plaza we were in that was unoccupied, so the terrace was perfect for what we wanted!
We stumbled into some Girl Scouts selling cookies on our way to the picture spot, and well, how could I say no to Girl Scout cookies?! I was really excited to try these, since it’s the other baker that I haven’t seen before, whereas the council that the troop I used to lead was a part of used the other baker.
For those of you who can’t understand what I’m going on about — Girl Scout councils choose from one of two different bakers (Little Brownie Bakers or ABC Bakers) and they carry different types of cookies. Here, I have the Savannah Smiles and one of the two variations of the s’mores cookie.
Anyway, back to the fashion part…
This dress features slightly puffy short sleeves, a round neckline with a keyhole cut out, belt loops and a matching sash (not pictured here) and it’s a lightweight chiffon fabric, which is perfect for Florida. It’s a very bright, 40s-inspired dress and I’m anxiously waiting for Lindy Bop to come out with more prints — Lindy Bop, if you’re reading this, please give us more!
Instead of wearing the dress with the sash, I styled it with a vintage navy belt (you’ll see the dress it belongs to soon!) and a vintage navy hat, both purchased at YesterDaze in Tampa. I honestly could have written an entire blog post about that store alone, and I could have (and did) spend hours in there looking at everything.
So that’s it for today’s blog! What have you been up to? Purchased anything exciting recently? I swear, half the reason I buy so much is that getting things in the mail is just so exciting!
Review: ABH Modern Renaissance
Hi everyone! Sorry for the random blog vacation I took, I had a lot going on last last weekend (when I usually write my blog posts) and then on today (Sunday, as I’m writing this), I just couldn’t myself to write the blog post for then… so thus, mini vacation. Today’s post is one I’m very excited to share with you, because I’ve been lusting after this palette for ages and after seeing a friend…