All Work & No Play?

For the past four months I have been working two jobs, interning, and going to school.  It's been a lot.  For the first couple of months I thought I was going to break because of all the busyness and stress.  But, as it turns out, I kind of love it.  I feel like my life has been on hold so long now, languishing, waiting, hoping there would be something more.  Now there is and I feel like I am thriving, like I'm made for this.  Now that my time is so restricted, I feel like I am making the most of it.  Working hard, playing hard, resting hard.

Working all these jobs, was difficult at first because there was so much to learn.  I was/am so new to all this and I found myself constantly thinking that I've never been so bad at so many things all once in my life before.  I was tempted to quit from embarrassment alone, but, I set my jaw and kept at it, because I knew this wouldn't last.  Eventually I'll be fully trained, certified, qualified, and everything else at all these new endeavors, and at least I am never bored.   In fact, I've found extra energy to clean up when I get home from a long day instead of letting the messes sit, to squeeze in an hour or two of reading before I fall asleep at night, and to carve out time to focus on my girls and what's going on it their lives before they slip away from me.

In all this extra work, I have learned to focus again.  And on the subject of focus, life on the blog has been Selkie, Selkie, Selkie for far too long now, but I am taking a step back to re-evaluate some things in my life because I just don't have time for what's not working for me.  Not all at once, but I think you're going to see some changes here on the blog over time.  Also, I feel I should mention, that in my real life, I only wear Selkie probably one or two days a week.  I wear lots of other stuff, especially at my highly serious, highly professional job, where I have noticed that no one wears colors or fun prints, so floofy pastel dresses are right out.

I can't exactly give up colors and prints, but I have toned things down for that particular job so that I can fit in a bit.  As you may have already guessed if you're familiar with my wardrobe, toning things down meant doing some shopping.  Store credit metaphorically in hand, I went to Thred-Up to get a few business-casual pieces from my go-to brands for tasteful classy styles like Ann Taylor Loft, Anthropologie, and Zara, which as a matter of fact is the very brand that designed this cute little puppy print bow blouse.

I know a puppy print isn't exactly a serious top, but hey, I said I was trying to tone it down a little, not assimilate.  At my first job I am known as, "the lady who wears pretty dresses," and I won't mind garnering a similar title at my second job.  I still have to be myself, after all and after a month of wearing only neutrals, I was starting to feel a little depressed about going to work even though I like my co-workers and the environment.

So, I'll enjoy the busyness while it lasts, learn as much as I can, and keep wearing pretty things that make my heart happy even while I am apologizing for messing up because, hey, "I'm still new here."

Shopping Info:  Puppy Bow Top by Zara from ThredUp.  Use my link to sign up and save $10 off your first order at ThredUp.  Shein trousers.  VIVAIA Margot 2.0 Flats

A Minor Renaissance

It's been a while since we've done a good dupe, and this one is certainly one of the really good ones.  With all the loveliness of a Renaissance dress, at one-tenth of the price, this dress is light and comfortable and affordable enough that I can wear it without worrying if I spill something or step on the hem.  The lace up front is adjustable and the lacing comes out should you wish to use a ribbon of a different color, say, something in a velvet dusty pink?

I've had this lovely dupe for months, probably since early winter, but because it is so light, I've kept it on the hanger until the weather was suitable.  Now that it is spring I plan to wear it often, even just around the house because it's such a light cool cotton and there's nothing wrong with looking and feeling beautiful even if you're just planning on staying home.  In fact, I prefer it that way.  It makes my time at home feel more dreamy and fairytale-ish.

Everything about this dress is lovely and perfect.  I know there are people out there who get pretty upset about dupes, but seriously, get over yourself.  Not everyone can afford designer clothes, but everyone deserves to feel good about themselves in flattering clothing, so I don't judge and I wish others wouldn't either.  Why not give your wardrobe a minor renaissance with some affordable pieces?

 Shopping Info:  Princess Cross Bandage Dress-$29 at ZJOAN

What Does She Do With All Those Dresses?

I very often get asked, and not always very nicely, what I do with all my dresses.  Some people ask out of curiosity as they are considering buying pretty dresses themselves and wondering if they'll ever really wear them.  To those people, I speak the honest truth: I wear them everywhere, for any reason, and all the time.  However, most people ask out of nosiness or jealousy.  "Where does she wear all of these dresses?  To balls?  Does she go to balls?"  It's so tacky and I'm tempted to answer the simple truth to people like that:  None of your business.  But, I usually don't.  Instead I explain that most of the time I keep them and wear them as often as possible.  Sometimes I sell them, and sometimes I donate them, but I am very reluctant to donate them just anywhere.

I once knew a very unethical, lazy woman who made it her "business" to scour thrift and charity shops to find high-end items that had been donated in the hopes of blessing someone less fortunate.  She bought them for a song and then turned around and sold them for a small fortune.  She had no shame about it and actually bragged about duping people, both the donor and the buyer, this way.  It was all so uncouth that it soured me on the idea of donating my high-end gowns to most charity shops, but recently a new kind of program has sprung up in my area that I am totally on-board with.

This program is run through local schools and offers a place for people to donate their dresses where they can be certain they will get into the hands of young girls in need.  They also store them so they're available throughout the year as occasions arise, as long as some crazy-eyed narcissistic drama teacher doesn't try to confiscate them to be torn up in the school's musical--eesh, don't ask about that one.  Since we've had so many snow days this year, I thought I would get a jump start on my spring cleaning and get these dresses over to the school in time for prom.  I looked through all my storage tubs, asked my girls if there was any chance they'd want to wear them to prom themselves, and if they said no, I put them in a large donation bag. 

All told, I donated a dozen dresses so far and I intend to donate more as soon as I finish up a little photo shoot I'm working on and wrap up my spring cleaning.  I know for a fact that three of my beautiful dresses found owners just in time for prom and it has brought me a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that those lovely dresses went to girls who would love them as much as or more than I did.

I know we always talk about Christmas as the season of giving, but generosity shouldn't be confined to just one month our of the year.  I love beautiful dresses and I love sharing them with kindred spirits too.  I keep my favorites and wear them at every possible occasion, even if the occasion is just dinner at a friend's house, or I pass them on to someone who will treasure them.  It's as simple as that.

A Nightcap At Last

If you don't remember or didn't read my original post, you can check it out here, or we can just move on and I'll catch you up.  I ordered this dress in November and was told it oversold and wouldn't restock until early March. I was offered a partial refund by way of an apology for the inconvenience, which I gratefully accepted, and set about spending my entire winter waiting.  

Oh how slowly the coldest months of the year pass when you are waiting on something particular to arrive with the spring.  But, pass the winter eventually did and finally March arrived but my dress did not.  After asking around in the Selkie Fan group to see if anyone else had got their dress yet, I decided to wait another week and then write to customer service.  

It seems I wasn't the only one.  I think a handful of other Selks also wrote in asking about their dresses since early March had come and gone with no word on a shipping date, and within a short amount of time of writing we each received a reply that our dresses were on the way.  My dress arrived about a week later and I finally have this beauty after all the long months of waiting.

I do adore this print which is why I have decided to make one more purchase in this print before I go on a spending freeze.  I've been rather burdened by some things and really feeling like I just need to take a big step back from everything and get a little quiet in my mind, in my home, and in my life. 

  It's so easy to get caught up waiting for the next collection to release that I forget to enjoy what I already have and what I already have is more than enough by the way.  So much so that I have been having more fun sharing my dresses with friends and my daughter's friends than I have ever had on the edge of my seat waiting for a collection to drop.

I'm glad I have this dress, glad I put in the time and waited for it, now I'd like to just appreciate it.  So, let me tell you a little about it.  This dress has  an outer layer and two under layers for the skirt.  It's made of heavy cotton with a silky underskirt and it's sure to have plenty of the classic Selkie puff that we all adore. 

I feel that I should mention that it is that very puff skirt that has been the cause of me being asked if I were trying to hide a baby-bump in this dress.  I'm not of course, but this dress would be ideal if I were.  The print is lovely as always, and all it took was a quick once over with the steamer to get the packaging wrinkles out.  The point is that it is here at last, it is everything I had hoped from the print, and I have already worn it on a date night.

Shopping Info: The Nightcap Beach Day Dress $299.00  Use one of these affiliate Promo Codes (none are mine) to save 10%

 Queen

Tammy

TICIJA

MaryBears

PetiteDoll

Storybook Dress With a Storybook Ending

Once upon a time I saw a dress that looked like it had so much potential waiting inside that I decided to pay the price and take a risk to make my fairytale dream a reality.  When the Storybook dress in Night in Paris released last year, I immediately liked the print Ok, but not the style.  On Selkie's photographed version, there is so much flourish that it almost looks like one of those tacky blouses in the 1980s that had medals or coins hanging off it.  Do you know the kind I mean?  

It was the kind you'd see on soap operas being worn by rich silver haired women who went yachting for the day.   Flash forward a year to when I saw this dress pop-up on TheRealReal and fell head over heels in love.  The print was perfectly placed with the two pheasants on the center of the bust and all the flowers seemed to have blossomed on the dress.  It felt like an entirely different print, a print that I wanted, a print that I needed.

Now I had a decision to make.  Selkie still had a couple in stock in my size and the one on TRR was two sizes too big, but on TRR I knew exactly what I was getting and with Selkie, I would have a dress that fit with a janky print.  I'm not fond of the Storybook style, there's too much dress there for me.  

The sleeves are too long the collar and the ruffles, it's all just too much.  I knew that no matter which version I purchased I would be doing some alterations to make this dress suit my shape and style.  I decided to go with TRR's dress since I would be guaranteed to get the print as shown and since I would be doing alterations anyway, I figured it couldn't hurt to just add a size adjustment to the list.

The dress arrived in just a few days with tags still attached and exactly as photographed.  I cleared an afternoon to begin work shortening the sleeves, removing the collar, and taking in the dress around the waist and bust.  I briefly considered putting a corset back on the dress instead of a zipper, but since there is a tie around the waist, I decided to leave it as is.  The result, my dear friends is a dress that I am infinitely a happier with!  

Starting alterations without trying a dress on as-is, is like salting your food before you taste it.  So, I did try the dress on as-is and it confirmed what I already thought, which is that the dress would have been wearing me instead of the other way around.

I still have a few things to work out as far as the zipper goes, because it used to zip all the way up the collar and now that the collar is gone, I can either take out the whole zipper, move it down and sew it back in, or fold the top down and move on with my life.  For the moment I have folded the top down, but at some point, I will be setting things right.

I'm getting pretty good at shortening Selkie sleeves, so this job went quickly once I purchased some pre-made casing and re-used the elastic from the sleeves.  I took several inches off and probably could have gone shorter, but I'm content with the way they look now and don't want to chance them being too short.

Ultimately though, the dress was constructed in such a way that it was easy to remove that collar by just cutting it out, it was basically a separate piece.  So, snip, snip, snip and that was done.  I did have to be careful to create my own lines at the back as the collar basically ran all the way down under the apron dress, but it was fairly simple to do that once I had examined the dress and figured out the best way to proceed.  Always look before you cut!

As much as I believe that a good dress should do all the work, especially when it comes with a hefty price tag, sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and make a few adjustments so that a garment's true potential can shine through.  Not everyone gets handed a happy ending to their storybook, sometimes you just have to go out and make your own. 

Shopping Info:  Night in Paris Storybook Dress on Selkiecollection.com, TheRealReal.com, Bettie Page Shoes from Amazon.com

Retrolicious Returns

I saw this dress and I loved it immediately.  Maybe it reminded me of the Nightcap Beach Day dress that I bought in November from Selkie, was still waiting on, and was starting to lose hope of ever getting it.  Or maybe it just reminded me of spring and all its glorious flowers, but whatever the case, I had to have it.

Retrolicious takes me back to my vintage roots.  I've had a pretty serious Selkie obsession going for the past few years, and because of the hefty price tags, I've had very little disposable income for anything else, but it doesn't mean I've stopped loving all the great brands that have been with me since the start of this blog.

All these winter months cooped up indoors have presented me with the perfect opportunity to think, and thinking I have been.  I've been thinking a lot lately and I think it's time some things changed.  A lot has been changing behind the blog scenes in my personal life, and now I think it's time some things changed here too.

I've been in a rut and I've missed this.  I've missed scouring the internet for the prettiest things from small brands with reasonable prices and great quality so I can showcase them here for you.

I've missed discovering trying new brands and styles and doing thorough reviews.  I've missed showing you all the potential of a piece by wearing it season after season and year after year.

As much as I have needed a break from all these chilly weekend mornings taking photos at dawn, I have to admit, I've missed this too, not just the thrill of creating outfits and photos that I am proud to share with you, but also the small bit of camaraderie and quiet time with Mr. Bleu that these outings bring.

Maybe after this hiatus of being pretty exclusively with one top priced brand, it's time to get back to my roots with dresses like this from Retrolicious and of course, my favorite style of MAK cardigan in the perfect matching color.  Not that you can really go wrong with any color thanks to this print. 

So, get ready for some changes around here and also prepare yourself for a lot more outfit photos with this gorgeous dress, which I happen to be wearing even as I write this post, because it is so gorgeous, I've been wearing it a lot ever since it arrived.  That's how it should be with great clothes, they should be beautiful and practical and you should wear them all the time and we should definitely be talking about them more often.

Shopping Info: Dreamy Floral Greta Dress-$100 from Retrolicious.com

Monet's Bridge

If you look at the world of celebrities, both real, like Britain's Royals, and fake, like the Kardashians, you'll see that the all share a common factor: the spotlight.  Some love it; some hate it, but virtually all chase it.  The famous people I most admire are the ones who just lived their lives as quietly and normally as possible and left a legacy worth remembering, without chasing the spotlight, like Claude Monet. 

I won't say Monet was perfect, but I admire how he worked to create a home that was both beautiful and tranquil and then spent his time just enjoying and being inspired by the world around him.  This Angle Mini Bustle Dress in Monet's The Bridge print, is the final purchase from Selkie's Giverny collection.

The colors in this print are beyond words.  It is so lovely that I don't know that photos do it justice.  The dress itself is well constructed, as it should be with a whopping $500 price tag, and I have no regrets about buying it.

I had hoped that the bustle detached, making this just a cute mini dress.  It does not.  the bustle can be extended to full length as a train, or shortened to look like a bustle.  Neither of those suits my style, but if pressed, I will wear it as a bustle and try not to feel awkward.

The sleeves are also problematic for me.  Itchy and voluminous to the point that they're swallowing me up, I will definitely be having them professionally tailored to be much shorter and less puffy as soon as my bank account recovers from this purchase.

Because organza is such a slippery fabric and somewhat tricky to work with when getting started, I won't attempt to alter this myself.  The price tag is just too high for me to risk damaging it.  So, I will be contacting a trusted seamstress as soon as I can.

Those issues aside, this print is why I love Selkie, why I have loved Selkie, and why I have remained a loyal customer for so long.  I feel that that is coming to an end, but that is really a topic for another post.  For now, let me just sing the praises of this print, and of springtime, and of Claude Monet, an artist like no other.

Shopping Info: The Bridge Angel Mini Bustle Dress from Selkiecollection.com Save 10% with one of these affiliate promo codes (none are mine) Trisha, Sam, Emilee, VYVY, Emma