Christmas Colors

Christmas is the one time of year when it's perfectly acceptable to society and our retinas to wear red and green together, so I intend to make the most of it and absolutely wear the heck out of all my Unicorn Defends print dresses.  

Red and green are directly opposite on the color wheel which means they are a very harsh combination to our eyes to take in, but at the time of year when the world is so devoid of any other colors, I guess it makes sense to combine the things that really standout.

It's so interesting to me how I wear this dress throughout the year and it's just a regular green dress, but add a red petticoat and some red accessories and suddenly all the reds in the print standout and it's the perfect unconventional holiday dress.

You may remember this dress from earlier in the year when I did a little alteration to take it from a sugarfrill style to a plain puff.  For Christmas, I think the sugarfrill is perfect because it's a little over the top as so many good holiday dresses are, but for me personally, no regrets about taking away the lace.

I am excited for the holidays and once again bringing out all my beautiful dresses to add to my own enjoyment of the season.  I hope you have some beautiful pieces that you enjoy wearing at this special time of year and if you're feeling the Christmas spirit, leave me a comment below telling me about your favorite holiday piece that you own.

Shopping Info: Unicorn Dress from ZJOAN, Margot Flats from VIVAIA

The Season of Summer

There is a fine line between just enough and too much.  It's a line I've been walking for a while now and I think it's safe to say that it's finally been crossed.  I don't know why I always assume that summer time will bring us rest; it never does.  Just the opposite, as soon as the weather warms up and the shackles of a school schedule are cast off, our lives fill up faster than I can manage.

Summer is the time when everyone takes their vacations and I end up covering for them.  Summer is also the time when everyone expects entertainment and I end either hosting or shuttling.  So, by the time summer is all said and done, I'm desperately looking forward to the excuse, Sorry, can't, the kids have school.

This summer though, I feel like I am just about to reach my breaking point on all the activities and something has got to give.  Then again, I remind myself that with one child already graduated and another soon to follow, all this busyness is temporary and all too soon I will likely have nothing but time  on my hands and an empty house that perpetually stays clean. 

So, for yet another summer, I will put my big girl pants on do all the things to help other people have a wonderful, exciting, eventful summer and remind myself that much like summer itself, this time in my life is just a season that will be over all too soon.

Shopping Info:  Dress from Zjoan, Shoes from VIVAIA

Ivy City Co. Gold

Who says Christmas is the only holiday season where gold is an appropriate choice.  Maybe it's the whole pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow-thing, but something about March always makes me want to break out the metallics.  Yes, ok, this Coco dress in gold was part of their Christmas Holiday collection, but I just can't wait for a whole other year before I wear this beauty, so I'm wearing it in March and so far it's been no questions and all compliments.  Because I've loved this dress so much, I've decided to order a few more and do a YouTube unboxing, so be on the look out for that in the coming months.

Ivy City Co.  is a brand I've been eyeing for months, and this little beauty gave me the excuse to try them.  Founded in 2015 by two best friends and then revamped in 2018 when another member joined the team.  A dress company that is run by women who love dresses and understand how to make women's bodies look amazing in so many styles sounds like the perfect fit for me.

You would expect this dress to be quite stiff and scratchy, and while it is a little stiff being made of metallic fabric, it's actually quite soft and comfortable.  The length is perfect, although it's an empire, puff dress style, it has just enough of a waist to give it shape, and the sleeves are set in far enough to cover your bra straps.  Now, these ladies know how to perfectly combine practical with princess to make the very best kind of dress. Kudos, ladies, you just earned yourself a loyal customer.

Shopping Info:  Coco dress in Gold-$138 from IvyCityco.com  Use my link to save 10% off your purchase.

Porcelain Options

This adorable little Porcelain Cottage Puff dupe caught my eye and this was one of the rare occasions that there were dupe accessories released in this print as well, so I thought it would be fun as a throwback to my early blogging days to try this dress all three ways in a single post.

So, right off, let me say that this is a very nice dupe.  The colors are nice, it's a good length for this style of dress and it feels like cotton or a cotton blend, not scratchy or plasticky.  I bought a small and it fits like an XS or XXS I would say, so pay attention to the size chart when you buy.

In addition to the dress, I got two different styles of corset belt to go with it.  The corset vest is a slightly different color of blue but appears to be made of similar fabric, while the corset belt is spot on for color but is made of a stretchy spandex-like material.

Wearing the corset vest, you can see a slight color difference, but I actually like it because it creates a little more contrast, and of the two accessories, I think this one is my favorite because it really creates a waist and helps tame those puffy sleeves a little.

Once again, I ordered a size small on this vest and I cannot lace it all the way closed because it is too tight.  I like the open front so that's not a complaint, but be advised that you will likely need to size up for this piece.

This second corset belt arrived first and you can see it being worn in my haul video for this collection, I'll post it at the bottom.  I like it way more than I thought I would and I think it makes the dress much more visually interesting than the dress by itself.  I don't know if the other cottage dupes are this nice, but I love this one and I really hope they come out with these corsets in more prints!  I'll keep you posted if they do!

Shopping Info: Porcelain Corset Belt-$13.05, Porcelain Cottage Puff-$22.51, Porcelain Corset Vest $12.61

Plaid Puffs and Farm Days

Although I haven't turned on the t.v. to watch the news in several years now, I've heard it mentioned by friends and acquaintances that it's not just our little part of the world that's been feeling this arctic chill but rather the whole country.  While we only had perhaps an inch of snow, the temperatures were double digits below freezing which creates some challenges in both farm and city living.

The city roads are rarely in better shape than ours, but they do see the plows much sooner than we, so getting to work is often delayed longer for us than it is for our urban and suburban counter parts.  While the loss of income from being snowed-in isn't something I look forward to, especially with spring fashion launches just around the corner and me trying to save every extra penny, it's very often necessary to have at least one person stay home on such days to make sure that all the animals are kept warm and fed.

Snow days such as this create a unique and pleasant blend of busyness and boredom, of frenzy and rest.  The water freezes within minutes to an hour of being placed outside for the animals and so must be constantly broken up in the trough or else carried inside to thaw by the fireside and then taken back out again.  Their housing must be checked so that any layers of insulation torn off by rough winds are replaced immediately, and of course, they must be fed extra to replace all the calories they burn in the cold.  In the human world of year round abundance of food and warm clothing, we forget that animals need to spend the spring and summer saving up extra fat to tolerate the cold seasons.  

As much as we try to prepare, there is always the risk of a casualty.  This particular storm already has cost us the life of one silly, sneaky chicken who separated from the flock and froze to death, which is a sad loss but not so bad as it could be considering just how cold it has been.  We're hoping that this is the end of our losses this winter but since winter is really just beginning, that may be too much to hope, and so it means we must be extra vigilant to care for creatures who are sometimes too foolish to care for themselves. 

Living on a farm is time consuming work, but so purposeful that we hardly notice.  At the end of days like this my fatigue is satisfying because it means that my work has meant something to someone, even if that someone is a chicken or a pig.  And even though the snow days could easily lead to cabin fever, we have to snow-suit up and go outside and face the cold multiple times a day, so we never really get bored being inside.

At times like this I feel myself torn between two worlds.  Lately, with one child driving and another learning, both of them needing their own cars, the double (soon to be triple and then quadruple) cost of our car insurance, college tuition looming, the fact that we still haven't built a house, is all adding up to pressure to work full time so that we'll be a little more financially comfortable.  But on these days, and maybe more often than this, it is absolutely necessary that someone be here tend the home fires both literally and figuratively.

Before we had a family, Mr. Bleu and I both remembered how our home lives had suffered when our own mothers went to work full time and we agreed that when we did have a family, one of us would be at home as much as possible, including through the teen years, to keep our home running smoothly.  Easier said than done.  The teenage years are notoriously difficult as attitudes and egos erupt from previously darling human beings, but these years also become exponentially more expensive.  Since the attitude already makes it easier to be away from your kids when they become so unpleasant, and finances are so demanding most people use this age as the time to return to the work force.  I believe that even though children this age are pushing their parents away as hard as the possibly can, they still need them much more than they will admit and this is why we've persisted to some degree in having a keeper of the home.

Temporarily going back to work never seems to be temporary.  There is always one more expense that pops up and demands the extra income and I'm rather afraid that if I give in, I will miss these last few years of my children being at home and I will be like most of the older women I meet who wish they'd given it just a little more time before going back to work because they can't ever get those years back.  And if the children weren't a big enough factor in my decision, there is also the farm to consider.  I'm afraid that we would have to give up many aspects of the farm for lack of time and energy to care for it.  It's a lot to consider and there doesn't seem to be any right answer.

As we start this new year, there may be some big changes here, or some big decisions that nothing should change just yet.  I'm not sure how it will all work out, standing at the beginning of last year I never could have guessed how things would turn out, but this is life.  Sometimes we take the lead and sometimes we are simply swept along by it.  I hope this year brings more prosperity and less grief than the previous, more meaningful work and less wasting of time, but I suppose we'll just have to see where it goes.

Shopping Info:  Plaid Puff Dress-$22, Tights and Headband from Shein, Boots and jewelry from Forever 21

Unicorn Alterations

I was truly hoping for more options in the unicorn print, but I suppose I ended up with more than enough since I found a couple of pretty dupes.  In particular I found this sugarfrill dupe and for less than $30 I felt confident to make just a few changes so I could get the dress I had in mind.

This is the original dress, which is actually very pretty, but I felt overwhelmed by the lace and frills when I tried it on and wanted something a little more simple.  Just for reference, here's how it looked during the YouTube Tryon---->

It's ok.  I don't hate it and I've definitely seen it look great on a few other people, so I'm not writing off the style entirely, I just felt like it wasn't quite right for me.

After examining the seams on the shoulder ruffles, I found that they were separate pieces just sewn on top of the shoulders.  It was a quick and easy task to take a seam ripper and separate them from the shoulders with no other work necessary.  

Ditto for the lace around the neck, but the lace at the sleeve cuffs was not so easy.  For that I had to cut the lace off and then roll the raw edge under twice and them hem it by hand.  The whole alteration process took about 1.5-2 hours and some of that time was spent just examining the dress to make sure I didn't get in over my head and trash it.

So, here is the finished result.  It is now a unique dress that I love even more and because it only cost about $27, I felt confident that even if I did mess it up, I could afford to replace it and try again.

I added a red petticoat and a red headband with green flats for a Christmas-y season outfit.  I love this print!  Wear any little red accessory and the reds really standout.  I know it's too late for Christmas outfits now, but I'll get some wear out of it through the rest of winter and I'll definitely wear it again next year.

So far 2023's sewing projects are going really well.  I haven't really been planning anything as far as sewing goes, just sort of tackling things as they turn up, but this has really inspired me to get going with some more projects.

Shopping Info:  Princess Green Flower Organza Dress-$27, Margot 2.0 Flats-$79 from VIVAIA, Headband from SHEIN

Patchouli Princess

Well, hello, Late 1970s, Holly Hobby, and the Back-to-the-Land Hippy movement!  The Patchouli Patchwork print tips its cap to them all and I love every blessed square on it.  There are prints I love but just can't afford unless they find their way to the dupe rack and fortunately this Patchouli Patchwork print eventually did.  I debated it so many times but could just never bring myself to plunk down the cash for the original style but at a tenth of the price, I could totally afford this dress and I'm glad it's now mine because I really do adore the print even if it is somewhat eccentric.

Babydoll puff dresses are not the most flattering style on me.  They're so short I feel almost indecent, and so puffy I feel like I'm drowning in organza, and yet I love the prints so I brave the puffs, even if they're not quite my size and scandalously short.  There's always a work-around if you want something bad enough, so after much thought, I have found a way to comfortably wear this dress.

This particular puff I had to take in a couple of inches at the bust and waist to get a better fit and because it is so short, I thought my rust corduroy shorts with fleece lined tights and thigh high boots would be the perfect accessories for maximum coverage.

This is my first time trying these fleece-lined tights and Wow!  Why hasn't someone invented these sooner?!  They're fantastic!  They look like sheer hosiery on bare skin, but they're actually a sheer finish on top of a layer of fleece so your legs look bare and stay warm.  I love them, and because I'm not showing any actual skin, not only do I stay warmer, but I feel more confident because I know I'm covered.

Now that I have finally discovered the way to wear these sheer organza mini-dresses and stay warm through layering, fleece tights, and high boots, I think I'll wear them on every date night all winter long!  

I know I have tons of dresses and people, on Youtube in particular, like to ask what I do with them all.  The answer is I wear them, sell them, or donate them, but mostly, I wear them.  I wear the cotton dresses to work.  I wear the organza and lace dresses to every holiday, special event, and party.  And I don't care how others are dressed.  I wear what makes me happy and I wear it all the time.  

Even on days when I don't particularly feel like dressing up, I usually convince myself by saying that life is short and I enjoy it so much more when I wear something lovely.  If that fails to motivate me, I follow it with the simple mantra:  Dress like you'll be a ghost in these clothes.   That's usually the ticket.

Although, to add to that, I recently read a quote from the late great Vivienne Westwood, "You have a more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes."   And I have found it to be true.  When I dress up, I meet more people, act more confidently, and generally just enjoy life more than if I were dressed down.  It may all be psychological, but it works, so why not.

Shopping info:  Patchwork Dress-$24, shorts and boots from Forever 21, Fleece tights-$13 from Walmart