Technical Difficulties....

...Is what I am experiencing with my blog. I will hopefully figure this out asap for 2011 but until then Happy NYE. 
Some of my Resolutions? 
Write more and write better
Do the workouts I love
Improve my culinary skills and experiment more in the kitchen
Only spend big on items that will last me for years down the line.  
Wear more red lipstick
Only invest energy in the things that deserve it
Follow a few of those big dreams I have
Dance like nobody's watching .....
Lots of love ya'll :)



Video and mashup by DJ Earworm: http://www.djearworm.com/

Christmas and Coziness

I have always been a total sucker for Christmas. The colours are brighter. The fires are warmer. The lattes come in far better flavours. There are countless opportunities for dress-up and no one scoffs at you when you get a little more glam than the occasion requires. Also - and it's a bit embarrassing - I am frequently overcome with the urge to start singing 'Baby it's Cold Outside' and dance on the street with any available and dashing garcon (my friend Matt once briefly indulged me after a few too many pints and it was more or less the MOST fabulous of sloshed experiences). 

So while I am currently putting most of my shopping energy into finding presents for all those wonderful people on my list, here are a few of the things I am loving about this time of year....

Devouring new issues of British Vogue and rediscovering old ones. 
Oh, and also finding myself very drawn to a pair of patent 'slipper' style shoes. Sophisticated androgynous? Yes please. 

Choosing which glittery dress to wear and stumbling upon vintage accessories courtesy of my grandma. 

Snuggling up with a fantastic new novel in my Joe Fresh jammies (yes, I wear matching PJs....but you guys, they feel like heaven, don't shrink and are ridiculously inexpensive. It's love at first slumber).

Giving into the urge to wear my Jules Power headband when I get home and am puttering around my room....because it's as good a reason as any :)

 

Oh the places you'll go....

So not that it's any sort of well kept secret, but I have been a TERRIBLE blogger. This past month consisted of a whole whirlwind of changes and I felt like I could barely keep up. But now that it's almost Christmas and the only thing getting more playtime than Nicki Minaj on my ipod is 'A Charlie Brown Christmas Album' I'm ready to lose the stress and feelings of serious overwhelm, and get on the cheer train and back into the blogging habit. 

Warning: If you aren't able to handle a bit of cheesiness, you may want to stop reading. 

Anyways, I want to talk a bit about why I love this 'world' of fashion so much. I have always been horrid at anything to do with fine art, but at the same time, I have always been supremely jealous of those girls who could draw and sketch the prettiest people and the prettiest things. When I was getting ready for university, I wanted a way to make my dorm space personal and unique - more than just a few of my favourite movie posters. So I turned to the one thing I WAS good at - reading fashion mags. I would cut out favourite pictures, lay them out, and collage like crazy. It was a mishmash of what Ioved most from the magazines that always took me into this world that was totally separate from my suburban high school life and later my university drama and stresses. I know a lot of people dislike when fashion spreads make the clothes seem beyond their reach - feeling that the dressing is too aspirational and unrealistic for real life. And while I do partially agree (what on earth are clothes for if not to wear them?), I have still always loved that side of fashion. That total fantasy world where your only responsibility is to play dress up and feel beautiful without any need for an occasion or any worry about whether or not what you're wearing is 'reasonable' or 'appropriate'. So that's why the magazines and collages have always been so great. Because they were this other world of fashion, which I have always secretly hoped I would one day be brave enough to step into. One that wasn't about fitting in and looking okay - one that was about escaping the everyday and dressing for a life less ordinary. 


It's on my to-do list to make one again this Christmas, as a way of providing inspiration for the new year....but for now, I'll leave you with a little one that I made last Christmas from Anthropologie's winter catalogue. Which was, by the way, a totally beautiful fantasy spread :)