Well, I Heard They Got Pinned

Sweater: Forever 21

Jeans: CJ by Cookie Johnson

Tights: Target

Shoes: Urban Outfitters

Bag: Kenneth Cole Reaction

The moment I hung my argyle tights over the hanger with my jeans this morning, the song “Telephone Hour” from Bye Bye Birdie started playing in my head. I realized later that the “argyle socks under rolled jeans” look is more similar specifically to the casual outfit that Kim changes into while singing “How Lovely to Be a Woman,” but anyway, “Telephone Hour” better depicts the overall look and feel of the film, so here it is:

Jasen and I finally took the Metro Gold Line to Little Tokyo and Olvera Street today, and we had so much fun! Afterward, we walked around Old Town Pasadena for a while, tried to take some photos of the lanterns in the trees in front of the Norton Simon Museum and got chased off the grounds by a security guard because it turned out they were closed at the time. Whoops!

Jasen in the Nijiya Market

Awesome cat mugs in a gift shop

A ghostly ramen display (Jasen adds, "It could be YOUR hand holding those chopsticks!")

Wall o' crosses in an Olvera Street shop

Día de los Muertos!

More Día de los Muertos!

Union Station is so beautiful.

This is right before the guard chased us away from the Norton Simon.

Timered Out

Dress (worn as a top): Forever 21

Skirt: Fei

Tights: Tintoretta

Shoes: Boutique 9

Necklace: unknown

Jasen wasn’t available to take a photo of my outfit today, but I really liked what I was wearing and decided to see if my camera had a timer setting. Well, sure enough, it does! I can’t believe I’ve owned it for years and never noticed that. There’s really no privacy outside near our apartment, so since I knew it would be difficult to find the right perch for my camera for this operation, I decided to take photos inside with the windows open and every light on rather than fumble around in public. I finally managed to get an angle that worked by balancing the camera on two pillows placed on a chair.

This was not fun. I have greater respect than ever for bloggers who always take their photos this way! However, it's good to know that this option is available to me. Tomorrow I promise an outdoors photo with good light taken by Jasen.

I’m going to a casual (as far as I know) Oscars party tonight, and it’s still freezing, so I built my outfit around the Tintoretta tights that I’m wearing because they’re my warmest pair. I bought them off Anthropologie’s website after Christmas a couple of years ago. The skirt is also from Anthropologie. My “top” is a Forever 21 dress that I purchased off a sale rack for $8 and have had for years. I’ve only worn it once before because it’s so clingy that it must be worn with a thong and no tights, and if I eat anything while wearing it, I look pregnant. But last night as I was falling asleep, I realized that I could wear it this way and enjoy an extra layer under my skirt to keep me warm as well.

Detail shots:

I love these tights.

This amber pendant is a gift from my mom. I wish I had a fancy-pants camera so I could get a better close-up of it. My mom brought it back from Europe after one of her trips there with my stepfather, who originally is from Northern Ireland and conducts tours of the British Isles, Germany, Austria, etc.

And enjoy some outtakes from my solo photo session:

I don't know why, but I think this looks kind of cool.

The camera falling off its pillow perch

A bug's-eye view

Ice Blue

Sweater: thrifted, Glen Raven

Skirt: thrifted

Tights: Target

Shoes: Nordstrom

Bag: Tignanello

My outfit today was inspired by the hail that came down this morning:

We didn’t get any snow, but at least we got some balls of ice! Hmmm, that sounds a little weird. Well, anyway, it’s cold here and we had a hailstorm, so I’m dressed in blue. I know I wore this sweater recently, but I love it and had to try it out with my bright blue skirt. 

February Showers

Cardigan: Charlotte Tarantola

Skirt: thrifted

Tights: Target

Shoes: Miss Albright

Bracelet: unknown

It’s raining today, which means a lot of my photos came out blurry and my hair decided to wave into a lopsided shape. But at least I got a couple decent photos! Aside from that, I love rain because I don’t get to experience it all the time. Also, tonight or tomorrow night it might even snow a tiny bit in our neighborhood because, according to weather.com, a very cold storm “from Canada” could create snowfall at elevations as low as 500 feet. I have not seen snow in a LONG time. It is a huge deal to even see flakes for two minutes in these parts. Once when my brother Trevor was four it started snowing, and he ran outside exclaiming, “It’s snowing! It’s snowing! It’s something I can tell my grandchildren about!”

Because it’s starting to pour and getting colder by the hour, I decided not to go anywhere. So I’m kind of dressed up just for the blog! Oh well! This Charlotte Tarantola cardigan is one of my favorite articles of clothing. I will never get rid of it. I hope I can pass it on to a daughter or niece someday. I bought it from MyShape.com for $15 back when they were still in business. Yes, $15! It was marked down from about $130, I think. I love the texture, colors, buttons, cropped cut — basically everything about it. It is the most beautiful Charlotte Tarantola cardigan I have ever seen, and I have handled and written product copy for a lot of them!

The cardigan’s floral print is taupe and mauve, so I wore it with this sort of brownish-grayish and black thrifted skirt to pick up the taupe and pink bracelet and purple flats that I thought fit well with the mauve without matching exactly. I also chose to wear it with this skirt because it’s cropped, and the skirt is pretty high waisted. This skirt is another piece that I’m especially fond of (even though it has some very faint stains on the front) because it fits so darn well. Thrift stores have always been the best places for me to find skirts that fit both my waist and hips.

Dots and Lace

Skirt: thrifted

Cardigan: Forever 21

Tights: Target

Shoes: Naturalizer

I’m about to head to Glendale for lunch at Porto’s with my friends Ani and Emily, and I’m hungry, so this will be short! Today I decided to wear this cardigan that I found on sale at Forever 21 for $9.99, and when I tried it on with this skirt, I realized why there were so many of these cardis on the sale rack. The deep, black ribbed hem just looked really weird and gave me a lumpy silhouette. So I had to tuck the cardigan in because I really wanted to wear it with this teal skirt and wasn’t in the mood to switch to something else!

Gun-Totin' Granny

Dress: thrifted, Laura Ashley

Cardigan: Cooperative

Tights: For Love 21

Bag: thrifted

Shoes: Nordstrom

I feel like Bill’s mother, Lois, from Big Love in this outfit, especially with my short hair. And that’s fine with me because I love her character and style! I can’t find a good photo of her to post here, but she’s often costumed in warm colors, print dresses, cardigans and Mary Janes with colorful socks. The print on this Laura Ashley dress is so Lois — warm and vaguely Southwestern with the little floral “suns.” To really complete the look, I just need rainbow-striped socks and a gun. (That’s a joke! I’m not a gun nut!)

This dress has an interesting story behind it. I first saw it in a Laura Ashley store when I was about 11 or 12 years old, so around 1993. I was at a mall, I think the Brea Mall or South Coast Plaza, with my mom and Aunt Judy. I adored this dress the first time I saw it, and at that age it was rare that I just fell in love with a dress. Since I was a kid, of course I couldn’t buy it, and I couldn’t ask for something so expensive. But guess what? The dress came back to me at QUALITY THRIFT about eight or nine years later! I found it there one day while shopping with my mom. I think they charged $4.99 for it.

I paired the dress with this cardigan because I like how the coral strip plays off the light parts of the print. I wore taupe tights rather than black because I also like how they work with the print, and I wanted a contrast with the black Mary Janes.

Hahaha...what a lame finger gun!

I think my face looks somewhat Lois-esque here.

The print!

Dolls in a Row

Sweater: Urban Outfitters

Skirt: thrifted, no tag

Tights: Tintoretta

Shoes: Naturalizer

For the longest time I hadn’t found a good outfit to pair these tights with, so I was excited this morning when I laid them next to the sweater and skirt on my bed and thought they looked just right together. I got some weird stares at Target, but I love the print on them with the babushka dolls sweater. The sweater had been on my Urban Outfitters wish list for several weeks when I came across it at the Glendale store for $6.99. I was really attracted to the colors, and I also wanted it because, well, although I’m not Russian, my father’s mother’s family was from Poland, and I liked the idea of wearing something with an Eastern European theme. This led to my Googling my great-grandmother’s maiden name, Pilarski, which I learned is the Polish equivalent of the English name Sawyer, “a person who saws wood” or “a woodcutter.”

Lost Control!

I finally snapped and bought a ridiculous amount of clothing and accessories over the last couple of days. Most of it was thrifted, and as I mentioned in my last post, my mom bought everything from Quality Thrift, but I also picked up two tops and some tights at Urban Outfitters because they were taking an extra 30% off all sale items for Presidents Day weekend.

I can’t believe I bought so much while unemployed. And even though my mom paid for the Quality Thrift items, it was in return for my driving her around a lot while she’s visiting California since she doesn’t have a car here...so let’s face it, I’m kind of still paying for those things indirectly.

All in all, the deals were pretty amazing. However, I will not, I repeat will not, use a credit card to buy any more clothes while I don’t have a job!

Stop 1: ACTS Thrift Store in Pasadena, where I found:

Esprit high-waisted jean shorts, $2.99

Old Navy tank top, $0.99

Stop 2: Urban Outfitters in Glendale, where I found:

Cooperative chiffon fleur-de-lis tunic, $6.99, originally $54.00

Cooperative short-sleeved sweater, $6.99, originally $49.00

Urban Outfitters “English Garden” tights, $3.49

Stop 3: Goodwill in Glendale, where I found:

Finesse short-sleeved sweater, $4.99

Soprano jersey top, $4.99

Seychelles “Controversy” wedges, $7.99

I can’t believe I found these Seychelles wedges! Based on some Google research, they appear to be from the Fall 2008 Seychelles collection, and they’re in beautiful condition. I kind of wish they had a strap or that they were half a size smaller so they’d be easier to walk in, but after trying them on it seems like I’ll be able to walk around pretty well without having my feet slip out.

Stop 4: Quality Thrift in Montclair, where I found:

Petite Sophisticate stretch-woven dress, $3.19

It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the color of this dress is a gorgeous robin’s egg blue in real life.

One Clothing jersey dress, $3.19

Dana Buchman silk top, $2.39

Atleigh vintage cardigan, $3.99

knit top with no tag, $1.19

’80s “paint splatter” belt, $2.39

Axiom white leather belt, $3.19

oxblood shoulder bag with no tag, $3.19

Mardane vintage chain-strap bag, $2.39

I had a coupon for 20% off our purchase at Quality thrift, so the discount is reflected in the prices above. My mom bought several items for herself as well as a sweater for my brother Jeremy and a button-down shirt for my brother Trevor.

I also bargained for a price reduction on the vintage cardigan. It was priced at $6.99, but it had a small hole at the wrist, so the store reduced the price to $4.99, and we still got the additional 20% off.

Total that I spent: $39.42

Total that my mom spent for my items: $25.11

So that’s two dresses, seven tops, a pair of shorts, a cardigan, a pair of tights, a pair of shoes, two belts and two bags for $64.53! I don’t need to feel guilty about this, right?